For Luke Bryan, inspiration for a song can come from anywhere, at any time. The country star recently joined Second Lady Usha Vance on her podcast, “Storytime with the Second Lady,” where he opened up about how some of his best ideas come from simply living life.
Especially when it comes to writing country music, Bryan says that the best way to find an idea is to “live your life, cherish every day, and appreciate the sun going down.” Sometimes those little moments and emotions are all it takes to spark an idea and eventually build out an entire song.
“Through the years, some of my best songs have happened from just a little thing that a stranger said on the street to me,” Bryan explained.
Luke Bryan, Second Lady Usha Vance; Photo Courtesy of YouTube
He went on to say that he actually experienced something like this recently when a friend texted him about his chocolate lab, Choc.
“Now I’m building a song around what he text messaged me. So songs can pop up in many different forms, and so you just got to be ready to capitalize on the idea,” he added.
When Vance asked if it’s likely that fans will get to hear a song about Choc soon, Bryan said, that they will “definitely probably hear about my mischievous chocolate lab…we’re in the works writing that song now.”
The Georgia native’s love for songwriting dates all the way back to his childhood. He recalls his first introduction to writing songs being for his church youth group.
“I would take country music songs that were really, really popular and you recognize the melodies and I would put them under a Christian theme or something that would work in church.”
Now more than two decades of making music for a living and becoming one of the biggest names in the business, Bryan has learned just how powerful a simple idea can become. That’s a lesson he hopes to pass along to kids as he encourages them to embrace their creativity and find their own ways to tell stories.
“One of the best analogies when you’re writing a song is you go in and you write and nothing’s there. And then when you’re done, something is created and born. So I think anytime you can dive into a writing creative process, whether it’s songs or books or little stories or even on a camping trip, making up fun little ghost stories around a campfire was something that we used to do and stuff like that’s fun to really allow kids to express creativity.”
Luke Bryan wrapped up his time on the podcast by reading the children’s book, Spidey and His Amazing Friends: The Lost Web Shooter! Even though it’s been a few years since Bryan has had to read to his own kids, he was excited about the opportunity to speak to his storytelling skills while trying to inspire the next generation.
Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, third from left, speaks at a gubernatorial candidate forum on Sept. 16, 2026, while former Attorney General Treg Taylor, Anchorage business owner and talk-show host Bernadette Wilson and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson listen. The forum was held by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association and the organization’s annual conference in Girdwood. Taylor, Wilson and Bronson are Republicans. Kreiss-Tomkins is a Democrat. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In a candidate forum Thursday, three of the four candidates to be Alaska’s next governor voiced support for a long-debated plan to restructure the Alaska Permanent Fund in order to permanently cap the amount of money that can be spent from it without a statewide vote.
“You’ve got to protect the Permanent Fund. You simply have to,” said Republican candidate and former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, speaking at the Commonwealth North forum.
Bronson referred to the Permanent Fund as “one of the two big engines” driving the state’s future. The other, he said, is developing Alaska’s natural resources.
Created in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund has been the No. 1 source of revenue for state services and the annual Permanent Fund dividend since 2018, when legislators and then-Gov. Bill Walker enacted a law that automatically diverts a portion of the now-$88 billion fund to the state treasury annually.
Even in years like this one, when oil prices are high and the state’s oil revenue booms, the annual transfer is worth more than oil and all other taxes combined and accounts for more than half of the state’s general-purpose revenue.
Currently, the Permanent Fund is divided into two parts. There’s the constitutionally protected corpus, which can only be spent via a statewide vote, and the earnings reserve, which collects the investment earnings of the corpus.
Money in the reserve can be spent by a simple majority vote of the Legislature and the assent of the governor.
Currently, only the 2018 law restricts spending from the earnings reserve, and that law is a flimsy limit — it could be overridden at any time by the Legislature and governor.
The trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund have advocated that the two funds be combined into one, both to prevent overspending and to eliminate the possibility of the earnings reserve being drained, which would cause an instant state fiscal crisis.
“I think this is arguably the single most important question laying in wait for the next governor and the forthcoming Legislature,” said Democratic candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. “I share Mayor Bronson’s belief that the Permanent Fund is a cornerstone of the state, and it is the single most important reform I want to pass as governor, working with the Legislature.”
Merging the two accounts would require a constitutional amendment. That needs the assent of two-thirds of the state House and two-thirds of the state Senate, plus a majority of voters in a statewide general election.
While serving as a member of the state House, Kreiss-Tomkins proposed such an amendment. His proposal passed through two legislative committees but was never voted upon by the full House or the full Senate.
Other, similar amendments have also failed to reach a vote of the House or Senate for two main reasons.
First, legislators would have to agree on the size of the Permanent Fund spending cap. Over the past eight years, the fund has struggled to earn enough money from its investments to make up for the annual transfer.
But reducing the size of the transfer means less money for services and dividends.
In 2025, state budgeters estimated that reducing the transfer by half a percentage point would open a $380 million gap in the budget. Reducing it by a full percentage point — to a level common in trust funds — would require finding $760 million per year in new revenue or cost cuts.
The second issue is the Permanent Fund dividend. Currently, legislators split the annual transfer from the Permanent Fund on an ad hoc basis, deciding each year how much to spend on dividends and services.
In practice, the Legislature has followed a “surplus dividend” strategy, setting the amount of the dividend based on what’s left over after services are paid for.
As operating costs have risen, the amount of money left for the dividend has shrunk. Some legislators now believe that without a policy change, the dividend is on course to disappear by the end of the decade.
State law mandates that dividends be paid using a specific formula in state law, but legislators have ignored that formula since 2016, and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the legality of that approach.
“I’m going to fight like hell for that Permanent Fund dividend,” Wilson told Alaska Public Media in August.
She said she feels strongly about the issue because resources in Alaska are collectively owned by the state’s residents.
“It has nothing to do with the amount of a check. It has everything to do with the fact that Alaskans own the rights to those resources. And when you concede on that Permanent Fund dividend, you’re not just conceding on the amount of a check. You are conceding on the very idea that Alaskans no longer own those resources,” she said.
While permanently capping spending from the Permanent Fund does not directly alter the amount of the Permanent Fund dividend, it does eliminate a way to pay for larger dividends. Lawmakers who want larger dividends would have to either find new revenue or cut services in order to make money available for the dividend.
Some legislators have proposed that any revised structure for the Permanent Fund transfer reserve a portion of the transfer for dividends specifically, effectively guaranteeing a minimum payment.
Former Alaska attorney general Treg Taylor, speaking at an event in Kodiak, said he sees the Permanent Fund in the same way as the state’s fisheries — a resource that must be handled carefully in order to stay renewable.
Overfishing, or overspending, could endanger it.
“I think we have to lock up the Permanent Fund,” Taylor said, reiterating his position at this week’s Commonwealth North forum. “We have to protect that corpus. If we do not, there’s so much — I mean, JKT had it right. There’s just too much temptation to raid that. We’ve got to lock it up because that is our future.”
Fishing boats line a dock at Kodiak’s St. Paul Harbor on Oct. 3, 2022. Fishing issues have become a top campaign issue in the race between U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and his challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Fish are central to Alaska’s economy, Indigenous cultures and identity.
With critical salmon runs in Alaska rivers struggling, commercial operators squeezed by higher costs and stiffer market competition, fish are now at the center of the hard-fought campaign for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat.
For Democratic challenger Mary Peltola, who is seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the fishing issues are deeply personal.
She is Yup’ik, grew up in rural Western Alaska on the Kuskokwim River and, as she has explained many times, has been fishing since she was 6 years old.
“I’m the only candidate on this stage who’s an Alaskan fisherman. Fish is in my blood, earned over generations on the water,” she said at the Sept. 12 fisheries-focused debate held by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce.
Sullivan is emphasizing his record after 12 years in the Senate, which he said resulted in 63 bills signed into law so far, many of which concern fisheries, and has secured generous appropriations for agencies that support the industry, like the U.S. Coast Guard.
“Our fishermen deserve relentless focus and action, not just talk,” he said at the Kodiak debate.
According to the information clearinghouse govtrack.us, Sullivan was the prime sponsor on 31 bills that have been signed into law during his tenure. Over his career in the Senate, he has been a cosponsor of more than 1,800 pieces of legislation, according to congress.gov, the online database for the nation’s legislative branch.
In comparison, Peltola was the prime sponsor of two bills that were enacted during her two years in the House, though her bills were converted into provisions that passed as parts of larger legislation, according to govtrack.us. During her tenure, which started with a special election victory in 2022, she was a cosponsor of 348 pieces of legislation, according to congress.gov.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, shakes hands with former Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, at the Sept. 12, 2026, fisheries debate held by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce. (Photo by Brian Venua)
Battle over bycatch
At the top of the Peltola-Sullivan fish fight is the hot-button issue of bycatch, or the interception of salmon and other nontarget species in the nets deployed by the huge trawling vessels that harvest pollock and other groundfish species in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Many in Alaska blame the poor conditions of certain salmon runs and declines in halibut and crab stocks, at least in part, on trawler bycatch. The issue has divided fishery sectors and regions.
For Peltola and Sulivan, the fight over trawl bycatch has been particularly bitter, with attacks on each others’ characters.
As Peltola and her supporters describe it, Sullivan is in the pocket of out-of-state industrial fishing corporations that contribute to his campaign but hurt Alaskans.
“CASHING IN. . .WHILE ALASKANS PAY THE PRICE,” says the website of a political action committee backing Peltola. “Dan Sullivan is looking out for his rich donors – and it’s costing us.”
As Sullivan and his supporters describe it, Peltola, is dishonest, unaccomplished and, despite her Yup’ik heritage, has sold out to Lower 48 liberals.
“When you don’t have a record to run on, YOU BUILD YOUR CAMPAIGN ON LIES,” says a special Sullivan campaign website called peltolalies.com. It features images of two prominent New York Democrats, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The prominence of the fish debate in this year’s Senate race is unusual, said Brett Watson, a University of Alaska Anchorage economist and natural resource expert.
Watson, affiliated with UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research, has been working on Alaska natural resource issues for about a decade. “I don’t recall a time over that period where these issues have played such a central role in a statewide or federal campaign,” he said.
He believes that the intensity of the fight over trawlers and bycatch may reflect larger social trends that go beyond fish.
A bumper sticker attached to a pole in downtown Seward, seen on June 27, 2026, carries an anti-trawl message. Bottom trawling, which uses nets that sweep across the bottom of ocean, has drawn particular opposition from small-scale Alaska fishermen and environmentalists. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
There is widespread skepticism of large corporations, sentiment that coincides with specific concerns of people like Indigenous subsistence fishers on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers and some broader concerns about the environment, he said.
“It’s been kind of an emerging theme in populist-type politics maybe over the last 10 years or so that combined with, obviously, issues related to bycatch: subsistence harvest, sport harvest, commercial harvest, etcetera,” he said. “It has increased that issue’s salience to the level that we see it at today. I wonder if that’s maybe the secret sauce here.”
Gunnar Knapp, a retired UAA economist and emeritus ISER professor who is considered the dean of Alaska fishery economics, said he has also been struck by the role the issue is playing in the campaign.
“I think everybody agrees, certainly including these two candidates, that bycatch is undesirable, particularly of halibut and salmon,” Knapp said.
But in the heat of the campaign, “it’s harder to hear what either candidate is specifically saying,” he said.
Peltola, who is reviving her past “Fish, Family, Freedom” campaign slogan, is using some tough rhetoric.
She calls for full ban on factory trawlers, ships that combine harvests with onboard processing at sea, though she has also been careful to distinguish between out-of-state operators, not small Alaska-based operators.
“Our fight is not against small and mid-size boats that keep communities like Kodiak strong. It’s against the out of state corporate greed that leads to wanton waste and damage to our sea floor,” she said at the Kodiak debate this month.
Sullivan has been touting his official actions over the years, most prominently a bill he introduced this year that cleared the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
In one of his trademark “Hey Alaska” videos, posted Wednesday on social media, Sullivan called his Bycatch Reduction Act “the most comprehensive trawl bycatch reduction bill, really, ever.”
Signs seen Feb. 7, 2026, at a room in the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center used by tribal organizations attending the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting. The groups won a victory at the meeting when the council approved its first-ever numerical caps on bycatch of chum salmon in the Bering Sea trawl harvests. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
“This is a really important issue we’ve been working on for a long time in different areas,” Sullivan said in the video, which shows him exiting a hearing room and talking as he walks — similar to his other “Hey Alaska” videos. “This bill I think’s going to have a hugely positive impact for Alaskan communities for our fishermen, for our Native populations.”
The bill is among several actions that Sullivan points to as his work to reduce bycatch.
He also takes credit for the first-ever numerical caps on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council approved in February. He “went to the council last year to get the Western Alaskan chum bycatch limit implemented,” he said at the Kodiak debate. “That was another area where I was leading.”
There are areas of overlap between the Sullivan and Peltola bills, notably financial support for bycatch-reducing technology. But Peltola’s bill prioritized smaller operators, with vessels under 65 feet qualifying for the funding. Sullivan’s bill has no such priority.
Peltola’s bill drew opposition from trawling associations, indicating that it was tougher on the industry than Sullivan’s bill, which has drawn no significant industry opposition.
Much of Peltola’s advocacy for bycatch limits focused on her efforts to update the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the main law that governs seafood harvests in the nation’s federal waters.
Those efforts predate her election to Congress, and they have been largely from the perspective of subsistence harvesters in Indigenous communities in Western Alaska — like her own family — rather than the commercial industry.
As executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, she articulated those concerns at a 2021 subcommittee hearing of the U.S. House Resources Committee.
“We are only trying to feed our own families. We’re down to 20% of what we historically harvested. We do not contribute anything to the gross domestic product or ex-vessel value. We’re just trying to feed our families,” Peltola said at the hearing.
Fish-themed posters for Mary Peltola’s Sente campaign are seen on Sept. 16, 2026. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaksa Beacon)
Peltola led the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission from 2017 until 2022. The organization focuses on tribal comanagement, research, rural advocacy and fish conservation. At the time Peltola testified in 2021, House members were considering bills sponsored by the late U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, to update and reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens act.
The act passed initially in 1976. It established the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone in which foreign-flagged vessels are prohibited from harvesting fish. It has been periodically updated through reauthorization, including with a name change that honors the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. But the last time that happened was 2006.
When Peltola was in the House, she joined with Huffman to try to pass reauthorization bills. Their legislation had provisions to protect subsistence users.
One such provision would have added tribal seats to both the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Fishery Management council, which has jurisdiction over U.S. West Coast waters. Her approach, as detailed in past bills, would also enshrine protection of subsistence — the traditional harvests for personal consumption — as a duty of the councils. On bycatch, there were provisions in the bill she cosponsored for expanded use of salmon-protection technology and for removal of the phrase “to the extent practicable” in the wording concerning bycatch controls.
Sullivan, however, has warned that an election victory by Peltola would, by helping Democrats take control of the body, elevate the power of senators from Washington state, where the trawling industry is based. He referred obliquely to Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the committee that oversees fishery policy.
“My opponent would empower a Seattle, Washington-based senator to be the next chairman of the Commerce Committee. Any opportunity to get bycatch bills passed, including mine, would be automatically undermined if you had the chairman of the Commerce Committee being from Washington State,” he said at the Kodiak debate.
Knapp said the logic of Sullivan’s argument “cuts a little each way.”
If Democrats win a majority in the Senate, “Alaska might want to have a Democrat in there, influencing how that works, rather than somebody who’s shut out from it,” Knapp said.
Regardless of who is in leadership, bycatch is a concern in all coastal states. In areas from New England to Hawaii, bycatch is described as a major problem. Fishery managers, fish harvesters and conservationists are engaged in numerous projects to prevent incidental harvests of different types of fish, birds, mammals and sea turtles.
Fish-themed mailers urging support for incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, are seen on Sept. 18, 2026. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Even in Washington, where large trawling companies are based, there are conflicts over bycatch occurring in the West Coast groundfish harvests. Bottom trawling, the practice of using nets at the sea floor, is banned in internal Washington state waters and in most of the federal waters off Washington, Oregon and California. In Alaska, where bottom trawling does occur in a small percentage of state waters a bill that would have banned the practice in state waters failed to pass the Alaska Legislature this year.
International issues
Sullivan and Peltola also clash on the international aspects of Alaska’s fisheries.
Sullivan is a Marine veteran who has made national defense a major focus of his 12-year tenure in the Senate.
At the Kodiak debate, he took full credit for keeping Russian fish out of U.S. markets, saying his achievement in office included “single-handedly banning Russian seafood imports.”
Knapp said Sullivan deserves some credit for the import ban on Russian seafood that competes with Alaska seafood.
“There have been several issues that are related to Russia, and that, certainly Sullivan has worked hard to address these,” Knapp said.
But the import ban was a group effort, and it was rolled out in stages.
In 2014, President Barack Obama, along with the European Union, imposed sanctions on Russia because of that country’s annexation of Crimea. In 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning all imports of Russian seafood into the U.S. In 2023, Bident used a follow-up executive order to close a loophole that had allowed Russian-origin fish to get to U.S. markets through third-party countries, mostly China, where that fish was processed.
The executive order achieved goals spelled out in legislation sponsored by both candidates. Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, sponsored a bill in the Senate that would close the China-processing loophole, and Peltola joined with Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, in sponsoring a House version.
Alaska’s seafood industry has been battered in recent years by several forces that put it into a “tailspin,” as one state legislative leader put it in 2024. Among the contributing factors have been glutted markets for salmon and other fish, low prices, high costs, climate change-related stock declines and other problems, including problems with salmon markets. The industry lost an estimated $1.8 billion from 2022 to 2023, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analysis.
Russia played only a small part in that, Knapp said.
“What you might call ‘Gunnar’s Rule No. 1 of Salmon Markets’ is that, any given time, there’s about a dozen different factors affecting the salmon market,” he said. That includes exchange rates, tariffs, farmed fish production, the size of runs in Bristol Bay and other Alaska sites and myriad other factors, he said.
Signs for and against Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, are seen in South Anchorage on June 9, 2026. Sullivan’s critics have accused him of failing to push back against actions by President Donald Trump that they consider to be bad for Alaska. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Sullivan has also singled out China as a threat to Alaska because of what he described as unsustainable fishery practices.
At the Kodiak debate, he cited his work on illegal and unreported fisheries occurring in international waters. A bill Sullivan cosponsored with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and numerous members from both parties addresses what is known as “illegal, unreported and unregulated” fishing, or IUU.
But to Knapp, who listened closely to the Kodak debate, Sullivan’s attacks on China were a bit surprising.
“I was puzzled by what he was referring to,” Knapp said.
Unlike Russia, which is a direct competitor to Alaska, China is a “major market opportunity for all kinds of seafood.”
Watson had similar observations.
China is “not just a place where we send our fish to be reprocessed. That is an opportunity for a new final demand market,” he said. Incomes in China are rising, making Alaska seafood potentially attractive to consumers there, he said.
President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China has disrupted efforts to achieve that, however.
“It’s really when China retaliates against us that causes the most acute pain for the industry,” Watson said.
China in 2023 and 2024 was the largest buyer of raw Alaska fish by volume, but almost all of that was for processing and shipment elsewhere, according to the most recent annual seafood industry report by the McKinley Research Group.
Competing signs in the same Midtown Anchorage yard, seen Aug. 7, 2026, support the candidates for U.S. Senate in Alaska: incumbent Dan Sullivan, a Republican, and challenger Mary Peltola, a Democrat. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Tariffs pose big problems for the Alaska seafood industry, the report said. “Alaska seafood’s reliance on global markets leaves the industry acutely vulnerable to the direct consequences of new U.S. import tariffs and, even more so, the indirect consequences of retaliatory actions by trade partners,” it said.
So far, Sullivan has steadfastly supported Trump on tariff policies, even diverging on that subject from Murkowski, his Alaska colleague.
He continues to align himself with Trump. On his campaign website is a photo of himself standing with the president and giving a thumbs-up sign. And Trump is planning to travel to Alaska to campaign for the incumbent senator.
Peltola and the Alaska Democratic Party have faulted Sullivan for his support of both tariffs and the U.S. war in Iran. Those international actions have jacked up costs of fuel and other necessities, pinching fish harvesters and all Alaskans, she argues.
“We are being priced out of petroleum, and we’re being priced out of our lives in Alaska, because of the war in Iran,” she said at the Kodiak debate.
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola speaks to audience members at the Sept. 12, 2026, fisheries debate held by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce. Peltola is trying to unseat Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. (Photo by Brian Venua)
Budgets, jobs and climate change
The Peltola campaign and the Alaska Democratic Party are tying Sullivan to another Trump policy that has been unpopular among fishing-dependent Alaskans: slashes to fishery science and the federal workforce that performs it.
At the Kodiak fisheries debate, Peltola criticized Sullivan for supporting “draconian” cuts to NOAA through an initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk.
The “Department of Governmental Efficiency,” or DOGE, imposed cuts that compromised NOAA’s ability to gather information needed to manage fisheries sustainably, she said.
“We are flying blind without the surveys and the research that NOAA does,” she said at the Kodiak event.
The cuts also affect the National Weather Service, putting Alaskans in danger, she said.
“We live and die by federal agencies and the federal employees who keep those agencies going,” she said. Sullivan “went right along with all these DOGE cuts, mowing down federal employees that we rely on.”
As of the end of 2025, Alaska had lost 101 NOAA employees, according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. That was part of a Trump administration purge that resulted in a federal workforce in Alaska that was about a tenth smaller at the end of 2025 than it had been at the start of the year, according to the department’s analysis.
Watson, who has partnered with NOAA experts for several years, said he has felt the impacts personally. “Many of my contacts that I had prior to 2025 no longer work at the various NOAA offices for which I collaborated with,” he said.
NOAA is not the only fishery-related federal agency in Alaska sustaining deep cuts.
A photo of Sen. Dan Sullivan making a thumbs-up gesture as he stands with President Donald Trump is featured on the incumbent’s campaign website. (Photo from dansullivanforalaska.com website)
The U.S. Forest Service, which is also responsible for fishery research and habitat-protection work, suffered deep cuts as well, according to the state analysis. In recent years, the Tongass and Chugach National Forests provided habitat for about a quarter of Alaska’s commercial salmon harvests, as well as habitat for sport and subsistence harvests, according to a Forest Service study. But the agency lost 180 employees in 2025, according to the state analysis.
In March, Sullivan spoke favorably about the DOGE initiative at his annual speech to the Alaska Legislature. In that address, he said the DOGE cuts were “making some noble progress” in reducing the national debt.
Musk, through his political action committee, is supporting Sullivan’s re-election campaign and those of other Republicans in close Senate races in other states.
While Sullivan’s critics have blasted him for his strong allegiance to Trump, the senator has repeatedly characterized his ties to the president as beneficial to Alaska.
When it comes to fisheries, that resulted in the Trump administration creating an Office of Seafood in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Sullivan said at the Kodiak event. That seafood office was created in connection with a 2025 Trump executive order aimed at achieving “American seafood dominance.” Much of the executive order directs federal agencies to loosen environmental protections to allow for bigger commercial seafood harvests.
A plan to enshrine the Office of Seafood in the Agriculture Department is proposed in a wide-ranging farm bill pending in Congress, Sulivan said. He took credit for that: “I wrote a lot of this to help our fishermen,” he said.
Sullivan has also defended his record on NOAA funding.
At the Kodiak debate, he said he is “a strong supporter of our surveys” and was able to help secure an additional $10 million in the last budget for NOAA to conduct those. He spoke about supporting over $100 million over the years for NOAA’s ocean acidification research.
He said he “provided pushback on the Trump administration on surveys as it related to the Oscar Dyson,” a NOAA research vessel.
DOGE-related firings put Oscar Dyson operations in jeopardy last year. But the ship managed to conduct its 2025 surveys and is operating again this year. It will go on hiatus after this season and be upgraded through a $95.4 million contract awarded by NOAA in June of 2025, for which Sullivan, at the Kodiak debate, took credit.
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, listens to keynote speaker Natasha Singh on Oct. 16, 2025, the first day of the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage. At the convention, which was held months before Peltola announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate, the former House member made a speech about subsistence traditions. Peltola, who is Yup’ik, is the first Alaska Native to have been elected to Congress. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Trump administration has consistently sought to make deep cuts to NOAA, but Congress as a whole has resisted those.
The Congressionally approved budget for the current fiscal year includes $6.17 billion for NOAA, $1.67 billion above what the Trump administration had requested. That total was about the same as the previous year’s appropriation, though a reduction from the year before, according to Congressional records.
The Trump administration is still pushing for deep cuts at NOAA.
The administration’s request for the coming fiscal year proposes a $4.54 billion budget for the agency, with elimination of several programs important to Alaska fisheries and coastal communities. Among those are the National Estuarine Research Reserves System, which operates in Kachemak Bay, and the national Sea Grant program, which is important to the University of Alaska. The administration is seeking to cut spending on several other programs related to fisheries, including the marine observer program and a 20-year-old program that provides funding for technology to reduce fishery bycatch.
The Trump administration’s plans for NOAA reflect the president’s approach to climate change. He has repeatedly dismissed it as a “hoax.”
In contrast, both Sullivan and Peltola indicated in a lightning round during the Kodiak debate that they believe climate change is a problem for Alaska fisheries.
To Knapp, Trump looms over the Peltola-Sullivan contest.
“At stake in this election are vastly different ideas about the direction of the country and, and in particular, about the direction that President Trump is taking us,” Knapp said.
Even though he finds the debates about fishing interesting, Knapp said he hopes voters will consider more pressing issues.
That is true in the gubernatorial race, where there are stark differences in candidates’ approaches to budgets, education and other broad subjects. And it may be even more so in the Senate race, which could tip the national balance of power, he said.
“The issues are so much bigger than our Alaska fisheries,” he said.
A fishing vessel is docked in Seward is reflected in the water on June 26, 2026. Economic pressures and environmental disruptions converged in recent years to put the state’s seafood industry into a “tailspin,” as one legislative leader put it. (Photo by Yeeth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
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Jennifer Eckhart, a former Fox Business producer who became known for a highly publicized legal battle with former Fox News anchor Ed Henry, has died at the age of 36.
Eckhart was found dead at her home in Martin County, Florida, on Saturday, September 19, according to a report from TMZ.
Martin County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Christine Christofek said Eckhart appeared to have died by suicide.
The circumstances surrounding her death have not been fully detailed publicly.
TMZ reports that a pocket knife was found by Eckhart’s body.
Eckhart spent several years working behind the scenes at Fox, eventually becoming an associate producer at Fox Business.
She later left the network and built a new career as the host of the podcast REINVENTED, which featured conversations with people in business, sports, and entertainment who had overcome significant obstacles.
The podcast’s most recent episode was released in March and featured former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
But Eckhart’s name became widely known in 2020 after she filed a lawsuit accusing Henry of sexual assault.
Eckhart alleged that Henry sexually assaulted her during their time working together and said she feared his position at the network could damage her career.
Police tape hangs across the street in front of a house. (Photo by Larry W. Smith/Getty Images)
Henry denied Eckhart’s allegations and maintained that their relationship was consensual.
Fox News fired Henry in July 2020 following an investigation into a complaint involving alleged sexual misconduct.
Eckhart’s legal battle continued for years, with her claims against Henry eventually being settled. Her separate claims against Fox News were dismissed, with a federal appeals court later upholding that outcome.
Eckhart continued speaking publicly about her experience after leaving Fox. In a 2020 interview, she described feeling afraid to come forward while working at the network.
In the years that followed, however, she appeared to be focused on building something beyond the legal case that had brought her national attention.
Through REINVENTED, Eckhart interviewed prominent figures about setbacks, career challenges, and starting over. The show’s concept mirrored the path she had taken herself, moving from television production into podcasting and creating a platform of her own.
Now, news of her death has once again placed Eckhart’s name in the spotlight — this time for a deeply tragic reason.
Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts or a mental health crisis can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
ALL EYES ON GRACIE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to sit down with President Donald Trump at Gracie Mansion this afternoon, their third in-person meeting in less than a year and the latest wrinkle in one of the strangest relationships in American politics.
Since Mamdani’s first, shockingly cordial meeting with Trump at the White House last November, political observers have scratched their heads about the democratic socialist mayor playing nice with the Republican president despite their deep disagreements on … just about everything. Ostensibly, Mamdani is putting his personal distaste for Trump aside and betting it’s best for New York City to keep things cordial so as to avoid drawing the president’s ire.
But as resistance to Trump remains animating for Democrats nationally ahead of November’s midterms, Mamdani’s strategy for engaging with him stands out.
Earlier today, Gov. Kathy Hochul made clear that she, for one, has no plans to meet with Trump while he’s in New York. “I speak to him on the phone whenever I need to,” she told reporters in Manhattan.
Hochul, who’s facing reelection in November and tends to directly criticize Trump more frequently than Mamdani, said it was her understanding that the mayor agreed to host the president at Gracie Mansion during a previous conversation at the White House.
“The mayor and [Trump] said that when he’s back in town again, he would go to Gracie Mansion,” the governor said. “I don’t have a Gracie Mansion to invite him to.”
Still, Hochul said there’s an opportunity for Mamdani to use the Gracie confab to push Trump on releasing federal funding for New York, including for law enforcement, that she said the president’s administration has been withholding.
“We have to continue fighting for what New York needs,” she said.
Mamdani’s office wouldn’t say who requested today’s meeting or share specifics about the expected focus in advance, only saying the mayor will talk to Trump about “issues affecting New York City.” A Mamdani spokesperson said the mayor will elaborate on what was discussed at a post-meeting press conference that Trump isn’t expected to attend.
After the appointment at Gracie, Trump is slated to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron before headlining a couple Republican fundraisers. By contrast, after his Trump tête-à-tête, Mamdani will have dinner with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s in the city to headline a United Nations Charter event this evening that will also feature pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a person familiar with the plans who was granted anonymity to discuss them told Playbook.
The Queens-born Trump is in town ahead of his Tuesday address to the United Nations General Assembly.
Maintaining a relationship with Trump isn’t without risk for Mamdani.
As Trump remains deeply unpopular amid the war in Iran and other controversies, some Democrats are privately questioning why the mayor sees a need to keep interacting with the president. But so far, Mamdani hasn’t faced any significant pushback from his hard-left base over his engagements with Trump, with leaders of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America largely viewing it as the mayor acting in the city’s best interests. — Chris Sommerfeldt and Madison Fernandez
From the Capitol
EYES ON AI: Hochul floated requiring safeguards like an artificial intelligence “kill switch” as part of state-level interventions to address the rapidly evolving technology.
During a Monday event in Manhattan rolling out next steps for enacting the RAISE Act, New York’s landmark AI safety law that is set to go into effect in January, the governor said she’ll “look closely at additional ways to build on” the legislation — including AI kill switches “if they’re deemed feasible and in the best interest of our state.”
The governor in recent days has vowed to take additional AI-related actions beyond the RAISE Act, but has not specified what that might look like. Her suggestion of a kill switch comes days after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to explore such a requirement for AI companies’ most-advanced models.
Some in the tech industry have argued implementing one is not technically feasible. Federal legislation to enact a kill switch requirement is currently stalled in Congress.
When asked to expand on the prospect of requiring a kill switch, Hochul said that “all options are on the table,” but wasn’t making a commitment.
“We’re going to do the research and make the decisions that are thoughtful to protect New Yorkers,” she said. “We’ll go as far as we need to to protect people of this state and ultimately this country in the absence of other leadership.”
MORE BLAKEMAN MONEY: Billionaire former casino developer Steve Wynn has donated $1 million to the main super PAC supporting Republican Bruce Blakeman’s gubernatorial bid, records filed with the state Board of Elections this morning show.
The committee, Strong and Safe New York, has now raised $5.3 million since July.
Wynn has been a top donor to national Republican causes for over a decade. His most recent large donations in New York came last year, when he gave $361,000 to the state GOP and $500,000 to a super PAC boosting Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral bid. — Bill Mahoney
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
ENDORSEMENT CORNER: Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) endorsed GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in his reelection campaign in suburban New York, Golden wrote in an opinion article published Monday.
Lawler is facing a tough reelection campaign against Democrat Cait Conley in one of the biggest House battlegrounds this November. The lawmakers have previously collaborated to advance the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, and are both members of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus.
Golden, who is not running for reelection, was one of two House Democrats to break with the party and twice vote in favor of the Republican legislative agenda earlier in September.
“Mike Lawler has been a true partner to me and a friend to fishing families he will never represent,” Golden wrote. “I strongly back him, and I hope voters send him back to work. Wherever you live, find the members who pass laws with the other party, and keep them.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the cross-aisle endorsement a “smoke and mirrors ploy” that “will do nothing to change the outcome of the race.”
“In desperation, [Lawler] is peddling an 11th hour endorsement from a retiring Congressmember who represents an out of town district more than 400 miles away,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Mike Lawler is an unadulterated phony who has never shown bipartisan courage when it matters.”
ON THE AIRWAVES: With fewer than 50 days to go before Election Day, House Democrats’ main super PAC is making its first TV ad buy in support of Conley on Monday.
The House Majority PAC said it is reserving $1.2 million on cable in the Hudson Valley contest. (An additional $1.2 million is going toward fighting Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s re-election in New Jersey, which is also covered by the New York City media market.) HMP said earlier this year that it didn’t include the high-dollar NYC media market in its initial reservations because it was “prioritiz[ing] markets where rates increase significantly.”
Republicans have been largely outpacing Democrats in NY-17 on the ad spending front, thanks to significant buys from super PACs backed by the president and House leadership. From the beginning of September through Election Day, the GOP has placed $15 million on ads across broadcast, cable, CTV and digital platforms, according to ad tracker AdImpact.
The new HMP spend is the biggest from an outside Democratic group so far, but still leaves a large gap between the parties. Democrats have placed around $3 million on advertising in the period between September and Election Day, with the largest chunk coming from the Conley campaign. — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
IN OTHER NEWS:
— JUDGES CASH IN: Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders have raked in $190,000 in contributions from judges and judicial candidates since 2012, raising some ethical and legal concerns. (New York Post)
— AFFORDABILITY AHEAD: Anthony Shorris, the mayor’s new pick for the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, laid out a vision for solving the city’s affordability crisis that goes beyond Mamdani’s vision for five city-owned grocery stores. (The New York Times)
— BUY NOW, PAY LATER: The Mamdani administration is pushing Albany for tougher ‘buy now, pay later’ regulation, as many New Yorkers use the plans to pay for basic essentials, sinking deeper into debt. (amNY)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
We’ve never heard a song like this from Luke — or maybe even in country music at all — before. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
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