Tag: cory booker

Leading Senate Democrat tells Fox News ‘it’s time … for new leadership,’ as Schumer faces growing pressure

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MANCHESTER, N.H. – Amid a rising tide of calls from House Democrats and others in the party to remove Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., from his longtime post as Senate Democratic leader, a top Democratic senator says it’s time for “new leadership” in the party.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, speaking one-on-one with Fox News Digital during a stop in New Hampshire, said it’s also a moment for a younger generation of Democratic leaders to “step up the stage.”

Booker was interviewed on Friday, four days after seven Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the party, bucked Senate Democratic leaders and voted with the majority Republicans to end the longest federal government shutdown in history.

Plenty of progressives and center-left Democrats have pilloried the deal to end the shutdown, which didn’t include the Democrats’ top priority: an agreement to extend expiring subsidies that make health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, known as the ACA or Obamacare, more affordable to millions of Americans.

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CALLS FOR ‘MORE EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP’ AS SCHUMER FACES MOUNTING PRESSURE

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is seen after a news conference in the U.S. Capitol on the government shutdown on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. (Tom Williams/Getty)

And even though he opposed the agreement, Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, has faced calls from an increasing number of party members to step down due to his inability to keep Senate Democrats unified.

But to date, no Senate Democrat has joined those calls for Schumer to step down.

After the final congressional vote to end the shutdown, Booker wrote that “the Democratic Party needs change. It needs a new generation of leaders to stand up to Trump.”

SCHUMER FACES FURY FROM THE LEFT OVER DEAL TO END SHUTDOWN

Asked if those comments were directed at Schumer, Booker said, “I’m pointing these comments at anybody who will listen to me.”

“Chuck Schumer’s generation, Nancy Pelosi’s generation, John Lewis’s generation. They have so much to be proud of. It is time, though, for new leadership. The other generations, X, millennials, Z, — it’s time for us to step up. The stage is waiting for us to lead, not just the party, but the nation right now.”

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey is interviewed by Fox News Digital at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, in Manchester, N.H. on Nov. 14, 2025 (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

Booker was interviewed ahead of an event at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. New Hampshire’s two senators — Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan — were among the Democrats who supported the deal with Republicans.

Shaheen, who previously supported a bill to extend the ACA subsidies, on Monday defended breaking with her party to support the deal.

“We’re making sure that the people of America can get the food benefits that they need, that air traffic controllers can get paid, that federal workers are able to come back, the ones who were let go, that they get paid, that contractors get paid, that aviation moves forward,” Shaheen said in a “Fox and Friends” interview.

SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: DEMOCRATIC SENATOR STANDS FIRM AFTER DEFYING PARTY

Asked about the Democratic senators who bucked the party, Booker, who played Division One football at Stanford University, called for party unity.

“I played football, and that play is behind me. Now I want everybody back in the huddle, tighten your chin straps, because we’ve got to fight forward and the end zone, for me, is very simple. It is lowering people’s healthcare costs, lowering people’s grocery costs, lowering people’s energy costs, and getting an America that works for everybody, not just the wealthiest of the wealthy,” Booker said.

And Booker, who broke a Senate record with a 25-hour speech earlier this year as he took aim at President Donald Trump‘s second-term agenda, said: “I’m a big believer, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker headlines an event at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, in Manchester, N.H. on Nov. 14, 2025. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

But he also lamented the increased animosity between Democrats and Republicans, saying that “the partisanship, as you know, bothers me, because it’s turned to tribalism.”

As he unsuccessfully ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Booker spent plenty of time and made lots of friends in New Hampshire, which has held the first-in-the-nation presidential primary for over a century.

Booker, who is up for re-election next year in blue-leaning New Jersey, is seen by political pundits as a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, which is expected to be a crowded and competitive race.

“Of course, I’m thinking about it. Haven’t ruled it out. But I’m up on the ballot in New Jersey in ’26 and that is my focus,” Booker said.

After his Fox News interview, Booker headlined the latest “Stand Up New Hampshire Town Hall.” The speaking series, organized by top New Hampshire Democratic elected officials and party leaders, is seen as an early cattle call for potential White House contenders.

And later in the day, he gave the keynote address at a major fundraising gala for the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

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Booker called next year’s elections, when the Democrats will try to win back majorities in the House and Senate, “vitally important.”

“Don’t talk to me about ’28 until you show me where you stand and who you stand for in ’26. I stand for New Jersey. I stand for America and an America that works for everybody,” Booker emphasized.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.”

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November 15, 2025
Alina Habba slams Sens. Chuck Grassley, Thom Tillis over Senate’s blue slips

Alina Habba is heaping more pressure on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to revoke the chamber’s blue slip tradition, which New Jersey’s two Democratic senators wielded to stop her from getting a floor vote for the post of U.S. attorney in the state.

Trump had nominated Habba, whom he tapped on an interim basis in March, for the full-time appointment. But Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim used blue slips — which empower home-state senators to block U.S. attorney and District Court judge nominees — to keep her from advancing in the chamber.

And Grassley, despite pressure from the White House, isn’t planning on curtailing that power anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Tillis, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he’d serve as a check against anyone opposed by a home-state senator even if Grassley rescinded the procedure.

“This tradition that Senator Grassley is upholding effectively prevents anybody in a blue state from going through into Senate to then be voted on,” Habba said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” “Senator Booker and Senator Kim had absolutely every right to vote no for me for the U.S. Attorney position. But I had the right as the nominee to get if front of Senate and to be voted on, to be vetted. I never even got there.”

But there remains little appetite in the GOP-led Senate to scrap the tradition, which Republicans have used in the past to influence judicial appointments at home with Democrats in the White House.

Habba’s saga this year has been complicated. She was appointed acting U.S. attorney for the state, but, once the 120-day interim period expired, a panel of District Court judges declined to retain her, instead appointing Desiree Leigh Grace, her first assistant, to the interim position. Complaining about “rogue” judges, Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace and Trump — who had previously nominated Habba to the post full-time — instead restored Habba’s interim status, a maneuver that was immediately challenged as invalid.

The result: Habba is currently holding her attorney post “not lawfully,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann said last week, leaving open the possibility that any of the actions she has taken on the job since July 1 “may be declared void.” Shortly after that ruling, a District Court judge postponed the sentencing of a CEO prosecuted by Habba’s office due to her involvement.

“The truth is it has nothing to do with the work that we’re doing, it has nothing to do with the crime that we’re stopping,” she told Bartiromo. “It has to do with trying to prevent President Trump from continuing his agenda, and it has to stop. So I would say to Senator Tillis and Senator Grassley, you are becoming part of the issue. You are becoming part of the antithesis of what we fought for four years.”

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August 24, 2025
Cory Booker Fast Facts | CNN Politics

CNN
—

Here is a look at the life of Cory Booker, US senator from New Jersey and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Birth date: April 27, 1969

Birth place: Washington, DC

Birth name: Cory Anthony Booker

Father: Cary Booker, IBM executive

Mother: Carolyn Booker, IBM executive

Education: Stanford University, B.A., 1991; Stanford University, M.A, 1992; University of Oxford, Honors Degree, 1994 (Rhodes Scholar); Yale Law School, J.D., 1997

Religion: Baptist

Received a football scholarship to attend Stanford University.

Became a vegetarian in 1992 and went vegan (no eggs or dairy) in 2014.

Lived in a public housing complex in Newark called Brick Towers for eight years. The dilapidated building was demolished in 2007, the year after Booker moved out.

While serving as mayor of Newark, Booker developed a reputation for engaging in personal acts of heroism like rescuing a neighbor from a house fire and chasing down a suspected bank robber. Using social media to connect with constituents, he shoveled snowbound driveways by request and invited nearby city residents to his home when Hurricane Sandy caused widespread power outages.

Booker was elected mayor as a reformer with a vision to revitalize the struggling city yet high unemployment rates and violent crime continued to plague Newark while he was in office.

Booker was criticized by the New Jersey state comptroller for failing to conduct oversight on the city’s watershed management program, where corruption was rife.

1997 – Staff attorney at the Urban Justice Center in New York.

1998-2002 – Newark city councilman.

2002-2006 – Partner at the law firm, Booker, Rabinowitz, Trenk, Lubetkin, Tully, DiPasquale & Webster.

2006-2013 – Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

September 24, 2010 – Booker appears with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Mark Zuckerberg on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to announce the Facebook founder’s $100 million donation to Newark schools. The school reform initiative, centered on promoting privately-run charter schools as an option for parents with children in failing public schools, yields mixed results. Researchers at Harvard University conclude that Newark students showed improvement in English but made no significant gains in math.

December 4, 2012 – Booker begins a week of food rationing to raise awareness of poverty and hunger in America, for the campaign SNAP Challenge.

October 31, 2013 – Sworn in to the US Senate after winning a special election earlier in the month to replace the late Frank Lautenberg.

November 4, 2014 – Reelected to the Senate.

February 16, 2016 – Booker’s memoir, “United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good,” is published.

January 11, 2017 – Booker breaks with Senate precedent to deliver testimony against the appointment of Jeff Sessions as attorney general, becoming the first sitting senator to testify against a fellow sitting senator at a confirmation hearing for a cabinet position.

August 1, 2017 – Booker introduces a bill to remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of controlled substances. The Marijuana Justice Act would also expunge federal marijuana use and possession offenses from criminal records. The bill is referred to committee.

August 3, 2017 – Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduces the Special Counsel Independence Protection Act. The measure, cosponsored by Booker, would shield Special Counsel Robert Mueller from actions taken by the executive branch to interfere with the probe of Russian interference during the 2016 election. The bill is sent to committee.

September 6, 2018 – Republicans accuse Booker of grandstanding after he likens himself to Spartacus, a Roman slave who led a failed revolt, during Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

December 21, 2018 – President Donald Trump signs a criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act, into law. Booker endorsed the bipartisan legislation and added an amendment that limits the usage of solitary confinement for juveniles in federal custody.

February 1, 2019 – Booker releases a video announcing his presidential candidacy. Later, he appears on the ABC talk show, “The View,” participates in multiple radio interviews and holds a press conference in Newark.

January 13, 2020 – Booker ends his 2020 presidential campaign after failing to qualify for the January 14, 2020, Democratic debate.

March 9, 2020 – Booker endorses Joe Biden for president.

November 3, 2020 – Reelected to the Senate.

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April 18, 2024
Political Accountability Isn’t Dead Yet

On September 22, when federal prosecutors accused Senator Robert Menendez of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, Representative Andy Kim, a fellow New Jersey Democrat, asked one of his neighbors what he thought of the charges. “That’s Jersey,” the man replied.

The neighbor’s shrug spoke volumes about not only a state with a sordid history of political corruption but also a country that seemed to have grown inured to scandal. In nearby New York, George Santos had settled into his Republican House seat despite having been indicted on more than a dozen counts of fraud and having acknowledged that the story he’d used to woo voters was almost entirely fiction. Criminal indictments have done nothing to dent Republican support for Donald Trump, who is currently the front-runner for both the GOP nomination and the presidency next year.

It turns out, however, that the supposedly cynical citizens of New Jersey did care that their senior senator was allegedly on the take. In the days after the indictment was unsealed, multiple polls found that Menendez’s approval rating had plummeted to just 8 percent. New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, and its other Democratic senator, Cory Booker, both called on Menendez to quit. All but three of the nine Democrats in New Jersey’s House delegation have urged the senator to resign, and one of them is his own son.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty to the charges and rejected calls to resign. A son of Cuban immigrants, he has denounced the case against him as a racially motivated persecution. But his days in the Senate are almost certainly numbered, whether he leaves of his own accord or voters usher him out. Kim has announced that he will challenge Menendez next year, and so has Tammy Murphy, New Jersey’s first lady. Menendez’s trial is scheduled for May, just one month before the primary. Early polls show Menendez barely registering support among Democrats.

Casey Michel: We’ve never seen anything like the Menendez indictment

“I hit a breaking point,” Kim told me, explaining his decision to run. “I think a lot of people hit a breaking point, where they’re just like, ‘We’re done with this now.’”

Accountability has come more swiftly for Santos. National party leaders had largely protected him—Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his successor, Mike Johnson, both needed Santos’s vote in the GOP’s tight House majority. But a damning report from the bipartisan House Ethics Committee proved to be his undoing: Earlier this month, Santos became just the sixth lawmaker in American history to be expelled from the House.

The government’s case against Menendez could still fall apart; he’s beaten charges of corruption before. But the public can hold its elected officials to a higher standard than a jury would. If the appearance (and, in this case, reappearance) of impropriety can cause voters to lose faith in the system, the events of the past few months might go some way toward restoring it. That both Menendez and Santos have suffered consequences for their alleged misdeeds offers some reassurance to ethics watchdogs who have seen Trump survive scandal after scandal, and indictment after indictment. “You can’t get away with anything. There are still some guardrails,” Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told me.

Yet Trump’s enduring impact on political accountability remains an open question. Has he lowered the standards for everyone, or do the laws of political gravity still apply to ethically compromised lawmakers not named Trump? “Donald Trump is a unique animal,” Lisa Gilbert, the executive vice president of the Washington-based nonprofit Public Citizen, told me. “He has built a cultlike following and surrounded himself with people who believe that no matter what he does, he is in the right.” Few politicians could ever hope to build such a buffer.

Trump hasn’t evaded accountability entirely: The ethical norms he shattered while in office likely contributed to his defeat in 2020. And although he’s leading in the polls, one or more convictions next year could weaken his bid and demonstrate that the systems meant to hold American leaders in check function even against politicians who have used their popularity to insulate themselves from culpability. “He is being charged,” Gilbert said. “There are accountability mechanisms that are moving in spite of that apparatus. And to me, that’s a sign that eventually the rule of law will prevail.”

At the same time, the Menendez and Santos examples provide only so much comfort for ethics watchdogs. The allegations against both politicians were particularly egregious. The phrase lining his pockets is usually metaphorical, but in addition to gold bars, the FBI found envelopes of cash in the pockets of suit jackets emblazoned with Menendez’s name in his closet.

The earlier allegations Menendez faced were almost as lurid; prosecutors said he had accepted nearly $1 million in gifts from a Florida ophthalmologist, including private flights and lavish Caribbean vacations, in exchange for helping the doctor secure contracts and visas for his girlfriends. A 2018 trial ended in a hung jury, and the Department of Justice subsequently dropped the case.

Santos was caught lying about virtually his entire life—his religion, where he had gone to school, where he worked—and then was accused of using his campaign coffers as a personal piggy bank, spending the money on Botox and the website OnlyFans.

Read: George Santos was finally too much for Republicans

Some of the charges against Trump, such as falsifying business records and mishandling classified documents, involve more complicated questions of law. “A lot of the Trump scandals that he’s been indicted for may sort of be beyond the grasp of the average voter,” says Tom Jensen, the director of the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, which conducted one of the surveys finding that Menendez’s approval rating had sunk after the indictment. “Gold bars are not beyond the grasp of the average voter. Voters get gold bars, and when it’s something that’s so easy for voters to understand, you’re a lot more likely to see this sort of precipitous decline.”

Jensen told me that in his 16 years as a pollster, he had seen only two other examples where public support dropped so dramatically after the eruption of scandal. One was Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted of attempting to sell the Senate seat that Barack Obama vacated when he became president in 2009. The other was John Edwards, who, after running for president as a Democrat in 2008, admitted to having an affair while his wife, Elizabeth, was battling a recurrence of breast cancer. (He would later admit to fathering a child with his mistress, and face charges that he illegally used campaign funds to hide the affair; Edwards was found not guilty on the one count on which the jury reached a verdict.)

The Trump era has revealed an asymmetry in how the parties respond to scandal. Republicans have overlooked or justified all sorts of behavior that would have doomed most other politicians, including multiple allegations of sexual assault (such as those that Trump essentially admitted to in the infamous Access Hollywood video made public in 2016). Although Santos was expelled by a Republican-controlled House, Democrats provided the bulk of the votes to oust him, while a majority of GOP lawmakers voted against expulsion. Democrats were quick to pressure Senator Al Franken to resign in 2018 after several women accused him of touching them inappropriately. (Some Democrats later regretted that they had pushed Franken out so fast.) The party also forced a defiant New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to step down in 2021 amid multiple allegations of misconduct and harassment.

Trump’s gut-it-out strategy seems to have inspired politicians in both parties to resist demands to resign and to bet that the public’s short attention span will allow them to weather just about any controversy. Gone are the days when a scandalized politician would quit at the first sign of embarrassment, as New York Governor Eliot Spitzer did in 2008, less than 48 hours after the revelation that he had patronized high-end prostitutes. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was able to serve out his full term despite losing the support of virtually the entire Democratic Party in 2019 after photos surfaced of him dressed in racist costumes in a medical-school yearbook. Cuomo defied calls to resign for months, and Santos forced the House to expel him rather than quit. Menendez has similarly rebuffed the many longtime colleagues who have urged him to leave.

Shame may have left politics in the Trump era, but consequences haven’t—at least in the cases of Menendez and Santos. “Maybe these can be first steps,” Bookbinder told me, sounding a note of cautious optimism. “If you say nothing matters, then really nothing will matter. I hope we can go back to the place where people do feel like they owe it to their constituents to behave in an ethical and legal way.”

Russell Berman

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December 27, 2023
NCAA leaders warn college sports at risk of ‘permanent damage’ without action from Congress

The NCAA’s most powerful conferences delivered an urgent plea to congressional leaders last week: We need your help to save college sports – and need it now.

The commissioners of the Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference quietly lobbied leaders in both parties – including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries – to back legislation that would set national standards on how collegiate athletes can profit on their name, image and likeness.

Their warning: That a Supreme Court decision two years ago that paved the way for companies to pay student athletes has led to a complicated series of state laws that have undermined collegiate sports and could ultimately lead to the collapse of sports programs across the United States.

“The risk is permanent damage to an enterprise that has meant an awful lot to our country, and to those that have benefited from the experiences,” James Phillips, the ACC commissioner, said on “Inside Politics Sunday.”

Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, had a dire prediction if Congress doesn’t act.

“The risk is we see states further build walls around their recruiting grounds, thinking that that somehow provides a competitive advantage,” Sankey said. “The risk is that more and more young people sign agreements that they don’t understand. The risk is we move further and further from the academic nature of college sports.”

In their first-ever joint interview, the four power conference leaders told CNN that the current landscape has created grave instability where collegiate athletes increasingly transfer to different universities based on different states’ rules on profiting off their name, image and likeness, or NIL. Athletes’ increasing use of the transfer portal, they said, has become problematic in college sports, particularly for student athletes’ quest to get a college degree.

And, they say, college boosters have taken advantage of the current patchwork of laws to help their universities recruit the top athletes by promising big paydays – to the detriment of colleges in other states that are forced to play by a different set of rules.

They say it’s time to set a national standard to even the playing field.

“You’ve got a system where it becomes very transactional, in terms of how student athletes are moving and you see it on the field,” said Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti. “You’ll see tremendous player movement, but there’s also another side of it, which is a lot of student athletes just don’t end up some place. And that’s a problem. Because the grass isn’t always greener, there isn’t always a deal that comes through.”

Petitti added that programs “can rise and fall very quickly” with players choosing to transfer, while the ACC’s Phillips said “multiple movements shown in the course of the student athlete’s career that they’re less likely to graduate.”

Multiple proposals have been put forward by lawmakers for a federal NIL law, though getting floor time for a bill, much less enacting one into law, will be an arduous task. There’s new focus on an effort by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, and Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, to try to strike a bipartisan accord on a proposal. The four commissioners met with the two senators last week.

“I’m confident that there’s a bipartisan path and the urgency to get something done is there,” Booker, a former college football player, told CNN. “I think everybody who has a football or basketball player in their state is interested in getting it done.”

Among the hurdles facing the leaders: GOP resistance to enacting federal legislation as Republicans often advocate for states’ rights.

Asked if there has been any resistance to the push for a national standard, Sankey, the SEC commissioner, said, “Sure. Questions about that – like, why, why is this necessary? Now our federal government does have a role in interstate commerce, that’s the reality. There’s interstate activity, this is a national activity.”

NIL deals stem from an NCAA policy change in 2021 that allowed student athletes to profit from sponsorship opportunities – a move that came after the Supreme Court said that student athletes could receive education-related payments in a case that reshaped the landscape of college sports.

Student athletes have taken advantage – with well-known names in college sports like basketball player Caitlin Clark and football player Caleb Williams appearing in commercials for major national brands such as State Farm and Wendy’s.

Supporters of a national standard say its implementation would help safeguard student athletes by setting up critical guardrails as they sign on for potentially lucrative opportunities.

“We need protection for our student athletes. You know, some of the situations that they find themselves in, trusting advisors that steer them in the wrong direction end up being really counterproductive and harmful,” Phillips said.

ACC commissioner James Phillips speaks to the media during ACC Media Days at The Westin Charlotte. – Jim Dedmon/USA Today Network

In some cases, he said, “agents end up taking more of the income than goes to the student athlete or to their families.”

Brett Yormark, commissioner of the Big 12, said that it’s difficult for student athletes to navigate the different rules in different states.

“We think it’s positive for student athletes to be able to leverage their name, image and likeness in all the right ways. But we need some guardrails around it,” Yormark said.

In the absence of federal legislation, a number of states have enacted their own laws, creating a legal patchwork around the country.

“It’s created a disparity among states, where legislators are now changing their laws for competitive purposes. It certainly has created economic opportunity for younger people, but it has introduced an unregulated marketplace,” Sankey said.

“What we’re constantly hearing, from young people, from those on our campus involved in recruiting, is the current environment doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Asked whether McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed interest in a national standard, Sankey said that “both, very much interest, and in fact, both reflected on each other and the importance of having conversations on both sides of the aisle.”

There is bipartisan support in Congress for a law to set a national NIL standard, but some Republicans have warned that any new law must be crafted with minimal government intervention and without setting up new federal agencies to make or enforce rules, a potential sticking point in any negotiation.

Cruz told CNN he thinks “the prospects of passing NIL legislation are about 60/40,” and feels “cautiously optimistic.”

“I think we are risking doing enormous damage to college athletics if Congress does not step in and act. It is the wild west right now, and every senator, their universities in their states are telling them that this chaos makes no sense,” he said.

Cruz has put forward a draft bill to codify NIL rights. Separately, Booker released his own draft NIL bill along with GOP Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Cruz and Booker have had discussions over the two proposals and the issue of NIL as part of an ongoing effort in the Senate to find a way forward to pass bipartisan legislation.

Cruz told CNN he has had “very positive conversations” with Booker. “I think we’re making progress, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Additionally, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the former head football coach at Auburn University, and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia have introduced an NIL bill.

“There’s enough positive in all the bills, to be honest, that we can work with some combination,” Petitti said. “The effort has been, especially over the last few months, let’s try to bring people together. There’s a lot of staff putting time in it. How can we get those staff to bridge and come together to have something.”

“There’s tremendous interest from our elected officials,” Phillips said. “They understand, I think, what’s at stake. I think at the core of this, for each of us and anybody that loves college athletics, is this idea of opportunity for young people.”

CNN’s Ted Barrett and Wayne Sterling contributed.

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December 3, 2023
Americans Explain How They Would End The Israel-Hamas War

“Off the top of my head? I’d probably concentrate billions of dollars into the hands of a few international defense contractors and I suppose I’d call them Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin, and then—gosh, I don’t know—I’d let them dictate U.S. foreign policy through gratuitous lobbying, and—just spitballing here—destabilize and antagonize nearby nations to protect our oil interests while providing unconditional aid to Israel, and then I guess I’d enable those defense companies to indiscriminately bomb the shit out of Gaza, and on top of all that, I guess I’d write a $14.5 billion check to Netanyahu for good measure.”

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November 8, 2023
Politicians Explain Why They Will Not Endorse A Ceasefire

With the Palestinian death toll rapidly rising and conditions in Gaza deteriorating into a humanitarian crisis amid the Israeli invasion, The Onion asked politicians why they will not endorse a ceasefire, and this is what they said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

“I haven’t gotten to experience a world war since my boyhood.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)

“I lament even those momentary pauses in violence when IDF soldiers have to stop shooting to reload.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)

“A ceasefire would send the message to Palestinians that we give a shit whether they live or die.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

“I have a perfect record when it comes to ethnic cleansing, and I’m not about to tarnish that now.”

Vice President Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris

“Well-behaved missiles seldom make history.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

“Last I checked, there were still some Palestinian civilians left.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

“An open-air prison actually sounds nice. What do I look like, some kind of abolitionist?”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

“That would stop the genocidal momentum the IDF has built.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL)

“Because I’m making money off this. What don’t you understand?”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

“Shhh, keep your voice down. Saying that word in Texas is illegal.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)

“The people of Gaza are free to start making campaign donations whenever they please.”

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)

“Poked myself in the eye with a kebab skewer. Now all must pay.”

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN)

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN)

“Based on the last election, I figure my presidential campaign can only be helped by the absence of a strong stance on anything.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)

“Ugh, just come back to bed. Can’t we go one night without getting into a screaming match?”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

“When you become a U.S. senator, they tell you that you’ll be legally castrated if you ever try to stop any wars.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)

“I mean, if it were up to me, they’d be air-striking the shit out of the continental U.S. as well.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

“That’s actually a good idea. If we can trick the Palestinians into thinking we’re not going to fire anymore, they’ll be easier to shoot!”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would never allow the U.S. to finance the Israeli military if it wasn’t perfectly safe.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

“I don’t want to lose my widespread appeal among moderates.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)

“I support firing both missiles and a message of love at Palestine.”

You’ve Made It This Far…

You’ve Made It This Far…

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October 31, 2023
Sen. Bob Menendez “Not Going Anywhere” Despite Growing Calls from Top Democrats to Resign

A growing chorus of prominent Democrats—including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy—are calling on Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign in the wake of Friday’s shocking indictment in Manhattan federal court, despite his insistence that he’s “not going anywhere.”

The indictment is chock full of lurid details, including allegations that Menendez accepted envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars in exchange for using his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the Egyptian government.

“The allegations in the indictment against Senator Menendez and four other defendants are deeply disturbing. These are serious charges that implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system,” Murphy said in a statement Friday. “The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state. Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”

It is the senator’s second criminal indictment in eight years. His previous corruption charges filed in 2015 were dismissed after a jury could not reach a verdict in 2017.

Due to Senate bylaws, Menendez was forced to step down from leadership since he was charged with a felony but has actively rejected calls for his resignation.

“For years, forces behind the scenes have repeatedly attempted to silence my voice and dig my political grave,” the 69-year-old said in a statement. “Since this investigation was leaked nearly a year ago, there has been an active smear campaign of anonymous sources … It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere.”

In addition to Murphy, five Democratic representatives have called for the senator’s resignation as of Saturday morning, including three—Andy Kim, Mikie Sherrill, and Donald Norcross—widely expected to run for Menendez’s Senate seat in 2024. New Jersey Globe editor David Wildstein noted Saturday morning that Norcross’s call for resignation is especially indicative of the mood among Democrats, as Menendez “has been close to the Norcross family for decades.”

Several state and local officials have also joined the chorus. Both New Jersey State Senate President Nick Scutari and State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin called on Menendez to resign, with Coughlin arguing that the charges “go against everything we should believe as public servants.” “We are given the public’s trust, and once that trust is broken, we cannot continue,” he added. New Jersey Democratic Party Chair LeRoy Jones cited next year’s election as the main reason for Menendez to step down.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, however, declined to say whether his colleague should resign. “Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey,” Schumer said in a brief statement. “He has a right to due process and a fair trial.”

And Menendez’s fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has also been silent so far about the indictments. As a young politician, Booker was mentored by Menendez, whom he has called “ “one of the greatest advocates for justice on the planet Earth.” Booker also testified at Menendez’s 2017 trial, where he called Menendez “trustworthy and honest.”

Jack McCordick

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September 23, 2023
So Much for Biden the Bridge President

In retrospect, Joe Biden probably wishes he’d never uttered these words in public. Maybe it was just youthful exuberance: He was, after all, only 77 at the time.

“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said at a rally in Detroit, one of his last pre-lockdown campaign appearances of the 2020 Democratic primaries. It was early March, and he was flanked by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and a pair of his former rivals, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker—all members of what Biden would call “an entire generation of leaders” and “the future of this country.”

Few paid much attention to the future president’s remarks at the time. They appeared consistent with a prevailing assumption about his campaign: that Biden was running as an emergency-stopgap option. And once the emergency—Donald Trump—was dealt with, the old pro was expected to make way for that “entire generation.”

“I view myself as a transition candidate,” Biden said during an online fundraiser shortly after he gave his bridge speech, according to The New York Times.

Biden never explicitly said he would serve just one term, but multiple outlets reported that he and his advisers discussed making such a pledge. His allies reinforced the notion, even as Biden himself denied it. “It is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president,” Politico reported in December 2019, citing four unnamed sources who spoke regularly with Biden.

As it would turn out, the “bridge” declaration proved to be one of Biden’s most memorable utterances of the past four years. The line has been quoted a great deal, especially lately—or hurled at him, usually by someone pointing out that this bridge seems to be stretching on much longer than anyone expected.

Americans are plainly impatient for Biden to retire already, a point hammered home by the preponderance of poll respondents—including Democrats and independents—who say Biden should not be seeking a second term that would begin after his 82nd birthday. Elected Democrats, operatives, and donors keep saying the same in private, while an array of op-ed and cable kibitzers have exhaled a steady barrage on this subject. (The Atlantic has also explored this topic.)

Read: Why Biden shouldn’t run in 2024

But put aside the usual questions about Biden’s age and fitness to endure another campaign or term. What’s often overlooked in these discussions is the depth of frustration behind this public skittishness. It goes beyond the hand-wringing about possible health catastrophes that could befall the president at the worst possible time (i.e., next October). The displeasure over Biden’s determination to keep going suggests that voters might perceive him as acting selfishly, or that they feel misled by a candidate who ran for president on the pretense of a short-term fix, only to remain ensconced as a long-term proposition.

When Biden ran in 2020, several friends and aides reportedly advised him to come out and say he would serve just one term, because that was understood to be his intent anyway. But he was loath to announce himself as a lame duck earlier than he had to. This was consistent with a Biden decree, dating at least to his days as vice president, when people asked whether he would consider running to succeed Obama. “Nobody in D.C. gains influence by declaring they are playing out the string,” Politico’s Glenn Thrush wrote in a profile of Biden, headlined “Joe Biden in Winter.” That was in 2014.

In politics, Biden would tell people around him, you are either on your way up or on your way down—and there is no reason for a leader of any age to ever deny interest in moving up unless they want to declare themselves irrelevant to the future.

Even so, the 2020 election was less about the future than it was about surviving a ghastly present. Biden came back to do a specific job. “I think it’s really, really important that Donald Trump not be re-elected,” Biden told me during the 2020 campaign, when I asked him why on Earth he was putting himself through another race at his age. “Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative,” he was always saying.

Biden and his aides didn’t shy from the label of “transition candidate” and typically were noncommittal on the prospect of a second term—right up until Biden transitioned himself into the White House and became much more definitive. “The answer is yes,” Biden said at a news conference in March 2021, the first time he was asked as president whether he would run again in 2024. “My plan is to run for reelection,” he continued. “That’s my expectation.”

In fact, pollsters and focus-group facilitators report that many of their subjects still haven’t fully accepted that Biden decided to run again. “It seems pretty implicit in the way voters talk that they didn’t expect him to be a two-term president,” Sarah Longwell, the Bulwark publisher who has interviewed panels across the political spectrum, told me.

“To insiders, a Trump-Biden rematch is a foregone conclusion,” Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster who worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, told me. But in his own focus groups—mainly of young and Latino voters—Tulchin said voters are not fully buying that, whether out of denial or distaste. “They don’t like being forced to make a choice that they don’t want to make yet,” he said.

Biden has enjoyed perhaps the most triumphant last hurrah in American political history. Also, the longest. Start the clock in August 2008, when Barack Obama first selected him as his running mate. “I want you to view this as the capstone of your career,” Obama told Biden when he offered him the job, according to the eventual vice president. “And not the tombstone,” Biden joked in reply.

Fifteen years later, he might suffer from a general intolerance that voters reserve for high-level government officials who grow old in office. The various freeze-ups and infirmities of Senators Mitch McConnell (81) and Dianne Feinstein (90), respectively, have drawn more sneers than sympathy. The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has come in for a great deal of posthumous scorn, even among her staunchest liberal admirers, for holding on long enough for her health to deteriorate and a Republican president (Trump) to appoint her successor.

By appearances, Biden is in much better health than the examples cited above (especially Ginsburg, who died three years ago). But that does nothing to change the actuarial tables, or Biden’s unpopularity, or Vice President Kamala Harris’s. Nor does it stop anyone from trotting out Biden’s bridge quote and its corollaries from four years ago. The reminders carry a strong suggestion that the terms of the original “deal” have shifted, and that this is much more of Biden than anyone bargained for.

“He has been a solid ‘transitional’ president, but transition requires transit, or a second act,” the journalist Joe Klein observed last week in a Substack column. National Review’s Jim Geraghty recently compared Biden to a relay runner who decides to “keep the baton to himself and attempt another circuit around the track, even though he’s slowing down.”

Read: The case for a primary challenge to Joe Biden

Fairness demands a few qualifiers and caveats here. Again, Biden never said he would serve just one term. The president has every right to run again, and any serious Democrat is free to primary him. There are solid arguments that Biden still has the best chance of any Democrat to beat Trump, given the power of his incumbency, the possible fractiousness of an open primary, and the uncertainty of whoever an alternative Democratic nominee would be.

But perhaps Biden’s best reason for running again in 2024, or defense against suggestions of a bait and switch, is this: He probably did not expect Trump to still be here. Nor did many of the rest of us. There is no precedent for a defeated one-term president to so easily resume his status as de facto standard-bearer of his party. After the January 6 insurrection, Republicans sounded more than ready to move on. This bipartisan exhale was made possible by Biden—God love ya, Joey! Beating Trump should have been the ultimate “capstone” of his career. Yet three years later, Trump is still here. And so is Biden.

“Politicians who know Biden well say that if he were convinced that Trump were truly vanquished, he would feel he had accomplished his political mission,” the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote in one of the most widely discussed recent entries to the “Please go away, Joe” cannon. In other words, meet the new justification, same as the last one. It’s probably as strong a rationale as any for Biden to attempt this.

Except that it’s getting old, and so’s the bridge.

Mark Leibovich

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September 21, 2023
Elizabeth Holmes scheduled to be sentenced on Friday | CNN Business

CNN
—

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos who was convicted of fraud earlier this year, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday morning by a judge in court in San Jose, California.

Holmes, who was found guilty in January on four charges of defrauding investors, faces up to 20 years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 plus restitution for each count.

Lawyers for the government asked for a 15-year prison term, as well as probation and restitution, while Holmes’ probation officer pushed for a nine-year term. Holmes’ defense team asked Judge Edward Davila, who is presiding over her case, to sentence her to up to 18 months of incarceration followed by probation and community service.

More than 100 people wrote letters in support of Holmes to Davila, asking for leniency in her sentencing. The list includes Holmes’ partner, Billy Evans, many members of Holmes’ and Evans’ families, early Theranos investor Tim Draper, and Sen. Cory Booker. Booker described meeting her at a dinner years before she was charged and bonding over the fact that they were both vegans with nothing to eat but a bag of almonds, which they shared.

“I still believe that she holds onto the hope that she can make contributions to the lives of others, and that she can, despite mistakes, make the world a better place,” Booker wrote, noting that he continues to consider her a friend.

Friday’s sentencing hearing caps off Holmes’ stunning downfall. Once hailed as a tech industry icon for her company’s promises to test for a range of conditions with just a few drops of blood, she is now the rare tech founder to be convicted and face prison time for her company’s missteps.

Holmes, now 38, started Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19 and soon thereafter dropped out of Stanford University to pursue the company full-time. After a decade under the radar, Holmes began courting the press with claims that Theranos had invented technology that could accurately and reliably test for a range of conditions using just a few drops of blood taken from a finger prick.

Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Walmart’s Walton family and the billionaire family of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. At its peak, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, making Holmes a billionaire on paper. She was lauded on magazine covers, frequently wearing a signature black turtleneck that invited comparisons to late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. (She has not worn that look in the courtroom.)

The company began to unravel after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 found the company had only ever performed roughly a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary blood testing device, and with questionable accuracy. Instead, Theranos was relying on third-party manufactured devices from traditional blood testing companies.

In 2016, Theranos voided two years of blood test results. In 2018, Holmes and Theranos settled “massive fraud” charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but did not admit to or deny any of the allegations as part of the deal. Theranos dissolved soon after.

In her trial, Holmes alleged she was in the midst of a decade-long abusive relationship with her then-boyfriend and Theranos COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani while running the company. Balwani, she alleged, tried to control nearly every aspect of her life, including disciplining her eating, her voice and her image, and isolating her from others. (Balwani’s attorneys denied her claims.)

In July, Balwani was found guilty on all 12 charges in a separate trial and faces the same potential maximum prison time as her. Balwani is scheduled to be sentenced on December 7.

“The effects of Holmes and Balwani’s fraudulent conduct were far-reaching and severe,” federal prosecutors wrote in a November court filing regarding Holmes’ sentencing. “Dozens of investors lost over $700 million and numerous patients received unreliable or wholly inaccurate medical information from Theranos’ flawed tests, placing those patients’ health at serious risk.”

Holmes’ sentencing, however, could be complicated by developments in her life after stepping down from Theranos. Holmes and her partner, Evans, who met in 2017, have a young son. Holmes is also pregnant, as confirmed by recent court filings and her most recent court appearance in mid October.

Mark MacDougall, a white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, told CNN Business that the fact that Holmes has a young child could impact how she is sentenced.

“I don’t know how it can’t, just because judges are human,” he said.

MacDougall also said he doesn’t see what a long prison sentence accomplishes. “Elizabeth Holmes is never going to run a big company again,” he said. “She’s never going to be in a position to have something like this happen again.”

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November 18, 2022
Elizabeth Holmes asks for leniency for her Theranos crimes

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is casting herself as a Silicon Valley scapegoat who overcame an abusive relationship to become a loving mother in an effort to avoid a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors in her failed blood-testing company.

In an 82-page document filed late Thursday, Holmes’ lawyers tried to persuade U.S. District Judge Edward Davila that sending Holmes to prison is unnecessary, partly because she has already been stigmatized by intense media coverage that turned her into a “caricature to be mocked and vilified.”

If Davila decides to send her to prison, Holmes’ lawyers argued she should be sentenced to no more than 18 months — a fraction of the maximum of 20 years she is facing after being convicted on four felony counts of investor fraud and conspiracy earlier this year.

“We acknowledge that this may seem a tall order given the public perception of this case — especially when Ms. Holmes is viewed as the caricature, not the person,” the filing said.

Prosecutors are expected to seek a much harsher sentence when they file their own sentencing recommendations ahead of Holmes’ scheduled Nov. 18 sentencing. Holmes, 38, will learn her fate in the same San Jose, California courtroom where her high-profile trial cast a glaring spotlight on Silicon Valley’s penchant for hype and hubris.

Bogus promises

After starting Theranos as a 19-year-old, Holmes proceeded to raise nearly $1 billion from investors swayed by what turned out to be bogus promises.

Holmes became lionized as a visionary while touting a compact device that was supposed to be able to scan for hundreds of diseases and other potential health problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick. Theranos’ tests instead produced wildly unreliable results, flaws that Holmes tried to conceal until the problems were exposed in the media and regulatory audits.

Although Holmes’ convictions were limited to about $140 million of the investments in Theranos, legal experts say the magnitude of just those losses make it unlikely that her push for a relatively short prison sentence or home confinement will succeed.

Two former federal prosecutors, Duncan Levin and Amanda Kramer, told The Associated Press that Holmes seems likely to get a sentence of nine years to 17 years, although both acknowledged Davila has the discretion to be more lenient.

“There is an argument to be made, particularly in white collar cases, that you don’t need a very long prison sentence to deter people who never have been in prison,” Kramer said.

Holmes’ lawyer repeatedly hammered on that point in the memo to Davila. “Ms. Holmes is no danger to the public,” the filing asserted. “She has no criminal history, has a perfect pretrial services compliance record, and is described by the people who know her repeatedly as a gentle and loving person who tries to do the right thing.”

Mother to a 1-year-old

The filing also cited her motherhood to a 1-year-old son she had with her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, shortly before the start of last year’s trial. Former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, a key prosecution witness in that trial, said he understood that Holmes was pregnant when he was summoned back to court last month for further sworn testimony in Holmes’ failed bid for a new trial.

Neither Holmes nor Evans responded when asked if she was pregnant again after that Oct. 17 hearing, and pregnancy wasn’t mentioned in the sentencing memo.

Evans was among more than 130 people who submitted letters to Davila extolling Holmes’ character. One came from Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, who described Holmes as a friend who “holds onto the hope that she can make contributions to the lives of others, and that she can, despite mistakes, make the world a better place.”

Silicon Valley crackdown

In their memo, Holmes’ lawyers also pointed out some of her past trauma, echoing Holmes’ testimony about being raped while she was still a student at Stanford. After that, Holmes testified she endured years of emotional and sexual abuse that affected her decision-making while in a romantic relationship with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was also Theranos’ chief operating officer.

Balwani, 57, was convicted on 12 felony counts of investor and patient fraud in July during separate trial. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7. His lawyers have denied Holmes’ abuse accusations.

The documents also asserted that Holmes was unfairly singled out by a federal government looking to crack down on Silicon Valley excesses, suggesting part of the reason may have been because she became a successful woman in a technology industry that has been dominated by men. Although she once was worth $4.5 billion based on the value of her stake in privately held Theranos, the lawyers stressed she never sold any shares in the company and now has few future prospects.

“Ms. Holmes will never be able to seek another job or meet a new friend without the negative caricature acting as a barrier,” the filing said.

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November 11, 2022