The Issue Is: Sen. Alex Padilla; Areva Martin and Jennifer Horn
On a lighter note, Padilla also discusses the congressional baseball game and his love of baking.
Then, "The Issue Is:" panel Areva Martin and Jennifer Horn debate Kamala Harris' reemergence on the national stage, President Trump's first 100 days, and Gov. Gavin Newsom's battle with Elon Musk.
"The Issue Is: with Elex Michaelson" is California's statewide political show.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
17 minutes ago
Clinics hope to get blocked Medicaid funds restored as they sue Trump admin over cuts
PORTLAND, Maine -- A network of clinics that provides health care in Maine is expected to ask a judge Thursday to restore its Medicaid funding while it fights a Trump administration effort to keep federal money from going to abortion providers. President Donald Trump's policy and tax bill, known as the ' big beautiful bill,' blocked Medicaid money from flowing to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, a much smaller provider that provides health care services in one of the poorest and most rural states in the Northeast. Maine Family Planning filed a federal lawsuit last month seeking to restore reimbursements. Lawyers and representatives for Maine Family Planning say its 18 clinics provide vital services across the state including cervical cancer screenings, contraception and primary care to low-income residents. They also say the funding cut occurred even though Medicaid dollars are not used for its abortion services. 'Without Medicaid, MFP will be forced to stop providing all primary care for all patients — regardless of their insurance status — by the end of October,' the organization said in a statement, adding that about 8,000 patients receive family planning and primary care from the network. It also said many Maine Family Planning clinics 'provide care in very rural areas of the state where there are no other health care providers, and around 70% of their patients rely exclusively on MFP and will not see any other health care provider in a given year.' In court documents, Anne Marie Costello, deputy director for the Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services, called the request to restore funding 'legally groundless' and said it 'must be firmly rejected.' 'The core of its claim asks this Court to revive an invented constitutional right to abortion — jurisprudence that the Supreme Court decisively interred — and to do so in a dispute over federal funds,' Costello said. While advocates of cutting Medicaid for abortion providers focused on Planned Parenthood, the bill did not mention it by name. Instead it cut off reimbursements for organizations that are primarily engaged in family planning services — which generally include things such as contraception, abortion and pregnancy tests — and received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023. The U.S. Senate's parliamentarian rejected a 2017 effort to defund Planned Parenthood because it was written to exclude all other providers by barring payments only to groups that received more than $350 million a year in Medicaid funds. Maine Family Planning asserts in its legal challenge that the threshold was lowered to $800,000 this time around to make sure Planned Parenthood would not be the only entity affected.
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee was a 'bystander' outside Capitol on Jan. 6, White House says
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics was among the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with the White House saying he was a "bystander" who wandered over after seeing coverage on the news. E.J. Antoni, an economist from the Heritage Foundation nominated by Trump this week, after the president fired the previous BLS head, appears in numerous videos posted on social media of the crowd on the Capitol grounds. The footage shows Antoni approximately an hour after the mob removed police barricades. The footage appears to show him leaving the grounds as people entered the Capitol and not entering the building. Antoni is on the west side of the Capitol in one video, archived from the social media website Parler, and appears in surveillance footage posted online by the Republican-led Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight. Reached by NBC News on Tuesday, Antoni declined to comment. A White House official said Wednesday that Antoni was in Washington on Jan. 6 for in-person meetings with his then-employer at an office blocks away from the Capitol, and that he did not cross any barricades or participate in any demonstrations. The footage does not show Antoni crossing barricades or demonstrating. The Parler video, which was also archived by ProPublica, shows Antoni walking away from the crowd on the west side of the Capitol grounds. Tear gas was in the air, and conservative radio host Alex Jones can be heard speaking over a megaphone. At that time, police were struggling to hold off the mob from taking over the inauguration platform. The crowd had surrounded the building but not yet entered the Capitol. Other footage shows Antoni on the east side of the Capitol building, walking south, away from the building. 'These pictures show EJ Antoni, a bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area,' White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an e-mailed statement. 'EJ was in town for meetings, and it is wrong and defamatory to suggest EJ engaged in anything inappropriate or illegal.' The Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack was the largest in its history, with prosecutors scouring video evidence to identify and charge participants. The department mostly focused on charging individuals who entered the Capitol building or engaged in aggravating behavior outside. On his first day in office Trump ended the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, pardoned all of the roughly 1,500 Capitol defendants and commuted the sentences of others. Trump fired former BLS head Erika McEntarfer earlier this month, suggesting without evidence that she had "rigged" jobs reports for political purposes. The president then said he would nominate Antoni, a frequent guest on Steve Bannon's "War Room," who has long criticized the BLS. Antoni said in an interview with Fox News on Aug. 4, before his nomination, that the agency should suspend issuing the monthly job report, instead publishing quarterly data until the reports are more "accurate." Antoni will need to be confirmed by the Senate to take over the BLS. While Republicans control the chamber, Jan. 6 has caused issues for Trump nominees in the past. Trump withdrew his nomination of Ed Martin to take over the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia after Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., indicated that Martin's past support for Jan. 6 participants would be a deal-breaker. This article was originally published on
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
In Trump-Modi standoff, ‘egos' and missteps fuel resentment
NEW DELHI — President Donald Trump's top adviser on India, Ricky Gill, was having dinner here last week with former Indian diplomats. Though he was in town for a global security conference, the conversation turned, inevitably, to Trump's souring relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump had called India a 'dead' economy and punished New Delhi with 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil. Indian officials were expressing frustration that trade negotiations had been upended; they were also angry that Trump kept claiming credit for resolving the country's recent military confrontation with Pakistan. Gill, the National Security Council's senior director for South and Central Asia, tried to assuage the former diplomats, assuring them Washington still viewed New Delhi as a crucial partner, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. But Gill noted there was one thing irritating Trump's team: Why were the Indians still obsessing over how the conflict in May had ended? The diplomats were 'surprised' by the question, the people familiar said. India has made no secret of its long-standing position that issues with Pakistan, its nuclear archival, should be handled bilaterally. The episode illustrates a broader truth about the rapid devolution of relations between the United States and India: Both countries are struggling to grasp basic factors driving each other's foreign policy, leading to missteps and misunderstandings — and fueling mutual resentment. Meanwhile, Trump and Modi, populist leaders prone to bombast, have increasingly taken the diplomatic dispute into public view, complicating the search for solutions. It may be harder now for them to compromise on core issues, for fear of looking weak or alienating their right-wing bases, according to political analysts and former U.S. and Indian officials. If the standoff continues, analysts said it could shake up the geopolitical order, badly damage India's economy and undo years of work on both sides spent building the U.S.-India partnership. In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the administration could 'accomplish two things at the same time: address unfair trade practices that have left American workers behind and maintain our strategic partnership with India.' Modi's office did not respond to a request for comment. 'Trump needs his ego salved. Modi wants to be seen as uncompromising on Indian interests,' said Christopher Clary, an expert on South Asia and an associate professor at the University at Albany. 'The Trump-Modi personal relationship has broken,' he added. 'The only question is whether it can be repaired.' The United States and India seemed primed to strengthen ties when Trump returned to the White House. During his first term, in 2019, Trump hosted a massive 'Howdy Modi!' rally for the Indian leader in Houston. Modi reciprocated in 2020 with a 'Namaste Trump' rally in Ahmedabad. When Modi visited Trump in the Oval Office this past February, they pledged to increase trade between the United States and India to $500 billion by 2030. The Indian leader also played to his audience. 'In the language of America, it's 'Make India Great Again' — MIGA,' Modi said at the White House, drawing a smile from Trump. 'When America and India work together, this MAGA plus MIGA becomes a 'mega partnership for prosperity,'' the prime minister declared. Beneath the public displays of warmth, there were always more ominous undercurrents. Trump has called India a 'big abuser' of tariffs and a 'tariff king.' Indian officials have resisted U.S. demands to make trade concessions on agriculture, dairy and seafood — sectors that employ tens of millions of people. But it was India's military showdown with Pakistan in May that took tensions to a new level. In April, militants killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denied, and India carried out its deepest cross-border strikes in decades. Pakistan downed Indian fighter jets and targeted Indian bases. The conflict ended abruptly May 10 after Trump posted on Truth Social that he had helped negotiate a 'FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.' Trump continued to repeat the claim over the following months, suggesting he had used trade threats to seal the deal. Pakistani leaders thanked the president for his help and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Anger built in India. In June, Modi told Trump in a phone call that the ceasefire was achieved through talks between the two militaries — and not through U.S. mediation — according to a statement from Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. After that call, Trump hosted Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, for lunch. 'If I was advising Trump, I'd ask him to dial down the rhetoric and be sensitive to India's concern on Pakistan,' said Ajay Bisaria, the former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan. 'And on Modi's part, I think there should be some private communication giving … the Americans more credit for what they did.' While it remains unclear how central U.S. meditation was to ending the conflict, Clary said Washington maintained 'an active role in searching for de-escalation,' keeping 'open lines of communication with both countries' and acting as a conduit for messages between them. The Modi government's insistence that Washington played no part in winding down the conflict has hurt its relationship with the White House, said Sanjaya Baru, who served as media adviser for former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh when he was in office. But he said it reflects what Modi prioritizes most: mollifying his Hindu-nationalist base. Modi wants to be perceived as the 'macho Hindu leader' fighting Pakistan, Baru said, and acknowledging American involvement would undermine that self-image. 'When you make domestic politics your priority, then foreign policy falls by the wayside.' For both Trump and Modi, he added, the political now risks becoming personal, making it harder to find an off-ramp. 'These are huge egos,' Baru said. Last week, Trump significantly ratcheted up tensions by levying 50 percent tariffs on India's exports to the United States, which he described as a punishment for Indian purchases of Russian oil. Trump's advisers have also taken an increasingly hostile tone toward New Delhi. Days before the president's executive order, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News that 'India portrays itself as being one of our closest friends in the world … but they don't accept our products.' Peter Navarro, a key architect of Trump's economic policies, told reporters outside the White House on Aug. 6 that 'India is the maharaja of tariffs' and that the decision to raise tariffs was 'a pure national security issue associated with India's abject refusal to stop buying Russia oil.' New Delhi has been the top buyer of Russian crude oil since 2023, according to the ship-tracking company Kpler. Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said in a statement that India's purchases of Russian oil were 'based on market factors,' describing the U.S. tariffs as 'unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.' At an event in New Delhi last Thursday, Modi reiterated he would stand firm against any U.S. trade deal that hurts the country's farming, dairy or fishing industries. 'I know personally I will have to pay a heavy price for it,' he said. 'I am ready for that.' His government is also signaling it will strengthen relations with the BRICS bloc, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and China, which Trump accuses of 'anti-American' policies. After last week's tariff announcement, Reuters reported that Modi would visit Beijing this month, his first such trip in seven years. Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would soon be in town for a visit, according to local media. After an Aug. 7 call with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Modi said on X that 'A strong, people-centric partnership between Global South nations benefits everyone.' Lindsey Ford, a former senior director for South Asia at the National Security Council, said the current trajectory bodes ill — not just for the United States' relationship with India but also for its ability to compete with China across the Indo-Pacific region. She questioned if Trump and Modi's advisers could bring them back from the brink. 'They need to pull it out of the public domain as quickly as possible,' Ford said. 'The path we are on right now has a real risk of upending decades of careful relationship-building.' Supriya Kumar contributed to this report.
