Voters cast ballots in several states as California governor primary goes down to the wire – live
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California voters must decide top two candidates to advance in governor’s race; Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico also hold primariesSign up for the Breaking News US emailCalifornia elections: governor, LA mayor and Congress at stake Californians are frustrated and underwhelmed as they head to the polls to cast their ballots in Tuesday’s primary election, where voters will eliminate all but two candidates in the volatile race for governor, the messy battle for Los Angeles mayor and a series of high-stakes congressional contests.In the marquee race to succeed term-limited Democratic governor Gavin Newsom a trio of new surveys shows Democrat Xavier Becerra pulling slightly ahead as progressive Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton scrap for the second-place spot to advance in the state’s nonpartisan primary. Continue reading...
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will testify before a House Appropriations Committee panel on Tuesday afternoon on oversight of the Justice Department. The hearing comes as the Trump administration has faced heavy scrutiny over its $1.776 billion compensation fund, which would help settle claims between those who say the government wrongfully prosecuted them. The “anti-weaponization”…
Bill Pulte, who does not have any national intelligence experience, is nicknamed ‘Little Trump’ among some Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence has set off alarm bells in Washington, as a staunch Trump loyalist with little government experience who has shown an eagerness to retaliate against the president’s political rivals will now sit atop the US intelligence apparatus.Pulte, whose grandfather started PulteGroup, a major residential homebuilder, had no government experience before Trump appointed him to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), an under-the-radar regulator that oversees the government lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Shortly after arriving at the agency, he began to gut it, firing sizable chunks of the boards of both and appointing himself as chair. Pulte had no government experience before being appointed to the role and does not have national intelligence experience. Continue reading...
President Donald Trump has announced who will replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.Gabbard announced her resignation as DNI last month after serving in the office for a year and a half. She cited her husband's "extremely rare form of bone cancer" diagnosis as the main reason.'Bill is a great guy who recognizes that the bureaucracy of the intel community must respond to the elected leadership.' Now, Trump has appointed William Pulte to take her place as acting director.Pulte was the head of Pulte Homes, the third-largest homebuilder in the U.S., with billions in revenue, before he was picked by Trump to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency."I am appointing the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, William J. Pulte, to serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday."William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago," Trump added.Pulte used the resources of the FHFA to find evidence of alleged mortgage fraud committed by some of Trump's most vehement political enemies, including Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).Some Democrats cited those investigations as evidence that Pulte will do the same as DNI."I will be a hard NO on FISA Section 702 reauthorization," wrote Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California in a statement on social media. "Whether or not the totally unqualified and corrupt Bill Pulte gets confirmed, trump’s nomination of Pulte has already shown trump would have no problem with weaponizing intelligence against Americans he doesn’t like."RELATED: Pulte calls for investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell — and for his removal Vice President JD Vance praised the decision."Bill is a great guy who recognizes that the bureaucracy of the intel community must respond to the elected leadership (rather than the other way around). He'll do great!" he wrote on social media.For the time being, Pulte will serve as acting director. He will need Senate confirmation to become the official director.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
At the end of this month, Tulsi Gabbard steps down as the director of national intelligence, following a bumpy 16-month tenure as our nation’s top spy. Gabbard was an unconventional fit, as a Democrat opposed to most foreign wars. In President Donald Trump’s second term, with its multiple military operations around the globe, she became […]
Last week, the broadcasting world was shocked by the sudden firing of two correspondents and key production staff at the legacy news program 60 Minutes. Now, the figure behind the shakeup — CBS News chief and MAGA media personality Bari Weiss — is being accused of attempting to “sabotage” the show for the benefit of President Donald Trump. While such accusations may be expected from liberals, even conservative voices are slamming the “shameful” decision. “There are many words that can be used to describe 60 Minutes: Venerable. August. Excellent. Important. Beloved,” writes longtime Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. “But since the purchase of CBS News by the Ellison family, another word belongs on the list: Sabotaged.”As Schmidt suggests, under its new ownership, CBS News — and as a result, 60 Minutes, which is part of CBS — has been reworked in a way that critics say is a blatant effort to support Trump’s political project. After its purchase, Weiss — an opinion journalist with no experience in broadcast news — was appointed to helm the organization, and since then she’s raised many eyebrows with her decisions. The latest involves the firing of anchors Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega and executive producer Tanya Simon, who were replaced by Nick Bilton, who, like Weiss, also has no background in TV news. This has prompted no shortage of outrage, including from those on the right. Says former Fox host Megyn Kelly, Weiss is “loathed” for her actions. And according to Schmidt, the program has been “assaulted with malicious intent by new corporate leadership that appears determined to gut one of the last remaining institutions in American journalism in order to satisfy a corrupt political arrangement with Donald Trump.”“The destruction isn’t accidental,” asserts Schmidt. “It’s deliberate. It’s strategic. It’s ideological. It’s transactional.” As he noted, 60 Minutes has long been known as a serious program where facts and credibility mattered. “That is what is being destroyed for no reason beyond the insatiability of Trump’s ego.”Shortly after the firings were announced, it was revealed that longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley had subsequently laid into Weiss and Bilton, accusing the former of trying to “murder” the show and arguing that the latter has “slender” qualifications for his new job. “Scott Pelley represents the tradition that built the program,” says Schmidt, explaining that he got to know him while staffing for Senator John McCain, whom Pelley interviewed. “There was no performance. There was no ideological hysteria. There was no narcissism. There was no branding exercise. There was no desperate attempt to become the center of the story. There was journalism. There was rigor. There was seriousness.” Schmidt notes that while Pelley has never made his politics obvious, “The same obviously can’t be said for Bari Weiss.”“Her ideological agenda radiates from every pore of her public conduct,” Schmidt claims. “Her loyalties plainly do not include CBS News, 60 Minutes, institutional integrity or the preservation of a shared factual reality. She’s not a steward. She’s a vandal. Additionally, she’s staggeringly incompetent.”Schmidt argues that while many viewers have tuned into 60 Minutes for decades, watching with a trust that was “earned through excellence, not algorithms,” and “through reporting, not branding,” “now Bari Weiss has effectively stolen something Americans love in order to help deliver profits to the son of one of the richest men in the world, while accommodating the demands of an American fascist who despises the First Amendment, and views journalism as an enemy to be subdued.”According to Schmidt, “America is living through a period during which many of its most important institutions are being hollowed out from within by weak people desperate for proximity to power, and terrified of losing money.” Furthermore, “What’s happening at CBS News isn’t merely a business story. It’s a warning story. It’s a story about how institutions collapse. Not all at once, but piece by piece. Compromise by compromise. Coward by coward.”“Americans should understand clearly: when journalism dies, corruption flourishes,” concludes Schmidt. “And that’s why what is happening right now at CBS News should outrage every American who still believes truth matters in a free society.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin is testifying in front of a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday about his department’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security is requesting $118.4 billion in overall funding for fiscal 2027, starting Oct. 1, as proposed by the White House. Nearly $23 billion of […]
Donald Trump’s attempt to insert Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA) Director Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Tuesday could run into a legal roadblock according to MS NJOW’s Ken Dilanian, with Republican lawmakers also questioning whether he should hold the job.According to a report from the New York Times, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), James Lankford (R-OK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are questioning his stunning lack of experience in intelligence matters.As Dilanian pointed out, that lack of experience runs afoul of the law that created the intelligence gathering department after the 9/11 attacks.Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he explained, “This is really an incredible development. Bill Pulte is an investment guy, he's a real estate guy. He has not only no intelligence experience, [but] no foreign policy experience. And we should remember there is a provision in the law; this job was created after 9/11, remember, to knit together strands of intelligence and connect the dots and there's a provision in the authorizing legislation that requires that the person holding this job has significant, substantial intelligence experience.”“When Tulsi Gabbard was nominated for this role, a lot of people believed that she didn't fit the bill, but at least she had been a military officer and a member of Congress,” he recalled. “I don't even know if Bill Pulte has a security clearance right now. And this role, this job, this person gets access to some of the most sensitive intelligence that the U.S. government collects. The biggest secrets, just incredible things, sensitive compartmented programs, need-to-know things that only a handful of people in the government know — and now Bill Pulte will know them.” - YouTube youtu.be
Dr. Mehmet Oz sidestepped questions on Tuesday about President Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, the homebuilder and director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to serve as acting head of the nation’s intelligence services, saying he trusted the president’s judgement. Oz, who serves as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, received multiple…
