Inside the DSA’s push to remake the Democratic Party

Ruairi Arrieta-Kenna | August 20, 2026

Greetings, readers of The Brief! Today we take a deep dive into the democratic socialist movement’s momentum. We also look at the dilemmas airport gate agents are facing when ICE agents ask for their help in detaining passengers.

Plus: New research on how carbon in the air is affecting our insides—and be sure to play the latest Linked!

IN TODAY’S BRIEF

ICE at airports
Border battle
Trump’s aide in the spotlight
Bad for the blood
‘Summer of socialism’
Nuclear numbers
Harsh reality

READ THIS FIRST

ICE is asking gate agents to help arrest passengers. Some are pushing back

Zhang Fengguo/Xinhua—Getty Images

Laurie was on her way to a gate at the airport where she worked as a manager when a colleague called with a warning: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had turned up again and were asking airline staff to help locate a passenger.

She had years of experience cooperating with federal law enforcement. But the encounters she was accustomed to followed a protocol: airline managers were notified in advance, officers arrived in uniform with their badges visible and judicial warrants were presented for passenger arrests. (Laurie asked TIME to use a pseudonym because she fears government retaliation and was not authorized by her employer to speak publicly.)

Multiple gate agents working at airports in Colorado, Texas and Arizona have told TIME that ICE agents have become a recurring presence in recent weeks. Gate agents say officers have asked them to help identify or locate passengers, provide information from internal airline systems and grant access to restricted areas such as jet bridges and, in some cases, aircraft.

With protocols for handling such encounters unclear or inconsistently applied, airline employees like Laurie say they are increasingly being left to decide for themselves how to respond. —Philip Wang

IN THE NEWS

How one small section of Trump's planned border wall became the center of a big battle

Kaylee Greenlee—Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s administrations have overseen construction work on hundreds of miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. But one small portion of the planned wall—stretching merely 17 miles—has become the center of a hard-fought battle.

That section of the project, which extends across challenging terrain in Texas’ Big Bend National Park that has historically seen relatively few attempted border crossings, has faced pushback from everyone from public lands advocates to congressional lawmakers to local residents.

The Trump Administration has been pushing the construction of the border wall in Big Bend despite the public outcry, going so far as to bypass a score of environmental laws to expedite the project. But on Monday, after months of opposition, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott announced that CBP had paused “all construction” in the park while he visited the site to conduct a “personal, on-the-ground evaluation.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also said on Monday that he had spoken with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who Abbott said had “committed” to not building “a wall or a fence” in Big Bend. Abbott said there were “other tools” to ensure border security. —Connor Greene

IN PROFILE

What to know about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp

Mandel Ngan—AFP/Getty Images

A previously little-known White House aide has garnered growing public attention in recent days after Sen. Jon Ossoff mentioned her while leveling an attack on President Donald Trump.

The Georgia Democrat said that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” of president. Instead, Ossoff continued, “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie.”

Ossoff was referring to 35-year-old Natalie Harp, a longtime aide to Trump. When asked about Ossoff’s comments, Trump likened the Democrat to “Pee-wee Herman” and said he “would much rather do other things.”

So who is Harp, and what is her role in the White House? Here’s what to know. —Chantelle Lee

HEALTH CHECK

How climate change is messing with your blood

Photo-Illustration by Chloe Dowling for TIME (Source Images: quantic69/Getty Images, Luke Sharrett—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere do a lot of damage—heat waves, droughts, wildfires, superstorms. Now it appears there’s another knock-on effect that had never before been measured. According to a new study in the journal Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, the changing chemistry of the atmosphere could be leading to changing chemistry in our blood—with potentially dangerous effects.

If CO2 is indeed messing with our blood, it’s no wonder. During the early rise of Homo sapiens, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere measured a consistent 280 parts per million (ppm). Those conditions prevailed until roughly the middle of the 18th century when the Industrial Revolution began pouring greenhouse gases into the air from factory smokestacks. By 1900, CO2 levels had risen to nearly 300 ppm; by 1980, that figure had jumped to nearly 330 ppm. Since then the numbers have exploded, standing at 425 ppm today.

That’s very bad news for the health of the planet—and equally bad for the health of our bodies. Every breath we take—indoors or out—draws in more carbon dioxide than our bodies were originally adapted to cope with. —Jeffrey Kluger

IN FOCUS

Inside the DSA’s push to remake the Democratic Party

Photo illustration by Mark Harris for TIME

Phones rise across the room as Chris Rabb steps to the front. It is the second day of the national summit for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in Chicago, and Rabb is fresh off an upset in a Democratic congressional primary outside Philadelphia that launched the movement’s summer winning streak.

“All right, comrades,” Rabb says, using the group’s preferred form of address with a satisfied grin. He then tells the room what he thinks is happening. “I’ve never, ever felt this level of electricity,” Rabb says. “Do not take this for granted. Do not let people try to gaslight you and tell you you do not have power.” The room erupts.

There is plenty feeding the confidence. By the time DSA members gather in Chicago in early August, Republicans are gleefully calling it the “Summer of Socialism.” The organization’s membership has surged past 120,000. Its candidates and allies have toppled establishment-backed Democrats in congressional primaries from New York to Colorado to Florida. Zohran Mamdani, a longtime DSA member, is running New York City. Socialists have captured or are poised to win mayoralties in Seattle and Washington, D.C. DSA could enter the next Congress with its largest contingent ever. DSA member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a way-too-early favorite in the notional 2028 Democratic presidential primary, according to prediction markets. “This feels like seeds that were planted years ago are now bearing fruit,” says Ashik Siddique, DSA’s national co-chair.

For a movement that counted only a few thousand members a decade ago, the transformation is remarkable. Bernie Sanders made democratic socialism legible to millions of Americans; AOC gave it a younger national face; Mamdani demonstrated that a socialist could defeat the Democratic establishment, govern a major city, and then help elect more socialists behind him. But with the midterms looming, the question is now how far the model travels. —Nik Popli

ONE NUMBER

57

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” a surprisingly precise number for something that’s not publicly known. South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told South Korean lawmakers on Thursday that North Korea is believed to have 80 to 120 nuclear warheads.

A VIRAL MOMENT

Duffy as dad

The Department of Transportation released on YouTube on Wednesday six episodes of “The Great American Roadtrip,” a reality show starring Secretary Sean Duffy and his family. In one clip, Duffy pushes back against his teenage daughter’s aspirations to go to Harvard, telling her, “If I send you there, I think what happens is, they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good, young girls like you and, I think, corrupt their minds.”