But his comments are a part of a broader, and more provocative agenda, said sources familiar with the bilateral relationship. They mark the launching, the sources said,

of a wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign by the Trump administration targeting Mexican officials suspected of having links to organized crime.

Such a crackdown that could shake bilateral relations at a pivotal moment, as U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators are sitting down to review the North American free-trade pact — a linchpin in Mexico’s export-dependent economy.

The event on Thursday was to celebrate construction of a billion-dollar methanol factory, one of the largest single private U.S. investments in Mexico in recent history.

Addressing a gathering of company executives, investors and state officials in the Pacific Coast city of Los Mochis. Johnson began his remarks by touting the project and highlighting the importance of U.S.-Mexico relations.

“The Pacifico Mexinol project represents a $3.3 billion investment during its construction and development,” Johnson said. “It will become the largest ultra-low emissions methanol facility in the world.”

But then Johnson pivoted to corruption, a touchy subject in Mexico.

“Corruption doesn’t just slow progress, it distorts it. It raises costs, weakens competition, and erodes the trust that markets depend on. It’s not a victimless problem,” Johnson said. “And it’s a direct obstacle to growth, to fairness, to opportunities, and to the long-term success of projects like this one.”

The ambassador then delivered a not-so-subtle message: Mexico needs to do something about its epidemic of crooked governance — from street cops to local mayors and governors to federal lawmakers, all on cartel payrolls — if leaders want to secure financial stability for the country of 133 million. He made clear the U.S. was coming after allegedly corrupt Mexican politicians.

“Investment is like water,” Johnson said. “It flows when the conditions are right, and it dries up when they are not.”

The U.S.-Mexico trade pact “requires our governments to criminalize bribery and corruption and enforce codes of conduct for public officials,” the ambassador noted as he closed his remarks. “We may soon see significant action on this front. So, stay tuned.”

The pointed remarks reflected the magnitude of the anti-corruption initiative. The campaign is expected to go well beyond the traditional sanction — the canceling of visas for those suspected of being in league with cartels.

This time the crackdown could include indictments of Mexican politicians in U.S. federal courts, including members of the ruling Morena party, a political movement founded on a “no corruption” platform. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Official responses to Johnson’s remarks were muted.

When asked about Johnson’s remarks Friday in her morning news conference President Claudia Sheinbaum laughed. “That’s exactly what we’re working on,” she said, referring to the ambassador’s anti-corruption dictates. “The United States should do the same.”

U.S. prosecutors carrying out such an initiative could turn to a large pool of potential informants.

Scores of former cartel operatives — including the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, legendary founder of the Sinaloa mob — languish in U.S. custody. Many are believed to be eager to become “snitches” against former accomplices, including crooked politicians and cops.

To deliver his message, Johnson chose Sinaloa state — the base of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s most notorious drug-trafficking conglomerates.

As with other criminal syndicates, the cartel has long oiled the gears of corruption with bribes. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of politicians and lawmen are on the cartel payroll, experts say.

The message that Washington will no longer accept business-as-usual was a sharp warning for Sheinbaum, a long-time academic and U.S.-educated scientist who, by all accounts, is free from the taint of corruption. But the same can’t be said for her dominant Morena bloc, here in Sinaloa and throughout the country.

Sheinbaum, known for her deft handling of Trump, must walk a fine line between placating Trump and resisting pressure from her Morena political base — especially if prominent politicians get swept up in a U.S.-driven anti-corruption whirlwind.

Already, the State Department has revoked the visas of several Morena lawmakers, including the governor of Baja California.

Among those whose U.S. visa has been revoked, the sources said, is Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, a Morena stalwart who has repeatedly denied cartel links. It was cancelled last year.

The septuagenarian governor has managed to survive sundry political scandals, Mexican observers say, because of a key fact: His long-time friendship with ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor.

Rocha Moya is one of a number of top politicians viewed as protected by their associations with Lopez Obrador.

Among the major threats to Rocha Moya’s political survival was the outcry about the 2024 shooting death of his one-time chief political rival, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, a former lawmaker and university rector.

The crime remains unsolved. Mexican federal prosecutors concluded that the state inquiry into the shooting was a sham. Among the inconsistencies, according to prosecutors: State investigators compiled a fake video meant to conceal where, when and how the victim was slain.

The resulting uproar forced the resignation of the chief Sinaloa prosecutor. But Rocha Moya, her boss, remained in office despite calls for his resignation. He denied any link to Cuén Ojeda’s death.

On Thursday, Rocha Moya had been scheduled to give remarks alongside the U.S.. ambassador at the ground-breaking event.

But before Johnson could arrive, protesters descended on the venue denouncing the governor, who had already arrived, as “corrupt.” “I am on your side,” Rocha Moya assured the demonstrators, adding that he would stay to speak with them rather than attend the ceremony, which was moved because of the protest.

A hastily prepared hotel conference room in Los Mochis was used for the ceremony. That’s where Johnson, speaking in both Spanish and English, delivered his brief remarks.

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State officials call it trespassing and are asking a federal judge at a hearing Monday in Los Angeles to order Sable Offshore Corp. to stop using the pipeline — which snakes for 4 miles (6 kilometers) through a portion of Gaviota State Park — and to remove it.

The pipeline system owned by the Texas firm had been idle since one of its pipelines ruptured in 2015 and caused one of California’s worst oil spills, blackening beaches for 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. The spill polluted a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used a Cold War-era provision March 13 to direct Sable to restart production, saying shoring up domestic oil supplies is needed to lower gas prices amid the Iran war as the Islamic Republic continues to squeeze a vital shipping channel through which one-fifth of the world’s oil travels. He noted “more than 60% of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz — presenting serious national security threats.”

The litigation is the latest salvo in an escalating legal battle that is testing states’ power to challenge Washington’s wishes, even during wartime, as the Trump administration rolls back regulations seen as unfriendly to its plans for more coastal oil drilling.

Energy secretary says drilling needed to replace foreign oil

Until the federal intervention, Sable had been unable to sell a drop of oil as the litigation piled up to stop its operation, which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

Opposition to the project has been fierce in Santa Barbara, where a 1969 oil spill helped give rise to the modern environmental movement after local California communities hadn’t been given any voice in decisions about offshore drilling.

“We’ve never seen an oil company operate so openly outside of the law,” said Alex Katz of the Environmental Defense Center, the Santa Barbara group formed in response to the 1969 spill.

A state judge last year ordered the operation stopped until Sable proved it was in compliance with state regulations. The Santa Barbara District Attorney also filed felony criminal charges against Sable, accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife as it repaired the pipeline system.

Sable said it has the proper permits.

The U.S. Energy Department said Sable will help California’s in-state oil production jump by 15%, which will replace almost 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude oil each month.

But the crude pulled out by Sable is heavy and costly to refine, said Paasha Mahdavi, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who researches the impact of oil and gas resources on governance and environmental politics. The estimated production of 50,000 barrels a day is also a drop in the bucket on the global scale and will have no impact on domestic gas supplies or prices, he said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has filed lawsuits over the project, said “the U.S. already produces significantly more oil and gas than we use — it’s a completely fabricated claim intended to curry favor with the oil industry.”

The energy department and Sable did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the assertions by state officials.

Jim Flores, Sable’s chairman and chief executive officer, said April 20 that the pipeline had already produced more than 1 million barrels of oil.

“We are working tirelessly to provide American oil from American soil to consumers in California and the U.S. military,” he said.

When the Cold War-era law has been used

The administration invoked the Defense Production Act to restart the drilling. The law was signed by President Harry S. Truman during the Korean War to give the president broad authority to mobilize resources during a crisis.

Two decades ago, both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush invoked it to ensure that electricity and natural gas shippers continued supplying California utilities to cope with an energy crisis. Former President Joe Biden used it to boost crucial supplies to U.S. solar manufacturers to fight climate change.

“But it’s never been used so brazenly against a set of state regulations, not to mention state litigation,” Mahdavi said. “That’s what makes this unique and perhaps why they used it after the war started. Because under normal circumstances it really would not have made it past the courts.”

California argues it has a say over what operates on state land

The trespassing litigation is based on property rights and federal overreach, both touchstones of conservatism, said Deborah Sivas, a professor at Stanford Law School. State officials say permission to use the pipeline on state land expired in 2016.

“It’s not out in the ocean, in federal waters. This is actually on state property. We have a say on that — you can’t just override that,” Sivas said.

Sivas believes the administration’s expansion of the 1950 law is aimed at ushering in its five-year plan to give the oil industry access to new offshore areas. Courts have been leery to second-guess an emergency order from the federal government, especially amid a war, she said.

“This broad expansion of the act, where they’re saying we’re just going to preempt all of state law, we’re going to use it to just crush state law and order what we want going forward — it’s anxiety producing,” Sivas said.

A few weeks after Wright’s order, the Trump administration exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said lawsuits by environmentalists — who warned drilling could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life — threatened to hobble domestic energy supplies amid the Iran war.

The administration also approved an ultra deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, the company’s first new oil field developed in the Gulf since the nation’s worst offshore oil spill in 2010.

As California officials fight back, the oil flows

This month, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna Geck kept in place an injunction she imposed last year after the California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over allegations of working without the proper permits.

Sable told the court that Wright’s order supersedes all that. The U.S. Department of Justice is also asking the court to modify or end a binding federal court decree signed after the 2015 spill that gave the state the final say over the restart of the operation, the company said.

Sable said it is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in financial damage and taking legal action “to curb state and county regulatory overreach.”

Geck again ordered Sable to adhere to state and local regulations. In her ruling, she wrote that case law “strongly implies that the (Defense Production Act) order, by itself, does not permit the violation of applicable state regulatory law.”

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The review from the inspector general’s office will focus on how the department collected, reviewed and redacted materials in preparation for their release, as well as its process for addressing concerns that arose after the files were made public, when Epstein survivors complained that personal information about them had been disclosed.

The audit will revisit the department’s staggered and uneven release of millions of records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a process that exposed it to accusations that it was attempting to protect President Donald Trump, who decades ago was friendly with the financier. It marks the watchdog office’s first significant effort since Trump took office for a second time to scrutinize the actions of a department that has been riven by tumult, including mass firings of employees and allegations of politicization of investigations.

The records were released starting late last year in compliance with a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump, who bowed to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting efforts to disclose additional files. That November law required the release within 30 days of records related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in a jail in 2019, and also allowed for redactions of information about victims.

But problems with the department’s process soon emerged.

Officials released only a fraction of records within the 30-day deadline, later disclosing they would need several more weeks because of the abrupt discovery of a massive tranche of records tied to the case.

In late January, the department released what it said were 3 million pages of records, but subsequently withdrew several thousand documents and “media” after lawyers told a judge that the lives of nearly 100 abuse survivors had been “turned upside down” by careless redactions. The exposed materials include nude photos, with faces visible, as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.

The department blamed it on “technical or human error.”

The scrutiny continued after several news organizations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against Trump were not among those released to the public. The accuser was interviewed by the FBI four times as it sought to assess her account but a summary of only one of those interviews had been included in the publicly released files.

The department said those files had been “incorrectly coded as duplicative” and therefore were inadvertently not published along with other investigative documents.

Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

Authorities say Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

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    “I confirm I have suggested to Trump and Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the World Cup,” Zampolli told the Financial Times. “I’m an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a U.S.-hosted tournament.”

    Despite Zampolli’s passionate suggestion, the proposal has been met with little support, including rejection from the Italians themselves, who found the idea offensive. Nonetheless, Zampolli’s comments are part of an unprecedented effort by the Trump Administration and its allies to influence preparations for this summer’s World Cup, which will be the largest and most complex in history.

    In recent months, President Trump has made his stance on World Cup venues known, threatening to pull games out of cities run by Democratic governments, such as Boston, Seattle, and Santa Clara, citing safety and security concerns. Meanwhile, presidential proclamations have restricted the entry of nationals from 39 countries, including Iran, Senegal, Haiti, and the Ivory Coast—nations set to compete in the tournament. Additionally, U.S. authorities are requiring visitors from 50 countries to deposit bonds of up to $15,000 to enter the country for the event, a fee some players and coaches from Cape Verde, Algeria, and Tunisia may have to pay.

    Homeland Security personnel, including ICE, are also expected to be a major part of the security apparatus during the tournament, prompting concern from lawmakers and civil rights groups. A union representing over 30,000 workers in Southern California filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing FIFA and other authorities of failing to limit ICE’s presence at SoFi Stadium, where eight World Cup matches will be held.

    “The blatant attempt at political interference not only drips with arrogance, but portends a highly politicized World Cup,” said Jules Boykoff, a professor of politics and government at Pacific University. “The closer we get to the tournament, the more power Trump has over FIFA.”

    FIFA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Iran’s participation in this summer’s World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, has been in question since the U.S. and Israel began bombing the country in February. The attacks have killed nearly 4,000 Iranians and caused over $300 billion in economic damage, while Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global oil supplies. Iran initially stated that it would not participate in the World Cup due to safety concerns but later asked FIFA to move its games to Mexico—though this request was denied.

    On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Iranian government said the team is preparing for “proud and successful participation” in the World Cup, though the nation’s commitment to the tournament appears tied to the progress of ongoing peace negotiations, marking the first World Cup in history to be affected by a conflict between a host country and a participating nation.

    Zampolli’s suggestion has only added fuel to the fire, especially considering his close ties to President Trump. A former modeling agent, Zampolli was appointed by Trump as a special envoy for global partnerships. His comments continue to fuel uncertainty regarding Iran’s place in the tournament, and the possibility of replacing Iran with Italy has led to confusion and concern. FIFA regulations state that a country can withdraw from the World Cup “no later than 30 days before the first match” and may face penalties, including fines or disqualification from future events. With the World Cup set to begin in Mexico City on June 11, that deadline is quickly approaching.

    FIFA has the authority to choose a replacement if a country withdraws, but there are no clear guidelines for such a situation. Italy, which failed to qualify for the tournament after losing a playoff against Bosnia and Herzegovina last month, is the highest-ranked team not in the competition. Despite Zampolli’s proposal, Italian officials swiftly rejected the idea. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti called it “shameful,” while Sports Minister Andrea Abodi stated, “You qualify on the pitch.”

    Italy’s possible inclusion would also disrupt the tournament’s carefully constructed field by increasing Europe’s representation to 17 teams, taking away a spot from Asia, where Iran represents. It could also lead to protests from other countries in Iran’s group, including Belgium, Egypt, and New Zealand.

    Given these complications, the likely replacement for Iran would be the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the next best team in Asia’s qualification. However, the UAE has not played a match since its loss to Morocco in the Arab Cup last December, and its March friendly with Armenia was canceled due to security concerns related to the ongoing U.S. war on Iran.

    Jonathan Wilson, author of The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup, weighed in on the issue: “If Iran isn’t there, it obviously should be the UAE as the next-best Asian side in qualification.”

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Several nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of changing the rules for receiving $75 million to build housing for homeless families and individuals. The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of issuing a new Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, for the Continuum of Care program to better align with its social policies.

U.S District Judge Mary McElroy, nominated by President Trump, said the department’s “slapdash imposition of political whims” was unlawful and she ordered it to scrap the new policy.

“Once again, this Court is faced with a case in which an executive agency has made a last-minute decision to make major, disruptive changes to grants within its purview, all for the express purpose of accomplishing the current administration’s policy objectives,” McElroy said in her ruling that the NOFO violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

A spokesperson for HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advocates for plaintiffs welcomed the ruling.

“For more than three decades, the federal government has supported housing providers and communities through HUD’s programs to help people experiencing homelessness move into stable housing,” Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We are pleased that the court has stopped the Trump-Vance administration from holding life-saving funding hostage to a political agenda.”

Ann Oliva, chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the ruling was “a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs.”

“Today’s news reinforces a fundamental truth: that the work to end homelessness is not partisan, and never should be interfered with for political means,” Oliva said in a statement.

Plaintiffs argued the Trump administration was aiming to upend polices in place for decades to satisfy its political considerations, including whether jurisdictions “support sanctuary protections, harm reduction practices, or inclusive policies for transgender people.”

The Alliance and the Women’s Development Corporation argued that HUD lacked the authority to make the changes, adding that the new award process was “shockingly unlawful” and would “irreparably injure qualified applicants for these funds and the communities they serve.”

In its court filings, HUD argued the new criteria was an effort “to ensure the availability of funding to protect our Nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families from the trauma of homelessness while simultaneously promoting self-sufficiency.”

“Defendants acted reasonably and prudently because the NOFO conditions, focusing on public safety, cooperation with law enforcement and prohibitions on illegal drug use, are sufficiently related to the funding goals of self-sufficiency and reduction of trauma,” HUD wrote.

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“Is it surprising the Trump administration didn’t like my commentary and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak?” No,” said Newsom, who is weighing a 2028 presidential run. “It’s consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies.”

The Democratic governor spoke Thursday morning in Davos, less than a day after his scheduled conversation with Fortune at USA House was canceled. Newsom said the event had been positioned as a discussion following Trump’s speech at the global forum. However, Newsom said the Trump administration “made sure it was canceled.”

“That’s what’s happening in the United States of America,” said Newsom, whose Thursday appearance speaking with Semafor’s Ben Smith was at a different location. “Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech — it’s America in reverse. They’re censoring historical facts. They’re rewriting history.”

The USA House is a privately run and corporate sponsored venue serving as the official United States hub at the Global Economic Forum. The venue featured several Trump administration speakers this week.

Newsom’s office said they were told last minute that a “venue-level decision” had been made to “not include an elected U.S. official” in the programming. A spokesperson for Fortune, which was hosting Newsom’s fireside chat, said USA House “determined it would not be able to accommodate the governor’s participation and communicated that decision to Fortune.”

White House officials declined Wednesday to directly address whether the administration had played a role in blocking Newsom’s appearance, instead issuing a statement attacking the governor personally.

“No one in Davos knows who third-rate governor Newscum is or why he is frolicking around Switzerland instead of fixing the many problems he created in California,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in the statement.

Newsom noted he looked at the list of people attending his appearance Thursday, which he said included major businesses like Microsoft, before he accused corporate America of falling in line rather than challenging Trump’s rhetoric and policies. At one point, Newsom held up a pair of red knee pads featuring Trump’s signature — a prop he has used to point to an excessive deference to Trump.

“Many American universities are selling out, and yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration,” Newsom said. “Selling out our values, selling out our future, selling out what makes America great and (it) breaks my heart. People need to stand up.”

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“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”

During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.

Some, however, weren’t convinced.

“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.

Also on Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to ensure that Venezuelan oil revenue remains protected from being used in judicial proceedings.

The executive order, made public on Saturday, says that if the funds were to be seized for such use, it could “undermine critical U.S. efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela.” Venezuela has a history of state asset seizures, ongoing U.S. sanctions and decades of political uncertainty.

Getting U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuela and help rebuild the country’s infrastructure is a top priority of the Trump administration after Maduro’s capture.

The White House is framing the effort to “run” Venezuela in economic terms, and Trump has seized tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, has said the U.S. is taking over the sales of 30 million to 50 million barrels of previously sanctioned Venezuelan crude, and plans to control sales worldwide indefinitely.

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“Every year, the declinists, the pundits and critics suffering from California derangement syndrome look at this state and try to tear down our progress,” he said, instead pointing to technological advancements and engineering talent as a metric of his administration’s success. 

“California’s success is not by chance — it’s by design. We’ve created the conditions where dreamers and doers and misfits and marvelers with grit and ingenuity get to build and do the impossible.”

He touted a 9% reduction in unsheltered homelessness, cheaper insulin and increased clean energy use in California as among his accomplishments, in a speech delivered with an eye toward higher office. 

The address, his first State of the State to lawmakers in the Assembly chambers since 2020, was light on policy details for Newsom’s final year in office. Instead, he used as an opportunity to highlight progress on some of his most ambitious promises on housing affordability, expanded health care coverage, universal pre-kindergarten and going fossil fuel-free. Some of those haven’t yet been met.

He targeted the Trump administration on a range of issues, including excessive policing and immigration raids, saying the state “faces an assault on our values unlike anything I have seen in my lifetime.” And in a common talking point for Newsom recently, he indirectly criticized the president for deprioritizing clean energy as China dominates electric vehicle production, and pointed to his own visits to international climate conferences.

“In California, we are not silent. We are not hunkering down. We are not retreating. We are a beacon. This state is providing a different narrative,” he said. 

In a closing segment that roused the most support from lawmakers, he renewed his call for Trump to back a requested $34 billion aid package for Los Angeles to recover from last January’s wildfires. 

California’s relationship with the president has steadily deteriorated in the past year, between the state’s frequent lawsuits, Trump’s deployment of immigration agents and the National Guard to Los Angeles, federal funding fights and Proposition 50, Newsom’s successful redistricting measure to help Democrats gain five new seats in Congress this year. But Newsom attempted a nod toward unity on the issue of fire aid, pointing to the recently deceased Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s support for it. 

“It’s time for the president of the United States to act like a president for all of the United States,” he said, later adding, “we’re home to more Americans than any other state.”

Newsom casts homelessness as a ‘win’

On homelessness, the reduction in the number of Californians sleeping on the street, in vehicles and in other places not meant for habitation is an important figure for the governor as he seeks to show improvement on one of California’s most stubborn challenges in his final year in office. 

A humanitarian and public health crisis and the most visible consequence of California’s housing shortage, Newsom is sure to face national criticism on homelessness should he make an expected presidential run in 2028. 

Lawmakers were restrained in their responses to Newsom claiming success over the reduction. It comes after years of increases in homelessness despite Newsom’s campaign promises to tackle it and pouring over $24 billion to it during his two terms. In 2024, the year before the announced reduction, homelessness in California hit a record high: 123,974 were unsheltered while 63,110 were sheltered. That year, homelessness also spiked nationally.

Newsom did not announce the number who were homeless overall in 2025. The federal government in the coming weeks is expected to release the results of the 2025 homeless census for each state, including California. In the meantime, many California counties have already released their individual results. Several, including Contra Costa, San Diego and Los Angeles, indeed are showing progress.

“I think the question always comes back to us, is it enough?” said Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, to reporters after the speech.

Newsom touted his administration’s focus on sweeping street encampments and building new mental health facilities paid for with Prop. 1, a $6.3 billion bond he promoted and which voters approved in 2024.

He also spoke about making the state more affordable, an issue over which Democrats and Republicans nationally are jockeying for credit after the 2024 presidential election showed voters were heavily motivated by the high cost of living. 

The issue is another weakness for Newsom on the national stage. Republicans criticizing him after the speech mostly accused him of not doing enough to lower costs.

“The results don’t match the rhetoric,” said Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a Yucaipa Republican, in a statement. “While speeches sound optimistic, budgets at the kitchen table don’t add up.”

Newsom plans to seek policies in his final year in office to crack down on large-scale investors buying up houses, forcing would-be homebuyers to compete — a day after Trump also announced a similar effort. It’s a new area for him in housing policy, after years seeking to boost construction. Newsom ran on a promise of building 3.5 million new housing units; the state has fallen far short of that. 

Newsom also ran on a promise of a universal public health care system; he has since shifted to expanding access to Medi-Cal, the state health program for low-income residents that faces punishing federal cuts under Trump. On Thursday, he touted the state’s production of $11 insulin as one way his administration has tackled health care costs. 

Projecting a rosier budget outlook

The address was also a preview of Newsom’s last budget proposal, to be released Friday. 

The state began the year facing an estimated $18 billion deficit and remains threatened by federal cuts. Newsom now says revenues have come in $42 billion higher than expected — a “windfall” officials mostly attribute to stock market gains and the artificial intelligence boom. But he did not reveal where that leaves the deficit, disappointing some lawmakers.

“I didn’t hear anything about the budget deficit, I didn’t hear anything about what we’re going to do to grow our economy,” said Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a moderate Democrat from Bakersfield who is also running for Congress in a district with many residents who could lose health coverage under Trump’s tax and spending bill. “What about the health care disparities? … There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”

A rosier-than-expected financial picture could allow Newsom to avoid difficult fights with Democratic lawmakers over major cuts to programs, while maintaining funding for banner Newsom administration priorities like expanding public school to include all four-year-olds and providing more funding for community colleges.

Democrats will be sure to jockey for additional funding for their favored programs or to reverse scheduled cuts to Medi-Cal coverage for low-income undocumented immigrant adults they made last year. But Newsom will propose instead to put $7 billion into reserves and $11 billion toward pension obligations. 

Democratic lawmakers mostly said they were cautiously optimistic about Newsom’s budget preview, though progressives said they’ll continue to push for new taxes to backfill expected federal health care cuts, such as a proposal to tax the wealthiest Californians to generate more revenue, which Newsom vocally opposes. The governor instead will propose to renew a business development tax credit that has been often used by the technology and manufacturing sectors. 

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Sociopolitical commentary has been ingrained in hip-hop from the genre’s beginning. Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo and Quavo all supported Kamala Harris’s presidential run in 2024, with prominent rappers overwhelmingly backing Democrats over the years. Contrast that with Trump-loving rappers like Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, who were both granted presidential pardons for criminal convictions.

But Minaj joins a special category of hip-hop performers, including Ye (formerly Kanye West), whose sudden flattery of one of the most polarizing politicians in modern history has played out for all the world — and fans — to see.

The White House has welcomed the support from Minaj, with Vance posting late Wednesday that the entertainer sometimes described as the “Queen of Rap” is better than Cardi B (decidedly not a Trump fan). An official Trump account later replied to one of her posts with a fuzzy, probably artificial-intelligence-generated video of a caricaturized, dancing Vance. But the increased spotlight on Minaj’s politically charged posts has splintered the Barbz, Minaj’s passionate fan base for her music, which includes more than 80 songs that have surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify.

Midway through Trump’s first term, as the Department of Homeland Security separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Minaj joined much of the entertainment industry in openly condemning the administration.

“I came to this country as an illegal immigrant at 5 years old,” she wrote on her now-deactivated Instagram account in 2018.“I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place and having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5. This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now?”

That slam against the administration was hardly a one-off.

“Island girl, Donald Trump want me go home,” Minaj rapped in a remix of Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” after Trump won the 2016 election. She added in the song that she was “prayin’ all my foreigns don’t get deported.”

But it has always been difficult to tie Minaj’s politics down, complicated by the fact that she sometimes performs as characters Harajuku Barbie and Roman Zolanski. (She’s described the latter as a “crazy boy” who lives inside her.) She criticized President Barack Obama’s health care restructuring for not going far enough in 2012 and later rapped, “I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney” on a Lil Wayne mixtape. Minaj later denied this was meant to be an endorsement and thanked the president for understanding her “creative humor & sarcasm” after Obama suggested in a radio interview that her use of alter egos might have informed the rap.

Nor was Minaj entirely opposed to Trump when he began his first presidential campaign. “There are points he has made that may not have been so horrible if his approach wasn’t so childish,” she told Billboard in 2015. “But in terms of entertainment — I think he’s hilarious.”

Minaj continued this balancing act throughout 2016, supporting Obama initiatives while laughing at the apparent absurdity of Trump’s then-ascendant campaign. In April, at the Time 100 Gala, Minaj dedicated a performance of “Anaconda” to then-Vice President Joe Biden as well as Trump, “in the spirit of unity.”

For the remainder of the first Trump administration, Minaj supported specific liberal causes. She pulled out of a concert in Saudi Arabia, citing her support forthe rights of women and the LGBTQ community. In 2020, she redirected the proceeds from her collaboration with 6ix9ine, “Trollz,” toward the Bail Project in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests spurred on by the murder of George Floyd. And when Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Minaj seemingly celebrated, posting a photo of Harris with the caption “We did it joe.”

She appeared to have largely soured on Trump by the end of his first term, even as he was starting to make inroads with some entertainers. She told Rolling Stone in 2020 that she’s “not gonna jump on the Donald Trump bandwagon,” in reference to the wave of hip-hop acts supporting the president’s then-reelection bid.

But in 2021, Minaj started to take sharper aim at Democrats, most notably expressing skepticism about coronavirus vaccines that conservatives were widely decrying, despite medical evidence that they saved lives. The rapper’s unsubstantiated claims that her cousin’s friend “became impotent” because of the shot caught the attention of the Biden administration, which offered to set up a call between Minaj and a doctor to answer questions she had about the vaccine. Both Anthony S. Fauci, who was then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Terrence Deyalsingh, former health minister for Trinidad and Tobago, debunked her claims. It’s unclear whether the call happened.

Minaj increasingly supported Trump in his second term, even as he oversaw harsher crackdowns on immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities. Minaj had historically spoken in support of her LGBTQ+ fans, telling Out in 2010 that gay men are “definitely a big part of my movement” and collaborating with trans artist Kim Petras on the song “Alone.”

In November, in what may have been a joke, she wrote to a parody Trump account on X, asking “Papi Trumpo” for honorary citizenship. She was evidently thrilled when the administration used her viral “Beez in the Trap” mash-up and featured her song “Va Va Voom” in social media posts, contrasting with other big-name artists, like Sabrina Carpenter, who have expressed anger and horror to find their music in the administration’s feeds.

That same month, Minaj found serious common ground with the White House over its highlycontested claims that Christians are facing genocidalpersecution in Nigeria. After Minaj thanked Trump for “taking this serious” in November, the president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz,reciprocatedwith a post calling her “not only arguably the greatest female recording artist, but also a principled individual who refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice.”

Two days later, a “very nervous” Minaj joined Waltz at U.N. headquarters in New York to deliver a speechabout the issue.

Screenshots shared online suggest Minaj has paid a price for her political pivot, losing hundreds of thousands or even millions of social media followers in the wake of her speech. “Even Drake has his papers,” rapper Azealia Banks wrote on X in September, according to Complex, mocking Minaj for ingratiating herself to Trump. “Even Cardi B isn’t a 40-year-old immigrant. … Doing dolphin tricks for the barbs in a country she can’t vote in is rusty babe.”

But if anything, Minaj has doubled down.

After the prominent Democratic governor of her home state of California, Gavin Newsom, expressed support for trans kids this month, Minaj went on a multi-post tirade: “Imagine being the guy running on wanting to see trans kids. Haha. Not even a trans ADULT would run on that,” she wrote on Friday. In other posts, she’s called him “Gavvy pooh,” and said Newsom “thinks he’s Tom Cruise only difference is, his next mission IS impossible.”

Minaj’s overt praise of Trump’s White House reached a peak over the past week, when she reposted videos of Trump and Vance, in one X post calling them “Heroes” and “The Good Guys.”

All this has left Minaj’s fans on high alert.

On the one hand, her fans are united by a discography many consider inspirational, even life-changing. Some are ignoring the political noise, more interested in whether Minaj drops a surprise release before the end of the year so she can extend her streak of years with a Billboard Hot 100 hit, the longest by a female rapper. Others are more focused on her next album release, set for March 27.

“For the 38372727th time nobody cares nor are we going to stop you from leaving,” one fan posted on Reddit after another user complained about Minaj’s recent controversies.

But a faction of her fans, sometimes called “Edgy Barbz” because of their relatively critical perspectives on Minaj’s behavior, have been pulling back their support or stepping back from the fan community entirely.

“It’s okay to admit that someone you wish the best for has screwed up. Not all their RIGHTS from the past make up for the current blatant wrongs,” one Reddit user wrote. “… To go from referencing your own journey as an immigrant to the things I’m seeing? And the people she’s aligning herself with?”

Spokespeople for Vance, Waltz and Minaj did not respond to requests for comment.

The post The MAGA-fication of Nicki Minaj appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Mr. Trump, both in his first term and now during the first eleven months of his second, has made clear that the bipartisan post-Cold War consensus — by which the United States oversaw an economically integrated world order governed by common laws regulating property relations, trade and conflict — has outlived its usefulness. In its place the White House offers a vision of the world carved up into garrisoned spheres of competing influence.

This month, the White House issued its National Security Strategy report, which sought to codify this transition. The report hits all the notes associated with aggrieved America First nationalism: It denounces globalism, free trade and foreign aid, rejects nation-building, and calls on NATO members to spend a greater portion of their G.D.P. on defense spending. The United States, the report warns, will no longer “shoulder forever global burdens” that have no direct connection to its “national interest.”

The heart of the report is a pledge to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence.” In the past, militarists invoked the Monroe Doctrine largely out of habit, a recitation of a well-worn catchphrase. Here, though, it plays a more substantive role in defining what an America First future world order might look like.

For the uninitiated, the Monroe Doctrine is neither treaty nor law. It began life as a simple statement, issued by President James Monroe in 1823 recognizing the independence of Spanish American republics and warning Europe that the Western Hemisphere was off-limits for “future colonization.”

President James K. Polk, in 1845, was among the first to elevate the statement into writ, invoking “Mr. Monroe’s doctrine” in his push to take California from Mexico before the British. Polk would again cite Monroe when he annexed Texas. Subsequent presidents used the doctrine as an open police warrant, authorizing serial military occupations and U.S.-backed coups. By the late 19th century, Latin Americans had a new word to describe U.S. interventionism: Monroísmo.

That the Trump administration would turn to this old diplomatic shibboleth to define its foreign policy philosophy make sense. As the world order breaks into competing spheres of influence, each regional power needs to get its hinterlands under control: Moscow in the former Soviet republics, among other places; Beijing in the South China Sea and beyond.

And the United States in Latin America. “If you’re focused on America and America First, you start with your own hemisphere,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said recently. And the Trump administration has, presiding in the last few months over a frenzy of activity, not just executing speedboat operatives alleged to be drug smugglers but also meddling in the internal politics of Brazil, Argentina and Honduras, issuing scattershot threats against Colombia and Mexico, menacing Cuba and Nicaragua, increasing its influence over the Panama Canal, and seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. The Pentagon is also carrying out a military buildup in the Caribbean that is all but unprecedented in its scale and concentration of firepower, seemingly aimed at effecting regime change in Venezuela.

America First nationalists have long been the staunchest defenders of the Monroe Doctrine. After World War I, nationalists used it to push back against Woodrow Wilson’s proposed League of Nations. Join the league, Henry Cabot Lodge, the powerful Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned, and “the Monroe doctrine disappears,” and with it, national sovereignty. Lodge, who identified as an American Firster, said he refused to swear allegiance to the League’s “mongrel” flag.

Senators put forward a resolution ensuring that nothing in the League’s mandate would prevent the United States from using military force in Latin America and that the Monroe Doctrine would remain “wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations.”

Bowing to pressure, Wilson tried to neutralize opposition by inserting a clause into the League’s charter reaffirming the “validity” of “the Monroe Doctrine.” For naught. The Senate still voted against joining.

At this point, the United States lost its proprietary claim on the phrase. After Japan’s imperial army invaded Manchuria in 1931, Tokyo declared its own Monroe Doctrine. Britain invoked a “British Monroe Doctrine” to justify the continued existence of its empire. And Adolf Hitler responded to F.D.R.’s demand that he respect the sovereignty of Germany’s neighbors by pointing the U.S. president to his nation’s own Monroe Doctrine: “We Germans hold exactly the same doctrine for Europe, or at least for the region and the interest of the greater German Reich.” As the world marched into a second global war, many of its belligerents did so citing the Monroe Doctrine.

Mr. Trump’s renewal of the Monroe Doctrine comes at a similarly precarious moment in world politics. His national security strategy identifies Latin America not, as Monroe did in his 1823 statement, as part of a common community of New World nations but as a theater of global rivalry, a place to extract resources, secure commodity chains, establish bulwarks of national security, fight the drug war, limit Chinese influence and end migration.

“The United States,” the National Security Strategy report insists, “must be pre-eminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity,” able to act “where and when” we need to secure U.S. interests. Mr. Trump’s “Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine simply means that Latin America is to be locked down, and Latin Americans locked out.

Washington has no intention of withdrawing from its position of global primacy. In place of the now defunct liberal international order, the White House is implicitly globalizing the Monroe Doctrine, claiming for the United States the right to unilaterally respond to perceived threats not just within its hemisphere but anywhere on Earth (China excluded).

That claim is not new — it was the centerpiece of the global war on terror. But to insist on it with no accountability, under no outside jurisdiction, free of multilateral entailments and obligations means that the United States intends to deal with the rest of the world as it deals with Latin America, to seize, sanction and kill with impunity.

In 1919, Ismael Montes, a Bolivian diplomat, lamented the fact that the treaty that formally ended World War I, by validating a bellicose version of the Monroe Doctrine, made future conflict inevitable. “The peace is not yet signed,” Montes said, “and one can already see the seeds of a new war.”

Today, the Trump administration is sowing the same seeds. Its ideal of a world organized around a multifront balance of power — with the United States pushing against China, pushing against Russia, sowing division in Europe, threatening Latin America, with all countries, everywhere, angling for advantage — means there will most likely be more confrontation, more brinkmanship, more war. “We must be prepared,” as NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, recently said, “for the scale of war our parents and great-grandparents endured.”

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