Melania gives Congress private deadline as she works around Trump's team: report

First lady Melania Trump gave Congress a private deadline to pass her signature foster care bill, and she is pursuing it largely outside the usual White House channels, according to a new report in Politico. At a bipartisan roundtable with the House Ways and Means Committee in April, the first lady publicly called foster care legislation a "moral imperative." Then, behind closed doors, she set a target, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) told the outlet: "I want this on Donald's desk by the August recess." The Fostering the Future Act, which expands housing, education and workforce help for young people aging out of foster care, passed the House unanimously.The Senate has not moved it out of committee, and lawmakers are set to leave Washington around Aug. 10. At a White House picnic the day the House passed the bill, both Trumps urged the Senate to hurry. "Hopefully, it will quickly pass in the Senate," the president said. He has not publicly pressed senators since.The deadline reflects a first lady who increasingly operates on her own track. Her office, not the State Department, has led her effort to reunite children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war, negotiating directly with Moscow and Kyiv, the White House said. She has also shown a willingness to diverge from the administration's message. She broke with the White House on Epstein, calling for survivors to testify as the president's team tried to move past the scandal, and last week put her own spin on a Supreme Court ruling her husband celebrated, voicing support for the LGBTQIA+ community.A recent book recounted how she resisted Trump's overhaul of the White House grounds and lost.

Trump Scores Appeals Court Victory in Battle Over National Park Historical Displays

Twelve-yr-old boy stands next to Trump and shares what his school forced him to do

A 12-yr-old boy, flanked by President Donald Trump, shared his story about what a school in California forced him to do during a recent hearing of the […]

Blue states’ gun-banning spree is boomeranging back on them

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Wolford v. Lopez and its decision to take up two cases involving modern semiautomatic firearms Tuesday outline a pattern in which states […]

James Talarico pals around with ‘PEDO PROTECTOR’ who brought a convicted sex offender to a school

Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico not only has a long history of strange comments about trans children and a nonbinary God — he’s now campaigning with Bobby Pulido, who BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales warns is a “pedo protector.”“Bobby Pulido is not just close with James Talarico. Bobby Pulido is besties with the entire Texas Democrat team, I guess, because Bobby Pulido kicked off the entire Texas Democrat convention last week as per his own tweets,” Gonzales says, explaining that Pulido is a famous musician.“In his band, he employs an accordion player by the name of Frankie Caballero. Now, Frankie’s not a good guy. Frankie is in fact a total creep, because you see, Frankie is on the sex offender registry for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old in 2014,” she says, warning that this is the most egregious offense on his lengthy rap sheet.“Be that as it may, the offense wasn’t enough for Pulido to stop touring with him, because both before and after Caballero went to prison for this, for four years, he was touring with the band. He was part of the band,” she explains.And while the band was touring, they headlined an Axios school benefit. So Pulido headlined a school benefit with a registered sex offender.“Children were welcome and present at the event, which was held at the Flores Stadium several miles from the middle school grounds according to the promotional materials. So he’s like, ‘Hey, you just busted out of prison for doing unspeakable things to an 8-year-old child. Want to go to a middle school event with me?’” Gonzales says.“I mean, it takes just the lowest of the low person to do something like that,” she continues.It was until after 2021 that Pulido stopped touring with Caballero, which Gonzales points out was after he pled guilty to assaulting his daughter and “impeding her normal breathing.”While Pulido claimed he didn’t know about Caballero’s prior convictions, Ramon Rodriquez, a south Texas bass player, told the New York Post that he “performed with Caballero as recently as 2020 and that the child sex conviction became ‘a known fact in music circles’ in the immediate years after.”“Seems kind of weird that James Talarico and the rest of the Democrats are hanging their hat on this guy who’s associating with an actual convicted pedophile,” Gonzales says, adding, “That’s what blows my mind.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Some states rolling back worker heat protections

The heat dome encasing much of the eastern U.S. is reviving concerns about protecting workers from the heat. Many states have laws in place but some, including Florida, have rolled them back.

Legal expert shares sobering warning after Trump's big court loss: 'Not the end'

A legal expert shared a sobering warning on Thursday about President Donald Trump's continued efforts to dismantle birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court rebuffed his latest attempt. Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, told Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of "The Intersection" podcast, on a recent episode that the Trump administration's birthright citizenship case was "just the tip of the spear." Last year, the administration signed an executive order stripping birthright citizenship from people who are born in the country but whose parents are here illegally. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that the executive order was unconstitutional. Wofsy warned during the interview that the Supreme Court's decision is not the end of the road for the Trump administration's efforts. "What cases like the Birthright decision show is that we can keep fighting and we can win these fights," Wofsy said. "There are battles so fundamental and central to who we are as a country that we can overcome.""I hope that gives some hope to those who may be feeling a little hopeless in this moment, but I also don't want to at all undercut that this is an incredibly frightening and demoralizing time for so many people in our communities," he continued. "This is an example of our allies, our communities, the American people, who stood up and said no to this idea of rewriting a fundamental constitutional guarantee, and we held the line in this case," he added. "It's an example of why we have to keep fighting, but it is by far not the end of the fight."

Storms splitting around White House UFC fight was ‘pretty damn awesome’: Dana White

UFC CEO Dana White and President Donald Trump met in the Oval Office to strategize about possible weather delays moments before Trump gave the all-clear to “load the arena,” according to a new documentary about the production of the UFC’s Freedom 250 event at the White House. The event proceeded with only minor delays despite […]