Trump Finally Reveals His Plan for Obamacare Subsidies—and It’s Grim

Obamacare may have no future at all if it’s up to Donald Trump.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday, the president claimed he would rather shift the cost of the subsidized health care marketplace entirely onto the Americans who depend on it.

“Are you planning to extend those subsidies?” asked a journalist.

“I’d rather not. Somebody said, ‘I want to extend them for two years.’ I don’t want to extend them for two years. I’d rather not extend them at all,” Trump said.

“Maybe some kind of extension may be necessary to get something else done, because the ‘unaffordable care act’ has been a disaster,” he continued. “It’s a disaster. And I said it was when it first got put in.”

Trump then went on to blame Democrats for skyrocketing ACA premiums, despite the fact that Republicans were the ones who voted against extending the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits when the government shutdown finally ended earlier this month. That move effectively ensured that health insurance premiums would double for some 20 million Americans.

A record 24 million Americans signed up for coverage through the ACA marketplace at the beginning of this year, roughly double the number of people who enrolled just four years earlier amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Obamacare subsidies in some states lapsed during the shutdown to disastrous effect. In Wisconsin, Governor Tony Evers warned that premiums would rise by more than $30,000 a year for supposedly affordable health insurance. Low-income regions of the country will be particularly hard hit, such as Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina, as recipients decide whether they can afford the rising costs.

The result, according to policy experts, will be a mass exodus from Obamacare plans altogether, leaving roughly four million Americans uninsured. The spike in uninsured Americans will spur a public health problem that has historically proved to make premiums more expensive for the insured as hospitals look to recoup the lost cash.

MAGA is furious at U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice over the entirely “avoidable” botched indictments of President Donald Trump’s political enemies.

A federal judge on Monday dropped the criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, deciding that the prosecutor who brought the charges in both cases—Lindsey Halligan—was not lawfully appointed. Now Donald Trump’s fans are furious that the DOJ’s apparent screw-up may have cost the president his revenge.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham appeared to blame justice officials for stupidly failing to follow procedure, quoting Trump’s former impeachment attorney David Schoen, who called the dismissal “avoidable” during an interview.

“An avoidable BLUNDER—and DOJ knew it,” Ingraham wrote in a post on X Monday.

Appearing on Ingraham’s show, Schoen had said: “Quite frankly, the Justice Department should have just put somebody in the room with Lindsey Halligan. It would have taken away all the arguments for dismissal.”

Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser, called for Bondi to be replaced by Sidney Powell. “I’m certain others will have their opinions but mine is not an opinion, it is based on hard evidence,” he wrote on X Monday.

“I’m sorry @AGPamBondi but this was completely avoidable,” Flynn wrote.

This isn’t the first time that MAGA has taken aim at the head of Trump’s DOJ. In July, MAGA was left fuming after Bondi walked back claims that she’d set eyes on a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, and in September, they were up in arms over her threats to crack down on free speech.

Even those who don’t like Trump but know how he operates aren’t impressed by Bondi. Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Monday that Bondi and Halligan “should be disbarred,” and called reports that the indictment had never been properly returned “shocking.”

“You know, Bondi has twice submitted affirmations to this court about the propriety of Lindsay Halligan’s grand jury presentation,” Cobb said “She knew this. There’s no way she could not have known this. And that just means that she lied, or that she’s equally incompetent, but more likely that she lied.”

Almost a day after the indictments were dismissed, it seems that the DOJ is continuing to sign criminal indictments with Halligan’s name in a flagrant violation of the federal judge’s order.

After a tumultuous year in which her city became ground zero for President Donald Trump’s draconian military crackdown on crime and immigration, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has announced that she will not seek a second term.

“It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do to walk away from a job that I love. I believe I could win,” Bowser told NBC Washington’s Mark Seagraves on Tuesday.

Bowser served as mayor of the nation’s capital for over 10 years.

“It has been the honor of my life to be your Mayor. Together, we have built a legacy of success of which I am intensely proud,” she said in a later statement posted on X. “With a grateful heart, I am announcing that I will not seek a fourth term. For the next 12 months, let’s run through the tape and keep winning for DC.”

Reactions to Bowser’s announcement were mixed. 

“Thank you, Mayor. You led our city through tough times, delivered some huge wins, and consistently stood on the right side of public safety issues … including rejecting calls to defund the DC police,” one user wrote. “Wishing you the best as a private citizen.”

“The city has been unfortunate to have you serve as corruptor in chief. Tens of thousands displaced, wealth inequality exploded, tenants rights decayed and ballot initiatives overturned,” said another. “You have done nothing for this city except spread elite bloat. My advice: resign early.”

Bowser’s tenure has been defined by large deals with developers and businesses to build stadiums, as plans to address problems of housing, affordability, crime, and police brutality often fell short. From tearing up her already materially meaningless “Black Lives Matter Plaza” to caving to Trump’s federal takeover, Bowser left much to be desired. 

The next mayoral election will be in November 2026. 

“I’m not running because we’ve accomplished what we set out to accomplish,” Bowser said. “And it’s time. People don’t run for a fourth term.”  

This story has been updated.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell is suing the Trump official who referred him to the Department of Justice alleging mortgage and tax fraud. 

Swallwell sued Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday for violating his privacy and First Amendment rights. Earlier this month, Pulte referred Swalwell to the DOJ, claiming that the California congressman may have made false or misleading statements in loan applications. 

In his lawsuit, Swalwell claims he is being targeted for his “political views and expression” and that Pulte improperly used information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in his referral letter to the DOJ. Swalwell alleges that Pulte invaded his privacy by digging into his financial records and violating the Privacy Act, calling his actions “a gross abuse of power that violated the law.”

The lawsuit further claims that the same day Pulte sent the letter, detailed allegations against Swalwell showed up in news reports and right-wing social media accounts in what looked like a coordinated leak by Pulte and the FHFA. 

“Since Pulte took office in March 2025, FHFA has never issued a criminal referral to DOJ alleging mortgage fraud by anyone who supports President Trump but has referred four of President Trump’s political foes,” the lawsuit notes.

The Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to use mortgage fraud to prosecute the president’s enemies. New York Attorney General Letita James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and Senator Adam Schiff have all been targeted with similar allegations. James’s case was thrown out on Monday after the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been improperly appointed.  

Swalwell’s lawsuit now puts Pulte and Trump on the defensive, and may also help his own campaign for governor of California. Will it also thwart Trump’s attempts at revenge? 

Child trafficking arrests have hit their lowest point in five years since Homeland Security aggressively reoriented its attention toward immigration arrests.

Fewer kids have been rescued from exploitation and trafficking this past year than at any point since the pandemic, reported The New York Times Tuesday.

The number of indictments for child exploitation crimes fell by 28 percent compared to last year, according to the Times, which noted that agents that have historically participated in child exploitation investigations have resorted to working those cases in their personal time.

Fewer victims have been assisted, as well. Homeland Security agents “identified or rescued roughly 300 fewer child victims, a 17 percent drop,” according to an internal report by Homeland Security Investigations.

The data is a peek behind the curtain of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, which has apparently prioritized political results over pressing public safety concerns: For months, Attorney General Pam Bondi has impressed that the administration’s immigration sweeps would target violent criminals and child molesters—but the numbers show that hasn’t been true.

The latest data report from ICE revealed that 40 percent of immigrants detained at the agency’s facilities have no criminal record at all. Meanwhile, actual child exploitation cases are apparently falling by the wayside.

Although President Donald Trump has heaped endless praise on the federal deportation agency, ICE agents have reportedly never been so miserable, forced to primarily detain noncriminal immigrants in order to meet their quota: 3,000 arrests per day, per Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s demands.

The digits come at a particularly bad time for Trump, who is in the throes of a national fixation on the most damning scandal of his political career: his cozy relationship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House axed 1,353 positions from the State Department in July, gutting parts of the agency that failed to align with MAGA values. Those included offices focused on promoting democracy, ending genocide, quelling political extremism, and combating human trafficking.

The cuts reduced the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to about 35 people—a third of its staffing levels from seven months prior, thanks in large part to State Secretary Marco Rubio’s plan and Elon Musk’s deferred resignation program. Those who were not laid off were informed that they would be reassigned and given a pay cut, Mother Jones reported at the time.