Reporter's Notebook: Senate Republicans brace for tough lunch with Trump amid legislative clashes
President Trump visits Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet Senate Republicans amid growing tensions over the SAVE America Act and filibuster demands.
Texas Democrat James Talarico's website once promoted his support for "trans kids" and "bold, progressive ideas." That was then. Around the time he launched his Senate campaign in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to the upper chamber since 1988, that changed, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Today, as Talarico tries to break the Texas Democrats' dry spell, his campaign website makes no mention of his "progressive" values. The post Texas's Talarico Scrubbed Website of Statements Supporting 'Trans Kids' and 'Bold, Progressive Ideas' Ahead of Senate Run appeared first on .
President Trump visits Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet Senate Republicans amid growing tensions over the SAVE America Act and filibuster demands.
Texas Attorney General and Republican nominee Ken Paxton pushed ahead of his general election contender, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, in a new poll published Tuesday as the two face off in a highly contested U.S. Senate race. A poll conducted by the University of Texas in collaboration with the Texas Politics Project showed Paxton […]
As New Yorkers head to the polls Tuesday, incumbent Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat is fighting to retain his party’s nomination against a Mamdani-backed challenger.The 71-year-old was first elected to Congress in the 2016 election, representing a district that encompasses northern Manhattan and a section of the west Bronx. 'I forget to get napkins. So I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.'“I'm the first undocumented, formerly undocumented member of Congress. I'm the first Dominican American member of Congress in a city that has a million Dominican Americans,” Espaillat said.Despite his membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and classification as one of the most liberal House members, he doesn't seem to have been adequately radical enough for Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his fellow democratic socialists. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a community organizer and the daughter of Dominican immigrants, is challenging Espaillat for the seat. Avila Chevalier is positioning herself as a further-left alternative to Espaillat, claiming on her website that she has received endorsements from Mamdani, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, and former House “Squad” member Jamaal Bowman.Espaillat, by contrast, has the support of establishment New York Democrats such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul. “I am someone who has been organizing for over 14 years in our community, and I have to ask: Have things gotten better in our community under our current leadership?” Avila Chevalier said last week in a primary debate. In a recent interview, the 32-year-old stood by her belief that “all deportations are wrong,” even for those convicted of violating American criminal law, calling it “double jeopardy.” Avila Chevalier is also behind a plethora of tweets from a since-deleted X account that featured statements such as: "It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,” “I forget to get napkins. So I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” and one calling the Democratic National Committee a "big fraudulent white nasty status quo bitch.""I have grown considerably since in the years since these tweets, and I am focused on our community and our community’s future," she said about the deleted social media account.Avila Chevalier has narrowed the polls leading up to the election. According to the New York Times, recent polling shows Avila Chevalier with a lead as high as four points and Espaillat with a lead as high as eight points.Bettors on Polymarket seem to have confidence in Espaillat, placing him at a 66% chance of winning, compared to Avila Chevalier’s 37%.RELATED: New York Democrats get annihilated with backlash after revealing which World Cup team they're rooting for This primary standoff represents just the latest battle between the Democratic “mainstream” and the rising socialist sect of the party. As of 2025, there were 250 democratic socialists in elected office, compared to just 35 in 2017. These offices are not exclusively low-level either. Janeese Lewis George, who just secured the Democratic nomination for D.C. mayor, is a democratic socialist, both New York City Mayor Mamdani and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson are democratic socialists, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who just advanced to the general election for her city’s mayoral race, is a DSA member as well.Espaillat, as a seasoned politician, has gone after Avila Chevalier for her lack of governmental experience: “This is not a PhD program. This is government. And you need experience.”Avila Chevalier has focused much of the debate on Israel and American aid to the country. During a debate, she attacked Espaillat for receiving money from AIPAC and “voting to send our tax dollars to a country that is enacting a genocide.”However, Espaillat has swung back, highlighting Avila Chevalier’s attendance at a controversial pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas-led attack on Israel."In Congress, she'll take on corporate greed, bad landlords, and D.C.'s broken political system," Mamdani said in support of Avila Chevalier's candidacy.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
In 'very narrow circumstances' teams are allowed to have messaging on uniforms
If the chaos of this last year and a half week has shown us anything, it’s that every distraction Donald Trump has manufactured to stop people from talking about the Epstein Files has failed spectacularly. The UFC fiasco kicked off a week that ended with a full surrender to Iran at Versailles, which was glaring enough. But the Reflecting Pool scandal has also been an excellent visual metaphor representing all of Trump’s failures to distract from his entire administration’s involvement in the biggest political cover-up in American history. From his initial “I have the best pool guy” promise to calling the algae-green swampwater “American Blue” to pieces of the bottom literally peeling off, it’s just the latest example of Trump never once delivering on his promises, and then shifting the blame to anyone else he can when he fails. He’s seriously blaming “vandalism” for all of the issues when he’s the vandal. Trump also revealed his brand-new Air Force One, a bribe gift from Qatar that he turned into yet another grift on the American taxpayers. His predecessors managed just fine on the current AFO, but, then again, we’re talking about the same guy who had Jeffrey Epstein’s legendary Lolita Express repainted instead of just borrowing a plane from some rich friend of his. The audacity of this is staggering. Astonishingly, no one from the Harris/Walz campaign pointed out that Trump was flying around inside a crime scene. When I found out about it, I screamed into the abyss of Twitter to beg them to make a “Black Lights Matter” joke or SOMETHING to call attention to Trump’s decades-long friendship with the world’s most notorious dead pedophile and his partner-in-unspeakable-crimes, Ghislaine Maxwell.I tried my best to warn MAGA as well, but it’s fine, what do I know about politics? It’s not like he’s repeatedly blasted them for wanting him to deliver on his campaign promise to release the full Epstein Files. Oh, wait. Yes, he did.And for a moment, it seemed like the biggest MAGA accounts on Twitter were ready to finally start acknowledging what we’ve known all along. But he somehow fooled them again and again, and you won’t be shocked to learn that those and other paid MAGA shill accounts are back to either calling the Files a “hoax” or saying they’ve been fully released, which we know isn’t true.Nothing they say or do will get us to stop talking about the Epstein Files. You can count on me to stay on this story until the Trump regime actually complies with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, instead of continuing to violate it every day for the last 210+ days. The top news story every day should be that JD “Vladimir Futon” Vance led a secret staff meeting in the SITUATION ROOM nearly a year ago to discuss how to better cover up the Epstein Files to protect Trump, rather than seeking justice for any of the victims and survivors. Aside from the egregious misuse of the Situation Room, we know the entire administration is involved. Of course, that’s kind of tough with so much of the media under Trump’s sway while he continues to bully anyone who dares to tell the truth about him or ask any questions that might force him to think about things he doesn’t want to think about. We now know that FBI was told that Trump Tower was a “hunting ground” for “recruiters” to find young women for him to have sex with. And thanks to yet more bombshell reporting, we’ve also learned that at least three million more pages of Epstein documents are still being held back by acting AG Todd “Trumpsimp” Blanche, who seems super excited to be the first to go to prison for Trump. Blanche will once again face questioning by the Senate, and I was fortunate to grab a moment with my Senator, Ron Wyden (D-OR), on Friday after a press conference centered around Juneteenth and Pride. “Sen. Chutzpah” is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee and also sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, among his many other responsibilities. He promised me last year that he’d never give up on Epstein, and he continues to deliver on that promise, as evidenced by his most recent questioning of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He also ripped Bessent over the latest Trump grift that was created to enrich his two older adult sons.As Wyden and I walked out of the press conference, I quietly asked him about the Situation Room meeting. “Wasn’t that something?” he replied.“So, what people want to see is accountability,” I said. “Do we have to wait until Democrats get the majority back before that happens?”“Nope!” Sen. Chutzpah immediately responded. He then told me that more hearings were coming, and specifically mentioned Blanche. As I said, he’s been good about delivering on his promises, and I have no reason to doubt him now. The issue we currently face with Epstein is keeping the story at the top of a news cycle that’s already full of Trump’s other failed attempts at distracting from Epstein.
The Tartan Army took South Beach on Monday. More than 8,000 Scottish soccer fans took over LoanDepot Park as the Marlins hosted the Rangers two days before Scotland faces Brazil in a crucial match in their final World Cup group stage match. The traveling group of Scottish soccer fans traversing the United States for Scotland’s...
The Democrat running for outgoing Texas Sen. John Cornyn's seat wants to turn Jesus Christ into Karl Marx and the Trans Agenda Into Gospel.
An invitation to Donald Trump to sit down with Republican members of the Senate for a luncheon on Wednesday came with warnings from a handful of attendees that they have no intention of being bullied into proceeding with his GOP election bill known as the SAVE America Act.According to Politico reporting by Jordain Carney, several outgoing GOP senators who have clashed with Trump are planning to attend the closed-door lunch—convened by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL)—to deliver "a reality check" to the president about the futility of his elections bill crusade.Senate Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump's fixation on the elections bill and are openly questioning aspects of his Iran deal and, according to the report, are well aware of his habit of blindsiding them with sudden policy reversals which are undermining their ability to preserve their Senate majority in November.Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who recently lost his bid for a fifth term to a Trump-endorsed challenger, is signaling he'll be there to make clear that things are not going well for the bill and the party, telling reporters this week "I'm going to be there front and center. It will be important if it actually is a constructive exchange of different opinions, and hopefully we can all get on the same page. Right now, we're not in a great place.""I've been around here long enough and been through enough battles and counted enough votes to know that it doesn't just magically occur, no matter how much you wish it would happen," he warned.He won't be alone. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA)—both departing the Senate in part due to Trump-backed primary opponents—said Monday they will also attend and urge Trump to "move on.""I'm a co-sponsor, but it doesn't have the votes, and so it's time to talk about something else," Cassidy bluntly suggested.Tillis agreed and added, "We need to be honest with the president. So why don't we spend more time being productive about how we communicate, when we communicate, and get some of these very pressing issues done?"According to Politico's Carney, the vote math is brutal and unforgiving. Test votes on the SAVE America Act have failed to attract more than 48 supporters, though a narrower voter ID bill managed 50 votes—still far short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a certain Democratic filibuster. Several GOP senators, including Mitch McConnell (R-KY ) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), have objected to "the precedent the bill would set by nationalizing election procedures."When asked about eliminating the filibuster to pass the bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) acknowledged it's a non-starter. "It does always come back to the math. And there just aren't the votes to do it," he said.