Politics
Mexico's president announces 'pause' in relationship with U.S. Embassy after criticism from ambassador
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a “pause” in his nation’s relations with the United States and Canadian embassies after the ambassadors from those countries criticized his plan to dramatically overhaul the justice system.
“They have to learn to respect the sovereignty of Mexico,” López Obrador told journalists Tuesday morning at his daily news conference.
His comments came after U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar and his Canadian counterpart expressed their concern about sweeping changes proposed by López Obrador to Mexico’s courts.
Under the plan, which the president hopes to push through Congress during his final month in office, federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court, would lose their jobs, and their replacements would be elected by popular vote.
López Obrador contends that the courts, which have ruled against several of his legislative efforts in recent years, are corrupt.
Federal court workers shout slogans during a protest in Mexico City on Monday against a proposal that would make all judges stand for election.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
His critics say there’s no evidence of that, and that putting judges up for election would politicize the judiciary and give even more power to López Obrador’s ruling Morena party. Last week, thousands of judges and other court employees walked off the job in protest. Over the weekend, marchers took to the streets in more than a dozen cities to oppose the changes.
Concern about the implications of López Obrador’s comments sent the peso tumbling. Several U.S. banks have warned in recent weeks that the proposed judicial overhaul poses serious financial risks for Mexico and could damage bilateral trade.
The U.S. and Canadian embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Salazar came out publicly against the president’s plan last week, saying the overhaul would “threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”
“Direct elections would also make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges,” said Salazar, who before becoming ambassador served as a senator, Interior secretary and as Colorado’s attorney general.
“Based on my lifelong experience supporting the rule of law, I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy,” he said.
That outraged López Obrador, who called Salazar’s comments “disrespectful.” He said Mexico had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. complaining that the ambassador’s comments “represent an unacceptable interference, a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”
When López Obrador was asked on Tuesday whether he was in dialogue with Salazar, the president said that his relationship with the ambassador had been “on pause.”
“We are not going to tell him to leave the country,” the president said of Salazar. “But we do have to read him the Constitution — it is like reading him the riot act.”
He said his government was abstaining from communication with the U.S. and Canadian embassies. But the broader U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship continued as normal, he said.
López Obrador, a left-leaning populist with high approval ratings, has long criticized the United States for intervening in Mexico’s domestic affairs.
His administration’s cooperation with U.S. law enforcement officials has deteriorated since he accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating a case against a former Mexican defense minister who was arrested by American authorities in 2020. López Obrador successfully pressured the U.S. to drop all charges against the general and return him to Mexico.
López Obrador first proposed the judicial reform in February, after several of his legislative initiatives, including controversial changes to the country’s elections institute, were hamstrung by Supreme Court rulings.
He has complained that judges on the nation’s highest court are part of a “power mafia” and says they and other members of the judiciary should be elected just like the president or senators.
Along with changing how judges are chosen, the proposal would also reduce their terms, tie their salaries to those of the executive branch and create a judicial disciplinary tribunal whose members are elected by popular vote for terms that coincide with the six-year presidential term.
Most sitting judges, including those on the Supreme Court, would have to conclude their term when newly elected judges were sworn in.
Few countries elect Supreme Court judges by popular vote.
An analysis of the proposed reform carried out by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Stanford Law School Rule of Law Impact Lab and the Mexican Bar Assn. found that the proposals, if approved, “would undermine the foundation of the rule of law in Mexico.”
“These proposals constitute a direct threat to judicial independence,” it said. “They violate international legal standards on the independence, impartiality, and competence of the judiciary.”
López Obrador’s proposal has also drawn criticism from the U.S. Senate, with several key members of the Foreign Relations Committee issuing a statement Tuesday warning that the proposed judicial reforms “would undermine the independence and transparency of the country’s judiciary, jeopardizing critical economic and security interests shared by our two nations.”
In Mexico, many questioned López Obrador’s decision to inflame tensions with the U.S. weeks before his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is sworn in to office Oct. 1. A member of López Obrador’s Morena party and his longtime political protege, Sheinbaum has said she supports the judicial overhaul.
On Tuesday, she said she also supported López Obrador’s decision to suspend relations with the U.S. Embassy “in the face of the insult levied by the ambassador.”
“There are issues that correspond exclusively to Mexicans and are for Mexicans to decide,” she said.
Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
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Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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