Politics
Mayors London Breed and Karen Bass take different approaches to homelessness and drug use in their cities
Karen Bass and London Breed each made history when they were elected, shattering glass ceilings in their respective cities as the first female mayor of Los Angeles and first Black woman to lead San Francisco.
They share many other similarities as powerful Democrats leading California’s marquee cities: a promise to reduce homelessness; plans to mitigate an opioid overdose crisis; an electorate concerned about crime.
But the ways the two mayors are attacking those urban problems reveal some surprising differences between them.
Breed, 49, has backed a tough-on-crime statewide ballot initiative that Bass, 70, does not support. The San Francisco mayor has also worked to toughen criminal penalties for fentanyl dealers and require drug screening and treatment for certain welfare recipients — issues the Los Angeles mayor has not weighed in on with financial assistance overseen by the county.
And they are split over a high-profile Supreme Court case that could make it easier for cities to clear homeless encampments: Breed has welcomed the high court’s review while Bass warned against a ruling that “could embolden those who wish to criminalize unhoused Angelenos.”
“Homelessness is the reason I ran,” Bass said during a discussion Monday at the civic engagement cafe Manny’s in San Francisco. “The main thing is getting people off the street ASAP because people are dying. But the problem in L.A. is the massive numbers.”
It was the first time the two mayors came together publicly for a one-on-one conversation. They discussed the challenges they face leading California’s most famous and influential cities.
“Homelessness is the reason I ran,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
About 46,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles, where the population is about 3.8 million. An estimated 8,323 people are homeless in San Francisco, a city of about 808,000.
Breed said the problem in San Francisco is “a little bit different.”
Though the city has increased shelter capacity and helped 15,000 people exit homelessness, Breed said, the city faces a conundrum: The number of people who refuse housing or shelter is growing.
“The biggest problem is fentanyl, is drugs,” she said. “That has been the biggest challenge we’ve had to get people off the streets.”
Political differences in L.A. and S.F.
Breed and Bass are at different points in their mayorships, which may explain some of their divergence on policy. After six years leading San Francisco, Breed is up for reelection this year in a tough race against four serious challengers.
In contrast, Bass, who referred to herself as a “rookie” Monday, is still in a honeymoon phase after winning the election in November 2022.
“There seems to be this kind of doomy narrative in San Francisco that I don’t feel is quite as front of mind for Angelenos,” said Jason Ward, an economist at Rand Corp. in Santa Monica.
Mayor London Breed has supported some tough-on-crime strategies to address street homelessness and open-air drug use in San Francisco.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
As Breed’s political challenges have mounted in the last two years, she has turned to tough-on-crime strategies to crack down on street homelessness, open-air drug use and other public safety issues she once described in a speech as the “bull— that destroyed our city.”
Bass has sought a compassionate approach to homelessness without losing the support of the business community, a strategy that’s drawn praise and criticism. She has not given an endorsement in the heated L.A. district attorney race, which pits a so-called law and order candidate against the progressive incumbent.
In some instances, the two politicians are bringing the same blueprint to solving their cities’ problems.
Breed declared a state of emergency in December 2021 for the drug-infested Tenderloin district, with Bass following suit a year later with her own emergency declaration on homelessness. Both efforts aimed to make it easier to get people off the streets and increase access to resources.
Both mayors have rejected calls to roll back funding for police, even adding money for law enforcement in their city budgets, despite objections from some left-leaning voters. And they’ve each focused much of the last year on addressing homelessness via temporary shelter beds, while also putting money toward addiction and mental health services.
But it’s their policy differences that illustrate the varied ways civic leaders are trying to solve some of California’s thorniest problems.
“This is the nice thing about more and more women getting into elected life,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic strategist and board member of California Women Lead, an organization that works to elect more women. “People are going to have to rise and fall based on their own merits as leaders.”
As Black women, both mayors said their identities shape their experiences as politicians.
Bass said L.A.’s Black population is “quite small” at about 8%, and because of that she believes people misjudge her.
“I don’t mind being underestimated,” she said. “They won’t see it coming!”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass discuss their cities’ challenges at Manny’s cafe in San Francisco.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Breed echoed those same hurdles leading San Francisco, where the Black population is less than 5%.
“I’ve had to have some really hard conversations with a lot of very privileged people in this city who feel comfortable talking to me as if I’m beneath them,” Breed said.
“As African American women leading major cities, it’s different. Everybody wants the mayor to do a good job, but sometimes the challenges we face are different.”
Different approaches to fighting crime
Breed earlier this year endorsed a GOP-backed measure proposed for the November ballot that aims to roll back part of Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved initiative that reduced certain theft and drug felonies to misdemeanors. The measure would increase penalties for fentanyl dealers and organized retail theft rings, and provide mandatory treatment for drug users.
Bass said she doesn’t support efforts to repeal Proposition 47.
She said in a statement to The Times that the law “has its strengths and weaknesses and it should be evaluated in the same way that the impacts of any policy should be examined,” though her office didn’t make clear how she thinks the policy should be analyzed.
The mayors’ approaches “couldn’t be more different,” said Anne Irwin, director of Smart Justice California, a group that advocates for progressive changes to the criminal justice system.
Bass has “taken the lessons from the tough-on-crime era and accepted the hard truth that it didn’t work,” Irwin said. Breed, she said, has reverted to a “familiar political rhetoric” that appeases voters in the short term but fails public safety in the long haul.
“That’s why I call it an easy, expedient response,” Irwin said. “But that’s not leadership.”
While Irwin acknowledged that many San Franciscans want to see a tougher approach on public safety issues, she attributed waning voter support for Breed to what she described as an inconsistent and chaotic approach to solving those problems.
“San Franciscans are watching Mayor Breed over these past several years lurch from one approach to another based on the loudest headlines that week,” Irwin said.
People outside the event protest budget cuts Mayor London Breed has proposed in San Francisco, including funds for child-care programs and food banks.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
To Breed’s supporters, she is making tough decisions for a city she loves.
Breed grew up in the Western Addition, raised by her grandmother in a tough childhood defined by poverty, gang violence and street crime. She has shared the story of losing a sister to a drug overdose nearly 20 years ago, and her brother has served more than two decades in prison for armed robbery and other charges.
“London Breed has a ton of experience being exposed to that kind of a life, and I would think that she has reacted in the way she should for the safety of her citizens,” said former Mayor Willie Brown, who made history himself as the first Black mayor of San Francisco and, before that, as speaker of the state Assembly. “And that’s what would be expected of a mayor.”
Bass has spent much of her time in office so far as she promised on the campaign trail — almost exclusively focused on homelessness. Under Bass’ Inside Safe program, which places homeless people in hotels, motels and other forms of shelter, 2,720 people have been moved from street encampments, according to officials.
She also issued an order that has dramatically sped up the city’s approval of residential projects deemed 100% affordable. In April, she said that more than 16,000 affordable housing units had entered the city’s pipeline.
Bass was raised in the Venice-Fairfax area of Los Angeles, and was volunteering for Sen. Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign by age 14.
She founded Community Coalition, a nonprofit focused on tackling the structural racism that led to neglect in South L.A. A former emergency room physician assistant, she served more than a decade in Congress before being elected mayor.
She has sought to walk a fine line between helping people get into shelters and housing and responding to complaints from businesses and neighbors about tents and drug use.
She has mostly stayed out of the debate over a policy that gives council members the option to bar homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools and parks. The law is attacked by the most left-leaning members of the City Council, who decry it as a waste of police resources.
Bass, in interviews, has suggested that the law simply shuffles homeless encampments around, but said she won’t seek to repeal it.
The way the two mayors are responding reflects the frustrations in their respective cities, said Sam Tsemberis, chief executive of the Pathways Housing First Institute in Santa Monica.
“It comes down to personal attitudes and values,” Tsemberis said. “And also for the politicians, what will play well in terms of the likelihood of their reelection.”
The cabinet has historically advised the president on a variety of matters, but in President Trump’s second term, it appears to have taken on a new mandate: flattery.
Marathon cabinet meetings, lasting one to three hours, have become a hallmark of Mr. Trump’s second presidency. Often televised, they provide an opportunity for cabinet officials to credit him for their department’s accomplishments while still trying to claim some of the spotlight for themselves.
“He is willing to take a bullet for all of you tuning in at home because he believes in this flag, our freedom, our liberties and to save the greatest country in the history of the world.”
“The country owes you a great debt of gratitude — and the world, really — because I mean, you’re the only leader in the planet that can bring the two sides together to bring an end to this conflict.”
“What you have assembled in your vision is a turning point and an inflection point in American history.”
“I’ve gone across the country this month, 10 different states, and we saw it when we were together in Iowa: hard-working families, farmers, small businesses expressing gratitude, lined up to thank you.” “What happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Ukraine — a war that never would have occurred — what happened on Oct. 7 in Israel, never would have happened under President Trump.”
“A year ago today, I was working on transition with President Trump, to build the greatest cabinet ever for the greatest president ever. And I, as I sit here today, I can’t be more proud of how you did it, sir.”
Cabinet members flatter Trump
The New York Times reviewed over a dozen hours of cabinet meeting footage to analyze how his administration spoke to him. On average, at least one of every six sentences either flattered Mr. Trump, gave him credit or criticized his political opponents.
Allison Schuster, a White House spokeswoman, said in an email that Mr. Trump’s cabinet used these meetings to “highlight the exhaustive list of accomplishments they have delivered on behalf of the American people.”
Some, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, packed their speaking time with praise, while others, like Vice President JD Vance, focused on attacking Democrats. Many of these statements are exaggerated or not factually accurate.
Flatters him Criticizes opponents Gives him credit
Mr. Rubio both spoke and flattered the president the most.
Mr. Bessent said Mr. Trump “saved this country by making it the best place in the world to do business again.”
Mr. Hegseth said three times that Mr. Trump would have prevented conflicts from occurring.
Mr. Vance insulted political opponents the most. On average, one of six sentences was an insult.
Ms. Loeffler emphasized five times how people she has met across the country are grateful for President Trump. Mr. Lutnick said Mr. Trump achieved what nobody believed was possible five times.
Mr. Zeldin repeatedly said Mr. Trump was “willing to take a bullet for this country.”
Mr. Ratcliffe frequently credited department accomplishments to Mr. Trump’s leadership.
Mr. Greer referred to Labor Day as “Trump Trade Policy Day.”
How each cabinet member speaks to Trump
Compared with his first term, when some of his top aides pushed back against the president’s impulses, Mr. Trump has emphasized the importance of loyalty this time around. Administration officials have complimented the president far more in cabinet meetings than in his first term, according to The Times’s review of footage.
One of the most striking features of Mr. Trump’s cabinet meetings this term is the extent to which his leadership has been praised as unparalleled.
Officials have declared on camera that he is singlehandedly ending global conflicts, winning the race for artificial intelligence, motivating troops to enlist and lowering gas prices, among a number of other claimed accomplishments.
Russia-Ukraine war Rubio: And there’s only one leader in the world that’s capable of bringing the two sides to a table, and that’s our president, the president of the United States, President Trump.Russia-Ukraine war Rubio: And — and I think that the country owes you a great debt of gratitude and the world, really, because I mean you’re the only leader in the planet that can bring the two sides together to bring an end to this conflict, and that’s what you’ve done, and you’ve done it despite, you know, impediments from other countries and others who maybe have different opinions about how this should go.
But ultimately, I think that the only chance we have for peace is through the president’s leadership, and you’ve shown that.Cambodia-Thailand conflict Rubio: The president just picks up the phone and tells them to stop fighting. And within 72 hours, the fighting had stopped. There’s no other leader in the world that could have done it.Israel-Gaza conflict Rubio: But suffice it to say, it’s not an exaggeration that none of it would have been possible without the president of the United States being involved.Israel-Gaza conflict Rubio: And because of the work you put in — and honestly there is no — not only is there no other leader in the world that could have put this together, Mr. President.Israel-Gaza conflict Rubio: No other leader in the world could have pulled off what happened in Gaza. But this war is going on, and the president is trying to end it not because — listen, we’ve got a million things to focus on in the world as a country, but he’s the only leader in the world that can help end it.Sudan civil war Rubio: The president’s taken on this issue of Sudan personally, not send out deputies to do it. Again, far away from the United States because he’s the only leader in the world that can bring it about to an end.Leadership Burgum: And it’s your fearlessness to take on the issues that other presidents would not touch, whether it’s the work that we’re doing with successfully streamlining and right-sizing government or whether it’s taking on the issues at the border or whether it’s embracing the power we need to win the arms race, you’re fearlessly doing that.Energy Burgum: You’re perhaps one of the only leaders in the world that understood the connection between peace abroad and prosperity at home was directly connected to energy policy.Israel-Gaza conflict Burgum: It’s such a remarkable accomplishment — agree that no other president could have done this.Immigration Hegseth: It only happens with President Trump leading, and we’re proud to be a part of what’s going on at the border, sir, with now a fourth national defense area where we’re helping get to that number zero in securing the border.Military recruitment Hegseth: In fact, re-enlistment is already met its yearlong goal in the Marine Corps in 2026. You can’t — there’s no other way to create that kind of love and enthusiasm than with your leadership, sir.Venezuela operation Hegseth: No other president would have been willing to empower those warriors that way to be that effective.Healthcare Kennedy: M.F.N. is one of our greatest accomplishments. It would not have happened without you.Job creation Lutnick: And this is all driven by your tariff policies. No chance this’d be happening without you.Trade deals Lutnick: We invented the lightbulb, the transistor, the G.P.U., so they keep buying us. And the only president to ever to understand it, and you understood it in the ’80s and the ’90s.Job creation Lutnick: We’ve got $165 billion for TSMC, but you’re going to watch the whole ecosystem come home because Donald Trump is the only president who understands.Artificial Intelligence Wright: If you had not won the election, we would not have won the A.I. race.Energy Wright: There are a number of stations in the heartland of America with $1.99 signs flying today. That’s simply impossible without the leadership and changes you’ve brought.War Zeldin: And we have never had a president so deeply committed towards ending foreign wars instead of starting new ones.Economy Zeldin: What we are accomplishing now, again, wouldn’t be possible if not for your leadership.Trade deals Greer: That’s who’s coming in to talk to you and to your advisers about how to have reciprocal trade, how to have fair trade. It wouldn’t have happened without you.Trade deals Greer: Now we have the tariffs, and they have lowered their nontariff barriers. We couldn’t have done it without you and the leverage you’ve created.
Notably, some of these talking points are traceable to Mr. Trump himself.
For instance, he has repeatedly claimed that Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Gaza “would not have happened” if he had been president. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Mr. Rubio have echoed this in cabinet meetings.
In a meeting on Jan. 26, Kelly Loeffler, the small business administrator, said Mr. Trump had “ended at least eight wars,” and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Mr. Trump’s tariffs were bringing in “tens of trillions of investments.” Mr. Trump has also espoused some version of both claims, even though they are misleading.
Officials have also frequently criticized former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party, copying Mr. Trump’s pattern of assigning blame to Mr. Biden.
Flattery of Mr. Trump is not enough to keep the job, however. Four of Mr. Trump’s cabinet officials have been fired or resigned this year, and he may be considering removing more.
Below, explore other things cabinet officials have said to Mr. Trump during their meetings.
Americans are grateful for Trump
Bessent: In the diner, the staff there was thanking you for the no tax on tips, and they’re expecting big refunds from that.Burgum: Everybody I’ve met, whether it’s in a coal mine or at the border, law enforcement, the one thing they say on those trips is please thank President Trump from all of us, the change that you’re making.Burgum: They all wanted to say thank you to you.Burgum: But on behalf of all law enforcement, we say thank you.Loeffler: I’m out on a made-in-America manufacturing tour and, as I go across the country, people are grateful to have a president who’s not just fighting on the tariff fronts, but to get inflation down, to create jobs.Loeffler: So, the American worker is grateful.Loeffler: Main Street is grateful for you and, at the agency level, we’re making sure that manufacturers have access to the capital they need.Loeffler: And then finally, I have walked factory floors from Alaska to Maine, and the workers, the small businesses — most manufacturers in this country are small businesses, 600,000 of them — they are so grateful to your fair-trade, low-inflation, deregulation agenda that is creating national security and economic security in this country like never before.Loeffler: Hard-working families, farmers, small businesses expressing gratitude, lined up to thank you.Loeffler: And as I walk through the factory floors, they all ask me to thank you for fighting for their jobs, for these industries and for the people who are creating things from pharmaceuticals to aerospace to food and all these essentials that this nation needs to be independent and strong.Hegseth: So, from the troops directly, which they ask me to say all the time, thank you for your leadership, for your boldness, for your clarity, for common sense, for providing a shield for the rest of us to put America first and to apply peace through strength.Rollins: And I think they are really, really excited and so grateful for your leadership. Everything possible under his leadership
Rubio: And again, it’s under your leadership, it’s actually under your executive order.Rubio: But you think about it, under your leadership, we prevented an end to the war between India and Pakistan.Rubio: And obviously, it’s under your leadership.Bessent: We are — America under your leadership is on the verge of becoming an A.I. superpower that our economy had become barbelled.Bessent: Trade, taxes and deregulation, the One Big Beautiful Bill under your leadership, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune have done a great job.Burgum: So, we have an opportunity under your leadership to come back.Loeffler: I have to tell you, under your leadership, Main Street is open for business again.Loeffler: And we’ve already seen under your leadership, the jobs economy is back, manufacturing jobs are back.Loeffler: And so I want to also finally thank you for bringing faith back to the White House, to this administration. I want to thank Brooke for hosting the cabinet Bible study and invite everyone tomorrow to Bible study and making this country something that we can be so proud of under your leadership.Kennedy: Two weeks ago, we ended, under your leadership, a 20-year war on women by removing the black box warnings from hormone replacement therapy.Rollins: At U.S. Department of Agriculture, the people’s department — Abraham Lincoln launched this department in 1862. But under your leadership we have finally again put farmers and ranchers and rural America first.Wright: Under your leadership, what we’ve seen in the United States is just a steady drop in the price of gasoline, a huge consumer cost for Americans.Wright: We hope the blue states will come along with us, but your policies are going to start the decline of electricity prices nationwide under your leadership, by just bringing back common sense.Duffy: And so under your leadership and direction, we are making those investments.Turner: And I believe that we are, under your leadership, sir, changing that conversation in America to where working is an honorable thing.Ratcliffe: But under your leadership and your direction, we have been focused back on the core mission of what C.I.A. is supposed to be doing, which is to provide you and this entire incredible team around the table with a decisive, strategic advantage in accomplishing your goals.
Attacks on Biden
Rubio: For some of us who served in Congress, recognize that about a year and a half ago, we had a meltdown under Biden.Bessent: The average budget deficit during this term is 26 percent less than the last 12 months under Biden.Bessent: Sir, when we came in, the Biden administration had destroyed the American people with the three I’s: immigration, inflation and interest rates.Burgum: There’s 500 million acres of surface, 700 million acres of subsurface and 2.5 billion acres of offshore, and the Biden administration was trying to restrict this so that you couldn’t get a timber lease, you couldn’t cut a tree, you couldn’t graze a cow.Burgum: And this was essential because it was the signal that we’re going to go 180 degrees from the disastrous and dangerous Biden policies that were based on a climate ideology that was the root cause of the inflation in this country.Burgum: This is a plant that would have been in a mining operation that would have been shut down under the Biden administration.Burgum: The Biden administration put us in a real predicament right now, the whole trade team, the whole cabinet.Burgum: Biden wasn’t enforcing the border laws.Loeffler: After Biden destroyed 110,000 manufacturing jobs in just his last year, you’ve already brought back thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs.Loeffler: So, we’ve modified our loan applications to have citizenship verification, to make sure we have birth dates, common-sense principles around lending that the Biden administration had waived.Loeffler: So on Main Street, the economy is coming back, thanks to your leadership, thanks to getting Biden inflation under control.Loeffler: But probably the most important and underreported war that this president ended was Joe Biden and the Democrats’ war on Main Street and hard-working families.Hegseth: You saw the debacle of what Biden allowed to happen in Afghanistan and what that did to our image.Hegseth: If you look at what happened, we deal with every day the outcome of what happened in Afghanistan, the debacle under Joe Biden.Hegseth: And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed them to come across the border, cartels take over community, 20 million people, hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned.Kennedy: And during the Biden administration, H.H.S. became a collaborator in child trafficking and for sex and for — for slavery.Kennedy: That’s 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.Kennedy: It never got implemented because the Biden administration never enforced it.Rollins: I think the first thing that’s really remarkable to note is that the prices of eggs under the four years of Joe Biden increased 237 percent.Rollins: Under the four years of Joe Biden, we had the cost of input go up 30 percent for all of our agriculture products.Rollins: And then under Joe Biden, we sold $49 billion less of our ag products around the world.Rollins: Under the Joe Biden administration, there was a 30 percent increase in the cost of inputs.Rollins: After four years of Biden, that hit $ 50 billion because they just didn’t make an effort.Rollins: This family was indicted, prosecuted, threatened with jail time, told to find guardians for their children over a fence line dispute that the Biden D.O.J. pushed forward.Rollins: All of this came about under Joe Biden, a 47 percent increase in the cost of labor that now Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and Noem and I are working on.Rollins: But under the Biden administration and the destruction of our economy and the cost of inflation, interest rates for farmers and ranchers went up 73 percent, labor went up 47 percent, fertilizer went up 36 percent, fuel went up 28 percent.Rollins: As Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40 percent.Rollins: Having said that, we do have a bridge payment we’ll be announcing with you next week as we’re still trying to recover from the Biden years.Vance: Just on that topic, if you think about what happened with the Abraham Accords, one of the great diplomatic breakthroughs under the first Trump administration really in the last 30 or 40 years of American history in the Middle East, and the Biden administration did absolutely nothing with it.Vance: Purely out of political spite, the Biden administration, I think, hurt the United States and really hurt the project of world peace.Vance: You heard, I think, Kristi talk about this, that all of the net job growth under the Biden administration had gone to the foreign-born.Vance: And of course, Mr. President, you yourself talked about the inflation mess that we inherited under the Biden administration.Vance: Maybe the most striking and even shocking statistic of the Biden administration is that housing costs have gone up by 100 percent over the four years of the Biden administration, literally doubled, making the American dream of homeownership unaffordable.Vance: I think the most important statistic for the American people is that under the Biden administration, the average American family lost over $3,000 of household income and under the first 10 months of this Trump administration, they have gained over $1,000 of household income.Vance: What that says very clearly is that we are fixing the problem that Joe Biden and the Democrats created in the last administration.Vance: If you look at every affordability crisis that’s confronting the American people today, it is traceable directly to a problem caused by Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.Vance: I think that we’ve done incredibly good, but what I see over the next year, and you heard Brooke talk about joy and gratitude, what I really think this season represents for me and I think for the entire administration, is that we have now done incredible work to fix what Joe Biden broke, and I think the next year in American growth and American prosperity could be the best year that we’ve had in the United States of America.Lutnick: The Biden CHIPS Act was a $60 billion giveaway, right?Wright: The Biden administration grew my department, the Department of Energy, by 20 percent and expenditure much more than that, all in an effort to reduce the production of energy in the United States and to make energy more expensive.Wright: Under your leadership, we’re unleashing consumer products that Americans wanted to buy that Biden was making illegal.Wright: Unfortunately, Biden brought all of us a lot of inflation.Wright: Secretary Burgum at the Interior Department has taken in more money on oil and gas lease sales in the first year of this administration than the entire four years of the Biden administration.Wright: Over 200 people died in a smaller cold snap during the Biden administration.Wright: If we’d continued the Biden era policies for one more year, continued to shut down coal plants, continued these crazy climate restrictions that wouldn’t even let power plants run at maximum — at maximum demand time.Wright: We would have had significant blackouts at these peak cold times and, extrapolating from the last storm during the Biden administration, I think at least hundreds of deaths.Zeldin: They received only $100 in 2023, and then the Biden administration gave them $2 billion.Zeldin: Mr. President, at the Biden E.P.A., the Green New Deal was raging. At the Biden E.P.A., we saw billions of tax dollars burning. At the Biden E.P.A., we saw industries suffocating.Zeldin: We’re going to be giving our director of the O.M.B. a whole lot of work because we inherited a big mess from the Biden E.P.A.Zeldin: The Biden E.P.A. gave $50 million to a group that says climate justice runs through a free Palestine.Zeldin: We consolidated real estate, canceled expensive media subscriptions and closed the Biden E.P.A. museum that none of you knew even existed. I’m sure none of you actually visited.Zeldin: To put it another way, in 2024, the Biden E.P.A. obligated and spent over $60 billion in one year, an agency with an operational budget of about $10 billion a year.Zeldin: In their own words, caught on camera, they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic, wasting precious tax dollars to pay off well-connected Obama and Biden officials.Zeldin: The Biden E.P.A., in fact, was amending grant agreements just days before you came into office to reduce agency oversight.Greer: You came into an emergency situation where President Biden left us with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit.Greer: When you look at President Biden, in the last quarter of 2024, median weekly earnings fell 2.1 percent.Duffy: Biden had the social cost of credit when we build infrastructure, roads and bridges, adding 3 to 5 percent on infrastructure costs.Duffy: By the way, we shouldn’t have dealt with this because Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg had moved the center from New York to Philadelphia.Turner: And at HUD, we want to make sure that the resources that we have now, which is American taxpayer dollars and the Biden administration, they prioritize illegal aliens over the American people.Vought: When you came into office, you basically stopped $200 billion in cost to American families just by stopping the Biden regulatory agenda.
Trump deserves credit Rubio: Mr. President, you deserve tremendous credit for that.Rubio: And frankly, I think countries around the world, even those that are out there complaining about this a little bit, should actually be grateful that the United States has a president that’s willing to confront a threat like this and not allow it to continue to persist, because these people will kill as many Americans as they have a chance to do.Rubio: Mr. President, I think you deserve a lot of credit for two things.Rubio: And so, on all these things, Mr. President, I think you deserve tremendous credit for the transformational aspect of our foreign policy.Rubio: First of all, this is a very talented team, as you’ve seen and as you know because you picked every single one that’s on. You deserve tremendous credit for doing that.Kennedy: You should also get bipartisan accolades on the M.F.N. agreement.Kennedy: It will affect every American for 100 years, and you should be getting bipartisan accolades on that.Vance: Completely aside from the fact that I think it’s a good thing or I think that President Trump deserves political credit for it, why did we go from a military where people didn’t want to serve to now all of a sudden they do want to serve?Greer: And I think you should be commended for it, and we look forward to seeing what comes in the next few years.
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President Donald Trump is pressuring Muslim-majority nations to join the Abraham Accords if they want to participate in a developing Iran agreement, according to multiple reports.
The Abraham Accords are a series of agreements aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority nations.
PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS DEAL WITH IRAN IS ‘LARGELY NEGOTIATED’
President Donald Trump attends and claps during the signing ceremony of the Peace Charter for Gaza at the 56th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026. (Harun Ozalp/Anadolu)
Trump said Saturday that he urged Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan to normalize relations with Israel during a phone call with regional leaders.
“I stated that, after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
TRUMP SAYS MORE NATIONS LINING UP TO JOIN ABRAHAM ACCORDS AFTER KAZAKHSTAN
President Donald Trump holds a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 29, 2025. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The president also said he planned to speak with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The UAE and Bahrain became the first two nations to sign the accords in 2020.
Trump also floated the idea that Iran could eventually become part of the Abraham Accords.
US MILITARY IS ‘IRON SHIELD’ PROTECTING AMERICAN BASES, LIVES FROM IRAN PROXIES: HEGSETH
President Donald Trump and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia pause for photographs along the West Wing Colonnade at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 18, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“In speaking to numerous of the Great Leaders mentioned above, they would be honored, as soon as our Document is signed, to have the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of the Abraham Accords. Wow, now that would be something special,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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U.S. and Israeli officials do not expect the UAE to move forward on the issue until after Israel’s elections in September.
A coalition of conservation groups wants Southern California to get 85% of its water locally, up from the 50% it gets now, by 2045, and says a new plan shows how.
It’s urging state leaders to scrap plans for a 45-mile tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and consider asking voters to approve a bond measure to fund local water solutions. The 34-page strategy was released as critical decisions loom for local officials, California’s next governor and legislators.
Over the last century, Southern California has grown and thrived thanks to giant aqueducts it built to bring water from hundreds of miles away — the Eastern Sierra, the Colorado River and Northern California.
But with water costs rising and climate change jeopardizing these distant sources, there is growing interest in finding ways to get more water locally.
The allied groups are calling for recycling more wastewater, capturing more stormwater, improving efficiency and cleaning up contaminated groundwater.
“We have to prioritize our investments, and prioritizing them in local water makes the most sense,” said Bruce Reznik, executive director of the group Los Angeles Waterkeeper.
The coalition includes fishing groups, environmental organizations and Northern California’s Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Its plan calls for a “new urban water renaissance” in California that prioritizes local water. This approach would reliably yield more and cost far less than Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project beneath the Delta.
The state estimated in 2024 the tunnel would cost $20.1 billion, but opponents say it could cost three to five times more.
“Local water is reliable, it’s more affordable, and it’s more flexible, so that we’re not committing California ratepayers to higher bills that they don’t need,” said Kyle Jones, a water expert and consultant who helped prepare the plan for the coalition.
Southern California imports about half of its water from other regions.
The coalition’s plan says the region can secure up to 2 million acre-feet of local water per year. It estimates the costs of more conservation and efficiency, more stormwater and groundwater cleaning, and more water recycling at $44 billion over two decades. The Delta tunnel, in contrast, could cost $60 billion to $100 billion, it says.
Whether the tunnel project is ultimately built may hinge on whether large water agencies, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, decide to participate and pay for it.
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1. Cranes rise above the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. 2. When completed, Los Angeles will nearly double recycled water for 500,000 residents. 3. Storage tanks sit behind a fence before being placed in the ground at the plant. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“Metropolitan Water District really does have a significant choice on it, that not just impacts their ratepayers but impacts every single person in the state,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta. “Are we going to spend $20, $60, maybe upward to $100 million on a tunnel? Or are we going to invest significant money in local solutions that provide water resiliency and sustainability for everyone in California? That is what is at stake right now.”
The Metropolitan Water District already is planning a large new facility in Carson to transform wastewater into purified drinking water. Los Angeles and San Diego are also building water recycling plants.
“At the same time, water imported from the northern Sierra and the Colorado River provides the foundation of water supply reliability for Southern California,” said Shivaji Deshmukh, the MWD’s general manager.
He noted that the MWD invests in water efficiency and capturing stormwater, and has helped reduce per-person water use by more than 40% since 1990.
The agency’s 38-member board last year adopted a climate adaptation strategy that sets goals for lining up additional water.
Los Angeles city leaders and L.A. County supervisors have also set goals for becoming more locally self-sufficient.
The advocates who wrote the policy plan said these efforts should accelerate and expand. They pointed out that the Colorado River’s reservoirs are falling to perilously low levels, and native fish in the Delta are in decline as the pumping of water takes an ecological toll.
“Climate change is exacerbating the challenges in those ecosystems, meaning that less and less water will be available to import,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy advisor for the group Defenders of Wildlife. “All the while, the cost of water is continuing to rise.”
About 20 other environmental groups endorsed the coalition’s strategy.
“We have got to do a better job in the next 100 years than we did in the last 100 years, if we truly want to create a place of abundance once again,” said Frankie Myers, a member of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California. “This idea that we can steal … and divert water however we want with no consequences has got to end.”
Construction continues at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys in October 2025.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Benjamin Bass, a UCLA scientist who studies how climate change is affecting the Colorado River and other water sources, joined the group as they presented their proposal in an online briefing.
“Traditional sources for imported water are less reliable than they used to be,” Bass said. “The most reliable source of water in the future is local water.”
Other experts have reached similar conclusions.
Researchers at the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in Oakland, have examined improvements such as fixing leaks in pipes, switching out inefficient washing machines and toilets, and replacing thirsty lawns with plants suited to the state’s Mediterranean climate.
In a 2022 report, they found that a set of standard practices and technologies could reduce total urban water use by 30% or more.
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