Politics
Opinion: The delusions that won the Iowa caucuses
Does anyone believe that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley truly stands a chance of becoming the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee? It’s a scenario that is increasingly hard to imagine.
That is because the Iowa caucuses went almost exactly as predicted: Former President Trump wiped the floor with his rivals, while the two of them battled for second place. DeSantis, despite pulling ahead in that battle, is staring down the end of his presidential ambitions.
As has become the case with today’s GOP, reality took a back seat to fantasy. Everyone declared themselves a winner.
Opinion Columnist
Robin Abcarian
“In spite of all that they threw at us, everyone against us,” said DeSantis, “we got our ticket punched out of Iowa.” (There’s a brick wall waiting for him in New Hampshire.)
“Tonight,” Haley told her supporters, “Iowa made this primary a two-person race.”
Did it, though?
Haley is expected to fare better next week in New Hampshire, where the conservative electorate is less rigidly ideological than in Iowa, and of course in South Carolina, where she is a native daughter. Even if Haley miraculously beats or comes close to Trump in New Hampshire, his iron grip on the party will be hard to shake. Every indictment, every court hearing seems to reinforce his perceived status as a persecuted victim of the Democratic Party in general and President Biden in particular.
While Haley and DeSantis at least acknowledged they were still competing for a presidential nomination, Trump, in his typically grandiose style, behaved as if he’d already won the general.
Monday in his victory speech, he called for national unity in the same way he called for Jan. 6 protesters to remain peaceful — that is to say, completely disingenuously.
“This is time now for everybody, our country, to come together, we want to come together,” he said as he launched into rambling, off-the-cuff remarks. “Whether it’s Republican or Democrat, or liberal or conservative, it would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world.”
But Trump’s gotta Trump. He simply could not sustain the unity theme: “I don’t want to be overly rough on the president,” he said, “but I have to say that he is the worst president that we’ve had in the history of our country. He is destroying our country.”
The Trump blowout in Iowa pretty much answered the question that Haley posed to her supporters late Monday evening: “Do you want more of the same? Or do you want a new generation of conservative leaders?”
Sorry, Governor, but it appears they want more of the same.
They want more of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, more of his immigrant-bashing, more of his fantasies about how, on his watch, Russia wouldn’t have dared invade Ukraine and Hamas wouldn’t have dared invade Israel. They want more of his apocalyptic rhetoric about the border, about how “mental institutions and insane asylums” are “being emptied out into our country.” They want to hear more about Jan. 6 “hostages” and about how, on Biden’s watch, the United States is being invaded by terrorists, “some of them really bad.”
Trump’s hold on the imaginations, not to mention the moral compasses, of his supporters shows little sign of weakening. Entrance polls conducted for the major television networks found that nearly two-thirds of Iowa’s Republican caucus-goers do not believe that Biden won the 2020 election. About the same proportion said they would vote for Trump even if he were a convicted criminal.
On Tuesday, as Haley appeared in New Hampshire and DeSantis touched down briefly in South Carolina before heading north, Trump showed up in a New York federal courtroom.
There, he once again faced the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room years ago. She already won a civil case against him, and $5 million in damages for lies he told about her before he was president. This trial will determine how much he should pay for defaming her while he was president. (She is asking for $10 million.)
“The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused — indeed, raped — Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case,” said U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
The trial has an ouroboros quality about it. On Monday while Trump was in court, his Truth Social account blasted out claims that he’d never met Carroll. As long as Trump continues to deny raping Carroll, or even knowing her, she can theoretically just keep suing him for damages, ad infinitum.
Not that the base cares. As polls have shown, his legal woes are a big part of his political appeal. If Haley or DeSantis could just get themselves arrested for something, anything, they might stand a chance against him.
Politics
Video: President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
new video loaded: President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
transcript
transcript
President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
Marijuana was downgraded from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug on Thursday. The reclassification does not legalize cannabis, but it does ease restrictions on the substance and allows for more research.
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Today, I’m pleased to announce that I will be signing an executive order to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance with legitimate medical uses. We have people begging for me to do this. I want to emphasize that the order I am about to sign is not the legalization or it doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape, or form, and in no way sanctions its use as a recreational drug — has nothing to do with that.
December 18, 2025
Politics
Trump quietly signs sweeping $901B defense bill after bipartisan Senate passage
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President Trump signed into law a nearly $1 trillion defense policy bill Thursday and approved what looks to be the largest military spending package in U.S. history.
The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $901 billion in military spending, roughly $8 billion more than the administration requested, according to Reuters.
It also delivers a nearly 4 percent pay raise for troops, provides new funding for Ukraine and the Baltic States, and includes measures designed to scale back security commitments abroad.
In a release shared online, Rep. Rick Allen said: “With President Trump’s signature, the FY2026 NDAA officially delivers on our peace-through-strength agenda with a generational investment in our national defense.”
TRUMP ADMIN ANNOUNCES $11B TAIWAN ARMS SALES DEAL
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. December 11, 2025. (Al Drago/Reuters)
“Not only does this bipartisan bill ensure America’s warfighters are the most lethal and capable fighting force in the world, but it also improves the quality of life for our service members in the 12th District and nationwide,” he added.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, the Senate passed the NDAA on Wednesday, sending the compromise bill approved with bipartisan support to the president’s desk.
Trump signed it quietly Thursday evening, according to Reuters.
The NDAA includes $800 million for Ukraine over the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays US firms for weapons for Ukraine’s military.
It also includes $175 million for the Baltic Security Initiative, which supports Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
TRUMP TOUTS BRINGING COUNTRY BACK FROM ‘BRINK OF RUIN’
President Donald Trump announced his proposal for a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system in the United States on May 20, 2025. (Reuters/Leah Millis/File Photo; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The bill prohibits reducing U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000 for more than 45 days without formal certification by Congress.
The legislation also restricts the administration from reducing U.S. forces in South Korea below 28,500 troops.
Trump ultimately backed the bill in part because it codifies some of his executive orders, including funding the Golden Dome missile defense system and getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, per Reuters.
TRUMP TO HAND OUT $2.6B IN ‘WARRIOR DIVIDENDS’ — AND THE SURPRISING POT HE’S PULLING THE MONEY FROM
The seal of the Department of War is displayed inside the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (elal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Under President Trump, the U.S. is rebuilding strength, restoring deterrence, and proving America will not back down. President Trump and Republicans promised peace through strength. The FY26 NDAA delivers it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson had said in a statement Dec. 7 on the new measures.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Politics
State regulators vote to keep utility profits high, angering customers across California
Despite complaints from customers about rising electric bills, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 4 to 1 on Thursday to keep profits at Southern California Edison and the state’s other big investor-owned utilities at a level that consumer groups say has long been inflated.
The commission vote will slightly decrease the profit margins of Edison and three other big utilities beginning next year. Edison’s rate will fall to 10.03% from 10.3%.
Customers will see little impact in their bills from the decision. Because the utilities are continuing to spend more on wires and other infrastructure — capital costs that they earn profit on — that portion of customer bills is expected to continue to rise.
The vote angered consumer groups that had detailed in filings and hearings at the commission how the utilities’ return on equity — which sets the profit rate that the companies’ shareholders receive — had long been too high.
Among those testifying on behalf of consumers was Mark Ellis, the former chief economist for Sempra, the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas. Ellis estimated that the companies’ profit margin should be closer to 6%.
He argued in a filing that the California commission had for years authorized the utilities to earn an excessive return on equity, resulting in an “unnecessary and unearned wealth transfer” from customers to the companies.
Cutting the return on equity to a little more than 6% would give Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, SDG&E and SoCalGas a fair return, Ellis said, while saving their customers $6.1 billion a year.
The four commissioners who voted to keep the return on equity at about 10% — the percentage varies slightly for each company — said they believed they had found a balance between the 11% or higher rate that the four utilities had requested and the affordability concerns of utility customers.
Alice Reynolds, the commission’s president, said before the vote that she believed the decision “accurately reflects the evidence.”
Commissioner Darcie Houck disagreed and voted against the proposal. In her remarks, she detailed how California ratepayers were struggling to pay their bills.
“We have a duty to consider the consumer interest in determining what is a just and reasonable rate,” she said.
Consumer groups criticized the commission’s vote.
“For too long, utility companies have been extracting unreasonable profits from Californians just trying to heat or cool their homes or keep the lights on,” said Jenn Engstrom at CALPIRG. “As long as CPUC allows such lofty rates of return, it incentivizes power companies to overspend, increasing energy bills for everyone.”
California now has the nation’s second-highest electric rates after Hawaii.
Edison’s electric rates have risen by more than 40% in the last three years, according to a November analysis by the commission’s Public Advocates Office. More than 830,000 Edison customers are behind in paying their electric bills, the office said, each owing a balance of $835 on average.
The commission’s vote Thursday was in response to a March request from Edison and the three other big for-profit utilities. The companies pointed to the January wildfires in Los Angeles County, saying they needed to provide their shareholders with more profit to get them to continue to invest in their stock because of the threat of utility-caused fires in California.
In its filing, Edison asked for a return on equity of 11.75%, saying that it faced “elevated business risks,” including “the risk of extreme wildfires.”
The company told the commission that its stock had declined after the Jan. 7 Eaton fire and it needed the higher return on equity to attract investors to provide it with money for “wildfire mitigation and supporting California’s clean energy transition.”
Edison is facing hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena. The company has said the fire may have been sparked by its 100-year-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which it kept in place even though it hadn’t served customers since 1971.
Return on equity is crucial for utilities because it determines how much they and their shareholders earn each year on the electric lines, substations, pipelines and the rest of the system they build to serve customers.
Under the state’s system for setting electric rates, investors provide part of the money needed to build the infrastructure and then earn an annual return on that investment over the assets’ life, which can be 30 or 40 years.
In a January report, state legislative analyst Gabriel Petek detailed how electric rates at Edison and the state’s two other biggest investor-owned electric utilities were more than 60% higher than those charged by public utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The public utilities don’t have investors or charge customers extra for profit.
Before the vote, dozens of utility customers from across the state wrote to the commission’s five members, who were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking them to lower the utilities’ return on equity.
“A profit margin of 10% on infrastructure improvements is far too high and will only continue to increase the cost of living in California,” wrote James Ward, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident. “I just wish I could get a guaranteed profit margin of 10% on my investments.”
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