President Donald Trump on Thursday called off plans to livestream the December 3 military execution of Nidal Hasan after the announcement generated widespread disgust.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the U.S. government would livestream the firing-squad execution of Hasan, a former Army major who shot and killed 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in 2009. A court-martial jury sentenced Hasan to death in 2013.

It would have been the first public execution in the United States since a hanging in Missouri in 1937, though the last well-known public execution occurred a year earlier in Kentucky. Rainey Bethea, a black man, was hanged before a crowd of roughly 20,000 people in Owensboro. Kentucky became the last state to outlaw public executions two years later.

The plan to livestream Hasan's execution drew comparisons to the Taliban. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death." Writing at The Lamp, an orthodox Catholic journal, Matthew Walther noted that it would be the "first ever government-sanctioned snuff film in American history."

However, Trump and Hegseth didn't trip over just liberal and religious pieties, but a deep-rooted American aversion to bloody displays of state power that goes back to the colonial era.

Lynn Novick, the director of Ken Burns' upcoming PBS documentary series Crime and Punishment in America, tells Reason that public executions "haven't been a regular part of American life since the Colonial time in the early years of the Republic, and there's really good reasons for that."

One of American colonists' many complaints about oppressive British rule was England's expansive criminal code, known derisively as the "bloody code" because it contained more than 200 capital crimes.

"In Colonial America, [an execution] was an everyday occurrence," Novick says. "There were executions all the time, and one of our scholars told us that most people would have seen someone executed in their lifetime."

Excessive capital punishment also ran contrary to emerging theories by leading Enlightenment thinkers that punishment should be proportional to the crime and not driven by revenge or bloodlust.

Perhaps more importantly, public executions were disorderly affairs that, rather than reinforce the power of the state, inflamed the passions of the mob to a dangerous degree. "In many cases, crowds would become very boisterous, riotous, angry, excited," Novick says. "There were sometimes violent outbursts at these events."

As a result, many of the Founding Fathers saw frequent public executions as disruptive to the fragile social order. The early American republic's move away from sanguinary spectacle was driven by a desire to create a stable, virtuous citizenry and sever itself from the European continent's tradition of public torture and execution.

As Reason described in a recent cover story, the result of this was the invention of the American penitentiary in the early 1800s, which was sold as a humane and rehabilitative replacement for the whipping post and gallows.

States transitioned from public to private hangings behind their newly built prison walls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before switching to the use of the electric chair. This was not done out of entirely humanitarian concerns, especially in the South, where public executions often became quasi-religious ceremonies, with the condemned declaring their ultimate victory over death (and the state) through Jesus Christ.

"Executions had contested meanings," Michael Ayers Trotti wrote in The End of Public Execution. "They were moments of justice, of state power; but they were also moments of religion, exceptional moments that transcended normal life."

The main reason that public executions disappeared over the long term, though, is obvious to anyone who's not a sociopath: It's weird and dehumanizing to gather in a crowd to watch someone else be killed, to participate in the government's promotion of its power to take a human life.

Rachel Abbott, who witnessed Bethea's 1936 hanging when she was 5 years old, told WKU Public Radio in 2016 that she had nightmares about it years later.

"I remember it well, but I didn't want to," she said. "I tried to get away from it because it was hurting me so bad. I started having me nightmares after I was older. It's like his spirit was just hanging all around me. The first thing you'd know I'd start crying because I felt he wanted me to help him get buried, get sent back to his gravesite by his father. I still have tears running when I think of it."

The post America Abandoned Public Executions for a Good Reason appeared first on Reason Magazine.

As the Trump administration's short-lived Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project implemented its plan to downsize the federal workforce, there was much wailing from the liberal institutions in Washington, D.C.

Federal employee unions filed lawsuits to block the effort. NPR ran profiles of federal workers who, for the first time, faced the prospect of potentially not having absolute job security forever. The Brookings Institution wondered how many jobs the federal government could shed before it crashes.

The answer: plenty. The Trump administration has cut more than 10 percent of the federal workforce, and the government hasn't crashed. Indeed, it hasn't even shrunk—if you're counting by dollars spent instead of people employed.

In a new article for City Journal, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Judge Glock highlights the tremendous gap between the dire predictions about DOGE's cuts and the reality that has emerged, more than a year after DOGE was shut down. Despite having only a modest impact on spending, Glock writes, DOGE "had a massive impact on the federal civil service."

This is true—to a point, more on that in a moment—and notable. Aside from a modest downsizing in the 1990s, the number of people employed by the federal government has been steadily growing for decades. Reversing that trend is one of the few genuinely libertarian accomplishments by the Trump administration.

The cuts to the federal workforce prove that "DOGE worked," argues Glock.

Well, hold on.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (who departed the DOGE project before Trump's inauguration and is now running for governor of Ohio) set some very ambitious goals after being appointed DOGE co-chairs in late 2024. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in November 2024 where they promised "we won't just write reports or cut ribbons. We'll cut costs."

Musk repeatedly attached some rather absurd numbers to that promise. He said DOGE would cut $1 trillion or even $2 trillion in federal spending. In the end, it didn't come close. By DOGE's own (questionable) accounting, it cut $170 billion. Meanwhile, overall federal spending has increased in each of Trump's first two years in office, and the budget deficit has widened as well.

Yes, Musk and Ramaswamy also said they would reduce the federal workforce. But that was presented as a natural consequence of cutting spending, not as the primary goal.

Think about it like this. If I spent months promising my friends and family that I would lose 50 pounds on a new diet, and then didn't lose any weight, would it be fair to say the diet worked?

What if I reduced the number of donuts I eat every day, but still didn't lose any weight? Sure, that might be good for my health in some way—just like reducing unnecessary workers in the federal government is good for America's fiscal health—but it certainly wouldn't mean I had achieved the goal of losing weight.

Finally, even the claim that DOGE cut the federal workforce requires an asterisk. As Glock also notes in his report, the decline in federal workers has been offset by an increase in federal contractors.

It's not a one-for-one trade, of course. The new contractors are overwhelmingly concentrated in places like the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon, while the cuts mostly targeted other areas, like the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Most of that increase came from the buildup in homeland-security and defense contracting, including purchases such as surveillance aircraft and tanks, rather than substitutes for government workers," Glock writes. "DOGE achieved real contract savings, but these were more than offset by higher spending elsewhere, reflecting a shift in priorities rather than an overall reduction in contracting."

So, the government is eating fewer donuts but more pizza.

There might be libertarian reasons to prefer contractors over government employees. They are less likely to hold those jobs for life, for one. But there's nothing inherently good about a government policy that cuts jobs in some areas just to create more room in the budget for poorly trained immigration enforcement agents and defense contractors. That may even be a negative outcome for liberty.

In the end, the DOGE project looks less like a meaningful attempt at cutting government spending or employment levels and more like a way to purge parts of the federal workforce likely to get in Trump's way during his second term. "As long as [Trump's] larger commitment is to extending his power rather than rolling back power itself, you shouldn't expect the government to stop growing," as Reason's Jesse Walker wrote last year in comparing DOGE to President Richard Nixon's attempted purge of the civil service.

Did DOGE work? Only if you grade it on a pretty dramatic curve.

Yes, it proved that a president can slash bureaucratic jobs—particularly the bloated managerial and administrative types—without doing much damage to the government's core responsibilities. That's a lesson future administrations should remember.

Maybe, someday, a president will try applying the same logic to government spending too.

The post DOGE Worked? Only If You Grade on a Curve. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

• President Donald Trump chose Katie Zacharia to serve as the new White House press secretary.
• Five days later, a White House official said that she is "transitioning out" of the role.
• She succeeded Karoline Leavitt, who left the job in August.

Katie Zacharia held her first briefing as White House press secretary on Tuesday, taking over the role previously held by Karoline Leavitt.

Days later, a White House official confirmed to Business Insider that she is "transitioning out" of the role after Trump said that he told her to reconsider.

Zacharia was the second press secretary to serve in Trump's second term, and the sixth across his two non-consecutive terms. Leavitt left the job in August to spend more time with her young children.

In a Truth Social post announcing his hiring of Zacharia, President Donald Trump wrote that "She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning," adding that "She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!"

Zacharia did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider on Friday, after her departure was announced.

Here's what to know about her.

What was Katie Zacharia doing before this?

Zacharia previously worked as a senior communications advisor at Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs Truth Social, a White House official confirmed to Business Insider.

Zacharia previously worked as a spokesperson for former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security, and as a commentator for Fox News and Newsmax.

Her LinkedIn profile also indicates that she serves as general counsel for the conservative nonprofit Fix California, and served as a White House intern in 2006, during President George W. Bush's second term.

Is Katie Zacharia a lawyer?

Zacharia earned a bachelor's degree in political science and government from Pepperdine University and a law degree from Pepperdine Caruso School of Law.

She has described herself as a lawyer, but she confirmed to Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday that she sat for the California bar exam but did not pass it or retake it.

"I had already preregistered for the bar exam," she said. "Basically, during the summer, I knew I would be living in China and the results of the bar were inconsequential, and I sat for it because I didn't want to have a withdrawal status."

Zacharia's LinkedIn profile lists her as working as an associate at the Beijing law firm Zhong Lun from August 2011 to June 2013.

Zacharia added that she "consulted attorneys and legal professionals" to confirm that she could call herself a lawyer and offer legal analysis on cable news since she holds a law degree and had "actual substantive legal experience."

Zacharia told Business Insider in a statement that she "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials."

The White House referred Business Insider to Zacharia's comments on Fox News.

Who is Katie Zacharia's husband?

Zacharia is married to film producer Tyler Zacharia, who has produced movies such as "Young Washington" and "David" with Angel Studios, a production company specializing in faith-based films.

He also served as an executive producer of the 2019 movie "The Irishman" starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, according to his IMDb page.

They wed in 2011.

Does Katie Zacharia have children?

Zacharia and her husband share four children, ages 12, 10, 8, and 6.

At her first press briefing, when Zacharia was asked about balancing work and motherhood, she said her family was planning to move from California to Washington, DC, so she could be present with them while working in the White House. She also called Trump "the most family-friendly president we've ever had."

"The fact that he knew I had four kids, and he knew that this job would be demanding, and still placed his trust in me, shows that I know I'm capable of being able to step up to that," she said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The Trump administration's attempts to fast-track construction of the president's long-promised border wall through Texas' remote Big Bend region have ground to a halt amid fierce opposition, protests, and legal challenges from landowners and conservation groups.

A federal judge on Wednesday released an opinion explaining her decision to issue a preliminary injunction blocking border wall construction through the Big Bend area. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone found that the plaintiffs, which included the Center for Biological Diversity and several longtime residents of the region, had shown a substantial threat of irreparable harm if the construction project is allowed to continue.

The Trump administration wants to spend $7.5 billion building additional security infrastructure along a 500-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border running through the Big Bend region, which includes Big Bend National Park. The federal government began sending threatening letters to property owners announcing its intent to acquire necessary pieces of their land this summer, and it waived several environmental regulations, allowing it to put bulldozers on the ground inside the national park by September.

However, numerous groups and local landowners say the border wall project will alter their way of life and permanently scar one of the most rugged and pristine landscapes in the country. The project attracted bipartisan criticism and protests.

Cardone also found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin exceeded his authority when he issued environmental waivers for the project.

The injunction is a temporary reprieve for property owners such as David Keller, an archaeologist and part-time river guide on the Rio Grande River. The original plans for the border wall expansion would have cut through Keller's 10-acre property near Redford, Texas, putting a 30-foot-tall wall on the levee that sits between the river and the rest of his land.

Keller says the Trump administration gravely underestimated how much anger its tactics and attitude would generate.

"It's a level of arrogance—they're just used to being able to bulldoze over people," David Keller says. "They were moving forward as if they weren't expecting any resistance, but boy, they're due for a wakeup call. And they're having it right now."

Keller is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit against the DHS by Conserve Big Bend, a coalition of landowners, conservationists, river tour guides, researchers, and other affected parties.

Keller says he's loved wild, open country since he was a child, and as soon as he saw the region in the 1990s, he decided he would find a way to live and work there, which he's done for the past 25 years. "It's visually magnificent," Keller says. "It's incredible. It's like no other place I'd ever seen. It's one of the last unspoiled places remaining in the lower 48."

Keller says it's where he plans on being buried, too, although these days he's unsure whether to say "plans" or "planned." The proposed border construction is an existential threat to the life he's built, he says, and if the wall goes up, he'd likely move.

"I didn't come down here to live in a cage," Keller says.

The proposed border wall would not only block access to the river for farmers, ranchers, and outdoors enthusiasts along the river, as well as block the view into Mexico, it would wreck "the whole feeling of the place, the historical cross-border culture that we've developed," Keller says.

So far, the federal government has not tried to seize any private property in the Big Bend region through eminent domain, although it sent letters to property owners this summer requesting access to survey their land and warning them that it held the option to invoke eminent domain if they did not quickly sell.

Both Keller's and the Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuits argue that the department's justification for building and expediting additional border infrastructure in the Big Bend Region are factually and legally incorrect. The DHS determined that the sector of the border is an "area of high illegal entry."

However, despite making up roughly a quarter of the entire U.S.-Mexico border, the Big Bend sector only accounted for between 0.3 percent and 2.2 percent of total border-wide arrests over the past 30 years.

Cardone cited the low apprehension numbers in her finding that Mullin exceeded his authority to issue the waivers.

"The unrebutted evidence shows that the Big Bend Sector is, by far, the sector with the lowest rate of migrant apprehensions along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, both in terms of gross totals and apprehensions per mile of border," Cardone wrote. "Therefore, if the Big Bend Sector is an area of high illegal entry, so is every other sector, and the waiver authority would apply to the entire U.S.-Mexico border."

The post Landowners in Texas' Big Bend Region Fight Trump Administration's Attempts To Seize Land for Border Wall appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, the Trump administration announced it's expanding its stake in semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries. This brings the government's share of the company to over $2 billion, according to President Donald Trump, and it's only one of roughly three dozen companies in which this White House has acquired a piece of the action. This is a disturbing development for Americans who favor free enterprise and don't want the government to control the means of production.

While it may be a while before the opportunity arises to roll back state intervention in the economy, given the drift of both major parties away from faith in the marketplace, the Cato Institute has launched a project to get the process started.

$2 Billion Government Stake in One of 35 Once-Private Firms

"The U.S. Department of Commerce will receive equity in GF of approximately four percent, further enabling the American public to share in GF's growth," GlobalFoundries announced Monday in a press release about a U.S.–Japanese initiative to open two new semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

"This brings our total Investments to 1.63 Billion Dollars, and now, the U.S. Government's stake is worth over 2 Billion Dollars," Trump confirmed on Truth Social.

The announcement's triumphant tone isn't necessarily shared by people who wonder what the government's ownership stake in one company will do to regulation and investment in the industry. Will fully private firms challenging a state-backed player experience an even playing field?

In a July CNBC survey of 1,000 U.S. voters, 49 percent of respondents said it is "not appropriate for the federal government to own a portion of a U.S.-based company." Nineteen percent considered it appropriate, and 32 percent had no opinion.

"Washington's expanding involvement in the businesses it regulates threatens the competition and innovation that underpin American prosperity," warns the Cato Institute's Tad DeHaven on the launch of the Restoring Free Enterprise project. "Our project will examine the consequences of that involvement and chart a path toward getting Washington out of the boardroom."

Restoring Free Enterprise's Government Ownership Dashboard shows the U.S. government owning shares in 35 companies. The recent deal with GlobalFoundries comes on top of an earlier equity stake, giving the government 7 percent ownership of the firm. Other big deals include an 8.4 percent stake in Intel, a claim on 20 percent of distributions above $17.5 billion in Westinghouse, and an arrangement granting the U.S. government the right to appoint a director for U.S. Steel and to veto decisions over matters including investment and production.

Why might this be a problem?

When Government Enters the Market, Competition Is Undermined and Decisions Politicized

In an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, and Christina Tutino cautioned that direct government ownership could create "conflicts between the role of the government as an investor in a particular company and its role as a regulator (e.g., regarding export controls) of firms across the wider industry." They added that preferential treatment for state-linked forms could "distort competition, stifle innovation, and potentially lead to monopolies or market concentration in strategic sectors."

"Once government crosses the line into equity ownership, the game changes," agreed economist Vance Ginn in a 2025 piece for the American Institute for Economic Research. "It's no longer about setting fair rules of the road—it's about Washington joining the race as a participant. That undermines competition, politicizes corporate decisions, and exposes taxpayers to risks they never agreed to take."

Basically, when the government gets involved in any industry, it complicates matters for the companies in which shares are held, for competitors who must worry that regulators will put their thumbs on the scale to help favored firms, and for the market in general. Overall, government interference of any sort in market transactions does more harm than good, and direct ownership makes things even worse.

"Federal rate controls, excessive taxes, barriers to restructuring, and rigid labor rules weakened private railroads in the mid-20th century, just as automobiles, buses, trucks, and airlines were intensifying competition," Cato's Chris Edwards points out in a case study for the Restoring Free Enterprise Project. Congress then created Amtrak to maintain the passenger train service its red tape had helped strangle, but despite plans for the railroad to be self-sufficient, "it has never earned a profit and has received tens of billions of dollars in subsidies."

Proposals for Reform, but Is Anybody in D.C. Interested?

The project acknowledges the Trump administration's intention to encourage U.S. manufacturing and to meet strategic defense goals. But it points out that private, profit-seeking firms are what made the U.S. prosperous and dominant in so many fields to begin with. The government should get out of the way of the market if it wants the country to continue to thrive.

As alternatives to state ownership of companies, Restoring Free Enterprise proposes permitting and regulatory reforms that "shorten reviews, remove unnecessary requirements, reform the Jones Act, and recognize out-of-state licenses" for workers. The project also recommends free trade agreements that reduce barriers to international commerce, the removal of export and procurement barriers, tax reforms involving expensing, and immigration reforms that simplify processing and make it easier for foreign-born college graduates to remain in the U.S.

The obstacles to implementing these reforms are substantial. The administration, while criticizing the Democratic Party's growing affection for socialism, itself embraces government ownership of companies, mercantilism, and heavy state intervention in economic decisions and activities. The Democratic Party has long been less market-oriented than the Republicans, and despite the GOP's transformation, a growing share of Democrats are openly socialist advocates for state control.

"American political leaders on the left and right are rebelling against the market-first consensus that dominated Washington for four decades," concluded Axios's Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin in July. "It's evident in everything from the Trump administration taking government stakes in dozens of private companies to socialist candidates winning Democratic primaries promising a more active government role in the economy."

U.S. politicians are happily adopting damaging policies that are at odds with the country's prosperity-building tradition of free markets. The Restoring Free Enterprise project would reverse that unfortunate trend, but it's not obvious that many people in D.C. are interested in joining the fight.

The post As D.C. Embraces State Economic Control, a Hopeful Project Seeks to Restore Free Enterprise appeared first on Reason Magazine.

US president says Zelenskyy ‘more difficult ​to deal with ​than Putin’ after ‘energy ceasefire’ collapses

• Europe live – latest updates

Donald Trump has called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries “a disgrace” and criticised Volodymyr ⁠Zelenskyy after an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine failed to take hold.

Ukraine resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries ⁠after Zelenskyy said Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire unilaterally declared by Trump on Sunday, having briefly halted its attacks to demonstrate its readiness for peace talks. Russia had continued its strikes on Ukrainian power plants.

President Donald Trump is plainly frustrated that the Ukraine War continues to drag on. This is understandable. Trump came into office pledging to end this conflict on day one, and succeeded in resetting the expectations of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2025, in hopes of bringing the war to a close. Yet no peace deal emerged.

In recent weeks, Trump has complained ceaselessly that the war is impacting global energy prices, and thus indirectly hurting the American economy and damaging Republicans' midterm prospects. Earlier this week, the president arbitrarily declared an "energy ceasefire" and instructed both countries to stop targeting each other. Neither side had been given forewarning of this, but Ukraine went ahead and complied; Russia did not. With no actual ceasefire in place, Ukraine resumed hostilities.

Unfortunately, it appears that Trump has decided to punish Zelenskyy rather than the responsible party: Putin. It's not Ukraine that wants war—it's Russia. It's not Zelenskyy prolonging this conflict—it's Putin. Ukraine is willing to accept an immediate ceasefire and negotiations. Russia is not. Putin's action suggest that the goal is to subjugate Ukraine, and regardless of the impression he gives Trump, Putin is not willing to stop.

Given this, the rational course of action for the U.S. is to continuing supporting Ukraine until Russia—the invading party—is willing to negotiate. And yet, the U.S. is seemingly (suddenly) sabotaging Ukraine. This week, the Ukrainians discovered that use of Starshield, the U.S.-run satellite system they use to defend themselves against Russian forces inside Ukrainian territory, had been restricted; Starshield is a division of SpaceX, but according to Elon Musk, it is operated independently by the U.S. government. If it's not functioning properly, the most likely reason is that Trump made such a call.

Trump also signaled a willingness to cut off the Ukrainians from routine intelligence sharing with regard to Russia's bombing targets, though the administration insists that no such decision has been made. Such intelligence is extremely important for the Ukrainians, and vital for civilian safety. Ukrainians rely on air raid sirens to let them know that Russian strikes will soon take place and they should seek shelter. (I learned this firsthand during my trip to Ukraine in June, which was sponsored by a pro-Ukrainian aid group.) It's malicious of the U.S. to deliberately keep the Ukrainians in the dark when we could save lives by letting them know what we know.

None of this means that the U.S. is obligated to send even more tax dollars to Ukraine or to supply them with weapons. We have already spent $185 billion, after all.

But the U.S. should not deliberately undermine the Ukrainian position by failing to share intelligence or by hamstringing already existing military systems. Of course Trump would be within his rights to work to constrain Zelenskyy if Zelenskyy were the barrier to a peace deal, but this is simply not the case at all. We can't blame the Ukrainians for defending themselves in the face of invasion when Putin is the one refusing to negotiate.

Given all this, Zelenskyy has admitted that he feels "betrayed" by Trump and is concerned that Ukraine is losing the U.S. as a partner. The war will continue regardless, with Europe stepping in to fill whatever void the U.S. leaves behind. It's proper for Europe to shoulder more of the responsibility for protecting Ukraine, since this war is ultimately a Europe problem—the U.S. cannot be solely responsible for the security of the entire free world.

But there's a difference between thinking Europe should do more and the U.S. should do less, and thinking that the U.S. should actively hurt Ukraine to help Russia so that energy prices briefly (maybe?) improve. That's not in the long-term best interests of anyone, including and especially the U.S.

Rather than bullying Ukraine into agreeing to put up less resistance as Russia conquers it, Trump should put his negotiating skills to work on Putin.

This Week on Free Media

The latest episode of Freed Up will be available later this afternoon, so subscribe here and check back soon!

Worth Watching

Here's something exciting: I am participating in another Reason Versus debate—this time alongside the boss, Katherine Mangu-Ward! We will be up against Mehdi Hasan and Jason Stanley, who posit that "authoritarianism is a right-wing problem." It should be an entertaining, spicy debate, and (if we're being honest) probably not quite as friendly as the last one I was involved in. Get your tickets here!

The post Blame Russia, Not Zelenskyy, for the Ukraine War's Endless Slog appeared first on Reason Magazine.

UK defence secretary says he has been ‘reassured directly’ counterpart Pete Hegseth that Starlink system has been restored as he seeks to cool tensions

Wes Streeting urged the US to stand by Ukraine on his visit to the American capital and sought to cool tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Starlink row that is threatening to set back Kyiv’s war effort.

The British defence secretary, giving a speech before a meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, argued that supporting Ukraine was in the long-term interests of Washington, and a business opportunity.

President Donald Trump promised that his tariffs would usher in a "golden age" by prioritizing the interests of American workers.

Those workers, however, are now turning against Trump's tariffs.

Support for the Trump administration's tariff policies has fallen by 25 percentage points among blue-collar workers over the past year, according to new polling data from Echelon Insights and the Economic Innovation Group (EIG).

A poll conducted by the two groups in August 2025 found that blue-collar workers supported the tariffs by a narrow margin. Now, that same segment of the population has turned decisively against Trump's tariffs: 58 percent oppose them, compared to just 36 percent who support them.

Overall, support for the tariffs has declined from about 43 percent last year to only 34 percent. Opposition to the tariffs has grown from 50 percent to 59 percent. Elsewhere in the same survey, 68 percent of respondents said the tariffs have made the cost of living higher.

It's not hard to figure out why people have turned against the tariffs: They have contributed to rising prices across the economy.

The annualized inflation rate ticked upward to 3.7 percent in September, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). More BLS data released Thursday morning shows that the producer price index, which often operates as a precursor to inflation, is up 6.3 percent over the past year.

America's war with Iran has been a major factor in rising inflation, but the tariffs have played a significant role as well. In a study released last week, the New York Federal Reserve concluded that consumer prices would have declined slightly over the past year if not for the economic effects of the tariffs.

The tariffs have become so unpopular that not even partisanship can save them. "Among GOP-voting workers, only 3 percent select tariffs as their top priority," note Jordan McGillis and John Lettieri, policy experts from the EIG, in their write-up of the poll.

Other parts of Trump's economic agenda are not faring much better. The Trump administration has bought or seized shares of more than 30 private businesses over the past two years—ranging from major firms such as U.S. Steel to small mining companies with few customers. "The federal government's state corporatism is unprecedented," reports the Cato Institute in a new analysis of those deals.

Large majorities of workers across both major parties and all generations said they opposed the federal government taking equity stakes in American companies in the Echelon/EIG poll.

In short: This economic populism sure isn't very popular.

All of this is likely to be a major factor in next month's midterm elections. Regardless of how that shakes out, however, there are lessons to be drawn from this poll for both sides of the political divide.

For conservatives, these polling data should end the tariff experiment. It has proven economically damaging, and it is no longer a political winner (if it ever was).

Remember, the idea to hike tariffs and start trade wars with all of America's biggest trading partners was not some grand plan backed by careful study and thoughtful analysis. It sprung, half-baked, from the head of one man. Yes, there have been various attempts to support, in a post hoc way, Trump's desire for tariffs. All of that can, and should, be easily discarded. There is no reason to allow a lame duck president to continue to set such a politically and economically destructive path for the country.

Undoing the tariffs might also put a meaningful dent in rising prices. That should be a no-brainer after the midterms, no matter which party controls Congress.

On the left, this poll should be a reminder that Americans do not look favorably on the mixing of government and business. Democrats should promise to unwind the "equity stakes" that the federal government has taken under Trump's watch. Heading toward the 2028 presidential cycle, Democrats might want to borrow some old Republican talking points about how government shouldn't be picking winners and losers—they may find that message is still quite popular.

Yes, it's probably right to be skeptical that those things will happen. Trump's efforts to centralize economic power in the executive branch are likely to outlive his presidency—that's how these things always seem to go.

But there is a glimmer of hope here. Americans are soundly rejecting the Trump administration's big government policies.

The post Even Blue-Collar Workers Have Turned Against Trump's Unpopular Tariffs appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The fifth Federal University March is taking place this Thursday, October 15, across Argentina. Participants are mobilizing toward the National Congress to demand compliance with the University Financing Law (No. 27.795), the restoration of salaries for both academic and non-academic staff, and the definitive rejection of the Javier Milei administration’s Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23.

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Under the slogan Without funding, there is no science or education, the university community is calling for the immediate implementation of regulations that mandate the adjustment of operating funds, salaries, and scholarships in line with inflation. The protest was organized by the National Interuniversity Council (CIN), the Argentine University Federation (FUA), and the National Universities Trade Union Front.

Organizers report that academic and non-academic staff have seen their purchasing power decline by more than 32 percent so far this year. This action follows a judicial ruling that upheld injunctions and imposed financial penalties on the national government for failing to adjust funds and wages as required by law.

In the City of Buenos Aires, the main contingent—led by the University of Buenos Aires (UBA)—will gather at 1:00 p.m. at Plaza Houssay (at the intersection of Córdoba and Junín streets). Labor unions and social movements will begin assembling at 1:30 p.m. in the vicinity of the National Congress.

At 2:00 p.m., the march will proceed along Avenida Córdoba to Callao, then continue via Corrientes and Cerrito toward the parliamentary district. At 4:00 p.m., a joint statement from rectors, students, and labor unions will be read at Plaza del Congreso.

The text reads, “[NOW] Students took over the Faculty of Social Sciences ahead of the Fifth Federal University March.”

The protest coincides with a debate in the Chamber of Deputies regarding Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23—a measure that has already been rejected by the Senate. The organizing groups aim to exert pressure to ensure the Lower House rejects the measure definitively.

The decree—viewed by the organizers as a cornerstone of the government’s ultraliberal agenda—impacts numerous sectors beyond education. Although the Supreme Court reversed its position, leaving the Land Law in effect following legal back-and-forth regarding its Article 154, universities have maintained their call to action due to the broad scope of the regulation.

Consequently, the day’s events bring together social, labor, political, and student organizations. The initiative also has the backing of the CGT, both branches of the CTA, ATE, and various scientific organizations—representing a coalition of workers and students united in defense of public education.

The protest movement spans the entire country. In Córdoba, the National University has suspended classes and is holding a march through the city center. In Santa Fe and Rosario, demonstrations are planned in response to disruptions in institutional operations, scholarship programs, and research activities. Higher education institutions across all provinces are staging strikes and protests.

This mobilization follows a series of strikes, open-air classes, and awareness-raising events. The organizers maintain that the implementation of Law 27.795 is essential to guarantee the continued operation of universities, sustain scientific research, and restore wages within the education sector.

Exclusive: Aleksandar Vučić personally intervened to push plans for controversial $500m Trump Tower in Belgrade, which sparked protests and a criminal case

Serbia’s authoritarian ruler personally intervened to advance an allegedly illegal scheme to hand over a protected site in Belgrade for a Trump tower, the Guardian can reveal.

Aleksandar Vučić summoned officials to a meeting at his presidential offices about the project, which has culminated in a landmark indictment of senior figures from his regime on charges of abuse of public office.

Moscow sends swarms of drones to attack infrastructure in central Ukraine as Zelenskyy says Kyiv will restart strikes on Russian oil refineries

The White House’s unilateral effort to negotiate an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine has collapsed as Moscow sent a record swarm of drones overnight to attack infrastructure in central Ukraine and Kyiv appeared to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries despite warnings from Donald Trump.

Moscow accused Ukraine of launching a strike against a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region, its first since Trump abruptly declared an “energy ceasefire” that neither Russia nor Ukraine said they had agreed to.

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s departure has renewed scrutiny of the president’s picks for diplomatic posts, from France to Jamaica

Donald Trump has appointed family members, friends and loyal political allies to represent the US on the world stage, dispatching an extraordinary array of characters to embassies across the world.

While presidents of both parties have long rewarded donors and allies with plum ambassadorships, Trump has chosen loyalists willing to go to bat for him regardless of the implications for US-foreign relationships.

When a president starts with a predetermined policy and then goes looking for a statutory pretext to justify it, he is building on shaky ground. President Donald Trump illustrated that point once again in July, when he announced a third round of broad tariffs after his first two attempts ran into legal trouble.

Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump claimed to have discovered a previously unnoticed delegation of extensive tariff authority in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that does not mention import taxes and had never been used to impose them. That claim was rejected by every court that considered it.

Last February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all. But Trump had a backup plan: Hours after that decision, he announced another sweeping set of tariffs, this time relying on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That provision allows tariffs in response to "fundamental international payments problems" caused by "serious United States balance-of-payments deficits." In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the new tariffs were illegal because Trump had failed to "identify balance-of-payments deficits within the meaning of Section 122."

Although that decision was stayed pending appeal, Trump's Section 122 tariffs, which were subject to a 150-day statutory limit, expired on July 24. Trump then switched to Plan C, invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act, which authorizes tariffs in response to a foreign "act, policy, or practice" that is "unreasonable or discriminatory" and "burdens or restricts" U.S. commerce.

Trump's Section 301 tariffs supposedly targeted countries that had failed to "impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." The alleged offenders included 86 economies that accounted for nearly all U.S. imports.

In separate complaints, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and the law firm Akin Gump, which had played leading roles in challenging Trump's prior tariffs, immediately asked the CIT to block the new import taxes. By and large, they noted, the government had failed to explain how the targeted countries had fallen short, how their alleged failures burdened U.S. commerce, or why the new tariffs could be expected to ameliorate the problem they were supposed to address.

The LJC argued that the forced-labor issue was "simply a pretext" for reinstating Trump's "invalidated global tariff regime." It added that Trump's reading of Section 301, like his interpretation of IEEPA, would violate the "major questions" doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization for policies of "vast economic and political significance."

This was Trump's "third attempt" to "impose essentially the same set of sweeping global tariffs," Akin Gump's lawyers wrote. "The third time's not the charm."

The post Trump Keeps Coming Up With Legally Dubious Tariff Justifications appeared first on Reason Magazine.

In today’s newsletter: As Russia resists a ceasefire and Trump’s shifting priorities unsettle allies, an end to the conflict isn’t getting any closer

Good morning. In his usual asinine unconventional approach to international relations, Donald Trump announced on Sunday (via Truth Social, how else) an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine”, apparently without checking with either side. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said any such deal was “news to me,” nonetheless declared he was “ready and we will accept it”. Vladimir Putin responded by blowing up some Ukrainian power plants.

This has been the tenor of much diplomacy during Trump’s tenure: false starts, U-turns, incoherent positions (and some playful flirting with Vlad). Meanwhile fighting continues, and America’s allies attempt to manage the fallout. Andy Burnham hosted Zelenskyy at Downing Street yesterday, stating the UK is doubling down on its support for Ukraine, and pointedly calling on others to “follow suit”.

UK | Sally Rooney has said she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale in the UK because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.

Gaza | Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza, the Guardian has learned.

EU | Britain will benefit from much closer trading relations with the EU even if that means giving up its ability to negotiate free trade agreements, the Scotland secretary has said.

Ukraine | Ukraine’s military has suddenly had its access to Starlink satellite internet terminals restricted as the Trump administration has increased pressure on Ukraine to immediately halt long-range strikes on Russia’s oil industry.

Vaccine | Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said.

With less than three weeks until Election Day and Republican approval numbers down, President Donald Trump is taking unorthodox measures to drum up support for the GOP.  Last week, Trump sent out $90 payments to over 20 million Americans on Medicare Part B—which covers doctor visits and regular checkups. The money was made available to help seniors "pay for their Medicare Part B premiums," which cost $202 per month.  

In a Truth Social post, Trump said the money is coming from "a pointless 'Slush Fund'" known as the Medicare Improvement Fund, which, though bombastic, is an accurate telling of how lawmakers have used the account. 

The fund was created in 2008 "to improve program management" of Medicare. However, as a 2023 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) points out, this fund has really served one purpose far above supporting Medicare: sneaky government accounting.

As the CBO wrote, "No funds have been spent by [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] from either improvement fund since their establishment in 2008." Instead of using the fund to support Medicare programs, Congresses have filled up the fund with money scheduled for use only in the distant future, then siphoned that money away to other legislation. Under CBO accounting rules, canceling or redirecting future spending is a "credit" to the bill's total cost—a helpful trick for legislators who want to couch their initiatives as being affordable. This trick was used to finance nearly $21 billion of the Affordable Care Act and has been used for a scattering of legislation since. 

While Trump says this disbursement is needed to help enrollees pay premiums, the timing of the announcement—weeks before the midterms—and Trump's history of using taxpayer money to win over senior citizens make the claim dubious. In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for instance, seniors were given a $6,000 tax deduction. Trump has also consistently defended senior-focused entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are both facing a funding cliff in the coming years. Trump siphoning off public money to turn out the electorate hasn't been limited to senior citizens either. Last month he promised to hand out $5,000 checks to all Americans—conditional upon Republican victory in the midterms. 

Despite grumbling by some Democrats about Trump's decision to empty the Medicare Improvement Fund, it seems unlikely the choice will detract from Medicare's ability to provide services. The bigger concern is that the president is using his office to hand out personally signed checks to voters weeks before an election. Pre-election vote grabbing through irresponsible spending is not unprecedented, but it has rarely been so characteristic. 

The fiscal ramifications of Trump's unorthodox spending are also concerning. Medicare is already teetering toward insolvency, and entitlement spending continues to balloon. Neither Congress' playbook of deceptive accounting nor Trump's vote buying will address these problems. Without raising taxes or lowering benefits, these programs cannot continue as they are.

But raising taxes and cutting benefits is no way to win an election. Trump knows this and seems perfectly willing to sacrifice America's fiscal stability for a quick boost in the polls.

The post Trump's $90 Checks to Seniors Look a Lot Like Vote Buying appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Throttling of mobile internet system will affect Kyiv’s air defences more than its strikes on oil refineries. Now Zelenskyy must be hoping that US intel holds

In Ukraine the situation was already jittery enough. Donald Trump has been inventing ceasefires and buying Russian diesel to shore up his flagging popularity, while a sinister new wave of faster, jet-powered drones are breaking through Kyiv’s stretched air defences. Casualties are rising as the weather turns.

Overnight, Russia bombed three power plants that supply Kyiv, aiming to cut off heating and electricity to the city. According to the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for a second night in a row no warning came from Ukraine’s western allies of the incoming ballistic missiles – and so no air raid alert was issued.