Why the California governor’s race could be dramatically upended at the last minute

Thin Senate majorities mean one scandal could paralyze Congress —but neither party cares

A prominent conservative commentator recently argued that Democrats and Republicans are both applying a double-standard regarding seemingly disqualifying scandals for their Senate candidates in key races.“Maine Democratic Senate primary candidate Graham Platner and Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton are different candidates dealing with different scandals,” wrote The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone on Tuesday. “Paxton’s infidelity is not the same as Platner’s, nor is Paxton’s pattern of corruption and other moral shortcomings the same as Platner’s Nazi tattoo and history of racist comments online. I am not equating their wrongdoings, nor do I propose doing so.”Perticone is referring to the reports that Platner — an oyster farmer — had extramarital affairs, supported homophobic and sexist comments online and has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. Paxton has also had multiple extramarital affairs, fired whistleblowers, is accused of multiple financial crimes and participated in Trump’s coup attempt after the president lost the 2020 election. In 2023 he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on abuse of office and bribery charges, although the Texas Senate later acquitted him. Both Platner and Paxton are now considered by polling experts to be potential political liabilities to each of their parties’ chances of controlling the Senate after the 2026 midterm elections.“I asked some senators from both parties, many of whom either jettisoned all principles after coming to Washington or came to power in the first place simply by not having any, whether Americans should demand more of their elected officials on the character front,” Perticone wrote. “Yes, they all seemed to agree: Americans should hold politicians from the other party to a higher standard.” He then cited comments supporting Paxton from Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas as well as Democrats backing Platner including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (technically an independent) and Andy Kim of New Jersey (whose response to Platner was wishy-washy).“Selective moralizing has been around in politics as long as the profession has been practiced. The prominent Republicans who admonished Bill Clinton for his peccadilloes in the 1990s were hardly men of high character themselves,” Perticone continued. “White evangelicals grew more supportive of Donald Trump the more his traditionally sinful behavior came to light. Many Democrats who admonished Trump for his character are now biting their tongue about Platner. That’s the way this stuff goes.”While ha acknowledged understanding why partisans on both sides might support Platner or Paxton despite these scandals, simply because they don’t want their party to lose, he warned there is a practical as well as moral consequence to this attitude.“Candidates like this are still a massive risk, and not just because we don’t know what is yet to come out about either,” Perticone wrote. “Just consider the recent spate of expulsions, resignations, and absences in this Congress alone. Very thin majorities are often just one scandal away from stopping regular business for an entire chamber.”

Pulte appointment to top intel job raises concerns he could ‘politicize’ info getting to Trump

Many of President Trump’s key priorities are facing pushback in Congress. NBC News correspondents Monica Alba, Melanie Zanona and Courtney Kube report on President Trump’s decision to name Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, the DOJ’s “anti-weaponization” fund, and the latest U.S. negotiations with Iran.

What to Know About Xavier Becerra, an Unexpected Frontrunner in the California Gubernatorial Race

Becerra has surged in the polls in California's chaotic gubernatorial primary race, in which more than 60 candidates are vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Todd Blanche kills last remaining hopes for Trump's $1.776 billion slush fund

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche dashed any remaining hopes that the Trump administration would move forward with its plan to create a $1.776 billion so-called "anti-weaponization" fund to pay claims to people who say they were wrongfully prosecuted by the government. "We are not moving forward with the fund," Blanche told the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. Last week, the Trump administration proposed creating an anti-weaponization fund as part of a settlement agreement with the IRS over a case stemming from the 2019 leak of Trump's tax returns. The fund faced immediate and intense criticism from Democrats and Republicans after multiple of Trump's allies said they would seek payments from the fund. CNN's Paula Reid, the network's chief legal affairs correspondent, described Blanche's statements as an "interesting about-face" during a segment on Tuesday's broadcast of "The Arena."

The real story behind the 'murder' of 60 Minutes

CBS News’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, recently announced in an email to staff a major shakeup of the revered broadcast, starting with the removal of “60 Minutes” executive producer, Tanya Simon, for Nick Bilton, who has no experience producing a television news show. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bilton said he was excited “to take what I believe is largely an unutilized news brand and take it into the modern age.”Unutilized? Modern age? “60 Minutes” is the most successful television news broadcast in U.S. history. It has remained the #1 news program for 50 straight years and consistently ranks among the top 10 of all Nielsen-rated television programs. And it pulls in a fortune for CBS. “60 Minutes” is one of the most profitable programs in all of television, generating tens of millions in annual profit for CBS. In one recent year, its advertising revenues were $67.5 million. The network wholly owns the franchise, which makes it a gold mine. It’s the most lucrative and prestigious journalism operation on the network.This goes beyond “if it ain’t broke ….” At a staff meeting yesterday, famed “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” “60 Minutes,” according to an audio recording and a source who was in the room. Others at the meeting applauded. (Scott Pelley gets this week’s Joseph N. Welch Award for truth-telling in the face of tyranny.)I could understand Weiss wanting to shake up, say, CBS’s Sunday morning news program. But why in hell would Weiss want to shake up CBS’s golden goose?One hint: Besides chucking its executive producer, Weiss has also cut ties with “60 Minutes” producers Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. In December, Alfonsi challenged Weiss’s decision to hold a “60 Minutes” segment on an El Salvador maximum-security prison where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, including alleged gang members. Weiss had raised concerns about the comment-seeking process and determined that it needed additional reporting. Alfonsi termed the decision a political move. (The segment, called “Inside CECOT,” eventually ran in January, with some additional material bookending the piece.)Alfonsi calls the network’s decision now to allow her contract to expire “a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting” that “sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”Vega is no less blunt. “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories,” she said in a statement. “Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions…. Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven.”Of course it’s censorship, because CBS is now owned and controlled by Trump pals Larry and David Ellison, who kissed Trump’s assets to get Trump’s FCC chair Brendan Carr to approve their acquisition of CBS from Paramount. Trump’s “fingerprints and DNA are all over this,” veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Croft says. “He’s been making threats against ‘60 Minutes’ and how he wanted it gone. And he finally got his wish.”Trump has fixated on “60 Minutes,” calling the show “a dishonest Political Operative disguised as News.” He sued CBS News over an interview of then presidential candidate Kamala Harris that Trump claimed had been edited in such a way as to hurt his presidential campaign. After “60 Minutes” aired a story about Ukraine and another about Greenland, Trump said CBS “should lose their license.”This much is clear. CBS is being “murdered,” as correspondent Scott Pelley calls what’s happening, not because of economics but because of politics. Economically, “60 Minutes” is a gold mine. Politically, Trump thinks it’s dangerous as hell because it tells the truth about him and his regime, and wants it killed. Bari Weiss knows this. Larry and David Ellison know it. Nick Bilton knows it. Everyone who’s been fired from “60 Minutes” knows this. Trump’s lapdog at the FCC, Brendan Carr, knows this. You need to know this. “60 Minutes” — the most successful television news broadcast in U.S. history — is being dismantled because Trump doesn’t want America to know the truth. It’s the same reason CBS canned Stephen Colbert — because Trump hated Colbert’s truth-telling humor about him. It’s important to see all this as a systematic effort by Trump to silence the truth about what he’s doing to America. Trump’s increasingly corruption — rife with crony capitalism, corporate welfare, and payoffs to the powerful — is producing an increasingly corrupt economy in which everything depends on bribes and personal deals made by the biggest Republican loyalists and grifters, oligarchs and plutocrats, billionaires and multibillionaires, and monopolists.When political and economic deal-making become personal transactions — when greed and payoffs replace trust — what happens?

Republican dismantles MAGA 'sabotage' of 60 Minutes for Trump’s ego

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.”

Blue state governor roasted as ‘arsonist’ putting out her own fire as she blames outside agitators at 'siege'

Gov. Mikie Sherrill blames out-of-state agitators for Newark's Delaney Hall unrest, but critics point to a lack of police presence before clashes.

Can Joe Rogan Save ‘60 Minutes’ or Is It Already Dead?