Trump’s Foreign Policy Agenda Runs Into Election-Year GOP Angst
Center
Two congressional votes this week offered an early warning sign that President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda faces growing resistance from members of his own party.
Multiple election fraud investigations in California are currently underway with the FBI and the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, as ballot counting for Tuesday's primary election continues. First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said his office is conducting a "comprehensive audit of California’s voter rolls" with the DOJ's Civil Rights Division on Friday.
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As California officials continue to be mocked for the glacier-speed ballot-counting process, the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced several investigations into possible election fraud. Without commenting on any specific allegations, acting U.S. Attorney for Central California Bill Essayli announced Friday that his office, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had opened "multiple election fraud investigations."'We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.' "Protecting the integrity of California’s elections is a top priority for my office," said Essayli in the post on social media. "California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence."The highly anticipated results in two California elections are still in limbo as the ballot count continues. Critics accuse Democrats of stalling the process in order to allow for fraud, but others say the electoral system in California prioritizes ballot access at the expense of delayed results."We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent," Essayli added.Left in the lurch are the candidates awaiting the primary results for the Los Angeles mayoral election as well as the California governor's race. Currently, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt appear headed toward the general election, but as more tranches of votes are counted, the gap narrows for third-place Democratic competitors to steal their spot. The top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the general election.Essayli went on to say they were working to comprehensibly audit the voter rolls. "The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote. This case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal," he added.Video from L.A. County's central processing center, where the ballots are being counted, showed an official from the U.S. Attorney General's Office reviewing and monitoring the effort. RELATED: The man who propelled AOC into Congress fails SPECTACULARLY in race for Pelosi's seat "My office will not look the other way," Essayli concluded. "We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out."On Thursday, Newsom's press office said, "For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too."Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta offered only a brief statement about the announcement."My office has a presence on the ground right now, is monitoring the situation closely, and stands ready to protect voters and ensure California’s election laws are followed," he wrote. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
President Donald Trump is growing "weaker and weaker" by the day, and according to his one-time biographer, this is all being driven by an incurable flaw in his character. Michael Wolff is a veteran reporter and author, best known for extensive coverage of Trump's political career, based on contacts within his inner circle and administration staff. In the latest edition of his Daily Beast podcast, Wolff revealed the essential failing within Trump that is making him weaker on a "daily basis": his inability and unwillingness to change.“Two things are happening at the same time. Donald Trump is not changing,” Wolff explained. “Donald Trump can’t change. Donald Trump can’t fix the situation that he’s in. Donald Trump doesn’t want to. Donald Trump wants to be Donald Trump.”He continued: “That becomes clearer and clearer, which means that the enterprise itself gets weaker and weaker and is, in fact, falling apart. So, we’re dealing with these two things: Donald Trump... and the power that he has, and Donald Trump and the power that he is losing on a daily basis.”Wolff gave the example of Trump giving major administration jobs to "unfit" people because he believes he can get away with it. He specifically highlighted his nomination of Bill Pulte to be the new director of national intelligence, effectively handing control of the world's biggest intelligence apparatus to someone with zero relevant experience. Wolff claimed to have spoken with someone close to Trump, who gave a simple answer as to why Trump is doing things of that nature."I was talking to a Trump guy — you know, someone I regard as basically a decent sort about this — and I was asking how can he hire these people? And this person replied, ‘To show that he can,’“ Wolff said. “It’s all about him. It’s all about the message that he’s sending. So when he appoints these totally unfit people, it’s a message of control and contempt for rules and standards."Wolff noted later that Trump has a simple message for Republicans, Congress, his administration and the rest of the world with his unceasingly bad nominations: "F—— you."“That is elemental to how he sees his administration and how he staffs his administration: I can appoint this person because I can," he said.
The D.C. Circuit is reviewing an injunction issued by a judge who said "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have."
President Donald Trump is desperate to maintain his hold on the Republican-dominated House, so he’s personally fighting for plenty of embattled seats. But some seats are going to be a much harder sell for him and his Republican Party."The Republicans are just in absolutely huge trouble in Wisconsin. I think that more so than any of the polls would say … the fact that all those Republicans are leaving the state Legislature, they're sort of telling us with their actions what they expect," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.Trump is making his first trip to the Badger State since he won here nearly two years ago, visiting one of the nation's few battleground congressional districts, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says he’s coming at a time “when his approval among Wisconsin voters is at an all-time low.“The visit comes at a time when the president's tariffs and recent attacks on Iran have produced gale-force headwinds for Republicans in their effort to preserve their power in Congress and in state government in Wisconsin, an effort made more complicated by the retirements of the Legislature's two GOP leaders and key members of both houses,” reports the Journal.Nevertheless, Trump is planning to discuss agricultural issues during a Friday roundtable event at a farm in Chippewa Falls, which lies in the 3rd Congressional District − a swing district held by Republican incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden. Van Orden's district is one of just 18 congressional districts considered a toss-up in the upcoming midterm election, and the Trump administration heavily focused upon it. The paper reports Trump's visit comes days after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held an earlier event with Van Orden.Van Orden won the district twice, but he defeated his opponent by about 3 points two years ago. Now one of those opponents, Democrats Rebecca Cooke, will be on his heels again this year, if she surpasses Democrat Emily Berge in the primaries.“But the political environment this year favors Democrats, who have won governor races and special elections in other parts of the country since Trump took office,” reports the Sentinel. “In Wisconsin, liberals won a seat on the state Supreme Court in April by a stunning 20-point margin. Republicans did not even bother to field a candidate in another election for a court that the GOP dominated just a handful of years ago.This is a hard fall for a state that voted for Trump in 2024.The Sentinel reports Trump's influence “remains strong among Republican voters – 71 percent said they would vote for a 2026 primary candidate endorsed by Trump. However, it also notes that a nationwide Marquette University Law School poll released two days before Trump's visit to western Wisconsin found his approval rating dropped to 38 percent, the lowest point so far in his second term.
It was always pretty naive to think the ultrarich individuals donating to Donald Trump’s $400 million ballroom project were doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. A new report from the nonprofit government watchdog Public Citizen has calculated that 14 ballroom donors have raked in more than $50 billion combined in government contracts over the last six months. For reference, that’s more than the GDP of countries such as Iceland and Senegal.Not only is the federal government enriching ballroom donors like Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Nvidia, but it is also actively getting them out of legal trouble. Sixteen of the 27 donors, including the companies listed above, are presently involved in some form of federal litigation, including antitrust reviews, securities charges, and labor disputes.But, since you can essentially just bribe the federal government right now, some donors’ charges have now been dropped or reduced by Trump’s Department of Justice.“This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it,” Democratic Representative Mike Levin wrote on X Thursday. “You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.”Trump has repeatedly claimed he needs a new ballroom for security purposes, and has also tried to allocate at least $220 million in taxpayer dollars to the project. (Senate Republicans, likely realizing the unpopularity of the project, eventually scrapped the idea.)Still, the Trump administration continues to lash out at unbelievers. “The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interests, would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Washington Post. “The donors for the White House ballroom project represent a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the People’s House better for generations to come.”If that’s the case, though, why not name these upstanding individuals and corporations? The White House has a fundraising contract that allows for the names of donors to be censored. Trump’s team publicly announced only 21 corporate donors; journalists have since uncovered six more.“The White House won’t even release the full donor list,” Levin concluded. “They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive.”
President Trump, a native New Yorker and self-described Knicks fan, said he was invited to attend a Knicks playoff game by the team's owner James Dolan, who has donated to his political campaigns.
