WASHINGTON – Minnesota’s robust industry of intoxicating drinks and edibles made from THC in hemp got a reprieve late Monday from a looming federal ban on those products.
The reprieve was included in a bill the U.S. Senate passed on a procedural vote. It allows consideration of a short-term bill that would fund the federal government until Dec. 11 and would also delay the implementation of new federal regulation on intoxicating hemp products.
The new regulations would cripple Minnesota manufacturers of intoxicating gummies, drinks and even many products containing Cannabidiol (CBD) that are marketed as having health benefits.
The new regulations were to go into effect Nov. 11. While the Senate bill, which is expected to win final approval later this week, would only provide a month’s worth of respite, the intoxicating hemp industry and its allies in Congress hailed the reprieve.
“Adults should be allowed to have a THC beverage if they so choose. Minnesota has created one of the strongest, most carefully regulated systems in the country to allow the sale of hemp products,” Sen. Tina Smith said in a statement. “The initial ban set to take place was ill-advised and would have hurt both hemp farmers and Minnesota breweries alike.”
Since Minnesota legalized low-potency hemp-derived THC edibles and beverages in 2022 for adults 21 and older, the state has been a pioneer in this industry.
Advocates for the hemp industry said it would give them more time to lobby for support of legislation that would blunt the impact of the intoxicating hemp ban. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, have introduced bills that would regulate intoxicating hemp products instead of eliminating them.
“The new government funding bill in the Senate includes a key provision based on my bipartisan bill to delay the federal hemp ban … so other states can put more sensible safety rules in place like we have in Minnesota,” Klobuchar said. “This delay was immediately necessary to give Minnesota hemp producers and customers certainty, while giving Congress more time to get to a long-term fix.”
Another boon to the hemp industry is that the Senate bill, called a continuing resolution, or CR, has placed the issue in a federal spending bill, which is likely to be renewed since Congress has been unable to win final approval for any of the appropriations bills that would fund the federal government.
“This industry lobbied for its life — and moved the line,” said a release from MC Nutraceuticals, a maker of hemp-based products in Colorado.
Last November, Congress outlawed hemp-infused edibles — including drinks, gummies and even some CBD products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.
That ban was contained in a massive spending bill to fund the federal government, and gave the industry a year to adjust to the restrictions.
However, President Donald Trump has voiced concerns over how the restrictions would impact a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pilot program that would allow the use of CBD to fight certain illnesses. If the pilot program succeeds, these products could eventually be covered under Medicare.
The marijuana lobby, which has sought to put intoxicating hemp products on the same playing field as pot, which continues to be illegal on the federal level, decried the Senate’s action on Monday.
“Now, we face the scenario where every time we’re going to have a fight over which cannabis derived products are illegal,” said Cory Harris, a lobbyist for the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH.)
Harris also said that under the legislation proposed by Klobuchar, who is running for governor, and Craig, who is running for the Senate, states that don’t allow hemp-derived THC products would not be able to keep them out because customers in those states would continue to be able to purchase them online.
Craig, however, said regulation of the hemp industry has worked well in Minnesota.
“Minnesota led the charge on regulating legal hemp in a thoughtful and safe way, and now the federal government wants to pull the rug out from under them, putting thousands of Minnesotans out of work,” she said. “That is unacceptable, and it is also bad policy.”
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NEW ULM, Minn. – Years ago, a teacher who had never run for political office tried to unseat a Republican who seemingly had a lock on Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.
The Democrat, who is now Gov. Tim Walz, succeeded in 2006 in unseating the Republican, former Rep. Gil Gutknecht, in that largely rural southern district that leans strongly towards the GOP.
Now, like Walz did 20 years ago, another teacher new to politics is running as a Democrat to try to unseat another Republican incumbent.
He’s Jake Johnson, whose campaigning prowess and ability to raise campaign cash has caught the attention of the national Democratic Party. Johnson, 42, hopes to unseat Rep. Brad Finstad, the Republican who now holds the 1st District seat.
Related: In a tough election year for House Republicans, Brad Finstad faces a serious challenge from Jake Johnson
But unlike the last time a Democrat unseated a Republican in the district, it has changed and so has American politics.
And while Walz and Johnson share similarities, each man is different.
Both leveraged their years as longtime teachers in the district to broaden their support, among former students and the politically powerful teachers’ unions.
Walz, a history teacher and football coach in Mankato, ran as a moderate Democrat, even as some 1st District voters complain that he became more liberal after winning the governor’s office. Johnson is also running in the district as a centrist.
He is trying to position himself as a fiscal conservative, promising to vote against any legislation that would allow the federal government to borrow more money until Congress balances its budget.
“Members of both parties are not taking this seriously,” he said of the nearly $40 trillion national debt.
But, like most mainstream Democrats, Johnson has also promised to shore up the federal social safety net.
As governor, Walz also focused on expanding social welfare programs, spending his political capital on providing universal school breakfasts and lunches and a generous paid family leave program.
Both men were raised in families that needed the help of social welfare programs.
Johnson, a high school math teacher, grew up in Stewartville with 10 siblings. He says his father collected garbage and his mom went door-to-door reading meters.
The family often needed the help of their church and neighbors and the support of government programs. “I was a SNAP (food stamp) kid,” he said. “We were a Medicaid family.”
Walz also experienced hardship as a youth. After his father died, his mother and younger brother depended on Social Security survivor benefits for support.
‘Red to Blue’
Pat Booker, a voter in the district, watched Walz’s rise and is closely following Johnson’s. She said each of them brought skills from their classrooms to the campaign trail.
“(Johnson) doesn’t hesitate to answer questions and doesn’t hesitate to meet with constituents, and that was the same way with Tim,” she said. “That’s something that Brad absolutely refuses to do.”
She would know, having tried and failed to get facetime with Finstad over the course of eight months. Concerned about SNAP and Medicaid cuts, the New Ulm resident went to Finstad’s local congressional office multiple times per week seeking answers.
“I got one pat letter saying thank you for your concerns,” said Booker, a military veteran and retired probation officer.
There may be a reason Finstad is confident in winning reelection, besides the clear advantages of the makeup of his district and incumbency, which includes heightened name recognition and, usually, greater ability over a challenger to fundraise.
“He’s certainly acting like internal (campaign) polls are telling him he has a wide lead,” said Kevin Parsneau, a political science professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato.
Finstad, 50, lives in New Ulm, a city that holds tight to its German heritage. A statue of the ancient Germanic hero Hermann towers over the city, a glockenspiel chimes every day downtown and August Schell’s brewery holds popular Oktoberfest and Bock Fest events. The German language is conspicuous, adding flavor to the names of bakeries, restaurants and other businesses.
Some locals still trace their lineage to the city’s founding in 1854. There’s even a group known as the Junior Pioneers of New Ulm and Vicinity that celebrates the direct descendants of pioneers who settled in the area by 1870.
In a city steeped so much in history and heritage, though, locals say newcomers can find it hard to shed an “auslander” label, the German word for “outsider.” Booker, who has lived in New Ulm for decades, said the community has become more open minded and welcoming over time.
Yet New Ulm definitely remains a conservative, Republican-majority city. It is the county seat of Brown County, which President Donald Trump handily won over former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
Even so, Johnson has been taking the race to Finstad’s home turf. He walked in New Ulm’s Bavarian Blast festival parade in July and will hold a town hall in the city in August.
An underdog in Trump territory
There’s no doubt Johnson is the underdog in the race.
The district gave Trump 55% of the vote in 2024 and GOP incumbent Finstad has deftly defeated his Democratic challengers since he won a special election for the 1st District seat in 2022.
But Johnson has recently received some vital help from the national Democratic Party.
Mindful of his campaigning skills — which include holding town halls in each of the district’s 21 counties — and especially of his fundraising skills, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has recently placed Johnson on its “Red to Blue” list.
Those on the list are the Democratic candidates who are trying to flip a Republican-held seat and are considered worthy enough of the national Democratic Party’s help.
The “Red to Blue” designation gives candidates access to fundraising support, strategic guidance and training.
Johnson has already proven himself a strong fundraiser, having amassed nearly $1.9 million in campaign funds as of June 30, the latest reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show.
Finstad, meanwhile, has raised nearly $2 million.
Democrats hope Trump’s low approval ratings, an energized Democratic base and the historic advantage the party out of power in the White House holds in midterm elections will allow them to wrest control of the U.S. House from the GOP.
To do that, Democrats need to win in swing districts. They also hope to increase their numbers in the U.S. House by toppling Republican incumbents in places like the 1st District, which the Cook Political Report rates as “likely Republican.”
When Walz flipped the seat, it had been held by Gutknecht, a moderate Republican. Finstad, meanwhile, has closely aligned himself with Trump.
And redistricting, the GOP’s sharp turn to the right and the influence Trump has on local elections has made the 1st District much more difficult territory for Democrats since Walz ran to represent it.
“It’s gotten a lot more conservative,” said Kate Knutson, a political science professor at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Redistricting has a little to do with that. After Census-mandated changes, the district grew even more rural when it picked up new territory in the south of the state along the Mississippi River.
The area has also been impacted by a national trend: rural areas of the United States becoming more Republican as their residents grow concerned that their cultural values – church, family and freedom from government interference – are threatened by a rapidly changing nation.
Social scientists also say that many rural residents also believe that the Democratic Party is composed of urban elites who look down on rural lifestyles and prioritize city or immigrant populations over rural working-class struggles.
Knudson said the “farmer” part of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has “peeled off.”
But she said Johnson might succeed in depressing – at least a little bit – the enthusiasm among farmers for the GOP by continuing to hammer Finstad for embracing Trump policies that have hurt farmers.
“Farmers are frustrated by tariff and immigration sweeps that are hurting the meat packing industry in southern Minnesota,” Knutson said.
Iran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, which has stalled significant deliveries of oil and fertilizer, raising the cost of farm inputs, has also taken a toll in farm country.
Related: Minnesota progressivescampaign on ‘Medicare for All’ as ranks of uninsured grow. Moderates – including Jake Johnson – embrace less ambitious reforms.
Finstad has brushed off criticisms of Trump’s policies on agriculture and has blamed former President Biden for the distress.
“We’re heading in the right direction,” he told MinnPost after a roundtable on veterans’ issues in Mankato in July. “We have come out of some tough times where the inputs have been really crippling for the last six years, and then on top of that we’ve had that stale market because of that lack of trade.”
Speaking to his base
Although Johnson is proving to be a growing threat, Finstad avoids acknowledging his challenger, preferring instead to hold events in the district that can be classified as official business, including meeting with police officers, farm groups and local companies.
“He’s speaking to his base,” Parsneau said. “He does not want to be in an unscripted situation.”
Yet Finstad told MinnPost that “he travels all over southern Minnesota.”
“I’m always listening and communicating with constituents who agree and don’t agree with me,” Finstad said. “I’m having those conversations and I would say reach out to me, reach out to our office. I’m more than willing to have a conversation and answer questions.”
Finstad also said it is “an honor of a lifetime” to serve the 1st District’s 750,000 residents, “but my goal is heaven, not Congress.”
“When November comes, the voters of southern Minnesota will decide, but no one is going to outwork me,” Finstad said.
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WASHINGTON – The grilling of Anthony Fauci consumed Washingtonians this week as Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee accused the infectious disease expert of causing the COVID-19 pandemic and even of enriching himself from American deaths.
The three-hour hearing Wednesday showed the width of the partisan divide over Fauci, who spent decades as the nation’s top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health, advising both Democratic and Republican presidents alike.
That bipartisanship ended with President Donald Trump who, in his first term as the pandemic raged, downplayed the danger facing the nation, often contradicting Fauci and even threatening to have him fired.
Perhaps in part because Fauci has become a pariah among MAGA voters, Republicans on the panel attacked him as a narcissist who benefited from COVID-19.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called Fauci “a megalomaniac and a liar” and accused him of secretly profiting from his public service by applying for “cash prizes totaling over a million dollars.”
In 2021, the Israel-based Dan David Foundation awarded Dr. Fauci $1 million for “defending science,” an award that was widely reported at the time.
Fauci invoked his 5th Amendment rights more than 100 times, which infuriated many Republicans on the panel.
Some argued that Fauci was not entitled to that protection since former President Joe Biden had granted him a preemptive pardon, fearing the Trump administration and congressional Republicans would launch “an unjustified and politically motivated prosecution.”
And it wasn’t only Senate Republicans who took aim at Fauci this week.
“QUICK REMINDER: Fauci got paid just under 5 million dollars for his book selling his lies about COVID. Today, he pleaded the fifth, REFUSING to give Americans the truth,” Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, said in a post on X. “He got rich while American schools, businesses and lives got shut down. What a joke!”
Meanwhile, Democrats on the panel defended and praised Fauci.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said government scientists like Fauci save lives. “Today, we are demeaning and degrading their lifesaving service,” Blumenthal added.
The end of the contentious hearing will not end the attacks on Fauci.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said his panel would vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, saying the scientist was not entitled to Fifth Amendment protection.
Minnesota Dems react to cyberattacks on water systems
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor, is demanding more information about allegations that Iran was behind the hacking of about 30 water systems in Minnesota on Sunday and Monday.
“I’ve requested a briefing from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the ongoing investigation and the potential involvement of foreign actors,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “I’m also in communication with state officials to help make sure they have the resources they need. Protecting our critical infrastructure and the safety of Minnesotans remains a top priority.”
Minnesota IT Services said state officials had yet to identify who was behind the attacks. There were no reports that residents had been impacted by the attacks, though one city asked residents to conserve water for a couple hours while they tried to determine what was wrong.
The FBI is investigating and has not publicly identified a suspect, according to the Associated Press. But the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other agencies warned in an advisory last week that Iranian hackers have been targeting water and wastewater systems and the operational controls other critical infrastructure sectors.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said the state needs more resources to stop cyberattacks from hostile powers.
“This incident demonstrates that Minnesota’s municipalities, businesses, and residents must be prepared not only to ward off cybersecurity threats from cybercriminals, but also from terrorist organizations and nation-states,” McCollum said in a statement.
She also said the attacks “show the urgent need for the federal government to advance critical cybersecurity measures to protect small businesses, large enterprises, and local governments by providing state-of-the-art defensive measures to defend against malicious attacks by bad actors who intend to sow chaos and extract ransom.”
McCollum said she would “continue to aggressively pursue funding and resources to support defensive measures for Minnesota’s businesses and municipalities.”
Trump may cut Blanche loose, for now
Not all Senate Republicans were in lockstep with Trump this week.
The president said he might pull the nomination of Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer who is now serving as acting attorney general, because at least two GOP senators have conditioned their support for the candidate to become the nation’s top lawyer.
Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are demanding that Blanche put in writing a promise to scuttle a deal Trump reached with the IRS in a $10 billion lawsuit against the agency filed after a contractor leaked the president’s tax information to The New York Times in 2020.
That agreement gave Trump and his family’s businesses immunity from tax audits and created a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could reimburse the president because he says he was targeted by the Justice Department.
Cornyn and Tillis want the Justice Department to give them written guarantees that the “anti-weaponization” fund is completely dismantled and the tax immunity is narrowed so it would not protect Trump from future investigations into his tax filings.
Apparently unwilling to make those concessions, Trump in a post on Truth Social on Thursday indicated he’s considering pulling Blanche’s nomination until next year when both Tillis and Cornyn will be out of office. Tillis decided last year against running for reelection after a series of attacks by Trump and threats from the president to back a primary challenger.
Cornyn lost a primary this year after Trump backed his primary challenger.
Trump’s threat to pull Blanche’s nomination is problematic. There is no guarantee that Republicans will control the U.S. Senate after the midterms.
And pulling the nomination would not be a good look. It would represent Trump’s willingness to protect a deal that enriches himself over having a Senate-confirmed nominee to head the Justice Department.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also said she is concerned about that agreement between Trump and the IRS.
In other news:
▪️Metro reporter Trevor Mitchell wrote that local officials, propped up by $2 million in federal grants, are working to improve a railroad crossing in Minneapolis’ Camden neighborhood where the trains are so slow that kids are late to school and emergency vehicles are dangerously delayed. ▪️In the hot race to replace U.S. Rep. Angie Craig in the 2nd District, three Democrats are grappling with aligning themselves with Craig, a moderate who has kept that swing district “blue,” or with newly energized progressives in the state. ▪️Before the New York Times reported that Iran might be the culprit, reporter Claire Carlson discovered there have been recent cyberattacks on control valves and pumps on more than 30 community drinking water systems in the state, even as water quality was not affected. ▪️Greater Minnesota reporter Brian Arola, in his work covering data centers, found that while opponents of these developments are trying to turn the court of public opinion against them, it’s lawsuits that are increasingly affecting their trajectory. ▪️State government reporter Matt Blake reported on the Democrats’ cash advantage in legislative races, including in five of six hotly contested races that could determine control of the Legislature.
This and that
A reader posed an interesting question this week:
“Angie Craig was just endorsed by Ms. Walz, the governor’s wife. How will this impact the race between Flanagan and Craig?” the reader asked. “I have not seen anything on electronic media nor print media yet.”
Well, my first reaction is that Congresswoman Craig probably sought the endorsement because it could help her with female voters, especially those in the suburbs who increasingly make a difference in close elections. But the question certainly merits a deeper dive.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond.
The post D.C. Memo: Fauci pleads the Fifth appeared first on MinnPost.
Authorities were working Thursday to find the source of cyberattacks that targeted over 30 water systems in Minnesota and came amid warnings that Iranian hackers have been focused on such systems.
Minnesota IT Services said state officials had yet to identify who was behind the attacks that took place Sunday and Monday. There were no reports that residents had been impacted by the attacks, though one city asked residents to conserve water for a couple hours while they tried to determine what was wrong.
The FBI, which is investigating, has not publicly identified a culprit and a spokesperson declined to say Thursday who the bureau thought might be responsible. The FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other agencies warned in an advisory last week that Iranian hackers have been targeting water and wastewater systems and the operational controls other critical infrastructure sectors.
Related: Cyberattacks highlight risks to Minnesota drinking water from aging IT systems
Digital warfare has become ingrained in military conflict, and local water plants or healthcare facilities often lack the funds and know-how to install the latest software patches or take other security steps. That has made them a favorite target, both because of the relative ease of penetrating them and because of the panic such disruptions can cause.
Iran has the “geopolitical motivations” and a recent history of targeting water systems, said Cynthia Kaiser, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division who has been closely monitoring threats to critical infrastructure from hackers linked to the country.
“I think most credible researchers and responders would be right to treat it like it’s Iran until proven otherwise,” added Kaiser, who is now the senior vice president of Halcyon’s Ransomware Research Center. “When it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s really important to call it out.”
Iran’s interest in the operations of water systems inside the U.S. dates back years. In 2016, the Justice Department charged a group of Iranian hackers in connection with a cyberattack targeting a small dam near New York City.
Minnesota IT Services said that as of Thursday, there were no active requests from Minnesota communities for residents to modify usage of their drinking water. The state agency said most of the confirmed attacks involved technology that water systems use to remotely monitor and control equipment. It said that being impacted meant investigators confirmed there was malicious activity involving the system’s technology and didn’t mean every impacted community had their water service disrupted.
Related: Iran war hurts Minnesota farmers as fertilizer, fuel prices soar ahead of planting season
The state agency said there are similarities among the incidents, including timing and the types of technology used, but investigators haven’t determined if the same culprit was behind each one.
For a few hours on Monday, the city of Braham asked residents to minimize water use as they tried to determine why the water plant was offline. The city of about 1,700 people, located about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Minneapolis, said in a news release that the water plant outage was due to a cyberattack, but it didn’t cause any issue with water quality.
The city said the attackers shut down the operating controls that shut down the well and water treatment plant. That left the city for a time only able to provide residents with the water held in the water tower.
In Plymouth, a city of about 80,000 located outside of Minneapolis, officials said on social media that their water infrastructure communications had been restored by Tuesday afternoon following a cyberattack. The city said crews were able to continue operating the system during the outage and it didn’t have any impact on water levels or quality.
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WASHINGTON – Rep. Angie Craig says she won’t pick a favorite among three Democrats vying to replace her in Congress, but at a time when voters are calling for change the lawmaker is casting a long shadow on the race.
Craig has been able to wrest control of the 2nd Congressional District from the GOP and keep it in Democratic hands with a moderate stance that broadened her appeal among voters.
It won her four terms, but having her backing is complicated for the three running in the Aug. 11 primary: Matt Little, a former state House member who was once the mayor of Lakeville, state Sen. Matt Klein and state Rep. Kaela Berg.
Klein, like Craig a moderate, says he’d be happy to have it while Little, the most progressive of the three who has the DFL Party’s endorsement, and Berg, a working class candidate also running as a progressive, say they aren’t seeking it.
Craig, who has represented the district since 2019 and is now running for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat, said she is staying out of the highly competitive race for the Democratic nomination. She says that choice belongs to 2nd District voters.
That’s fine with Little, who won the DFL Party endorsement in the district.
“It’s not something we’ve sought because she’s made it very clear she will not endorse,” he said.
2nd Congressional District candidate Matt Little, a former legislator and mayor, at the house of a campaign aide in Lakeville on July 17. Credit: Ana Radelat
While Little is running as a progressive, Craig has been able to wrest control of the 2nd District from the GOP and keep it in Democratic hands with a moderate stance that broadened her appeal among voters.
The district covers Twin Cities southern suburbs and rural farm areas, making it the most “purple” district in the state.
But Craig’s moderation has run headlong into the activism of progressive Democrats this year, and Craig, who is running against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, has come under attack for sometimes voting for GOP-sponsored legislation, mainly bills that supported police and, before Operation Metro Surge created chaos in the state, stronger border security.
But what really became a problem for Craig was her support of the Laken Riley Act.
Craig has since said she regrets her vote for the bill, which allows the Department of Homeland Security to detain and deport noncitizens who are charged with — not just arrested for or convicted of — offenses like burglary, shoplifting or assault on a law enforcement officer.
Related: Craig skips the DFL convention
“Little is trying to run as the candidate furthest to the left,” Hamline University political science professor David Schultz said. “And he’s concerned that because of (Craig’s) support for the Laken Riley Act, progressives may not support him if has her endorsement.”
Instead, those newly energized DFLers may prefer Berg, the other candidate in the race who is running as a progressive, he said.
Endorsing a candidate is also risky for Craig, Schultz said, because backing the wrong candidate could cost her votes in her primary against Flanagan.
Yet University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs said it’s not unusual for an incumbent to avoid endorsing a possible successor. “I think there’s a sense of ‘letting the voters decide,’” he said.
Unlike Little, Klein, a physician who works at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, said he’s asked for Craig’s endorsement. “I would be honored to have it,” he said.
Klein considers himself a moderate Democrat in Craig’s mold.
“This is the last swing district in Minnesota,” he said of CD-2. “To hold it, you have to bridge a (partisan) divide.”
A woman’s seat?
Berg, who represents Burnsville in the Legislature and works as a flight attendant, said she has not asked for Craig’s endorsement.
But Berg is eager to speak of her close relationship with the congresswoman and the work they’ve done together, which includes procuring funding to rebuild a dangerous intersection.
State Rep. Kaela Berg, a flight attendant who is running in the DFL primary in the 2nd Congressional District, campaigns in Burnsville on July 18. Credit: Ana Radelat
She also said sharing the same gender with Craig is a boost to her campaign.
Berg is a member of the Blue Collar Brigade, a group of five House candidates with ties to organized labor who have launched a joint fundraising effort to help bankroll their campaigns.
The other working-class candidates are Bob Brooks, a firefighter union chief running in Pennsylvania; Randy Villegas, a teacher’s union member in California; Ohio ironworker Brian Poindexter, and Montana union leader Sam Forstag.
“I’m the only woman in the Blue Collar Brigade, and the only woman in the race,” Berg said. “That matters right now. I love an ally and a great dude, but women’s voices are needed right now.”
Schultz said that because of Craig, many voters in the 2nd District “view it now as a female seat.”
Related: Can 2nd District candidates keep it blue?
Schultz also said that while Berg stands to benefit from Craig’s efforts in the 2nd District, an endorsement “may alienate the progressive voters she needs now.”
“But saying, ‘Let’s keep this seat in a woman’s hand’ won’t hurt her,” Schultz said.
Berg’s gender has also helped her win the backing of Emily’s List, a group that supports female candidates who support abortion rights.
Besides funneling money to Berg’s campaign and giving her campaign advice, political action committees tied to Emily’s List have produced ads promoting the candidate.
Meanwhile, Klein said he’s hoping that having two progressives on the ballot will split the vote among those leaning left in the district in the Aug. 11 primary.
Jacobs agrees that’s a possible scenario that would “open a path for Klein” to win the nomination.
State Sen. Matt Klein, one of three Democrats running in a primary in the 2nd Congressional District, is pictured July 17 at his home in Mendota Heights. Credit: Ana Radelat
Representing a suburban district in the state Senate, Klein, who lives in Mendota Heights, has appealed to unaffiliated voters and even some moderate Republicans as well as Democrats, Jacobs said. That’s the formula that worked for Craig, but there’s been a surge of progressive activists in the district, and in the state post-Operation Metro Surge.
Klein likes to remind voters that the winner of the Democratic primary will have to pivot to the center to run against the Republican candidate in the race, state Sen. Eric Pratt, who lives in Prior Lake and whose senate district includes most of Scott County.
“And we can’t just say, ‘We’ll see what the progressive (voters) are up to this year,’” Klein said. “We need a Democrat who can win every cycle.”
Democrats now have an advantage in the district, which analysts say leans Democratic. But it’s not clear how far it leans Democratic.
“The question is, ‘Can a progressive candidate win in parts of the district that are not progressive?’” he asked.
‘A hard worker’
Whoever wins Craig’s seat will also wrestle with a defining characteristic of the lawmaker’s legacy.
“She’s a hard worker,” Jacobs said. “And she has extensive relationships with people in the district.”
Craig was also able to keep winning reelection by raising massive amounts of campaign cash, making the race for the 2nd District seat one of the most expensive in the nation. She raised about $8.3 million in her last bid for reelection in 2024, which Craig won by nearly 14 percentage points over Republican Joe Teirab.
Related: Campaign fundraising heating up
That kind of fundraising is not happening now.
According to the latest filings by the Federal Election Committee, as of June 30 Little had raised nearly $900,000, which includes a $155,000 personal loan to his campaign.
Klein, meanwhile, had raised more than $1 million and Berg had raised just $355,000.
Pratt, the Republican in the race, has raised about $462,000.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. The canceled projects include $464 million to connect power sources in Minnesota and other states and $50 million to upgrade a North Dakota-Minnesota electrical transmission line.
The statement contradicts repeated assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials that the projects were canceled because they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or had other problems that made them a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.
Democrats and environmental groups seized on the court filing Friday, saying the administration had “weaponized” the federal government to kill good jobs and punish working families because of their political views.
Democrats say what was ‘obvious’ has now been acknowledged
“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state. Both are high-ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, respectively.
“Weaponizing the federal government like this is outright un-American, and it’s hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power,” Kaptur and Murray said.
They called on congressional Republicans to join them in holding the Trump administration “accountable for the President’s failure to look out for all Americans.”
Related: Green Zone grant awardees announced
The Energy Department announced last October that 321 funding awards across 223 projects were terminated, saying that after review, they “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.”
The cuts, part of broader attacks from President Donald Trump on climate programs and clean energy funding, slashed federal support for projects to build battery plants, develop hydrogen technology, upgrade the electric grid and capture carbon dioxide emissions.
Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post, saying money “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”
The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Projects from many states were cut
Projects that were cut were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. All 16 targeted states supported Harris, but Wright said the cuts were “business decisions” based on whether the projects were a good use of taxpayer money or not.
The cuts were immediately challenged in court, and more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wrote a letter to the Energy Department’s acting inspector general requesting a formal investigation. The department’s internal watchdog launched an investigation in December.
Government lawyers had previously confirmed in a court filing late last year that the selection of grants in fact “was influenced by whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect … Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called “Blue States”).”
Related: Growing pains for clean energy today, payoff tomorrow?
That filing came in a separate suit filed by clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, over the canceled funding. The most recent admission came in a case called Thakur v. Trump that’s been ongoing since last spring. Federal lawyers acknowledged that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities.
Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the latest court filing shows “the Trump administration is brazenly admitting to a vindictive approach to cancelling much-needed energy infrastructure that ignores the job losses, air pollution and increasing bills that people are experiencing everywhere.”
Instead of “building the energy projects we desperately need,” billions of American taxpayer dollars are “going to line the pockets of a small handful of fossil fuel company CEOs,” Bender said, citing nearly $3 billion pledged by the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind projects in favor of fossil fuel projects such as natural gas and coal.
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A tiny federal agency tasked with protecting the public from injuries caused by lawn mowers and coffeemakers is demanding that some of the nation’s biggest health systems turn over detailed, personally identifiable medical records of all patients who seek help at their emergency rooms.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, responsible for tracking and issuing recalls of dangerous products sold in the U.S., began discreetly pressuring hospital executives this year to share personally identifiable health data with a private contractor. But hospital lawyers and other industry experts have questioned the agency’s authority to collect, its ability to safeguard such a swath of sensitive information, and whether it has followed the legal process to overhaul its surveillance system.
After KFF Health News asked the CPSC about the new system, the agency announced the program on July 21. Left unmentioned, however, is the alarm it has raised among hospital executives, as well as the nature and extent of the agency’s data demands.
In a stark departure from its product-focused mission, the agency’s goal is to obtain millions of Americans’ medical records from emergency room visits for most injuries, from a broken bone to a childhood vaccine reaction or even a suicide attempt, according to documents and emails obtained by KFF Health News, as well as interviews with five people involved or familiar with the discussions.
A CPSC official also insisted in the emails that the institutions provide all ER patients’ identifiable information — such as names, addresses, diagnoses, and other personal details — to the contractor, Konza Health, for analysis. In correspondence with hospital executives, Konza representatives described participation as “mandatory” or “required.”
As a condition of viewing the correspondence, KFF Health News agreed not to republish some of the emails it obtained.
The CPSC wants at least 100 hospitals to start sending detailed medical records by the end of this year, according to an internal memo.
Related: EMS workers struggling with burnout
“The whole thing is troubling,” said Sharona Hoffman, a professor of health law at Case Western Reserve University who noted that giving a private entity access to a sweeping collection of data will introduce risks to patient privacy. “If this company really is collecting identifiable information, that is worrisome for patients.”
The new project was launched amid upheaval at the traditionally independent agency, which is without a governing board since President Donald Trump fired the CPSC’s three Democratic board members. Nearly 1 in 5 career staffers left the CPSC in the first 16 months of the new administration, according to a KFF Health News analysis of federal workforce data.
The initiative also comes as the Trump administration has sought unprecedented access to millions of Americans’ medical records, with the Office of Personnel Management requesting federal workers’ sensitive health information and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using a private organization to collect more medical records for his studies on vaccines and autism.
Steve Roney, CPSC spokesperson, said in an emailed statement on July 10 that the CPSC is “modernizing” its surveillance system. Asked whether the CPSC will file complaints against hospitals that do not participate, he said only that while the previous system “operated as a voluntary program, the ability of hospitals to opt out limited the sample size and usefulness of the data.”
Roney also acknowledged that the agency had not yet notified the public, as “required by law.”
Federal law requires the agency to provide notice and a public comment period before requesting information from 10 or more entities, a step it has not taken despite plans for 100 hospitals to join the surveillance system. KFF Health News independently confirmed with over a dozen hospitals that they had been approached.
Federal public health authorities cannot legally mandate that private health data be reported. But CPSC officials have suggested publicly and privately that if hospitals decline to share data with the new surveillance system, they could be subject to strict penalties from a data-sharing regulation known as “information blocking.”
Yet some hospital executives say they are reluctant to share patients’ sensitive data because they’re concerned about a different violation — that of federal privacy law.
AI Takes Over
Dozens of ERs across the country already participate in the CPSC’s voluntary National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, through which trained hospital workers report injuries involving consumer products, almost always stripped of patients’ identifiable information. The system helps the CPSC identify products, such as baby loungers, toys, and household appliances, with a pattern of injuring consumers.
Related: Trump admin threatening deferral of Medicaid payments
The new injury surveillance program goes much further.
At a toy industry trade event in February, acting CPSC Chairman Peter Feldman said the agency is “investing in AI-enabled workflows that improve the quality and quantity of injury surveillance data, while also building up digital infrastructure to handle a massive new volume of electronic health records.”
Konza Health, a Kansas-based organization that runs the state’s health data exchange, will automatically pull and analyze medical records of all patient visits from ERs nationwide. Konza won a five-year contract worth up to $15.9 million with the CPSC last fall.
In email correspondence with hospital technology officials, Konza Health President and CEO Laura McCrary also has described ERs’ participation as “required,” stipulating that they share patients’ records with identifying information.
McCrary told KFF Health News by email that the company is not using AI to process the records it receives, saying instead that Konza will use “advanced analytic parsing and filtering capabilities.” Roney, the CPSC spokesperson, did not answer questions about the use of AI.
For years, agency officials have discussed moving away from human contractors and automating NEISS to save time and money.
But without workers on-site, hospital staffers may no longer receive training to determine what clinical information is important to include for the CPSC. In short, the changes could dilute the quality of the product safety data the agency collects.
“They want to suck in as much data as possible, but I’m not sure how thoughtful they’re being about what is collected and what is actually needed by the agency,” said former CPSC chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric, one of the Democratic appointees Trump fired last year.
Wanted: Injuries From Vaccines and Stingrays
The CPSC’s new data collection appears to contradict its own 214-page operating manual, which instructs hospitals not to include identifiable information “such as names, birthdates, or addresses” when reporting cases.
The agency is supposed to receive patients’ identifying information only when needed for follow-up investigations, which happens in fewer than 1% of reported cases, according to the manual.
The CPSC has also historically limited the records it collects to minimize privacy violations in case of a data breach.
Related: Vaccine hesitancy doubles number of measles vaccine exemptions
The risk is not hypothetical: From 2017 to 2019, the agency improperly released personal health information of around 30,000 people, a disclosure that a top Republican at the time called “concerning.”
Konza, however, will receive even more sensitive information on many more people. McCrary said in a statement that Konza will remove patients’ names, addresses, and medical information “not needed by CPSC” before sharing records with the agency.
Leaving a private organization to collect sensitive information introduces risks, including that it could be stolen or used for business purposes, said Hoffman, the Case Western professor.
“Very often, they will use information for marketing because now they’re going to know what conditions people have,” she said.
Roney said that its contract with Konza, which has not been made public, prohibits the organization from selling or marketing the data it collects.
The CPSC’s manual also identifies types of ER visits that should not be reported to the CPSC, which has jurisdiction over only certain consumer products. Excluded injuries are those caused by food, illegal drugs, medical devices, alcohol, or plants, as well as injuries that did not involve consumer products — such as a cut from a rock or broken bones from a fall on the ground — and suicide attempts by adults.
But in a contract offered to one hospital and reviewed by KFF Health News, Konza set no such limits on the information it would gather from ER records and said it would hold on to patient health information for at least 30 days.
In an email sent to hospital technology officials, McCrary wrote that Konza would provide the CPSC with records when a patient is treated in the ER for any of more than 10,000 conditions. The expansive list of diagnostic codes Konza provided in the email includes injuries that do not involve consumer products.
Child injuries resulting from “poisoning by” vaccines or contact with stingrays, neither of which is regulated by the CPSC, are included in the list.
A limited number of hospitals once shared deidentified data on all injuries — regardless of product involvement — through the NEISS using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury-tracking program. But the CDC halted that data collection, after funding and staffing were cut last year, and has not restarted it.
Pressure on Hospitals
CPSC Chief Data Officer Elizabeth Puchek, who joined the agency late last year after engineering U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ data system, has told hospitals in emails that they must seek an exemption from the program if they decline to share patients’ emergency room records with Konza.
Related: USCIS emphasizes “good moral character” qualification in citizenship process
The CPSC’s targeted outreach has included some of the nation’s largest urban and rural health systems, as well as small, publicly owned hospitals.
Staff members at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, Iowa, said that Konza and federal officials told them their participation in the new program was mandatory. The hospital, which has long participated in NEISS, signed a new contract in April to share its ER records with Konza.
Yet the hospital is reevaluating its participation after being notified that the funds it received to participate in NEISS were “no longer available,” spokesperson Steve Sullivan said.
Several hospital executives, lawyers, and others have raised doubts about the CPSC’s claimed authority.
Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said the Seattle hospital’s emergency room has “voluntarily submitted de-identified data for many years, but we are not obligated to report this information.”
In Boston, Mass General Brigham has declined to participate in the new program, with spokesperson Kelly Mitchell saying that “to protect patient privacy, we are unable to provide these medical records.”
Henry Ford Health in Detroit; St. Luke’s in Boise, Idaho; and Sanford Health based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota — which together handle over a million ER visits a year — are among the health systems that have been approached but not yet entered into an agreement with Konza, according to representatives. Several of the nation’s busiest hospital systems targeted for the program — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas — declined to answer questions about whether they’re participating.
Hoehn-Saric, the agency’s former chairman, said he was surprised that the CPSC would insist that hospitals provide identifiable records from all emergency room visits.
“This idea that they can simply demand patient information from a hospital and that the hospital would provide it — I really don’t understand the basis for that,” he said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. House scrambled to finish its business before it adjourned this week for a long August recess that allows lawmakers to campaign for reelection.
In a rush of votes, Republicans made use of their slim majority to steamroll Democrats and pass a number of bills, including one that contained the SAVE America Act. That’s legislation that would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — to register to vote and government-issued photo identification to cast a ballot.
The SAVE America Act was attached to a bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their families from trading individual stocks while allowing lawmakers to keep the shares of stocks they already own.
Nearly all Democrats, including all four in Minnesota’s delegation to the House, voted against the legislation. All four Republicans from the state voted for it.
Most Democrats said they opposed the stock legislation because the SAVE America Act was married to it. Some also said the legislation would not do enough to stop insider trading by lawmakers.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, cited both reasons for her opposition to the bill.
“Republicans in Congress think we won’t see through their attempts to mislead Americans,” McCollum said in a post on X. “Their falsely-named Stop Insider Trading Act doesn’t stop any insider trading. Even worse, it includes the SAVE America Act, which would make it harder for you to vote.”
Although President Donald Trump has made the SAVE America Act a legislative priority, it’s unclear whether the Senate, in session for about two more weeks, will take up the stock bill or most of the other bills the House rushed to approve this week.
Pressuring the Senate to act on the voter ID bill, Rep. Pete Stauber, R-8th District, cited the disclosure this week that a software glitch in a voter registration system in New Jersey had improperly enrolled about 6,000 individuals and that about 400 of those registered in error cast a vote.
“I don’t want to hear another Democrat politician tell us that non-citizens aren’t voting in our elections,” Stauber said in a post on X. “They have lied for years about this, and what happened in New Jersey is further proof. It’s time for the Senate to PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”
Another bill in limbo in the Senate is a House GOP budget blueprint that would provide up to $95 billion in funding for the Iran war and the nation’s intelligence agencies and provide money to implement the SAVE America Act.
The legislation, approved on a 215-213 vote with absolutely no Democratic support, would also provide the nation’s farmers with nearly $12 billion in emergency aid to counter the effects of low commodity prices, lost markets to Trump-imposed tariffs, and increases in prices for diesel and fertilizer because of Iran’s blockage of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
In a statement, Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, called the budget resolution “disastrous” and a “threat to our Democracy.”
“At a time when folks across this country are reeling from the impacts of President Trump’s short-sighted economic policies and his illegal war in Iran, the last thing we should be doing is allocating more money to an administration that clearly prioritizes the president’s own political and foreign policy objectives over the livelihoods of the American people,” Craig said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced skeptical senators from both parties as he testified this week before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the need for $67 billion to cover the costs of the Iran War. And a handful of GOP senators have voted in recent months to rein in Trump’s war-making authority in Iran. So, approval of the budget resolution is not certain.
Another House bill that may find itself in limbo in the Senate is a continuing resolution, or CR, the House approved this week to avoid a government shutdown on Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
With Congress unable to win final approval for all 12 appropriations bills that would fund the federal government, the threat of a shutdown before November’s midterm elections prompted House GOP leaders to press for approval of the short-term funding bill.
The House approved the bill. But most Democrats – including all of those in Minnesota’s congressional delegation – opposed it.
Democratic leaders said they did not want a shutdown but could not support the bill because it failed to block funds for Trump’s mass deportation campaign and lacks guardrails on how the White House can spend other money.
“This continuing resolution is a premature and desperate attempt by Republicans to abdicate their responsibility to govern while there are still several months left to negotiate a bipartisan agreement,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other top House Democrats wrote to Democratic lawmakers. “We will be voting no.”
Minnesota’s Republicans, meanwhile, joined their GOP colleagues in supporting the short-term bill.
“By continuing federal funding through December 4th, this legislation prevents another costly shutdown, ensures constituents can continue to rely on essential government services, and gives Congress time to finalize full-year appropriations bills,” Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, said in a statement.
In any case, it appears lawmakers of both parties will hit the campaign trail this year without much to run on.
Study: hunger on the rise
A little over a year ago, Congress approved a “big, beautiful bill” that established President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities.
The legislation’s cuts to the food stamp program resulted in a loss of food aid for 1.5 million children from July of last year until March, according to an analysis released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the official name for the food stamp program, helps low-income people buy groceries.
The “big, beautiful bill” changed SNAP’s work requirement, which allowed three months of benefits in a three-year period unless recipients met strict work requirements or qualified for an exemption. Historically, the restriction has never been applied to parents or caregivers of children nor adults over age 49.
But the new qualification for SNAP applies the work requirements to all individuals over the age of 65 and to parents of children who are older than 13.
The center determined that SNAP participation nationwide fell by more than 4.5 million, or nearly 11%.
It dropped less in Minnesota, where participation in the program dropped by 3.52%, or about 16,000.
In fact, the center’s study showed that in “blue” states governed by Democrats, SNAP participation dropped far less than in “red” states run by Republicans, with Arizona showing the greatest reduction, about 55%.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also determined that in the 19 states with publicly available data or that have shared unpublished data, the restrictions on SNAP have left more than 1 million children without food aid.
The center also says that based on what it called “a conservative estimate,” the number of children receiving SNAP has dropped by more than 1.5 million since July 2025.
In other news:
▪️Our new drinking water reporter, Claire Carlson, wrote that as wildfire smoke begins to lift from northern Minnesota, scientists and water managers are keeping a close eye on how smoke and falling ash could affect nearby drinking water sources. ▪️Metro reporter Trevor Mitchell reported that an idea pitched by Minneapolis police – to use drones as first responders to a crime scene – crashed and burned as the City Council rejected the plan. ▪️As the number of uninsured Americans grows, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and other progressive Democrats have embraced “Medicare for All,” but party moderates not so much. ▪️Maddie Robbinson wrote about how a renovated building in downtown Minneapolis is giving children with special needs and their parents new hope.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond.
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The Trump administration on Tuesday said it was deferring more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to Minnesota and California because of “suspected fraud and noncompliance,” the latest in a series of punitive steps it has linked to allegations of fraud in mostly Democratic-led states.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the new actions — which come after previously announced Medicaid funding deferrals in those states — are part of the administration’s strategy to “stop the fraud before it happens” rather than claw back problematic spending after bad actors are prosecuted, as previous administrations had done.
“We have a duty to stop the payments, demand answers and then follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Kennedy told a news conference.
The tactic is part of the administration’s sweeping campaign to show it’s cracking down on fraud and saving taxpayers money when rising healthcare costs and other economic stressors have made affordability a top voter concern in November’s midterm elections.
In March, Vice President JD Vance launched a new anti-fraud task force at the request of President Donald Trump, bringing together officials from various departments to use data and technology to identify and investigate suspected wrongful use of federal dollars.
But the federal government hasn’t provided “data or explanation on how the deferral amount was calculated or what it was based on” to Minnesota, said John Connolly, the temporary commissioner and state Medicaid director for Minnesota’s Department of Human Services.
Related: Minnesota progressives campaign on ‘Medicare for All’ as ranks of uninsured grow
“Today’s actions show that the federal government is acting again in unprecedented and punitive ways as part of their war on Medicaid and its recipients,” he said in a statement. “Partnership — not politics — is required to stop criminals and protect services for the people who need them.”
Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz suggested the Republican administration was deferring the funds to pay for Trump’s tax cuts to wealthy Americans. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the administration of targeting it for political reasons.
The Trump administration intensified anti-immigration efforts in Minnesota earlier this year, sending in a robust force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers whose actions there caused weeks of counterprotests and included the shooting deaths of two civilians. Trump himself has frequently denounced California as a badly governed state.
States are facing obstacles because of the actions
The strategy has led to some false starts and headaches for states.
In April, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services acknowledged to The Associated Press it made a significant error in figures it used to help justify a fraud probe in New York. Last month, California’s Medicaid director told a congressional committee that CMS had not yet provided “any instances of fraud, waste or abuse” to the state in its justification of a $1.3 billion Medicaid funding deferral announced in May.
And in Minnesota, state officials have been executing a thorough corrective action plan to defray CMS concerns that have led the agency to defer some $260 million in federal money and to threaten future cuts.
“We have cooperated in good faith and proactively engaged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to first raise the alarm on fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid program, to effectively investigate fraud and to institute further safeguards against future misuse of funds,” Connolly said.
Related: In one year, 17,000 Minnesotans left the Affordable Care Act marketplace
Kennedy didn’t specify in Tuesday’s announcement whether the new deferrals — $867.5 million in federal Medicaid payments to California and $199 million to Minnesota — are in addition to, or overlap with, earlier deferrals announced this year.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz didn’t provide concrete examples of fraud in the two states in justifying the deferrals. He did mention some patterns the agency noticed that it found questionable, including that some providers were billing for four or more patients at the same time, or billing after the date of a Medicaid beneficiary’s death.
Oz also highlighted a fast rate of growth in California’s home care program as a reason for concern. California officials have disputed that idea, explaining that the state’s home care program has grown because of an intentional strategy to keep people out of more expensive nursing homes.
Flow of money could be restored — with documentation
Kennedy and Oz said states could restart the flow of federal funding by providing documentation proving the payments in question were legitimate.
A representative for California’s Medicaid program didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in the state have previously acknowledged they are working with the federal government to provide the requested information.
Oz said Minnesota had already returned documents to the federal government and they were being “reevaluated very carefully.”
Kennedy also suggested Tuesday that he would extend the power to exclude providers from Medicaid, Medicare and other federal health programs to CMS. In the past, that authority has rested solely with his department’s Office of the Inspector General.
“This is going to be a full force multiplier,” HHS Inspector General Thomas March Bell told a news conference. “It’s going to create additional momentum, and it’s going to exclude additional bad actors.”
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WASHINGTON – Jake Johnson, a Democrat seeking to represent southern Minnesota in Congress, gingerly sidestepped a question at a town hall he hosted about whether he supported “Medicare for All.”
Johnson, a moderate who is trying to unseat Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District, said at that event in New Richland that he sympathized with those who are struggling to afford health insurance and pay for medical costs. He said he supported “a strong public option to the health insurers we have now.”
That meant Johnson would support allowing Americans to purchase a healthcare plan offered by the federal government that would compete with private insurers.
But that proposal — aimed at countering the increasing cost of health insurance coverage that is driving up the number of uninsured — has been rejected by Democratic socialists and progressives who have notched impressive victories in primaries this year and made their mark in Minnesota through the DFL endorsement process.
From 2019: At Houston debate, Klobuchar opposes Medicare-for-All plans
They pan the “public option” and other reforms proposed by Johnson and other party centrists as ineffective solutions that would continue to allow insurers and pharmaceuticals to unfairly profit from pain and illness.
So, the debate over healthcare in this election year has caused a fissure in the Democratic Party in Minnesota and across the nation.
Progressive activism has revived an effort to replace the nation’s patchwork of private insurers and government-run health plans like Medicaid and Medicare with one government-run program they are calling Medicare for All.
Sometimes a Democratic candidate’s position on healthcare reform is based, at least in part, on how well the party has done in their district.
Matt Little, the DFL-endorsed U.S. House candidate for Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, poses in front of a Lakeville, Minn., residence on July 17, 2026. Credit: MinnPost photo by Ana Radelat
The 1st Congressional District Johnson seeks to represent gave President Donald Trump 55% of the vote in 2025.
But in the neighboring 2nd Congressional District, former Vice President Kamala Harris won with 52% of the vote, and, unlike Johnson, the endorsed DFL candidate, Matt Little, is a vigorous proponent of Medicare for All.
Little said he is sensitive to the problems Americans have with the nation’s healthcare system because when his mother was gravely ill, she struggled for a year to have access to a specialist who could cure her.
“And we were lucky to have insurance,” said Little, a former state senator and former mayor of Lakeville.
Little said if he wins the 2nd District seat he would support a new bill, sponsored in the U.S. House by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would guarantee comprehensive healthcare to every U.S. resident as a human right, eliminating all premiums, deductibles and copayments.
The legislation would end the leading role of private insurers in providing most of the nation’s healthcare coverage, although they would be allowed to sell supplemental plans.
Proponents say the elimination of out-of-pocket health costs and premiums will offset higher federal income taxes for most working Americans and businesses that would pay for the plan.
It’s not a new idea. Sanders has been promoting Medicare for All for more than a decade and the idea of establishing a national, government-run healthcare system based on Medicare’s model has been around for a few decades. With little effect.
But Little, who like Sanders considers himself a progressive, said the time is ripe politically to once again try to establish a “single payer” system similar to those of other industrialized nations that most Republicans decry as low- quality “socialized” medicine.
“I think we are in a defining moment right now in the country,” he said, citing the Trump administration’s cuts to Medicaid and the GOP Congress’ failure to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that helped many Americans, including about 90,000 Minnesotans, purchase health insurance.
He views the public option, the alternative moderates like Johnson are embracing as “just another handout to private insurance companies” and says other reforms under discussion in the Democratic Party are just “nibbling around the edges” of a national problem.
The public option was once going to be a part of the Affordable Care Act that former President Barack Obama breathed into life.
The ACA created state-based “marketplaces,” like MNsure, where those who lack employer-based individual plans can purchase coverage from a health insurer. Those who qualify can receive a subsidy to pay the premium and no one can be denied coverage because of an existing medical condition.
The initial plan was to establish a government-run option to the private insurer offerings on these ACA marketplaces. But heavy lobbying from health insurers and other politically powerful actors in the health field — and opposition by some centrist Democrats — killed the public option.
Minnesota Dems split over Medicare for All
Like Little, state Rep. Kaela Berg is running for the 2nd District congressional seat that is now held by Rep. Angie Craig, who is running for U.S. Senate.
Like Little, Berg is running as a progressive.
But unlike Little, Berg is flexible when it comes to proposed reforms to the nation’s healthcare system.
Berg said she supports the public option “and anything that gives people more health coverage.”
“It’s great to say Medicare for All and energize people,” Berg said. But she said that “we need to have (more) coverage now, whatever that looks like … while we continue to fight for Medicare for All.”
Berg is a flight attendant and union activist. And organized labor is split over Medicare for All, with some unions, including the United Auto Workers and the Association of Flight Attendants, supporting the idea and others strongly opposed because healthcare has been one of organized labor’s most potent bargaining chips.
The third Democrat running for Craig’s seat, state Sen. Matt Klein, is a physician, an internist who works for the Mayo Clinic.
He said he is a “firm believer that we need to get to universal healthcare” and if elected to Congress would “support whatever bill advances that.”
But he stopped short of backing Medicare for All, saying he would prefer the implementation of the public option.
The American Medical Association is firmly opposed to Medicare for All, saying it would limit patient choice and physician autonomy. The American Hospital Association and other powerful medical groups also strongly oppose the idea of a government-run, single payer plan.
Still, more than 100 U.S. House Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, and Betty McCollum, D-4th District, are co-sponsors of Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill and Sen. Tina Smith has co-sponsored Sanders’. But Rep. Kelly Morrison, D-3rd District, who like Klein is a physician, has not co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation.
A defining issue in U.S. Senate race
The Democrats running for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat — Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan — are also split over how to achieve the goal of universal health coverage.
“This is not working,” Flanagan said of the nation’s healthcare system. “It is broken and I think people are ready (for Medicare for All).”
While noting the healthcare overhaul is impossible unless Democrats hold the White House and both chambers of Congress, Flanagan said defaulting to support of a public option for now with the hopes of working toward Medicare for All would not work.
“You should not start at the bottom because you are going to get even less,” she said.
Craig, meanwhile, last week introduced the Medicare-X Choice Act, which would create a public option in the nation’s Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Craig said the public option would “give the insurance companies some competition,” leading to lower premiums and better coverage for all.
From 2019: ‘Medicare for All’ can mean at least two different things
But proponents of Medicare for All, like Little, say a public option would draw the oldest and sickest Americans, benefiting private insurers who would enroll healthier, younger individuals, subsequently paying out fewer claims and increasing their profits.
Craig also said other reforms, including a bill she introduced that would hold health insurance companies accountable for above-average denial rates and legislation aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, would also give Americans relief from the escalating cost of medical care.
Since Democrats are split over Medicare for All, there’s little chance a single-payer system will be established in the United States anytime soon.
But a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House and/or U.S. Senate could result in a rush of Democratic healthcare legislation and a vigorous debate over how to reverse the increase in uninsured Americans, even as any substantial change would have to wait for a Democratic president.
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