SACRAMENTO, California — A push by blue states to warn consumers that gas stoves release toxic fumes is the latest offensive in America’s culture war over cooktops.

State legislators in California, New York and Illinois have pitched bills to tell shoppers that gas stoves — which are in some 40 percent of U.S. homes — put them, their children and even (in California) their pets at risk of asthma, leukemia and other illnesses.

Appliance manufacturers behind major household brands like Samsung and LG are pushing back, accusing proponents of demonizing the fossil fuel for political gain and succeeding in weakening some of the warnings. It’s a new skirmish in the fight over regulating gas stoves, an effort Republicans have cast as a symbol of Democratic overreach in addressing climate change.

But backers insist they’re not trying to stamp out the stoves. While the broader battle over stoves centers on natural gas’ contribution to climate change, the labeling fight is focused on educating consumers about the fuel’s indoor health effects.

“We’re not banning gas stoves,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a California Democrat who authored the state’s warning label proposal. “We’re just basically requiring them to be labeled, warning people about how to best use them with good ventilation.”

A defeat for Democrats on the warning labels would be a further setback after courts quashed stove bans that proliferated across liberal cities after Berkeley passed the first ban in 2019. It could also provide more fodder for Republicans in a crucial election year to cast Democrats as out of touch with Americans on more pressing issues.

Even some Democrats have reservations. Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat from the Buffalo area, called New York’s labeling proposal “ridiculous” and said he’s concerned it plays into “gas stove hysteria.”

Ryan said there’s not enough evidence about the purported health risks of gas stoves and that if they are dangerous there should be a program to do something rather than just attaching a label. If the concern is carbon emissions, he said, other appliances like furnaces and hot water heaters use far more energy.

The label language is softening as each state’s legislative session progresses. New York’s proposed warning originally noted that components of natural gas, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, are “poisonous” and could “lead to the development of asthma, especially in children.” Lawmakers removed those phrases June 3, after the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers pushed back on the asthma link in particular.

The American Medical Association has recognized links between nitrogen dioxide and asthma, and environmentalists point to recent Stanford University studies that found benzene and nitrogen dioxide from stoves hang around inside houses for hours. But a World Health Organization review found there wasn’t a significant connection to childhood or adult asthma.

The group argues they’re being scapegoated and that electric stoves also pollute the air when food and oils are heated.

“We’re an industry that has been attacked over and over again over gas, which is a political agenda,” said AHAM spokesperson Jill Notini.

The trade group also asked for all references to specific gases, illnesses and agency findings to be taken out so the label would warn only of “gases, odors, particles and byproducts from heated food, which can affect indoor air quality.” The group's preferred label would also advise “appropriate ventilation or filtration in the area when cooking appliances are in use,” rather than New York’s warning that “properly installed and operating ventilation to the outdoors can reduce but not eliminate emissions.”

The bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, a Democrat from Long Island, said the compromises have resulted in a common sense bill that should move forward.

“They made that suggestion and we kind of concur with them,” she said. “Folks should know that proper ventilation might lessen some of the effects.”

California’s proposed label originally cited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a state environmental health agency saying stoves emit pollutants indoors at concentrations that exceed outdoor air quality standards. Pellerin amended it last week to remove those references, while New York’s and Illinois’ bills retain the EPA reference.

The nonprofit Public Interest Research Group, which is sponsoring the California and Illinois bills, said the organization changed the language to safeguard against industry lawsuits. The changes align more closely with California air regulators’ stove advisory language.

Jenn Engstrom, director of the group’s California chapter, said the warning labels are mostly about health, but also climate. The group is also suing GE Appliances over the company’s alleged failure to notify the public of stoves’ health hazards.

“It’s both,” she said.“We’re focused on the health aspects more. But they release methane as well.”

The appliance manufacturers’ association remains opposed to all the bills despite the changes, said Notini.

“It’s not our language and it’s not better,” she said. “It’s still a very direct hit at gas products only. What we’re trying to do is change the conversation and say to these legislators, if this really isn’t about gas cooking, then let’s talk more broadly about indoor air quality.”

The labeling campaign comes after environmentalists’ crusade against natural gas appliances has suffered several setbacks.

A lawsuit from the California Restaurant Association against Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas connections in new buildings resulted in a March settlement in which Berkeley agreed to drop the ban. Cities and California state agencies have since been relying on building efficiency standards instead of bans.

In New York, lawmakers passed a bill to limit gas stoves and furnaces in new buildings last year. But a proposal from Gov. Kathy Hochul to limit the replacement of gas heating equipment in the next decade became conflated with a federal battle over gas stoves. The federal fight flared up last year after Republicans seized on a suggestion by one member of the five-member Consumer Product Safety Commission who mentioned the possibility of a future ban on new gas stoves. The Biden administration then clarified it wasn’t interested in doing that.

The labeling bill became a bigger focus in New York for groups including Climate Action Now, the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council as a more aggressive measure to open the door for neighborhood-scale transitions to electric heating and cooking faltered this year.

Proponents see the labeling measure as lower-hanging fruit with less chance of triggering vociferous opposition.

“This bill is just educating consumers on a potential hazard, and they can make their own choice and that’s what America is about,” Solages said.

New York’s bill failed to advance before the state’s legislative session ended last week, while Illinois’ most recent proposal got no traction this year. Both are expected to be reintroduced next year. Meanwhile, California’s bill is attracting opposition from the building industry, a gas utility and the Western Propane Gas Association, along with appliance manufacturers, although the natural gas’ main industry arm, the American Gas Association, hasn’t taken a position.

Kevin Messner, a vice president with the appliance manufacturers’ group, said the proposals ignore what he said was a bigger risk: the little particles, known as PM 2.5, that come from cooking on both gas and electric stovetops. The industry wants any labels to focus on ventilation.

“Let’s get real about indoor air quality,” Messner said at a bill hearing in California. “If you cook you need to ventilate — electric or gas.”

RICHMOND, Virginia — Last summer, as Donald Trump surged and Ron DeSantis collapsed, the pleas were constant. Hardly a week went by when wealthy Republican donors, a Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet or both wouldn’t send a flare up over Virginia’s capital in hopes Gov. Glenn Youngkin would make a late entry into the GOP presidential primary.

That was then.

That was before Youngkin’s all-in effort to take full control of Virginia’s Legislature flopped, before Virginia lost the next FBI headquarters to Maryland and before Youngkin’s splashy deal to lure a new arena complex to Alexandria ended with the governor’s fellow D.C.-area dealmaker, sports owner Ted Leonsis, stating in the Washingtonian “I’m a living testament now to say it was easier, more efficient to do business in Washington, D.C., than it was in Virginia.”

And, of course, before Republican voters made clear to the party’s donor swells and Murdoch that they were quite happy, thank you very much, to nominate Trump a third consecutive time.

Now those financiers and the conservative-leaning press have made their peace, yet again, with Trump as the Republican standard-bearer. Youngkin is attempting to do the same.

He and Trump met Wednesday at the Loudoun County, Virginia, golf club that bears the former president’s name, discussing recent polling that shows Virginia potentially competitive this year. Youngkin is also appearing on Fox News to make the case for Trump rather than just criticize President Joe Biden, the preferred safe space of many elected Republicans who are uneasy with a Democratic White House but can’t advocate for a criminal defendant with a straight face.

Yet as Trump approaches a vice presidential decision in a matter of weeks, the wealthy businessman turned governor on the short list is not named Youngkin. That slot is filled by North Dakota’s Doug Burgum, who did run for president — and who also showed up in Iowa before the kickoff caucuses there to stand with Trump.

However, when the former president came to Richmond before Super Tuesday — about two months later and with the nomination effectively his — Youngkin was noticeably absent. The governor’s better option that Saturday night: Cameron Indoor Stadium for the UVa-Duke basketball game.

Trump and his top advisers were irritated by the no-show at the time and equally annoyed that Youngkin waited until after Virginia’s noncompetitive primary to endorse. And they still haven’t forgotten either snub. I was reminded as much when I asked one Trump official recently if the governor was a vice presidential prospect and got a to-the-point “no.”

Don Scott, Virginia’s Democratic House speaker, told me he spoke to Youngkin at the time. “I called him and said, ‘Thanks for at least not going to the rally,’” Scott recounted. “He just laughed, said he had other family commitments.”

Yet Republicans who are eager for Youngkin to find his way in what’s still Trump’s party believe the March episode illustrates why that may prove difficult.

“Joining the merry band of Trumpsters can’t play out when you’re the guy who takes off when Trump is in town on the eve of the primary,” said Devin O’Malley, who worked on Youngkin’s 2021 gubernatorial bid.

As O’Malley knows firsthand, navigating Trump and Trumpism has been the tension at the heart of the governor’s political identity since Youngkin emerged from the Carlyle Group boardroom to win his first campaign. It was a victory that gave Republicans of all persuasions hope just months after Trump left office in disgrace and turned over the presidency and both chambers of Congress with him. It was also a rare race in which Trump didn’t intervene in the primary and then stayed out of the general when influential Republicans successfully persuaded him not to come to Virginia before the election.

That helped Youngkin, as another of his advisers reminded me, invite voters to see what they wanted to see. Some glimpsed a mainstream, fleece-clad dad who, like them, wanted to get back to normal after Covid-19 and was a different kind of Republican from the one who just left the White House. Others caught a true conservative, devout Christian and not one of those RINOs who was a Never Trumper.

Which can be an effective way to win an election, particularly in a state that’s a bluer shade of purple. Yet it also explains why, three years later, it’s the governor of deep-red North Dakota who’s in play for vice president while Youngkin is trying to make the best of a Democratic-controlled Legislature and grasping for a legacy in one-term-and-done Virginia.

He never decided what he wanted to be. He remains torn between the main current of his party today, Trumpist grievance politics, and being the pragmatic governor of a Democratic-leaning state; between keeping his virtue intact for a future presidential primary and amassing a record to have something to sell by the time he gets to Iowa.

“It’s a fine line you have to walk,” longtime Delegate Terry Kilgore, a Republican, told me. “It’s tough.” Trying to do both is difficult, not only because of the inevitable policy tensions, but because being an effective governor with only a single four-year term takes time and commitment, particularly for a political novice.

Yet while Youngkin has been insufficiently Trumpish to please the MAGA gatekeepers, he’s also failed to forge the relationships in Richmond crucial to building a record and eventual legacy, even if it would have chiefly been breaking ground on a $2 billion sports-and-concerts Taj Mahal on the Potomac.

When I asked Kilgore what Youngkin could have done differently, the lawmaker didn’t hesitate.

“Having relationships with Democrats and some of the folks in the Legislature, we’re human beings,” he said. “People like to be — they like the governor calling them, talking to them and asking them what they think and not: ‘Here’s what I’m going to do.’”

Scott, the speaker, was even blunter about Youngkin’s failure to court State Senator L. Louise Lucas, the Democratic legislator who torpedoed the so-called Glenndome: “They thought she was invisible — I bet they see her ass now.”

Which raises the other tension within Youngkin. He won his race in part by criticizing so-called wokeness and DEI regimes. He also spent many Sundays on the campaign trail in Black churches and has made reversing the fortunes of the hard-hit, and heavily Black, city of Petersburg a personal project.

African American Democrats didn’t forget the first part, and it was always in the backdrop of the arena negotiations.

Scott, speaking about Lucas, invoked the far-right slur for DEI – Didn’t Earn It.

“This is an 80-year-old Black woman who’s been in the Legislature for 32 years, she earned her way all the way up here,” he said.

Virginia political veterans were astonished at the arena deal’s deal collapse. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), himself a former governor, told allies he couldn’t understand why Youngkin would not have flown to northern Virginia on the state plane for the arena announcement with Scott and Lucas, the key legislators in a Democratic-controlled General Assembly, in tow, according to a person familiar with the remark.

No former Virginia governors, though, are more conversant about the challenges of landing major deals than Doug Wilder and George Allen. Wilder tried to lure the team then known as the Washington Redskins across the Potomac, steps from where Youngkin’s ill-fated arena was to be built, and Allen was in conversations with Disney about a history-focused theme park near Manassas. Neither came to fruition.

Yet Youngkin didn’t extensively engage either governor about how to maneuver with Leonsis or the Legislature for his own arena project, sources in both parties told me.

This spring I went to see Wilder, who could be called the grand old man of Virginia politics but for the fact that he’s more spry at 93 than most people are at 73.

While a Democrat, the history-making former governor has longstanding relationships in both parties and, for generations now, has caused heartburn for Democrats by being as critical of them as Republicans. Youngkin wisely courted Wilder during the 2021 campaign, but as Wilder sat in his Virginia Commonwealth University office, all manner of awards and a photo of himself and Nelson Mandela on the wall, the nation’s first elected Black governor said he had not been consulted lately.

“If I were advising him — and he has not asked me for advice,” Wilder began before I interrupted to clarify that Youngkin has not sought him out.

“No, none, none,” he said, with growing emphasis on each word.

Wilder said he heard from Youngkin when the governor wanted the former governor to join him at Allen Iverson Day in Hampton, a celebration of the former NBA star who, when he was 18, received clemency from Wilder following a brawl.

“But, no, he has never picked up the phone to call me about anything,” Wilder said.

He was unsparing in his assessment of Youngkin. “He doesn’t know Virginia politics and the Virginia governorship,” said Wilder.

Allen, a Republican, was more charitable if similarly puzzled by some of Youngkin’s moves.

Youngkin sought to use the 2023 legislative races to show that Republicans had an answer on abortion post-Dobbs, that by settling on a plan to bar the procedure after, and only after, 15 weeks they could defang Democratic attacks. And if Youngkin was successful, voila, he would have modeled an abortion strategy for the whole national party to follow.

But any talk of restrictions only aided Democrats’ strategy to talk about, well, Republican-mandated restrictions. As one longtime Virginia GOP figure told me: Democrats want to talk about abortion and Trump, why do one of those two for them?

“Gov. Youngkin understands the competition between states, that Virginia has been stagnant while our neighbors are booming, and he’s trying to turn that around,” said Allen. “He could’ve made that the centerpiece of the campaign.”

Even more perplexing to many in Virginia politics is that Youngkin didn’t make a course correction after the 2023 statehouse races, that he didn’t hire a longtime Richmond hand to make the most of his final two years in divided government.

Allen’s term in Richmond was defined by abolishing parole, reforming welfare and overhauling education standards, the same as his successor, James S. Gilmore III, was known (mostly) for cutting Virginia’s car tax.

When I asked what signature accomplishment Youngkin would be known for, Allen paused, acknowledged it was a good question and then came up with what's probably the most compelling Republican case for the governor.

“If he had not been elected, Virginia would have gone over the cliff,” Allen said, pointing to the state’s relatively low tax rate, still-standing right-to-work law and the record number of vetoes Youngkin has issued.

And, the former governor added, “Youngkin’s inauguration was the liberation of Virginia from those Covid mandates.”

Put less delicately, this is the sum of most Virginia Republicans’ view of Youngkin with about a year-and-a half left on his governorship: He’s a very nice man who has been something of a disappointment but was a needed finger in the dike in a left-turning state.

There’s something else that quietly irks Virginia’s political class about Youngkin, for which his lack of relationship-building can be a euphemism: He's a thoroughly national figure. Though reared in Tidewater, his anchorage is in Washington and the global world of high finance.

All the Fox appearances set in Virginia diners, the sloganeering and even much of his staffing does not reflect the Virginia way. Mills Godwin, the only governor who served two non-consecutive terms, once said there was “no higher honor” than being Virginia’s governor. But many in Richmond have concluded Youngkin regards it as something else: a springboard.

And yet — and yet — many Republicans think he may have good reason to view it that way.

“Big sexy is gone,” said Chris Saxman, a former GOP legislator, alluding to Youngkin’s chances for a landmark legacy. “But people like him, that’s his strength, people just like him.”

As was once said of Dwight Eisenhower, Youngkin’s smile is his philosophy.

That congeniality is why, I think, it’s too soon to write him off. As DeSantis found out the hard way, even in an ever more nationalized and polarized political world, being able to connect is crucial.

Youngkin has proven he can do so, at least with his fellow elite. A Republican who attended a small dinner last summer in Nantucket with Youngkin and a group of donors told me the room took a liking to the Virginian, even as he regaled the masters of the universe with Richmond minutiae about how he reduced wait times at the DMV.

Another GOP governor said there was not much love for Youngkin in their ranks, in part because of how he handled his rookie success. Just months after his inauguration in 2022, Youngkin hit the campaign trail for other gubernatorial candidates, bringing them his signature fleece vest and even his own soundtrack. When he cut a robocall for Brian Kemp’s reelection that the Georgia governor hadn’t asked for, well, it was all a bit presumptuous (though Kemp, like other GOP candidates, invited the Virginian to campaign with him).

However, this same governor marveled at Youngkin’s raw talent as a political athlete, recalling how he grew from initially reading his remarks at a meeting of Republican governors to barnstorming the country in the 2022 midterms. “The donor class loves him,” this governor said of Youngkin.

The looming question, for Youngkin and any less-than-MAGA 2028 aspirant, is whether actual Republican voters want sunshine, smiles and a red-fleeced grin rather than an heir to the red-necktied scowl.

“He’s about the politics of addition not subtraction,” Henry Barbour, an RNC committeeman from Mississippi, said of Youngkin.

By 2028, Barbour said, “Youngkin could be a positive force for change” by which point the “extreme wings of both parties will have overplayed their hand.”

I’m more skeptical that Republicans will make a turn away from Trump (and Trumpism) if he finishes his second term, no matter the amount of donor wishcasting.

Should the former president lose this fall, though, there may be an opening for a different sort of Republican in 2028, one who doesn’t necessarily reject Trump but who has a notably different identity. Ring a bell?

First, though, Youngkin, whose job approval has remained above 50 percent despite his setbacks, will have to fend off the coming wave of Senate Republican recruiters.

The governor’s allies insist up and down he has no interest in running for the Senate in 2026, the year Youngkin’s term expires. But I’ve lost count of how many governors became easier prey for the NRSC and DSCC once they left office, lost their State Police detail and didn’t have a next gig.

Youngkin will be wooed and perhaps tempted, particularly if Biden wins and Virginia is decided by five or fewer points this year. Nobody knows this better than Warner, who’s the senator up in 2026. He lived through a similar near-death political experience in 2014 when he pulled out a closer-than-expected win in the second midterm of another Democratic president. Warner has been particularly attentive, Virginia Democrats point out to me, in maintaining a warm relationship with Youngkin.

Scott said it would be clearer now if Youngkin was interested in Warner’s seat.

“If he were running for the Senate in Virginia, he would not have been so extreme on guns and abortion,” said the House speaker.

Youngkin is the rare self-funding Republican businessman who didn’t have to be coached by advisers on cultural conservatism. He actually believes the stuff, at least on abortion and his personal faith. The most revealing Youngkin anecdote may be the one I heard from a Northern Virginia businessman who attended a small breakfast with the governor and was struck that the governor wanted to say grace with a group of largely Jewish executives.

Youngkin, though, is also a businessman to his core. The word that invariably comes up talking to people who know him is: optionality. It’s also the word that came to mind when I saw the picture from their meeting this week of Youngkin and Trump, the former president flashing an I-got-him smile and thumbs up.

It was a reminder that the more likely step forward for Youngkin would be to improve his standing with Trump and vie for a cabinet post should the former president win in November. O’Malley, the former Youngkin adviser, said the governor would make an ideal Treasury secretary because of his knowledge of markets and ability to drive a public message.

And there are some in Trump’s orbit who tell me Youngkin could have a role in the administration, even if vice president isn’t on the table.

What’s for certain to many of those who know Youngkin, though, is that there’s an end goal.

Scott told me that when he attended the Kennedy Center Honors late last year with Warner, the two encountered David Rubenstein, the former Carlyle Group CEO who worked with Youngkin at the private equity firm.

Rubenstein, Scott recalled, said Youngkin is focused on one objective: becoming president.

Ben Johansen contributed to this report.

For Tucker Carlson, it has to be the ultimate good-news, bad-news moment: A major publishing house has canceled a prominent political journalist’s upcoming biography of the far-right media figure.

The good news, for Carlson partisans, is that the book in question — Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unravelling of the Conservative Mind, by Jason Zengerle — was likely to be a less-than-fawning look at the former Fox host’s journey from establishmentarian to conspiracy theorist.

The bad news, though, is that the cancellation stems at least in part from the belief that Carlson, once the biggest name on cable, no longer has the kind of cultural footprint to warrant a pricey, complicated book by a top-shelf writer. According to several sources in the publishing industry who have followed the project, a combination of delays and the changes in Carlson’s once dominant media presence caused a loss of enthusiasm on the part of a publishing house going through its own internal tumult.

It’s a far cry from the situation in 2021, when Carlson was zooming past Sean Hannity to become cable’s top talker, with a legion of fans on the right and an army of detractors in the center and on the left — and even speculation about a possible presidential bid. That’s when Little, Brown and Co. tapped Zengerle, a New York Times Magazine contributor and one of the leading magazine writers on contemporary politics, to do a book on the political-media titan.

At the time, with Trump-driven fury selling books all over the place, the contract seemed like a no-brainer. For editors interested in enriching readers’ minds, understanding the Carlson phenomenon was seen as key to understanding American politics. For publishers interested in enriching shareholders’ wallets, there was potential gold in a tome on the man blue America loves to hate.

Since then, it’s been a rocky ride for both Carlson and the political-book business.

Carlson was famously bounced from Fox last year, soon after the network spent $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. A racist text message and derision of Donald Trump had been uncovered as part of the discovery process, and he had been expected to testify in court. The spectacle would have riveted the media.

After the shock firing, Carlson quickly reestablished himself on Twitter, now X, finding a devoted audience. But his programming — including a softball interview with Vladimir Putin — has rarely generated the kind of sustained attention or outrage of the closely monitored Fox monologues he did when he was the highest-rated host in history. Like Oprah Winfrey or Howard Stern, becoming his own brand made him less relevant to the broader conversation.

This week, he announced plans for a 15-city arena tour alongside figures like Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a classic example of the sort of thing that can draw huge throngs of the devoted but not register on the media radar of a fragmented country. (Janet Jackson and blink-182 are also on arena tours this summer.)

Publishing, meanwhile, saw the political book boom of the Trump years turn into a Biden-era bust. The 46th president and his circle have spawned almost no bestsellers, and neither have their cast of rivals. And to the chagrin of booksellers, the return of the 45th president to electoral contention has not yet brought about another “Trump Bump” of interest in political influencers.

Zengerle, my colleague a decade ago at The New Republic and a former POLITICO Magazine writer, declined comment. So did Carlson. Representatives for Little, Brown and Co. did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But sources at other houses tell me that Zengerle’s agent has been shopping the title to other publishers.

Of course, publishers cancel books all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Many Washington classics, even bestsellers such as Mark Leibovich’s This Town, were marooned by their initial publisher. Writers blow deadlines, and that includes Zengerle, who got an extension to do more reporting after Carlson left Fox, but still missed a subsequent due date. Editors leave for other jobs, and top brass exit in corporate shake-ups — both scenarios that also apply to Zengerle’s book. It’s a fickle business. Little, Brown, which is undergoing a restructuring and layoffs this month, may be particularly tumultuous.

But plenty of projects that face these issues don’t get shelved. The travails of the Carlson book also say something about the publishing and intellectual climate in Washington and in the political world more generally.

I got a peek at a 60,000-word chunk of draft from Zengerle’s reporting, and it presents a nuanced portrait of a generation of conservatives who grew up in the Reagan era, came to Washington in the 1990s, and were pulled in wildly different directions as the Bush administration floundered and the new GOP embraced Trump. That’s fascinating stuff — if not exactly the kind of scathing hate-read whose scandalous allegations will send books flying off shelves in blue-city bookstores.

In a polarized country, fury sells. Beyond attracting readers hungry for outrage, it also snags the attention of the TV bookers and podcast hosts who can put a book on the radar screen. Complexity doesn’t work as well: The lefties who loathe Carlson might not want to spend 400 pages with a three-dimensional version of the guy, and the righties who hero-worship him still won’t want to shell out for something from a non-fan.

There’s a possibly even bigger challenge when chronicling a figure like Carlson — and it’s a challenge that is becoming more common as the worlds of politics and media collide: Many of the biggest outrages happen in plain sight, which makes the investigative biographer’s role feel less crucial.

Shortly before Carlson’s firing, for instance, The New York Times published “American Nationalist,” a sprawling investigation of the TV host’s rise to a leading role in the political right. But few of the three-part, 20,000-word story’s most talked-about details involved digging up dirt. There weren’t jaw-droppers about Carlson secretly mistreating puppies or misbehaving around his Maine home. Rather, the juiciest stuff was gleaned from rewatching 1,100 episodes of his Fox News program — i.e., things that were said in front of millions and millions of witnesses.

For a lot of people, the video clips were the story.

Which brings us to the current challenge, for Carlson as well as those who would attack him. When those video clips are no longer connected to a dominant outfit like Fox, they start to feel a lot less vital. Carlson may have a vast audience on X, but for a lot of casual observers, the formerly most powerful figure in conservative media just looks like another random person streaming angry content into the ether.

That goes for a lot of the professional observers who report on his content, too, and in the process help boost awareness. Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple used to write frequently, and scathingly, about Carlson. But he’s scarcely covered Carlson’s X programming.

“I wrote about him when he was at Fox News for the simple reason that Tucker had bosses,” Wemple — a former colleague and longtime close friend — told me. “And those bosses weren’t accountable. They weren’t really journalists, as we discovered in the Dominion suit. But they were sensitive to criticism, and my role as a media critic was to play all this stuff out and seek accountability from Fox and seek explanations from Fox.”

Untethered from larger institutions, a bomb-thrower attracts less attention, even if plenty of people are still influenced by his opinions.

Paying less attention may be sound logic if your business is media criticism, or even the daily news cycle. But it’s a shame if that logic affects book publishing decisions, too.

In fact, a thoughtful look at how the bow-tied CNN preppy became the immigrant-baiting Putin admirer also gets at the biggest question in American politics: What the hell happened to that guy?

Whether we’re talking about a Trump-venerating senator like (onetime John McCain acolyte) Lindsey Graham, an election-denying attorney like (onetime Al Gore lawyer) Kenneth Chesebro or just some random converted MAGA acolyte in the St. Louis suburbs, the journey from comfort in the mainstream to aggrievement on the margins is one of the most fascinating evolutions in today’s society. Carlson still may be the highest-profile example, even without 3.21 million nightly Fox viewers.

In our gridlocked country, there are few people who seem willing to change their mind — and even fewer actual players who ever change their brand. Is the new incarnation real, or just convenient? Were its antecedents always present, hidden beneath the conventions of an earlier day? Did something trigger the evolution? And what has the change done to the person’s relationships? It’s a story I’d like to read, whether or not its subject was a big shot, and whether or not the book was a bestseller.

A member of the House Freedom Caucus is taking an unprecedented step to endorse the primary challenger fighting to unseat the ultra conservative group’s chair.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) is endorsing John McGuire, a state senator who is in a highly watched race against Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), McGuire’s campaign first shared with POLITICO.

"I love this country with a soldier’s passion. I’ve served in Congress since 2016, and we need reinforcements to help Make America Great Again. I’m happy to join President Trump by supporting and endorsing John McGuire for Congress,” Davidson said in a statement, describing McGuire as conservative, effective and someone who will drain the swamp.

He added: “I look forward to serving with him in the 119th Congress to support President Trump and the America First agenda. Drain the swamp!”

Davidson’s decision is sure to send shock waves across the House GOP. But even more, his decision to back McGuire will be seen as a grand betrayal by the right-wing group that is meticulous about appearing united publicly, even amid internal divisions.

When asked this week if it would be embarrassing for the Freedom Caucus if Good lost his race, Davidson told POLITICO: “I'm sure he would be embarrassed that he lost.”

The race for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District has attracted national attention, with former President Donald Trump backing McGuire over Good — who had initially endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis before switching to Trump when the Florida governor dropped out of the presidential primary contest. But that wasn’t enough for Trump, who has attacked Good as being bad for Virginia and a backstabber.

Good, meanwhile, argues that his critics have lied to the ex-president about his record and turned Trump against him.

As GOP colleagues within Good’s own party have stacked up against him, including some he personally tried to unseat, the Virginia rabble-rouser has heavily leaned on members of the Freedom Caucus to show their support in his race.

On Friday, three Freedom Caucus members — Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — joined Good for a campaign event in Louisa County, Virginia, where almost all touted their membership in the group.

“My question to members of the Republican Congress who aren't in the Freedom Caucus is why?” Roy said to the crowd.

There were signs Davidson didn’t agree with Good’s leadership as the Freedom Caucus board voted to name Good as their next chair last December.

During that time, Davidson sent a letter to the group’s board informing them he intended to step down from his spot on the leadership team as he also announced his opposition to Good’s campaign for the top spot.

“I ask that we consider how to best increase our influence while preserving our power to move policy in the right direction. I strongly feel that Bob Good as Chairman will impair that objective,” Davidson wrote in the letter.

While Good was among one of the eight members who voted to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the gavel, Davidson was one of the members who spoke in favor of McCarthy during his January speakership fight.

And when it comes to Trump, allies of Good also argue there have been times in the past when Trump has attacked the Freedom Caucus over policy disagreement, but that Trump has come to see the group’s members as his biggest defenders. Still, Trump has never been so personal as to actively campaign against one of its members — let alone its leader.

Trump is slated to participate in a tele-town hall for McGuire on Monday night, POLITICO first reported.

NEW ROCHELLE, New York — The New York Democrat running to unseat Rep. Jamaal Bowman has an unusual double advantage against the incumbent: local political clout and the backing of a national pro-Israel group.

And it’s Westchester County Executive George Latimer’s ties at home — even more so than his position on the war in Gaza — that could deny the Squad member a third term.

Latimer has picked up endorsements from fellow local leaders week after week — including the mayor and three City Council members in Yonkers, where Bowman lives. And while just 10 percent of Bowman’s campaign contributions come from his neighbors, more than half of Latimer’s donations come from within the district.

Latimer may not have any national name recognition compared to Bowman — who has built his reputation in Congress as a left-wing agitator for sweeping change nationwide — but he enjoys a different kind of celebrity. He’s the Cher of Westchester County, known as just “George” to many in the suburban enclave north of New York City thanks to his 35 years in state and local government.

Latimer’s additional edge over Bowman comes from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, that’s flooded the airwaves with more than $12 million in ads attacking the far-left firebrand for being out of step with mainstream Democrats. Bowman has tried to counter the hits by saying that AIPAC gets contributions from Republican megadonors.

The bitter Democratic primary between Bowman and Latimer — one of the country’s most competitive this cycle — will test the influence of a movement politician pushing ultra-progressive national policies against a longtime local leader leveraging both his AIPAC support and his considerable community connections.

“You should know every one of the mayors, you should know what the five most important issues are in these communities,” Latimer said at a recent campaign event. “You ought to know that because you represent the people of your district, not the people who are part of a nationwide network that you communicate with on Twitter.”

He drew chuckles when he took the microphone from his campaign field director to finish her task of ticking off the names of elected officials in attendance.

Latimer’s lengthy list of district-based endorsements includes dozens of mayors, council members and trustees and 11 Democratic committees. Bowman has few comparable nods, though he just released a mass letter of local support dominated by district leaders.

“Representative Bowman is a principled, independent voice in Congress, not a ‘go along to get along’ politician,” they wrote.

Bowman is a Squad member advocating for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and other sweeping proposals to boost the working class. His reelection bid is endorsed by other big-name progressives from Sen. Bernie Sanders to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Those aligned with Latimer see him as a voice of reason ready to wrestle back a district from what they say is an extremist focused on his national profile. Bowman’s allies champion him as a voice for the vulnerable that they say special interests and their pro-Israel candidate want to silence.

Bowman said in an interview with POLITICO that he’s been campaigning for the support of his district’s everyday residents — not its politicians. The district encompasses not only tonier towns like Rye and Scarsdale but also more diverse and working-class areas like Yonkers and the Wakefield section of the Bronx.

“There’s a huge disconnect between the Democratic establishment and the people in the district, huge disconnect,” the House member said. “And we govern with the people and from the people; that’s how it always is.”

Latimer has criticized Bowman for relying on out-of-district donations, saying recently that his rival’s “constituency is Dearborn, Michigan.” Bowman called the reference to the Arab-majority city an “Islamophobic dogwhistle” from Latimer.

Bowman countered that a majority of his fundraising is small-dollar donations, and he charged that Latimer’s bevy of local endorsements are the product of cronyism and that his in-district donations are support from wealthier constituents glad for tax cuts.

Bowman’s campaign stops are usually in low- or moderate-income corners of his majority-minority district. There, many residents say it’s a good thing he’s not like other politicians.

Recently, Angela Davis-Farrish of the New Rochelle Municipal Housing Authority stood alongside Bowman as he introduced legislation to cap rent for families receiving federal rental assistance.

“For anybody who’s going to be listening to this, make sure that when you’re in your circles, that you advocate for people that are less fortunate than you are,” she said, thanking Bowman.

A day earlier, in another corner of New Rochelle, Latimer gathered around 100 supporters to door-knock as part of his campaign’s Jewish day of action.

“After Oct. 7, we need this as a community, we need to make this statement,” said state Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat who traveled with Latimer to Israel in December. “We have to defeat Jamaal Bowman. He hasn’t been here, he hasn’t shown up and his rhetoric is despicable."

Latimer has argued that he is not the moderate, establishment politician he is made out to be, pointing to a progressive record.

“I’m at a grassroots-level connection with people. I go to events where I meet people who live in Westchester, people in the Bronx. And that is where I get the core sustenance,” the challenger said in an interview with POLITICO. “And the kicker is: The perception at the national level is that somehow the grassroots are with him.”

Bowman and his allies, including the New York Working Families Party, have attacked Latimer as beholden to the pro-Israel lobby, noting that he has not condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has. They’ve also repeatedly accused him and AIPAC of racism.

Latimer has responded that no one — whether it’s AIPAC or labor unions — owns him and noted that AIPAC also supports non-white Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. (Jeffries and House Democratic leaders have endorsed Bowman.)

AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told POLITICO, “Our only criterion for supporting or opposing candidates is their position on the U.S.-Israel relationship. In fact, we support nearly half of the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Progressive Caucus.”

With early voting underway ahead of the June 25 primary, the candidates’ contrasting styles have come into sharper focus.

Bowman is bigger picture, hyper-fixated on crises gripping lower-income Americans.

“We want forward progress. We want affordable housing. We want affordable childcare, affordable utilities. That’s what we are,” he told POLITICO.

Latimer, meanwhile, is wonky, often getting into the nitty gritty, such as when he delved into the topic of sewer reconstruction at a Tarrytown event.

“Is it sexy enough to put in your national news stories? Probably not,” he acknowledged. “But that’s the substance of government.”

President Joe Biden ripped into the U.S. Supreme Court at a high-profile fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night, calling Donald Trump’s ability to nominate more justices to the bench “one of the scariest parts” of a potential second Trump term.

Biden predicted that the “next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees,” and if Trump is elected, “he’s going to appoint two more [justices] flying flags upside down,” according to pooled reporters in the room. That’s a reference to Justice Samuel Alito, who has drawn backlash for two controversial flags flown at his homes.

“This has never been a court that’s so far out of step,” Biden said at the star-studded fundraiser.

Alito was not appointed by Trump, but the former president did nominate three other conservative justices to the bench who helped to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Reproductive freedom is a central theme of Biden’s reelection campaign. Biden also referred to Justice Clarence Thomas’ arguing that the court “should reconsider” its past rulings codifying contraception and same-sex rulings, according to pool reports.

When an attendee shouted from the crowd about gay rights potentially coming under assault, Biden responded, “Not on my watch.”

The comments came during a fundraiser that featured a conversation with Biden and former President Barack Obama, moderated by late night host Jimmy Kimmel. The campaign confirmed earlier on Saturday that the event drew at least $28 million, the largest single-night haul for a Democratic candidate ever. The event featured several actors, including George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jason Bateman and Kathryn Hahn.

The money raised will likely bolster Biden’s cash totals in June, after fundraising across his entire political operation slowed in April.

Obama, for his part, attacked Trump for “the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts.”

“There are certain standards and values we should stand for,” Obama added.

Obama also said that “we can take pride in affirming the extraordinary work that Joe has done.”

Biden’s fundraiser followed a day of campaigning by Trump in Michigan, where the former president railed against Biden on issues ranging from inflation to immigration and foreign policy, calling him “the worst president in the history of our country.”

DETROIT — In a span of two hours Saturday, Donald Trump walked onto stages twice in this battleground state — once as pyrotechnics flashed around him before some 8,000 MAGA loyalists, and earlier, in a predominately Black church where he is still laboring to make gains.

For Trump, who is trying to rally base voters while also cutting into President Joe Biden’s support among people of color, the appearances at two different ends of the city — and with two starkly different demographics — illustrated the ground Trump still has to make up here.

Unlike with his base at the mostly white Turning Point Action conference inside a downtown convention center, Trump’s reception at the church in a low-income neighborhood, while mostly warm, was at times reserved — or, in one case, worse.

A lone heckler seated in the back, wearing a medical mask beneath her nose, spoke back to Trump throughout his remarks about how he “would not address Covid,” shouting at one point for him to “drink some bleach.”

And some of Trump’s harshest rhetoric on illegal immigration — including that Black people should repel what he called an “invasion of your jobs” — drew only tepid applause, though the crowd rose to its feet as he bashed “radical left wing gender ideology,” among other topics that resonated.

“This is a nice church, by the way. Very nice,” Trump said after arriving at 180 Church on the west side of Detroit. The afternoon sun beamed into the sanctuary through panels of stained glass, the cracks in some of which were patched with pieces of tape.

Trump’s campaign that afternoon had announced a “Black Americans for Trump” initiative to coincide with the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, sharing endorsement messages from prominent Black politicians, entertainers, athletes and faith leaders. Among those included in Trump’s new Black voter coalition was former Democratic Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who served time in prison for felony fraud and racketeering convictions, and whose sentence Trump commuted before leaving office.

And inside the sweltering church, a Black Republican activist, Valerie Parker, offered Trump a welcome: “Thank you, Mr. President, for coming to the hood.”

But Trump lost badly in heavily-Democratic Detroit in 2020, and his play for Black voters here prompted rebukes from Democratic politicians and other faith leaders in Michigan. The Biden campaign on Saturday released a comment from longtime Detroit pastor James Perkins, blasting Trump for having “the nerve to waltz into our city and act like he wants to understand the struggles Black Detroiters face, but the reality is he doesn’t care.”

“Every time Trump opens his mouth to talk to Black folks, he demonizes us, insults us, and makes empty promises he’ll never keep,” Perkins said.

At the church roundtable, Trump called Biden “the worst president for Black people.” Looking around the room, sandwiched between several of Detroit’s Black community leaders at tablecloth-draped folding table, he vowed that he would come back for Sunday service someday.

The inroads Trump makes in Detroit could be critical in a battleground that is likely to be decided at the margins. And he is starting from behind here.

Wayne County, home to heavily-Democratic Detroit, went solidly to Biden in 2020 who won the county by 38 points. In Detroit itself, with a majority Black population, Biden carried 94 percent of the vote.

Trump and his campaign, however, are seizing on gains they’ve made with voters of color in the years since — or at least on a loss of support Biden has experienced with them. And even marginal improvements for Trump in the Detroit area could help propel him in a state he won in 2016, before losing four years later.

Polling by the Wall Street Journal in April found that in seven swing states, 30 percent of Black men were “definitely or probably going to vote” for Trump, which would amount to a significant increase from 12 percent of Black male voters who backed Trump nationwide in 2020.

Similar polling numbers have raised alarms among Democratic Party leaders. The president’s reelection campaign invested seven figures last month into Black media, while Biden has held a number of events specifically targeting Black voters, including speaking recently to the NAACP in Detroit.

The church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, said he was not taking a position on either candidate in the election. He has spoken positively about Biden in the past, but told the Detroit Free Press he was encouraged that the Trump campaign had reached out about holding the event.

During the event, Sewell criticized Biden for having merely gone to a NAACP meeting, and not visiting “the hood.”

It was a far different — and for Trump, more familiar — scene on Saturday evening at Turning Point Action’s “People’s Convention” downtown, a multi-day event held in the same convention center where Wayne County election officials were met by protesters in November 2020 as they counted absentee ballots. That year, chaos broke out as partisan activists from both sides showed up to monitor the counting, with Trump supporters chanting “stop the count!” throughout the process.

During his keynote address at Turning Point, Trump addressed his supporters for an hour and 20 minutes, railing against dishwashers and shower heads designed to use less water and the military using electric tanks, all while riling up the crowd against Biden.

He said Biden, who is 81, “should take a cognitive test like I did.” But then Trump, who turned 78 on Friday, flubbed the name of Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), his former physician, calling him “Doc Ronny Johnson.”

“Doc Ronny Johnson,” Trump said. “Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history.”

Trump claimed, without explaining how, that if elected he would make Washington, D.C., “safe from crime,” and that he will have the Ukraine war “settled” and “stop the death.”

And after the Biden administration at the G7 in Italy this week extended long-term security guarantees to Ukraine, Trump ripped into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived.”

“He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion,” Trump said. “It never ends.”

The crowd cheered when Trump said, “I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect.”

Former President Donald Trump has started vetting eight Republicans as potential vice presidential candidates — but that hasn’t stopped a number of other potential picks from trying to stay on his radar.

Their supporters are publicly lobbying for them. Some are going on television to directly appeal to Trump. One continues to be a MAGA faithful favorite. In another instance, donors are pushing Trump to pick their favored Republican.

Trump isn’t expected to announce his pick until the Republican National Convention in mid-July, and his campaign has emphasized that Trump himself will be the only one to make the announcement, and that anyone who claims to know who he’ll pick is lying.

“As President Trump has said himself, the top criteria in selecting a vice president is a strong leader who will make a great president for eight years after President Trump’s four-year term,” said Brian Hughes, senior adviser to the Trump campaign.

With the stakes so high, many are trying to keep any avenues open. Here’s a list of candidates not on the publicly known list, who could be seen as wild cards if they were somehow to get another look:

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley

Haley, who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in March, remains a favorite among some high-dollar donors and could help bridge the fundraising divide between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Hours after a New York jury convicted Trump on May 30, the former president attended a fundraiser in Manhattan and asked some of his wealthiest donors who they thought he should pick as his running mate, POLITICO reported. According to grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis, a GOP donor who was at the event, attendees mentioned Haley as someone who “might make the difference.”

Haley’s appeal is especially strong among voters with a college degree and with suburban women — demographics Trump is struggling to win over. She came to represent the Trump resistance wing of the GOP, so marrying her with the MAGA movement could help put the former president back in the White House. And she continued to draw voters in GOP primaries even after dropping out of the race, especially among suburban voters.

But Trump already said on social media that Haley was “not under consideration.” The two have still not spoken, though Haley said she planned to vote for Trump in November.

“She would be a wonderful choice as insurance for the world and the country and the Republican Party to the extent, if any, it still exists and hasn't been totally co-opted by MAGA world,” said former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb, a friend and donor to Haley. “But I don't think there is a chance in hell he picks her. I think she might take it if seriously pressed just because of her sense of duty, but she can't really be authentic as Trump's No. 2.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

DeSantis is still widely viewed as one of the most natural heirs to the MAGA movement. He used to boast on the presidential campaign trail that he’d been more successful at delivering the “America First” agenda than Trump was. And months after he dropped out of the presidential race, people who attend Trump’s rallies often praise him and say they wish DeSantis could be Trump’s No. 2. A recent Harvard-Harris poll also found that DeSantis is the favorite Republican to be Trump’s vice president.

But DeSantis has made it clear he has no intention of trying to get on Trump’s ticket, or anyone’s for that matter. Though DeSantis and Trump reached a public peace treaty after a bitter primary — and DeSantis is now fundraising for Trump — the former president has shown he’s eager to shape Florida’s future after DeSantis is term-limited out in 2026. And DeSantis himself has openly acknowledged that he hasn’t ruled out trying to run for president in 2028.

“They have repaired the relationship,” said a person close to the Trump campaign who was granted anonymity to discuss the campaign. “It's not what it was, but it's way better than where it was six months ago. And it's getting better every day.”

Some of the governor’s supporters still hope DeSantis might have a shot at being in the White House, even if it isn’t as president.

“I’d love for president Trump to give him another look,” said Roy Bailey, who was one of three finance chairs for the DeSantis presidential campaign. “DeSantis surely isn’t doing anything to try to make that happen. This is something that has to come organically, naturally and for all the right reasons.”

Bailey said he knew DeSantis was focused on his work in Florida but also saw how GOP voters would be able to envision a 12-year set of conservative victories given that the two men have similar policies.

“If President Trump wants his policies to keep moving forward, as it secures his legacy, then perhaps it would make sense for him to choose a great leader like DeSantis, whose policies are so closely aligned with this,” Bailey said.

DeSantis donor Robert Salvador agreed that DeSantis and Trump would be a great pair but doubted that the two would ever share a ticket — though he could see them working together closely.

“DeSantis and Trump have been aligned much more of the time than they weren't aligned,” Salvador said. “The only time they really weren't aligned was in the primary and leading up to it. Other than that, policywise, they're very similar.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem

Noem’s book tour across America looks a lot like an audition for vice president. But the South Dakota governor’s ambitions likely died after she wrote in her book that she intentionally shot and killed her dog — a revelation that led to days of negative coverage for Noem.

Yet she seems to still be trying out for the veep job. In media interviews, she often says she’s been loyal to the former president — a quality he’s known to value. She pointed out at a Palm Beach stop in May that she was one of the people closest to Trump who refused to enter a race against him, a tacit swipe at others whose names have been floated for the VP slot.

Noem’s prospects were dim even before the dog-killing incident became public, POLITICO previously reported. Allegations surfaced in conservative media that she was having an extramarital affair with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Noem denied the allegations and called them a “disgusting lie.”

“The Corey Lewandowski stuff was a problem,” said the person close to the Trump campaign. “She's kind of small time. The book just kind of finished her off.”

But as recently as last Sunday, Noem was on CNN urging Trump to pick a female running mate.

“I’ve told President Trump over and over again, he needs to pick whoever helps him win. I have been loyal to him since the very beginning when he first started to run in 2016. He’s told me his priority is picking a running mate that can govern on day one,” Noem told CNN.

She added: “According to the polling that I’ve seen for him, in a lot of swing states, is that having a woman that is helping him campaign makes a difference.”

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders

As the first woman to serve as Arkansas governor, many see Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the perfect compliment to Trump, helping him appeal to suburban women, a voting bloc that Trump has had trouble winning over.

She’s played it coy, saying in an interview she “absolutely” loves her current job, but that’s done little to tamp down speculation that she is itching for a return to perch with a national profile.

“She's a badass woman,” said Sarah Chamberlain, President and CEO of Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that works to elect moderate conservatives. “She's conservative, but she's not off the deep-end conservative. And I think women will be like ‘oh she’s a great choice.’”

Huckabee Sanders is also someone who knows Trump well after serving as a trusted confidant and arguably his most effective communicator during her years as his White House press secretary. She’s also popular with the base.

“There’s no learning curve, she knows [Trump] well and knows how to help him ... or when to be the face” of a particular policy issue,” said Alex Stroman, a former South Carolina Republican Party chair.

The governor also received high marks in 2023 after delivering the Republican rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union Address, where she castigated Joe Biden as being beholden to “woke fantasies.”

Others add she among the best choices the party can depend on to go head-to-head with Vice President Kamala Harris during a potential VP debate and instantly negate any perceptions of a gender advantage Democrats may have.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin

Trump and the Virginia governor met last week amid speculation that the former president is looking to expand the electoral map, with the campaign attempting to put Virginia into play this cycle.

A person close to Youngkin, granted anonymity to discuss the meeting, said the governor and Trump did not talk discuss the vice presidential slot. But Trump last week told Fox News that Youngkin is “great” and will consider him as a potential vice presidential pick.

“I haven’t been asked that question, but he would be on that list,” Trump said of Youngkin.

Youngkin’s appeal could expand beyond the MAGA base.

“I think he's a strong enough communicator, and he's proven an ability to win in a tough state,” said Lanhee Chen, a policy adviser to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) during his two presidential campaigns. “So I think for all those reasons you have to look seriously at him as an option.”

A federal agency responsible for enforcing trade laws is probing a harassment complaint against one of its leaders, after internal divisions over the future of international trade policy devolved into a heated and deeply personal battle.

The investigation has exposed deep tensions among individual commission members and career staff at the obscure but powerful International Trade Commission, with a prominent skeptic of free trade claiming he is being targeted with the harassment probe for trying to shift the agency’s work in a more protectionist direction.

The conflict is peaking just as President Joe Biden prepares to name a new chair of the ITC, which also advises lawmakers and presidential administrations on trade policy. One of the contenders for the top job, Democratic commissioner Jason Kearns, is under investigation after being accused of using intimidating language during a late March meeting. Kearns, himself, confirmed the probe in a letter viewed by POLITICO that he sent to the ITC general counsel last week requesting the investigation be closed.

According to three people with direct knowledge of the encounter, who were granted anonymity to reveal confidential internal dynamics, Kearns verbally sparred with staff over whether influential reports put out by the agency should be more skeptical of free trade, at times raising his voice and using profanity. One person with knowledge of the meeting said the encounter was part of a “pattern of behavior” from Kearns that had been displayed previously, as well.

Kearns defended his behavior in a statement to POLITICO, describing it as impassioned, but not aggressive, and calling the allegations “baseless.” And he suggested that the real issue is not the alleged harassment, but an ideological split within the commission over its approach — and the future of U.S. trade policy.

Kearns has sought to steer the agency’s analysis in a more trade-skeptical direction, applying more scrutiny to the data and methodology used in congressionally requested reports that often influence legislation and executive actions.

That’s riling ITC Chair David Johanson — a Republican appointed by President Barack Obama — and his allies on the commission, as well as many of the career staff at the ITC, who tend to hold a favorable view of free trade policies that have come under growing criticism from both the left and the right.

“There are those who wish to preserve status-quo thinking on trade at the Commission,” Kearns said in a statement to POLITICO. “They attempt to do this by excluding my input into the Commission’s fact finding work and by engaging in personal attacks.”

The ITC and Johanson declined to comment on the harassment investigation or whether it is motivated by policy disputes between commission members.

The bitter dispute is the latest battlefront between free trade-oriented policymakers in Washington and insurgent protectionists like Kearns, who have sought to prioritize the environment, labor conditions and domestic manufacturing in trade policy. And it underscores how dramatically Washington’s political consensus on trade has shifted over the last decade, sparked by former President Donald Trump’s protectionist agenda. Similar policy disputes saw some senior trade leaders leave U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s office earlier this year.

Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump are vying to prove their protectionist bona fides to voters ahead of this fall’s election, particularly in Midwestern swing states that have been hit hard by free trade.

The conflict between the commissioners centers on so-called Section 332 reports — named after their place in the Tariff Act of 1930 — which are a little-known but highly influential function of the trade commission. Presidential administrations and congressional offices routinely request the reports from the ITC to assess how certain trade policies like tariffs will affect the U.S. economy.

Up until 2022, ITC staff would largely compile and write those reports themselves, with commissioners signing off on the product once it was largely completed. Kearns sought to change that in 2022, with a policy directive that gave commissioners more insight and influence into the underlying calculations, data sources and methodologies that comprise those reports.

That has drawn the ire of other commissioners — particularly Johanson and Rhonda Schmidtlein. They view Kearns’ directive as opening the authoritative reports up to political influence, potentially degrading their reputation as impartial, technocratic work products.

Late on Thursday, Johanson signed off on a new directive, obtained by POLITICO the next day, that alters elements of Kearns’s 2022 policy.

Johanson, along with Schmidtlein and Commissioner Amy Karpel, downplayed the differences between the 2022 Kearns directive and Johanson’s update this week, saying in a Friday statement that the “key elements” of the original directive were preserved in the new policy statement, and “all of the procedures” on staff and commissioner interactions have been “incorporated into manuals for staff.”

But Kearns disputes that reading, saying that the new directive “neuter[s] and eviscerate[s]” his policy by removing stipulations that directed staff to be “as inclusive as possible” in conducting reports and a guidance that ensured commissioners’ aides would be in the room with lawmakers or executive branch agencies when they discuss the technical reports requested from the commission.

“The critically important procedures that ensure Commissioner engagement in our work under this statute are being cut out of the directive and placed in staff handbooks – handbooks that can be amended by staff without Commissioner approval,” Kearns said in a statement to POLITICO on Friday. “The purpose and effect of these changes will be to cut out of the process those of us who want the Commission to embrace fresh new thinking on trade that will position the Commission to better examine supply chain resilience, labor, climate and other issues intertwined with international trade.”

Johanson’s term at the top of the agency expires at midnight on Sunday, and the White House is currently considering whether to select a new chair or let the gavel automatically fall to Schmidtlein, a Democrat appointed by Obama who largely aligns with Johanson’s approach on the Section 332 reports. The president could, alternatively, tap Kearns, who also led the commission until 2022, or hand the chairmanship to another sitting commissioner, Amy Karpel, a Democrat appointed by Trump, or nominate a new figure from outside the agency.

Kearns, a former top Democratic trade staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee, was accused of acting aggressively at the March meeting when defending his 2022 policy directive.

“There are longstanding and fundamental, substantive differences between me and my fellow Commissioners concerning our ‘fact finding’ work,” Kearns wrote in a letter to the ITC general counsel this week, requesting the harassment probe be closed. The policy disagreement, he added later, has resulted in “several heated arguments over the past six years,” and is “at the center of this investigation, as it was the subject of the March meeting upon which this investigation is based.”

In recent years, the Biden administration and some congressional lawmakers have asked the ITC to expand these reports to assess new trade issues, like the greenhouse gas emissions of steel and aluminum facilities; intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines; and how trade affects income inequality, to name a few recent examples. At the same time, Kearns has sought to change the internal methodologies underlying those reports.

At the ITC, Johanson “has been happy with the approach historically taken with these reports over the past few decades, which is free trade is always good and [staff doesn’t] look at things that might counter that [assumption], such as labor issues and environmental standards,” said one person familiar with the dispute at the commission, granted anonymity to recount confidential internal conversations. “[Kearns] has come in wanting to expand the perspective of these reports and to think about more of these subjects, and I think that’s reflecting the shift that’s going on politically on trade among both parties, and there’s been resistance to that.”

After the March meeting where Kearns was accused of using abusive language, Johanson sent out an email to all of the ITC staff reminding them that “unprofessional actions that result in a hostile work environment are not acceptable,” and that those actions are “especially egregious when [they] are conducted by persons in positions of authority — including Commissioners and their aides.”

The Johanson letter also said that staff are “strongly encouraged to report harassing or bullying behavior by anyone in the Commission workplace — including a person in a position of authority — to the Commission’s Anti-Harassment Coordinator.” The probe into Kearns’s behavior was opened soon after, though the ITC declined to say who requested the investigation.

In his letter to the ITC general counsel this week, Kearns “categorically” denied “any alleged breach of Commission policy,” and argued that it was “initiated by someone – and recently leaked to the press by someone – with an ulterior interest.” The anti-harassment policies, he said in the letter, are “unlawfully misused to undermine me and the work I am doing to improve our [Section] 332 product and to improve the administration of the Commission.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday the G7’s planned $50 billion loan to help Ukraine using frozen Russian assets is not theft, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded it.

“There is no sense at all in which it's theft. The Russian assets remain in this institution. They’ve been impounded," Yellen said in an interview with host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.” "The investments that Russia had have matured. So, Russia’s funds are sitting in cash, but they're generating income for the institution which Russia has no claim on."

Last week the G7 conference agreed on a $50 billion loan to help Ukraine using profits generated from Russian assets that were frozen after Russia invaded Ukraine. Though the assets themselves have not been permanently transferred to Western hands, Putin called the action theft and said it is illegal.

“There's no legal issue here," Yellen said. "And our allies, our partners, the G7 will provide Ukraine a $50 billion loan, which will be repaid over time from these proceeds. And I'd say the G7 leaders had already made it clear that they will not unfreeze these assets until Russia pays for the damage that it's cost Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was at the summit in Italy and praised the loan.

When Yellen was asked by Karl to explain the loan, she said about $280 billion in assets were initially frozen and this loan derives from part of that.

“Of that, the vast majority, around $200 billion, are sitting in a Belgian financial institution where they're generating income that does not belong to Russia and had been accruing to that institution,” Yellen said, explaining the loan. “And we have agreed — the G7 and our partners have agreed to tap the value of that stream to provide a $50 billion loan to Ukraine that will be paid from those so-called windfall profits that are accruing in this financial institution.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced Sunday that her father had died.

In a Father's Day post on X. Haley wrote of Ajit Singh Randhawa, "This morning I had to say goodbye to the smartest, sweetest, kindest, most decent man I have ever known."

Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations who ran for president as a GOP candidate earlier this year, added: "My heart is heavy knowing he is gone. He taught his kids the importance of faith, hard work, and grace. He was an amazing husband of 64 years, a loving grandfather and great grandfather, and the best father to his four children. He was such a blessing to all of us."

She did not specify his age or his cause of death.

In January, Haley had paused her campaign briefly to visit her father in a hospital in South Carolina. At the time, it was widely reported he had been diagnosed with an unspecified type of cancer.

Haley was born in 1972 in South Carolina, but her father emigrated from their native India in 1969.

In February 2023, a POLITICO fact sheet about Haley described her parents: "Her father, Ajit Singh Randhawa, from the Punjab region of India, got a master’s degree in biology before moving to Canada to get a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia. In 1969, he landed in small, segregated Bamberg, S.C., to teach at Voorhees College, a nearby HBCU. Her mother, Raj Kaur Randhawa, also from the Punjab region, grew up in a wealthy family in a big house in the shadow of the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikhs; earned a law degree, highly unusual for a woman in that place and time; and began in South Carolina by teaching sixth-grade social studies in the local public schools before starting a gift shop she turned into a million-dollar fashion boutique. He wore a turban. She wore a sari and a bindi. 'My parents,” Nikki Haley has said, “were more American than anyone I knew.'''

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) backed President Joe Biden’s sharp criticisms of the Supreme Court in an interview Sunday, specifically calling out Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, whom he said was on the “grift.”

“I think it would be irresponsible for the president not to talk about the fact that this court is becoming brazenly corrupt and brazenly political,” Murphy told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s up to the American people this election to do something about that. It’s also up to Congress to step up and pass a code of conduct, a code of ethical conduct, for this court before it’s too late.”

At his star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, Biden railed against the Supreme Court as “so far out of step” and warned that “one of the scariest parts” of a second term for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is the potential appointment of two more justices to the bench. He made a crack at Alito by saying Trump would appoint more justices “flying flags upside down” and referred to Thomas’ arguments that the court “should reconsider” its past contraception and same-sex rulings, according to pool reports.

Murphy stood behind Biden’s comments, referencing expensive gifts and luxury travel expenses Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and others have lavished on Thomas over the years — as well two controversial flag displays associated with Jan. 6 flown at Alito’s homes.

“There’s a crisis on the court,” Murphy said. “What Justice Thomas is engaged in is just a grift, right? He’s got a major political player on the outside who absolutely has political and business interests at the court paying off a justice.”

“Justice Alito is openly displaying affiliation with political causes in public,” he added.

Biden has been reluctant to publicly address concerns of judicial ethics regarding the Supreme Court justices. The president has avoided directly addressing the Alito scandal out of fear that his attacks of the judiciary could be seen as politically motivated and appear too close to Trump’s own tactics, POLITICO reported last month. He has also sidestepped questions about whether Thomas should recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases brought before the Supreme Court.

Some Democrats have disagreed with Biden’s approach.

Recently, Biden has ramped up his focus on the Supreme Court, using the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the three Trump-appointed conservative justices who ruled in support of it as a foothold to mobilize voters around reproductive rights.

While Thomas and Alito were both appointed much before Trump’s presidency, both have helped maintain the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority, including in last week’s decision to nix a ban on bump stocks for guns that was enacted by the Trump administration.

A former Trump-era senior Pentagon official questioned Sunday whether German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “really knows what he’s talking about in the American context” after he offered strong praise for President Joe Biden at the G7 summit.

Elbridge Colby — who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017 to 2018 and is poised for a major national security role if Donald Trump is elected again — posted on X: “I think staying out of each other’s elections is better.”

“What message are Republicans supposed to take about the current Berlin government?” Colby wrote.

On the sideline of the G7 summit in Italy on Saturday, Scholz praised Biden as “one of the most experienced politicians in the world” and “a man who knows exactly what he is doing” in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets. (POLITICO is owned by Axel Springer.)

He spoke highly of Biden’s domestic and international policies, saying they’ve promoted “proper economic development,” “peace and security” and “togetherness and cohesion” in the U.S.

The chancellor also told reporters that he thought Biden was likely to win in November and called speculation over the outcome of the American elections “a bit strange.”

“Is the Chancellor in a position to comment on the U.S. economic and social cohesion situations?” Colby wrote in response, bashing Scholz’s “remarkable” comments. “I think this would elicit laughs if not outright scorn from many Americans.”

He added that “it’s wildly inappropriate to comment on domestic American politics and elections.”

Concerns about the future of American leadership and the possible return of Trump hung over the heads of the U.S.’ closest allies at the G7 summit over the weekend. The Biden administration’s hesitance to equip Ukraine with more advanced weaponry and Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO, among other worries, have had international allies on edge in the leadup to a close 2024 race.

Colby, a front-runner to be the potential Trump administration’s national security adviser, has centered on countering China in his foreign policy and largely minimized American involvement in other global affairs — including Russia and Ukraine. He has previously criticized British Foreign Secretary David Cameron for pushing for aid to Ukraine in a trip to D.C., labeling it an “astounding intervention into the American system.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said former President Donald Trump’s plan to replace federal income taxes with tariffs would “make life unaffordable” on Sunday morning.

"It would require tariffs well over 100%,” Yellen said when Jonathan Karl asked about the plan on ABC’s “This Week.” “The impact would be to make life unaffordable for working class Americans and would harm American businesses."

During private meetings with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week, former president Trump proposed eliminating federal income taxes and instead implementing high tariffs on imports to replace the lost revenue. The cost of the tariffs, however, would undoubtedly be passed on to consumers, resulting in significantly higher prices on any type of product that is imported.

Yellen defended the Biden administration’s economic policies during the interview, including when she was pressed on why Americans are still feeling high price levels despite the slowing of inflation.

"It is true that over the last roughly three years there has been a significant increase in the price level. It is now rising at a very slow, close to normal rate,” Yellen said when asked about the still high inflation. “But yes Americans see that and mainly it comes on top of concern about costs that were making life very difficult. So it’s something the Biden administration absolutely wants to address."

When asked why polls show Americans trusting Trump on the economy more than Biden, Yellen said “the pandemic was a profoundly difficult time” and that Americans are still feeling the effects of that.

“In the years leading up to the pandemic, Americans were really, many of them, working class families just struggling with things like health care costs, the cost of energy, education costs, child care costs, and so they — they really feel the cost of living,” Yellen said. “I think the inflation that we experienced after the pandemic just compounded this feeling for them that life isn't affordable.”

She added, “It is the Biden administration's top priority to address these costs where we possibly can."

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africa’s main political rivals are now partners in government after they came together in a last-minute coalition deal that ensured President Cyril Ramaphosa was dramatically reelected with cross-party support, and a struggling country was given a boost.

The agreement was only sealed on the sidelines of a marathon parliamentary session on Friday, allowing Ramaphosa to be reelected hours later for a second term with the help of opposition lawmakers who were once his loudest critics.

The coalition between Ramaphosa’s African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance — South Africa’s only major party with a white leader — means Africa’s most industrialized country can now form a government after a political deadlock that threatened its economic stability.

More than that, it has rejuvenated a nation weighed down by poverty, unemployment, corruption, crime and failing public services. South Africans see a glimmer of hope in the alliance between two parties with very different ideologies that have said they will work together for the good of the people.

It could bring a new unity for a nation still grappling with the legacy of the brutal apartheid system of racial segregation that ended in 1994.

Here’s how the unlikely deal was reached and what it means for South Africa, a prominent voice for the developing world:

Political deadlock: The unprecedented deadlock came after the ANC lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in a May 29 election that laid bare the frustrations of millions of poor Black South Africans still seeking a better life decades after the end of white minority rule. Many deserted the ANC, which liberated the country from apartheid and had been the governing party ever since, leaving it with just 40% of the vote.

While it remained the biggest party, the once-dominant ANC was unable to form a government on its own for the first time or reelect Ramaphosa in Parliament. So began two weeks of frenzied talks with the DA, the second biggest party and a surprise choice for a coalition partner, to find common ground with a deadline looming.

South Africa’s constitution says a new Parliament must convene and vote for a president within 14 days of the election results being declared, and the ANC and DA were in a race against time to broker the country’s most important political deal in three decades.

Breakthrough: The ANC announced Thursday night that an agreement had been reached in principle but talks continued on the finer details. They came unstuck around 2 a.m. on Friday, officials said, and as the new Parliament opened later that day and lawmakers were being sworn in, there was no deal.

The country was gripped as proceedings were broadcast live with no sense whether a president would be elected. The head of the DA’s negotiating team then said the two parties had “found each other” but there was still a painstaking wait for a formal document to be signed as the clock ticked.

It happened during a break in the parliamentary proceedings and DA leader John Steenhuisen announced in a speech to the nation that his party would end its long-held stance of opposition to the ANC by voting for Ramaphosa for president. Ramaphosa was reelected at the end of the 14-hour session, with the votes of DA lawmakers helping him over the line.

The 71-year-old Ramaphosa, who was closely involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, and the 48-year-old Steenhuisen, a teenager when apartheid ended, smiled and shook hands. Ramaphosa called it a “a new era of hope” for South Africa.

Opposition to the coalition: The agreement includes at least two other smaller parties and Ramaphosa has invited all parties represented in Parliament to join a broader coalition under the banner of a government of national unity.

Some have refused, including the new MK Party of former President Jacob Zuma and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. They are the third and fourth biggest parties, respectively, and will now likely remain in the role of opposition.

Going forward: While the efforts of the ANC and the DA to find broad common ground have been hailed, no one doubts them governing together long term will be complex.

They disagree on many issues, including on nationalization vs. privatization of key sectors of the economy, on funding health care, on labor rights and foreign policy, where the DA has criticized the ANC’s overtly pro-Russia and pro-Palestinian stances.

Analysts say they need to find an effective way to work together quickly, given South Africa’s pressing problems that include some of the world’s highest levels of unemployment, inequality and violent crime. They are a stain on the reputation of a country that puts itself forward as a leader for its continent and the wider developing world.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military announced on Sunday that it would pause fighting throughout daytime hours along a route in southern Gaza to free up a backlog of humanitarian aid deliveries destined for desperate Palestinians enduring a humanitarian crisis sparked by the war, now in its ninth month.

The “tactical pause” announced by the military, which applies to about 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) of road in the Rafah area, falls far short of a complete cease-fire in the beleaguered territory that has been sought by the international community, including Israel’s top ally, the United States. If it holds, the limited halt in fighting could help address some of the overwhelming needs of Palestinians that have surged even more in recent weeks with Israel’s incursion into Rafah.

The army said the pause would begin at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and remain in effect until 7 p.m. (1600 GMT). It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice.

The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, the military said. The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the route would increase the flow of aid to other parts of Gaza, including Khan Younis, Muwasi and central Gaza. Hard-hit northern Gaza, which was an early target in the war, is being served by goods entering from a crossing in the north.

The military said the pause Sunday, which begins as Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere start marking the major Eid Al-Adha holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.

Following criticism over the move from ultranationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who oppose a halt in the war, the military said fighting is not being paused in the rest of southern Gaza and neither is there any change regarding the entry of aid in general.

Aid agencies, including the U.N., did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Scott Anderson, the Gaza affairs director for the U.N. agency for Palestinians, told CNN that he was hopeful the pause would “bring in much-needed aid for the population.”

The pause along the southern route comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a cease-fire, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a halt to the fighting and the release of hostages taken by the militant group. While Biden described the proposal as an Israeli one, Israel has not fully embraced it and Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.

The fighting continues unabated, and Israel announced the names Sunday of a total of 11 soldiers killed in recent attacks in Gaza, including one who died from wounds sustained in an assault last week. That puts the number of soldiers killed since Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza last year at 308. Hamas killed 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 attack and took 250 hostage, Israeli authorities say. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.

Israel’s eight-month military offensive against Hamas, sparked by the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack, has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the U.N. reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to ease the crunch and has said the ongoing fighting, including in Rafah, has complicated aid deliveries throughout the war.

From May 6 until June 6, the U.N. received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.

The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.

COGAT says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.

A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the U.N.’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.

The U.N. denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for U.N. trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.

It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.

The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.

It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they moved along the highway.