Trump’s Posts on Singing Somali Schoolchildren Stir Anger in Minnesota

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“President Trump reposted a video of Somali American kindergarteners in hijabs, sparking outrage in Minnesota’s Muslim and Somali communities. This act, part of Trump’s ongoing attacks on the Somali community, was condemned as targeting children and normalizing anti-Muslim hate. Critics highlighted the hypocrisy of Trump’s stance on religious discrimination, noting his selective concern for certain groups.

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The state’s large Muslim and Somali communities expressed indignation after the president reposted a video of a kindergarten promotion ceremony, including comments noting the girls were in hijabs.

July 11, 2026

President Trump at the White House on Monday, the day he posted about the children in Minnesota. Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

The posts nearly slid by in President Trump’s chaotic social media feed this week, lost in a jumble of boasts about the economy and pictures of Washington landmarks dressed in their Fourth of July best.

But there they were, a video of Somali American kindergartners in blue caps and gowns during their promotion ceremony at their St. Paul, Minn., school, and again the same video punctuated by a comment from an anonymous right-wing account called “End Wokeness”: “Every girl is in a hijab… in kindergarten.” In the 14-second video, the children are singing an upbeat Somali educational song.

If Mr. Trump’s sharing of the video posts did not cause much national furor, they sent shudders through Minnesota’s large Muslim and Somali communities, whose members expressed indignation that the president was again vilifying them, and disbelief that he was doing so by targeting children.

“This was a red line,” said Khalid Omar, a community organizer with the interfaith group Isaiah and Faith, based in St. Paul. “Children who are just celebrating, and wanting to look like their mothers — forget about the hijab — who are just children enjoying themselves, seeing their families, singing. For him to go after those children, it’s awful, it’s dangerous, it’s inhumane, it’s wrong.”

For more than a year, Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked Minnesota’s Somali community in a series of xenophobic tirades. He has disparaged Somali immigrants as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.” He has portrayed their children as a burden on schools. And he has demonizedRepresentative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali-born Democrat, including by mocking her hijab as a “little turban.”

Seizing on a welfare fraud scandal that was concentrated among Minnesota’s Somali community, his administration launched an  immigration crackdown, threatened to cut federal child care funding and started investigations that a judge found were intended to “harass and retaliate against” Democratic officials in the state.

Even after all of that, Mr. Trump’s posts to his nearly 13 million followers on Monday still struck a particular nerve.

“He is a bigoted bully,” said James J. Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute. “He picks on vulnerable people — women, immigrants — but picking on 5-year-olds, it’s so low, even for him.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, declined repeated requests for comment on the president’s posts. Instead, she defended his previous statements about Somali schoolchildren burdening Minnesota’s public schools.

“President Trump is right,” Ms. Jackson said. “Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, rip off Americans and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here. And nothing about that is racist.”

National civil rights organizations and state leaders added to local activists’ condemnation of the posts over the course of the week.

“I am no longer surprised when Donald Trump uses his platform to provoke attacks on Black, brown, or immigrant communities — but I am always disgusted,” said Keith Ellison, the state’s attorney general.

But on the other side, messages supporting Mr. Trump’s postings — in overwhelmingly racist, Islamophobic and anti-Muslim terms — also grew.

In response to the posts, Mr. Trump’s followers called the students “future terrorists” and said the children wearing hijabs were a “disgrace.” They called on him to “deport all Muslims” and to ban Islam. One account with more than a million followers declared that Mr. Trump had exposed a “terrifying reality” and that America was being “conquered.”

This is not the first time Mr. Trump has targeted Somali children.

In April of last year, Mr. Trump said: “You have states like Minnesota, where the school systems are collapsing under the weight of the refugee children, especially from Somalia.”

In November, he bemoaned “a vibrant beautiful community in Minneapolis, gone.”

“It’s not recognizable,” he said. “You have children that are going to school that don’t speak a word of English, they don’t speak a word of anything, and the teachers, they cry themselves to sleep.”

Mr. Trump has long used his social media account to amplify racist imagery and vilify immigrant groups. When he posted a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apesthis year, the backlash was so swift and bipartisan that Mr. Trump removed the post. (He refused to apologize and blamed it on an aide).

This week, Mr. Trump also posted a doctored image of the Obamas waving from Air Force One, which had graffiti that included the acronym “BLM” and Arabic writing. When he speaks about the former president, it is often using his middle name, Hussein.

Some critics of the posts noted that Mr. Trump has made combating anti-religious bias, particularly against Christians and Jews, a cornerstone of his second term. His recent posts, they said, make it clear that concern seems to apply only to certain groups.

State Senator Zaynab Mohamed, a Democrat who is the youngest woman ever elected to the Minnesota Senate and its first female Muslim member, said she did not believe that Mr. Trump would have posted the video if it showed any other religious group.

“Imagine if these kids were children who were wearing yarmulkes,” she said. “Imagine the reaction people would have. We would all be angry because we should be, because they are just as American as anyone else. And these kids who are wearing a hijab are just as American as the child who goes to a Catholic school that wears a particular uniform.”

National advocacy groups that have tracked the rise of Islamophobia said Mr. Trump’s posts were part of a trend of normalizing anti-Muslim hate and demeaning rhetoric that has led to violence and could lead to more.

A poll conducted last year by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that 63 percent of Muslims reported experiencing religious discrimination. And 47 percent of Muslims with children in grades K-12 reported that their children had been bullied for their religious identity in the past year, about twice the rate of the general population. Nearly half of the Muslim families whose children had been bullied said it was by an adult.

“This is the context within which Muslims have been living in the United States for a long time,” said Dr. Saher Selod, the director of research at the institute. “The bar has just been lowered so much in terms of what people can and cannot say about Muslims. We’re waiting for everyone to recognize how dehumanizing this is.”

Imam Yussuf Abdulle, the director of the Islamic Association of North America, which oversees more than three dozen Islamic centers and groups across the country, said that after the “garbage” comment, his young children asked him of Mr. Trump: “Baba, are we OK? What did we do to him? Does he hate us?”

He now knows the answer.

“Our president is not sparing the most vulnerable of our community,” he said. “There’s no mercy for us in his heart.”

“What could make you happy, if not a kindergarten graduation?” he added. “If that makes you angry, there is no happiness left.”

But on that day, he said, the students captured the hope that the community still clings to in the United States.

The song, “I Am a Student,” speaks to cultural pride, educational success and collective responsibility.

I am a student, I am a student

I am the flower (hope) of this nation

I strive, I strive, I go to schools

So that I may repay the debt I owe my father and mother

With all the effort I bring, O Allah, help me, amen, amen

O Allah, support me, amen, amen

I am a student, I am a student, I am the light of the dawn

I run, I run, I go to take exams

So that I may gain knowledge, and benefit my country

With all the effort I bring, O Allah, help me, amen, amen

O Allah, support me, amen, amen.

Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting from Minneapolis.

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

Dylan Freedman is the A.I. projects editor for The Times, investigating a range of topics. He has experience as both a reporter and a machine-learning engineer.“

 

Let’s Name the Country That’s Financing Mass Murder

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“The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in Sudan, which is responsible for atrocities against Black African ethnic groups. Despite the UAE’s influence, world leaders are hesitant to pressure it due to its financial ties to the Trump family. Public pressure and legislation limiting weapons sales to the UAE could help end the conflict and prevent further atrocities.

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July 11, 2026

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Last year, human rights experts warned for many months that a brutal militia was about to overrun a major Sudanese city, El Fasher, and massacre inhabitants.

President Trump and other world leaders mostly shrugged. The militia went ahead and overran El Fasher, slaughtering some 60,000 people in a few weeks.

Now the same militia is besieging another major Sudanese city, El Obeid, which has half a million or more people, and is also threatening populations to the north in the Darfur region. Some inside El Obeid are starving, yet, again, Trump and many other world leaders seem largely indifferent.

Preventing the slaughter would not require military action. It would not even require money. Put aside the arguments over whether humanitarian assistance is worthwhile. (But first, let me say that I believe the billions spent on the Iran war would have been better allocated to $2 bed nets to save children’s lives from malaria.) It may be that all we need to do to avert atrocities in Sudan is to speak up.

The backdrop: Sudan is probably the world’s worst humanitarian crisis right now. The country is caught in a civil war between the army and a largely Arab militia, the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., and while both sides have behaved viciously, the R.S.F. is particularly notorious for savagery, including for killing and raping members of several Black African ethnic groups. While reporting on the Chad-Sudan border in 2024, I interviewed survivors who described the R.S.F.’s systematically killing men and boys over the age of 10 and gang-raping many women and girls.

“We don’t want to see any Black people,” one woman quoted an R.S.F. leader telling villagers before the militia slaughtered the men and boys, among them her five brothers.

The R.S.F. is now massing forces around El Obeid and attacking it with drones. Food is scarce and people are weakening. The region is suffering an outbreak of cholera, which, if it spreads, could greatly increase the suffering.

“Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan,” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, warned a few days ago. He added that people in the region are being subjected to summary executions and sexual violence.

“Families have to queue for long hours to get water that is often unsafe for drinking,” the Norwegian Refugee Council reports. “Once they manage to bring water home, they must choose whether to use it to drink, cook or wash.”

It’s not entirely clear if the R.S.F. plans to overrun El Obeid or whether there would be a blood bath if it did. Compared to El Fasher, fewer people in El Obeid are members of the Black African ethnic groups that the R.S.F. targets. It’s even possible that the siege of El Obeid is a feint to distract from an attack elsewhere, such as on the Darfur city of Tawila.

Still, the risks are immense, and the United Nations Security Council issued a statement last month warning of the “imminent risk of mass atrocities.”

Leaders are willing to speak about the violence itself. Both the Biden and Trump administrations described the situation in Sudan as genocide. The State Department just last month warned of “alarming indications that mass atrocities could be imminent.”

But what American, European and United Nations officials won’t say openly is that the power behind the R.S.F. is the United Arab Emirates. Although the Emirates denies it, its backing of the R.S.F. is well established. Yet the Emirates is rich and influential, so it has become The Country That Must Not Be Named.

Tough public comments and other pressure from Washington and European capitals might shame the Emirates enough for it to tell its murderous friends in Sudan to back off; similar pressure led the Emirates to pull most of its forces out from a brutal war in Yemen in 2019. Instead, world leaders today tiptoe around the Emirates’ role.

The Emirates has particularly close financial ties to the Trump family. Indeed, Trump’s family income surged last year partly because an investment firmtied to the Emirates paid hefty sums for a stake in the family’s main crypto company.

Members of Congress, led by Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Sara Jacobs, have sponsored legislation that essentially would limit sales of weaponry to the Emirates as long as it arms the R.S.F. “This awful conflict could be ended if we had the political will to do so — instead of starting stupid wars with Iran,” Van Hollen said.

I share the belief that such a measure could end this catastrophe — but it is languishing from indifference. We should have the fortitude to speak up about human rights outrages whether the responsible party is Russia, China, Israel, America or the Emirates; if you care about human rights in only some places, you don’t actually care about human rights.

Sudan isn’t getting much attention, partly because the crisis areas are difficult to enter. I was organizing a trip to the conflict areas last month, but my route closed at the last minute and I had to put the trip off. Enough information is trickling out for diplomats and aid groups to be able to ring the alarms; it’s just that the world is ignoring them.

“The international community must stop reacting to atrocities and start preventing them,” noted Rabab Mohamed Ali Baldo, a Sudanese activist originally from El Obeid.

This is an excellent moment to apply public pressure, for the Emirates appears to be lobbying for one of its top Foreign Ministry officials, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, to be the next United Nations secretary general.

“This won’t end until the Emirates are pressured to stop their advanced weapons superhighway to the R.S.F.,” said Nathaniel Raymond of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which closely follows the crisis in Sudan. “This war could end in two weeks if the R.S.F. entered an ammo drought because the Emirates decided it was no longer worth it.”

So this is in part on us. Will we find the courage to speak up?

1. 

   Nicholas Kristof

   Opinion columnist

   I may get pushback from readers who say that what happens in Sudan is none of our business. My response would be that if we describe something as a genocide, then it should be our business to speak out and do what we can. Is that persuasive? What other arguments can I marshal?“

 

Second Person in a Week Killed by Federal Task Force in Memphis

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“Tennessee authorities are investigating the second fatal shooting in four days by a member of the federal task force in Memphis. The shootings have exacerbated tensions in the city, with some residents welcoming the task force’s efforts to combat crime while others accuse agents of aggressive tactics and causing fear and distrust. The task force, established by President Trump, has made over 2,000 arrests and confiscated hundreds of firearms since its arrival.

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Tennessee authorities are investigating both shootings involving agents working with the task force in Memphis.

July 8, 2026

A federal agent with the Memphis Safe Task Force shot and killed a person at a hotel in Memphis on Wednesday, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.Natalie Van Gundy/Daily Memphian, via Associated Press

Tennessee authorities are investigating the second fatal shooting in four days by a member of the federal task force dedicated to confronting crime in Memphis.

The shootings are likely to further exacerbate tensions within the city, which has been torn over the presence of hundreds of federal agents since October and their aggressive approach to targeting crime.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said on Wednesday that the shooting involved a Drug Enforcement Administration agent with a team of agents trying to serve an arrest warrant at a Memphis hotel on Wednesday morning.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said agents forced their way into the hotel room after commands to open the door were ignored. A man inside pointed a handgun at the group, and the agent shot and killed the man, the spokesman said. The state bureau said it would investigate the shooting, but did not identify the man or the agent involved.

“The Memphis Safe Task Force will remain in Memphis since dangerous criminals are still on the street,” Brady McCarron, the marshals spokesman, said. “Attempted violence against law enforcement will never be tolerated.”

The task force, he added, “has made the city of Memphis safer by arresting criminals, driving down crime, and locating missing children.”

Steve Mulroy, the district attorney for Shelby County, which includes Memphis, also asked the state bureau to investigate a fatal shooting days earlier. In that episode, on Sunday, two National Guard members fired on Tyrin Johnson, 20, killing him, according to the bureau, among several shootings in nine states during the Fourth of July weekend.

At least two other people have been killed after altercations involving agents working with the Memphis task force.

While the Trump administration has pulled federal agents and National Guard troops back from other Democratic-led cities, personnel remain in both Memphis and Washington. The federal government has outsize power over the nation’s capital, while Republican leaders in Tennessee have embraced the groundswell of law enforcement after President Trump signed an executive order establishing the task force in September.

Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, has allowed Memphis police officers to work in tandem with federal agents and State Highway Patrol troopers, though he expressed some discomfort with the National Guard deployment. More than 2,000 arrests have been made and hundreds of firearms have been confiscated since the task force arrived last fall.

Some Memphis residents have welcomed the task force, expressing weariness and frustration with the high crime rates that have long plagued the city. Others, however, have accused the agents of using aggressive tactics and causing more fear and distrust in a majority-Black city with a painful history of discriminatory policing.

There is also an ongoing lawsuit against leaders of the task force, accusing agents of retaliating against efforts to document the task force’s arrests and detainment of both residents and undocumented immigrants.

“Every Memphian deserves to feel safe and public safety depends not only on reducing violence but also on maintaining trust between government and the communities it serves,” Raumesh Akbari and London Lamar, Democratic state senators, said in a statement after Mr. Johnson’s death early Sunday. “That trust is strengthened through transparency, accountability and an independent review of the facts.”

Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.“

The Ramifications of Hegseth’s Anti-DEI Purge

Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com | Hunter Biden | The Guardian

Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com

"Biden sued Patrick Byrne for defamation over claim that he sought bribe to lobby his father to free $8bn in Iran assets

Anna Betts

Hunter Biden, pictured in 2024, was accused of seeking an $800m bribe to unfreeze Iranian assests.Photograph: Eric Thayer/AP

A federal judge on Friday awarded Hunter Biden $1.7m in punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit he filed against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

Biden sued Byrne – a Donald Trump ally who denied the results of the 2020 electionand funded efforts to overturn them – in 2023, accusing Byrne of lying in an interview that Biden had previously sought a bribe from Iran’s government in the fall of 2021.

Joe Biden, Hunter’s father, was the US president at the time. And Byrne in an interview lied that Hunter Biden – in exchange for an $800m bribe – had offered Iran to go to his father, have him “unfreeze” $8bn in frozen Iranian assets and ensure that the US would “go easy” on Iran during “nuclear talks” between the two countries, according to Hunter Biden’s lawsuit.

Biden alleged in the complaint that Byrne “made, published, and repeated false and defamatory statements knowing full well that the statements are false, for the purpose of subjecting plaintiff to harassment, intimidation, and harm”.

In an order on Friday, the US district judge Stephen Wilson of California wrote that Byrne during the case had disputed that he made those statements with “actual malice”. And, Wilson wrote, Byrne had told the court that he believed the statements to be true because he had been told about the alleged bribery scheme by an Iranian government official.

But Wilson – who was appointed to the federal judiciary during Ronald Reagan’s presidency – wrote that Byrne did not allege that the Iranian official had claimed to have had any direct contact with Biden, did not provide any evidence supporting his claims, and failed to “provide to this court, throughout the course of litigation, any documentary evidence that could allow a reasonable person to believe the story to be true”.

The judge also said that over the course of the case, the court found “ample evidence” supporting a finding that Byrne “knew the story to be false, and much of the narrative describing the covert meeting with an Iranian government official was fabricated”.

The case had been scheduled for a jury trial in October. But the judge wrote on Friday that Byrne “failed to appear” for the proceeding and fired his lead trial attorney, delaying the proceedings “at the expense” of Biden and the court.

After his failure to appear at trial, Wilson found Byrne to be in default as a sanction for what the judge described as “repeated, intentional disobedience of court orders and unceasing efforts to delay proceedings”.

The judge on Friday wrote that “the evidence is clear and convincing that defendant has engaged in intentional misrepresentation with conscious disregard towards plaintiff’s rights” – and he awarded Biden $1 in nominal damages along with $1.7m in punitive damages.

Wilson also ordered Byrne to pay Biden about $35,000 in court sanctions.

In a statement to the Guardian on Saturday, an attorney for Biden, Bryan Sullivan, said Byrne had effectively accused his client of “treason” – and now a judge had “found that every one of those claims was fabricated”.

“The judgment is $1.7m in punitive damages, and it is the floor, not the ceiling, of what Mr Byrne owes for his conduct,” Sullivan added. “If Mr Byrne chooses to repeat any of it, we will be back in court.”

Attorneys listed as representing Byrne did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian on Saturday morning.

The ruling in Hunter Biden’s favor on Friday comes at a time when he has been building an online following through social media posts covering topics such as politics, mental health and addiction recovery. He also announced that he will be publishing a series of essays on the Substack platform.

It also comes after his father, in the waning days of his presidency, issued him a pardon for convictions on federal gun and tax charges."

Hunter Biden wins $1.7m in suit over Iran bribery claim by ex-CEO of Overstock.com | Hunter Biden | The Guardian

Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media - The New York Times

Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media

"The Justice Department is seeking to compel testimony from reporters who wrote about the new Air Force One. The Times called the move a “brazen act.”

July 11, 2026Updated 11:56 a.m. ET

President Trump speaking to reporters before boarding the new Air Force One last week.Doug Mills/The New York Times

The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.

The subpoenas — which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday — were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.

In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters’ homes.

The Times denounced the administration’s actions.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, The Times’s top newsroom lawyer, in a statement on Friday evening.

“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,” Mr. McCraw wrote. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

The subpoenas contain few specifics, asking only that the journalists testify “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” They were issued by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Mr. Clayton, who leads one of the country’s most prominent law enforcement offices, was recently nominated by Mr. Trump to serve as director of national intelligence.

Representatives for the White House did not respond to inquiries on Friday evening.

In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

“We value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but D.O.J. also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information,” said the spokeswoman, Emily Covington. She added, “We recognize there may always be natural tension there, but we are not going to ignore the law.”

The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, who reported on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had departed Turkey on the old Air Force One as a security precaution at the urging of the Secret Service. On Thursday, The Times reported that the new Air Force One, a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. Both articles cited sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

Before the Wednesday article was published, a senior official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation contacted a reporter and a senior editor at The Times to ask that the article be held, calling it an issue of national security, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The F.B.I. official declined to explain the security issue. The official also asked The Times to disclose its sources for the article; the newspaper refused to do so. (A spokesman for The Times, Charlie Stadtlander, confirmed the account.)

Mr. Trump has long been a harsh critic of the news media. But in his second term in office, he has moved aggressively to use the immense powers of the federal government in his efforts to attack the press.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department sought to compel testimony from journalists at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas after both news organizations fought back in sealed filings.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have initiated leak investigations into the disclosure of classified information. But subpoenas aimed at journalists are not common, and First Amendment advocates say they can chill the work of news gathering.

In January, F.B.I. agents took the rare step of searching the home of a Washington Post reporter, Hannah Natanson, as part of an investigation into a government contractor’s handling of classified material. The agents seized phones, laptops and a smartwatch after executing a search warrant. Ms. Natanson had spent months speaking with government employees while reporting on the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal work force.

The Times is a party to several lawsuits involving Mr. Trump and his administration.

The president sued The Times last year, accusing it of defaming him, disparaging his reputation and seeking to undermine his 2024 candidacy.

In December, The Times sued the Defense Department after it imposed restrictions on reporters who cover the military. The company sued again after the agency reduced reporters’ physical access to the Pentagon.

In May, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued The Times, accusing it of employment discrimination. On Friday, The Times filed a counterclaim, saying the lawsuit was an act of retaliation for its coverage of the Trump presidency and a violation of its First Amendment rights.

Glenn Thrush and Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.

Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.

A version of this article appears in print on July 12, 2026, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Times Reporters Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on the Media."

Times Journalists Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media - The New York Times

Donald Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape US voting process – WABE

Donald Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape US voting process

Associated Press

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in flight on Air Force One after landing at U.S. Air Force Base at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, Eastern England, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

"President Donald Trump has ousted members of a bipartisan federal election commission that resisted his efforts to require would-be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.

The White House on Friday confirmed the executive action against members of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal grants to states, oversees the testing of voting systems and maintains the national voter registration forms.

It’s the latest move in the Republican president’s effort to expand White House influence over how U.S. elections are conducted and comes after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the president new personnel authority to fire members of independent agency boards.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so,” said a White House statement to AP.

The president removed the commission’s two Democratic members, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. The panel’s Republican member, Christy McCormick resigned. Former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer already had left his post voluntarily earlier this year.

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The changes were first reported by VoteBeat, a news outlet that covers elections and voting across the U.S.

While the White House statement did not offer a specific reason for Trump’s action, the commission has previously declined to change the national voter registration form to require documentation of an applicant’s U.S. citizenship, as Trump’s urged in a sweeping March 2025 executive order on U.S. elections. A federal judge blocked the order, ruling it exceeds the president’s authority since the U.S. Constitution grants authority over elections management and oversight to Congress and the states. The administration has indicated it will appeal.

It was not clear whether Trump planned to nominate new members immediately or leave the positions vacant — a move that, months ahead of midterm elections, could prevent the agency from distributing new grants to state or local elections offices and, at the least, complicate its role in overseeing testing and certification of voting systems around the country.

“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” the White House said.

Congress created the four-member commission as part of the Help America Vote Act, a bipartisan law signed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002. The act requires the commission to include two Democrats and two Republicans, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Hicks and McCormick were appointed by President Barack Obama. Trump appointed Hovland during his first presidency.

According to VoteBeat, Hicks and Hovland were notified of their removal by an email signed by Morgan DeWitt Snow, the deputy director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the President."

Donald Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape US voting process – WABE