Nebraska will become the first state to implement new work requirements for some people with Medicaid health insurance under a law President Donald Trump signed last year.
Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, announced Wednesday that the requirement would take effect in the state May 1 and could impact about 30,000 people who have slightly higher incomes than traditional Medicaid beneficiaries.
“We’re not here to take everybody to the curb,” he said. Instead, he said, the aim is “making sure we get every able-bodied Nebraskan to be part of our community.”
The sweeping tax and policy law Trump signed in July requires states to make sure many recipients are working by 2027 but gave them the option to do it sooner.
FILE – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Beneficiaries will have more reporting duties
The law mandates that people ages 19 to 64 who have Medicaid coverage work or perform community service at least 80 hours a month or be enrolled in school at least half-time to receive and keep coverage.
It applies only to people who receive Medicaid coverage through an expansion that covers a population with a slightly higher income limit. Forty states and the District of Columbia have opted to expand the coverage income guidelines under former President Barrack Obama’s 2010 health insurance overhaul.
Of 346,000 Nebraska residents enrolled in Medicaid as of May, about 72,000 were in the higher income expansion group.
Some people will be exempted, including disabled veterans, pregnant women, parents and guardians of dependent children under 14 or disabled individuals, people who were recently released from incarceration, those who are homeless and people getting addiction treatment. States can also offer short-term hardships for others if they choose.
All Medicaid beneficiaries who are eligible because of the expansion will be required to submit paperwork at least every six months showing they meet the mandate.
Those who don’t would lose their coverage.
The reporting requirement is twice as frequent as it is for most people covered by Medicaid now. That change means more work for the state agencies — and for some of them, extensive and likely expensive computer program updates.
Pillen said he does not expect the state government to increase staffing to make the changes.
When and how to implement the change is likely to be on the agenda for governors and state lawmakers across the country as legislative sessions start — most of them in January.
The policy is expected to lead to lost coverage
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the requirement will reduce Medicaid costs by $326 billion over a decade — and that it will result in 4.5 million people becoming uninsured each year starting in 2027. Currently, about 77 million Americans are covered by Medicaid.
Because most people covered by Medicaid who are able to work already do, it’s not expected to increase employment rates.
Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, joined Pillen’s announcement via a video feed and said the administration believes there are jobs available across the country, and the challenge is connecting people with them.
“Most people who are able-bodied on Medicaid actually want to get a job,” Oz said.
Arkansas tried another variation of Medicaid work requirements — later blocked by a judge — that saw 18,000 people kicked off coverage in the first seven months after it took effect in 2018.
FILE – Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen greets state senators before giving a speech on June 2, 2025, in Lincoln, Neb. (Justin Wan/Lincoln Journal Star via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the National Guard deployment in the nation’s capital can continue for now, staying a lower-court ruling that had ordered an end to the troops’ presence.
The three-judge panel for U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Donald Trump may prevail in his argument that the president “possesses a unique power” to mobilize the Guard in Washington, which is a federal district.
The ruling stops the implementation of U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb’s Nov. 20 opinion and order, and reaffirms that residents and visitors to Washington will routinely see Guard members well into 2026.
Cobb had ruled that the deployment illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the District of Columbia.
Wednesday’s unanimous 32-page ruling went on to say that other factors also favored the Republican administration, including the “disruption to the lives of thousands of service members,” as well as what it said was the president’s interest “in the protection of federal governmental functions and property within the Nation’s capital.”
The judges found that the district “has not identified any ongoing injury to its statutory interests.”
The ruling acknowledged that the administration has a strong case for its appeal.
The deployment began in August after Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the Army secretary. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist.
The city’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, sued to challenge the Guard deployments. He asked that the White House be barred from deploying Guard troops without the mayor’s consent while the lawsuit played out. Dozens of states took sides in Schwalb’s lawsuit, with their support falling along party lines.
A spokesperson with Schwalb’s office said the stay was a “preliminary ruling that does not resolve the merits. We look forward to continuing our case in both the district and appellate courts.”
Cobb had found that while the president did have authority to protect federal functions and property, he could not unilaterally deploy the D.C. National Guard to help with crime control as he saw fit or call in troops from other states. She called for the troops to be sent home after her ruling but put her order on hold for 21 days to allow the appeal by the administration.
The court action comes three weeks after two members of the West Virginia National Guard, Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe were ambushed as they patrolled a subway station three blocks from the White House. Beckstrom died Nov. 27 from her injuries. Wolfe continues to recover. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, has been charged with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
The administration has called for an additional 500 National Guard members to be deployed to Washington as a result of the shooting.
The appeals court panel said its decision was “limited in several respects.” For example, it did not address questions such as whether the Guard units were engaged in “law enforcement” activities in violation of federal law.
National Guard patrol in the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Washington. The Washington Monument is seen in the background. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate gave final passage on Wednesday to an annual military policy bill that will authorize $901 billion in defense programs while pressuring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide lawmakers with video of strikes on alleged drug boats in international water near Venezuela.
The annual National Defense Authorization Act, which raises troop pay by 3.8%, gained bipartisan backing as it moved through Congress. It passed the Senate on a 77-20 vote before lawmakers planned to leave Washington for a holiday break. Two Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee — and 18 Democrats voted against the bill.
The White House has indicated that it is in line with President Donald Trump’s national security priorities. However, the legislation, which ran over 3,000 pages, revealed some points of friction between Congress and the Pentagon as the Trump administration reorients its focus away from security in Europe and toward Central and South America.
The bill pushes back on recent moves by the Pentagon. It demands more information on boat strikes in the Caribbean, requires that the U.S. keep its troop levels in Europe at current levels and sends some military aid to Ukraine.
But overall, the bill represents a compromise between the parties. It implements many of Trump’s executive orders and proposals on eliminating diversity and inclusion efforts in the military and grants emergency military powers at the U.S. border with Mexico. It also enhances congressional oversight of the Department of Defense, repeals several years-old war authorizations and seeks to overhaul how the Pentagon purchases weapons as the U.S. tries to outpace China in developing the next generation of military technology.
“We’re about to pass, and the president will enthusiastically sign, the most sweeping upgrades to DOD’s business practices in 60 years,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Still, the sprawling bill faced objections from both Democratic and Republican leadership on the Senate Commerce Committee. That’s because the legislation allows military aircraft to obtain a waiver to operate without broadcasting their precise location, as an Army helicopter had done before a midair collision with an airliner in Washington, D.C. in January that killed 67 people.
“The special carve-out was exactly what caused the January 29th crash that claimed 67 lives,” Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, said at a news conference this week.
Cruz said he was seeking a vote on bipartisan legislation in the next month that would require military aircraft to use a precise location sharing tool and improve coordination between commercial and military aircraft in busy areas.
Boat strike videos
Republicans and Democrats agreed to language in the defense bill that threatened to withhold a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget until he provided unedited video of the strikes, as well as the orders authorizing them, to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.
Hegseth was on Capitol Hill Tuesday ahead of the bill’s passage to brief lawmakers on the U.S. military campaign in international water near Venezuela. The briefing elicited contrasting responses from many lawmakers, with Republicans largely backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it and saying they had not received enough information.
The committees are investigating a Sept. 2 strike — the first of the campaign — that killed two people who had survived an initial attack on their boat. The Navy admiral who ordered the “double-tap” strike, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, also appeared before the committees shortly before the vote Wednesday in a classified briefing that also included video of the strike in question.
Several Republican senators emerged from the meeting backing Hegseth and his decision not to release the video publicly, but other GOP lawmakers stayed silent on their opinion of the strike.
Democrats are calling for part of the video to be released publicly and for every member of Congress to have access to the full footage.
“The American people absolutely need to see this video,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. “I think they would be shocked.”
Congressional oversight
Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by the Trump administration several times in the last year, including by a move to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine and a decision to reduce U.S. troop presence in NATO countries in eastern Europe. The defense legislation requires that Congress be kept in the loop on decisions like that going forward, as well as when top military brass are removed.
The Pentagon is also required, under the legislation, to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment stationed in Europe unless NATO allies are consulted and there is a determination that such a withdrawal is in U.S. interests. Around 80,000 to 100,000 U.S. troops are usually present on European soil. A similar requirement also keeps the number of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea at 28,500.
Lawmakers are also pushing back on some Pentagon decisions by authorizing $400 million for each of the next two years to manufacture weapons to be sent to Ukraine.
Cuts to diversity and climate initiatives
Trump and Hegseth have made it a priority to purge the military of material and programs that address diversity, anti-racism or gender issues, and the defense bill would codify many of those changes. It will repeal diversity, equity and inclusion offices and trainings, including the position of chief diversity officer. Those cuts would save the Pentagon about $40 million, according to the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee.
The U.S. military has long found that climate change is a threat to how it provides national security because weather-related disasters can destroy military bases and equipment. But the bill makes $1.6 billion in cuts by eliminating climate-change related programs at the Pentagon.
Repeal of war authorizations and Syria sanctions
Congress is writing a closing chapter to the war in Iraq by repealing the authorization for the 2003 invasion. Now that Iraq is a strategic partner of the U.S., lawmakers in support of the provision say the repeal is crucial to prevent future abuses. The bill also repeals the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the U.S.-led Gulf War.
The rare, bipartisan moves to repeal the legal justifications for the conflicts signaled a potential appetite among lawmakers to reclaim some of Congress’s war powers.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief members of Congress on military strikes near Venezuela, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic senators on Wednesday hammered the Federal Communications Commission’s leader for pressuring broadcasters to take ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air, suggesting that Brendan Carr was politicizing an independent agency and trampling the First Amendment.
The FCC chairman was peppered with questions by Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee over his criticism of Kimmel for comments about the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“You are weaponizing the public interest standard,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who told Carr that he should resign.
Carr refused to disown his comments about Kimmel, and the chairman said he has simply enforced laws that hold networks to stricter scrutiny than cable and other forms of media.
“The FCC has walked away from enforcing the public interest standard and I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Carr said.
Republican senators appeared intent on bringing up broadcast spectrum auctions, undersea cable infrastructure, algorithm-driven content, robocalls and just about anything other than Carr’s statements about Kimmel.
The committee chairman, Sen. Ted Cruz, had previously equated Carr’s comments to those of a mobster and called them “dangerous as hell.” But at the hearing, Cruz, R-Texas, took a far softer stance. He dismissed Kimmel as “tasteless” and “unfunny,” and shifted to criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, a tack that Carr parroted throughout the hearing.
“Joe Biden is no longer president,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., shot back at one point.
FILE – Then-President-elect Donald Trump talks with Brendan Carr before the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 in Boca Chica, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Pool via AP, File)
The hearing was also included the two other commissioners, Olivia Trusty and Anna M. Gomez. Each gave opening statements, with Gomez, a Biden appointee, saying that the FCC has “undermined its reputation as a stable, independent and expert-driven regulatory body.”
“Nowhere is that departure more concerning,” Gomez said, “than its actions to intimidate government critics, pressure media companies and challenge the boundaries of the First Amendment.”
Carr was nominated to the FCC by both Trump and Biden and unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times. But he has more recently shown more overtly right-wing views, writing a section on the FCC for “Project 2025,” the sweeping blueprint for gutting the federal workforce and dismantling agencies in Trump’s second term.
Since becoming chairman this year, Carr has launched separate investigations of all three major broadcast networks. After Kimmel’s comments on the September killing of Kirk, who was a Trump ally leading voice of the right, Carr said: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Cruz was unflinchingly critical at the time, saying “I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”
While Cruz did not repeat those words Wednesday, they were repeatedly invoked by Democrats.
Carr seemed to surprise some on the committee with his statement that the FCC “is not an independent agency.” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked Carr whether he considered Trump to be his boss and whether he had taken orders from the president or his inner circle.
“I don’t get into the specifics of conversations I’ve had,” Carr said.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., noted that the FCC’s website described it as an “independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.” Soon after, the website changed, removing “independent” from a section describing its mission.
Sedensky reported from New York.
FILE – Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr speaks during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump intends to preview his agenda for next year and beyond in a live speech from the White House on Wednesday night. His remarks are coming at a crucial time as he tries to rebuild his steadily eroding popularity.
The White House offered few details about what the Republican president intends to emphasize in the 9 p.m. EST speech. Public polling shows most U.S. adults are frustrated with his handling of the economy as inflation picked up after his tariffs raised prices and hiring slowed.
In 2026, Trump and his party face a referendum on their leadership as the nation heads into the midterm elections that will decide control of the House and the Senate.
Trump has said that he thinks more Americans would back him if they simply heard him describe his track record. Administration officials say investment commitments for new factories will reverse the recent decline in manufacturing jobs and that consumer activity will improve dramatically as people receive increased tax refunds next year.
“It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” Trump said in a Tuesday social media post announcing the speech.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would discuss his achievements this year and his plans for the remainder of his second term.
Trump has been omnipresent on social media and television this year with his impromptu news conferences and speeches. But addresses to the nation often can be relatively sober affairs, as was Trump’s June address describing the U.S. bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran.
The president has eschewed the messaging discipline that’s common among most politicians, an authenticity that appeals to some voters and repels others.
In a speech in Pennsylvania last week, he said his tariffs might mean that American children should have fewer dolls and pencils, while confirming a previously denied story from his first term in 2018 that he did not want immigrants from “shithole” countries.
On Monday, Trump on his social media site blamed Rob Reiner’s vocal objections to the president for the killing of the actor-director and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
Employers were adding on average 122,750 jobs a month during the first four months of this year. But since Trump announced his broad tariffs in April, monthly job gains have averaged a paltry 17,000 as the unemployment rate has climbed from 4% in January to 4.6%.
Trump’s team has blamed Democratic lawmakers for shutting down the government for the job losses reported Tuesday during October. The president continues to blame his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for any challenges the nation might face over inflation or ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
On Sunday, a father and son killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Jewish people in that nation’s history.
The attack is part of a larger trend of rising antisemitism.
Since October of 2023, American Jews report a rise in antisemitism, including an uptick in violence against Jewish people. This past year alone, high-profile attacks happened in Pennsylvania, Washington DC, and Colorado.
All of this is occurring amid Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, according to scholars.
What is the connection between Israel’s violence and violence targeting Jewish people around the world?
The Metro’s Sam Corey spoke with a variety of Jewish scholars and community leaders to learn more.
This reporting was edited by Metro Host Robyn Vincent.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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To some, the story of the Packard Plant mirrors that of Detroit. Built in the early 1900s, the building was a major site of auto manufacturing in the city until the mid-1950s, when the plant closed.
But that didn’t spell the end for the Packard Plant. The building continued to house industrial and commercial tenants into the 1990s, and was even home to some legendary Detroit raves.
After a 2022 court order, large parts of the Packard Plant were demolished. What’s left are massive concrete frames and outer shells. No windows. No interiors. No machinery. Just structure. The site isn’t really a factory anymore. It’s a ruin. And now, two developers say they want to give that ruin new life.
What are the plans for the redeveloped plant? And what will it take to make those changes happen?
Developers Mark Bennett and Oren Goldenberg spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent about that and more.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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The project to reconstruct I-375 is meant to do two things at once: rebuild aging infrastructure and repair the harm caused by a highway that, decades ago, tore through Black neighborhoods and business districts in downtown Detroit.
But as plans evolved, the cost of the I-375 reconstruction project was ballooning to $520 million. Criticism was mounting among nearby business owners who feared losing money and Detroiters who wanted to ensure the project would deliver reparative outcomes.
So in August the Michigan Department of Transportation paused the project. Then last month, it was revived with a different plan.
Jason Garza is the Michigan Department of Transportation Deputy Region Engineer. He spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent.
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As we get closer to the midterm elections, races for the Michigan U.S. Senate and House seats prove that Michigan is stepping closer into the national spotlight. In this episode of MichMash, WDET’s Cheyna Roth and Gongwer News Service’s Zach Gorchow discuss Michigan’s power as a swing state with Pluribus News Founder and Editor Reid Wilson.
Plus, the state budget drama continues as cancellations in funding disrupts multiple work projects. Cheyna and Zach debrief on the latest in Lansing.
How did $645 million in work projects get cancelled?
What role does Michigan play in the U.S. Senate and House majorities?
What’s ahead for the 2028 presidential race?
Cancelled work projects
State law empowers the Michigan House Appropriation Committee and the Michigan Senate Appropriation Committee to cancel some types of work projects. This is what happened that caused $645 million to be cancelled in work projects. Gorchow says that this sent shockwaves across the capital, and that nothing like this has ever happened.
The Republican majority committee says they did this to cut spending, but Democrats and even some Republicans disapprove of these actions. There might be a supplemental appropriation bill which would include negotiations and discussion to possibly restore some of this funding.
2028 presidential race
A lot of focus is on the US Senate and House seats in Michigan. But Reid also brought up how the 2028 Presidential Race might feature one of Michigan’s own.
“Just because Governor Whitmer will says she is not running for president, she’s not saying I will not run for president,” he points out.
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In this episode, we discuss data centers, the Michigan gubernatorial race and what items on the legislature’s to-do list are likely to get accomplished.
Immigration enforcement in the United States has escalated sharply this year. Under the Biden administration, the daily number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) peaked at just under 40,000. In President Trump’s second term, that number has surged to more than 65,000.
A striking majority of those detainees — nearly three-quarters — have no criminal convictions.
Michigan has felt this shift acutely. Longtime residents with work authorization, U.S.-citizen children, and active immigration cases are increasingly being detained. One of them is Ernesto Cuevas Enciso.
Who Ernesto is
Ernesto came to the United States from Mexico in 1995. He was three years old. His baby sister, Miriam, was one. They grew up in Detroit one grade apart, sharing classrooms, milestones, and daily life.
As an adult, Ernesto became a DACA recipient. That protection was later revoked when prior, nonviolent misdemeanors surfaced during a renewal screening—a common outcome even for minor offenses from many years earlier.
Today, Ernesto has legal work authorization through a different process and is pursuing a marriage-based green card application. He is a construction worker, a husband, and a father to a one-year-old daughter.
Arrest in Ypsilanti
Last week, Ernesto and another construction worker were near a job site in Ypsilanti when an unmarked vehicle approached. ICE detained both men.
Ernesto Cuevas Enciso with his wife Andrea and one-year-old daughter.
Ernesto is now being held more than three hours from home at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin — currently the largest immigration detention facility in the Midwest.
Ernesto is awaiting an immigration hearing on December 17.
Family and lawmakers call for his release
Ernesto’s family and several Michigan lawmakers are urging ICE to release him on bond. They describe him as not a safety risk, a man who has been following the legal process, supporting his family, and working toward lawful permanent residency.
His sister, Miriam Stone, spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about the impact of this detention on their family and why they believe Ernesto should come home while his case proceeds.
What comes next
To understand the legal and policy context behind Ernesto’s case and why so many longtime Michigan residents are being detained this year, The Metro also spoke with Christine Suave of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, who explains the legal landscape and what options remain for someone in Ernesto’s position, and State Sen. Stephanie Chang, who discusses what Michigan lawmakers can and cannot do in response to federal immigration enforcement decisions.
The Metro contacted Detroit’s office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We asked why they detained Ernesto, given his legal work authorization and his pending marriage-based green card, and if ICE considers a person with two nonviolent misdemeanors, which occurred over a decade ago, to fall within its priority categories of enforcement.
The agency has not yet responded.
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Aggressive immigration enforcement has intensified nationwide. As of early this month, more than 200,000 people had been arrested by ICE agents, including about 75,000 with no criminal record at all.
Lue Yang doesn’t technically fit into this context. But his case is close.
Lue Yang (second from left) with his family, including his wife, Ann Vue, and their six children in traditional White Hmong attire.
He was born in a Thai refugee camp after his family fled Laos. The Hmong refugee has lived in Michigan since he was 8 months old. While he is here legally, Yang previously had a 1997 criminal conviction, which was expunged in Michigan, but isn’t recognized by federal immigration law.
That resulted in ICE agents arresting Yang in July at his work. He was in prison until last week when he was released with the help of Michigan Republican Congressman Tom Barrett.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
RANDOLPH, Minn. (AP) — When Donald Trump promised new tariffs while running for president, Gene Stehly worried that trade disputes would jeopardize his international sales of corn, soybeans and wheat.
A little more than a year later, Stehly said his fears have become a reality, and Trump’s latest promise of federal assistance is insufficient to cover farmers’ losses.
“Maybe this will all come out to be better at the end, but I can tell you right now, it certainly isn’t the case at the moment,” Stehly said.
Trump announced Monday that his Republican administration would distribute $12 billion in one-time payments to farmers, who have suffered from persistently low commodity prices, rising costs and declining sales after China cut off all agricultural purchases from America during the trade war.
While rural areas remain conservative bastions, farmers’ patience with Washington is wearing thin. Several of them described the government bailout, an echo of similar policies during Trump’s first term, as a welcome stopgap but one that won’t solve the agricultural industry’s problems.
“It’s a bridge. It’s not the ultimate solution we’re looking for,” said Charlie Radman, a fourth-generation farmer who grows corn and soybeans on the land his family has owned near Randolph, Minnesota, since 1899. “What we really want to have is a little more certainty and not have to rely on these ad hoc payments.”
Farmers caught up in trade war
American soybean and sorghum farmers typically export at least half of their crops. They were hit the hardest by Trump’s trade dispute with China, the world’s largest buyer of soybeans that has increasingly relied on harvests from Brazil and other South American nations.
Trump and his Cabinet have boasted about the deal he struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October. But Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy, said this week that “agriculture trade cooperation between China and the United States is proceeding in an orderly manner” without giving specifics.
So far, China has bought only about a quarter of the 12 million metric tons of soybeans that U.S. officials said would be purchased before the end of February, raising doubts on whether Beijing would follow through on that pledge or commitments to buy 25 million metric tons annually in the next three years. China hasn’t confirmed those numbers.
“In general, I don’t trust their motives and integrity of their promises,” said Bryant Kagay, who farms in northwest Missouri.
Even if China does buy the agreed amount of American soybeans, that would only bring U.S. farmers near to the amount they were selling every year before Trump took office.
That’s a big part of why Minnesota farmer Glen Groth said he’d “like to see the administration focus more on opening up markets outside of China.” In addition to finding other international buyers, agriculture groups are pushing to expand domestic uses like biodiesel, ethanol, aviation fuel and animal feed.
Dan Keitzer, a soybean and corn farmer in southeast Iowa, said recent bumper crops and technological advancements that produce bigger harvests means that the industry needs more customers.
“I think most farmers would tell you that they don’t want to go to the mailbox and get a check from the government. That’s not why we farm,” he said. “We need more demand for our product.”
Aid is considered a Band-Aid
Trump has placated farmers with money before. During his first term, he provided $22 billion in 2019 to help cushion them from trade disputes with China. There was $46 billion in 2020, an expanded number that reflected financial challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $12 billion that he announced this week won’t quell farmers’ fears about the future. They’re already ordering supplies for next year’s crops and meeting with their bankers to discuss the loans they will need. But they’re trying to stay optimistic that crop prices will improve if they find more buyers.
The aid payments will be capped at $155,000 per farmer or entity, and only farms that make less than $900,000 in adjusted gross income will be eligible. But during the first Trump administration a number of large farms found ways around the payment limits and collected millions.
Farmers would like to see Trump aggressively tackle concerns about higher costs that are eating into their bottom line.
Trump signed an executive order over the weekend directing the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to investigate anti-competitive practices anywhere in the food supply chain, starting with the fertilizer, seed and equipment that farmers rely on and continuing to deal with meat packing companies and grocers who help determine what price consumers pay.
Tregg Cronin, who farms and ranches with his family in central South Dakota, said he’s grateful for the president’s acknowledgment that farmers are “caught in the middle” of the trade war.
But he said that any checks that farmers receive from the government will likely “get turned around and sent right out the door.”
Funk reported from Omaha, Neb. Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.
Charlie Radman, a corn and soybean farmer, stands for a photo on the land his family has owned since 1899, near Randolph, Minn., Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
By DAVID KLEPPER, BEN FINLEY and STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators for the first time are questioning military leaders over President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard in American cities, an extraordinary move by the White House that has led to legal challenges as well as questions about states’ rights and the use of the military on U.S. soil.
Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee was expected to feature tough questioning of Pentagon officials over the legality of the deployments, which in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors, and a robust defense of the policy by Trump’s Republican allies.
It was the highest level of scrutiny, outside a courtroom, of Trump’s use of the National Guard since the deployments began and came one day after the president faced another legal setback over his use of troops to support federal law enforcement, protect federal facilities and combat crime.
For Republicans, the hearing was a chance to defend Trump’s move to take on crime that they say Democratic mayors and governors have done too little to address.
“In recent years, violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee chairman. The deployments, he said, are “not only appropriate, but essential.”
Military leaders highlighted the duties that National Guard units have carried out. The personnel are trained in community policing, they said, and are prohibited from using force unless in self-defense. Since the deployments began, only one civilian has been detained by National Guard personnel, according to Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of the U.S. Northern Command.
“They can very quickly be trained to conduct any mission that we task of them,” Guillot said.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said Wednesday she had threatened to hold up the annual defense bill if the Republican leadership continued to block the hearing, which she said was long overdue.
“Donald Trump is illegally deploying our nation’s service members under misleading if not false pretexts,” Duckworth told The Associated Press.
Duckworth, a combat veteran who served in the Illinois National Guard, said domestic deployments traditionally have involved responding to major floods and tornadoes, not assisting immigration agents who are detaining people in aggressive raids.
Duckworth said she had questions for the military about how Trump’s deployments are affecting readiness, training and costs. She also wanted to know whether Guard members would have legal protections if an immigration agent wrongfully harmed a civilian.
The hearing comes two weeks after two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington were shot just blocks from the White House in what the city’s mayor described as a targeted attack. Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died a day after the Nov. 26 shooting, and her funeral took place Tuesday. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is hospitalized in Washington.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in California on Wednesday ruled that the administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials, but also put the decision on hold until Monday. The White House said it plans to appeal.
Trump called up more than 4,000 California National Guard troops in June without Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval to further the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
The move was the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor and marked a significant escalation in the administration’s efforts to carry out its mass deportation policy. The troops were stationed outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where protesters gathered and were later sent on the streets to protect immigration officers as they made arrests.
The number had dropped to several hundred by late October. The 100 or so California troops that remain in Los Angeles are guarding federal buildings or staying at a nearby base and are not on the streets with immigration enforcement officers, according to U.S. Northern Command.
Trump also had announced National Guard members would be sent to Illinois, Oregon, Louisiana and Tennessee. Other judges have blocked or limited the deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, while Guard members have not yet been sent to New Orleans.
Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.
Members of the National Guard patrol in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.
During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren’t linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.
The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success” and Trump’s top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”
Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.
For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.
A family divided between Florida and Venezuela
Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum.
He got a work permit and a driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver in Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.
Laverde’s wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Pasedo focused on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, he was arrested by federal agents.
Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 5, remember the agents cuffing Laverde at gunpoint.
“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasedo said.
Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. In September, after three months detention, he asked to return to Venezuela.
Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and belonging to the political opposition.
She works cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify with her husband someday in the U.S.
They followed the law
Yaoska’s husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police when he refused to participate in a pro-government march. Yaoska spoke on condition of anonymity and requested the same for her husband to protect him from the Nicaraguan government.
The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.
The two-year-old son of pregnant, asylum-seeker Yaoska hunts for a snack in the mini fridge of the Miami-area motel room where he lives with his mother and brother, after their father was deported to Nicaragua, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her family accompanied her. Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according to a court document.
Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome Detention Center, the United States’ oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse.
Yaoska now shares family news with her husband by phone. The children are struggling without their father, she said.
“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.
They don’t want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night asking for him.
Two brothers are reflected in a ceiling mirror as they pass the time in the Miami-area motel room where they are living with their pregnant mother Yaoska after their father was deported to Nicaragua, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“I’m afraid in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I’m scared here too.”
Yaoska said her work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is frightening and uncertain.
“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”
He was detained by local police, then deported
Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented Guatemalan migrant.
The arrival of their son brought them joy.
Guatemalan migrant Amavilia, 31, holds her infant son, whose father Edgar was detained days after his birth and later deported to Guatemala, inside the South Florida apartment where she lives with her two children and a roommate, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia, 31. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”
But within a few days, Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in South Florida.
She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.
Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who declined to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.
“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.”
Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.
After Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, she received donations from immigration advocates.
Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.
She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with her two children.
Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.
“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”
Pregnant asylum-seeker Yaoska, 32, comforts her two-year-old son who was not feeling well, inside the Miami-area motel room where she and her children are living after her husband was deported to Nicaragua, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers has assembled a campaign team of extremist pastors and activists who have long opposed LGBTQ+ rights and promoted false claims about election fraud, a Metro Times’s review shows.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreigners who are allowed to come to the United States without a visa could soon be required to submit information about their social media, email accounts and extensive family history to the Department of Homeland Security before being approved for travel.
The notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register said Customs and Border Protection is proposing collecting five years worth of social media information from travelers from select countries who do not have to get visas to come to the U.S. The Trump administration has been stepping up monitoring of international travelers and immigrants.
The announcement refers to travelers from more than three dozen countries who take part in the Visa Waiver Program and submit their information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which automatically screens them and then approves them for travel to the U.S. Unlike visa applicants, they generally do not have to go into an embassy or consulate for an interview.
DHS administers the program, which currently allows citizens of roughly 40 mostly European and Asian countries to travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for three months without visas.
The announcement also said that CBP would start requesting a list of other information, including telephone numbers the person has used over the past five years or email addresses used over the past decade. Also sought would be metadata from electronically submitted photos, as well as extensive information from the applicant’s family members, including their places of birth and their telephone numbers.
The application that people are now required to fill out to take part in ESTA asks for a more limited set of questions such as parents’ names and current email address.
The public has 60 days to comment on the proposed changes before they go into effect, the notice said.
CBP officials did not immediately respond to questions about the new rules.
The announcement did not say what the administration was looking for in the social media accounts or why it was asking for more information.
But the agency said it was complying with an executive order that Republican President Donald Trump signed in January that called for more screening of people coming to the U.S. to prevent the entry of possible national security threats.
Travelers from countries that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program system are already required to submit their social media information, a policy that dates back to the first Trump administration. The policy remained during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
But citizens from visa waiver countries were not obligated to do so.
Since January, the Trump administration has stepped up checks of immigrants and travelers, both those trying to enter the U.S. as well as those already in the country. Officials have tightened visa rules by requiring that applicants set all of their social media accounts to public so that they can be more easily scrutinized and checked for what authorities view as potential derogatory information. Refusing to set an account to public can be considered grounds for visa denial, according to guidelines provided by the State Department.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services now considers whether an applicant for benefits, such as a green card, “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views.
The heightened interest in social media screening has drawn concern from immigration and free speech advocates about what the Trump administration is looking for and whether the measures target people critical of the administration in an infringement of free speech rights.
Travelers wait in a TSA checkpoint at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025, in Romulus, Mich. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled over how courts should decide borderline cases of whether convicted murderers are intellectually disabled and should be shielded from execution.
There was no clear outcome apparent after the justices heard two hours of arguments in an appeal from Alabama, which wants to put to death a man who lower federal courts found is intellectually disabled.
Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, has been on death row roughly half his life after his conviction for beating a man to death in 1997.
The Supreme Court prohibited execution of intellectually disabled people in a landmark ruling in 2002. The justices, in cases in 2014 and 2017, held that states should consider other evidence of disability in borderline cases because of the margin of error in IQ tests.
The issue in Smith’s case is what happens when a person has multiple IQ scores that are slightly above 70, which has been widely accepted as a marker of intellectual disability. Smith’s five IQ tests produced scores ranging from 72 to 78. Smith had been placed in learning-disabled classes and dropped out of school after seventh grade, his lawyers said. At the time of the crime, he performed math at a kindergarten level, spelled at a third-grade level and read at a fourth-grade level.
Seth Waxman, representing Smith, told the justices his client received a “diagnosis of mental retardation” — then the commonly accepted term for mental disability — in the seventh grade.
Alabama, 20 other states and the Trump administration all are asking the high court, which is more conservative than it was a decade ago, to cut back on those earlier decisions.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented in both cases, and Alito and Thomas sounded as if they would side with Alabama.
A ruling for Smith would lead to messy court fights for other death row inmates “where everything is up for grabs in every case,” Alito said.
Alabama lawyer Robert M. Overing said Smith’s case should be an easy win for the state because Smith never scored below 70 on any IQ test.
“There is no way that he can prove an IQ below 70,” Overing said.
Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled that Smith is intellectually disabled, looking beyond the test scores. The justices had previously sent his case back to the federal appeals court in Atlanta, where the judges affirmed that they had taken a “holistic” approach to Smith’s case, seemingly in line with high court decisions.
But the justices said in June they would take a new look at the case.
Waxman urged the justices to affirm the lower courts rather than issue a decision that would effectively rely exclusively on test scores and rule out additional evidence in cases with borderline IQ scores.
Justice Elena Kagan said courts have to consider the additional evidence, but “that’s not to say you have to accept it.”
Rights groups focused on disabilities wrote in a brief supporting Smith that “intellectual disability diagnoses based solely on IQ test scores are faulty and invalid.”
Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the beating death of Durk Van Dam in Mobile County. Van Dam was found dead in his pickup truck. Prosecutors said he had been beaten to death with a hammer and robbed of $150, his boots and tools.
A federal judge in 2021 vacated Smith’s death sentence, though she acknowledged “this is a close case.”
Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ of 70 or below, along with significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior and the onset of those issues before the age of 18.
A decision in Hamm v. Smith, 24-872, is expected by early summer.
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and THOMAS BEAUMONT, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Dallas congresswoman opened her Senate campaign by telling voters that she “has gone toe to toe with Donald Trump.” Her Democratic primary opponent insisted that Americans are tired of “politics as a blood sport.”
The divergent approach highlights how U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are navigating a race where Democrats hope to break a three-decade losing streak in Texas. It also reflects a broader divide within the party, with some candidates continuing to focus on Trump while others barely mention his name.
Figuring out the best approach will be critical for Democrats who are grasping for a path back to power in the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress and are already maneuvering for the 2028 presidential race.
Republicans, by contrast, have been crystal clear.
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said in a recent podcast interview that the Republican president will campaign aggressively next year and the party will “put him on the ballot.”
“He is the greatest vote energizer in the history of politics,” said Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster. “But the challenge is that he does it as much for Democrats as he does for Republicans.”
Crockett takes on Trump
In her campaign launch video, Crockett was silent as audio of Trump’s insults played, including multiple times that he has called her a “very low-IQ person.” At the end of the video, she breaks out into a smile.
On Monday, she addressed the president more directly.
“Trump, I know you’re watching, so let me tell you directly,” Crockett said. “You’re not entitled to a damn thing in Texas. You better get to work because I’m coming for you.”
Trump responded the next day, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that her candidacy is “a gift to Republicans” and “I can’t even believe she’s a politician, actually.”
For nearly a decade, Democrats have used their criticism of Trump to draw attention and fuel fundraising. Governors who are considered potential 2028 presidential contenders, including California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ JB Pritzker, saw their profiles rise as they positioned themselves as staunch Trump opponents.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., recently participated in a video telling service members that they should not follow “illegal orders.” Trump responded by accusing him of “seditious behavior” that’s “punishable by death.”
Kelly started a national media tour and sent out a flurry of fundraising emails, both for himself and other Democrats. He said Trump has bullied everyone in his career, “but not now, because I won’t let it happen.”
When it comes to running for office, “Trump is the red meat that drives donors,” said John Anzalone, a longtime Democratic pollster.
“There are clearly some candidates that are playing towards the donor world that don’t actually make a great argument for winning races. But it’s great for clicks and making money. And money is the first primary that you need to win.”
FILE – Texas Rep. James Talarico speaks at a rally, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, at Wrigley Square in Millennium Park in Chicago. (AP Photo/Talia Sprague, file)
Talarico charts a different course
Talarico has built a following with a less combative style. The former schoolteacher who is working toward a master’s degree in divinity at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary gained attention by posting viral social media content challenging Republicans’ claims to Christian values. He has focused less on Trump or other politicians.
“The biggest divide in our country is not left versus right. It’s top versus bottom,” Talarico said in the video launching his campaign.
There are echoes of other Democratic successes this year, such as when candidates for governor won in New Jersey and Virginia by focusing on affordability concerns.
Voters in those states were much likelier to say they were voting to oppose Trump than to support him, according to the AP Voter Poll. For example, 71% of voters for Democrat Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey said their decision in the governor’s race was motivated at least partially by opposition to Trump.
But Sherrill recently said that it is not enough for Democrats to rely solely on anti-Trump fervor.
“Trump makes a difference. He’s a forcing mechanism to coalesce the party,” Sherrill said. “But to really turn out the vote in a really strong manner, you have got to run a really sharp campaign.”
When Democrats talk about Trump, they have to connect his actions to voters’ everyday lives, she said.
“You can’t just say, oh, I’m so upset that Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House,” she said. “You have to say, look, there’s a tariff regime that is being run that is enriching the president to the tune of $3 billion, and you’re paying more for everything from your cup of coffee in the morning to the groceries that you’re buying to cook your family dinner at night.”
It is an approach that could have more staying power in the coming years.
“In the not-too-distant future, Trump will not be on the ballot and that will be a challenge for both parties,” said Austin Cook, a senior aide for Democrat Elissa Slotkin’s successful U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan last year. “He is a starting gun for Democratic enthusiasm. But soon we won’t have him as a foil.”
President Donald Trump gestures after speaking at Mount Airy Casino Resort, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in Mount Pocono, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republicans need Trump to turn out voters
Republicans have little choice but to enlist Trump’s help, considering his enduring support among voters who are less likely to turn out during the midterms.
“They need to energize Republican voters and the only real way to energize Republican voters and get them out to vote is by enlisting Trump in the campaign,” said Newhouse, who is advising some of the party’s U.S. Senate candidates.
He warned that Trump’s popularity does not necessarily transfer to candidates he supports, “but there isn’t an alternative.”
“What they are trying to do here is basically wrap themselves up in him, hope that his approval and the economic numbers improve and get their voters out to the polls to match the Democrats’ intensity,” Newhouse said.
The White House has said that Trump will be on the road more in the coming months. He hosted his first rally in a while in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening, where he blamed Democrats for inflation.
“They gave you high prices,” he said, adding that “we’re bringing those prices down rapidly.”
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix and AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, speaks to reporters after announcing her run in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered diplomatic correspondence to stop using the Calibri font and return to the more traditional Times New Roman effective Wednesday, reversing a Biden administration shift to the less formal typeface that he called wasteful, confusing and unbefitting the dignity of U.S. government documents.
“Typography shapes how official documents are perceived in terms of cohesion, professionalism and formality,” Rubio said in a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates abroad Tuesday.
In it, he said the 2023 shift to the sans serif Calibri font emerged from misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies pursued by his predecessor, Antony Blinken. Rubio ordered an immediate return to Times New Roman, which had been among the standard fonts mandated by previous administrations.
“The switch was promised to mitigate accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities,” the cable said, asserting that it did not achieve that goal and had cost the department $145,000 but did not offer any evidence.
Since taking over the State Department in January, Rubio has systematically dismantled DEI programs in line with President Donald Trump’s broader instructions to all federal agencies. The Trump administration says the goal is to return to purely merit-based standards.
Rubio has abolished offices and initiatives that had been created to promote and foster diversity and inclusion, including in Washington and at overseas embassies and consulates, and also ended foreign assistance funding for DEI projects abroad.
“Although switching to Calibri was not among the department’s most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of DEI it was nonetheless cosmetic,” according to Rubio’s cable obtained by The Associated Press and first reported by The New York Times.
“Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s correspondence,” he said, adding that it also clashed with the typeface in the State Department letterhead.
According to a separate memo sent to department employees, the return to Times New Roman takes effect Wednesday and all templates for official documents are to be updated to remove the offending Calibri font.
The only exceptions are documents prepared for international treaties and for presidential appointments, which are required to use Courier New 12-point font, the memo said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to join Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol to brief lawmakers on the military strike on a suspected drug smuggling boat and its crew in the Caribbean near Venezuela Sept. 2, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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