Editorial Roundup: United States

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

Oct. 2

The Wall Street Journal on Pete Hegseth's “Weirdos” speech

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rolled out several good U.S. military initiatives on Wednesday, and usually the purpose of big speeches is to persuade the public of worthy ideas. Yet Mr. Hegseth seems determined to shrink his support with gratuitous potshots, and that bears on whether the Administration can boost recruitment or confront new technology in warfare.

Mr. Hegseth listed his priorities in “reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military, and re-establishing deterrence,” all good guiding lights. Mr. Hegseth was also on target when he said that the lesson of the war in Ukraine isn’t “that one type of drone wins wars,” but rather the need for a “system that maximizes the ability to adapt.”

Also welcome is a push to institutionalize drones and other unmanned tech into U.S. military planning. Mr. Hegseth says the Pentagon will aim to stand up a four-star command dedicated to autonomous warfare, and an October 2027 target date reflects the urgency. The Senate’s defense authorization bill includes language that supports such a command.

Mr. Hegseth also announced a new project on the future of warfare led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey of Anduril and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. All three are creative thinkers about technology. The next war usually isn’t the one the U.S. is preparing for, and conformity can develop among the brass and bureaucracy about which weapons to buy.

Another line of effort is the Pentagon’s plan to work with universities to expand its officer pipeline, with what Mr. Hegseth calls “America’s corps of cadets.” The first partners are five schools, including Louisiana State University, Liberty University and Hillsdale College.

The details are few, but human capital is an enduring advantage for free societies, and fixing military recruitment means more than signing up enough 18-year-olds to enlist. It requires an officer corps that is well-educated, adaptable and creative.

Alas, Mr. Hegseth couldn’t resist his usual polarizing attack routine against all and sundry, and he even accused the press of “treason” for publishing what’s leaking out of the secretary’s shop. The most remembered line of the speech will be Mr. Hegseth’s declaration that the U.S. military no longer abides “beardos” or “weirdos.” As a practical matter, has he met anyone in defense technology lately?

Voters wanted the Trump Administration to restore and protect the military’s meritocracy, after race and identity excesses in the Biden Administration. Mr. Hegseth has done that. But his shoot-first firings of general officers have exasperated even some Republican Members of Congress, and the public is losing confidence in the project as it descends into debates about testosterone levels.

The stakes are higher than Mr. Hegseth’s own ambitions. The U.S. military is weathering a one-two punch: a major evolution in battlefield technology coinciding with a nadir in conventional forces as Reagan-era equipment retires. Meanwhile, the U.S. must deter two nuclear peer adversaries (China and Russia) as well as deal with their lesser partners in Iran and North Korea.

Mr. Hegseth relishes attacking opponents, and even sometimes allies, as if he’s running a political campaign. But he’s a cabinet officer who needs allies to achieve his military goals.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/pete-hegseth-speech-pentagon-defense-technology-ae974416?mod=editorials_article_pos13

Oct. 4

The Boston Globe says Donald Trump's gutting of FBI's public corruption investigators creates a slippery slope

It’s no secret that President Trump is historically corrupt. In his first year back in the White House, Trump earned more than $2.2 billion — an astonishing and unprecedented figure — in part by leveraging the presidency to draw investors into his businesses. But one of the worst legacies that Trump will leave behind is not just his own brazen corruption, but his tacit encouragement of corruption by other elected officials.

Since 2025, the Trump administration has gutted and dismantled units within the Department of Justice and the FBI that are specifically tasked with investigating political corruption. As a result, enforcement of anti-corruption laws has taken a nosedive.

Here’s the latest known example: According to a recent investigation by ProPublica, the FBI was trying to launch a probe into Maine Senator Susan Collins and one of her top donors — potentially for a case involving criminal bribery. But after Trump returned to the Oval Office and unleashed a retribution campaign, which included purging the DOJ of anyone who had investigated him, the probe was dropped.

To be sure, just because the FBI investigates someone doesn’t mean that a crime was actually committed. Oftentimes, prosecutors don’t gather enough evidence to take a solid case to court. But in this instance, there’s ample evidence that federal law enforcement agencies did not do their jobs to the fullest extent.

According to the ProPublica investigation, the head of Collins’s super PAC, Scott Reed, wanted big donors to contribute to the senator’s 2020 reelection campaign. In a meeting, Reed asked executives from Navatek, a defense contractor, to make a sizable donation. In return, Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, asked that Collins secure millions of dollars in federal funding for his company.

Because federal contractors aren’t allowed to make political contributions, and because what Kao proposed would amount to bribery — a literal quid pro quo — Kao funneled $150,000 to Collins’s super PAC through a shell company, and later told other executives that the senator would get the company $32 million in federal contracts.

The source of these allegations was Kao himself. Eventually, the feds caught on to the CEO, and in 2022 he was indicted by a grand jury for making illegal campaign contributions. In interviews with federal prosecutors, Kao told them about his scheme with Collins’s super PAC.

Collins’s office denied wrongdoing, according to ProPublica, saying that her campaign was not involved in the discussions between Kao and her super PAC. Her spokesperson also told ProPublica that “the Collins campaign disgorged the illegal contributions that Martin Kao had made without our knowledge.”

Still, there are signs that Collins was aware of the contributions. After the super PAC received Kao’s contribution, for example, one of the super PAC’s staffers emailed a Navatek lobbyist, saying, “Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.”

The story here is bigger than Collins; it’s about how soft this administration is on white-collar crime and political corruption. Because of ProPublica’s reporters, we now know of the whole Collins-Navatek saga. But how many people engaging in clear-cut criminal bribery are getting off scot-free?

Trump’s own corruption has already given Americans plenty of reason to lose faith in government. His undermining of federal law enforcement will make it even harder to restore public trust. How could the president, or any official in Washington, expect Americans to trust government when the Department of Justice is turning a blind eye to corruption?

In a system of checks and balances, the Trump administration shouldn’t be able to get away with this. And it’s precisely times like this when Congress should intervene. But given that Congress is controlled by Republicans, there’s little appetite to hold Trump accountable for bad governance.

Fighting corruption, however, should not be a partisan issue. After all, Democrats and Republicans alike have been guilty of corruption. Congress should ensure that federal prosecutors have the capacity to enforce anti-corruption laws and uphold public integrity. Lawmakers can do that by investigating the Trump administration’s gutting of public integrity units within the DOJ and figuring out just how much that has impacted federal law enforcement agencies’ ability to investigate political corruption and white-collar crimes. Those findings should be made public.

Regardless of party, lawmakers should make clear that the new norm the Trump administration has set is unacceptable — that there should be no room for corruption at any level of government. But if they don’t, then the constituents they claim to serve ought to vote them out.

ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/02/opinion/collins-fbi-propublica-trump/

Oct. 5

The Washington Post warns of a post-midterms ICE resurgence

Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders seem to be trying to maintain a lower profile for the agency in the run-up to the midterms, and no wonder. The issue that two years ago helped Donald Trump regain the Oval Office is now, because of ICE’s excesses, dogging Republicans ahead of the Nov. 3 vote. But don’t count on the administration to continue so cautiously after the midterms.

A memo last Wednesday banned ICE officers from undertaking high-speed chases and limited vehicle stops to officers with requisite training. This followed at least four fatal shootings by ICE officers after vehicle stops escalated when drivers didn’t cooperate.

The Daily Wire, a conservative publication, reported on Sept. 26 that ICE officers across the country have been told, for the time being, to stop arresting illegal immigrants without criminal convictions or charges. According to the report, officers were also told to hold off on “collateral arrests,” which occur when agents come across undocumented migrants while pursuing other targets. The Department of Homeland Security called the report “false” and said “no one is off the table.” Border czar Tom Homan then clarified to NewsNation that the administration is prioritizing the “worst of the worst” but that non-criminals are still subject to arrest.

This is the latest manifestation of the push-and-pull dynamic that has existed since Trump returned to power, pitting nativist hard-liners against pragmatists who appreciate the net economic value of immigrants. Depending on who spoke with him last and the politics of that particular moment, Trump himself moves between the two camps.

In July, after back-to-back fatal shootings in Maine and Texas, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE would pause nonurgent traffic stops. But Trump publicly reversed Mullin’s directive the next day, posting on social media that traffic stops are one of ICE’s “most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.”

The clearest manifestation of the internal tension is the trade-off between the quantity of deportations and the quality of arrests. Quotas should never take priority over safe and competent operations. A tailored approach is preferable to a messy dragnet. That’s true for the purposes of public safety, politics and economics.

Polling shows ICE’s overreach has alienated many non-MAGA Republicans. The GOP badly needs these voters to turn out next month, even in Kansas, Texas and other red states. This explains why candidates have started to create daylight between themselves and the administration on the issue.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), unexpectedly vulnerable, is now calling for ICE to coordinate more closely with local law enforcement. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas), in a competitive reelection fight, has started highlighting her efforts to release “dreamers” — recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — from ICE custody. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida), trying to hold a Miami-area district Trump won, aired a commercial last month saying that parts of the administration’s immigration agenda “have gone too far.”

The downstream effects of mass deportations might also be exacerbating the economic headaches hurting the party in power. With high beef prices frustrating voters, for example, meatpacking industry organizations are blaming ICE for targeting workers in the processing chain. The Texas Cattle Feeders Association, the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and the Kansas Livestock Association issued a joint statement on Sept. 24 complaining that ICE operations are leading to shipment delays, which result in lost revenue. Mullin denied carrying out worksite raids in Kansas and said that ICE is “targeting heinous criminals,” but arrests across the three states could cause employees to miss work for fear of being arrested themselves.

Regardless of the outcome of November’s elections, it’s a safe bet that enforcement will become more aggressive during Trump’s last two years in office. ICE has an internal goal of hiring 5,000 more employees by the end of the year, the New York Times reports. This is in addition to the 8,000 new hires since the start of last year, which has brought the total ICE workforce to nearly 30,000.

Most of the fresh recruits are expected to work as deportation officers. It will be challenging to adequately vet and train so many people before deploying them. A hurried ICE expansion would be a recipe for continuing chaos.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/10/05/ice-seems-scale-back-flashy-operations-until-after-midterms/

Oct. 1

The Guardian on Christa Pike and the death penalty

What is the kindest way to kill? That’s the question being asked once more following Tennessee’s failed attempts to execute Christa Pike for the brutal murder of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. The 50-year-old was taken to a medical facility, her condition unknown, with witnesses describing her snoring loudly around 40 minutes after receiving two injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday. It is the second botched killing in months, prompting Tennessee’s governor to order a halt to executions.

Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering.

Pressure from campaigners on pharmaceutical companies has curbed the supply of lethal drugs, but it has not stopped executions. Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for the death penalty has spurred on state officials, with the highest number of executions for 16 years in 2025. Some states have found alternative drugs, which may increase the suffering of those killed. Others are using different techniques. In June, the supreme court stopped Alabama from executing a prisoner with nitrogen gas, which it has used in other cases. The use of firing squads has resurged. Experts say such deaths can be “excruciating”, especially where marksmen miss the heart of the condemned, with allegations that some executions could even have been deliberately botched.

The US is in a shameful minority. Three-quarters of countries have got rid of capital punishment in law or practice – with Lebanon this year becoming the first Middle Eastern country to abolish it.

Only 17 countries executed prisoners last year, though the total number killed rose to more than 2,700 – the highest since 1984. (The figures do not include China, believed to carry out the most executions.) But while Mr Trump and others champion capital punishment, the American public are turning away from it. In 1994, 80% supported it; by last year that had fallen to 52%. A majority of younger people oppose it.

High-profile miscarriages of justice have contributed to growing disquiet. So have cases such as Pike’s. She endured sexual abuse and rape by three perpetrators in childhood, as well as beatings and neglect – yet her experiences and age were not adequately put forward by lawyers at her trial. Her bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed only afterwards. Sandra Babcock, an expert on the death penalty who has acted on Pike’s behalf, argued that her execution would confirm that it was reserved “not for the worst of the worst, but for the most damaged and vulnerable among us”.

The ultimate problem, however, is not that the wrong people are being executed, but that anyone is being executed. The search for a humane way to kill is inherently preposterous. It is not just lethal injection, the firing squad or electrocution that should be rejected – but the death penalty itself.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/01/the-guardian-view-on-the-death-penalty-christa-pikes-execution-was-botched-but-cruelty-is-inherent