• In an Oct. 30 letter to President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) asked the administration to reverse its tariff policies, which Carbajal described as ultimately functioning to impose hidden taxes on American families and businesses. “Despite claims made by your administration that tariffs would lower prices, they have increased the cost of living for Americans,” Carbajal wrote. “It is well-established that the cost of tariffs is passed on to consumers. The American people are footing the bill. Small businesses are taking hits as they are forced to either absorb the increased costs or pass them on to customers.” Carbajal cited tariffs on coffee and other everyday goods associated with rising prices to illustrate his point. “Tariffs will never work on products that cannot be produced in the United States. Take coffee, for example. The United States produces less than 1 percent of coffee beans globally. In this case, the only possible outcome of these tariffs is increased prices for the American people,” Carbajal wrote, “whether they are making coffee at home or buying it from a small business.” Carbajal is a co-sponsor of both the Truth in Tariffs Act, which would require large retailers to clearly display the portion of an item’s price attributable to tariffs, and the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act, which would clarify that tariffs can’t be imposed under the guise of a national emergency without Congressional approval.
• U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) and U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Massachusetts) recently accused True Medicine (TrueMed) founder Calley Means of abusing his role as a former special government employee for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In a joint letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Schiff and Auchincloss said that Means advised the administration on health policies that would ultimately benefit his business interests. “Although recent reports indicate that Mr. Means has departed from his role in the administration, taxpayers and families deserve assurance that Mr. Means’ prior involvement in policy had been in the interests of science and public health, not in interest of his business and personal financial gain,” Schiff and Auchincloss wrote in their Oct. 31 letter. “Given the pattern of self-dealing and conflicts of interest throughout this administration, the public deserve to know whether Mr. Means and his business, TrueMed, operated ethically. It is therefore incumbent upon the secretary and the White House, as Mr. Means’ former supervisors, to clarify his role and verify compliance with federal conflicts of interest, ethics, and reporting requirements.”
• U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-California) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) issued a joint response to the Trump administration’s decision to cap the United States’ refugee admission program to 7,500 refugees, “an astonishing 94 percent cut over last year and the lowest level in our nation’s history,” the lawmakers wrote on Oct. 31. “To add insult to injury, the administration is skipping over the tens of thousands of refugees who have been waiting in line for years in dire circumstances to come to the United States, and it is instead prioritizing a single privileged racial group—white South African Afrikaners—for these severely limited slots, … while nearly 130,000 vetted, approved refugees—men, women, and children fleeing persecution and violence—wait in limbo after being promised a chance at safety.”
This article appears in Nov 6 – Nov 13, 2025.