How the public’s shift on immigration paved the way for Trump’s crackdown

• April 25, 2025

By JILL COLVIN

PASSAIC, N.J. (AP) — Alleged gang members without criminal records wrongly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

International students detained by masked federal agents for writing opinion columns or attending campus demonstrations.

American citizens, visa holders and visitors stopped at airports, detained for days or facing deportation for minor infractions.

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. But unlike in his first term, Trump’s efforts have not sparked the kind of widespread condemnation or protests that led him to retreat from some unpopular positions.

Instead, immigration has emerged as one of Trump’s strongest issues in public polling, reflecting both his grip on the Republican base and a broader shift in public sentiment that is driven in part, interviews suggest, by anger at the policies of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

The White House has seized on this shift, mocking critics and egging on Democrats to engage on an issue that Trump’s team sees as a win.

“I think this is another men/women’s sports thing for the Democrats,” Trump said in an interview with Time magazine published Friday, referring to the cultural wars debate over transgender rights that Trump campaign aides saw as a key driver of support in November.

“America’s changed,” said pollster Frank Luntz, a longtime ally of Republicans who has been holding focus groups with voters to discuss immigration. “This is the one area where Donald Trump still has significant and widespread public support.”

Luntz said voters dismayed by the historically large influx of migrants under Biden are now “prepared to accept a more extreme approach.”

“Make no mistake,” he added. “The public may not embrace it, but they definitely support it. And this is actually his strongest area as he approaches his 100th day (in office).”

Changing views

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that immigration is a relative high point for Trump compared with other issues, including his approach to the economy, foreign policy and trade negotiations. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults, 46%, say they approve of Trump’s handling of the issue, compared with his overall job approval rating of 39%, according to the survey.

The poll was conducted April 17-21, a period that included a trip by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to El Salvador to demand that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be released from prison after the U.S. government admitted he was wrongly deported.

In the 2020 election, few voters considered immigration the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of registered voters in all 50 states.

Four years later, after Republicans and conservative media had hammered Biden for his policies and often cast migrant U.S.-Mexico border crossings as an invasion, immigration had risen above health care, abortion and crime. It was second only to the economy.

Under Biden, migrant apprehensions spiked to more than 2 million two years in a row. Republican governors in border states bused migrants by the tens of thousands to cities across the country, including to New York, where migrants were placed in shelters and hotels, straining budgets.

Voters in the 2024 election were also more open to tougher immigration policies than the 2020 electorate. Last November, 44% of voters said most immigrants living in the United States illegally should be deported to their home countries, according to AP VoteCast, compared with 29% in 2020.

Immigration remains a relative strength for Trump today: 84% of Republicans approve of Trump’s immigration approach, according to the April AP-NORC poll, compared with 68% who approve of how he is handling trade negotiations.

The poll found about 4 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favor Trump’s policy of sending Venezuelan immigrants who authorities say are gang members to El Salvador, with an additional 22% saying they neither favor nor oppose it. About 4 in 10 were opposed.

Americans are more opposed, broadly, to revoking foreign students’ visas over their participation in pro-Palestinian activism, with about half opposed and about 3 in 10 in support.

The changing views are evident in places like northern New Jersey’s suburban Passaic County, one of the former Democratic strongholds where Trump overperformed in November.

Trump became the first Republican to win the county in more than 30 years. He carried the heavily Latino city of Passaic and significantly increased his support in Paterson, the state’s third-largest city, which is majority Latino and also has a large Muslim community. He drew 13,819 votes after winning 3,999 in 2016. Having lost New Jersey by nearly 16 percentage points to Biden in 2020, Trump narrowed that margin to 6 percentage points last year.

Paterson resident Sunny Cumur, 54, a truck driver who immigrated from Turkey in the late 1990s, describes himself as a Democrat who doesn’t usually vote. But he wanted Trump to win, he said, because he was concerned about the border under Biden.

While studies show immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, local news in New York and other cities frequently featured what Trump took to calling “migrant crime.”

“What Biden did, they opened all the borders, and a lot of people come here for political asylum. Come on! They don’t even check if they are terrorists or not,” Cumur said. He complained that newcomers willing to work for lower wages have been undercutting workers like him.

“Throw ’em out. I don’t want to live with criminals,” he said.

Still, other supporters worry Trump is taking things too far.

Republican Manuel Terrero, 39, a real estate agent from Clifton, said he was drawn to Trump because of what felt like “chaos” under Biden, with too many people crossing the border and too much crime in neighboring New York.

“It shouldn’t be allowed,” said Terrero, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

Trump “is doing a lot of good things. And that is one of them, stopping the people that are coming here to create chaos. And the people that have criminal records, send them back. But I am against (deporting) the people that are working,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the right way to do it.”

Rep. Nellie Pou, D-N.J., who was elected last year to represent the area in Congress, said her constituents believe strongly in border security but stand by her advocacy for immigrants. She recently joined Democrats on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I do not want anyone that may be a danger to come to our country to harm any of our citizens. No one wants that. And I firmly believe that’s what people in our district and across America want,” she said. At the same time, she said, “Our country was made of immigrants. … So I believe there’s a place for someone who comes in the legal ways.”

A new paradigm

Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015 by labeling Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and pledging to build “a great wall.” He spent much of his first term focused on the border.

One of his first actions in office was to impose a travel ban barring the entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. That caused chaos at airports and protests across the nation. The policy was quickly blocked by the courts, forcing his administration to offer three broader iterations, the last of which was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court.

The next flashpoint came in 2018, when border officials began separating families detained after illegally crossing the border. In some cases, children were forcibly removed from their parents under a “zero tolerance” policy, and the parents were sometimes deported without their kids.

Images of children held in cages at border facilities and audio recordings of young children crying for their parents drew intense backlash, with thousands participating in hundreds of marches across the country. The protesters included soon-to-be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was photographed in 2018 breaking down outside a facility in Texas being used to detain migrant children.

Republicans joined in that condemnation.

Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, called the separations “tragic and heartrending” in a letter that urged Congress to act. “This disgraceful condition must end,” he wrote.

“All Americans are rightly horrified by the images we are seeing on the news, children in tears pulled away from their mothers and fathers. This must stop,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He introduced legislation mandating that apprehended families be kept together.

Bowing to pressure and concerned about the impact on the upcoming midterm elections, Trump halted the policy.

This time around, with border crossings down, Trump has shifted focus to expelling people already in the United States. He is expanding the limits of executive power and jousting with judges as he uses old laws and rarely used provisions to label hundreds of men gang members so they can be deported without being able to challenge their cases in court.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who as a senator once tried to negotiate a bipartisan immigration package — has moved to expel people in the U.S. legally over political beliefs he deems counter to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Their targets have included hundreds of students and others with legal status, including those on student visas or holding green cards conferring permanent residency, as well as those who have sought asylum using legal channels.

Jorge Loweree, of the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, said Trump was doing something “that’s wholly new in historical terms.”

“It’s critical that people understand what the administration is doing,” said Loweree, the council’s managing director of programs and strategy. “We have an administration that believes they can disappear who they want, where they want, to anywhere they want.”

Loweree argued that even if voters in November rejected what they saw as chaos at the border, that “doesn’t necessarily mean that they support these very draconian measures that are being implemented today.”

Few elected Republicans are speaking out, though some of Trump’s outside allies have criticized what they see as overreach.

Joe Rogan, the popular podcast host who endorsed Trump late in the campaign, voiced alarm at the case of Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela with no criminal record who was among those sent to El Salvador’s maximum-security CECOT prison.

“You gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting like lassoed up and deported and sent to like El Salvador prisons,” Rogan told his listeners. “That’s horrific. And again, that’s bad for the cause. Like the cause is let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not (have) innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs.”

Signs of change?

The April AP-NORC poll found that about half of Americans say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, compared with about 6 in 10 who say he’s “gone too far” on imposing new tariffs on other countries.

It found Americans split on mass deportations, with about 4 in 10 in favor of deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and a similar share opposed. The percentage who support mass deportations is down slightly from an AP-NORC poll conducted in January, just before Trump took office.

Still, about one-third of U.S. adults say Trump’s actions have been “about right” on immigration, and about 2 in 10 think he hasn’t gone far enough.

One case that has gained traction nationally is that of Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident from El Salvador who was sent to CECOT despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, a claim Abrego Garcia’s attorneys deny, and noted that his wife once sought a protective order against him.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has said he will not let Abrego Garcia leave the country.

More Democrats have traveled to El Salvador to highlight the case. And people angry about the situation have confronted Republican lawmakers, including at a contentious town hall Wednesday hosted by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, during which several members of the audience shouted at him to push for Abrego Garcia’s return.

The White House has embraced the fight. “A request for Democrats — please continue to make defending criminal illegal immigrants your top messaging point,” wrote Trump’s director of communications, Steven Cheung.

Some in the party have urged it to steer clear. Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., called the case a “distraction” from issues such as tariffs that have emerged as a bigger weakness for Trump.

“This is the debate (Republicans) want. This is their 80-20 issue, as they’ve described it,” he said of Republicans on his podcast. “It’s a tough case, because,” he said, it risks people wondering, “are they defending MS-13?”

But Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, is urging Democrats to seize on the case. He says border issues are “much more nuanced than ‘immigration good for Trump, bad for Democrats’” and believes that voters are on their side.

“If we can’t stand up against the illegal rendition of the father of a U.S. child to a prison known for torture, then I don’t really know what we’re doing,” he said.

Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

LA-area congressmembers seek mortgage relief for wildfire victims

• April 25, 2025

Two congressmembers representing communities hit hardest by the Palisades and Eaton fires that tore through Los Angeles County early this year have introduced legislation to provide mortgage relief to homeowners in areas declared a disaster by the president.

The Mortgage Relief for Disaster Survivors Act would allow homeowners with a federally backed mortgage whose property was damaged or destroyed by a major disaster or emergency to seek forbearance — allowing them to skip mortgage payments without being assessed additional interest, penalties or fees — for up to nearly a year. The initial forbearance would last 180 days, with an opportunity to extend it another 180 days.

The relief would apply to homeowners impacted by any federally declared disaster, be it a wildfire in California, hurricane in Florida or tornado in Oklahoma, for example.

Introduced by Reps. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, whose constituents were directly impacted by the Eaton fire, and Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, who represents the Palisades, the proposed legislation is modeled after similar mortgage forbearance provisions in the bipartisan CARES Act that President Donald Trump signed in 2020, during his first term, to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chu said survivors shouldn’t have to worry about missing a mortgage payment while dealing with the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster.

“Congress has already worked with President Trump during the coronavirus crisis to provide bipartisan and near-unanimous support for such relief for pandemic victims, and the Los Angeles wildfires have made clear to us that all natural disaster victims should receive that relief as well,” she said.

Sherman said just as Congress acted with urgency and compassion during the pandemic, it’s critical for lawmakers to address the scale of the devastation caused by the January wildfires. He stressed the importance of ensuring that “wildfire victims have the financial relief and stability they need to rebuild.”

Over 11,000 homes were destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires.

Co-sponsors of the bill include California Democratic Reps. Laura Friedman of Glendale, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, Linda Sánchez of Whittier, Lou Correa of Santa Ana and Jared Huffman of San Rafael.

Other congressmembers co-sponsoring the bill include Reps. Cleo Fields of Louisiana, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Joe Neguse of Colorado, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Shri Thanedar of Michigan and Jill Tokuda of Hawaii. All six are Democrats.

In a statement provided by her office, Chu said that “given natural disasters know no state lines or political affiliation, I welcome all Republican support for this critical legislation modeled after the bipartisan CARES Act.”

This is not the first bill that lawmakers from California have sought to provide mortgage relief to wildfire victims.

In the state legislature, Assemblymembers John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, and Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, authored a bill that would allow affected homeowners to seek up to 12 months of mortgage forbearance. That bill passed out of the Assembly this month but still needs to be voted on in the state Senate.

​ Orange County Register 

Lawmakers know CEQA is a bust, so why won’t they fix it?

• April 25, 2025

SACRAMENTO—It’s not that typical that an acronym for an arcane regulation would be a household word, but in California the term CEQA—pronounced see-kwa—is as well-known as terms such as OMG and LOL. Signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970, the voluminous statute provides a laundry list of terms and conditions on developers of every manner of construction project. CEQA has created a regulatory nightmare, although it still has defenders. LOL indeed.

As the Planning and Conservation League explains, “The California Environmental Quality Act … is California’s premier environmental law. It allows public agencies to make informed decisions about activities that could degrade public health and damage the environment. It also provides California residents with the legal framework to hold their public agencies accountable.”

That sounds so unobjectionable. Who doesn’t want public agencies to make informed decisions and provide community members with tools to protect the environment and hold officials accountable? But the reality is far different than what these Pollyannaish civics-textbook explanations suggest. California lawmakers refuse to substantively reform the law, but what’s the first thing they do whenever they want a particular project built?

You guessed it—they provide a CEQA exemption or streamlining. When the Sacramento Kings wanted to build a new downtown arena and keep the team from leaving town, Senate President Darrell Steinberg (later elected the city’s mayor) ushered through an exemption. We’ve seen multiple examples—or attempts—to reduce the application of CEQA to other professional sports projects, as well as other favored projects including one tied to LA’s effort to lure the Olympics.

It’s always the sign of a bad law when it constantly requires exemptions. That reminds me of Assembly Bill 5, which banned most independent contracting—but its supporters exempted more than 100 industries from its grip because it threatened so many people’s livelihoods. A recent national example: Donald Trump’s tariffs posed an existential threat to many businesses, so he’s been exempting certain industries. All these regulatory edicts empower the politically well connected, who have lobbyists who can secure special favors.

So what’s wrong with CEQA? Whenever the government has discretionary approval authority, the law requires the agency to conduct a review. It usually requires the developers to conduct an extensive environmental analysis. It triggers an initial-study process and then often a costly, time-consuming full Environmental Impact Report. Agencies can then mandate remediation or reject the project. It gives any stakeholder the right to file a lawsuit challenging the agency’s approval.

As is now well documented, interest groups often file lawsuits that are not related to improving the environment. No-growthers file suits to stop—or reduce the size—of projects they don’t like. Neighbors can file lawsuits because they don’t want more traffic. Unions threaten suits as a way to gain leverage to secure project-labor agreements and other union-friendly conditions. As the law firm Holland & Knight reported in 2015, “64% of those filing CEQA lawsuits are individuals or local ‘associations,’ the vast majority of which have no prior track record of environmental advocacy.”

And if you think these cynical efforts to gum up the construction process help the environment, then consider this alarming point from that analysis: “Projects designed to advance California’s environmental policy objectives are the most frequent targets of CEQA lawsuits.” These include transit projects, multi-family housing, parks, schools and libraries. It notes that 80% of the CEQA lawsuits are in infill locations, which is where environmentalists want us to build.

CEQA criticism has grown even on the political Left thanks largely to the law’s stifling effect on new housing construction. As everyone here knows, California faces a severe housing crisis as the median home price statewide has soared above $800,000 and well over $1 million in many coastal metros. That has led to massive rent spikes and has exacerbated our homelessness situation. Lawmakers have—to their credit—passed targeted exemptions and streamlining provisions for particular types of housing projects (infill, multi-family, duplexes) but it’s not enough.

A 2022 report for the Center for Jobs and the Economy by Holland & Knight attorney Jennifer Hernandez notes that despite those new laws, “CEQA lawsuits targeting new housing production, in contrast, continue to expand—with 47,999 housing units targeted in the CEQA lawsuits filed just in 2020.” The California Air Resources Board (CARB) “acknowledges that two-thirds of CEQA lawsuits allege violations of climate impacts.”

Look, if CEQA can be used to stop projects based on climate impacts, then it can be used against any project. It’s been weaponized as a no-growth tool—constraining housing, energy projects, freeways, rail, you name it. Unless we’re happy just grinding progress to a halt, we need to repeal—or significantly reform—this monstrosity and get beyond occasional exemptions for ballparks and public housing. We all know CEQA by name and deed, so why won’t elected officials do anything about it?

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

US to loosen rules on Tesla, other carmakers taking on China in race for self-driving cars

• April 25, 2025

By BERNARD CONDON, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration is loosening rules to help U.S. automakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals.

U.S. companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the Transportation Department said Thursday. The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that Musk has criticized as onerous and will move toward a single set of national rules for the technology to replace a patchwork of state regulations.

“We’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a statement. “Our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard.”

The new exemption procedures will allow U.S. automakers to apply to skip certain safety rules for self-driving vehicles if they are used only for research, demonstrations and other non-commercial purposes. The exemptions were in place previously for foreign, imported vehicles whose home country rules may be different than those in the U.S.

The decision comes a day after Musk confirmed on a conference call with Tesla investors that the electric vehicle maker will begin a rollout of self-driving Tesla taxis in Austin, Texas, in June.

It’s not clear how the exemptions from National Traffic Safety Administration rules will affect Tesla specifically. The company has pinned its future on complete automation of its cars, but it is facing stiff competition now from rivals, especially China automaker BYD.

The crash reporting rule being changed has drawn criticism from Musk as too burdensome and unfair. Tesla has reported many of the total crashes under the rule in part because it is the biggest seller of partial self-driving vehicles in the U.S.

Traffic safety watchdogs had feared that the Trump administration would eliminate the reporting rule. The transportation statement Thursday said reporting will be loosened to “remove unnecessary and duplicative” requirements but that the obligation to report crashes will remain.

​ Orange County Register 

Immigration is Trump’s strongest issue, but many say he’s gone too far, a new AP-NORC poll finds

• April 25, 2025

By LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration remains a point of strength as he takes wide-ranging actions to ramp up deportations and target people in the U.S. illegally, according to a new poll.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 46% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, which is nearly 10 percentage points higher than his approval rating on the economy and trade with other countries.

While Trump’s actions remain divisive, there’s less of a consensus that the Republican president has overstepped on immigration than on other issues. Still, there’s little appetite for an even tougher approach. About half of Americans say he’s “gone too far” when it comes to deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally. They’re divided on the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants who are accused of being gang members to El Salvador, and more oppose than support revoking foreign students’ visas over their participation in pro-Palestinian activism.

Here’s what the poll shows about how Americans are viewing the Trump administration’s actions on immigration.

Immigration is a point of strength for Trump, particularly with Republicans

Immigration was a major factor for voters in last November’s election, particularly for Trump’s supporters, and they were more open to tough stances on the issue than they’d been four years earlier. And even though many of Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts are currently mired in battles with federal judges, it’s remained an issue of relative strength in the court of public opinion.

Similar to an AP-NORC poll conducted in March, nearly half of Americans approve of Trump’s immigration approach, while about 4 in 10 approve of how he’s handling the presidency.

This higher approval on immigration comes primarily from Republicans. About 8 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, higher than the roughly 7 in 10 Republicans who approve of how he’s handling the economy or trade negotiations with other countries.

Other groups are less enthusiastic about Trump’s approach. About 4 in 10 independents and only about 2 in 10 Democrats approve of Trump on immigration.

Relatively few Americans are concerned they’ll know someone who is directly affected by increased immigration enforcement, according to the poll. About 2 in 10 Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned that they or someone they know will be directly affected.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to worry they’ll be affected, and Hispanic adults are more likely than white or Black adults to be concerned.

About half say Trump has ‘gone too far’ on deportations

About half of Americans say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. About one-third say his approach has been “about right,” and about 2 in 10 say he’s not gone far enough.

They’re unhappier, generally, with how he’s approaching trade negotiations. About 6 in 10 say he’s “gone too far” in imposing new tariffs on other countries.

There is not a strong desire for more aggressive action on immigration, though, even among the people who approve of what’s Trump doing. Among the Americans who approve of how Trump is handling immigration, about 6 in 10 say his approach has been “about right,” and roughly 3 in 10 say he hasn’t gone far enough.

Americans are split on sending Venezuelans to El Salvador but oppose revoking student visas

There is a deep divide on whether and how the Trump administration should undertake large-scale deportations, according to the survey, which was conducted in mid-April, while Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was on a trip to El Salvador to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported there in what officials later described as an “administrative error.”

The poll found that 38% of Americans favor deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, down slightly from an AP-NORC poll conducted just before Trump took office in January. About the same share of Americans are opposed, and about 2 in 10 are neutral.

The findings are very similar for Trump’s policy of sending Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S. who authorities say are gang members to a prison in El Salvador.

But the public is more opposed, broadly, to revoking foreign students’ visas over their participation in pro-Palestinian activism, which has emerged as another flashpoint.

About half of U.S. adults oppose this, and about 3 in 10 are in support. This action is particularly unpopular among Americans with a college degree. About 6 in 10 strongly or somewhat oppose it, compared with about 4 in 10 Americans who aren’t college graduates.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

​ Orange County Register 

A Russian general was killed by a car bomb just outside Moscow

• April 25, 2025

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian general was killed by a car bomb on Friday, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency said, in the second such attack on a top Russian military officer in four months.

The Investigative Committee said that Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow.

The committee’s spokesperson, Svetlana Petrenko, said that the explosive device was rigged with shrapnel. She said that investigators were at the scene.

Russian media ran videos of a vehicle burning in the courtyard of an apartment building.

The committee did not mention possible suspects.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova described Moskalik’s killing as a “terror attack.”

The attack follows the killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who died on Dec. 17 when a bomb hidden on an electric scooter parked outside his apartment building exploded as he left for his office. The Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the killing of Kirillov, and Ukraine’s security agency acknowledged that it was behind that attack.

Kirillov was the chief of Russia’s Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, the special troops tasked with protecting the military from the enemy’s use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack.

Friday’s bombing came just as U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, was expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a U.S.-brokered peace plan for Ukraine. The meeting is their fourth encounter since February.

​ Orange County Register 

Wildlife crossings over freeways are rare — but there are other ways to let animals roam

• April 25, 2025

Q: Will they build a wildlife crossing over the 5 Freeway in Irvine as well as the pedestrian bridge? Other places in Orange County would be good, too. Are any planned?

– Carol Clayman, Irvine

A: Not there.

Carol is referring to the $23 million, 1,200-foot-long Jeffrey Open Space Trail Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge, which will open in a year and connect trails for two-legged critters.

Honk isn’t aware of any plans for a wildlife crossing over an Orange County freeway.

Robert Johnson, a Caltrans spokesman, said the agency works with other local and federal agencies to see if they can help wildlife move about.

“This includes making small changes, like improving vegetation in the area or reducing light and noise pollution,” he said.

A decade ago, a fence reaching up to 12 feet high — and buried 2 feet below the surface — was put in along the 241 Toll Road in the Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills area to keep mountain lions from trying to cross the highway.

“There are many under-crossings across the county allowing for wildlife movement,” Johnson added.

But, Carol, to the north in Agoura Hills, work is well underway on the $92 million Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing that will span the 101 Freeway and open next year. It will be covered by dirt and plants so mountain lions, deer, desert cottontails, bobcats and other animals can safely go over the highway to another large patch of nature.

Caltrans was heavily involved, with donations covering a lot of the bill.

Q: Hi Honk: Do you know where we can find the construction plans for the improvements to the 405 Freeway between the El Toro Y and the 55 Freeway? I can only find outdated information.

– Scott Mann

A: Improvements are on the drawing board — but Honk will have long been in a hammock, buying his lemonade with Social Security checks by the time they get done.

A regular lane on both sides of the 405 is coming to that 8.5-mile jaunt that cuts across Irvine, between the El Toro Y — the nickname for where the 5 and 405 freeways shake hands —  and the 55.

Eventually.

The environmental study was finished in 2018, which is a key step, but when construction will start isn’t decided.

The price tag will be an estimated $270 million.

Joel Zlotnik, a spokesman for the Orange County Transportation Authority, said the half-cent transportation sales tax in the county will at least partially cover the bill, and the state and federal governments might kick in some cash as well.

“While no timeline has been set for construction, we expect it will be completed by 2041 as promised to voters in the sales-tax (ballot) measure,” he said.

By the way, Scott, Zlotnik added this:

“Thanks to the Honk reader, we’re going to make some changes to the website (octa.net) and make sure it has the most up-to-date information.”

To ask Honk questions, reach him at [email protected]. He only answers those that are published. To see Honk online: ocregister.com/tag/honk. Twitter: @OCRegisterHonk

​ Orange County Register 

Bernie Sanders and AOC won’t fix Democrats’ identity crisis

• April 25, 2025

Nearly six months after losing both the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats’ continued refusal to conduct a thorough and honest assessment of why they lost has left the party adrift and without direction. 

Indeed, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom told The Hill, Democrats will not find their way “back from the wilderness” unless they’re “willing to look inward at what led to the losses.”

Moreover, Newsom continued, Democrats are in such a state of disarray that, “I don’t know what the party is,” nor does he know “who is leading it, or where it wants to go.”

In many ways, Democrats’ profound identity crisis amid a glaring lack of national leadership has created not just a “void” as Newsom described, but a dangerous vacuum.

It has also hobbled any attempts to effectively oppose President Trump or Republicans at the precise time Democrats should be beginning to think about next year’s midterms.

Sensing Democrats’ leadership vacuum, Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have embarked on a high-profile “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour across the country. 

Ironically, the two progressive lawmakers were spotted using a private plane to travel between stops on their tour, where they regularly demonize the wealthy, advocate for sky-high taxes on high earners, and rail against America’s capitalist roots. 

Hypocrisy aside, if Sanders and AOC are leading the Democratic Party, Democrats’ electability will get worse before it gets better.

Unfortunately for those who, like me, believe America is better off with two viable political parties, the far-left’s takeover of the Democratic Party is political suicide for a party that needs to reconnect with mainstream voters.

Further, it proves that Democrats still do not understand why they lost in 2024, or why they’ll continue losing if the far-left is allowed to dominate the party. 

Last November, just weeks after the election, I was asked on Fox News’ Ingraham Angle about the impact on Democrats should AOC become a party leader. In comments I still stand by, I said then that an AOC candidacy would “be a disaster for Democrats.” 

Voters clearly rejected the far-left policies AOC loudly supports, and if Democrats want to win, they need to move to the center on cultural and fiscal issues – the opposite of AOC’s agenda.

To that end, Trump’s gains with the traditional Democratic base in the last election stemmed from working-class Americans feeling that the party had moved too far-left on key issues, particularly the economy, crime, and immigration. 

At the same time, Democrats’ obsession with divisive social issues that few genuinely care about, such as transgender athletes in sports, made the party seem wildly out of touch with the majority of Americans who opposed the party’s far-left positions.

As a political professional with decades of experience, I struggle to see how a party led by AOC – or any other progressive – would do anything but exacerbate these problems and make the party even less electable.

True, Sanders and AOC do appeal to a very vocal and enthusiastic constituency, particularly young voters. 

Nevertheless, that constituency is nowhere near a majority of all voters, nor does their social media presence match their consistently low turnout at the ballot box.

Most of all, however, it is highly unlikely that AOC would be able to expand her appeal to bring in the swing voters necessary to win a national election.

Demonstrating rare clarity among high-profile Democrats – and a willingness to challenge Newsom appears to be the lone high-profile Democrat willing to acknowledge this. 

In the aforementioned Hill interview, he applauded Sanders’ and AOC’s enthusiasm and “willingness to step into the void,” but also pointed out, “I don’t know that an electoral victory from a prism of 2028 lies there.”

It is quite difficult to imagine AOC’s support for open borders and fringe social issues endearing herself to working-class voters in purple rust-belt states. 

Similarly, it’s hard to see suburban voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Arizona responding well to her desire to massively increase taxes to fund an even bigger government, or her past calls to “defund the police.”

As Douglas Mackinnon noted in the Hill, aside from AOC’s support for highly unpopular policies, her singular, animating issue has mostly been attacking Trump.

Mackinnon wrote that AOC does not “seem to address crime, the punishing effects of illegal immigration…or the maladies of our crumbling inner cities.” 

Rather, her “entire platform” seems to be “hating Trump, loving government spending, demanding billions for reparations” and expanding the size of government.

In fairness, that critique of AOC could be applied to the Democratic Party writ large. 

For nearly a decade, they have been able to use Trump as a boogeyman – running against him, rather than for something. 

To an extent, that approach worked in 2018, 2020, and 2022, and it may well work in 2026. But, in 2028, Democrats must rediscover who they are and what they stand for.

To start, they need a leader. 

Ultimately, whether it’s Newsom, Governors Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, or JB Pritzker, or another centrist, they need to realign the party with what voters overwhelmingly want: secure borders, a smaller federal government, fewer regulations, and the prioritizing of economic growth over controversial social issues.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

​ Orange County Register