The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has shrunk more than is publicly known in recent weeks, losing about 200 personnel to firings and reassignments since June 1, according to data the Trump administration shared with Congress this week.
The cuts are the latest to hit ODNI, which was created to oversee and coordinate all U.S. spy agencies but has been targeted by President Donald Trump and many Republicans in Congress. They, and some former U.S. intelligence officials, say it has expanded far beyond what lawmakers intended when it was created two decades ago. The ODNI had about 2,000 employees at the start of Trump’s second term. It is now little more than half that size, according to congressional aides.
The staffing reductions mean that Trump’s nominee for intelligence czar, Jay Clayton, if confirmed by the Senate as expected, while inherit a shrunken organization that has experienced steady upheaval over the last 18 months.
The president in early June tapped federal mortgage regulator Bill Pulte, a political ally with no prior national security experience, to be acting director of national intelligence. Trump said at the time that he wanted Pulte to “start the process” of eliminating some workers.
Trump has often maintained a hostile posture toward professional intelligence personnel and their agencies, claiming they tried to undermine him in his first term, particularly with the compiling of reports on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election to aid his campaign. The president has dismissed intelligence analysis on a range of issues, from North Korea’s nuclear policy to Iran’s likely reaction to the attacks the U.S. and Israel launched in February.
Neither Pulte nor the White House has publicly detailed what cuts they have made recently at ODNI, which houses the National Counterterrorism Center and was established to fix U.S. intelligence agencies’ failure to share threat information prior to the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
The latest personnel cuts were confirmed by a congressional staff member and another person familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information.
ODNI did not respond to requests for comment.
The cuts include some firings, as well as a larger number of intelligence officers who were ordered back to their home agencies, the person familiar with the matter said. Much of ODNI’s workforce consists of personnel detailed from the CIA and other intelligence organizations.
The counterterrorism center has not been affected significantly, officials have said. But there has been a whole-scale hollowing out of the National Intelligence Council, a prestigious analytic body that conducts intelligence community-wide assessments on key topics such as COVID-19’s origins and foreign interference in U.S. elections.
The Washington Post previously reported that about 20 intelligence council personnel have been removed or have chosen to leave, including senior officers who oversaw the production of analysis on Russia, China, and Europe. The top official who oversaw the council was placed on administrative leave.
Neither Clayton nor the Trump administration has articulated a vision of what ODNI should look like or focus on “other than it should be smaller,” said Julia Curlee, who served as a director for intelligence programs in Trump’s White House until last year and recently resigned from the CIA after 20 years as an analyst. “It seems like DNI was just a fat target to punish the ‘deep state.’”
“Morale is pretty terrible, as you would imagine,” Curlee said.
It is unclear how many of the 200 personnel were let go under Pulte, who became acting director of national intelligence on June 19, and how many were let go under his predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, who left the administration after her husband became ill.
The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have not publicly acknowledged the extent to which ODNI has been shrunk.
“U.S. National Intelligence is operating more efficiently and effectively than ever before, and today, we started a third round of reducing redundant, or noncritical, personnel,” Pulte posted on X on July 10, without revealing details.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said shortly after Pulte took over that the acting DNI had told him that “a small handful of front-office personnel” were leaving. “Around 45 or 50 career officers” were returning to their home agencies, Cotton said. Cotton’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The precise size of the workforce at ODNI and other U.S. intelligence agencies is classified. By the time Gabbard departed in mid-June, the workforce had shrunk from about 2,000 in January 2025 to about 1,300.
Clayton was mauled in his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing by Democrats who decried what they said was his failure to unequivocally state that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, which Trump denies. The Republican-led committee approved his nomination Tuesday on a 9-8 vote, and a full Senate vote is expected next week.
The Philadelphia school board on Thursday moved to borrow $600 million to pay employees and keep the lights on over the next several months.
The temporary borrowing, authorized at a special school board meeting, comes in two tranches — $200 million this month, and $400 million in September.
Borrowing to pay bills is a rite of summer for the district, the only school system in Pennsylvania unable to raise its own funds. The school board has had to issue tax and revenue anticipation notes for 43 of the past 45 years, officials said. Last year, the district authorized borrowing up to $1.5 billion because the state budget had not yet been passed.
“Simply put, it helps ensure our schools have the cash flow needed to open on time, pay employees and vendors, and continue serving students without interruption,” school board president Reginald Streater said at the meeting, which was held virtually.
Rates are not locked in, but chief financial officer Michael Herbstman said if the transactions happened now, the first borrowing, which is set to happen Tuesday through Bank of America, would come at a rate of 3.4%, and the September public borrowing would have a rate of 2.85%.
The move, then, will mean millions in borrowing costs for the school system.
Philadelphia, the nation’s ninth-largest school system, has about 114,000 students in 216 traditional public schools, and about 65,000 more in 83 charter schools. The district has a budget of about $4.6 billion.
A partner at one of the city’s largest law firms who once worked as a federal prosecutor was confirmed Thursday by the U.S. Senate to become the Philadelphia region’s newest federal judge.
Antonio Pozos’ nomination to join the region’s U.S. District Court was approved by a vote of 49-44. There was no discussion as the Senate voted to approve his nomination, which earns him a lifetime seat on the bench.
Pozos, 44, most recently a partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, is the first person appointed to the region’s district court since President Donald Trump began his second term last year. During his first term, Trump had five judges confirmed to the region’s federal bench.
Pozos will fill a vacancy created by last year’s retirement of U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg, giving the court 22 district judges and eight senior judges.
District court judges oversee a variety of criminal and civil cases each year, and typically issue the first rulings on legal questions that can sometimes reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although some of Trump’s recent nominations to judicial posts across the country have been controversial — including his decision to nominate his former personal lawyer, Emil Bove, to the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit — Pozos’ candidacy received some bipartisan support.
Shortly after his nomination was announced, Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator, John Fetterman — who, under Senate rules, had the ability to block Pozos’ candidacy from advancing — decided to allow the process to move forward, the first time any Democrat had done so for a district court nominee during Trump’s second term.
Fetterman also voted Thursday to confirm Pozos.
During a confirmation hearing last month, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) called Pozos a “successful attorney, a strong Pennsylvanian, a decorated public servant, and he’s eminently qualified for this role.”
Pozos was criticized by some Democratic senators during the hearing for hesitating to use the word attacked when describing the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He instead said it “appeared that there was violence and trespass” that day, and called the events “profoundly troubling.”
Pozos lives in Bryn Mawr and is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, according to a questionnaire he submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Before he became a partner at his firm in 2018, the questionnaire said, he spent three years as a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section in Washington, where he often worked on cases involving healthcare fraud. He previously worked as an associate in a Washington-based firm and clerked for U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in Virginia.
In Philadelphia, Pozos has served as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and is on the board of Drexel University’s Kline School of Law.
With Pozos’ confirmation to the bench, Trump has now appointed six of the Philadelphia region’s district judges, who handle cases that arise from the city, its suburbs, and counties in and around Reading and Allentown. Former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama each appointed seven judges to the bench, and two were appointed by George W. Bush.
Trump has had a more outsize impact on the region’s appellate court, where he has appointed six of the court’s 14 members across his two terms.
A Chester County man who forced two teenage girls, one of them a relative, to work long hours on a Kennett Square mushroom farm for no pay pleaded guilty Thursday to human trafficking, involuntary servitude, and related crimes.
Ramiro Caal Jolomna, 37, threatened to have the girls deported back to their homes in Guatemala if they did not comply with his demands, Senior Deputy Attorney General Zachary Mills Wynkoop said.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, whose office investigated the case through its human trafficking division, called crimes like Jolomna’s “cruel and dehumanizing behavior that forces victims into a routine of helplessness and silence.“
The victims, who were 14 and 17 when interviewed by state investigators in 2024, said Jolomna helped transport them to Chester County with a promise of giving them better lives and the opportunity to earn money to send back to their families.
Instead, prosecutors said, Jolomna, of New Garden Township, took their salaries from the mushroom farm for himself.
The younger victim told investigators that she had been working on the mushroom farm since she was 12 years old, and that Jolomna had been signing her paychecks over to himself and his wife.
After working predawn shifts at the farm, the girl was forced to act as the couple’s housekeeper, and was not even given new clothing to wear, Wynkoop said.
The other victim told investigators Jolomna charged her rent to live in his home alongside nine other people and forced her to reimburse him for the cost of her flight to America. These debts prevented her from sending money home to her father, who was sick and unable to work, the prosecutor said.
At one point, Jolomna’s parents contacted the older victim’s parents and asked them for more money, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. The girl said she “did not know what would have happened if her parents said no,” the document said.
In an interview with prosecutors, Jolomna admitted to having debts from “smuggling” the girls into the country and to taking the girls’ paychecks to use for food and other items, according to the affidavit.
Jolomna will be sentenced in the coming months by Chester County Court Judge Debra Ryan.
A well-known activist and founder of a Kensington anti-violence nonprofit was charged with aggravated assault and related crimes for attacking a woman with a box cutter during an argument on a SEPTA train last week, authorities said Thursday.
Rosalind “Roz” Pichardo, 48, was taken into custody days after the July 17 assault, which left the victim in critical condition with deep lacerations to her face and chestthat required more than 70 stitches to close, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting the case.
Pichardo is the founder of Operation Save Our City, a nonprofit that offers social services to people who have experienced grief, addiction, or trauma from exposure to violence, according to the group’s website. She also runs “Sunshine House,” a storefront on Kensington Avenue where people in addiction can drop in for meals, clothes, and other forms of support.
She has been involved with other anti-violence and victim services organizations throughout the city and has received at least two city grants for her work.
Last week, one day before the assault, Pichardo touted a $20,000 grant that Operation Save Our City received from the Philadelphia Office of Public Safety.
And in 2024 and this year, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office awarded Pichardo’s organization $25,000 and $10,000, respectively, through its violence prevention microgrant program.
Pichardo declined to comment Thursday. No attorney for her was listed in court documents.
Around 9 p.m. Friday on an eastbound SEPTA train near Eighth and Market Streets, prosecutors say, Pichardo assaulted a woman with a box cutter. They said the conflict began when the two women argued on a platform at the transit agency’s 15th Street Station.
The victim told investigators Pichardo “got smart with her” after she asked a man who was blocking a platform bench to move so she could sit down, according to an affidavit of probable cause for Pichardo’s arrest. She said she, in turn, “got smart” with Pichardo.
During the spat, the victim said, Pichardo complained about “how rude young people are” and called her entitled for asking the man to move.
The women then boarded the train, where the argument continued, and they “both got in each other’s face and started fighting each other,” the woman told investigators, according to the affidavit.
At some point during the scuffle, the woman said, Pichardo pulled out a box cutter and assaulted her. She told investigators she felt warmness on her face and felt “a lot of blood.”
The attack left the woman with severe lacerations on her cheeks and her chest that,in addition to needing stitches, required surgery to help her regain muscle movement, the documents said.
Pichardo was taken into custody by SEPTA transit police but released the same evening.
Investigators said technical issues initially prevented them from viewing surveillance footage captured within the train car, but they later recovered footage from an adjoining car that showed portions of the incident.
On Wednesday, Pichardo was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, simple assault, possessing an instrument of a crime, reckless endangerment, harassment, and disorderly conduct.
She was released from custody after posting 10% of $25,000 bail, court records show.
The case will be handled by the attorney general’s special prosecutor for mass transit, a position created by the state legislature to address what Republican lawmakers said was the failure of District Attorney Larry Krasner to prosecute violent crimes on or near SEPTA properties.
A spokesperson for Krasner’s office declined to commenton the case and referred questions to the attorney general.
Pichardo appeared to address the matter in cryptic posts on Facebook, where she frequently promotes her activist work to her 23,000 followers.
On July 18, one day after the assault, she posted a photo of a SEPTA train car with the caption: “Lord please give me strength to get through this pain.”
And on Wednesday evening around 9 p.m., she updated followers: “I’m Good .. I’m Home and trusting the process . My head is up..”
In addition to founding Operation Save Our City in 2012 and later Sunshine House, Pichardo has worked as a lead educator with the harm reduction nonprofit Prevention Point and as a trauma victims advocate in Temple University Hospital’s emergency department.
Staff writers Ellie Rushing, Aubrey Whelan, and Jillian Kramer contributed to this article.
The House passed a measure to halt the war in Iran on Thursday, as Democrats mounted a last-minute bid to constrain the escalating conflict before lawmakers left Washington for a monthlong recess.
The effort led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) passed by a vote of 214-208. Four Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Tom Barrett of Michigan — joined Democrats in supporting the measure.
The Senate blocked consideration of a similar resolution hours later on a 49-47 procedural vote.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the lone Republican to join Democrats in supporting the measure. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) voted against it.
The votes marked the first test of Republican support for the conflict since President Donald Trump resumed strikes against Iran this month. U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, announced it had conducted its 12th consecutive day of airstrikes as Trump pledges to retaliate for the deaths of several American service members killed by Iranian attacks in the last week.
By returning to the war, Trump has forced some vulnerable Republicans into a tenuous political position ahead of the November midterm elections. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz — spiking global food and energy markets — and the Houthis, its proxy force in Yemen, have threatened to halt Saudi Arabian oil transiting the Red Sea.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll earlier this month found that nearly 70% of respondents thought that the war was not “worth fighting.” Eighteen U.S. service members have died during the conflict, with nearly 430 injured.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers the war will cost about $37.5 billion by the end of September. Congress is debating how to proceed with a $73 billion package to restock the Pentagon’s inventory of precision weapons and cover other costs incurred by the conflict.
“When you’re digging yourself a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging — and that’s what this resolution seeks to do,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), who introduced the resolution, said on the Senate floor before the vote. “Let us stop pretending that Congress has no role to play while American service members remain in harm’s way.”
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.), a Navy SEAL veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, countered that passing the resolution would send the wrong message to the U.S. troops fighting the war.
“Think about the people who are deployed right now standing on that wall with a loaded weapon who have volunteered to defend our country and our way of life,” Sheehy said on the Senate floor. “Because they are there defending us in a just war.”
The Trump administration’s return to military strikes in Iran has also divided some Democrats over how best to respond.
The successful vote in the House and the failed one in the Senate came after both chambers approved a separate resolution last month meant to halt the war. Trump has argued the measure lacks the power of law, infuriating Democrats who say the war is being conducted unlawfully without lawmakers’ consent.
The White House has pressured Republicans to oppose such resolutions. Trump complained when he met with Republicans senators last month that the passage of one of the resolutions was undermining his negotiations with the Iranian government.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) supported the resolution that passed last month but opposed a subsequent one after being briefed by the White House. He voted against Thursday’s resolution.
Two other Republicans who have voted for similar resolutions in the past, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) and Rand Paul of Kentucky), did not vote. Sens. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and Katie Boyd Britt (R., Ala.) also missed the vote.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Thursday that he will introduce a resolution to sue the Trump administration over its refusal to abide by their efforts to rein in the war.
Trump “should be coming directly to Congress” to explain why he has continued his war effort in Iran, Meeks said. “Since he’s not, then we should be suing the administration to say ‘You must come to Congress at this point.’”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), the architect of Democrats’ strategy to force war powers votes, said he did not think the failed procedural vote in the Senate undercut the successful passage of the war powers resolution last month.
“The substantive vote has been taken,” Kaine said after Thursday’s vote. “Both houses have said, Mr. President, you either have to withdraw troops or” seek authorization from Congress to continue the war.
Still, Kaine said he was turning his attention to pushing back against the war through the appropriations process, through which Congress could exert leverage over the war by refusing to fund it. The House passed a resolution Wednesday taking the first step toward sending $73 billion to the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies, largely to cover the cost of the conflict, but the measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said the Senate would not take it up immediately as bipartisan negotiations over government funding play out — an approach that some Senate Republicans say is a mistake. The Senate could use the measure to fund the government later if those negotiations collapse.
After the House vote, Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.), a co-sponsor of Jayapal’s resolution, said Democrats would continue to force votes on similar resolutions and predicted that more House Republicans would support them after hearing from frustrated constituents while the chamber is on recess over the next four weeks.
“They’re going to get crushed,” Crow told reporters after the vote. “When we come back in September, I bet we have more people joining with us saying, ‘All right, let’s wrap this up.’”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) signaled that Senate Democrats would also continue to force votes on similar resolutions.
“We will keep forcing votes until Senate Republicans stop playing dumb and summon up the courage to do what is right,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
For the first time, Pennsylvania will inventory the thousands of public school facilities throughoutthe state to better assess the extent of aging and unsafe buildings.
Educators have long raised concerns that deteriorating school conditions threaten student safety and impede learning — but understanding the scope of the problem has been difficult.
Included in this year’s $50.8 billion budget deal, and effective in 2027, the Pennsylvania Department of Education will be required to collect information about school facilities, including the age and renovation history of buildings as well as their capacity and square footage.
Democratic State Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, who represents South Philadelphia and was the initial sponsor of the bill, said the legislation will allow state funding for facilities repairs to be used more efficiently.
Some school districts already track this information, Fiedler said, but not all do. Having that information in a centralized location, she said, will allow for a “better understanding big picture of what we’re facing and figure out where we should be allotting our very limited school facilities dollars.”
The state has allocated $200 million in funding for public school facilities improvements in recent budget cycles.
While her initial bill also called for the creation of a public school facility advisory committee, Fiedler said the inventory requirement represents an important first step.
“The people who spend Monday through Friday all day long in those same schools, they know what the problems are,” Fiedler said. “They’re tired of having to find work-arounds and deal with them. We need to invest more money. I think that part is plain and simple.”
Students attending school in Philadelphia have faced leaking roofs, mold, asbestos, and inadequate cooling systems.
The Philadelphia school board voted in April to approve a controversial $3 billion facilities plan that would close 17 schools and renovate nearly 200 others over the next decade. The average age of a school building in the Philadelphia district is 75.
That problem is not unique to Philadelphia.
In Pittsburgh — where the average building is nearly 90 years old — the school board similarly approved a facilities plan this spring that would close 12 schools in a move district leaders hope will help address the older school buildings.
Statewide, the first round of school facility information will be collected by the education department through an online form by the end of 2027, and then every five years after that. Public school districts as well as cyber charter, charter, and career and technical schools will be required to submit information.
“This information will enable lawmakers and the administration to evaluate the condition of public school facilities, identify collective needs of our public schools, and further support the investments needed to ensure healthy and safe learning environments,” a spokesperson for the state education department said.
Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said the state’s largest teachers union was proud to work alongside lawmakers in creating the inventory system.
“We encourage school districts to partner with the Department of Education to provide the information needed so that the commonwealth can address school facility equity in a fair and timely way,” he said in a statement.
Ethan Young is an intern with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association. He can be reached at ethanmyoung@gmail.com.
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday narrowly passed a resolution to halt U.S. military action in Iran, sending a warning to President Donald Trump for the second time as the war has escalated and the future of the conflict is increasingly uncertain.
The 214-208 vote requiring congressional approval for the war comes as the Senate is expected to consider a similar resolution later Thursday morning. Though the votes forced by Democrats are largely symbolic, they are meant as a strong signal to the Republican president that his support on Capitol Hill is chipping away as the war drags on and lawmakers in both parties have questioned his administration’s endgame.
The war has had “no clear mission, no strategy, no end goal,” said Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat who led the resolution on the House floor.
The resolution narrowly passed after four Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted with Democrats to end the war. But the vast majority of Republicans voted to back the war and cede congressional war powers to Trump.
Trump has insisted that continued U.S. attacks against Iran do not mean a return to war or long-term action. After the first House vote to halt the war in early June, he posted on social media that it was “unpatriotic” and “meaningless.”
Continued American airstrikes are occurring even as diplomatic efforts show little public sign of progress and officials on both sides have dug in on the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy that remains largely closed. The unpopular war threatens further worldwide economic disruption and is sending fuel prices up ahead of midterm U.S. elections this fall.
Most Republicans vote to cede congressional powers
As the House debated the resolution Wednesday evening, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R., Fla.) read out names of 18 service members killed since the war began.
“To belittle this mission is to belittle and demean the very service these members gave their life for,” Mast said. “Their sacrifice was not meaningless. This operation is bringing reckoning for the hundreds of times Iran has attacked and killed people of the United States of America.”
The top Democrat on the panel, New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, said that presidents are supposed to make the case to Congress.
The service members who died made the ultimate sacrifice for “an illegal unauthorized war that the American people don’t want,” Meeks said.
As both chambers vote on whether to weigh in, the U.S. has carried out waves of airstrikes in recent days as the two countries clash over control of the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices have spiked again, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators at a hearing Tuesday that the U.S. had spent $37.5 billion on the war so far. On Wednesday, Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base for the arrival and dignified transfer of the remains of four U.S. service members.
“I do think the combination of the hearings, plus the fact that we are in this new escalatory phase where Americans have been killed, and Americans are experiencing the rising costs — I think it’s important that people be held accountable,” said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat who is leading the Senate effort on Thursday. “And this is a very unpopular war.”
Trump is watching Iran votes closely
Republicans on both sides of the Capitol know that voting against the war can have a political cost, even as many of them have privately questioned the Trump administration’s handling of the conflict.
In his post after the June House vote, Trump called the four Republicans who voted with Democrats “GRANDSTANDERS!” and said they should be “ashamed of themselves.”
“They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories,” he said.
When the Senate passed a war powers resolution on Iran for the first time in June, the president attended a GOP Senate luncheon the next day and called the Republicans who voted for it “losers.”
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican who lost his Senate seat in a primary after Trump endorsed one of his opponents, told Trump directly that he needed to give more details to the public about the conflict. “This was supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months,” Cassidy said. “Our original objectives have not been achieved.”
Trump argued back, Cassidy later told reporters, and he told the president that he wouldn’t change his vote until he got a briefing. The White House later relented, giving Cassidy a one-on-one meeting, and the Louisiana Republican changed his vote in a late-night do-over vote before the Senate left for a two-week recess.
Cassidy wouldn’t say Wednesday whether recent developments would change his vote.
Polling find Americans disapprove of the war
Most Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling the situation with Iran, according to recent polling. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted in July found that few Americans think the war in Iran has been worth fighting, and most aren’t confident that the U.S. military action in Iran and negotiations to end the war will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Only about two-thirds of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the situation in Iran, according to the poll. Most Republicans, about 6 in 10, think the war has been worth fighting and are confident that the military action and ensuing negotiations will prevent Iran from development nuclear weapons, but a sizable share — about one-third — are unconvinced.
Early on in his tenure, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick proved himself to the largest federal employees union in the United States.
In 2017, President Donald Trump signed a law to improve whistleblower protections and set guidelines for employee misconduct at the Department of Veterans Affairs. But the American Federation of Government Employees began noticing some adverse effects.
As Phil Glover, a national vice president for AFGE, tells it, veterans, including those with disabilities, and lower-level employees were being targeted instead.
AFGE officials went to Fitzpatrick with their concerns, and the Bucks County Republican introduced his own bill repealing and adjusting certain provisions.
That move, Glover said, was an inflection point in solidifying a long-lasting partnership with Fitzpatrick — one that gives the union a rare ally in the Republican caucus and Fitzpatrick a consistent endorsement from a powerful organization as he has repeatedly won reelection in a narrowly divided district.
“He’s carried a lot of water for us within the Republican Party, within the caucus, whether they were in the minority or majority,” said Glover, whose jurisdiction includes Pennsylvania.
In the high-stakes midterm elections this year, union endorsements behind Fitzpatrick and U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a freshman Republican trying to hold onto his seat in Northeastern Pennsylvania, are shaping up to be a potentially critical factor inthesetwoswing districts that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House.
“They all reached out. I didn’t even have to call them. They reached out to me right away and said we are 10,000% with you,” Fitzpatrick said, describing his relationship with the unions as “beyond advocacy” and “like family.”
Organized labor has traditionally backed Democratic candidates in the state —and that remains mostly true this year.
Fitzpatrick was the only Republican congressional candidate to get an endorsement Wednesday from the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, which is also backing popular Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
In two other swing-seat districts centered on Harrisburg and the Lehigh Valley, unions have coalesced behind the Democratic nominees, including by spending big to help union leader Bob Brooks win his primary in May.
But the splintering of their endorsements in both Fitzpatrick’s Bucks County-based 1st Congressional District and Bresnahan’s Scranton-based 8th Congressional District seat has been a striking departure — underscoring some unions’ willingness to reward incumbents’ loyalty to give labor a voice in a Republican caucus that may not always work in their interests.
Last week, the Pennsylvania State Education Association — the largest union for teachers or any other labor organization in the state — backed Fitzpatrick even though Harvie, a former social studies teacher at Bucks County Technical High School, was previously a member.
How those endorsements move the needle in the election is still an open question.
But in a district with independent-minded voters who have shown a willingness to cross party lines, some observers say, the labor endorsements could make a difference — both in the get-out-the-vote and fundraising support that unions sometimes provide, and in appealing to swing voters.
“It suggests to an independent voter or even a moderate Democratic voter that this candidate isn’t a far-right candidate, that this candidate is somebody who will work with workers and work with unions,” said Paul Frymer, a politics professor at Princeton University who studiesorganized labor.
U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan introduced before remarks from President Donald Trump in Mt. Pocono, Pa., in December. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
‘We consider them our friends’
With Trump in office and Republicans in control of Congress, Fitzpatrick and Bresnahan have won some union support by backing policies their own party leadership opposes.
In December, they were among 20 Republicans to join 211 Democrats to force a successful vote on the Protect America’s Workforce Act, which aimed to reverse a Trump executive order to strip collective bargaining rights from federal workers. In June, they were again among 20 Republicans — and the only ones from Pennsylvania — to vote for the Faster Labor Contracts Act, an effort to speed up bargaining negotiations.
And Bresnahan’s decision-making, as a freshman going against the White House, “had some guts to it,” Glover said. He said his group “didn’t entertain” endorsing Democrat Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor running against Bresnahan, or Harvie in the Bucks County race.
Angela Ferrito, president of the 700,000-member Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, which endorsed Fitzpatrick on Wednesday, said that while he has not always sided with labor, he has become the kind of Republican who will “sometimes almost put their neck out.”
Still, the union’s own public scorecard shows Fitzpatrick has aligned with its priorities far less often than Democrats — about 46% of the time in the current session of Congress. Bresnahan, who did not secure the union’s endorsement Wednesday, voted with the AFL-CIO just once — on the Protect America’s Workforce Act — to give him an 8% score.
Ferrito said the organization supports candidates who “support us and stand up when it matters.”
“Pennsylvania has always been unique in that way, where we do have moderate Republicans who will support unions and the rights of union workers. And so in those circumstances that we consider them, we consider them our friends,” she said.
State of play
As both of their districts draw national attention, Fitzpatrick has touted more than 40 labor-centered recommendations or formal shows of support and Bresnahan has highlighted about a dozen.
Fitzpatrick’s labor endorsements have ranged from local building trade affiliates — such as the Boilermakers Local 13 and the deep-pocketed International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 — to national labor organizations, like the Transport Workers Union of America and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The SEIU Pennsylvania State Council, which represents employees in public services, healthcare, and property services, backed him for the first time after a decade of either endorsing against him or staying neutral. But the council’s perspective changed after Fitzpatrick publicly supported reforms for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was only one of two Republicans to vote against his party’s cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“For us, that means something,” said Matt Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and the state council, “if someone’s down to both organize and fight and stand up and speak out against your own party.”
Fitzpatrick said his “unique” role as a labor-friendly Republican has made him a “pivotal voice” in Congress — largely because of the hyperpartisan nature of politics that he has railed against, he said.
“That’s unfortunate,” Fitzpatrick said. “If we did away with the political parties and we just had people form coalitions around ideas, you would see so much support, so much more support for commonsense measures, like supporting labor.”
Bresnahan said he made it a personal mission to cultivate strong relationships with organized labor when he entered Congress last year after having had collective bargaining agreements as the CEO of his family’s electrical contracting business.
As a freshman Republican, he said, he had to prove himself. He got up to speed on the roughly 10,000 federal jobs in his district and made visits to a high-security federal prison with “serious staffing shortages”at the same time as Trump was laying off thousands of federal workers.
“I absolutely encourage my Republican colleagues to take another look at this and find a way to support the people that support us each and every day,” said Bresnahan, who narrowly defeated six-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright in 2024.
Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie addresses supporters after winning the May 19 Democratic primary. Steven M. Falk / For The Inquirer
Harvie, the Democrat challenging Fitzpatrick, grew up in a union household and hasreceived the backing of two unions: the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania and Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents SEPTA employees. His campaign said conversations are ongoing with labor and believes more support is in the works.
Harvie said Fitzpatrick’s endorsements have in some ways been a “reward for doing the bare minimum” while his own track record as a former Falls Township supervisor and as a twice-elected county commissioner proves he would be a steadfast supporter of labor in Congress.
He said he was “anxious to get the support of the rank-and-file workers,” who are bearing the brunt of cost-of-living issues.
“They’re the ones who are really going through all the pain right now with higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, higher energy prices, concerns about their healthcare,” Harvie said.
Cognetti, meanwhile, has credited her endorsements from nearly a dozen local labor unions to her record in Scranton, including increasing the number of jobs and wages for public workers. Endorsements from AFSCME, which represents municipal employees, and others that she announced this month underscore that support, she said.
She also said she would support more labor priorities than Bresnahan, including the PRO Act — a major effort to expand workers rights that Bresnahan has not endorsed — and repealing parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Bresnahan voted for.
“It’s very important that you look at the whole picture of someone’s votes. It’s very easy to sign on to a letter and try to make yourself a hero,” Cognetti said.
In one unusual instance, Cognetti appeared to receive the endorsement of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters with a voice vote during an April meeting, but the organization released a statement endorsing Bresnahan in June. But conference president Bill Hamilton, who had called for the vote at the April meeting, said in the June statement that Bresnahan “has always had our backs,” including through his vote for the Faster Labor Relations Act.
Bresnahan, in an interview, also referenced that bill and stressed his relationship with Sean O’Brien, the national Teamsters leader whose podcast Bresnahan appeared on in January.
The state and national Teamsters organizations did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the situation.
“Democrats just can’t take unions for granted anymore,” Bresnahan said.
Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti hosts the national summer meeting of the Mayors Innovation Project in Scranton in 2023. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
‘Stick with them no matter what’
The union endorsements in the 1st and 8th Congressional Districts have been a sharp contrast to other swing-seat districts that have arguably already shown the power of labor as a political force.
In the Lehigh Valley district where Brooks, a statewide union leader and retired firefighter, is running against freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, high-profile Democrats recruited and rallied around the Democrat largely because of his union bona fides. And when opponents unleashed a last-minute ad campaign against him in the May primary, another political action committee padded with organized labor donations spent nearly $1.8 million to push back and help give Brooks the win.
It is not yet clear whether unions will similarly spend heavily to elect Fitzpatrick or Bresnahan — especially as they mostly look to elect Democrats elsewhere in Pennsylvania and across the country.
TJ Lepera, political director of IBEW Local 98, said he believed a Democratic blue wave would be highly favorable to labor interests. But his union has also backed Fitzpatrick,who“knows our issues, and that could be helpful in trying to calm down a lot of the crazy rhetoric that comes out of the Republican side, sometimes, on the attacks of labor,” Lepera said.
“If somebody has a great voting record with us and has been loyal to Local 98 and the way that we see legislation, we typically stick with them no matter what,” Lepera said.
That emphasis on loyalty was echoed by other unions, even if their political calculus led them to go the other direction.
“We were not going to support anything that would possibly turn the House or the Senate red,” said Joe Coccio, secretary-treasurer and political coordinator from TWU Local 234, which has endorsed Harvie. “If they were a good candidate by us … once we endorse a candidate, unless they break the law or do wrong by us, we continue to endorse them until they move up or move on.”
Coccio said Harvie had proved his appreciation for SEPTA employees when he served on the transit agency’s board.He is also accessible and pro-union, and has valuable experience as a teacher and county commissioner during the COVID-19 pandemic, Coccio said.
AFT Pennsylvania, which is backing Harvie, did not respond to multiple interview requests.
As November inches closer, unions backing both Fitzpatrick and Harvie are planning out their financial and ground-game support.
“For us, is it strategic? Yeah, it’s very strategic,” said Lepera, whose Local 98 has a long history as a political power broker in Philadelphia and statewide. “We want to have a voice on the other side of the aisle.”
Saudi Arabia would need to normalize relations with Israel to receive the U.S. nuclear technology it has long sought, President Donald Trump said Thursday, adding a new and potentially deal-ending stipulation to an agreement signed just a day earlier.
The nuclear deal — which was fiercely opposed by Israel and others concerned about nuclear proliferation — is “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, Trump said in a social media post, referring to the effort from his first term to normalize relations between Israel and Muslim-majority countries from which it had long been estranged. The Saudis have thus far refused to join the accord.
It was the latest whiplash-inducing policy shift from the White House, which had faced-down considerable political opposition to push forward with the Saudi deal. The Biden administration also discussed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, but tied any agreement to opening diplomatic relations with Israel, a move that has the potential to reshape dynamics in the Middle East, but which remains distant.
If the Saudis “don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a few hours after Trump’s post, responding to questions from reporters.
Asked why that condition had not been included in the deal when it was announced Wednesday, Leavitt said that Trump is “always the final dealmaker.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the Trump administration would modify a legal agreement that it has already signed with the Saudi government. Asked for details, the White House pointed to Leavitt’s comments.
The deal to allow the Saudis to build nuclear power plants using U.S. technology, creating a pathway to a Saudi nuclear enrichment program, has set off debate in Congress. Many lawmakers fear that allowing more countries to develop enrichment programs could eventually lead to more possessing nuclear weapons.
Israel hotly opposes Saudi Arabia’s developing a nuclear enrichment program, fearful it could lead to a regional arms race. Israeli leaders welcomed Trump’s new conditions.
The Saudis have long sought to build nuclear power plants on their territory — and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country, has declared that they would work to develop nuclear weapons if Iran develops its own.
The Biden administration also explored a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, but it ultimately floundered because normalizing relations with Israel was the main condition the U.S. placed on the agreement. The deal the Trump administration signed Wednesday would have imposed no such requirement.
Trump’s new condition on Thursday would attach a major string to the deal. Saudi leaders were nearing a normalization agreement with Israel in 2023, just before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, however, talks have been paused. Saudi leaders now say they would want guarantees of an eventual Palestinian state, and Saudi public opinion has soured toward Israel because of its handling of the war in Gaza. Any nuclear deal tied to Saudi-Israel diplomatic breakthroughs has seemed remote.
“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “But is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, normalized diplomatic and economic ties between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco later joined. Saudi Arabia is a heavyweight of the Middle East. Boosting ties to Israel would be a major shift in a region long beset by religious tensions.
The president’s assertion that there would be no nuclear enrichment as part of the deal appears to contradict how people familiar with the deal have described it. Most of the deal’s details remain private.
The president will need to submit the agreement to Congress, starting a 90-day clock for approval. That move could take place as early as today.
It is unlikely Congress will be able to stop the deal, even if there is substantial opposition. The president could veto their disapproval, and opponents are unlikely to have the votes to override him.
But Trump’s new condition could stymie the deal even before it gets off the ground.
Trump had not spoken to Mohammed in the hours since the social media announcement, Leavitt said. Nor did he speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she said.
It was just the latest example of the president’s on-again, off-again approach to policymaking. Last week, Trump said that the United States would impose a 20% toll on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, despite months in which his own administration said that doing so would be a violation of international law.
A day later, and following widespread condemnation, he abandoned the idea, saying he would make investment deals with Persian Gulf countries instead.
The agreement that Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed Wednesday lays out conditions for nuclear energy cooperation and includes stipulations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
But unlike other recent deals with countries that do not already have a domestic enrichment program, this one would not impose the same strict conditions aimed at preventing them from moving in that direction.
The initial announcement of the deal on Wednesday drew condemnation in Israel, where leaders fear a Saudi nuclear program could spur a regional arms race. Israelis worry that Turkey and others could also seek nuclear enrichment programs, ultimately leading to far more countries in the region that have a pathway to a nuclear weapon.
Israel has an undeclared nuclear weapons program, in addition to civilian nuclear power capability.
“Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said Thursday in a statement.
The Trump administration has offered little information about the agreement’s contents. Three people familiar with the details said that it is designed with safeguards to keep the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel to weapons-grade level.
But they said it exempts the Saudis from aggressive international inspections required in nuclear reactor deals with other countries, including the United Arab Emirates. Instead, sensitive inspections would be executed by American teams under terms spelled out in the agreement, which was initially worked out when the crown prince visited Washington in November.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agreement publicly.
“These agreements reflect our two nations’ shared commitment to strengthening U.S.-Saudi commercial relations, delivering prosperity at home and security to our allies abroad,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Wednesday statement.
Trump had to sign a separate national security waiver to allow the deal to move forward, since it does not include conventional international inspections, according to the people familiar with the deal.
Under the Saudi deal, the two countries agree to study for two years whether enrichment on Saudi soil is feasible and necessary.
Proponents say the deal with the Saudis gives the U.S. an opportunity to control the expansion of the enrichment network on its own terms and limit the risk of nuclear proliferation. The deal requires that any enrichment on Saudi soil would be controlled by U.S. companies using technology that is not shared with the Saudis, in an effort to limit the possibility that Saudi Arabia could use the program to develop a nuclear weapon.
Nonproliferation experts have long warned against such a deal, saying that safeguards are unlikely to hold for the long term.
