Yemen’s Houthi armed forces patrol as Yemeni prisoners loyal to the Houthi authorities arrive in the capital Sanaa on September 12 (Mohammed HUWAIS)The United States warned Saturday that hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis could “escalate rapidly” after a missile attack targeted Riyadh for the first time since the Yemen conflict resumed.US President Donald Trump cut short a weekend at Camp David, a secluded presidential complex in rural Maryland, to return unexpectedly to the White House on Saturday.The White House gave no explanation for the early return, which comes as a new threshold was crossed in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who control a large part of Yemen and are fighting government forces backed by a coalition led by Riyadh.Loud explosions rang out twice on Saturday in the Saudi capital, where AFP journalists saw a fuel tank bearing the logo of oil giant Aramco on fire near the airport.”This military conflict has the potential to escalate rapidly,” the US State Department warned, adding American citizens outside the Middle East should “seriously reconsider travel to and through the region”.The Houthis’s lightning offensive seizing swathes of Yemeni territory in recent weeks has left hundreds dead and, according to the UN, displaced more than 110,000 people.- ‘Thwarted’-These clashes and the subsequent hostilities with the kingdom have already disrupted Saudi Arabia’s exports — the world’s leading supplier of crude oil — as well as maritime traffic.The Riyadh-led coalition confirmed Saturday evening on X that a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis towards the capital was “successfully intercepted and destroyed”.The coalition added that the pro-Iranian fighters had tried to target “civilians and civilian infrastructure” in several cities in the west of the kingdom, including the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, an important export hub for Saudi oil.It said these attacks were “thwarted by the Gulf monarchy’s air defences”.Saudi Arabia has responded with scores of airstrikes on Houthi-held areas but failed to stop the advance.The Houthis said it had responded to recent Saudi attacks by carrying out “two successful military operations using a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones”, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Telegram.”The first targeted sensitive sites in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the second targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu.”Saudi authorities had earlier issued an overnight air raid alert.Hours after the early morning alert, residents told AFP on condition of anonymity that they heard what sounded like a round of explosions echoing through parts of the Saudi capital.  – Lightning offensive -This is the first time since Yemen’s civil war resumed that strikes have threatened the Saudi capital, piling further pressure on a global economy already rocked by seven months of war between the US and Iran.”The area is under a hostile aerial threat,” according to a message received just before 3:00 am by Riyadh residents, urging them to stay indoors.AFP journalists then heard two explosions, before the Saudi civil defence agency lifted the alert half an hour later.”I heard the alarm, then my windows shook,” a Riyadh resident told AFP. Another resident described the attack as “terrifying”. The incident comes days after Riyadh accused the Houthis of targeting Mecca on Wednesday, denouncing it as a “cowardly terrorist attack” on Islam’s holy city, which welcomes millions of pilgrims each year. The Houthis strongly denied the accusation, calling it a “worn-out lie”.The group has reported scores of retaliatory strikes carried out daily by Riyadh since their offensive this month to take over the country’s entire Red Sea coast, giving them control over the vital Bab al-Mandab strait.The United States, according to US news platform Axios, last week refused a Saudi request to strike the Houthis. Washington approved a $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom on Thursday to help Riyadh “deter current and future threats”, the US State Department said.War in Yemen broke out in 2014 when the Houthis seized control of the capital Sanaa and other regions, triggering a military intervention led by Saudi Arabia in March 2015.The fragile truce reached in 2022 between the warring parties collapsed in July, when the Houthis defied Riyadh’s control of Yemeni airspace by allowing an Iranian aircraft to land in Yemen.The apparent attack came as the Houthis improve their defences in newly conquered territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, with members of the group telling AFP they have been installing radar and digging tunnels.burs-ane/absThis article originally appeared on AFP at https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/saudi-capital-issues-first-air-110320500.html

The tech industry is struggling to make sense of President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he is creating an artificial intelligence task force and appointing a czar to oversee the administration’s approach to the technology.Trump, in alengthy Truth Social poston Saturday morning, said he was forming the government body and would also soon name an AI czar to lead it. He offered few details, leaving members of the tech world unsure what the task force would do, who would be involved or how it would operate.Four representatives for the sector, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told POLITICO that the industry was not widely informed of Trump’s decision prior to the Truth Social post.“Nobody knows what the idea even is,” one of the people said. Another said that feedback on the idea was not widely solicited within the industry.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Several of those canvassed said they view the move as a response to growing public alarm at the developing technology’s potential risks. AI researchers at top AI labs in the past few weeks have issued stark warnings about the technology’s power to destroy humanity, while executives including Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis have called for a slowdown so its risks can be adequately addressed.“I think that he clearly feels pressure to say something, but he’s torn because he’s just spent the last few days saying that the whole thing is a hoax,” Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the progressive tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress, said of Trump and his prior dismissal of AI doomsday scenariosSince the departure of David Sacks, who stepped down as the Trump administration’s previous AI czar earlier this year, the White House has been “making up AI policy as it goes,” Kovacevich added. “I think it’s clear they’ve really missed the presence of an organized leader like David Sacks was.”One of the tech industry representatives said they were confused about whether the task force would be charged with formulating more AI regulations or recommending policies that would further stimulate the tech’s development.Taylor Barkley, director of federal government affairs at the industry-aligned Abundance Institute, is eyeing it as a way to solidify a light-touch government approach to the technology he says will foster innovation.“Any AI Force or AI Czar should have one job: keep the field open so entrepreneurs at every scale can compete, free from onerous regulation,” he told POLITICO. “Existing criminal and civil law can handle bad actors. New permission regimes will stifle the very activity America needs most.”Trump’s post Saturday showed a clear desire to keep the industry booming: “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”Trump’s comparison of the new AI task force to Space Force led at least one tech industry representative to speculate that the proposal could be led by the Pentagon. “Rather than use civilian agencies to regulate it, use the Pentagon to try and dominate it,” they said.OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and NVIDIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposal.John Hewitt Jones contributed to this report.This article originally appeared on Politico at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/tech-industry-scratches-head-over-203942505.html

An election worker puts ballots in a counting machine at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 3 in City of Industry. Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed bills to protect California’s elections process from interference and increase transparency in campaigns. (Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed legislation to increase security for the state’s voting systems and protect Californians’ ability to cast ballots in an effort to guard against potential interference in the Nov. 3 election, including by the Trump administration. Newsom pointed to the Trump administration’s recent effort to restrict mail-in voting through the U.S. Postal Service, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the presence of federal monitors at California polls last year as evidence that Trump “will continue his efforts to interfere with the November election.”“Donald Trump won’t stop until he can exert dictatorial control over your free vote and disenfranchise millions of people this November. California will stop him at every opportunity,” Newsom said in a statement. “We have no bigger task than fighting to protect the right to vote from interference and meddling — the future of democracy is on the line. These bills today build upon the wall California has built to safeguard our electoral process.”The governor signed the package of bills at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, where a year earlier federal agents gathered outside a political rally he was hosting. Then-Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who had been leading the immigration operations in California, was among those outside the event, joined by agents in helmets, camouflage, masks and holding guns. Newsom described their presence as political intimidation. One bill Newsom signed Saturday cites efforts to “weaponize law enforcement authority for political purposes,” including Republican “Sheriff Chad Bianco’s seizure of ballots in Riverside County,” and the election monitors sent by the U.S. Justice Department to polling sites in five counties during a 2025 special election on redistricting.Such moves “have given rise to unprecedented concerns about law enforcement interference” in elections and “[demonstrate] that these threats are not merely hypothetical,” the bill by state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) reads.The law, Senate Bill 884, which takes effect immediately, requires counties to open ballot drop-off locations 30 days before an election — two days earlier than usual — and allows counties to ban electioneering, or trying to influence voters’ decisions, within up to 200 feet of polling sites. It also bans police from making arrests near voting locations except for crimes against people, property, or disrupting the voting process.Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who oversees state elections, praised the bill signings and said they stood ready to defend Californians’ right to vote.“No one should doubt the degree of our resolve in protecting our democracy,” Weber said. “This legislative package ensures that California voters will not be silenced or intimidated.” Bianco, a GOP candidate for governor who placed fourth in the primary, drew swift condemnation and legal challenges this spring after he ordered deputies to seize more than 650,000 ballots from the Riverside County elections office. Voting rights groups and Bonta challenged the move, which is being decided by the California Supreme Court. Bianco carted off truckloads of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters in February after securing a warrant based on claims that the office allowed fraudulent votes in the special election to redraw California’s congressional districts under Proposition 50 in 2025. Earlier this year, Newsom signed a bill preventing local and federal law enforcement agencies from taking ballots without a warrant.On Saturday the Democratic governor signed a bill making it a felony to seize or order the seizure of ballots, election records or voting machines. Future seizures could be punishable by up to four years in prison.“The federal administration and those seeking to spread lies about our democracy continue to call for interference in elections in ways we have never seen before in this country,” Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), the bill’s author and a former longtime county elections chief, said last month. “AB 282 helps ensure that every lawfully cast vote can be counted, and that the will of the voters of every political party will be respected.”Republican lawmakers argued in previous hearings that the bill is unnecessary because it is already a crime to steal ballots.Another bill, Senate Bill 259, makes it a crime to interfere with a mail ballot on the way to or from a voter or order the seizure of ballots that are in transit to a local elections office.Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1664, which requires elections officials to notify the attorney general and secretary of state immediately upon learning of any warrants, subpoenas or law enforcement investigations involving election records or voting equipment.Newsom also signed bills to boost protections under the California Voting Rights Act, including an explicit ban on voter suppression and expanded access to election materials in languages other than English.The governor also signed legislation to require more transparency from social media influencers who are paid by political campaigns. The measure, Assembly Bill 1130, came in the wake of a controversy in the June primary election when social media influencers took on a more visible role in the campaigns. Candidates including Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer paid thousands of dollars to influencers who posted videos endorsing Steyer or talking about him in a positive light. These videos did not always disclose that influencers were paid by a candidate’s campaign.Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.This article originally appeared on LA Times at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/newsom-signs-bills-shield-california-184038122.html

US President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box as he tours the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2025. – Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images When President Donald Trump’s name was ordered removed from the Kennedy Center this spring, it seemed that an opening to move on from his reign over the performing arts center might have emerged. “I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” the president wrote in a late-May Truth Social post, seemingly relinquishing the control he’d seized a year prior. Speculation even bubbled up among some of the more than a dozen “ex-officio,” board members — who don’t get a vote but are not allied with Trump — over whether the former board chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein, could be brought back to help restore the center’s fundraising and programming, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. (CNN has asked Rubenstein for comment.) But after Trump said he would remain chairman, “it kind of all squelched pretty quickly,” one of the sources said. The hope that his crusade to rename a monument dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy had ended turned out to be wishful thinking. Instead, nine months from a cold December day when cranes first placed Trump’s name on the marble façade, the institution has been brought to the brink by the president still very much engaged in a fight: lights have been turned off inside, infrastructure is crumbling and protests swirl while legal battles mount. A lawsuit brought by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio board member, led to a judge’s ruling that Trump’s name had to be scraped off the building and that the board could not shut down the facility altogether. Trump has only ratcheted up his threats to tear down the building in response to the legal setbacks: The president was seen with a poster this week through the window of Air Force One that appeared to read “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” Though the federal judge has since ordered a 30-day notice be given before any major change happens, it’s not at all clear where things go from here. Late Friday night, the administration argued in court that the Kennedy Center must close for two years, asking the federal judge in the case to allow it so that the “dangerously dilapidated and decrepit” building can be renovated. On the same day, over a dozen Kennedy Center employees were laid off, including its lead spokesperson, according to two sources familiar with the matter — gutting an already skeleton staff. The Kennedy Center declined to comment on the cuts. Surayya Nkosi finds a quiet spot to work on a choreography in the Grand Foyer of the Kennedy Center, on August 26. The Trump administration argued in a court filing could eventually face demolition if major repairs are not undertaken. – Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Trump has said previous leadership is to blame for the dire financial situation. During a contentious board call this week, he also blamed Beatty for bringing litigation that, he said, has contributed to the center’s downfall. While the president and his allies on the board argue his name needs to be re-affixed to the building to revive fundraising, current and former officials, performers and industry officials say it is precisely Trump’s involvement that alienated the center’s donors and prompted scores of artists to cancel their performances. “The Broadway productions will not come back, the artists will not come back,” said a source familiar with discussions about programming. “None of those donors will come back as long as Donald J Trump is the chairman.” Current and former Kennedy Center officials, musicians, artists and other performers with ties to the center suggest that Trump’s takeover has added a permanent imprint on the Kennedy Center, whether or not his name ultimately ends up on the building. “There are wonderful theaters throughout this country, and they are certainly part of the cultural ecology,” said LaRue Allen, president and executive director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, which has a 50-year history with the institution. “But the Kennedy Center — it is our nation’s capital. It is our national showcase.” Another Kennedy Center source who recently left said simply: “It will never be the same.” CNN has asked the White House for comment. US President Donald Trump is seen aboard Air Force One checking a Kennedy Center large printout after landing at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on September 16, 2026. – Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images ‘The Kennedy Center, they do a beautiful job, an incredible job’ Trump’s focus on the Kennedy Center is emblematic of a notable shift from his first administration to a second one that has targeted arts, cultural and educational pillars across the country, in addition to Trump’s unrelenting desire to remake the nation’s capital to his liking. In his first term, Trump mostly avoided the venue, skipping the Kennedy Center Honors after awardees threatened to boycott the event if he attended. The White House even said in a 2017 statement that the president and First Lady Melania Trump were not participating “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.” And when the Kennedy Center initially received $25 million in funding in a March 2020 Covid stimulus package, Trump defended the aid, saying: “The Kennedy Center, they do a beautiful job, an incredible job.” Nine months later, however, he singled out a $40 million line-item for the center while criticizing a subsequent December 2020 Covid aid bill — a foreshadowing of his future disaffection. By his 2024 campaign, Trump made clear that going after so-called “wokeism” would be a pillar of a second presidency. He didn’t appear to single out the Kennedy Center on the campaign trail, but in his third week in office he’d already set a takeover plan in motion. “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in February 2025. Trump said he had fired Rubenstein as chairman of the board as well as board trustees “who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” The takeover became the first domino in a cascade of Trump moves to remake the nation’s capital, including the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, the closure and remodeling of the busiest public golf course in Washington, DC, and his ongoing efforts to build a 250-foot triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery — projects all still being fought over in court. Though Trump has widely criticized cultural institutions and museums, he’s been able to exert only so much control over them, primarily by reducing their federal funding. The federal government has gutted the agencies that fund the arts, including the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, and denied and rescinded tens of millions of dollars in grants to organizations that don’t align with the president’s values. But the Kennedy Center is one of the few cultural institutions where the president has been able to flex more of his power by seizing control of the board. He has similarly tried to bring the federally funded Smithsonian Institution to heel, with more uneven results. A week after Trump’s board takeover, the president was named as its chairman, and he installed longtime loyalist Richard Grenell as executive director. US President Donald Trump speaks to the media alongside Richard Grenell, President of The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, during a guided tour of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts before leading a board meeting on March 17, 2025. – Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images “So we took over the Kennedy Center,” Trump told reporters. “I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke. There’s no more woke in this country.” His new role prompted several cancellations, including most notably the Broadway show “Hamilton.” Leading up to the center’s Kennedy Center Honors in December 2025, which Trump himself was hosting, the president began referring to the building as the “Trump Kennedy Center.” On December 18, 2025, the board made that declaration official by voting to rename the facility the “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” saying that the change honored Trump’s work at the center after taking over. One day later, new signage was installed to add Trump’s name to the building’s façade. People wait for President Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, on June 12. – Rahmat Gul/AP A legal and financial saga The legal battle and wave of cancellations that has ensued present particular challenges for an institution that makes part of its budget from ticket sales. Operating as a non-profit, the Kennedy Center received roughly $37 million from Congress in the last fiscal year, according to the latest appropriations legislation signed into law. But the bulk of its revenue comes from programming and private donations. In fiscal year 2024, during the Biden administration, the Kennedy Center reported $307 million in revenues, according to documents filed with the IRS. Last year, Grenell sought to revamp the center’s calendar to include, in his words, more family-friendly programming. He brought in “Dog Man: The Musical,” based on the popular kids’ graphic novel series, at the recommendation of second lady Usha Vance. At the same time, the center became a place to host events that lean in to Trumpian ties, including the premiere of the documentary “Melania,” a Charlie Kirk memorial and the FIFA World Cup draw (where the organization gave Trump a peace prize). But after Trump’s name was added to the building, a wave of performers pulled out, and ticket sales sagged. Multiple sources told CNN earlier this year that attendance at the Kennedy Center had been so low that for months it had to “paper the house” — a theater term that means to fill seats by offering free or discounted tickets. “There was a haze of despair around the performances. Nobody was showing up to performances,” Carlos Simon, the Kennedy Center composer-in-residence since 2021, told CNN. Simon, who is in the last year of his residence, noted that the National Symphony Orchestra is now playing at other venues in Washington. He said he’s stayed in his role at the Kennedy Center “for the morale of the folks who were still there trying to do the good work of presenting music.” “I feel really bad that it’s become this political tool or pawn, but music still has to go on,” he said. Amid the cancellations, Trump announced in February that the Kennedy Center would close for two years on July 4 to allow for renovations — a move critics suspected was to being made more to provide cover for the shrinking pool of patrons than because of the need for such a dramatic closure. The Kennedy Center also received an influx of funding last year thanks to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which contained $257 million for the center to pursue “necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures.” Yet the board has argued only Trump’s help can muster the funds to renovate the building — and Trump has made clear his help will only come with naming rights. In the meantime, Matt Floca, Grenell’s successor as executive director, this week told the judge in the Beatty case that the center needs to temporarily close due to safety concerns. Even if the building survives, officials say getting the center’s programming to return — particularly Broadway shows — would still take months if not several years. That is under the assumption, of course, that performances would be willing to return, said the source involved in the center’s programming. “If we started now in terms of engaging with property companies, going back and forth and getting a deal made, we could have Broadway tours back at the Kennedy Center by the basically middle of ‘27 into ’28,” the source said. “That’s how long it takes for all these pieces to be put in place.” CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.comThis article originally appeared on CNN at https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/19/politics/trump-kennedy-center

Farm-state Republicans don’t support President Donald Trump’s move to import cheap beef — but they’re still getting grilled for it.Trump’s plan to combat sky-high beef prices by introducing discounted, tariff-free foreign beef has been widely condemned by ag-state Republicans who are concerned it will undercut the domestic beef industry and hurt ranchers, a normally reliable constituency.And their opponents see an opening to paint Republicans as unconcerned about voters’ pocketbook concerns.“Our ranchers and our farmers keep getting kicked in the teeth, and we have politicians that keep telling us that everything’s great, that we’re the hottest country,” Dan Osborn, an independent running for Senate in Nebraska, said in an interview. “And to be quite frank, I’m pretty pissed off about it.”Osborn’s state is one of the top four top cattle-producing states — along with Texas, Kansas and Iowa — all of which have more-competitive-than-expected Senate races this cycle. And Trump’s controversial plan to remove tariffs from 300,000 metric tons of imported beef, sold at 25 percent below current market prices, is doing Republicans no favors.Osborn’s campaign went on air with a pun-filled ad this week in which he says the import plan is “selling out American farmers and ranchers,” and blasts Congress for being “too chicken to stand up to the corporations who bought them off.” The campaign says it plans to spend at least six figures airing the spot. It’s the first major spending from a campaign focused on the beef import plan. But it plays into a larger economic argument Democrats are pushing to break through with farmers and ranchers: Trump and Republicans have turned their backs on rural America, as a worsening farm crisis and spiking fuel and fertilizer prices pinch agricultural communities.“It’s part of a wider frustration,” said an adviser to one of the farm-state GOP senators, granted anonymity to speak openly. “I don’t think it sways anyone’s vote, but it isn’t a great look. … It isn’t fun for me to read the headline. It’s frustrating.”Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Osborn’s opponent, said in a statement he has a record of standing for his state’s agriculture community, “no matter who is president — from fighting Biden’s 30×30 plan to opposing this beef import plan.”“Ranchers know the difference between a senator who delivers and a candidate reading a script his socialist ad agency wrote,” Ricketts said.Farm-state Democrats and independents believe beef imports provide a window to speak to rural voters who have skewed red for decades but suddenly look more competitive amid Trump’s plunging political standing. A strategist working on Osborn’s campaign, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, said Osborn’s ad “codes as non-partisan in a way that running ads about taxes or healthcare doesn’t.”Trump’s overall unpopularity is hurting Republicans across the map, but this policy could be especially problematic in a quartet of once-sleeper Senate races that could hand Democrats control of the upper chamber.Spokespeople for the GOP nominees in Iowa and Kansas declined to discuss the issue, pointing to their candidates’ statements in August, when Trump’s plan was announced: Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) called Trump’s plan a “bad idea,” while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) said the priority should be growing the U.S. cattle herd, “not flooding the market with imports.”Last week, during a debate at the Kansas State Fair, Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton slammed the import plan as “a slap in the face of all of our cattle ranchers,” earning a raucous response from fair-goers, and hit Marshall for “tepidly respond[ing] to it as opposed to shouting like hell that this is not okay.”In Iowa’s agriculture-heavy first district, Democrats have been on the air since June with an ad hammering Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for record-high beef prices” and other cost-of-living increases under the Trump administration. The Republicans who were already getting hammered for high prices before now are now hobbled by a proposed remedy — one that has infuriated their own base.When asked how Republicans should message the beef plan back home, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, acknowledged there’s “certainly a lot of concern amongst our cattle producers.”“I think they understand what’s going on. They’re just not pleased with it,” Boozman said. “We’re in contact with the administration, a lot of members are in contact, helping them understand the unintended consequences of it. We’d like to lower prices, but again, we don’t want the unintended consequence of lowering cattle futures significantly.”That leaves ranchers worried that the import plan will undercut their struggling industry.“President Trump wants to lower the price of beef, I think that’s where it’s coming from,” said Ben Menges, a cattle rancher in Arizona’s battleground 6th District. “The best way that President Trump can do that is by lowering the cost of fuel, not by importing a bunch of beef.”Some Republicans have looked to turn the conversation into a culture war issue — hitting their opponents for past stances on meat consumption or veganism.Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Iowa Friday — which Hinson did not attend — slammed Hamilton, the pastor-turned-Democratic nominee for Senate in Kansas, for having a “kind of a ‘gee whiz, I’m a nice pastor’ vibe” who tells his congregation to “repent for their white privilege while eating beef.”It’s an attack Marshall made at last week’s debate, hitting Hamilton for a sermon he delivered on climate change and the impact of meat consumption.“I think the senator needs to repent for not standing up for the beef industry,” responded Hamilton.This article originally appeared on Politico at https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/trumps-beef-plan-problem-nebraska-iowa-kansas-texas-01084910