During President Obama’s first term, when the U.S. and Cuba initially made attempts to thaw our icy relationship, I visited the island country as part of an educational delegation. We met with government officials including Mariela Castro, the daughter of then-President Raul Castro, as she was working on pro-LGBTQ+ legislation. We visited the burial site…
President Trump was uncommonly lucky in his first term, neither inheriting nor provoking a crisis of the sort that tests U.S. presidents, until COVID struck in his final 10 months. (He failed that test, contributing to his 2020 reelection defeat.) Trump 1.0 was bequeathed a growing economy from President Obama, and the incoming president assembled…
We’re in the early weeks of Lent, the 40 days when Christians are called to rededicate themselves to good — and the Trump administration seems to be having a good time making its war with Iran seem like a bunch of tweens playing a game of “Call of Duty.” Where Jesus called on believers to…
In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Trump struck a confident and defiant tone — claiming huge victories tackling crime in major U.S. cities, securing the nation’s borders, deporting undocumented immigrants, bringing down costs for American households and commanding respect for the U.S. on the world stage. “The state of our union…
Capitalizing on a grand stage Tuesday night, President Trump delivered a State of the Union speech laced with political broadsides blaming Democrats for the nation’s problems, including on immigration and the economy, and heaping praise on himself and his administration for ushering in “a turnaround for the ages.” He did not mention that after a…
President Trump, speaking for well over an hour, shattered the record on Tuesday for the length of a State of the Union address. Speaking for about 100 minutes, the nation’s leader touched upon a broad range of domestic and international topics, bragged about his accomplishments and awarded the nation’s highest honors to a pilot who…
Boycotts. Prebuttals. Rebuttals. Historic guests. California members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives approach to President Trump’s state of the union address Tuesday night are as varied as their politics and their districts. Prior to the speech, Sen. Adam Schiff described Trump as an out-of-control and corrupt president who has ignored pressing…