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      Democrats’ US tour gathers support in fight against Trump: ‘Get angry, man’

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      A Minnesota veteran who found work at the Veterans Benefits Administration after suffering two traumatic brain injuries on overseas deployments stood in front of hundreds of people and five Democratic state attorneys general on Thursday night and recalled the moment she learned she lost her job.“All I was given was a Post-it note,” Joy Marver said, inspiring gasps and boos from a raucous crowd. “The Post-it note contained just the HR email address and my supervisor’s phone number. This came from an external source. Doge terminated me. No one in my chain of command knew I was being terminated. No one knew. It took two weeks to get my termination email sent to me.”The firing was so demoralizing she said she considered driving her truck off a bridge but instead went into the VA for crisis care.“Don’t fuck with a veteran,” she concluded.The story was one of many shared by former federal workers and others impacted by the Trump administration’s policies during a town hall in St Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, part of a national tour that has offered an avenue for grievances against Donald Trump’s first two months, but also a way to gather evidence for ongoing lawsuits, totaling about 10 so far, that Democratic attorneys general have filed against the Trump administration.“Everybody’s putting in double duty. But the point is, we’re absolutely up to it. We got four and a half years of gas in our tanks, and we’re here to fight for the American people all the way through,” Ellison told reporters before the event began.The community impact hearings, as they’re calling them, kicked off in Arizona earlier this month and will continue in Oregon, Colorado, Vermont and New York, the attorneys general said. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Kris Mayes of Arizona, Letitia James of New York, Matthew Platkin of New Jersey and Kwame Raoul of Illinois attended the event in Minnesota on Thursday, where the crowd filled a high school auditorium and spilled into an overflow room.Attendees were given the opportunity to take the mic and share their stories.Another veteran who worked at the Veterans Benefit Administration was fired via email by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, she said. She was part of the probationary employee purge, and her supervisors didn’t know she was let go. She recalled that her boss’ response to her firing was: “WTF”.A probationary employee at an unnamed federal agency said she was also let go. She interviewed and did background checks for 11 months to secure her federal role. “Now we are forced to put our plans of starting a family, of owning a home on hold indefinitely, and I feel that this disruption of this dream will be felt for the rest of our lives,” she said.A former employee of 18F, the federal government’s digital services agency, said they were laid off in the middle of the night on a weekend. “I’m grieving. We didn’t deserve this,” they said. A former USAID worker said she watched as Doge moved through the agency, accessing files and threatening employees if they spoke up, before she was fired.After several probationary employees shared their stories, Arizona’s Mayes cut in to ask whether the Trump administration or their agencies had reached out to rehire them. The Democratic attorneys general secured a win in a lawsuit over these firings, and a judge ruled they needed to be reinstated. If that wasn’t happening, Mayes said, they needed to know.“We can bring a motion to enforce,” Ellison explained. “We can bring, perhaps, a motion for contempt. There’s a lot of things. But if we don’t know that, we certainly can’t do anything.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore the town hall began, the attorneys general said that they had secured temporary restraining orders halting or reversing Trump administration directives in nearly all of their cases so far. In several instances, they have had to file additional actions to get the administration to comply with the orders. In a case that ended a “pause” on federal grants, for example, the pause was ended – but some programs still were not restarted. James said they had to file a motion to enforce to get those programs running again.Trans people shared how the Trump administration’s disdain for their community was affecting them. A young trans athlete was kicked off her softball team, her mom shared. A trans veteran was worried about her access to life-saving healthcare. Doctors who treat trans youth said their patients are on edge.Immigrants and people from mixed-status families talked about the specter of deportation and how the threat loomed over their day to day. One woman said her mother’s partner was deported, as was her husband’s uncle. She worries daily whether her mom is next. “The Trump administration has impacted me deeply during these past two months alone, but more than ever, we have to come together organized because I’ll be damned if they keep hurting my family,” she said.Suzanne Kelly, the CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches, said her organization, which helps resettle refugees, is losing $4m in federal funds that would go directly to their clients, an amount that can’t be replaced with local dollars. She has had to lay off 26 employees, most of whom are refugees or asylees themselves. Refugees they were expecting to help are now stranded overseas in refugee camps, she said. People already here will lose rental aid and other assistance.“Whatever your faith tradition, please pray with us for those individuals, and pray with us for this country. We’re better than this,” Kelly said.After two hours of testimony a Minnesota activist stood up and shared their vision of the way forward: “The first step of that call to action is just to get fucking angry, man.” More

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      in Elections

      Nonprofit’s Leader Convicted of Siphoning Off $240 Million in Federal Food Aid

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      Aimee Bock was accused of overseeing a scheme that exploited lax pandemic-era controls, and reaped millions with fake invoices for nonexistent meals.The leader of a Minnesota anti-hunger nonprofit was convicted in U.S. District Court on Wednesday of masterminding a brazen scheme that reaped more than $240 million in pandemic relief funds with a network of bogus food kitchens that billed the government for 91 million meals.The nonprofit’s leader, Aimee Bock, 44, was convicted by a jury of seven counts, including wire fraud and bribery. Another defendant, Salim Said — a 36-year-old who oversaw one of the bogus kitchens — was convicted of 20 counts, also including wire fraud and bribery.When Ms. Bock was charged in 2022, federal prosecutors said her scheme was the largest known fraud against the government’s Covid-19 relief programs.At least 70 people were charged in the scheme, and more than 40 have already pleaded guilty or been convicted. Last year, another case related to the same scandal made national news, when someone attempted to bribe a juror in a separate trial by leaving about $120,000 in cash at her home in a Hallmark gift bag. Five people were later charged with bribery in that case.After Wednesday’s verdicts were read, Judge Nancy Brasel ordered that Ms. Bock and Mr. Said remain in jail to await their sentencing, according to a report from the courtroom by The Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom. The charges carry potential sentences of more than a decade in prison.The fraud scheme targeted two programs meant to feed hungry children, which were funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by the state of Minnesota. The system relied on nonprofit groups called “sponsors” to be its watchdogs. They were supposed to oversee individual kitchens and feeding sites and make sure they were not inflating the number of children they served.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Control of Minnesota House Split After Democrat Wins Special Election

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      Republicans in the Minnesota House lost a one-seat edge in the Capitol, where tensions over party dominance have simmered for weeks.A Democrat won a special election for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, returning partisan control of that chamber to an even split during an unusually acrimonious legislative session.The seat, in a heavily Democratic district north of St. Paul, has been at the center of a weekslong fight for power that led House Democrats to boycott the early weeks of the state’s lawmaking session.David Gottfried, the Democrat and a Minnesota native who works at a law firm, defeated Paul Wikstrom, a Republican who is an engineer and had sought the seat previously.The election leaves each party with 67 seats in the chamber, ending a brief period during which Republicans had a one-seat majority. Even with Democrats securing the additional seat, the even split means that Democrats do not hold full control of the Legislature and the Governor’s Mansion as they did the previous two years.The Minnesota Senate is also closely divided. Senators began the session with an even split, but a special election held in late January gave Democrats a one-seat majority.Tuesday’s special election came after a judge ruled late last year that the candidate who won the Minnesota House seat in November, Curtis Johnson, a Democrat, had not met residency requirements for the district. Mr. Wikstrom, an engineer, was also the Republican candidate in that race, and lost by 30 percentage points.The fight over control of the Legislature underscored the challenges that Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, came home to face after spending much of last year campaigning for vice president.The early weeks of the legislative session were chaotic. When House members were sworn in last month, Representative Lisa Demuth, a Republican, was elected as speaker, becoming the first Republican woman and the first Black person to serve in that role. A Democrat had led the chamber since 2019.In negotiations that ended the Democratic boycott, leaders from both parties agreed to jointly run legislative committees if a Democrat won the special House election, as was widely expected, leaving the House evenly split.In the past few weeks, Republicans have used their narrow majority to advance bills on contentious issues, including an initiative to bar transgender students from competing in female sports. The proposal was brought to the floor, but failed.Most pressing now for Minnesota lawmakers is passing a state budget. State officials projected last week that Minnesota may face a nearly $6 billion shortfall by 2028. Concerns about the state’s finances have deepened as the Trump administration has begun cutting grants and other federal programs. More

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      Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

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      The administration has circulated a list that includes nine other campuses, accusing them of failure to address antisemitism.The Trump Administration’s abrupt withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University cast a pall over at least nine other campuses worried they could be next.The schools, a mix that includes both public universities and Ivy League institutions, have been placed on an official administration list of schools the Department of Justice said may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty.Faculty leaders at many of the schools have pushed back strongly against claims that their campuses are hotbeds of antisemitism, noting that while some Jewish students complained that they felt unsafe, the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and many of the protest participants were themselves Jewish. The Trump administration has made targeting higher education a priority. This week, the president threatened in a social media post to punish any school that permits “illegal” protests. On Jan. 30, his 10th day in office, he signed an executive order on combating antisemitism, focusing on what he called anti-Jewish racism at “leftists” universities. Then, on Feb. 3, he announced the creation of a multiagency task force to carry out the mandate.The task force appeared to move into action quickly after a pro-Palestinian sit-in and protest at Barnard College, a partner school to Columbia, led to arrests on Feb. 26. Two days later, the administration released its list of 10 schools under scrutiny, including Columbia, the site of large pro-Palestinian encampments last year.It said it would be paying the schools a visit, part of a review process to consider “whether remedial action is warranted.” Then on Friday, it announced it would be canceling millions in grants and contracts with Columbia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tim Walz says he and Harris were too ‘safe’ during 2024 presidential campaign

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      Tim Walz has said that he and Kamala Harris were too “safe” during their 2024 election campaign, with the former vice-presidential candidate claiming they should have held more in-person events around the US.“We shouldn’t have been playing this thing so safe,” Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said in an interview with Politico, as Democrats seek to learn the lessons of Donald Trump’s win in November, which has sent the party into the political wilderness.Walz, who was widely seen as one of the Democratic party’s most effective messengers against Trump and Vance in 2024, becoming best-known for his frequent description of the pair as “weird”, also said he and Harris had been hampered by the shortened length of their campaign.Harris effectively became the official Democratic party nominee on 5 August, just three months before the election, and Walz said that the abbreviated time frame limited the amount of risks the campaign was able to take.“These are things you might have been able to get your sea legs, if you will, 18 months out, where the stakes were a lot lower,” Walz said.He added: “[But] after you lose, you have to go back and assess where everything was at, and I think that is one area, that is one area we should think about.”Walz’s verdict was that he and Harris should have spent more time directly engaging with Americans, as they sprinted through their 107-day campaign.“I think we probably should have just rolled the dice and done the town halls, where [voters] may say: ‘You’re full of shit, I don’t believe in you,’” he told Politico. “I think there could have been more of that.”Walz has been returning to the national spotlight of late, conducting more TV appearances and last week headlining a fundraising event in front of 1,000 Democrats in his home state. His use of social media, and folksy appearances in TV interviews, were praised during the early party of the 2024 campaign, and Walz suggested he and Harris could have done more.He told Politico that Democrats “as a party are more cautious” in engaging with mainstream and non-traditional media. The former high school football coach added: “In football parlance, we were in a prevent defense [a strategy whereby a team focuses on a gritty defense, rather than attacking], to not lose – when we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris and Walz lost to Trump by 312 electoral college votes to 226, losing in the national vote by about 1.5%. Republicans also won both houses of Congress. Walz said he bears some of the blame for the loss, because “when you’re on the ticket and you don’t win, that’s your responsibility”.The 2028 Democratic presidential primary is expected to be extremely crowded, with Democrats boasting several high-profile governors, and Walz, who is yet to decide whether he will run for a third term as Minnesota governor, was coy about whether he would run, telling Politico he was “not saying no”.“I’m staying on the playing field to try and help because we have to win,” Walz said. “And I will always say this: I will do everything in my power [to help], and as I said, with the vice-presidency, if that was me, then I’ll do the job.” More

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      D.C.’s Planned Removal of Black Lives Matter Mural Reflects Mayor’s Delicate Position

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      Mayor Muriel Bowser’s decision comes amid calls by the president and other Republicans for more federal control of the city.On Wednesday morning in downtown Washington, D.C., Keyonna Jones stood on her artwork and remembered the time when she and six other artists were summoned by the mayor’s office to paint a mural in the middle of the night.“BLACK LIVES MATTER,” the mural read in bright yellow letters on a street running two city blocks, blaring the message at the White House sitting just across Lafayette Square. In June 2020, when Ms. Jones helped paint the mural, demonstrations were breaking out in cities nationwide in protest of George Floyd’s murder. The creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza was a statement of defiance from D.C.’s mayor, Muriel E. Bowser, who had clashed with President Trump, then in his first term, over the presence of federal troops in the streets of her city.But on Tuesday evening, the mayor announced the mural was going away.Ms. Jones said the news upset her. But, she added of the mayor in an interview, “I get where she is coming from.”The city of Washington is in an extraordinarily vulnerable place these days. Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation that would end D.C.’s already limited power to govern itself, stripping residents of the ability to elect a mayor and city council. Mr. Trump himself has said that he supports a federal takeover of Washington, insisting to reporters that the federal government would “run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely, flawlessly beautiful.” In recent days, the administration has been considering executive orders in pursuit of his vision for the city.Potential laws and orders aside, the administration has already fired thousands of federal workers, leaving residents throughout the city without livelihoods and, according to the city’s official estimate, potentially costing Washington around $1 billion in lost revenue over the next three years.Given all this, Ms. Bowser, a Democrat, described her decision about Black Lives Matter Plaza as a pragmatic calculation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tim Walz Will Not Run for Minnesota’s Senate Seat

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      Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, who rose from relative obscurity to become the Democratic nominee for vice president last year, will not run for his state’s open Senate seat in 2026 and will instead begin the process to seek a third term as governor, his spokesman said Wednesday.“Governor Walz is not running for the United States Senate,” said Teddy Tschann, Mr. Walz’s spokesman. “He loves his job as governor and he’s exploring the possibility of another term to continue his work to make Minnesota the best state in the country for kids.”By staying out of the contest to replace Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat who is not seeking re-election in 2026, Mr. Walz effectively kicks off a primary contest for the Senate seat that could be competitive should Republicans field a well-financed candidate.It also positions Mr. Walz, who won national attention for his “Midwestern dad” persona and football-coach background when he and Vice President Kamala Harris ran against Donald J. Trump, to potentially enter the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. During an interview with a Dutch television station last week, Mr. Walz said he was “not ruling out” running for president.Focusing on re-election also allows Mr. Walz to avoid what would have been an awkward Senate primary contest against his lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, who announced her campaign for the seat last week. Mr. Walz and Ms. Flanagan, who had been political allies for two decades, had a falling out over shared campaign finances when Mr. Walz returned to Minnesota from the presidential campaign trail.Several other Minnesota Democrats have said they are considering running for Ms. Smith’s Senate seat. They include Keith Ellison, the state’s attorney general, Representatives Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar, and Melissa Hortman, the Democratic leader in the Minnesota state house. Mr. Walz is not expected to endorse a candidate in the primary.On the Republican side, Royce White, a former professional basketball player who lost a 2024 Senate race to Senator Amy Klobuchar, has said he will run, along with Adam Schwarze, a former Navy SEAL. Michelle Tafoya, a former television sports broadcaster who has become a regular on the right-wing commentary circuit, has also said she is considering running for the seat.No one has yet entered the race for governor of Minnesota. Mr. Walz coasted to general election victories in 2018 and 2022, though the state has been much closer in two of the last three presidential elections. More