Representative Mike Levin

09/04/2026

Here’s an idea:

When service members and military families raise disturbing concerns about conditions aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, fix the conditions. DON’T go after the journalists who reported the facts.

Yet last week, three journalists from Stars and Stripes were fired for reporting about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Now they’re alleging the Pentagon retaliated against them for defending the paper’s independence.

Stars and Stripes exists to tell our service members the truth about their military, including when that truth is uncomfortable for the people running it.

The Pentagon’s job is to answer serious concerns about the welfare of our troops, not make journalists think twice about reporting them.

Turning an independent military newspaper into a political mouthpiece is completely unacceptable. The brave men and women who serve our nation deserve independent journalism they can trust, not government-sponsored propaganda shaped by what Pentagon leadership wants them to hear.

The ousted publisher, editor-in-chief and a senior reporter say their firings violated their free speech rights as well as a law regulating government administrative policies.

09/03/2026

Give me a break.

You genuinely expect us to believe you have absolutely no connection to the company you used to run, that your sons now run, while that same company is actively doing business with and benefiting from government contracts and decisions made by the Commerce Department you now control?

I mean, come on. Do you hear yourself?

09/03/2026

The President does not get to spend taxpayer money however he wants.

Congress decides what gets funded, and the President is required to follow those appropriations decisions. That is not optional.

Donald Trump doesn’t get to make up his own budget, ignore what Congress passed, or move money around wherever and whenever he feels like it.

Congress already has the power to stop him. The problem is my Republican colleagues have spent this Congress refusing to use it and letting him get away with it.

If we take back the gavels, that changes.

That means investigations, hearings, subpoenas, and the kind of real oversight my colleagues seem to think is optional. These things are not optional. It’s their JOB.

09/03/2026

There is a whole lot that we need to be questioning about Trump’s Venezuela oil deal, because the closer you look, the shadier it gets.

First, Trump says taxpayers won’t be on the hook for the money needed to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure. Great. Then Republicans in Congress should have no problem passing my bill that would put that promise into law.

But here’s what you should know: independent analysts have found that, without public subsidies, aka your taxpayer dollars, there isn’t enough incentive for oil companies to invest in Venezuelan oil production.

Second, take a look at the billionaire oil businessman that the Pentagon is partnering with, because this is where the alarm bells start getting louder and louder. His name is Alejandro Betancourt, and he’s been investigated for money laundering in Switzerland, Spain, and the United States. Trump’s State Department is backing him, and has even pressured foreign governments to scale back their investigations and travel restrictions on him.

Third, this isn’t some quick fix to lower your gas prices. Experts have been telling us for MONTHS that oil production in Venezuela isn’t going to lower U.S. gas prices anytime soon. So anyone promising this deal will fix prices at the pump is selling you straight lies.

And fourth, Trump keeps going on about how this deal will help refill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but guess what? It can’t. Venezuelan crude is much heavier than the oil the reserve is designed to store, making it fundamentally impossible.

So let’s recap here. Trump’s “big win” of a deal has shady written all over it. It won’t lower your gas prices or refill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And the economics are so questionable that without pouring millions of your taxpayer dollars, oil companies don’t have enough incentive to make investing in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure worthwhile. This Administration can promise taxpayers won’t pay until they’re blue in the face. Until that guarantee is written into law, I’m not taking their word for it.

The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, founded by the Biden administration to give loans to bolster the U.S. defense industry, is helping lead President Trump’s oil deal.

09/03/2026

Either we will end corruption or the corruption will be the end of us.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS. You heard that right. One BILLION dollars of anonymous dark money is already flooding into the 2026 midterms, and chances are that’s an underestimate.

We can’t fully trace it. We don’t know who’s behind most of it. And the loopholes have gotten so bad that groups can spend millions before an election and reveal their donors only AFTER people have already voted.

Citizens United opened the floodgates to unlimited outside spending, and it won’t stop unless we stop it.

You, the American people, have a right to know who is spending millions of dollars trying to influence your elections.

We need more transparency in our elections, not less.

At least $1 billion from anonymous donors is flowing into the midterm elections. Dark money is not new, but it now permeates nearly every major contest.

09/02/2026

My office is closely monitoring the Gibby Fire in South Orange County, east of Rancho Mission Viejo. We are in contact with local officials and will continue to provide updates as the situation develops.

There is a shelter-in-place order for the Orange County area designated as ORT01. Please check your local public safety channels, as well as the Watch Duty app, for the latest information.

To the firefighters and first responders on the ground, I join a very grateful community in thanking you for all that you do to keep us safe.

If you are in the area, please follow all guidance from local fire authorities.

09/02/2026

Who’s going to tell them that Biden isn’t the president and hasn’t been for 2 years.

09/02/2026

And people wonder why this man filed for bankruptcy, not once, not twice, but SIX times...

09/01/2026

It’s all so sick and twisted.

In a room full of Republican state attorneys general, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly told them to back off on regulating prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

But just in case you’ve forgotten, Don Jr. is a paid advisor to Kalshi, and he’s invested double-digit millions into Polymarket through his venture capital firm and sits on its advisory board.

Meanwhile, Trump has been gutting the agency responsible for policing crypto and prediction markets, and it’s not hard to figure out why. His family profits directly from both.

You tell me if this isn’t exactly what they’re going for: the President’s son tells state attorneys general to stand down while his father, the President, decimates the federal agency responsible for regulating from within, and ultimately the industry they profit from ends up accountable to absolutely no one.

A legal dispute over the future of Kalshi, Polymarket and others has drawn in the Trump administration, the president’s son and nearly every state attorney general.

09/01/2026

Our national parks belong to the American people. Not to Trump, not to developers, not to whomever is willing to pay the highest price for it.

This isn’t the first time private developers have tried to purchase land from our national parks, but it is the first time that the President of the United States is actively going to bat for a private developer, pressuring the National Park Service into selling public land to create “rare private access” to the park.

And just wait until you hear who the buyer is. You guessed it, yet another one of Trump’s donors.

It’s despicable. Yosemite is NOT theirs to trade away.

The National Park Service is under pressure to make an unprecedented deal that cedes a quarter-mile strip of the park.