Politics and views in the United States.

After another campus shooting, President Trump says people, not guns, are the issue. Alaska Sen. Murkowski says Republicans fear Trump's retaliation, and voting rights groups sound the alarm over an executive order on elections.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 talks where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Look, I'm a big advocate of the Second Amendment and these things are terrible, but the gun doesn't do the shooting.

The people do.

President Donald Trump says the shooting at Florida State University that left two dead and six others injured doesn't show a need for tougher gun laws.

Law enforcement said the 20 year old suspect is the son of a sheriff's deputy and used his mom's service weapon in the shooting.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court extended a hold on Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship but also agreed to hear oral arguments next month.

Proponents argue there should be stricter standards for becoming a citizen.

Legal scholars cite the clear language of the 14th Amendment, which has been unquestioned law for more than a century.

Speaking to a group of nonprofit leaders in her home state of Alaska, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski says Washington is in chaos with unpredictable tariffs and scores of executive orders coming from the White House.

She says many in the party are frightened of Trump's wrath.

We are all afraid.

I oftentimes very anxious myself about … about using my voice because retaliation is real.

Murkowski calls on her Republican colleagues to stand up to the president and his advisor Elon Musk.

Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen says he was denied entry to the El Salvador prison holding the man mistakenly deported by the administration.

The Supreme Court has ordered the White House to facilitate Quilmar Abrego Garcia's return, but Trump and El Salvador's presidents say they have no intentions of bringing him home.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act faces long odds in the Senate.

The SAVE Act would require voters to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register or cast a ballot.

But Liz Avor with the Voting Rights Lab says Trump is trying to make it similarly hard to vote through an executive order.

The goal of the executive order was and is to send clear marching orders to the states and also to Congress to tell them exactly what the president Trump wants them to be doing and the states are listening.

Trump administration layoffs of 10,000 health and human services workers include the staff that oversees the low-income energy assistance program.

Mark Wolf with the National Energy Assistance Directors Association says that could stop poor people from getting the heating help they need when the weather turns cold.

Many states have told us that they've either run out of money or they're very close to it and that they need this additional fund to help families pay off the remaining winter heating bill or get ready for summer cooling programs or both.

I'm Alex Gonzalez for Pacific Network and Public News Service.

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