The fast-rising costs of owning a home have some young Americans questioning whether buying a house is still a good investment.
Take Tony Zhang, 34, who bought a $950,000 townhouse in Irvine, Calif., in 2021 and says he now regrets it. The supply-chain manager says investing his down payment of roughly 30% in the stock market instead would have left him with a portfolio worth as much as $1 million today.
“Had I just taken my down payment and bought Meta, Nvidia, or any growth stock, I probably wouldn’t even be working my 9-to-5,” he said. Even with a more conservative investment that mirrored the S&P 500, he estimates he’d have an extra couple of hundred thousand dollars. In the meantime, renting a comparable two-bedroom apartment in his area would be about $800 cheaper than his $4,300 monthly housing costs, which don’t include maintenance.
Zhang is among many people under 40 who feel that homeownership isn’t the wealth-building tool it used to be. Less than a quarter of Americans aged 18 to 39 say buying a home is a very good investment, compared with 38% of those over 60 years old, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center found. A further 38% of under-40s see property as a “somewhat good” place to park their money.
A separate survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found the proportion of under-50s who consider housing to be a “very good” investment had fallen to about 16% in February, from about 25% five years earlier.
Broadly speaking, homes are a worse investment for first-time buyers today because wages haven’t kept up with surging prices and ownership costs, said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
The median sale price of a U.S. home jumped 53% to $379,000 in the six years to May 2026, Zillow data show, while borrowing costs more than doubled. Those who can afford to buy face outlays including property taxes, insurance, and maintenance bills, which cost the average U.S. homeowner $15,979 in 2025 — a 4.7% increase from the previous year, while household incomes rose just 3.8% over the period.
More than half of U.S. homes also lost value last year — the highest share since 2012, according to Zillow, when the effects of the global financial crisis were still playing out.
“Younger Americans’ more negative view on homeownership reflects the economics of their lived experience, ” said Wachter. “They face an affordability problem and they don’t get the returns.”
Almost nine in 10 Americans agree that buying a home is harder for young adults today than it was for their parents’ generation, the Pew research found.
That said, only 16% of survey respondents aged under 40 went as far as saying a house is a bad investment. Owning a home can provide families with stability and, for those who can afford to hang onto it, a source of intergenerational wealth. Returns vary widely based where a homeowner buys their property and how long they own it, noted Pew senior researcher Richard Fry.
“It’s a complicated calculation and probably one of the most expensive things young adults will ever buy,” he said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all answer.”
Even those who snag a deal on a property can find the math gets complicated.
Atalyia Ferrara, a 28-year-old teacher, bought a $230,000 four-bedroom Philadelphia townhouse in July 2021 with a $1,485 down payment, thanks to the city’s Keystone Home Loan Program. Her monthly mortgage and taxes have gone up just $335 a month since then, but the maintenance costs have forced her to dip into her savings instead of building a nest egg. She’s already poured more than $28,000 into home improvements, with another $25,000 for electrical repairs looming.
Ferrara now works in neighboring New Jersey and says the house has become a money pit in an inconvenient location. She and her husband are considering selling so they can rent in an area with better access to work and childcare.
“I bought the house at 23, just trying to get my foot in the door of building equity,” said Ferrara. “Instead, I’m stuck with a house that’s kept me where I’m at and paying thousands for repairs.”
Zhang, in California, is planning to stay put until his 8-year-old daughter goes to college, hoping to cash in on his home’s appreciation down the line. After that, he plans to sell up and “rent for sure.”
Still, he can’t help but think of what he could have made in the short term on a different investment.
“Just looking at how the stock market has performed, the opportunity cost of putting that money into a home has absolutely screwed me over,” Zhang said.
MADISON, Wis. — As a democratic socialist running for governor in a state Donald Trump won twice, Francesca Hong knew early on that she had doubters.
She knew it before her critics highlighted her past calls to abolish the police. She knew it before Republicans started spending $2 million to get her through the Democratic primary because they viewed her as a weak opponent. And she knew it before Wisconsin’s outgoing Democratic governor backed a candidate to try to halt her surge in support.
“It’s a huge flex for us when I get to go and talk to people, especially when there’s so much skepticism right now around my favorite e-word — electability — and, you know, are we for real?” Hong told two dozen supporters, some in “Hotties for Hong” T-shirts, before they knocked on doors for her on a recent Saturday morning.
Few doubt that her campaign is for real. She’s getting clicks like no one else in the field of five primary candidates. She has locked up support from national figures, inspired the base, and rattled establishment Democrats. And she’s riding high after democratic socialists and progressives won recent primaries in Colorado, New York, and Washington.
Hong, 37, wears Air Jordans and friendship bracelets, sings karaoke at campaign events, and talks to voters about her love of the Milwaukee Bucks and the need to wallop millionaires with higher taxes. She initially lagged behind her opponents in fundraising, but she has seen a recent burst of donations, including some that came after she appeared on controversial liberal streamer Hasan Piker’s show.
Hong, a third-term state representative from Madison, is betting she can thrive in a state where Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.), a self-described democratic socialist, won 71 of 72 counties in 2016’s Democratic presidential primary. While progressives have claimed recent victories around the country, Rep. Greg Stanton (D., Ariz.) easily fought off a primary challenge Tuesday from a democratic socialist.
If Hong wins the Aug. 11 primary, she will next test whether democratic socialists can find support beyond the nation’s urban centers and win a general election in one of the most closely divided states in the country.
Her backers don’t want her to moderate her call for systemic change if she wins the primary.
“We can’t keep settling for crumbs,” said Sam Lies, a 61-year-old pharmaceutical representative who is volunteering for Hong’s campaign.
On the campaign trail, Hong talks about reimagining what government can do, as well as her experience growing up as the child of South Korean immigrants and the challenges she faces as a single mom trying to pay her bills. She recently settled a $30,000 lawsuit over her credit card debt, and she works occasional shifts as a chef and bartender after closing her ramen restaurant two years ago.
Hong is campaigning on “permanent affordability” and a new way of running the state. She wants to more than double the income tax on millionaires and many businesses, provide free school lunches to all students, subsidize childcare, set the minimum wage at $20 an hour, ban police officers from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in many cases, establish a public bank and public grocery stores, put a one-year freeze on building data centers, protect doctors who provide gender transition care, expand union rights, legalize marijuana, and end the state’s school voucher program.
“I will not weakly accept the sellout of Wisconsin to trillionaires, billionaires and big tech,” she told attendees at the Democratic Party’s state convention last month.
Hong meets parishioners at the church. Sara Stathas
Little known at the start of the race, Hong has seen rising support as she runs against four others, including Mandela Barnes, a former lieutenant governor and the Democrats’ 2022 Senate nominee.
The primary has been tumultuous. A leading candidate, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, dropped out last week, pointing to faulty campaign finance reports that she blamed on her fired campaign manager. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who had recently quit the race for governor, revived his campaign with support from the current governor, Tony Evers.
Amid the shake-ups, the Republican Governors Association started spending $2 million on ads calling Hong “too liberal for Wisconsin.” While ostensibly attack ads, the spots could boost Democratic support for her and are the clearest signal yet that Republicans believe they have the best chance of winning in November if Democrats nominate Hong.
‘Brooklyn, Wisconsin, not Brooklyn, New York’
Some who like Hong’s ideas worry about how Republicans will portray her in a general election given that she has embraced socialism, used the C-word online and said her ideal world would be one without prisons.
“She’s sort of inviting some controversies,” said Vivian Venish, 28, who attended Hong’s campaign launch party but has been studying other candidates.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Tom Tiffany, a three-term congressman from northern Wisconsin who has called Hong out of step, saying she “wants to abolish the police and bring socialism to Wisconsin.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R., Wis.), a candidate for Wisconsin governor, speaks during an April 8 news conference in Madison about what the GOP needs to do in November.Scott Bauer
Brian Schimming, chairman of the state Republican Party, said he expects a tight race in November no matter whom Democrats select. But he questioned Hong’s appeal.
“We’re in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, not Brooklyn, New York,” he said.
Wisconsin is as politically divided as it gets, with one Democratic senator, one Republican senator, a Democratic governor, and a Republican-led legislature. The last three presidential races were decided by less than 1 percentage point, with Trump winning in 2016 and 2024 but losing in 2020.
While narrowly divided today, Wisconsin has a long history of socialism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, Milwaukee was led by socialist mayors who championed “sewer socialism” by focusing on infrastructure and public housing. Wisconsin voters elected a socialist to Congress and sent others to the state legislature.
In her convention speech, Hong cited progressive iconoclasts like Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, a representative, governor, and senator more than a century ago who “imagined a better world and fought like hell to realize it.”
“These folks were called unreasonable, impractical and unelectable,” she said. “Yet today, they’re considered visionaries.”
Hong poses for a photo with a supporter in Racine. Sara Stathas
She has won the support of Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Nina Turner, a co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 campaign for president.
Hong was a prominent supporter of the push to get Wisconsin Democrats to cast “uninstructed” ballots in the 2020 primary to protest President Joe Biden’s backing of Israel. She found new progressive allies last month by appearing on streams with Piker and Michael Beyer, who is known as Mike from PA. Piker has said he would “vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” and Beyer has said Jewishness is a “demonic ethnicity, wholly invented.”
Hong “is willing to sell out the Jews of Wisconsin for a few bucks,” Ann Jacobs, chair of the state Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus, said in a post on social media.
Hong doesn’t agree with everything the two streamers have said but is willing to talk to anyone to reach more voters, her campaign manager said.
‘This is me being myself’
Voters — especially those born after the end of the Cold War — are ready for something different, not candidates the establishment deems electable, said Dillon Sheehan, a Hong supporter who helps lead the Madison-area chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Republicans defanged the term by using it so much, he said.
“They have called Joe Biden a socialist,” he said.
Hong argues voters are hungry for dramatic change, and her history of fierce rhetoric shows she has consistently pushed the Democratic Party to the left. In 2020, she called for “defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.”
Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the center-left Third Way think tank, called the comments “the most toxic thing you could possibly imagine basically anywhere, but especially in a purple place like Wisconsin.”
In an interview, Hong said she believes the best way to reduce crime is to provide more services and treatment. She said that as governor she would increase state aid to towns and cities and let local officials decide whether to use the money to boost police spending.
Hong rarely backs down. She has kept in place incendiary posts, including one in 2020 that called tavern lobbyists the c-word. Last year, she used the same word as an acronym in a post encouraging people to vote for liberals in statewide races.
“This is me being myself,” she said. “I came up through kitchens and a restaurant industry, and now politics, where swearing is pretty normal.”
Hong is campaigning on “permanent affordability” and a new way of running the state.Sara Stathas
Her campaign style, she said, allows her to connect with voters who feel left out. She has held hip-hop parties and craft fairs and arranged for volunteers to meet at a Dungeons & Dragons gathering.
On a recent Thursday, members of a Madison club that caters to women and trans bicyclists took their usual ride around the state Capitol. Afterward, more than a dozen of them spread out in a park and decorated postcards encouraging people to vote for Hong.
The cyclists said they were drawn to Hong’s support for the working class and opposition to data centers. More than anything, they wanted someone ready to shake up the system.
“If there was ever a year for her to win, it would be this year,” said hotel worker Aiya Askana, 28. “So I’m going to go for it.”
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed a defense policy bill that incorporates President Donald Trump’s request for a historic $1.15 trillion in spending for national security and that would designate the Department of Defense as the Department of War.
It also would provide for a pay raise next year ranging from 5% to 7% for service members, depending upon their rank.
The National Defense Authorization Act is generally one of the more bipartisan bills that Congress takes up on an annual basis. That’s not the case this year. The vote was 216-212.
Democrats took issue with steep spending increases for the Pentagon as Republicans attempted to cut numerous non-defense programs through other bills. They also opposed some of the conservative social policy riders that were included.
For example, the bill includes a prohibition on gender-related medical care under the military health program known as TRICARE. It also eases hurdles for service members to carry a privately owned firearm on base, following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lead on the issue.
Republican leaders’ decision to attach Trump’s elections overhaul bill to the defense bill upon its passing also amplified the partisan divide. Speaker Mike Johnson is working to accommodate Republican lawmakers who are angry that the Senate won’t pass the SAVE America Act and are insisting that it be included in must-pass bills until the Senate relents.
The House bill is testing a normally bipartisan process
Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he knows there were areas of disagreement, but he emphasized that Wednesday’s vote was a step in a long process. He promised to work in a bipartisan manner on a final product that can pass both chambers and be signed into law.
Rogers said the United States needs to reverse decades of underinvestment and neglect in the nation’s armed forces and defense industrial base.
“This bill will do that and much more,” he said. “It will build the ready, capable and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and other adversaries.”
Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democratic lawmaker on the Armed Services Committee, said the defense spending the administration has asked for this year is approaching $1.6 trillion when including separate efforts to pay for the war in Iran and boost weapons stockpiles.
“The American people are struggling to pay their bills and we’re going to put $1.6 trillion into the defense budget. It’s not a reasonable thing to ask,” Smith said.
Smith also expressed concern about the war with Iran and that in supporting the defense bill, lawmakers are “de facto supporting this war with no end in sight.”
“We are in an incredibly, incredibly dangerous time,” Smith said. “I want to maintain the bipartisan nature of this bill. I do. And I know that the chairman does. But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to need some Republicans to stand up to the president of the United States and say, ‘No. No, we’re not going to get you $1.6 trillion. No, we’re not just going to give you a blank check for a war that is totally out of control.”
The White House backs parts of the legislation
The spending increases authorized in the bill would not take effect until Congress follows up with a separate defense appropriations bill. The Senate has not yet approved its version of the defense measure. It’s possible a final product won’t be ready until after the midterm elections.
The White House applauded the spending levels authorized in the House bill and the Department of War designation that it says recognizes the “willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our nation.”
The president issued an executive order last year renaming the Defense Department, but it’s up to Congress to make the change official. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the renaming could cost taxpayers as much as $125 million.
The White House’s statement also said that the administration has a number of concerns with certain provisions in the bill and would work with Congress before a final bill is presented to the president. Among those concerns was a section of the bill it said would limit or undermine the president’s ability to name military installations and property.
In 2023, during a national reckoning on issues of race in America, seven Army bases’ names were changed because they honored Confederate leaders. Last year, those bases reverted to their original names, but with different namesakes who share Confederate surnames. The Army found other service members with the same last names to honor.
The Trump administration on Wednesday signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia that gives that country a pathway to enrich nuclear fuel and commits it to using U.S. firms to supply its reactors.
The agreement, which the Energy Department announced had been signed, is certain to spark heated debate in Congress, where many lawmakers have long expressed concern that exporting enrichment capabilities will lead to a proliferation of nuclear arms.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spoken openly about working to develop nuclear weapons if Iran is not stopped from getting them.
While the Trump administration offered little information about the agreement’s contents, three people familiar with it shared details with the Washington Post. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agreement publicly.
The people familiar with the new agreement say it is designed with safeguards to keep the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel to weapons-grade level. But they also acknowledge it includes a waiver that exempts the Saudis from the 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.
“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 statement. “Rest assured, these agreements uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation, while relying on the world’s best nuclear technology and scientists, designed right here in the United States.”
On Wednesday, Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed what is known as a 123 agreement, which lays out conditions for nuclear energy cooperation and includes stipulations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
Unlike with this agreement, other recent deals between the U.S. and countries that are not already enriching their own fuel have precluded or discouraged them from doing so.
Because the deal does not include conventional international inspections, President Donald Trump had to sign a separate national security waiver for it to go forward, according to the individuals familiar with it. Now that the agreement has been signed, the details will be sent to Congress, which has 90 days to act on it.
Even if Congress votes against implementing the deal, the president could veto that disapproval, and it is unlikely that opponents would have enough votes to block the deal from going forward.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the details of the agreement.
Under the deal, the two countries agree to study for two years whether enrichment on Saudi soil is feasible and necessary. There is enough nuclear fuel manufactured in other countries to power future Saudi reactors. But nuclear energy proponents argue the world’s fuel supply will quickly run out if plans by the Trump administration and other governments to vastly expand nuclear power production around the globe materialize.
They say the deal with the Saudis gives the U.S. an opportunity to expand the enrichment network on its own terms, limiting the associated weapons proliferation risks. The deal stipulates that any enrichment on Saudi soil would be controlled by U.S. companies using technology that is not shared with the Saudis. The aim is to allow Saudi Arabia to achieve its goal of developing a nuclear power economy without giving the kingdom access to tools it could use to develop a nuclear weapon.
Nonproliferation experts have long warned against such a deal, starting back when the Biden administration raised this possibility as part of efforts to establish diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. They continued to speak out as the Trump administration signaled it was heading down the same road, arguing that any safeguards the U.S. establishes will not hold.
“A bad U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia is coming for congressional review — inexplicably, carried over from the Biden administration,” wrote Andrea Stricker, a nonproliferation scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank, in a post on X. “Congress should block it. If it does not, one hopes the policy will be reversed by a subsequent administration before too much damage is done in terms of watering down safeguards, setting negative precedents for other states, and failing to contain the spread of enrichment and reprocessing — which we just put back in the box in Iran via force.”
There are currently 14 nations enriching uranium, according to the think tank, nine of which have nuclear weapons.
The agreement is sparking alarm in Israel, where officials have long sought to keep neighboring nations from enriching nuclear fuel. Unlike the Biden administration’s proposed nuclear energy pact with Saudi Arabia, which U.S. officials had predicated on the Persian Gulf state recognizing Israel’s right to exist, there is no such stipulation in the arrangement Trump negotiated.
Naftali Bennett, who had served as Israeli’s prime minister and now chairs the Together party, said in a statement that the deal “joins a series of diplomatic failures in which Israel is losing influence over its own fate.”
Bennett, who is challenging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, called the deal “a severe strategic failure that jeopardizes our security” by threatening to trigger a regional “nuclear arms race and a dangerous loss of control.”
Israel Ziv, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Division, wrote in the daily newspaper Maariv that the agreement “is the final diplomatic nail in the coffin for the future of regional normalization.”
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Even analysts who concede that the expansion of enrichment to Saudi Arabia and other countries is inevitable — as countries pursue nuclear power amid fast-rising global energy demand — question the structure of the agreement.
Richard Nephew, who advised Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama on the Middle East, said in an interview that the sidelining of international inspectors would set a worrisome precedent. He said that while U.S. inspectors are capable of robust review of nuclear activities, adversaries of the U.S. are unlikely to trust their findings and may choose to abandon inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The point is not that Americans can’t do a great job at inspections,” he said. “The point is if you were Iran, how much confidence would you have in American inspections of Saudi operations? How would we feel if the Iranians said, ‘Don’t worry. Russians will inspect us.’ We would not accept that.”
“What if the Russians told us not to worry about nuclear facilities in Cuba because they were inspecting them?” he said. “All of this just doesn’t work in a geopolitical environment with as much mistrust and uncertainty as ours.”
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the deal is the legacy U.S. nuclear firm Westinghouse, which builds the large light-water reactors Saudi Arabia is seeking. While officials familiar with the agreement said it does not specifically name the company, the deal’s provisions requiring that U.S. firms are contracted for the nuclear work effectively steer the Saudis to the firm and its AP1000 reactors, each of which is capable of powering hundreds of thousands of homes.
There are also supply chain provisions that aim to give other U.S. firms an advantage, including those mining uranium and building components used in reactor construction.
But the nuclear supply chain in the U.S. has severely atrophied over the years, as utilities stopped building plants following project cost overruns and construction delays that cost ratepayers tens of billions of dollars.
The agreement states a strong preference for U.S. suppliers at all stages in construction and development of nuclear plants, according to the individuals familiar with it, but does not prohibit the Saudis from seeking materials, parts and expertise elsewhere when needed.
Members of Congress are already criticizing the framework. Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) noted during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear program, which the White House says it is now being leveraged by Iranian leaders to build a weapon, is rooted in U.S. technology given to that country when it was still run by the shah.
“We have no idea who is going to be running Saudi Arabia 10 years from now,” Sherman said. “We are bombing Iran because they insist upon enriching and reprocessing. We are entering into an agreement with Saudi Arabia, giving them the green light to reprocess and to enrich, and the only difference I see here is that Westinghouse stands to make an awful lot of money on this deal, whereas the Iranians were not enriching American companies.”
Sherman pointed out that when Secretary of State Marco Rubio served in the Senate, he joined Sherman in co-sponsoring the “No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act,” which would have required that Congress affirmatively approve any deal with the Saudis before it could move forward.
In a gaggle with reporters Wednesday during a trip to the Philippines, Rubio declined to answer questions about the deal in detail, saying the U.S. would not sign any agreement that risks proliferation.
WASHINGTON — At a rally Wednesday, President Donald Trump touted the $1,000 babies can receive when their parents open Trump Accounts in their names, seed money that Trump says will help give them “a really fair shot at the American dream.”
“Think of that. The government is finally giving money back to our children,” Trump said to the crowd gathered at a Georgia high school
Some parents who opened accounts earlier this month for their babies say they’re still waiting for their money. The accounts went live July 4, two days before Trump rang the opening bells for the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq from the Oval Office.
The tax-advantaged accounts can be opened for any child under the age of 18, and more than 7 million accounts are already active, Trump said Wednesday. Babies born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, get $1,000 in seed money from the U.S. Treasury. Most of those families receive their $1,000 in one or two days, the Treasury Department said.
After the Trump Accounts are set up, parents, relatives, friends and employers can contribute to them. Some billionaires have also pledged philanthropic contributions to the accounts. The money is turned over to private firms that invest it in index funds, a type of mutual fund that tracks the performance of the stock market. The money can’t be accessed until the child turns 18, and only then for specific purposes, such as going to school, opening a business or buying a home.
At the rally Wednesday, Rick Jackson, Georgia’s GOP nominee for governor, said he would push for state lawmakers to match the $1,000 in seed money from the federal government. Jackson, a wealthy businessman and CEO of a healthcare company, said he believes Georgia lawmakers will support that, but “if they don’t, I will personally donate it myself.”
Boosters of the program say it’s a chance to give more Americans a stake in the stock market. They hope it will stem the rising popularity of democratic socialists, who seek to raise taxes on corporations and wealthy people to ease the cost of things like food and healthcare for low-income and middle-class Americans.
Some parents were told it could take 4 weeks for the deposit
For babies born since Trump took office last year, $1,000 from the U.S. Treasury is supposed to kick off the accounts. While some parents report receiving the money, others said in interviews and on social media they’re still waiting for their $1,000.
Masaki and Kristina McLellan, new parents from Bergen County, N.J., said in an interview they were wary of signing up for the accounts because they worried it was a promotional stunt for the president. But the $1,000 incentive persuaded the couple, whose daughter Maya was born in late March, to start an account anyway.
Masaki McLellan said he applied for the account July 6. At first, the application was rejected, but the account was activated after he called the Trump Account hotline. He was told he’d see the money in the account in 10 days. Now, he says, he’s been told it will take up to four weeks.
Kristina McLellan said she was disappointed it was taking so long to fund her daughter’s account. But the infant has multiple other investments already compounding for her. Maya’s parents have already started a 529 college savings plan and a custodial brokerage account for her. The Trump Account is the third investment account in the little girl’s name.
“We definitely want to give her options for her future and make sure she can choose what she wants to do,” said McLellan, a studio director for a local news station, who returns from maternity leave next week.
The Treasury Department emphasized the McLellans’ case is unusual and said only a sliver of those who apply need customer support.
Treasury says most parents wait only 1 or 2 days
The Treasury Department said that the lag between opening an account and receiving the seed funding constitutes “standard processing time, like receiving a tax refund,” and that the overwhelming majority of parents are waiting only one to two days. But the department likes to give parents a conservative estimate for how long it might take for the money to be transferred, such as the estimate of up to four weeks given to the McLellans.
“Trump Accounts level the playing field by allowing every parent to invest in their children’s future, not just wealthy families with trust funds,” the department said.
The government also unveiled an initiative last month that permits child welfare agencies to open accounts on behalf of foster youth.
“With roughly 1 million sign-ups per month before launch, Trump Accounts have become the most popular and successful government-backed savings product in U.S. history,” the Treasury Department said.
On Wednesday, Trump called the accounts “the most consequential” part of his signature tax and spending cuts bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Trump faces pressure over his handling of the economy
Trump’s stop in Georgia comes as he and fellow Republicans face pressure in the midterm elections for their handling of the economy. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s economic leadership, among the lower ratings of his second term, according to a June survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Trump pledged to lower costs, but his tariffs and the war in Iran have instead helped to increase prices.
Trump Accounts are similar to baby bonds, championed by Democratic-led cities and states meant to shrink the wealth gap between low- and high-income children. But unlike most baby bonds, which generally target kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, Trump Accounts are available to families of all incomes.
The program has faced criticism from those who say it does nothing to help families in a child’s first years of life, when children are most likely to experience poverty, homelessness, and hunger. And the Republican bill that created the program also slashed funding for programs that are disproportionately used by children, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
WASHINGTON — The House adopted a Republican-only $95 billion budget proposal Wednesday, a long-shot effort to fund the Iran war and other White House priorities over objections from Democrats and a few GOP holdouts in a final push before the midterm elections.
House Republicans were divided over the plan, with conservatives wary because there are no offsetting budget cuts. But Speaker Mike Johnson plunged ahead, viewing the go-it-alone process as the best chance to usher President Donald Trump’s priorities through the split Congress, despite skepticism in the Senate.
The vote tally was 216-214, with two Republicans and one independent joining Democrats in opposition.
“Just bullets and bombs to finish the job,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington (R., Texas), the chairman of the Budget Committee.
Democrats argued the money should be spent at home, particularly on efforts to lower costs for Americans.
“Republicans plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on Trump’s failed war in Iran,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, this week. “Think about what we could spend with these resources instead.”
Congress is at a standstill over the U.S. war against Iran — unable to stop Trump’s military strikes, but not having authorized the use of American military force — and politically torn over having to provide billions of taxpayer dollars to pay for it. Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s Iran strategy, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.
The budget battle comes as Trump attended the dignified transfer of four service members killed in the Middle East, bringing the military death toll to 18. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators at a fiery hearing this week that the Pentagon is running short of cash, despite a massive $150 billion one-time allotment in last year’s big budget bill.
Even as the House action advanced the resolution, Johnson’s strategy faces uncertainty in the Senate.
The package has $60 billion for the Pentagon and $13 billion for other national security needs, $12 billion for farmers struggling under Trump’s tariffs, and $10 billion for voting law changes aligned with the SAVE America Act and proof-of-citizenship requirements that are Trump’s top priority.
A once rare budget tool is now the norm in split Congress
Republicans are relying on the budget reconciliation process, which enables approval on a majority vote in Congress, bypassing the Senate’s ability to filibuster the measure t o stall or kill it.
Once rare, the reconciliation process is now Johnson’s preferred strategy for pushing proposals through Congress. It’s the way Republicans approved Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill last summer and funded Homeland Security this year over Democrats’ refusal to fund Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“No matter how you feel about current events, these funds are necessary to ensure our fighting forces remain ready, our troops are paid and our nation is safe,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
But House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Republicans have literally ripped food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans to sustain the Trump war machine.”
Among those opposed was Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, a former Republican turned independent, who said he felt any war funding bill should be bipartisan. He also wanted to ensure Congress had a “much higher level of involvement” in bringing the war to an end, and he said this proposal did not set that process in motion.
Republicans Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio also voted against.
This is the third time GOP leaders have relied on reconciliation, dubbing this version 3.0, and it’s a lengthy process. If the House approves the budget resolution, it next goes to the Senate for a round-the-clock session to consider politically tough amendments — something senators would rather avoid in an election year.
The budget resolution sets out instructions for the various committees to draft legislation, which Johnson hopes could be done this summer, with final voting on the package once lawmakers return after the August recess.
Senators pan House’s budget and have their own ideas
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been noncommittal on the House package that also divides his own GOP majority, with some Republican senators preferring more money for the military and others demanding the costs be offset with cuts elsewhere.
“We’ll see,” Thune said this week.
Thune’s focus, at the moment, is avoiding another government shutdown. He wants the Senate to approve a stopgap funding measure, called a continuing resolution, to provide routine government funding before lawmakers leave for the summer break.
If senators are unable to reach agreement on government funding, Thune has said he may hold onto the House’s budget resolution and use it later in the fall as a way to push the resolution through the Senate over objections. He wants to prevent a federal shutdown when current funds expire, Sept. 30.
“It’s a possibility that, if necessary, we could pull that budget resolution passed by the House and use it to fund government,” Thune said. “I hope that’s not necessary.”
Thune has also clashed with Trump over the president’s push for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voting. The measure, while popular among Trump’s most ardent supporters, does not have enough support among Senate Republicans for passage.
It’s already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and experts warn the proposed new rules could make it more difficult for eligible Americans to cast ballots.
Tropical Storm Bertha crawled into southern Louisiana on Wednesday, making landfall and packing strong winds far from its center after closing beaches from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi.
The National Hurricane Center said Bertha made landfall in the afternoon in St. Bernard Parish, about 40 miles east of New Orleans. At landfall, the storm’s maximum sustained winds were around 45 mph.
The wind and storm surge were the main threats for the Deep South states. Parks and piers were closed up and down the coast, as were some low-lying roads. A tropical storm warning stretched from Alabama to Louisiana, including New Orleans where extreme heat was adding to misery.
Tropical storm force winds were felt as much as 160 miles from the center of the storm, the National Hurricane Center said. A wind gust of 44 mph was recorded at New Orleans Lakefront Airport on Wednesday afternoon.
But the heaviest rains were staying offshore, reducing the risks of flooding, the center said.
The storm will weaken now that it’s reached land and is unlikely to leave behind widespread damage, Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes said. The impact should be manageable for coastal communities, he said.
Gov. Jeff Landry called the forecast “encouraging” but also warned residents to be prepared for some flooding.
Storm surges up to 3 feet were possible in Louisiana and Alabama, forecasters said. Rain totals were forecast between 1 and 4 inches, with higher amounts possible in isolated areas.
Bertha is expected to maintain tropical storm intensity until it reaches the Texas coast on Thursday, the hurricane center said.
Elsewhere in the U.S., a line of storms on Tuesday generated reports of tornadoes stretching from Cincinnati to New Jersey. Torrential rains caused flash floods that swamped homes, washed out bridges and led to water rescues in West Virginia, authorities said.
Rare combination of tropical storm and heat warnings
Southern Louisiana was under tropical storm and extreme heat warnings for much of Wednesday — a rare double dose of suffering, the National Weather Service said.
It was the first time in at least two decades that’s happened in the area, the weather service said, citing records that date back to 2005.
Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic season
Bertha could dump heavy rain on coastal areas of Mississippi that are still recovering from flooding brought by Arthur that destroyed and damaged homes.
Hurricane Fausto in the Pacific is far from land
In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Wednesday. The hurricane was hundreds of miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
It was forecast to gradually strengthen and the hurricane center said that ocean swells generated by Fausto were spreading along the Baja California coast and likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip tides.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI says it is still investigating the “unprecedented cyber incident” that led its artificial intelligence systems to break out of a testing environment and hack into another AI company.
OpenAI said Tuesday two of its most capable AI models were responsible for the cyberattack targeting AI startup Hugging Face. The incident is stirring debates over the need for stronger AI guardrails and the extent to which AI agents are capable of acting on their own.
Hugging Face said last week that it had detected an intrusion into its data processing systems that it suspected was caused by an AI agent autonomously acting on its own. But the New York-based startup said it wasn’t until this week that it learned OpenAI was responsible, and it worked with the larger company to contain what Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue called “an attack unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
San Francisco-based OpenAI said its AI used stolen credentials and discovered a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face’s servers. It was working with reduced guardrails because it was supposed to be in an isolated testing environment known as a sandbox.
But it went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal,” finding ways to connect to the internet without human direction and “gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation,” the company said.
Some experts say OpenAI is wrongly blaming the technology
University of Amsterdam social scientist Hannes Cools said the framing of the cyberattack as an AI agent acting on its own is an unnecessary anthropomorphization that takes some of the heat off the company.
“It is a human decision to switch off specific safeguards,” said Cools. “It’s not an AI that goes rogue in that sense. It followed specific instructions based on the prompt that was given to that AI system.”
Even so, other experts say the cleverness with which the AI models were able to cause problems without human direction speaks to the dangers. OpenAI said the intrusion was caused by a combination of its AI models, including its newly released GPT‑5.6 Sol and an “even more capable” model that is still being tested internally.
“It went off and did this hack all by itself, as far as we can tell,” said Colin Shea-Blymyer, a cybersecurity research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “This is the highest level of autonomy that we’ve seen in the use of a large language model for cyber operations.”
How an AI agent found the keys to the ‘teacher’s house’
One of the most surprising innovations in what Shea-Blymyer describes as an “almost entirely self-directed” attack was the AI agent’s apparently independent decision to target Hugging Face, a well-known AI development hub and marketplace.
He said OpenAI’s internal environment for testing AI capabilities and risks worked a “little bit like putting a student in a room and telling them, ‘Do bad things. Your job now is to evaluate how bad of a person you can be.’ And then you lock the room and you leave for the weekend and you come back and they’ve left the room.”
But then “the cybersecurity agent that was being tested broke out of its sandbox, had access to the internet and sort of thought to itself, ‘Who would have the answers to the test that I’m working on?’”
The answer was Hugging Face, a repository for AI testing data.
“And so the agent thought, ‘Well, we’ll go to the teacher’s house,’ so to speak. And from there it devised a plan to break in and steal the answer key,” he said.
The hack highlights the debate on open-source vs. closed AI
The hack comes at a time of intense debate about the benefits and risks of open-source AI models, particularly those built in China that are cheaper and almost as good as those that U.S.-based “frontier AI” companies like Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI are building.
Despite its name, OpenAI’s models are closed. Hugging Face, by contrast, is a big promoter of open-source technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify, and build upon.
Hugging Face co-founder and chief science officer Thomas Wolf said the attack has reinforced his belief in the importance of wide access to open-source models for cybersecurity defense. Hugging Face used a Chinese model to combat the intrusion.
“When a frontier model is attacking you and moving laterally inside your infrastructure, defenders need wide access to near-frontier tools within hours or even minutes, rather than being pointed toward a closed-door” platform, Wolf wrote in a social media post.
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Donald Trump on Wednesday honored the lives of four U.S. service members who were killed in the Middle East and returned to their families at an air force base in Delaware.
The president saluted as four transfer cases carrying the service members’ remains were escorted off an airplane during the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base. The ritual is one of the most somber duties of a commander in chief. It was the third that Trump has attended since he launched the war in Iran in February.
Speaking at an event in Georgia hours later, Trump described the ritual as “the toughest thing I do.”
“I’ve been there many times before,” he said of Dover. “This was, in particular, something very sad.”
Earlier in the day, Trump said his message to families was simple: “We love you. We love your child,” Trump told reporters.
Trump was accompanied at the dignified transfer by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also present were Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.).
During the ritual, transfer cases draped with the American flag and holding the remains of the fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that transported them to awaiting vehicles to take them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the service members are prepared for their final resting place.
Fallen troops came from Hawaii, Texas, New York, and North Carolina
Two U.S. Army soldiers killed in Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan were returned during the dignified transfer. The remains of a third service member who is believed to be the soldier missing after the Jordan attacks were also returned, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in Iraq during a detonation of an Iranian drone.
The soldiers killed in Jordan were identified by the Defense Department as Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. The soldier who disappeared after the Jordan attacks is Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, N.Y., the Defense Department said.
The soldier killed in Iraq was identified as Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who lived in Spring Lake, N.C.
Trump said Feehan’s family accepted an invitation to join him on Air Force One on Wednesday as he traveled to an event in Georgia, where the family lives. Speaking at the event in Marietta, Trump described Feehan as a “flawless” person who was “going all the way — he was going to be a general.”
“We will carry Tyler’s memory in our hearts forever, and I just want to thank you,” he told Feehan’s parents during his remarks. “It’s an honor to have you here today.”
Trump previously said the soldiers died while protecting America and other nations from Iran.
“We feel very badly, but you know, those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting so that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. He added that the U.S. was striking Iran “in honor” of the fallen troops.
Trump vows to retaliate for each U.S. death
The U.S. has launched multiple retaliatory strikes against Iran as an interim agreement to end the war falls apart. Trump on Monday said that every time Iran kills an American soldier, “they will pay for that killing many times over!”
Since the war began on Feb. 28, 18 U.S. service members have been killed.
Trump on Tuesday said that while almost all the incoming fire in Jordan was stopped, some made it through.
“They did slip something through in Jordan,” he said. “If we had other operators, you know, it would have not happened, unfortunately.” He added that “we let other people do the job — and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.”
Trump did not elaborate on his comments, and it was not immediately clear who he was saying was responsible for protecting U.S. forces in Jordan.
Trump attended two previous dignified transfers since the outset of the war, most recently in March.
Soldier had planned to marry fiancée and attend law school
Feehan, a first lieutenant who was killed Saturday, will be posthumously promoted to the rank of captain and awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge. He was assigned out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
Feehan’s family said in a statement that their hearts were shattered by his loss. They remembered Feehan, who went by “Tivo,” as someone who “packed in more living” in his 25 years than most do in a lifetime.
“He chased adventure relentlessly,” the statement said. “He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character.”
He planned to marry his fiancée and attend law school after his deployment. The family said they’re starting a scholarship in his name.
Gonzales, who was killed Friday, was a private with the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany. She graduated last year from Hebron High School in Carrollton, near Dallas, school officials said.
Rampersad, a sergeant who was believed to have been killed in Friday’s attacks, was assigned to the 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.
In a brief statement, Rampersad’s family called her a “gentle giant” who “stood up for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.”
“She loved her family fiercely and will live on in the hearts of everyone she touched,” the statement said.
Deonne Jinkins, 22, a friend, said Rampersad “loved deeply, cared genuinely, and always made people feel seen and important.”
Swinton, a sergeant who was killed Sunday, will receive a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge, and will be promoted to staff sergeant. He enlisted in the Army in 2017 and was assigned to the 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, out of Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Trump administration is weighing military action in the West African country of Mali to target an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as JNIM, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
If approved, it would add an eighth nation to the list of countries where President Donald Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term — a chapter of his presidency that he initially said would be dedicated to ending global strife and redirecting U.S. resources to Americans.
There is disagreement, however, among senior U.S. officials over whether to proceed with attacking the militant group. A vocal advocate for using force is Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, said the current and former officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.
The militant group, whose full name is Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, has established a stronghold in Mali and increasingly launched attacks in coastal West African nations, establishing itself as the most well-armed militant group in the region and among the most powerful in the world.
A spokesman for Mali’s government did not respond to requests for comment.
Gorka did not respond to requests for comment.
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism, has been a vocal advocate for using force.Alex Brandon
When the White House was asked for comment, an administration official would not disclose whether the president intended to move forward with military strikes but said the United States has been urging governments in North and West Africa “to purchase U.S. equipment and services to support their war efforts against the terrorists.”
The official said that terrorism in the Sahel, the vast semiarid region south of the Sahara, is a “multinational problem.”
“We urge regional partners and NATO allies to support the Alliance of Sahel States in their war against JNIM and ISIS,” the official added, referring also to the Islamic State, which rose to prominence in the Middle East before establishing affiliates throughout Africa.
The Alliance of Sahel States consists of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — all West African nations where military leaders have in recent years ousted democratically elected governments in coups, largely cut ties with the West and turned to Russia for security help.
But the administration official pinned the blame not on those governments but on their Russian partners, saying that Moscow “has proven to be an ineffective security partner for Mali.”
“We hope that other African nations take note of Russia’s terrible performance in combating terrorism,” the official said.
The Trump administration’s contemplation of military options in the country has not been previously reported.
Mali, a landlocked nation of nearly 25 million, has in recent years been plagued by violence by Islamist militant groups — and by Mali’s own junta government and the Russian mercenaries whom it hired to get the situation under control.
The militant groups, particularly JNIM, have grown increasingly powerful, turning Mali and its neighbors in the Sahel into the world’s center for terrorism.
Last year, militants with the al-Qaeda affiliate mounted a fuel blockade that paralyzed much of the country. This spring, they launched coordinated, nationwide attacks that included militants roaming the streets of Bamako, the capital; seizing a strategic city in the north from Mali’s military and the Russians; and killing the country’s defense minister in a suicide attack.
Meanwhile, IS Sahel — an Islamic State affiliate and a JNIM rival — has consolidated power near Mali’s border with Niger, where last year its militants kidnapped American missionary Kevin Rideout, who is believed to be held now in Mali.
To combat the violence, Mali’s junta government hired Russian mercenaries, first with the Wagner Group and now with Africa Corps, which is more closely linked with Russia’s defense ministry. The Russians have been accused of a string of atrocities, according to rights groups and the Washington Post’s previous reporting.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, said that Mali’s military and its Russian backers were responsible for killing hundreds more civilians than JNIM and IS Sahel combined. Last year, the Malian military and its Russian partners were responsible for 925 civilian deaths, according to ACLED, compared with 232 by Islamist militants.
“It is extremely problematic that a government like the U.S. or any Western partner would provide support to these regimes whose legitimacy remains contested, and which are incredibly fragile and repressive,” he said, referring to Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
Still, last year, as part of a push by the Trump administration to reengage with Mali, the United States ramped up intelligence sharing with Mali’s government, current and former American officials said at the time. The intelligence was used in strikes by Mali’s military, which had been largely shunned by the Biden administration for its refusal to set a timeline for a return to democratic elections and its work with the Russians.
But such cooperation has so far remained limited, nowhere near the scale of the U.S.-Nigeria security partnership that ramped up last year and has included U.S. airstrikes and a ground mission that killed one of the Islamic State’s top leaders in Africa.
Any direct U.S. military involvement in Mali runs the risk of hostilities with Russian forces in the region. It also could require deconfliction efforts between Washington and Moscow akin to ones that existed in Syria during that country’s civil war.
When asked if Secretary of State Marco Rubio supports military action in Mali, the State Department sidestepped the question, saying the U.S. “unequivocally condemns the terrorist activity in Mali.”
The department said the Trump administration is “committed to promoting regional ownership and cooperation against terrorist threats, and monitoring indicators and warnings of threats to our homeland.”
U.S. military action against JNIM would add Mali to the list of countries where Trump has ordered strikes: Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela. The administration also has waged a controversial military campaign against alleged drug runners in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that has resulted in scores of deaths.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, said that the U.S. could be most useful by getting involved instead in “conflict resolution,” forcing Mali’s junta government to talk with JNIM, which has focused not on global aims but on applying Islamic laws in local governance, and other political opponents whom the junta has largely silenced.
“Opting for the military solution one more time won’t get things resolved,” Nasr said. “The French tried that for 10 years. The Russians have been trying for five years. The situation has only gotten worse and worse.”
France launched its military intervention in the Sahel in 2013 at the request of Mali’s then-government. French forces quashed the insurgency in Mali and restored a measure of order. That initial mission was followed by a second, Operation Barkhane, that eliminated prominent militant leaders but ultimately failed to stop the spread of various armed groups.
Anger at France — fueled by its neocolonial missteps and by Russian disinformation — grew over the years, helping propel coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021 and in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. President Emmanuel Macron later withdrew French forces.
Nasr added that if U.S. strikes weaken JNIM, they conversely could help IS Sahel, whose growth has been limited by the rival al-Qaeda-affiliated group.
Peter Pham, a former Trump administration official, was less pessimistic about the use of military force but said a precondition should be reestablishing trust with the governments of Mali and Niger ahead of security cooperation efforts.
“While we may have very limited direct economic or other interests in these countries, we do not want jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda gaining a foothold there,” Pham said.
Gorka has long made aggressive counterterrorism policies a cornerstone of his ideology. But his impact on policy since the start of Trump’s second term has been modest, said a U.S. official — a source of relief for his critics, who object to his hard-line approach, and a disappointment to his supporters.
In the spring, Gorka engaged in conversations about becoming Trump’s next director of the National Counterterrorism Center following the resignation of Joe Kent, who left the administration embittered by the president’s decision to start the war in Iran. But those discussions have not materialized into a nomination for Gorka.
Current and former U.S. officials said that Gorka had been deeply involved with talks about how to bring home Rideout, the captured missionary. One key aim of the administration last year was to get “overflight” rights in Mali, a former official said, so that U.S. officials could fly airplanes and other surveillance technology over Malian skies to better track his movements.
That desire for overflight rights was behind the administration’s decision to lift sanctions on key junta members, including Defense Minister Sadio Camara, who was a key proponent of Russian intervention in Mali and was killed in the JNIM attack on April 25.
Gorka, current and former officials say, also was invested in an effort to kill Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, a leader in an Algeria-based al-Qaeda affiliate that has seen its influence wane in recent years. Although American officials were hopeful last summer that U.S. intelligence had been used in a Malian strike to take out al-Anabi, as the Post previously reported, his death was never confirmed.
Corinne Dufka, an independent expert on the Sahel, said that there is a risk that any U.S. strikes could lead JNIM to target the U.S. or Americans in the region — which it has not done so far — or to push the group closer to the main al-Qaeda organization, from which it has grown more autonomous in recent years.
“If the U.S. helps Malian authorities kill JNIM authorities, it could backfire,” she said. “And they could be squandering an opportunity to de-radicalize and demobilize one of the world’s most sophisticated jihadist organizations.”
