The Dictatorship
Trump call with Putin alarms Europe and Ukraine…
By LORNE COOK
BRUSSELS (AP) — Several NATO allies stressed on Thursday that Ukraine and Europe must not be cut out of any peace negotiations as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied that the United States is betraying the war-ravaged country.
European governments are reeling after the Trump administration signaled that it is planning face-to-face talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war without involving them, insisted that Kyiv should not join NATO, and said that it’s up to Europe to protect itself and Ukraine from whatever Russia might do next.
“There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine. And Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey told reporters at NATO headquarters, as the organization’s 32 defense ministers met for talks on Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “For me, it’s clear … that Europe must be involved in the negotiations — and I think that’s very easy to understand,” particularly if Europe is ”supposed to play a central or the main role in the peace order.”
Europe “will have to live directly” with the consequences, he added.
Hegseth denied that the U.S. has betrayed Ukraine by launching negotiations about its future without Kyiv’s full involvement. After talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said on Wednesday he would “probably” meet in person with the Russian leader in the near term, possibly in Saudi Arabia.
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, right, speaks with Luxembourg’s Defense Minister Yuriko Backes during a meeting of the North Atlantic Council in defense ministers format at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey, left, speaks with North Macedonia’s Defense Minister Vlado Misajlovski during a meeting of the North Atlantic Council in defense ministers format at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
“There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace. A negotiated peace,” Hegesth told reporters.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed surprise that Hegseth and Trump had listed what appeared to be concessions to Russia even before talks have begun in earnest.
“We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started, because it plays to Russia’s court,” she said. “Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started? It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”
Hegseth fired back later, saying in his first major news conference as defense secretary that “it’s just a cheap political point to say, oh, we’ve left all the negotiating cards off the table by recognizing some realities that exist on the ground.”
He said that neither Russia nor Ukraine will “get everything that they want” in negotiations to end the war.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, center, prepares to speak during a media conference after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact group at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, center, prepares to speak during a media conference after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact group at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Hegseth also warned that the war in Ukraine must “be a wakeup call” for NATO’s European allies to spend more on their own defense budgets.
Twenty-three of the 32 member countries were forecast to have met the organization’s guideline of spending 2% of gross domestic product on their national defense budgets last year, but a third still do not.
European countries, he said, must spend more on their own defense, otherwise the U.S. is forced to “be everywhere for everybody, all the time.”
Asked when the U.S. might raise its defense spending from 3.4% to the 5% Washington is demanding of other allies, Hegseth demurred, saying that “3.4% is a very robust investment, larger than most.”
But Hegseth’s French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, described the wrangling over greater defense spending as “a false debate,” saying that governments and parliaments across Europe are already approving more weapons purchases and bigger military budgets while helping Ukraine stave off an invasion.
Lecornu warned that the future of NATO itself is now in question.
“To say that it’s the biggest and most robust alliance in history is true, historically speaking. But the real question is will that still be the case in 10 or 15 years,” he said, after the U.S. — by far NATO’s biggest and most powerful member — signaled that its security priorities lie elsewhere, including in Asia.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who was chairing Thursday’s meeting, said that whatever agreement is struck between Russia and Ukraine, it is crucial that the “peace deal is enduring, that Putin knows that this is the end, that he can never again try to capture a piece of Ukraine.”
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Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
The Dictatorship
Mullin pushes states to comply with election demands, echoing Trump’s claims about midterm risks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday warned that state officials could lose funding or face investigations if they fail to go along with President Donald Trump’s election security demands, part of the Republican president’s longstanding attempt to undermine Americans’ confidence in the vote.
Experts said the threats — issued just months before midterm elections that will determine control of Congress — were likely hollow because Trump’s voting initiatives have been stalled by judges and the Constitution gives states control over how elections are run.
Nevertheless, Mullin’s remarks, delivered from the White House complex one day after Trump’s primetime address on the topiccould further doubts about election processes and create headaches for states as they prepare for November.
“We absolutely can build confidence in the American people, but the states have to do their part,” Mullin said.
AP AUDIO: Mullin pushes states to comply with election demands, echoing Trump’s claims about midterm risks
AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports a member of President Trump’s cabinet says he is ready to go after voter fraud.
Trump continues to falsely claim that Democrat Joe Biden won only because of fraud in 2020, and he’s tried to marshal the powers of the federal government to rewrite that history since he returned to office last year — even though judges and his own attorney general in his first term concluded the election was legitimate.
Mullin insisted that the president was not relitigating the 2020 election, “although he definitely could at this point.”
“This is just about exposing what took place and making sure it never happens again,” he said.
Mullin’s claims of noncitizen voters rely on incomplete data
During his remarks, Mullin advanced an unsubstantiated claim Trump made Thursday that the federal government had found 250,000 noncitizen voters on the rolls in California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He said the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation was conducted using public data, which election experts say is insufficiently detailed and updated to properly identify whether a registered voter is a noncitizen.
Election officials in California and Pennsylvania said they would review the Trump administration’s findings but noted that they conduct their own voter list maintenance and noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. Research has supported that finding.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, responded to Mullin’s threats with a post on social media.
“California has free, fair, and secure elections and we will fight for them,” he wrote. “Try us.”
In Nevada, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, also a Democrat, said he was confident in the integrity of the state’s voter file.
“We are constantly looking at the information to figure out how many registered voters in Nevada don’t have a Social Security number on file,” he said. “We have done significant work to make sure our voter rolls are as clean as possible.”
Mullin also pledged to aggressively monitor public voter lists to pursue potential voter fraud cases before and after the 2026 election.
“If you are an illegal or you are voting illegally, we will hunt you down, we will find you and we will prosecute you,” he said.
He urged states to participate in DHS’ recently overhauled SAVE program, a federal tool central to the Trump administration’s efforts to nationalize elections. At least 25 states have used it to check their voter rolls since April 2025, after the Trump administration significantly expanded its search abilities, and the Trump administration has demanded that states submit their sensitive voter data to the program to fully audit their voter lists.
Mullin said if state officials don’t participate in SAVE, they could face fines, penalties or prison time.
But the overhauled program’s use was recently blocked by a federal judge over concerns about privacy and wrongful purges of eligible voters. The case included voters whose registrations were wrongly flagged by the program, temporarily threatening their place on the rolls.
David Becker, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, said Mullin was making empty threats.
“Every court to consider the DOJ’s demands — 15 of them to date, six of those judges appointed by President Trump — have confirmed that the federal government cannot legally demand access to states’ sensitive voter data,” he said. “What he’s suggesting is illegal.”
In addition, Trump’s efforts to pass the SAVE Act, federal legislation that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration, has stalled in the Senate. Republicans don’t have enough votes to change the filibuster rules and pass it without Democratic support.
Cybersecurity support for election officials has been diminished in Trump’s second term
Mullin also elevated Trump’s concerns about vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines — which voting experts have long acknowledged. While Trump suggested Thursday that these risks make it possible to “rig” the vote, election officials say there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent that, including physical security, voting machine tests, postelection reviews and paper ballot backups in most of the country.
To address the concerns, Mullin said the nation’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which sits under DHS, would release an updated election infrastructure plan within 30 days and provide cyber threat resources to election officials if they participate in SAVE.
However, Trump has broadly dismantled the agency’s election security operation.
CISA was largely absent from its long-held role assisting states in last year’s elections after the Trump administration conducted a review of its election work, placed more than a dozen election-focused staffers on administrative leave and slashed $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials. The agency is also still without a Senate-confirmed director and has cycled through a series of acting leaders.
Aguilar said his state has stepped up and will protect its own elections in the absence of federal help.
“The fact that they think they’re going to come in prior to the general election in November and provide us infrastructure, that’s nuts,” he said. “Actions speak louder than words, and in their case, it’s all been talk.”
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Swenson reported from New York.
The Dictatorship
Trump joins Republicans calling to punish Canada for hazardous wildfire smoke in the U.S.
President Donald Trump is threatening to increase tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke that has blanketed large swaths of the Midwest and Mid-Atlanticjoining several Republicans who have called for the U.S. ally to be punished for the intense air pollution.
“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote on Truth Socialon Friday, adding: “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”
Trump did not elaborate on his tariffs threat.
Smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires has caused air quality from Detroit to Washington, D.C., to plummet to unhealthy levels in recent days.
There are dozens of active wildfires in the U.S. as well. A Canadian helicopter pilot was was killed last week in a crash while fighting a fire in Colorado.
Trump is not the only Republican who has criticized Canada over the wildfire smoke. Earlier this week, four House Republicans from Michigan wrote a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a warning that appeared to allude to Trump’s threat to annex Canada.
“Sovereignty comes with responsibility,” the lawmakers wrote.
“This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to,” they wrote, later adding: “If Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has also said he intends to introduce a bill “to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity.”
In a statementMoreno’s office said: “Canada’s government failed to invest in wildfire prevention methods including forest thinning, fuel reduction, prescribed burns, and stronger enforcement against arson.”
Hotter temperatures and drier conditions as a result of the climate crisis have been major drivers of recent wildfires in North America. The Trump administration has cut funding for climate science, withdrawn the U.S. from global bodies and agreements aimed at tackling climate change and promoted the fossil fuel industry while rolling back renewable energy initiatives.
In response to the GOP complaints, some Canadian officials have noted that their country has helped with firefighting support in the U.S. during recent wildfires.
“If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Friday, “because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.”
Doug Ford on American complaints over wildfire smoke: “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help. Because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.” pic.twitter.com/9e2TCVbqxC
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson_)”https://x.com/sarobertson_/status/2078166329811460324?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 17, 2026
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Nothing has absorbed Maine politics like the candidacy of Graham Platner. Almost from the moment he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in mid-August 2025, he drew big crowds and lots of attention. His strongest backers stuck with him through controversy after controversy until Jenny Racicot publicly accused him of sexual assault. Platner denied the allegation, but his support collapsed.
Yet even after Platner officially withdrew as the nominee on July 10 and the Maine Democratic Party began the process of replacing himit seemed like Mainers were going to keep talking about him for a while. Many of his committed voters were deeply disappointed about what they learned; others were very angry that the news had been revealed. Some suggested they might write in Platner’s name or not vote at all in the fall.
Then came an awful event that starkly shifted Mainers’ attention, and moved the focus of the Maine Senate race from Platner to Sen. Susan Collins.
The killing of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday was a real shock in the state. Maine often has the lowest rate of violent crime nationally and homicides are rare, with only 21 in 2025.
Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.
Of course, it wasn’t just Guerrero’s death that was the story, but also who shot him — an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer — and the circumstances of his killing. For one, unlike other shootings by ICE officers, the Department of Homeland Security did not even claim that Guerrero posed any sort of imminent threat or that the shooter feared for their life. Rather, DHS said that Guerrero’s “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
Moreover, Guerrero was legally in the country, according to local immigrant rights groups. And Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Guerrero wasn’t even the person ICE was seeking.
Witnesses were shaken by what they saw. One bystander, Daniel Boucher, “choked up” recounting his experience, reported The Associated Press. “His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said of the victim. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’” In Akerleyanother neighbor who heard the shots and looked out the window to see some of what happened, told a local news station, “You know, it shatters the illusion that Maine is safe … I don’t know what he did, but he didn’t deserve to be executed in the street.”
Mainers quickly mobilized, with demonstrations in BiddefordPortlandBangor and Scarborough. “This is a land for people who want to be here,” said one rallygoer. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what color your skin is. That’s what America is about.”
Both Senate candidates and members of the public criticized Collins. Protesters in Biddeford crowded the doorway at the senator’s local officeshouting, “Vote her out!” Senate candidate Shenna Bellows argued that she had already acted when, as secretary of state, she blocked ICE from getting undercover license plates and proclaimed, “There should be no secret police in our state.” Another contender, Troy Jackson, referred to “ICE’s rogue actions” and blasted Collins for voting “to send $70 billion dollars to ICE with no reforms.” A third potential Democratic nominee, Nirav Shahcontended, “There is a straight line from Sen. Collins to the lawlessness we saw yesterday.”
While, as I’ve noted, some Platner supporters were deeply unhappy that he wasn’t going to be the Democratic nominee, his absence in the aftermath of the shooting didn’t seem to matter in the least.
And why should it have? Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.
Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.
In both places, ICE showed up with face masks and randomly detained people, including those in the country legally. Agents smashed in the car windows of a University of Maine-trained civil engineer, Juan Sebastián Carvajal-Muñozand took him away with the car still running. He had a valid permit to work, an engineering job and no criminal record. A man training to be a corrections officer in southern Maine suffered the same fate, and as did others, including asylum seekers.
Then, as now, Mainers came togethersometimes via social media and sometimes through various groups, to try to counteract ICE.
As in Minnesota, ICE was heavy-handed and showed disrespect for civil rights. Two Maine women observing ICE were told they would be put on a domestic terrorist watch list and sued. “Only 11 of the nearly 200 people detained in Maine during a massive January immigration enforcement surge were recorded as having a criminal record,” the Bangor Daily News reportedmaking ICE look even more abusive.
At the time, Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.
Now, Collins is again responding in her classic both-sides way. On the one hand, the incumbent urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” and tepidly acknowledged that the lack of a recording device on the shooter was “extremely unfortunate.” On the other hand, Collins blamed Democrats for a delay in body cameras and contended that eliminating ICE “would make our country less safe.”
Platner’s fall upended the state’s biggest race for a time. But there are plenty of ICE critics, both political leaders and not, who are taking charge of the response to Collins and the agency.
And, though the Democratic Senate nominee is unknown again, Mainers are rising up, speaking out and moving on.
Amy Fried is professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. She also has a Substack, Political Sightlines.
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