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When President Donald Trump was in China, he left Xi Jinping with very little. But one reporter noticed it was similar to what Trump got with Russian President Vladimir Putin."I mean, look, it's the old diplomatic strategy, right? Take what you get, declare victory, and go home," said New York Times reporter Peter Baker, speaking to MSNBC's Katy Tur. "Whether it is a victory or not, beyond being able to say you've got one is the bigger question." At this point, however, Baker said that Trump's wins look "modest." "I was struck when the president said that he gave this a 12 on a scale of 10 for being a great meeting, and that they made a lot of progress and 'We're very close on some important things,'" Baker quoted. "That's almost word-for-word the things he said when he met in Alaska with Vladimir Putin. I was there in the room for that, he said. It was a 10 out of 10, not 12, but it was a 10 out of 10. 'And they made a lot of progress. And we're very close on some really important things.'"Trump visited Alaska to meet with Putin and lobby for an end to the war in Ukraine."And of course, we all know what happened after Alaska, which is nothing," said Baker. "So, you know, you've got to be careful about overevaluating how much this will be worth. If it means, though, that there is sort of a, kind of a truce in a way, that there is a less hostile relationship for them now."The exchanges, he said, are less hostile and less volatile, and that's the only real progress.

Trump and the billionaires and foreign fascists he’s aligned with are both stronger than most think and weaker. Today I’ll deal with the stronger part; tomorrow, the weaker.We’re living in a moment when the line between democracy and dictatorship is far less clear than we like to believe. As a recent analysis by Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die, puts it, we’ve already moved onto the midpoint along the spectrum between democracy and dictatorship where “competitive authoritarianism” lives.That’s the world of regimes that hold elections but use their control over the nation’s systems to skew the rules, restrict opposition, weaponize institutions, vandalize the truth, and destroy/ignore democratic norms. We’re more than halfway down that road in just ten short months.In the United States today, it’s impossible to ignore how much of that template was laid out by Viktor Orbán to the Heritage Foundation, which embedded core strategies of his authoritarian rule over Hungary into Project 2025, and is now being executed step-by-step by Trump and his lickspittles.And with ICE making warrantless arrests while brutalizing and now spying on protesters with Stingrays and Pegasus, Putin’s FSB’s secret police are also providing a model for Trump.We often comfort ourselves with the idea that elections alone guarantee democracy, but the fact is that democratic institutions can be hollowed out from within even as ballots are still being cast.In Hungary, under Orbán, elections exist, but the playing field is so tilted using tools like gerrymandering that the opposition never has a fair chance, the media was captured by Orbán-aligned oligarchs, and both the courts and the legislature were packed to the point where they lost their autonomy.That Hungarian model is now being mirrored in America. Project 2025’s blueprint doesn’t call for an overt single‐party take-over; rather it tweaks the administrative levers, centralizes power, bypasses checks and balances, staffs courts, commissions and agencies with loyalists, undermines election administration, and deploys state power to punish dissent while preserving the appearance of normalcy.Where are we on the spectrum? Much further than many pundits will admit.We now have elected and Trump-appointed officials who openly defy precedent, judicial rulings, and the rule of law; we have partisan weaponization of powerful institutions capable of punishing dissenters, ranging from the DOJ to the FBI and the IRS; we have dark-money networks influencing everything from policy to courts with the blessing of a corrupt Supreme Court; and we have billionaire capture of most of our media, producing widespread disinformation and naked attacks on the very idea of truth.That is less a democracy and more a system of “managed competition,” where electoral outcomes are shaped in advance, not determined by a fair contest. In short, the clock is running fast toward a complete loss of democracy, the “autocratic breakthrough” I’ve written about before.And while millions of Americans show up for protests — which matters — protests alone are nowhere near enough.In effect, while protesters may feel emboldened and signal a national discontent, in the absence of durable organization, leadership, and strategy the protests are easily absorbed, marginalized, or rendered irrelevant by Trump’s fascist forces and billionaire supporters once the streets are empty again.This is precisely the gap the Trump-Orbán-Putin model exploits. At the same time the marches are occurring, the foundation of the GOP’s up-and-coming fascist autocracy is being built: the staffing of key agencies, the rewriting of rules under emergency or administrative power, the gerrymandering and court packing, the stealth takeover of local precincts and state and county election commissions.We must be careful that the dazzle of street energy doesn’t blind us to the quiet but decisive work of tearing down the institutional foundations of authoritarian rule that Trump, the GOP, and their morbidly rich backers are quickly laying. If we’re to stop America’s slide toward fascism we must face that stark reality.The details underlying Project 2025 echo Hungary’s path with startling specificity. In that country a small, wealthy clique around Orbán orchestrated the capture of media, courts, electoral oversight bodies, and the constitution itself, which they then re-wrote (as Republicans are planning to do to ours when they get control of just a few more states).Orbán changed campaign finance rules, muzzled the press, and built a client state reliant on personal loyalty rather than democratic accountability. Want a government contract? Toss some money Orbán’s way, or at his family, or to his closest cronies. Want a pardon? Ditto. An exception to rules, laws, or even taxes? Ditto again.In the U.S. we see an analogous thinning of institutional independence, combined with the same type of cult of personality that always characterizes autocratic strongman governments. Trump’s openly expressed contempt for civil service norms, his threats to independent agencies, Republicans’ ideological staffing of courts all were cloned from the Hungarian template.And while the U.S. remains superficially democratic — voting still happens — the basis of open, free, fair, competitive elections is under vigorous assault by “tech bros” and other billionaires who openly disdain democracy itself.Trump announced last week that he’s sending “election monitors” to California and New Jersey — even though these are entirely state and not federal contests — presumably to intimidate both voters and election officials around the balloting happening in those states next week.Red states are gerrymandering to prevent Democrats from ever again controlling the House of Representatives. As I lay out in The Last American President, voter purges and ballot challenges knocked over 4 million mostly-Democratic voters off the rolls or prevented the ballots they cast from being counted in 2024, giving Trump and the GOP the White House and Congress.So what must Democrats — and unaffiliated/independent democracy advocates — do?We have to go beyond showing up in the streets and writing outraged posts on social media (although both do help). Movements that fail to coalesce around leaders and build institutions typically die in the glare of their own moral light.We need leadership and institutions capable of organizing, strategizing, and executing on multiple fronts: precincts, courts, local elections, media ecosystems, and state regulatory agencies. Protest without public faces and follow-through is like fireworks: beautiful, brief, and gone before the smoke clears.Our challenge is both structural and strategic, and, lacking hundreds of morbidly rich billionaires funding us like Trump has, we’re already way behind.It’s not enough to oppose; we must propose, build, and defend. Like Bernie Sanders is constantly pointing out, we must fight for reforms that fortify democracy: enforce campaign finance transparency, build public horror of concentrated media and money power, demand independent courts, safeguard election administration from partisan capture, and work to guarantee that our vote is harder to take away than our guns.We must train a generation of leaders who don’t just show up for the “march” but stay for the precinct meeting, the town hall, the election board challenge. We must invest in institutions — particularly the DNC — that outlast ephemeral flare-ups of outrage and build resilient and genuinely progressive democratic infrastructure.This is, after all, a progressive populist moment, as the Zohran Mamdani campaign in New York City and crowds showing up for Bernie and AOC’s Anti-Oligarchy Tour show. We just have to join it fully and ride its power.Here’s the plain truth: any movement that wants democracy to prevail must realize that its job is just beginning when the banners are raised and the cameras roll. The billionaire-funded rightwing movement bent on authoritarianism has its candidates, its loyalists, its media echo-chamber, and its policy train.This moment demands no less. We can no longer simply debate about policy or personality; we’re in a contest of governance models, of democratic vs authoritarian futures. James Carville recently told Jen Psaki that, “You aren’t scared enough yet!” Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the entire Democratic Party need to hear that message and act now. Along with the rest of us.The longer we leave the field uncontested, the more power we hand to those with a blueprint. The window is narrowing, and the Hungarian/Russian lesson is clear: when the opposition wins the street but not the state, democracy loses.All of us who believe in a republic of citizens — not subjects — must work to build not just rallies but infrastructure, not just energy but strategy, not just slogans but institutions.Join progressive organizations and get inside the Democratic Party. Bring energy, enthusiasm, and passion. If you’re inclined and capable, run for office yourself.The hour is urgent. The stakes are existential.

President Donald Trump spoke on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Japan on Tuesday, and his comments were so overly political and partisan that one retired four-star general was left disgusted. Speaking in Japan, Trump teased the possibility of more wars, despite his 2024 election pledge to get the United States out of international wars and consider "America First" policies. "We will not be politically correct. You don't mind that, do you? When it comes to defending the United States, we're no longer politically correct," Trump rambled. "We're going to defend our country any way we have to. And that's usually not the politi-, politically correct way. From now on, if we're in a war, we're going to win the war. We're going to win it like nobody ever before. You know, we'd go in with — we'd blast the hell out of countries. Shouldn't have gone in. By the way, if you don't go in, that's even better. We don't have to go in peace through strength. But, you know, we'd go in, we'd win, and then we'd leave. They used to say to the victor belong the spoils. Well, we'd be the victor. Then we'd leave. Because we had people that didn't know what the hell they were doing."MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire said it's hardly anything new to see Trump treat military events like campaign rallies. This is his third example. Speaking to Katy Tur on Tuesday, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey said that it may not be new, but it isn't right. "He's unconstrained. And I think when you take that presentation aboard the carrier in Tokyo Bay, which sounded unhinged and was cringeworthy."He noted the new Japanese Prime Minister was also on hand as troops chanted USA. "It was bellicose. It was resonating with those young sailors. That's the other thing. You know, there is a widespread feeling among some in the military to push back against what they consider woke strictures on the armed forces. So we ought to be concerned about this," the general continued."If that speech in Tokyo aboard a carrier had been made by a military officer, he would have been canned and court martialed for violation of politicization of the military," McCaffrey continued. "But we got a real problem. This message is being heard, and people are responding to Trump's rhetoric."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted the Trump administration Sunday for its ongoing military strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, labeling them as “extrajudicial killings” that he argued were similar to how the Iranian or Chinese governments operate.“The drug or the crime war has typically been something we do through law enforcement, and so far they have alleged that these people are drug dealers,” Paul said, appearing on Fox News Sunday. “No one's said their name, no one's said what evidence, no one's said whether they're armed, and we've had no evidence presented. So at this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings. This is akin to what China does, to what Iran does with drug dealers, they summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public, so it's wrong.”President Donald Trump has authorized at least ten strikes on suspected drug-carrying sea vessels since September, killing at least 43 people that his administration has labeled as “narco-terrorists.” The strikes have received widespread bi-partisan condemnation for potentially being a violation of international law, with the most-recent strike occurring late Thursday night into Friday morning, killing six.Trump’s authority to authorize the strikes has also been questioned by critics, who point to Congress’ sole authority to approve declarations of war. Congress has not approved the strikes, and, according to Paul, have not even been briefed on the operations, or the evidence – should any exist – that those targeted were actually engaged in drug trafficking.“We haven't had a briefing; to be clear, we've gotten no information, I've been invited to no briefing, but a briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution,” Paul said. “The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it, and during a war, there's a lower rules for engagement, and people do sometimes get killed without due process.”Rand Paul on Trump's strikes on boats: "I would call them extrajudicial killings. This is akin to what China does, what Iran does with drug dealers -- they summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it's wrong." pic.twitter.com/NPCIt9kzgT— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 26, 2025

The Trump administration has been blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean — and now one in the Pacific — claiming without evidence that they’re “drug boats.”These are extrajudicial executions outside any system of law. And there’s a reason we shouldn’t allow drug warriors to act as judge, jury, and executioner: because over the years, they’ve made many, many tragic mistakes and killed lots of civilians.I’ve seen countless tragedies like these in my decades studying drug policy. Two were particularly egregious.In 2001, the United States was using local air forces to shoot down alleged trafficking planes over the Peruvian Amazon. In this case, a surveillance plane flown by CIA contractors misidentified a pontoon plane and had it shot down. Instead of traffickers, they killed a missionary from Michigan named Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter.The second case was an incident in Honduras in 2012, where the Drug Enforcement Administration and local forces mistakenly opened fire on a water taxi, killing four people — including two pregnant women — and then tried to cover it up.What makes these strikes so appealing to President Donald Trump is that it gives him the godlike power to look down from above and smite anyone who displeases him, without consequence. He’s even told sick jokes about local fishermen in the Caribbean now being afraid to get in their boats.If he’s allowed to normalize this kind of international extrajudicial killing, I don’t think it’s a far leap for him to try it domestically.Imagine a cop chasing a guy down the street, getting hot and tired, and shooting the suspect in the back. The cop probably wouldn’t tell a judge, “Well your honor, I didn’t want to chase him, so I just shot him.” But here’s the president declaring on the international stage: We’re not going to do police work. We’re just going to kill people.Now imagine the shoe’s on the other foot. Most of the killings in Mexico are done by guns smuggled from the United States. They call it the “River of Iron,” and it’s responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of killings in the country in the past 20 years.So would it be okay for the Mexican military to blow up a US fishing boat because they believed it was smuggling deadly guns into Mexico, even if they offered no evidence? Would that be acceptable to this administration?Here’s what drug warriors don’t understand: The US isn’t under armed attack from drug traffickers. It’s actually the opposite.Most drugs cost pennies per dose to manufacture. But the higher the risk to the individual smuggler — like the risk of getting arrested, shut down, or blown up — the more they can charge as drugs move down the smuggling chain.By the time drugs reach users, they’ve snowballed in value. But consumers in the US have proven more than willing to pay hyper-inflated prices, and even risk arrest, for drugs — just as drinkers were once willing to pay bootleggers huge sums for booze during Prohibition.In short, our policies create tremendous value for substances that are relatively cheap. We’re making trafficking more profitable, not less.So if the US bombs a trafficker — or an alleged trafficker — we escalate the risk premium for everyone else in that industry. It’s a bad deal for you if you’re the one who’s killed, but it creates a “job opening” for others in the operation, or a rival cartel, to take over that turf — which is now more lucrative.The drug war acts as a price support for drug dealers. That’s why no one wants the drug war to continue more than the smugglers themselves. This was ultimately why the US ended alcohol prohibition.Addiction is a public health problem and requires public health solutions, not allowing someone like Trump to play judge, jury, and executioner — at home or abroad.Sanho Tree is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, a community of scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. www.ips-dc.org

The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean as tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuela continue to escalate, a spokesperson for the Defense Department said Friday.“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the [U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility] will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” wrote Sean Parnell, DOD spokesperson, in a statement shared on social media Friday.“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle [transnational criminal organizations].”Tensions between the United States and Venezuela under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro have ramped up in recent weeks after President Donald Trump began ordering strikes on suspected drug-carrying vessels headed toward the United States. Maduro was indicted on narco-terrorism charges by the Justice Department in 2020, and the Trump administration continues to consider outright assassinating him, according to an anonymous senior Trump official.“The dispatch of a carrier is the strongest sign yet that the Trump administration envisions expanding the airstrikes that so far have been limited to striking small vessels to other targets on land in what officials have said is an effort to destroy drug-smuggling operations and destabilize Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s government,” wrote journalist Shelby Holliday in a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.“The Pentagon was already carrying out a large buildup of combat power in the region. A carrier in the region would enable commanders to carry out airstrikes at a higher tempo and shorten the distance U.S. planes would have to fly to reach targets on land.”The latest strike on suspected drug-carrying vessels came late Thursday night after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that another six suspected “narco-terrorists” were killed. Critics have labeled the targeted strikes as violations of international law.

President Donald Trump fired off on Canada early Friday morning after a Canadian province paid for a video advertisement in an apparent attempt to bash Trump’s tariff policy.Launched last week, the ad was paid for by the government of Ontario, and features lines from a speech of former President Ronald Reagan’s in which he speaks to the economic harm caused by tariffs. The ad buy comes amid Trump’s trade talks with Canada, which Thursday night he cut off, citing the ad as the reason for the breakdown in negotiations.“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!! They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country. Canada has long cheated on Tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400%. Now they, and other countries, can’t take advantage of the U.S. any longer. Thank you to the Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing this FRAUD.”While Trump claims that the ad misrepresented Reagan’s views on tariffs, the lines heard in the ad were, in fact, said by Reagan during a 1987 radio speech, albeit not in the same order as heard in the ad. Reagan was also a well-known proponent of international free trade, having famously eliminated a number of the United States’ protectionist trade policies.Trump’s rant also comes amid a Supreme Court case in which justices will decide whether Trump has the authority to issue broad tariffs, a case that could decide the fate of Trump’s trade policy, a key fixture of his agenda during his second term.

President Donald Trump announced he was cutting off trade talks with Canada over an advertisement released by Ontario's provincial government featuring critical comments about tariffs made by the late Ronald Reagan.The former president's foundation claimed the ad issued this week "misrepresents" Reagan's 1987 speech, in which he argued tariffs “every American worker and consumer” and “triggering fierce trade wars," and the foundation is "reviewing legal options" and Trump is lashing out."The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs," Trump posted late Thursday on Truth Social. "The ad was for $75,000,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts."The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments next month on the president's tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after lower courts found Trump's orders unlawful, and the federal government could be required to refund up to $1 trillion in revenue to American companies if the justices uphold those decisions."TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.," Trump posted. "Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT"Trump has thrown the centuries-long friendly relationship between the U.S. and Canada into turmoil with steep tariffs on autos, aluminum, energy, lumber and steel and threatened to take over Canada as the 51st state, and the trade war has hurt both nations' economies and job markets.Read it here.