At a campaign rally in the Coachella Valley, former President Trump on Saturday called out California’s cost of living and nation-leading gas prices as an example of Vice President Kamala Harris and other “radical Democrats” destroying the state.

“Today California has the highest inflation, the highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living, the most regulations,” he said. “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.”

Two days later at the state Capitol, Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the passage of a new state law that could lower gasoline price spikes by giving regulators the authority to require that California oil refiners store more inventory.

Newsom and Democratic lawmakers cast the bill as a solution to high gas prices. With less than three weeks until the Nov. 5 election, affordability has become a major political issue and a potential vulnerability for Harris’ presidential campaign.

“It’s about time we stood up,” Newsom said after he signed the bill on Monday. “This is the fourth largest market in the world. This is a big damn deal.”

The newly passed law gives Newsom a win in his political battle with the oil industry, but whether Harris or other Democratic candidates will benefit from the governor’s victory remains unclear.

Newsom’s law will not immediately lower the cost of gasoline in California. While experts say it could ultimately offer reductions of future price spikes, regulators will have to complete a thorough review process to enact the new controls.

Governors in Arizona and Nevada wrote letters warning that the legislation could drive up costs for their constituents, potentially bolstering concerns in pivotal swing states about California’s policies.

Newsom called lawmakers back to Sacramento for a special session to pass the policy. At the same time, however, his administration is expected to adopt stricter limits on carbon fuels that could drive up per-gallon costs by almost half a dollar or more just days after the election.

The governor declined to answer a question at a news conference about whether he thought the new law would affect Democrats in the election, arguing that the effort wasn’t about politics. In a video posted to social media minutes before he signed the bill into law on Monday, Newsom accused the industry of being in “cahoots” with Trump by intentionally pushing prices higher to scare voters during election season.

Opponents have cast his push to address gas prices as an example of “political theatrics.”

“This is politics, not policy,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chief executive of the Western States Petroleum Assn. “This is a show. This is anything but good policy.”

Newsom and the petroleum trade group have been locked in a political battle over gas prices since the summer of 2022. The governor ran ads in Florida calling out Gov. Ron DeSantis’ conservative policies, which prompted a response from the petroleum group blaming Newsom for California’s highest-in-the-nation gas prices.

Since then the governor has repeatedly accused the industry of intentionally gouging consumers.

His administration has pointed out that prices spike when refineries experience unplanned maintenance problems with their equipment, which limits the amount of gasoline available in the state and drives up prices. Requiring the refineries to increase fuel reserves, his administration says, will help prevent those shortages.

Reheis-Boyd has argued that requiring refineries to store more gasoline will increase costs for the companies and drive up prices at the pump. The industry contends that California’s nation-leading gasoline costs are a supply and demand problem in a state that has adopted environmental policies to limit oil drilling and production.

The cheapest way to lower gas prices is to allow oil companies to increase crude oil production in California and rely less on supply from overseas, Reheis-Boyd said.

The state should be working closely with California’s small number of refineries to ensure the state has enough gasoline, instead of adopting new regulations that restrict profits and pushing the companies out of business, she said.

“We have a governor who isn’t interested in the conversation,” Reheis-Boyd said. “He’s the only governor I’ve never met with, because he won’t meet.”

This year marks the second time in two years that Newsom has pushed lawmakers to adopt new oil regulations, an issue that divides Democrats as they navigate desires to fight climate change and lower gas prices.

In 2023, lawmakers balked at passing Newsom’s proposal to penalize oil companies that earn excessive profits. Instead lawmakers adopted new oversight of the industry and gave regulators the ability to cap profits through a rule-making process that has yet to result in any new restrictions.

Democrats in the Legislature were reluctant to pass Newsom’s new oil bill again this year.

Two weeks before the regular session concluded at the end of August, Newsom announced a proposal to require that petroleum refiners maintain a stable inventory in order to prevent fuel shortages and price spikes when refinery equipment is taken offline for maintenance.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) refused to take up the bill for a floor vote at the end of session, arguing that his caucus did not want to rush legislation through without properly vetting the policy. He agreed to work on the proposal in a special session.

Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) took the opposite approach. His caucus was ready to pass the bill at the end of session, he said, and he initially refused to participate in a special session before giving in to the governor’s demands.

During the special session, the Assembly held a series of hearings before passing the bill earlier this month. The Senate quickly signed off on the proposal the following week.

While some liberal Democrats quietly fumed as the governor forced them to vote on another one of his political proposals, many felt the policy could ultimately reduce price spikes that hurt consumers.

“The data is clear: Price spikes happen when refineries fail to plan for supply during scheduled maintenance,” said Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara). “This bill will hold oil companies accountable for resupply plans when refineries’ shutdowns occur, ultimately saving Californians billions at the pump.”

Several Democratic legislators competing for swing-district seats in November did not vote, or opposed the bill.

State Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who declined to vote on the proposal, said he supported the goal to address the problem of high gas prices in the state but did not agree with the approach. Min is locked in a tight race for Congress against Republican Scott Baugh in Orange County.

Min said opponents to Newsom’s proposal “raised serious concerns” about whether it would be effective in lowering gas prices or even be counterproductive.

“These concerns deserve a fair and full vetting, which is difficult to do in a special session conducted just weeks before many of the current legislators will be leaving office,” Min said in a statement.

Republicans said Democrats would reduce gas taxes if they were serious about the problem of affordability.

“So, who’s making the money?” asked state Sen. Brian Dahle (R-Bieber). “Who’s gouging Californians for every gallon of gas? It’s the government. $1.42 for every single gallon of gas goes to taxes, whether it’s state, local or federal.”

Opposition to the proposal from labor unions representing workers in the industry added to the pressures on Democrats.

Tom Baca, the international vice president for western states of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, said giving regulators control over maintenance schedules, instead of relying on the insight of the workers with deep knowledge of the equipment, could put his members in dangerous conditions if work is delayed.

David Sikorski, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 12, called the special session “unnecessary.”

His union represents 21,000 workers in California, Arizona and Nevada. He said Newsom’s policy could prove to be a liability to Harris in the neighboring swing states of Arizona and Nevada.

“We’ve made some real momentum, hit the ground running in Arizona, and we put a lot of resources into getting friendly politicians, and Kamala Harris, elected in that state,” he said. “This is just one more hurdle that we have to overcome with our membership and working people in general.”

Vice President Kamala Harris doubled down on her recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day amid outrage on social media over her unearthed support of renaming Columbus Day. 

“This Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I am thinking about the young Indigenous leaders I met in Arizona last week. I am counting on their leadership and looking forward to our partnership,” Harris posted to her campaign X account late Monday afternoon.

The post comes as videos of Harris from both 2019 and 2021 have spread like wildfire across social media platforms, spotlighting Harris’ previous comments supporting the renaming of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and admonishing European explorers for unleashing a “wave of devastation for Tribal nations” when they reached the Americas in the late 1400s.

“Count me in on support,” Harris told a voter in New Hampshire in 2019 when asked if she supports renaming Columbus Day “Indigenous People’s Day,” footage of the event shows. Harris’ remarks came roughly a month after she launched her ultimately failed 2020 run for the White House. 

COLUMBUS DAY FLASHBACK: HARRIS EXCORIATED EUROPEAN EXPLORERS FOR ‘WAVE OF DEVASTATION’ TO NATIVE PEOPLES

The Trump campaign slammed Harris over her unearthed comments in 2019, in an exclusive comment to Fox News Digital on Sunday. 

TRUMP CAMP RIPS HARRIS OVER UNEARTHED COMMENTS ON RENAMING COLUMBUS DAY: ‘STEREOTYPICAL LEFTIST’

“Kamala Harris is your stereotypical leftist. Not only does she want to raise taxes and defund the police — she also wants to cancel American traditions like Columbus Day,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

“President Trump will make sure Christopher Columbus’ great legacy is honored and protect this holiday from radical leftists who want to erase our nation’s history like Kamala Harris.”

DEFACED COLUMBUS STATUE THAT WAS THROWN INTO A VIRGINIA POND FINDS MORE WELCOMING HOME IN NYC SUBURB

Back in 2021, Harris said as vice president that the U.S. “must not shy away” from its “shameful past” of European explorers who she said ushered “in a wave of devastation.”

Portrait of Christopher Columbus, 1519. Found in the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Artist: Piombo, Sebastiano, del (1485-1547). (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

“Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas,” Harris said during the National Congress of American Indians’ 78th Annual Convention on Oct. 12, 2021. 

“But that is not the whole story. That has never been the whole story,” Harris continued in her 2021 speech. 

“Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for Tribal nations — perpetrating violence, stealing land and spreading disease,” she continued. “We must not shy away from this shameful past, and we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on Native communities today.”

Columbus Day is a federal holiday that officially celebrates and recognizes Italian explorer Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a proclamation in 1934 making Columbus Day a national holiday following lobbying from the Italian American and Catholic communities.

Vice President Harris addresses the National Congress of American Indians’ 78th Annual Convention in 2021.  (White House )

Activists in recent years have worked to disassociate the day from Columbus, claiming it celebrates colonialism and genocide of indigenous people, in favor of celebrating Native Americans. Activists have also worked to remove Columbus statues from cities, including toppling such statues during the riots of 2020. 

Protesters surround a statue of Christopher Columbus before marching, eventually returning and pulling it down in Richmond, Virginia, June 9, 2020. (PARKER MICHELS-BOYCE/AFP via Getty Images)

President Biden became the first president in 2021 to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the same holiday.

Harris has consistently celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day over Columbus Day, with her official vice presidential X account acknowledging the holiday each year since 2021, while searching for “Columbus Day” on her account turns up no results. 

COLUMBUS REMAINS, VERIFIED AFTER 500 YEARS, SHOW HE WAS JEWISH: DOCUMENTARY

Her X post Monday celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day comes as social media commenters slammed her over the unearthed remarks from both 2019 and 2021. 

Fox News Digital has repeatedly reached out to the Harris campaign since Sunday regarding her previous comments, but did not receive a reply. Fox Digital reached out to the campaign again late Monday afternoon asking if the vice president would end the recognition of Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day considering her latest tweet, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.    

The United Nations was instrumental in the creation and recognition of the state of Israel some seventy-six years ago.

But virtually ever since, animosity between the preeminent global body and the tiny Middle Eastern country has steadily grown, escalating now as U.N. forces have been drawn into Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon.

At least four members of the 50-nation U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, assigned to Lebanon in 1978 to monitor the border with Israel, were injured in recent days by Israeli fire.

Israel says it was targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant and political faction.

But one incident involved Israeli tanks crashing through a gate at the UNIFIL compound in southern Lebanon, leaving numerous peacekeepers injured.

In another, Israeli fire generated a toxic smoke that sickened scores of peacekeepers, the U.N. said.

The Biden administration angrily condemned the actions harming U.N. forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unapologetic, saying peacekeepers should evacuate the region, essentially abandoning their U.N.-mandated mission.

That dispute comes amid other points of escalation in the multiple conflicts Israel is battling.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed late Sunday, and many more wounded, at an army training base in northern Israel. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest domestic attacks ever on Israeli military personnel. It involved a Hezbollah drone that managed to evade Israel’s vaunted air-defense system and plow into a mess hall at the base.

“We need to investigate it, learn the details and quickly and effectively implement the lessons [learned],” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday after visiting the site.

The drone strike followed a Pentagon announcement that it was sending Israel an additional, sophisticated air defense system to help protect the country from further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.

Around 100 U.S. troops will also be deployed to help operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery. It marked the first significant assignment of U.S. military personnel to Israeli territory since war broke out in the Gaza Strip a year ago and is now spilling over into Lebanon.

Early Monday in Gaza, Israel shelled a camp sheltering about 5,000 Palestinians outside a hospital, killing at least four and burning dozens more whose tents went up in flames, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas “command center.” Hours earlier, Israel struck a nearby U.N.-run school, in the Nuseirat camp, that had also been converted into a shelter. At least 20 people were reported killed.

The latest offensive in Gaza constituted “an endless hell,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, said on the social network X.

At least 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last year, Gaza officials say.

The U.N. refugee agency, known by its initials UNRWA, is another major point of contention between Israel and the 193-nation international New York-based organization.

More than 12,000 UNRWA employees have for years worked as a critical lifeline in the Gaza Strip, providing healthcare, running schools and operating food banks for Palestinians living in what they describe as a veritable open-air prison.

A small number of UNRWA workers were implicated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel that Israel says killed some 1,200 people. The U.N. said it fired those employees who participated in the attack.

Israel has sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza, and last week Israel announced it was confiscating UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem, with the aim of building more than 1,400 settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. Washington and a handful of other Western nations suspended aid to UNRWA last year, but most of it has been restored.

Israel’s fights over UNIFIL and UNRWA are only the latest in a long-running relationship of hostility with the U.N.

Israel’s former ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, told a small group of journalists earlier this year that the initial goodwill and appreciation that the fledgling Israeli state felt toward the U.N. in 1948 faded in the ensuing years. The U.N. expanded beyond its initial coterie of mostly Western states to include dozens of countries, including in the Arab and Muslim world, that did not recognize Israel.

Most reject Israel’s continued occupation of land claimed by Palestinians.

The U.N. routinely condemns Israel in an assortment of resolutions. But any resolution that might have concrete impact on Israel is usually vetoed by the U.S.

Now, with the controversy centered on UNIFIL, Israel accuses the peacekeeping force of having been ineffective in preventing violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border and of failing to stop Hezbollah from building up a formidable military presence in southern Lebanon, in violation of U.N. decisions.

Israel’s current ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, accused Hezbollah of using UNIFIL positions as hiding places, and said the peacekeepers’ refusal to leave the region is “incomprehensible.”

“The U.N. must stop turning a blind eye to the fact that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization holding Lebanon hostage,” Danon said Monday.

The UNIFIL troops who number some 10,000 say, however, they will continue to carry out what they see as their duty under U.N. mandates.

After the end of the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, a wary truce was in effect in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL’s white armored vehicles, trucks and blue-helmeted personnel became a regular sight in towns and villages along the Lebanese side of the 74-mile “Blue Line,” the de facto border between the two countries.

Its maritime arm dispatched frigates and corvettes to patrol the coastal waters with little event. UNIFIL’s main job then was to coordinate troop movements on either side of the border, whether for security or maintenance purposes, and work on de-confliction. Though it had no direct dealings with Hezbollah, it nevertheless established contacts via the Lebanese army.

That changed when Hezbollah launched its cross-border rocket campaign the day after Hamas attacked southern Israel. Virtually overnight, what had been a relatively peaceful posting turned into an arena for an escalating tit-for-tat fight — with the U.N. caught in the middle.

“This is my third and worst tour here,” said Lt. Col. Bruno Vio, a UNIFIL press officer, during a visit to the area with UNIFIL over the summer. “The villages I knew from the past visits, now they’re empty; all the people gone.”

That was before Israel invaded Lebanon and ramped up airstrikes there in mid-September. At that point, rotations had been shortened from three months to 45 days because of the high risk. As of now, patrols have been suspended altogether, with troops hunkered in their compounds.

Times staff writer Bulos reported from Beirut and southern Lebanon; Wilkinson from Washington.