‘No Border Patrol In Charlotte’ rally on November 15, 2025. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — A surge of federal agents arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday to take part in immigration arrests despite protests from the mayor and other local officials.
Eyewitnesses filmed and photographed several incidents where masked agents arrested residents. Paula Walker Coleman filmed one of the incidents at a parking lot and told ABC News she witnessed agents arrest another woman who was filming.
“She was close to their car recording and her hand hit their car while recording so they jumped out the vehicle. That’s why she was saying her hand was shaking and that’s what made her touch their car,” Coleman told ABC News.
The Border Patrol operations, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection commander-at-large Greg Bovino and dubbed “Operation Charlotte Web,” have not yet had any major clashes with local police or people in Charlotte,” sources told ABC News.
“We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed. There have been too many victims of criminal illegal aliens and President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem will step up to protect Americans when sanctuary politicians won’t,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
Willy Aceituno, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Honduras, told The Associated Press he was forcibly taken into a Border Patrol vehicle and only released after showing his citizenship documents. Aceituno, who works in the Charlotte area, said he had been stopped twice by Border Patrol on Saturday, and agents smashed one of his car windows.
As word of the surge increased during the week, North Carolina officials dismissed arguments by the Trump administration that an increased federal presence was needed.
“We should all focus on arresting violent criminals and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, that’s not always what we’ve seen with ICE and Border Patrol Agents in Chicago and elsewhere in the country,” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.
Stein encouraged North Carolinians to record any “inappropriate behavior” and follow the law.
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, also a Democrat, released a joint statement Saturday with Mark Jerrell, the chair of the city’s Board of County Commissioners, and Stephanie Sneed, the chair of the local board of education, where they expressed support for their constituents.
“It is critical for all residents to feel secure in our community and know they can live their lives without being fearful while walking down the street, going to school, work or the grocery store,” they said.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) said in a statement on Friday that it is not involved in any planning by the federal agents.
“CMPD officers are not authorized to assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) administrative warrants, which are civil in nature and not criminal,” the department said.
The North Carolina city of Asheville is also on alert for ICE-related activity in its city, Mayor Esther Manheimer said in a statement Saturday.
“We have learned that Asheville may be a targeted city,” she said. “We believe every person, regardless of immigration status, should feel safe in the community they call home.”
Nina Liashonok/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Life support facilities and critical infrastructure in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa were forced onto backup power by overnight Russian strikes on energy targets, Ukrainian officials said early Sunday.
“The enemy continues to deliberately strike civilian infrastructure in the southern part of the Odesa region,” Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, wrote on Telegram.
“Despite active air defense efforts, last night strike drones again damaged energy facilities, including a solar power plant,” Kiper added. “Fires that broke out were promptly extinguished by the State Emergency Service units. Fortunately, there were no casualties.”
“Resilience points have been deployed in the affected area,” Kiper wrote. “Life-support facilities and critical infrastructure have been switched to backup power.”
The Ukrainian Energy Ministry confirmed Kiper’s report, saying in social media posts that there was “a power outage” in Odesa as a result of Russian strikes.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched one ballistic missile and 176 drones into the country overnight, of which 139 drones were shot down or suppressed. Thirty-seven drones impacted across 14 locations, the air force said.
Moscow is intensifying its strikes against critical infrastructure — particularly energy targets — all across Ukraine coinciding with the onset of wintry weather, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian forces have targeted energy infrastructure throughout Moscow’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement on Sunday that Kyiv is working to enhance its air defenses in cooperation with Western partners. “We have prepared new strong agreements with Europe to significantly strengthen our air defense, our resilience and our diplomacy,” he wrote on Telegram.
The president also said his government is bolstering its energy grid and securing more natural gas supplies in response to Russian attacks.
“We already have agreements in place for financing gas imports — and we will cover nearly 2 billion euros needed for gas imports to compensate for the losses in Ukrainian production caused by Russian strikes,” Zelenskky said in a statement posted to the presidential office website.
Zelenskyy announced a new deal for gas imports from Greece and said Kyiv is working with European Union, American, Norwegian, Polish and Azerbaijani partners to secure more supplies and arrange financing for additional imports.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy said in a statement that the government’s “winter support elements” include the fixing of electricity and gas prices for households, financing of gas imports and the building of equipment reserves for repairs after Russian strikes.
Jason C. Andrew/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated their feud over the weekend after the Georgia Republican slammed the president and the administration over a number of topics, including the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Trump went so far as to withdraw his support for Greene and said he would support a primary challenger.
“Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left,” Trump said in a social media post Saturday morning as part of an online back and forth with Greene.
Greene said Saturday in an X post that she had received death threats.
“As a Republican, who overwhelmingly votes for President Trump‘s bills and agenda, his aggression against me which also fuels the venomous nature of his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid), this is completely shocking to everyone,” she said.
The conflict began this week after Greene questioned in an NBC News interview if Trump was focused on domestic affairs.
“No one cares about the foreign countries. No one cares about the never-ending amount of foreign leaders coming to the White House every single week,” she said in the interview.
On Friday, Trump responded to her words, telling reporters aboard Air Force One, “she is a very different figure,” and that he was no longer “a fan.”
“Something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed. I think politically, I think that her constituents aren’t going to be happy,” he said. “But when she says, ‘Don’t go overseas.’ If I didn’t go overseas, we might be in a war right now with China.”
Trump added he would consider backing a primary challenger and in a social media post later in the night withdrew his endorsement of the congresswoman.
He wrote, “all I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN.”
“I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,” the president added.
Greene pushed back against Trump Friday night in an X post, contending that the president was upset with her after she texted him about the ongoing Epstein investigation.
“And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” she said. “It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level.”
“I never thought that fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are,” Greene said in an X post Saturday morning “And it truly speaks for itself.”
The president, who spent Saturday morning golfing in Florida, slammed Greene in a social media post arguing she, “became the RINO that we all know she always was. Just another Fake politician.”
(NORFOLK, Va.) — A man suspected of killing at least three other people has now been identified as the suspect in a teenager’s 1988 cold case murder, Virginia authorities announced.
Laurie Ann Powell, 18, was last seen alive on March 8, 1988, walking along a road in Gloucester County, which is about 60 miles east of Richmond, Virginia State Police spokesperson Robin Lawson said at a news conference on Friday.
Powell’s body was found on April 2, 1988, in the Elizabeth River near Craney Island, which is just off of Norfolk, Lawson said. She had been stabbed multiple times, Lawson said.
Alan Wilmer Sr. — who died at his Virginia home in December 2017 at the age of 63 — has now been linked to Powell’s case via DNA, and if he was alive today, he would be charged with her murder, authorities announced.
Last year, investigators determined Wilmer was also the suspect in three other murders: David Knobling and Robin Edwards from 1987 and Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell from 1989, officials said.
The murders of Knobling and Edwards were from “a series of double murders collectively known as the Colonial Parkway murders,” Lawson said.
Investigators are now looking into if Wilmer is suspected of committing additional crimes, she said.
“We are still seeking the public’s help through our continued efforts to seek justice for the victims of these and other unsolved crimes,” Lawson said.
“Any tip could be useful in solving other cold cases,” Virginia State Police Capt. Timothy Reibel added.
Powell’s sister, Cindy Kirchner, spoke at the news conference about the 18-year-old’s short life, saying, “She didn’t wait for life to happen — she made it happen.”
“She was bold, brave, spontaneous, full of life, witty, smart and beautifully herself. A true firecracker,” Kirchner said. “She spoke her mind, followed her heart and never apologized for being herself.”
“After 37 years of heartbreak and unanswered questions, our family has finally received the long-awaited news that the murder of our beloved daughter, sister, Laurie Ann, has been solved,” Kirchner said, overcome with emotion. “While nothing can erase the pain of losing Laurie Ann, today we find comfort knowing that the truth has come to light.”
(MONTEREY, Calif.) — A father is dead and the search for a 5-year-old girl is ongoing after a large wave pulled them into the ocean in Monterey County, California, authorities said.
A 15-to-20 foot wave swept the little girl and her dad into the Pacific Ocean just before 1 p.m. Friday near the Rocky Point Restaurant, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said.
When the mom tried to reach out to the girl and the dad, the mom was also swept into the water, authorities said.
While the dad held onto the 5-year-old, the mom made it back to shore, joining a 2-year-old who wasn’t hurt, authorities said.
The dad was rescued from the ocean and given CPR, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead, according to the sheriff’s office.
The mom was hospitalized in stable condition with mild hypothermia, the sheriff’s office said.
A Coast Guard helicopter is a part of Saturday’s search for the missing 5-year-old.
(NEW YORK) — A storm is dropping rounds of heavy rain on more than 22 million people across Southern California on Saturday, and the rainfall could spark dangerous flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows.
Here’s the latest:
The first round of heavy rain is slamming the region early Saturday morning, and the second round will hit between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time.
Rainfall rates could top 1 inch per hour and scattered thunderstorms could bring strong winds, lightning and potentially hail.
Flood watches are in effect in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Diego through Saturday evening. A level 3 out of 4 risk for excessive rainfall and flash flooding is in place for the LA and Santa Barbara areas.
Wildfire burn scar areas are of serious concern on Saturday because they’re extremely prone to flash flooding, mudslides and debris flows. But flooding and mudslides pose a major threat to Southern California in general, beyond just burn scar areas.
Evacuation warnings are in place for certain areas with burn scars, while some evacuation orders have been issued for select areas that have a heightened risk of mudslides and debris flows.
The mountains of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties will likely see some of the biggest rain totals, with as much as 4 to 6 inches of rain. On average, LA records 0.8 inches of rain in the entire month of November.
The heavy rain will end Saturday night, but an unsettled weather pattern will stick around into early next week with more wet weather on the way. Flash flooding, debris flows, mudslides and landslides will remain concerns for several days as more rain falls over saturated soils and very sensitive areas.
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who says he wants to hike taxes on the rich, set off alarm among some critics about a potential exodus of wealthy people bent on keeping their money out of government coffers.
As the warning goes, a tax increase at the top could drive away affluent New Yorkers and undercut revenue meant to fund proposals like universal child care, free city buses and publicly owned grocery stores.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of grocery chain Gristedes, told the Free Press in June he may “consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business” in the event of a Mamdani victory. Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder and co-C.E.O of eyewear company Warby Parker, said, “I will never move from New York, but there’s a lot of other people that will and are leaving New York.”
Even Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ultimately endorsed Mamdani, warned in an interview in June about the possible departure of the wealthy set. “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,” Hochul told local outlet PIX 11, underscoring her opposition to a tax increase.
Studies show a race for the exits of this type is highly unlikely, experts at Northwestern University, as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.
Similar tax increases in states like California have typically pushed out a small number of wealthy people, the experts said, but the vast majority stay put for reasons that hold true across income brackets: They like where they live, and want to remain close to friends, family and professional networks.
“There is tax-induced mobility. It’s not non-existent but it’s very small,” Quentin Parinello, policy director at the Northwestern University as well as research organizations the EU Tax Observatory and the Tax Foundation, told ABC News.
“In New York and other big metropolises, people want to be somewhere they can go to the theater, they can have business opportunities, they can hire talent,” Parinello added.
Mamdani says he will put forward a 2 percentage point tax increase for residents making more than $1 million, which would raise the tax rate for high earners in New York City from roughly 3.9% to 5.9%.
The mayor-elect has also proposed hiking the corporate tax rate from 7.5% to 11.5%, which would put New York in a tie with New Jersey for the highest state corporate tax rate nationwide.
“These things together raise about $9 billion, which more than pays for our economic agenda,” Mamdani told ABC’s “Good Morning America” this month.
When asked whether he is concerned the taxes could drive job creators out of New York, Mamdani said: “What I’ve heard from a number of business leaders is that the affordability crisis is also affecting their ability to attract and retain talent. The city’s inability to provide child care means that businesses often have to provide stipends for that child care.”
Both tax measures would require state legislation bearing Hochul’s signature.
Studies from researchers at Stanford University, the Treasury Department and the non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute show minimal departures among the rich in response to tax increases.
Researchers at Stanford University and the Treasury Department in 2016 examined tax records belonging to all million-dollar earners in the U.S. over a 13-year period, finding “tax flight is occurring but only at the margins of statistical and socioeconomic significance.”
In 2023, the Fiscal Policy Institute examined movement among high earners in the aftermath of a New York state income tax hike two years earlier.
“There is no statistically significant evidence of tax migration in New York,” the study found.
“Movement of rich people on the basis of tax differentials is relatively small,” Jeffrey Winters, a professor of equality development and globalization studies at Northwestern University who studies high earners, told ABC News. “It’s very common for them to threaten to move. The risk is grossly overstated.”
Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the non-partisan Tax Foundation, voiced opposition to Mamdani’s proposed tax hike, saying the policy risks a gradual erosion in the high-earner tax base and revenue losses that would accumulate over time.
“The city won’t empty out if taxes rise, but on the margin you expect some people to move,” Walczak told ABC News.
“That hurts the city and the state because these individuals are already paying a lot of taxes and creating a lot of jobs,” Walczak added.
Winters, of Northwestern University, said the focus on wealthy residents risks overlooking the cost-of-living challenges that force low- and middle-income New Yorkers to move elsewhere.
“We are worried about the outflow of the very wealthiest people in major cities like New York when in fact the biggest outflow of people is among those who can’t afford even the basics of staying there,” Winters said.
(WASHINGTON) — As the federal government reopens after the House passed a short-term funding bill Wednesday, Democratic voters across the country reckon with their party’s handling of the standoff — and the fact that in the end, Democrats were not able to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies they shut the government down over in the first place.
Carl Davidson, a 64-year-old car salesman from Oakland, California, told ABC News in an interview that he will be “greatly affected” by the expiring subsidies.
“My California coverage is potentially going to go from $580 to $1,240,” Davidson said.
Meanwhile Teresa White, a 67-year-old administrative assistant who is also from California, told ABC News she is most concerned about her son, whose “premiums are going to double.”
“These are young men in their 30s. They are not high-risk … a lot of their friends are just going to forego insurance, and that’s wrong,” White said.
White and Davidson, as well as the rest of the voters named in this article, participated in an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll and were called back to be interviewed about their views.
Even those not directly affected by the expected jumps in health care premiums believe it is a worthy cause. Jeffrey Martin, a 54-year-old electrician from Berkeley, Massachusetts, told ABC News he was “100%” supportive of congressional Democrats’ fight for ACA subsidies.
“I think they could have held out, because I think that they were in the right. I think they were fighting for something important,” Martin said.
Like Martin, 58-year-old Kevin Wolfe of Parkville, Maryland, wished congressional Democrats had “held out” for longer over the subsidies. Wolfe told ABC News in an interview that he is “kind of upset that they voted to end” the shutdown, even going so far as to say that he thinks Democrats “need to shut it down again.”
“I don’t know if we’d have gotten anything, but I think they could’ve held out a little longer to see,” Wolfe said.
The government shutdown — which lasted 43 days in total, making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history — is funded only until Jan. 30, leaving open the possibility for the government to be shut down again if Congress can’t come to an agreement over health care spending by the end of January.
Like Wolfe, White also said that the Democrats should shut the government down again when the short-term funding bill ends, even if it disrupts things like air travel.
“People don’t have to travel, but you have to eat. And if you have a medical emergency, then you have to have care,” White said.
But while voters like White, Martin and Wolfe wished Democrats had fought for longer, many said they believe that Democrats were successful in bringing national attention to the fight over health care taking place in Washington.
“I don’t think it accomplished what its overall goal was, but I do believe it brought more attention to what is going to happen,” Wolfe said.
“I don’t think people realized at all what is going to happen with premiums,” he added.
Davidson added that shutting down the federal government “concentrated the minds of many people who aren’t following politics day-to-day.”
The one thing many Democratic voters were in agreement on: Republicans are to blame for the shutdown. And with the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, many speculate that the government shutdown will prove to be a stain on Republicans running for reelection.
“People do have a memory when it hits their wallets, so it could have some ramifications for Republicans in the midterms,” Davidson said.
“I figure that the Republicans, who had the House, the Senate and the presidency, and also the Supreme Court — they are responsible for the shutdown,” said 71-year-old Curtis McLeod of Greensboro, North Carolina.
“I hope all the Republicans that held out lose their seat in the next election. That’s all I’m thinking about,” McLeod added.
But there were some Democratic voters who had more ambiguous feelings about the fight over ACA subsidies, especially those who were affected by federal cuts to SNAP that took place during the shutdown.
Dora C., a 59-year-old in southern Texas, told ABC News in an interview that the government “should have never been shut down from the beginning.”
“I’m a grandmother raising three of my grandkids, and I am — and still to this day — I am on SNAP benefits … When they took that away for a short period of time, it did affect me — of course it did — because I’m not feeding only myself, I’m feeding three kids,” Dora said.
“Yeah, I got these SNAP benefits put back in my card, but not all of them,” Dora added.
Others called the government shutdown a “lose-lose situation.”
“I think the Democrats always look kind of weak because the Republicans kind of do whatever they want and get away with it … I think [Democrats were] trying to fight back. And then the one time they fight back, it blows up like this,” said Brittany D., a 29-year-old small business owner from the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Vicki, a 57-year-old Democrat from Pennsylvania who declined to provide her last name, told ABC News in an interview that ultimately, the decision congressional Democrats faced to end the shutdown was “a Solomon’s Choice.”
“Do you choose the people that need food, or do you choose people that need health care? I would’ve had a hard decision choosing what to do,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — While Democrats have been celebrating some recent wins in the ongoing mid-decade congressional map redistricting sweeping the country, they face some roadblocks in Democratic-aligned states over building on those wins – and the future of President Donald Trump’s agenda remains at stake regardless of how long the battles drag on for.
Why Republicans and Democrats are trying to redraw seats
Which party controls the House after the 2026 midterm elections could come down to just a couple of seats. As of Thursday, Republicans hold 219 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives while Democrats hold 214, with two seats vacant.
If all of the seats are filled by the midterms, Democrats need to only net three seats to flip the House in 2026, allowing them to thwart Trump’s legislative agenda during the second half of his presidency. Republicans, meanwhile, hope to bolster their razor-thin majority and continue moving Trump’s legislative priorities forward.
That’s why fighting over five seats in one state or fewer in another matters so much.
The ongoing mid-decade redistricting also further narrows what was already a relatively small field of truly competitive seats. The Cook Political Report only rates 16 seats as of Thursday as a “toss-up” out of all 435 U.S. House seats. The ratings factor in states that completed mid-decade redistricting already.
Some wins for Democrats, but roadblocks ahead
Initially, it appeared like the new scramble of congressional map redrawing would favor Republicans. Texas legislators pushed through a map that redraws five congressional seats to favor Republicans; GOP-controlled legislatures or commissions in Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio soon followed suit with maps that could allow the GOP to flip at least one seat in each state.
And Republican-controlled legislatures in Florida, Kansas, and Louisiana are mulling redrawing their maps and could box out even more Democrats.
Kansas may be an unusual case. Republican state legislators have discussed redrawing the state’s congressional map to box out the Sunflower State’s lone Democratic member of Congress, Rep. Sharice Davids.
But Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is staunchly opposed to mid-decade redistricting, and Republican legislators have indicated they will not be able to get enough signatures to bypass her to call a special session about the issue. Some have also indicated they want to resist White House pressure to redistrict.
A pending Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case might trigger more redrawing in favor of Republicans.
Democrats said they’d try to counteract that Republican push – and their first major win came when California voters chose on Election Day to vote yes on “Proposition 50,” which will redraw their state’s congressional map to make five seats potentially winnable by Democrats.
(The Department of Justice on Thursday joined a legal effort by Republicans in California suing over the new map; Newsom’s office responded that “these losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court.”)
After California, one less expected success for Democrats came about in Utah, which was redrawing its congressional map due to a court order.
A judge ordered late Monday that the state must adopt a congressional map proposed by plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ruling in favor of a map that includes a redrawn Salt Lake City-based district that leans strongly in favor of Democrats.
Utah’s four-member U.S. House delegation is currently fully Republican. The new map creates a congressional district centered around Salt Lake City that analysts say strongly favors Democrats.
And notable names are taking note. On Thursday, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who once represented Utah’s 4th congressional district, announced a run for the new district.
But further success for Democrats in mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms is not assured.
For instance, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has formed an advisory commission on redistricting, but state Senate President Bill Ferguson, also a Democrat, has said he opposes moving forward with redistricting.
Ferguson wrote in a recent letter, obtained by ABC News, to Democratic state Senators that “mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined.”
But Maryland U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin and Steny Hoyer, both Democrats, wrote in a separate letter obtained by ABC News that Maryland Democrats should redistrict “to make Maryland House seats more competitive in a way that counters the Trump national steamroller.” The Baltimore Sun first reported on the letter.
Democratic state legislators in Illinois have, similar to Maryland lawmakers, not been entirely on board with possible redistricting, even though national Democratic leaders such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are pushing for it.
A separate effort by Democratic legislators in Virginia to allow the legislature to redraw congressional districts is still moving forward, but will need to go through many steps before legislators can even propose a map. However, Democrats maintained control of the state House of Delegates and won the governorship in 2025’s elections.
How do Americans feel – and how long could this go on for?
Americans are caught in the middle of the redistricting struggle, facing confusion over who will represent them and what district they’ll be voting in. A Marquette University Law School poll taken in September found that 70% of American adults oppose states redrawing districts “to make them as advantageous as possible for the party with the majority in the state.”
And how long could the back-and-forth on mid-decade redistricting go on for?
It may depend on candidate filing deadlines, which are the dates by when a candidate needs to submit paperwork to get on the ballot for a state’s primary. In Maryland, for instance, the filing deadline for the congressional primary is on Feb. 24. In Kansas, it’s not until June 1.
If state legislatures aiming for new congressional maps haven’t passed them into law by then, candidates will likely still be filing to run in the current districts. Lawsuits or legislative action could change deadlines as well.
The real date to watch is Nov. 3, 2026. The midterms themselves will be the true test of whether Republicans or Democrats have won, lost, or fought the redistricting wars to a draw – and what lies ahead for Trump’s agenda.
(NEW YORK) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s path to service began in the uncertain moments after 9/11 when fears of terrorism reshaped both the country and her own sense of duty. She’s a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and the first person in U.S. history to serve as DNI while in military uniform.
Two decades later, she told ABC News in an exclusive interview, the same early lessons still guide her approach to leadership, and that the resurgence of terrorism remains her greatest concern.
A principled independence or shifting with political winds Allies often describe Gabbard as disciplined and mission-driven, shaped by the rigors of military life. Yet some former colleagues say the former Democrat’s views increasingly aligned with the Republican Party she once criticized. Admirers see a principled independence; detractors see a political evolution that mirrors Washington’s shifting winds. Gabbard, however, says her compass has never changed, only the terrain around her.
From her congressional campaigns to the 2020 presidential race, Gabbard was one of the only candidates treating foreign policy as a defining issue. While some of her domestic exchanges on the trail went viral, her presidential campaign remained grounded in her foreign policy message. Her events drew a mix of supporters across party lines, many of whom responded to her foreign policy message of a once-rising Democrat whose view of the world at times clashed with her party’s establishment.
For Gabbard, the focus of her public life and private moments has always been service, and days like Veterans Day are personal.
“It’s a day where I think about the great Americans I’ve had the opportunity to serve with now for 22 and a half years,” she said. “What does it mean for me in the mission that I have as director of national intelligence? It’s personal, because it’s about people. It’s both the people that I’ve had the opportunity to serve with and had the opportunity to lead, and it’s the people who paid the ultimate price who never got to make that trip home.”
A life shaped by deployments, a worldview shaped by war In 2021, Gabbard deployed to the Horn of Africa. She told ABC News she spent time working with the Somali government along with other armed forces across the continent who had “a singular mission of defeating al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, and one of the biggest financial funders of al-Qaeda in that region.”
“The reality is that Islamist terrorism continues to pose the greatest — both short- and long-term — threat to the American people on freedom and Western civilization,” Gabbard said. “The reason why I enlisted in the military has been at the forefront in going after these Islamist terrorists, and remained at the forefront.”
She said ODNI, working with federal and local partners, has “thwarted some of these lone wolf actors who, in some cases, are becoming harder to find,” noting that the threat has evolved from structured networks overseas to individuals radicalized online or inspired remotely.
Her focus on Islamist terrorism has also drawn criticism at times, with some accusing her of Islamophobia, a charge she rejects.
As a Democratic member of Congress and a Democratic National Committee vice chair, Gabbard publicly broke with much of her party over the Obama administration’s reluctance to describe ISIS as an Islamist extremist group, drawing praise from some Republicans and sharp pushback from Democratic leadership, cementing her reputation as someone willing to challenge her own side on national security.
“Unfortunately, a lot of politicians are too afraid to speak the truth about this because they are afraid of the political backlash they may get being called Islamophobes and so forth,” Gabbard said. “They watch what happened to me, but this has come at the cost of our own security and the threat to our freedom.”
That experience reinforced what first called her to serve, the belief that the threat never truly disappeared, only evolved. Gabbard warned that the danger today is as much ideological as operational, spreading through propaganda and recruitment networks that reach far beyond the battlefield.
“There were a lot of people who came into our country over the last four years who either are known or suspected terrorists or who have ties to them. I’m concerned about the folks that we don’t know about, that have not been identified or vetted, and the increasing spread of Islamist propaganda that we’re seeing coming from al-Qaeda.”
“This directly connects back to why I enlisted in the military. It was the Islamist terrorist attack on 9/11 that motivated me to do that in recognizing the seriousness of the threat and wanting to do my part to serve my country and defeat these terrorists who attacked us on that day,” she said.
A Washington outsider leading its most insider institution For much of her adult life, Gabbard has lived in dual worlds, public servant and soldier, balancing the discipline of command with the weight of national decision making. The lessons she learned in uniform, she said, continue to inform how she approaches her civilian post.
During Army training in Texas, every morning at 4:30 a.m. her squad leader played Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying.” She said that daily reminder shaped her perspective on service and mortality, foreshadowing the lessons she would carry into Iraq. She was stationed at Camp Anaconda at Joint Base Balad, located in the Sunni Triangle, 40 miles north of Baghdad, nicknamed “Mortaritaville” for its constant rocket and mortar attacks, often with little or no warning. Within hours of her arrival in Iraq, she would survive her first mortar attack.
The next morning, Gabbard noticed a sign that said “IS TODAY THE DAY?” that would be a daily occurrence on the main security gate. Over the years, that one question, once literal, has remained her daily reminder of how fleeting life can be and how purpose defines sacrifice.
That sense of purpose, Gabbard said, has always been grounded in faith — including the Bible and Bhagavad Gita texts.
“Spending time in prayer, not only every morning and every night, but at every opportunity, reminded me how fragile our time on this earth is,” she said.
The weight of service and the price of conflict The stress of that initial deployment in her mid-20s would turn her hair white. It eventually darkened again, but Gabbard has kept a streak of white hair as a physical reminder of the human cost of war and what she describes as her mission to seek and fight for peace.
“War must always be the last resort, only after all measures of diplomacy have been completely exhausted,” Gabbard said.
Last week, at the 21st International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a Gulf security summit that brings together officials to debate regional strategy, Gabbard warned against what she called “the mistakes of the past,” including U.S.-led regime-change wars.
Gabbard reflected on her speech, telling ABC News the focus was “pointing out the destructive effects of our country’s history of regime-change wars, not only these wars being wars of choice, incredibly costly in ways that are really impossible to measure in human life that was lost, as well as ultimately undermining our security,” she said. “Regime-change war in Iraq, for example, is what led to the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS and their strengthening of their positions and their proliferation, not only around the region, but around the world.”
Pushing back against criticism of isolationism Gabbard also pushed back on critics who describe the Trump administration’s America First policy as isolationist.
“People will say that America First equates to some policy about isolationism, and that’s simply not true,” she argued. “It’s very obvious how robustly President Trump engages with world leaders on a daily basis.”
“One of the biggest changes within the intelligence community, from a focus and resource standpoint under President Trump, has come about in focusing on what is actually happening here in our own backyard in the Western Hemisphere,” she said. “This has not been a focus for many previous administrations, and because of that we’ve seen and experienced the effects of these cartels and transnational criminal organizations really being emboldened, not only to wreak havoc and terror, trafficking of very dangerous and deadly drugs, trafficking in humans and babies.”
She said the intelligence community, under the president’s direction, has begun reallocating resources to map who is driving those operations and how to dismantle them.
‘This has never been about politics’ Supporters see those reforms as proof of Gabbard’s willingness to challenge bureaucracy and redirect the intelligence community’s focus toward real-world threats. But her critics, including Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, say the shakeup has come at a steep cost.
In a September speech, Warner accused Gabbard and Trump of “systematically undermining the independence of the nation’s intelligence community,” pointing to firings, revoked clearances, and reassignments he said had “silenced decades of expertise.”
“At stake,” Warner warned, “is whether America will continue to have an intelligence community free to speak truth to power.”
Gabbard’s allies have dismissed those claims as politics. They argue the criticism misses the point, that “ODNI 2.0,” as she calls her overhaul, is about cutting through layers of stagnation and rebuilding trust between intelligence officers and the commander in chief.
“I love our country, and it continues to be a very special thing to serve alongside the less than 1% of Americans who volunteer to put their lives on the line to defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people,” she said. “So long as I feel I can serve in a way that’s impactful and meaningful, I’m grateful.”
That sense of purpose still drives her.
“For me, this has never been about politics,” she said. “It’s about service. Service to country, service to others, and making sure the truth reaches the people who make the hardest decisions.”
“If I was interested in serving myself, I would be in Hawaii on a surfboard right now, living the easy life with my family in the place that we are grateful to call home,” she said. “My purpose in life is to do my very best to love and serve God.”
