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On Politics

Wed Aug 19 2026

Zachary Schermele | Congressional Correspondent

@zachschermele

Hello, readers. Welcome back to On Politics. Zach Schermele again here, USA TODAY's congressional correspondent, back from a (much-too-short) vacation. Let's get into it.

Trump to nix forest protections

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it's moving forward with a proposal to rescind regulations that for 25 years have shielded millions of acres of public land from development and logging. Nixing the so-called "roadless rule" will help reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health, Trump administration officials said. Montana's Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, praised the plan for taking the "heavy thumb of Washington" off forest management in the state.

Seth Bodnar, a veteran and former college president who's running as an independent in the race to replace Republican Sen. Steve Daines, sees it differently. In a sit-down interview in north-central Montana hours after the proposal was released, he told me exclusively that the "bad decision" could have "detrimental effects" for over 6 million acres of federal public land in the Treasure State. Some environmental groups have noted that humans are nearly always the cause of wildfires and ignitions occur more frequently near roads.

"It's going to have some very negative implications," Bodnar told me. "That rule is very important for protecting habitat. We can't even maintain all the roads that we have on public land currently."

The Reynolds Creek Wildland Fire burns in Glacier National Park, Montana, in this photo taken July 21, 2015.

Erin Conwell, REUTERS

A politics rundown

•	USA TODAY exclusive: MAGA dissidents plot next move after splitting from Trump on Iran
•	Trump put thousands of soldiers on DC streets. They seldom stop crime.
•	Get caught up on last night's Alaska election results

Daily photo gallery: Workers drain Reflecting Pool for critical liner repairs in DC

Graham's 'self-inflicted gaffe'

Sen. Darline Graham had a bad night last night . Graham, who's running to replace her late brother permanently in Congress in November, struggled during a GOP primary debate to answer a basic question about whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues relevant to the United States. "I’m just going to be honest here," she said. "I’m … not that informed on national security, so – but I do support the military." Ralph Norman, a decade-long South Carolina Republican congressman challenging Graham, then swooped in and called Taiwan a "definite ally."

For Graham, the moment was a "self-inflicted gaffe that could prove significant to the primary runoff next week," according to Kirk Randazzo, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. "This is especially true given that her brother, Lindsey Graham, was an expert on foreign affairs and national security," he told me. "It gave the Norman campaign a much-needed point of leverage." Graham advanced last week to the runoff with about 33% of the vote, while Norman moved forward with about 25%.

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Trump to meet with Kim Jong Un

Hoping to revive his first-term push for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, President Trump said today he planned to meet with Kim Jong Un later this year, my colleague Joey Garrison reports. The president, in recent days, has touted his relationship with Kim and directed the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, a U.S. ally that he has pressed to pay more for its defense.