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Tag: Hillary Clinton

  • Epstein Files Reveal Soon-Yi Previn’s Emails on Weiner Scandal

    The correspondence, released in the Justice Department’s latest Epstein files, shows Previn placing blame on the teenage girl who reported Weiner to police, calling her “despicable and disgusting”

    Newly released emails from the Department of Justice’s latest disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein files include a 2016 exchange between Jeffrey Epstein and Soon-Yi Previn, the wife and former ‘step-daughter’ of four-time Academy Award Winner, filmmaker Woody Allen, in which Previn criticizes and blames the 15-year-old girl involved in former congressman Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal. Weiner, who was then married to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, came under fire after the girl turned the messages over to law enforcement, prompting a federal investigation. In 2017, Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

    Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising
    The late Jeffrey Epstein pictured in 2005 with Ghislaine Maxwell
    Credit: Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

    The email chain, dated September 22, 2016, shows Previn thanking Epstein for dinner the previous evening in the subject line, while sending a Daily Mail article about the Weiner scandal. In her message to Epstein, Previn wrote that she found it “disgusting what the 15-year-old did to him,” adding, “I hate women who take advantage of guys and she is definitely one of them. She knew exactly what she was doing and how vulnerable Wiener was and she reeled him in like fish to bait,” Previn continued, according to the email. “It’s also laughable when she says in her letter that she is putting it out there to help him. How does it help him? It only humiliates him.”

    Credit: Department of Justice/Epstein

    In the same message, Previn acknowledged Weiner’s repeated conduct but placed primary blame on the teen girl, writing, “We know his excuse that he has a sickness. What is her excuse for being a despicable and disgusting person who preys on the weak?” She concluded, “She should be ashamed of herself.”

    Epstein replied simply, “WOW,” according to the exchange, before opening up further. “I’m not sure, that a person’s sex life, no matter who they are…can withstand disclosures, exagerrations etc. He hasn’t had sex in a year. What is he supposed to do. He cant have a girlfriend, cant have a hooker. So hey, thought he was safe.”

    Later messages in the thread reveal Previn sharing she also discussed the scandal with her husband, Woody Allen, writing that the topic came up during their walk home. “Guess what Woody and I talked about on our walk home. I’m not good at letting things go,” she wrote, adding, “Woody has a very hard life with me. Let’s just say Woody is a smooth talker so he can get himself out of anything.” 

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    Previn and Allen’s own relationship history is highly controversial. Previn is the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow and conductor André Previn. Allen, who had been Farrow’s longtime partner, began a relationship with Previn in the early 1990s, and has contested that he had no role in her upbringing, and did not act as a stepfather. Allen has said the relationship began when Previn was an adult college student; however, Farrow has alleged that Allen’s involvement with Previn started when she was a high school student and has long described it as deeply inappropriate. Allen and Previn married in 1997 (Previn was 26 years old and Allen was 61 years old) and have remained together since, repeatedly defending their relationship in interviews and public statements over the years.

    Anthony Weiner has publicly apologized for his past conduct and said he has been working to improve himself; he also sought a political comeback with a 2025 run for New York City Council and hosted a radio program on 77 WABC-AM.

    Woody Allen, known for directing Oscar-winning films like Annie Hall and Midnight in Paris, has also remained unapologetic about his public relationship with the late, prolific pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

    Lauren Conlin

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  • How Bill and Hillary Clinton Could Soon Become Criminal Defendants

    Photo: Kenny Holston/Getty Images

    Republicans have thirsted for a criminal prosecution of a Clinton — Bill, Hillary, any Clinton will do — since the 1990s. Thirty years and several near-misses later, they may finally get their wish.

    The Clintons almost certainly aren’t going to prison, or even getting convicted. But with characteristic hubris, Bill and Hillary have walked themselves to the brink of federal charges by defying bipartisan congressional subpoenas on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And it’s a good bet that our current Justice Department — which apparently makes critical decisions by a sophisticated litmus test that asks, “Do we like you, or not?” — will pursue criminal contempt charges.

    The Clintons have, of course, had previous brushes with the law. We all remember the impeachment (and acquittal) of Bill Clinton over his false testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But nearly lost to history is that Clinton barely avoided a federal indictment. On his final day in office in January 2001, Clinton agreed to a deal with prosecutors that spared him criminal charges for perjury and obstruction in exchange for a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license, a $25,000 fine, and a public statement acknowledging that he had testified falsely. For my latest book, I asked Robert Ray, who replaced Ken Starr as Independent Prosecutor in late 1999, whether he would have indicted Clinton had he not agreed to the deal. Ray responded, “We were more than prepared to pull the trigger, if necessary.”

    A decade and a half later, Hillary Clinton narrowly dodged an indictment for her use of a private email server while secretary of state. Shortly before the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey unilaterally announced that Clinton had been “extremely careless” but that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal charges; he then announced the case’s re-opening, eleven days before the election. Clinton was spared an indictment, but Comey’s public comments probably cost her the presidency.

    Yet for all the political drama and close prosecutorial calls, the Clintons could soon find themselves sitting at the defense table over a pair of comparatively mundane subpoenas.

    In August 2025, the House Oversight Committee — led by Republican James Comer, a serial over-promiser who habitually teases shocking revelations about prominent Democrats but never delivers — subpoenaed both Clintons for in-person testimony over their connections to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Both subpoenas were approved unanimously by all Republicans and Democrats on the Committee.

    Through their lawyers, the Clintons engaged in a monthslong pushback campaign. They argued to the Committee that the subpoenas were unrelated to any legitimate legislative purpose; were intended to harass and embarrass; and were overbroad and unduly burdensome. Indeed, it’s not clear Hillary would know anything of substance about the details of Epstein’s criminal enterprise. And while Bill Clinton would have a hellacious time explaining newly-revealed photographs of his nighttime frolic in a pool with Maxwell and an unidentified female, it’s difficult to articulate how testimony about his dealings with Epstein thirty years ago might somehow inform the drafting of anti-human-trafficking legislation now, as the Committee disingenuously claims.

    But the Committee holds broad subpoena power, and Comer was unswayed by these legal arguments. Comer declined the Clintons’ offer to provide written statements in lieu of live testimony and, ultimately, the parties reached no resolution.

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    Join a team of experts — from former prosecutors to legal scholars — as they break down the complex legal issues shaping our country today. Twice a week, Elie Honig and other CAFE Contributors examine the intersecting worlds of law, politics, and current events.

    Last week, the Clintons launched a self-important, last-ditch public relations campaign. In a letter signed personally by both Bill and Hillary (not their lawyers), the Clintons wrapped themselves in all manner of high-minded irrelevancy. They cited “[p]eople [who] have been seized from their homes by masked federal agents,” the mass pardons of January 6 rioters, Donald Trump’s targeting of universities and law firms, and the recent fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. “Every person has to decide when they have seen or heard enough, and are ready to fight for this country, its principles, and its people, no matter the consequences,” the Clintons wrote with a self-important flourish. “For us, now is that time.” Yet the Clintons conspicuously failed to explain how their cited examples had anything to do with whether Bill Clinton should tell Congress what he knows about Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking network.

    Now the Clintons have worked themselves into a jam. They made a curious tactical decision not to file a lawsuit in advance to “quash” (invalidate, essentially) the subpoenas; while they still might formally challenge the subpoenas in court, it’s likely too late. When the designated days arrived last week for the Clintons to testify, they both failed to appear. At that point, the Committee had all it needed to pursue contempt: presumptively valid subpoenas (and no court order invalidating them); two dates for testimony; and no-shows by both Bill and Hillary.

    On Wednesday, the Oversight Committee voted to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress. Notably, nine Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to vote for contempt for Bill Clinton, while three Democrats voted for contempt against Hillary. The matter will next move to the full House for a vote. If it passes — Republicans hold a slim majority, and several Democrats on the Committee voted for the subpoenas and contempt — then the matter will be formally referred to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.

    That’ll leave the final call to DOJ leadership. Both attorney general Pam Bondi and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche have made clear that political retribution is their highest aspiration. Witness, for example, the spectacularly failed payback prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James, and the recent full-bore investigations of seemingly every prominent Democrat in Minnesota — but not the ICE officer who fatally shot Good.

    And consider that, during the Biden administration, lightning-rod Trump confidantes Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for four months each for contempt after they, too, defied Congressional subpoenas. Navarro and Bannon made less of an effort than the Clintons have to engage with the Committee, and were more defiant in general, but those are thin distinctions. At bottom, the Clintons did the same thing as the two Trump loyalists.

    If the Justice Department does indict the Clintons for contempt, don’t count on the cases getting anywhere. The cases would have to be charged in Washington D.C., which is overwhelmingly pro-Democratic and anti-Trump. Trump received less than 7 percent of the vote in D.C. in all three of his presidential runs; Bill Clinton topped 84 percent in both of his campaigns, and Hillary topped 90 percent in hers. A grand jury might well refuse to indict, even under the low “probable cause” standard, and it’s almost impossible to conceive of a D.C. trial jury unanimously voting to convict Bill or Hillary.

    But it’s not clear the Justice Department, or Comer, or Trump would care about the ultimate outcome. After more than three decades of futile yearning for a Clinton indictment, Republicans have never seen an opportunity quite like the one the Clintons have handed them now. The prospect of a Clinton criminal charge — even if unlikely to succeed — might just be too much to resist.


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    Elie Honig

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  • House committee votes to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress | Fortune

    A House committee advanced resolutions Wednesday to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, opening the prospect of the House using one of its most powerful punishments against a former president for the first time.

    In bipartisan votes, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee approved the contempt of Congress charges, setting up potential votes in the House early next month. In a rare departure from party lines, some Democrats supported the contempt measures against the Clintons, with several progressive lawmakers emphasizing the need for full transparency in the Epstein investigation.

    The votes were the latest turn in the Epstein saga as Congress investigates how the late financier was able to sexually abuse dozens of teenage girls for years.

    “No witness, not a former president or a private citizen, may willfully defy a congressional subpoena without consequence. But that is what the Clintons did and that is why we are here,” Rep. James Comer, the chairman, said at the session on Wednesday.

    The repercussions of contempt charges loomed large, given the possibility of a substantial fine and even incarceration. Still, there were signs of a potential thaw as the Clintons appeared to be searching for an off-ramp to testify. In addition, passage of contempt charges through the full House was far from guaranteed, requiring a majority vote — something Republicans increasingly struggle to achieve.

    The Clintons have said they had nothing to do with Epstein for decades and are seeking a resolution to the dispute. This week, they offered to have the committee leadership and staff interview Bill Clinton in New York.

    Comer rejected that offer Tuesday, insisting that any interview also have an official transcript.

    What do lawmakers want to know from the Clintons?

    The push in Washington for a reckoning over Epstein has shown details of the connections between the wealthy financier and both Bill Clinton and Trump, among many other high-powered men. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial.

    Bill Clinton, President Donald Trump and many others connected to Epstein have not been accused of wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are wrestling over who receives the most scrutiny.

    A spokesman for the Clintons, Angel Ureña, said on social media that the Clintons are trying to help the Epstein investigation but that “both Clintons have been out of office for over a decade. Neither had anything to do with him for more than 20 years.”

    Behind the scenes, longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall has tried to negotiate an agreement with Comer for months. Kendall raised the prospect of having the Clintons testify on Christmas and Christmas Eve, according to the committee’s account of the negotiations.

    The Clintons, who contend the subpoenas are invalid because they do not serve any legislative purpose, have also offered the committee written declarations about their interactions with Epstein.

    How Democrats are approaching the issue

    Democrats have largely been focused on advancing the investigation into Epstein rather than mounting a defense of the Clintons, who led their party for decades. They agreed that Bill Clinton should inform the committee if he has any pertinent information about Epstein’s abuses.

    A wealthy financier, Epstein donated to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising committee ahead of her 2000 Senate campaign in New York.

    “No president or former president is above the law,” the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, said at the hearing.

    On Wednesday, Democrats tried to advance several changes to the contempt of Congress charges. Several argued that Hillary Clinton should be exempted because she has said she had very little personal interaction with Epstein. Democratic lawmakers also tried to downgrade the contempt of Congress resolution to a civil rather than criminal offense.

    Democrats spent the hearing criticizing Comer for focusing on the Clintons when the Justice Department is running a month late on a congressionally-mandated deadline to publicly release its case files on Epstein. Comer has also allowed several former attorneys general to provide the committee with written statements attesting to their limited knowledge of the case.

    The committee had also subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for a conviction on sex trafficking charges. But Comer declined to press for the interview after Maxwell’s attorney indicated she would invoke Fifth Amendment rights in any deposition.

    “It’s interesting that it’s this subpoena only that Republicans and the chairman have been obsessed about putting all their energy behind,” Garcia said.

    Comer said the committee will interview Maxwell next month. Attorney General Pam Bondi will also appear before the House Judiciary Committee in February.

    In the end, nine Democrats voted with all Republicans on the committee to advance contempt against Bill Clinton, and three Democrats — Reps. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — joined in the vote to advance the contempt resolution for Hillary Clinton.

    Democrats embraced the call for full transparency on Epstein after Trump’s return to the White House, particularly after Bondi stumbled on her promise to release the entirety of the unredacted Epstein files to the public. The backlash scrambled traditional ideological lines, leading Republicans to side with Democrats demanding further investigation.

    The pressure eventually resulted in a bipartisan subpoena from the committee that ordered the Justice Department and Epstein’s estate to release files related to Epstein. Republicans quickly moved to include the Clintons in the subpoena.

    Comer has indicated that he will insist that the subpoena be fulfilled by nothing less than a transcribed deposition of Bill Clinton.

    “They’re going to have two weeks until this bill is on the floor,” he said Wednesday

    How contempt proceedings have been used

    Contempt of Congress proceedings are rare, used historically as a last resort when lawmakers are trying to force testimony for high-profile investigations, such as the infamous inquiry during the 1940s into alleged Communist sympathizers in Hollywood or the impeachment proceedings of President Richard Nixon.

    Most recently, Trump’s advisers Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were convicted of contempt charges for defying subpoenas from a House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of the Republican president’s supporters at the Capitol. Both Navarro and Bannon spent months in prison.

    The Jan. 6 committee also subpoenaed Trump in its inquiry. Trump’s lawyers resisted the subpoena, citing decades of legal precedent they said shielded ex-presidents from being ordered to appear before Congress. The committee ultimately withdrew its subpoena.

    No former president has ever been successfully forced to appear before Congress, although some have voluntarily appeared.

    But some Republicans said they should face the same consequences for refusing to testify as Bannon and Navarro.

    Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, said on social media that if the Clintons “aren’t perp walked, we will have failed the American people.”

    Stephen Groves, Matt Brown, The Associated Press

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  • Clintons Refuse To Testify In House Epstein Probe As Republicans Threaten Contempt Proceedings – KXL

    FILE – Former President Bill Clinton, left, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listen as Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a eulogy for U.S. Rep.†Sheila Jackson Lee, Aug. 1, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are refusing to testify to Congress about Jeffrey Epstein.

    The Clintons in a letter Tuesday said they will not comply with a House subpoena to testify.

    The Democrats slam a Republican-controlled committee’s efforts as “legally invalid.”

    Republican lawmakers in response say they will launch contempt of Congress proceedings against the Clintons next week.

    In a letter released on social media, the Clintons denounce the contempt push as being “literally designed to result in” their imprisonment.

    The Republican push to hold the Clintons in contempt could result in prosecution from the Justice Department.

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    Grant McHill

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  • Republican House leader signals plan to begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton

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    GOP House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said he plans to commence contempt of Congress proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton for ignoring the committee’s subpoenas related to its ongoing probe into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. 

    Earlier this summer, in July, a bipartisan House Oversight Subcommittee approved motions to subpoena Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as a slew of other high-profile political figures, to aid its investigation looking into how the federal government handled Epstein’s sex trafficking case. The subpoenas were then sent out in early August, with the Clinton’s scheduled to testify on Dec. 17 and 18. 

    “It has been more than four months since Bill and Hillary Clinton were subpoenaed to sit for depositions related to our investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes. Throughout that time, the former President and former Secretary of State have delayed, obstructed, and largely ignored the Committee staff’s efforts to schedule their testimony,” Comer said in a press release put out Friday evening.

    DOJ CLEARED TO RELEASE SECRET JEFFREY EPSTEIN CASE GRAND JURY MATERIALS

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton.  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    “If the Clintons fail to appear for their depositions next week or schedule a date for early January, the Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings to hold them accountable.”

    Comer’s threats come as Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released a new batch of photos obtained from Epstein’s estate, which included further images of the disgraced financier with powerful figures like President Donald Trump and former President Clinton. Thousands of images were reportedly released, with potentially more to come.

    Other high-profile figures subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee include James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales.

    FEDERAL JUDGE APPROVES RELEASING GHISLAINE MAXWELL CASE GRAND JURY MATERIAL

    James Comer, Jeffrey Epstein

    House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is leading a probe into how the federal government handled the case against disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Neil Rasmus/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

    In addition to testimony from these individuals, Comer and the Oversight Committee also issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for all documents and communications pertaining to the case against Epstein.

    In September, the committee released tens-of-thousands of pages of Epstein-related records in compliance with the subpoena, and the Oversight Committee indicated that the DOJ would continue producing even more records as it works through needed redactions and other measures that must occur before they are released.

    Bondi, Epstein, Trump

    From Left to Right: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

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  • Donald Trump Calling Women Pigs and More: A Brief History

    Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey was asking President Donald Trump a follow-up question on Air Force One last week when he leaned toward her, pointed his finger, and said: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”

    He had deflected her first question, about a recently released Jeffrey Epstein email in which the late sex trafficker said Trump “knew about the girls.” Lucey was merely doing her job. But Trump, of course, doesn’t have much respect for good journalism—or, it would seem, for women, as his puerile “piggy” taunt indicates.

    The exchange—which has since gone viral—is shocking in its crudeness and nastiness, even by Trump administration standards. But this is also a familiar insult for Trump. Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe pageant winner, previously said that Trump once called her “Miss Piggy.” Trump didn’t exactly deny the incident after Hillary Clinton brought it up during a 2016 debate.

    “She gained a massive amount of weight,” Trump said of Machado on Fox & Friends the next morning, apparently in defense of his insult, “and it was a real problem.” During another debate that cycle, before he became the GOP’s nominee, moderator Megyn Kelly noted that Trump had “called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”

    “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump replied, referring to the comedian he’s been feuding with for nearly 20 years now.

    Trump doesn’t only love comparing women to pigs. In 2011, The New York Times’ Gail Collins wrote that Trump once told her she had “the face of a dog.” In 2018 he described Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former Apprentice contestant and White House aide, as a “dog” and a “lying lowlife.”

    Trump also dubbed Stormy Daniels—the adult-film actor who said she had a sexual encounter with him in 2006—“Horseface.” (Trump’s effort to silence Daniels about the alleged encounter—which he has denied—resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records; Trump is still trying to get the conviction thrown out.)

    “The president of the United States is supposed to be the moral leader, the leader of the country, and he’s acting like some thug on the street,” the longtime White House reporter April Ryan, who was called “Miss Piggy” by a Trump official in 2018, told The Guardian Tuesday. “It’s one thing for his minions to say that, but for him to call a woman that? That also shows how upset he is about the Epstein files. It lets us know that there’s probably some fire there.”

    Eric Lutz

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  • How chummy is too chummy? Epstein emails shine light on relationships between journalists, sources

    The emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein released this week shine a light on the delicate relationship between reporters and their sources. And, as can be the case, bright light isn’t always flattering.

    Messages between Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019, and journalists Michael Wolff and Landon Thomas Jr. are frequently chummy and, in one case, show Wolff giving Epstein advice on how to deal with the media —- a line journalists are taught not to cross. Wolff specializes in the “you are there” inside accounts that are possible with intensive reporting, though some of his work has been questioned.

    People frequently see journalists in public settings, conducting an interview or asking questions at a news conference. Private phone calls, texts or messages — where reporters try to ingratiate themselves with sources who may not otherwise be inclined to give information — are inherently different. But ethical rules remain and are followed by most in American journalism.

    Wolff’s advice came in a December 2015 exchange, where the writer said he heard CNN was going to ask then-presidential candidate Donald Trump about his relationship with Epstein. If we could craft an answer for him, Epstein wondered, what would it be?

    “I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff replied. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

    Advice on media relations for convicted sex offender

    The exchange left some experts aghast.

    Independence is vital for a journalist, and Wolff compromised it, said Dan Kennedy, a media writer and professor at Northeastern University.

    Kathleen Bartzen Culver’s voice rises in anger just contemplating the example. Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said there are plenty of ethical issues to maneuver every day, like whether a reporter should give $20 after interviewing a poor person who lost benefits during the government shutdown.

    “Giving PR advice to a convicted sex offender isn’t one of them,” she said.

    Wolff, a two-time National Magazine Award winner, wrote books like “Fire and Fury,” about the opening days of the first Trump administration, and “The Man Who Owns the News,” a biography of Rupert Murdoch. “Historically, one of the problems with Wolff’s omniscience is that while he may know all, he gets some of it wrong,” the late David Carr of The New York Times wrote in a review of the Murdoch book.

    Wolff, who did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press, admitted on the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast that some of the email messages were embarrassing. But he said his knowledge of the media offers “the kind of cachet that gives me a place at the table, which has gotten me the Epstein story, if anybody wanted to pay attention.”

    At one point in 2016, Wolff turns the table, seeking counsel from Epstein on what he should ask during an upcoming interview with Trump. That’s a legitimate journalistic exercise, part of the reporting that goes into preparing for an interview.

    A 2016 exchange with Epstein mixed a plea for an interview with some advice: “There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him off. Interested?”

    Wolff said on the podcast that part of his role is “play-acting” to get sources to reveal things they would not tell other people. And he took on his critics.

    “These are not people that have written the kind of books that I have written,” he said, “and I often make the distinction between journalists who do what they do — daily reporters working for organizations, working within a very prescribed set of rules — and what I do. I’m a writer who manages to make relationships that let me tell a story in the ways that The New York Times or other very reputable journalistic organizations are unable to tell.”

    Author Michael Wolff discusses his latest book on March 14, 2025, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP, File)

    A distinction that not every reader makes

    Not everyone sees the difference when considering works of nonfiction. Culver cited journalism that took courage and skill to report and said, “I find it heartbreaking when that kind of work is sullied by this kind of garbage.”

    Should a journalist act differently in public or private? They’re not supposed to. That explains why Connie Chung had a hard time living down her 1995 exchange with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s mother. Gingrich initially ducked when Chung asked how her son felt about Hillary Clinton until Chung asked — on camera — “why don’t you just whisper it to me — just between you and me.”

    Many of the exchanges between Epstein and the journalists are chatty, gossipy — seemingly harmless, yet not the sort of things one would like to see published years later. Northeastern’s Kennedy read some of the emails between Wolff and Epstein and said “it just seemed like kibbitzing with a child molester for no apparent purpose.”

    In one email conversation, the former New York Times reporter Thomas mentions that he’s been getting calls from another journalist who is writing a book on Epstein. “He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media,” Thomas wrote. “I told him you were a hell of a guy :).”

    Thomas also didn’t hide his feelings about Trump in one conversation — a personal opinion that most reporters learn to keep to themselves. “I am getting worried,” Thomas wrote in July 2016. “Is he ever going to implode?”

    Relations between journalist and source: Step carefully

    Journalists should take care to maintain boundaries, especially when dealing with people who are inexperienced with the media. There’s admittedly a fine line: A reporter needs a source’s trust, but it’s a form of deception if a source begins to think of the journalist as a friend who would never betray them.

    People most commonly think of politics when considering bias in journalism. More frequently, bias shows up in relationships, whether a reporter likes or dislikes someone they are dealing with, Culver said.

    “I advise my students to be human with their sources,” she said. “Not to be friendly or sweet, but to come at it with respect and understanding.”

    Thomas stopped working at The Times in 2019 after editors discovered a violation of its ethical standards. National Public Radio reported that Thomas had solicited a $30,000 contribution from Epstein for a charity the journalist supported.

    In one exchange that was widely noticed online, Epstein asked Thomas in 2015 if he would like photos of Trump and girls in bikinis taken in his kitchen. “Yes!!!” the reporter replied.

    But The Times said no such photos were forthcoming.

    ___

    David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.socia l

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  • ‘RIP, East Wing’: Obama, First Daughters Slam Trump Ballroom

    All of the living former presidents, along with their immediate family members, have made it pretty clear that they can’t stand Donald Trump. Some have tried to deal with this by avoiding Trump and largely refraining from commentary on his antics. But now, former First Ladies Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, along with several former First Daughters, have confirmed what you probably already suspected: They aren’t big fans of Trump tearing down the East Wing to build a gilded White House ballroom.

    Unsurprisingly, Hillary Clinton was the first to bash Trump’s extreme White House makeover. She posted this on X before the East Wing had been fully reduced to rubble:

    Also unsurprising: Days later, she plugged “not his house” merch:

    But as the East Wing was coming down, we heard from two First Daughters who are less vocal with their Trump criticism. First, Chelsea Clinton bashed Trump for “a wrecking ball to our heritage” in a USA Today opinion piece:

    The White House will always be a home I was lucky enough to live in for a while. Even more important, it is a mirror of our democracy, resilient when we honor its foundations but fragile when we take them for granted. What was dismantled today isn’t just marble or plaster; it is a reflection of how easily history can be erased when power forgets purpose.

    A day later, Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, lamented the loss of the East Wing in the New York Times, calling the demolition “heartbreaking”:

    Among certain jaded observers, there’s been a strain of chatter dismissing the damage, saying the East Wing was never all that architecturally distinguished. But it was not just a building made of brick and plaster; it was the people’s house, a building suffused with the spirit of the ideals that built it. It was a building that invited you to look beyond your own life, your own reality, to something bigger, a huge story we all inhabit. To stand in such a place makes you feel small, yet also larger than just yourself. It makes you aware of the continuum of history in a way that feels akin to sacredness.

    … We silence so much when we tear down places that are there to teach us, inspire us, humble us. Ghosts and memories drift away in the dust, the wreckage, and we are all poorer as a result.

    This week, even Jenna Bush Hager, the Today show co-host who rarely expresses any political opinions, made a crack about her former residence while interviewing Michelle Obama about her new book, The Look.

    “As you know, the First Lady is a strange job,” Obama said. “There’s no guidebook, there’s barely a staff, now we don’t have a building.”

    “I know,” Hager said, making a cringing face. “RIP, the East Wing.”

    (Their comments start at the two-minute mark in the video below.)

    Obama sharpened her criticism of the ballroom project as her press tour continued. During a Tuesday-night appearance on The Late Show, she quipped, “Remember that?” when host Stephen Colbert asked about the demolition.

    She went on to describe the East Wing, which was traditionally the First Ladies’ domain, as the part of the White House where “life happened,” while the West Wing was “work.”

    “It was an important distinction, because the West Wing team, they needed that break. You know, they needed to come to a place where they could be reminded of the reason we were doing this,” she explained.

    Obama added that she’s “confused” about why Trump’s allowed to knock down a huge part of the White House while there were so many presidential norms her family tried to follow.

    “It makes me confused,” she said. “I am confused by what are our norms? What are our standards? What are our traditions? I just feel like what is important to us as a nation anymore, because I’m lost. There were a whole standard of norms and rules that we followed to a T that we painstakingly tried to uphold, because it was bigger than us … that East Wing … it’s not mine. It is ours.”

    During a live taping of her podcast, IMO, in Brooklyn on Wednesday night, Obama said Trump’s disregard for the White House shows how little he thinks of the First Lady’s role.

    “When we talk about the East Wing, it is the heart of the work. And to denigrate it, to tear it down, to pretend like it doesn’t matter — it’s a reflection of how you think of that role,” Obama said, per Vanity Fair. “Whether the West Wing understood it or not, I used to tell them: All the stuff we do on the East Wing, from the clothes I wear to [family dogs] Bo and Sunny to Malia and Sasha and grandma, those were five extra approval points that he got, because we provided a balance.”

    If nothing else, the East Wing demolition is giving the former First Family members something to commiserate about the next time they all pal around without Trump.


    See All



    Margaret Hartmann

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  • Federal prosecutors flesh out their case against James Comey. It still looks shaky.

    On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey publicly explained why he did not think Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent in that year’s presidential election, should be prosecuted for her “extremely careless” handling of “very sensitive, highly classified information” as secretary of state during the Obama administration. But four months later, just 11 days before the election, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Clinton in light of recently discovered emails between her and her personal assistant. Although the new evidence did not change the FBI’s assessment of Clinton’s conduct, Comey did not report that outcome to Congress until November 6, two days before the election.

    Comey took a lot of flak from Democrats, who thought he had recklessly undermined their nominee’s prospects by revealing a renewed yet ultimately fruitless investigation so close to the election. He responded by encouraging his “good friend” Daniel Richman, a Columbia law school professor, to defend him in interviews with reporters, which helped generate stories that summarized Comey’s perspective on the controversy. Sometimes Richman was quoted by name, and sometimes he provided information “on background.” Richman’s interactions with the press, it turns out, are at the center of the perjury and obstruction charges against Comey.

    That point, which federal prosecutors first revealed to Comey’s lawyers on October 15 and fleshed out in a brief they filed on Monday, adds some much-needed clarity to the vague, skimpy indictment that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, obtained on September 25. At the same time, it sheds light on the reasons why Halligan’s predecessor, whom Trump replaced just a few days before the indictment, did not think the case was worth pursuing—an assessment shared by career prosecutors in his office.

    Halligan says Comey lied during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3, 2017, less than a week before Trump fired him out of anger at the FBI’s investigation of alleged ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian government. Although the statute of limitations precludes charging Comey in connection with that hearing, Halligan alleges that he reiterated his lie when he reaffirmed his 2017 testimony during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 30, 2020. Halligan managed, just barely, to obtain an indictment within five years of the latter hearing.

    As relevant to the indictment, Comey answered “no” in 2017 when Sen. Charles Grassley (R–Iowa) asked whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” about “the Clinton investigation.” At the 2020 hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) noted the exchange with Grassley, and Comey said “I stand by” that answer, adding that his testimony “is the same today.”

    In sticking by his 2017 testimony, Halligan alleges, Comey “willfully and knowingly” made “a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to Congress, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison under 18 USC 1001(a)(2). Comey’s statement was false, the indictment says, because he “then and there knew” that he “in fact had authorized PERSON 3 [Richman] to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation of PERSON 1 [Clinton].” Halligan says Richman qualified as “someone else at the FBI” because, in addition to his full-time, paying gig at Columbia, he served the agency as an unpaid “special government employee” during Comey’s tenure there.

    There are several problems with Halligan’s interpretation of Comey’s exchange with Cruz, beginning with the fact that the senator’s questioning focused on a dispute between Comey and Andrew McCabe, his former deputy, regarding the release of information about a different FBI investigation. Comey’s lawyers argue that “when Senator Cruz referenced Senator Grassley’s question about whether Mr. Comey authorized ‘someone else at the FBI’ to serve as anonymous source, there was no reason to assume that he was referring to anyone but full-time employees like Mr. McCabe—who were stationed at the FBI—as opposed to someone like Mr. Richman, who was a Special Government Employee living fulltime in New York.”

    In light of Comey’s close, longstanding friendship with Richman, it is especially plausible that he did not think of him as “someone else at the FBI.” Richman repeatedly defended Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation, both on and off the record, in conversations with journalists—to the point that a sympathetic 2017 article in The New Yorker described Richman as “a close friend of Comey who has served as his unofficial media surrogate.” Given that background, it seems unlikely that Comey, in his responses to Grassley and Cruz, was trying to cover up Richman’s role in getting him good press.

    That is nevertheless what federal prosecutors suggest in their November 3 brief. Officially, it is a response to Comey’s argument that the indictment should be dismissed because his prosecution is vindictive and selective, driven by Trump’s personal grudge against him. But in rebutting that claim, the brief offers a narrative that was conspicuously missing from the indictment, which Halligan rushed to obtain before a statutory deadline that would have missed by the end of September.

    Notably, the indictment was signed by Halligan alone, which seemed to reflect internal skepticism about the charges. But the response to Comey’s claim of vindictive and selective prosecution is signed by two assistant U.S. attorneys: N. Tyler Lemons and Gabriel J. Diaz, both of whom were reassigned to Halligan’s office from the Eastern District of North Carolina in October.

    Lemons and Diaz cite emails between Comey and Richman that illustrate their collaboration in generating stories that reflected Comey’s defense of the way he handled the Clinton investigation. On November 1, 2016, for example, Comey expressed his dissatisfaction with coverage of the controversy in The New York Times.

    “When I read the [Times] coverage involving [reporter Michael Schmidt], I am left with the sense that they don’t understand the significance of my having spoke[n] about the case in July,” Comey wrote. “It changes the entire analysis. Perhaps you can make [Schmidt] smarter.”

    Comey was alluding to his argument that he had an obligation to update Congress about the Clinton investigation in light of his earlier announcement. “Why is this so hard for them to grasp?” he wondered. “All the stuff about how we were allegedly careful not to take actions on cases involving other allegations about which we have never spoken is irrelevant. I love our practice of being inactive near elections. But inactivity was not an option here. The choices were act to reveal or act to conceal.”

    Richman replied the next day, assuring Comey that he was working hard to promote his perspective: “This is precisely the case I made to them and thought they understood. I was quite wrong. Indeed I went further and said mindless allegiance to the policy (and recognition that more evidence could come in) would have counseled silence in [J]uly to let [Clinton] twist in the wind.”

    Later that day, Richman told Comey he had tried again, this time with more success: “Just got the point home to [Schmidt]. Probably was rougher than u would have been.”

    That same day, the Times ran a flow-chart-style article by Matt Apuzzo and Sergio Pecanha under the headline “These Are the Bad (and Worse) Options James Comey Faced.” Comey deemed that article “pretty good,” adding, “Someone showed some logic. I would paint the cons more darkly but not bad.” Richman replied, “See I *can* teach.” Comey expressed his gratitude: “Well done my friend.”

    On February 11, 2017, Richman emailed Chuck Rosenberg, who was then acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Rosenberg had previously held various FBI and Justice Department positions, including chief of staff for Comey when he was deputy attorney general during George W. Bush’s administration.

    “My pal at the NYT, Mike Schmidt, is (along with [Matt] Apuzzo, [Adam] Goldman, and (gag me) [Eric] Lichtblau)…doing a huge piece on the [Clinton] emails,” Richman wrote. “He’s had a ton of background conversations with players and non-players (like me). Mike would very much like to talk to you exclusively on background as he tries to [understand] Jim’s decisionmaking to the extent possible. Mike asked me to reach out to you. Hence this email. Would you be willing to chat with him?” Rosenberg said he would “reach out” to Schmidt.

    The “huge piece” to which Richman referred evidently was a story by Apuzzo, Schmidt, Goldman, and Lichtblau that the Times ran on April 22, 2017, under the headline “Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.” The story quoted Richman by name, describing him as “a longtime confidant and friend of Mr. Comey’s.” Comey was again pleased. “I read the piece,” he wrote to Richman the next day. “Thanks so much for your words and tell [Schmidt] he did a good job. Would be different if I wrote it but it is by and large fair.”

    Richman replied: “You’re ever so welcome. And will do re Mike. Any badly or under-developed points for me to work on with the New Yorker? Or just the usual.”

    Richman apparently was referring to a flattering article by Peter Elkind that would appear in the May 11, 2017, issue of The New Yorker, titled “James Comey’s Conspicuous Independence.” Like the April 22 Times story, it quoted Richman by name, describing him as “a Columbia law professor and close friend of Comey who has served as his unofficial media surrogate.”

    The evidence cited by the government, in short, does not do much more than confirm Richman’s well-known role as Comey’s champion. It establishes that Richman, with Comey’s encouragement, sometimes openly defended his friend and sometimes worked behind the scenes to influence press coverage.

    Given the latter approach, it is accurate to say that Comey “authorized” Richman to “serve as an anonymous source in news reports” about the Clinton investigation. But the assertion that Comey lied about that hinges on two questionable assumptions.

    Halligan assumes that Comey, when he was questioned by Grassley and Cruz, would have thought of Richman as “someone else at the FBI” rather than his “longtime confidant and friend.” She also assumes that Comey was deliberately trying to mislead the senators about his well-established relationship with Richman, at least to the extent that it included “background” discussions with reporters.

    To convict Comey, prosecutors would have to persuade a jury that there is no reasonable doubt about either of those propositions. It is therefore not surprising that Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, was not keen to pursue this case, or that Trump managed to get what he wanted only by intervening at the last minute. He replaced Siebert with Halligan, a neophyte prosecutor whose main qualification was her willingness to overlook the weaknesses that had deterred her predecessor, and he publicly ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey before it was too late.

    “We can’t delay any longer,” Trump told Bondi. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Five days later, Siebert delivered the indictment that Trump had demanded, although it was such a hasty job that the details of the allegations against Comey are only now coming into focus. Those details reinforce the impression that Trump was determined to get Comey one way or another, regardless of the law or the evidence.

    Jacob Sullum

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  • Donald Trump sued over east wing demolition

    President Donald Trump is facing legal action over the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, part of a $300 million plan to build a new ballroom on the executive grounds.

    A Virginia couple, Charles and Judith Voorhees, filed an emergency motion in federal court on October 23 seeking to halt the project, alleging that it violates multiple federal preservation and planning laws.

    Newsweek contacted the White House and attorneys for the couple for comment via email outside of normal office hours on Friday.

    Why It Matters

    The fight over Trump’s demolition project goes beyond a construction dispute—it’s a test of presidential power, public ownership, and historic preservation.

    The Voorhees lawsuit seeking to halt the project argues that Trump bypassed laws meant to protect national landmarks and public transparency.

    At stake is whether a sitting president can unilaterally alter one of the country’s most symbolically important buildings, or whether the “People’s House” must remain subject to the same review and accountability standards that govern other federal projects.

    What To Know

    The Lawsuit And What It Alleges

    The filing, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requests a temporary restraining order “to halt defendants’ destruction of the East Wing of the White House… without legally required approvals or reviews,” according to the plaintiffs’ application for injunctive relief.

    The defendants are listed as Trump, in his official capacity, and Jessica Brown, director of the National Park Service.

    Attorney Mark R. Denicore, who represents the Voorheeses, said he acted quickly to file the case. “I threw that together as fast as I could to try to get it filed as fast as I could,” Denicore told Politico on Thursday.

    He added that his clients “are just people, U.S. citizens, that don’t like their house being torn down without going through proper procedures.”

    The complaint argues that the administration began demolishing the East Wing without first submitting final plans to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) or consulting with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office.

    It also cites an alleged failure to seek guidance from the Commission of Fine Arts, which traditionally reviews exterior changes to federal landmarks.

    What’s Happening At The White House

    Photographs published on Thursday showed the entire East Wing—long home to first ladies’ offices, state dinner planning and ceremonial events—had been reduced to rubble as part of Trump’s proposal to construct a ballroom nearly twice the size of the White House.

    Addressing questions about the president’s earlier remarks that his planned ballroom project would not affect the existing structure of the White House, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration had made clear from the start that the East Wing would need to be “modernized.” She added that “plans changed” after Trump consulted with architects and construction firms working on the project.

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation expressed concern in a letter sent Tuesday to the National Park Service and other agencies.

    “We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” wrote Carol Quillen, the organization’s president and chief executive.

    Quillen said the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom “will overwhelm the White House itself,” which spans about 55,000 square feet.

    The Project And Its Wider Implications

    The White House has framed Trump’s new ballroom as the latest in a long tradition of presidential renovations, comparing it to historic presidential expansions from Theodore Roosevelt’s West Wing to John F Kennedy’s Rose Garden and Harry Truman’s full reconstruction.

    Officials have likened it to past expansions such as the creation of the West Wing and reconstruction of the Executive Mansion. The East Wing, first built in 1902 and expanded during World War II, historically housed the first lady’s offices and the White House Social Office.

    The structure sits above the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a Cold War-era bunker constructed in 1942.

    The White House has defended the project as both lawful and consistent with presidential authority. Trump has argued the White House needs a large entertaining space, criticizing the past practice of presidents hosting state dinners and other large events in tents on the South Lawn.

    “President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House—just like all of his predecessors did,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Politico.

    Leavitt also described public criticism as “fake outrage,” telling Fox News that “nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House… has made modernizations and renovations of their own.”

    According to a July 31 White House press release, the ballroom will replace the “small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing” with a larger facility capable of hosting 650 guests.

    The design, by Washington-based McCrery Architects, aims to match “the theme and architectural heritage” of the existing building, it added.

    The statement said the project would be privately funded through donations from “patriot donors” and completed before the end of Trump’s term. But the White House has not released a full list of the donors who have contributed to the project, raising ethical concerns and questions about conflicts of interest.

    Preservation experts note that the White House grounds are governed by multiple overlapping statutes, though the Executive Residence has historically been treated as exempt from some federal planning reviews.

    The National Park Service’s 2014 White House and President’s Park Foundation Document identifies the White House and its wings as “fundamental resources” whose design and integrity are central to the site’s national significance.

    What People Are Saying

    Donald Trump said on Thursday: “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.”

    Hillary Clinton said on X on Monday: “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.”

    Sara C. Bronin, Freda H. Alverson Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, and former chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said: “There are other federal statutes requiring the administration to take certain steps before they act to do anything on White House grounds, if they had, they would have no doubt refrained from bulldozing our shared history.”

    What Happens Next

    It remains unclear whether the Voorhees lawsuit will gain traction. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will decide whether to grant the temporary restraining order sought by the couple to halt the project, but no hearing date has been set in the case.

    The court ruling will determine whether the renovation continues and could set precedent on how much control a president has over altering the nation’s most historic residence.

    Federal courts generally require plaintiffs to show a specific, personal injury to establish standing—a high bar for citizens objecting to government property decisions since courts often dismiss cases brought by citizens without a direct stake.

    Even if the case proceeds, most of the East Wing has already been torn down, making a work stoppage largely symbolic.

    Oversight bodies such as the National Capital Planning Commission may still review the ballroom plans, but their authority over the Executive Residence is limited.

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  • Hillary Clinton fires up voters against Trump’s White House ballroom construction: ‘Not his house”

    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it known she is no fan of President Donald Trump’s project to construct a ballroom at the White House in an appeal to voters that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is their “house.”

    “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” Clinton wrote on X on Tuesday morning. 

    The social media post included a screenshot of The Washington Post’s report, “White House begins demolishing East Wing Facade to build Trump’s ballroom,” accompanied by a photo of a demolition crew. 

    “President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense. These long-needed upgrades will benefit generations of future presidents and American visitors to the People’s House,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox Digital when asked about Clinton’s post and other Democrats criticizing the ballroom construction. 

    TRUMP BREAKS GROUND ON MASSIVE WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM PROJECT WITH PRIVATE FUNDING FROM ‘PATRIOTS’

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed President Donald Trump’s construction project at the White House to build a ballroom.  (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    Trump announced Monday that construction had begun on the ballroom, following months of the president floating the planned project to modernize the White House. The project does not cost taxpayers and is privately funded, the White House reported. 

    “I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!” 

    “For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” he continued. “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!”

    White House demolition for new ballroom

    The White House has started tearing down part of the East Wing to build the ballroom President Donald Trump wants added to the building. Demolition started Monday. (The Associated Press)

    The privately-funded project will cost an estimated $200 million, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media in July. The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will accommodate approximately 650 seated guests, according to the White House. 

    “The White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders in other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building’s entrance,” Leavitt said back in July, adding the new ballroom will be “a much needed and exquisite addition.”

    FETTERMAN DEFENDS TRUMP’S ‘TASTEFUL’ $200M WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM MAKEOVER AMID DEM CRITICISM

    Other Democrats have also slammed the construction project, including New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim calling it “disgusting.”

    Donald Trump smiles in a navy suit and red tie

    President Donald Trump arrives at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Evan Vucci/AP)

    “I wanted to share this photo of my family standing by a historic part of the White House that was just torn down today by Trump. We didn’t need a billionaire-funded ballroom to celebrate America. Disgusting what Trump is doing,” Kim posted to X on Monday. 

    White House flag

    Trump first announced he would have two massive flag poles installed on the White House  (Getty Images)

    “Oh you’re trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can’t hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted to X on Monday. 

    CHICAGO RESIDENTS CALL OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER A ‘MONSTROSITY,’ FEAR THEY’LL BE DISPLACED: REPORT

    Trump rose garden

    Tables and chairs in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. Trump ordered updates to the Rose Garden in March.  (Getty Images)

    “Republican math. Can afford: Trump ballroom, $40 Billion Argentina bailout, massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires Can’t afford: health care for Americans, SNAP for struggling Americans, tax relief for middle class families,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta posted to X. 

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    The ballroom construction follows Trump installing two massive 88-foot-tall American flags on either side of the White House this summer in a patriotic endeavor that did not cost U.S. taxpayers a cent, as well as an overhaul to the White House Rose Garden. 

    Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this article. 

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  • Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice weigh in on Israel-Hamas peace deal



    Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice weigh in on Israel-Hamas peace deal – CBS News










































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    Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice join CBS News 24/7 for a live interview with CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell to discuss the Israel-Hamas peace plan brokered by President Trump as the first stage of the deal takes shape.

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  • Commentary: Did Kamala Harris just destroy her 2028 chances? Is Gavin Newsom glad she did?

    Democrats, despite their hypersensitive, bleeding-heart reputation, can be harsh. Ruthless, even.

    When it comes to picking their presidential nominee, it’s often one and done. Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were embraced and then, after leading their party to disappointing defeat, cast off like so many wads of wet tissue.

    Compare that with Republicans, who not only believe in second chances but, more often than not, seem to prefer their presidential candidates recycled. Over the last half century, all but a few of the GOP’s nominees have had at least one failed White House bid on their resume.

    The roster of retreads includes the current occupant of the Oval Office, who is only the second president in U.S. history to regain the perch after losing it four years prior.

    Why the difference? It would take a psychologist or geneticist to determine if there’s something in the minds or molecular makeup of party faithful, which could explain their varied treatment of those humbled and vanquished.

    Regardless, it suggests the blowback facing Kamala Harris and the campaign diary she published last week is happening right on cue.

    And it doesn’t portend well for another try at the White House in 2028, should the former vice president and U.S. senator from California pursue that path.

    The criticism has come in assorted flavors.

    Joe Biden loyalists — many of whom were never great fans of Harris — have bristled at her relatively mild criticisms of the obviously aged and physically declining president. (She leaves it to her husband, former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, to vent about the “impossible, s— jobs” Harris was given and, in spite of that, the failure of the president and first lady to defend Harris during her low points.)

    The notable lack of self-blame has rankled other Democrats. Aside from some couldas and shouldas, Harris largely ascribes her defeat to insufficient time to make her case to voters — just 107 days, the title of her book — which hardly sits well with those who feel Harris squandered the time she did have.

    More generally, some Democrats fault the former vice president for resurfacing, period, rather than slinking off and disappearing forever into some deep, dark hole. It’s a familiar gripe each time the party struggles to move past a presidential defeat; Hillary Clinton faced a similar backlash when she published her inside account after losing to Donald Trump in 2016.

    That critique assumes great masses of voters devour campaign memoirs with the same voracious appetite as those who surrender their Sundays to the Beltway chat shows, or mainline political news like a continuous IV drip.

    They do not.

    Let the record show Democrats won the White House in 2020 even though Clinton bobbed back up in 2017 and, for a short while, thwarted the party’s fervent desire to “turn the page.”

    But there are those avid consumers of campaigns and elections, and for the political fiends among us Harris offers plenty of fizz, much of it involving her party peers and prospective 2028 rivals.

    Pete Buttigieg, the meteoric star of the 2020 campaign, was her heartfelt choice for vice president, but Harris said she feared the combination of a Black woman and gay running mate would exceed the load-bearing capacity of the electorate. (News to me, Buttigieg said after Harris revealed her thinking, and an underestimation of the American people.)

    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the runner-up to Harris’ ultimate vice presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, comes across as unseemly salivating and greedily lusting after the job. (He fired back by suggesting Harris has some splainin’ to do about what she knew of Biden’s infirmities and when she knew it.)

    Harris implies Govs. JB Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer of Illinois and Michigan, respectively, were insufficiently gung-ho after Biden stepped aside and she became the Democratic nominee-in-waiting.

    But for California readers, the most toothsome morsel involves Harris’ longtime frenemy, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    The two, who rose to political power in the early 2000s on parallel tracks in San Francisco, have long had a complicated relationship, mixing mutual aid with jealousy and jostling.

    In her book, Harris recounts the hours after Biden’s sudden withdrawal, when she began telephoning top Democrats around the country to lock in their support. In contrast to the enthusiasm many displayed, Newsom responded tersely with a text message: “Hiking. Will call back.”

    He never did, Harris noted, pointedly, though Newsom did issue a full-throated endorsement within hours, which the former vice president failed to mention.

    It’s small-bore stuff. But the fact Harris chose to include that anecdote speaks to the tetchiness underlying the warmth and fuzziness that California’s two most prominent Democrats put on public display.

    Will the two face off in 2028?

    Riding the promotional circuit, Harris has repeatedly sidestepped the inevitable questions about another presidential bid.

    “That’s not my focus right now,” she told Rachel Maddow, in a standard-issue non-denial denial. For his part, Newsom is obviously running, though he won’t say so.

    There would be something operatic, or at least soap-operatic, about the two longtime competitors openly vying for the country’s ultimate political prize — though it’s hard to see Democrats, with their persistent hunger for novelty, turning to Harris or her left-coast political doppelganger as their savior.

    Meantime, the two are back on parallel tracks, though seemingly headed in opposite directions.

    While Newsom is looking to build Democratic bridges, Harris is burning hers down.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Kash Patel tellingly ties James Comey’s indictment to the legally unrelated ‘Russiagate hoax’

    In his 2023 book Government Gangsters, Kash Patel, now the director of the FBI, described a “deep state” conspiracy against Donald Trump that he equated with a conspiracy to subvert democracy and the Constitution. An appendix to the book listed 60 “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State,” whom Patel described as “corrupt actors of the first order.” The list included former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017 out of anger over the FBI’s investigation of alleged ties between his presidential campaign and the Russian government.

    After Trump picked Patel to run the FBI, the nominee assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that, despite his vow to “come after” the “conspirators,” there would be “no politicization at the FBI” and “no retributive actions” against the president’s enemies. Thursday’s indictment of Comey, which charges him with two felonies based on allegedly false congressional testimony in September 2020, epitomizes the emptiness of that promise.

    As Patel tells it, the indictment, which was filed just a few days before the charges would have been barred by the five-year statute of limitations, is not a “retributive action.” Rather, it is “another step” in keeping the FBI’s “promise of full accountability.” It just so happens that accountability in this case coincides with pursuing one of the president’s many personal vendettas.

    “For far too long, previous corrupt leadership and their enablers weaponized federal law enforcement, damaging once proud institutions and severely eroding public trust,” Patel said in a press release. “Every day, we continue the fight to earn that trust back, and under my leadership, this FBI will confront the problem head-on. Nowhere was this politicization of law enforcement more blatant than during the Russiagate hoax, a disgraceful chapter in history we continue to investigate and expose. Everyone, especially those in positions of power, will be held to account—no matter their perch. No one is above the law.”

    Despite that framing, the Comey indictment, on its face, has nothing to do with “the Russiagate hoax.” It alleges that Comey lied during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 30, 2020, when he reaffirmed his earlier testimony that he had not authorized anyone at the FBI to “be an anonymous source in news stories about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation”—i.e., the FBI probe that examined Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified material as secretary of state, including her use of a private email server.

    As Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) noted at the 2020 hearing, Comey’s testimony contradicted what Andrew McCabe, Comey’s former deputy, had told the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). McCabe claimed Comey had approved the disclosure of information about an FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation to The Wall Street Journal, which mentioned that new wrinkle in a story about the email investigation published on October 30, 2016. But the OIG report on the leak credited Comey’s version of events and portrayed McCabe as persistently dishonest.

    “McCabe lacked candor when he told Comey, or made statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure and did not know who did,” the report said. “McCabe lacked candor when he told [FBI] agents that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did….McCabe lacked candor when he stated that he told Comey on October 31, 2016, that he [McCabe] had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ” and that “Comey agreed it was a ‘good’ idea.”

    The OIG report concluded that “McCabe did not tell Comey on or around October 31 (or at any other time) that he (McCabe) had authorized the disclosure of information about the [Clinton Foundation] Investigation to the WSJ.” It added that “had McCabe done so, we believe that Comey would have objected to the disclosure.”

    Based on the contrary assumption that McCabe was telling the truth, the indictment charges Comey with “willfully and knowingly” making “a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under 18 USC 1001(a)(2), that’s a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The indictment also alleges a related felony, subject to the same maximum penalty, under 18 USC 1505, which applies to someone who “corruptly” attempts to “influence, obstruct, or impede” a congressional proceeding.

    To successfully defend Comey against those charges, National Review‘s Jim Geraghty notes, his lawyers “will have to convince at least one juror that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is a duplicitous SOB who lied when he claimed Comey had given permission to leak the information when Comey did not. That does not exactly sound like Mission: Impossible.”

    Given the weakness of the case against Comey, it is not surprising that career prosecutors did not think it was worth pursuing. That resistance explains why the indictment is signed only by Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer with no prosecutorial experience whom the president appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia this month after her predecessor, Erik Seibert, proved insufficiently receptive to pursuing charges against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, another Trump nemesis. Even Attorney General Pam Bondi, who on Thursday claimed Comey’s indictment reflected the Justice Department’s “commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people,” reportedly was skeptical of the case in private.

    It is telling that Patel explicitly tied Comey’s indictment to “the Russiagate hoax” even though the charges are legally unrelated to that investigation. In a December 2023 podcast interview, Patel made it clear that he was determined to punish the “corrupt actors” who had wronged Trump even if it required some legal creativity. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out,” he said. “But yeah, we’re putting all of you on notice.”

    Jacob Sullum

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  • Former FBI Director James Comey indicted

    (CNN) — Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted by a federal grand jury, an extraordinary escalation in President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies.

    Comey, a longtime adversary of the president, is now the first senior government official to face federal charges in one of Trump’s largest grievances: the 2016 investigation into whether his first presidential campaign colluded with Russia.

    “JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

    Comey has been charged with giving false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, and he could face up to five years in prison if convicted.

    Both charges are connected to his September 30, 2020, testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. A source told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the indictment for lying to Congress is related to the FBI’s “Arctic haze” leak investigation, related to classified information that ended up in four different newspaper articles.

    Appearing by Zoom, Comey testified that “he had not authorized someone else to be an anonymous source in news reports,” the indictment said. “That statement was false.”

    Comey responded to the indictment in an Instagram video, saying, “Let’s have a trial. And keep the faith.”

    “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent,” he added.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X, “No one is above the law.”

    “Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people,” Bondi wrote. “We will follow the facts in this case.”

    Inside the courthouse

    The charges were presented by Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal attorney and the new top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia. She was not accompanied by any career prosecutor and is the only Justice Department official who signed the charging documents.

    During a brief hearing, a judge announced the new case against Comey and said publicly that 14 jurors agreed to indict on the counts of false statements in the jurisdiction of a congressional proceeding and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

    Halligan, who had never presented to a grand jury, did a crash course to prepare with DOJ attorneys and FBI officials ahead of Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Halligan participated in a number of “practice runs” and spent hours going through the material in preparation.

    Comey was charged for an alleged false statement he made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 30, 2020, though he had been asked the same question years earlier under oath.

    Prosecutors say Comey authorized a leak to the media about an FBI investigation via an anonymous source, but he then told the Senate he had not.

    In his 2020 Senate hearing, appearing by Zoom, Sen. Ted Cruz read to Comey an exchange he had with a different senator, Chuck Grassley, during congressional testimony three years prior.

    Cruz said to Comey in 2020:

    “On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you point blank, ‘Have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?’ You responded under oath, ‘Never.’ He then asked you, ‘Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?’ You responded again under oath, ‘No.’”

    Comey then said to Cruz: “I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.”

    Grand jury rejected third charge against Comey

    A court record made public on Thursday certified that the grand jury voted “no” on indicting Comey on another alleged false statement to Congress — a very unusual occurrence in the federal court system.

    That other false statement allegation, which is not part of the indictment of Comey, according to this record, appears to pinpoint Comey’s answer when he was asked about an alleged plan from Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

    “That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey testified in 2020 in response to a question from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

    In the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, Graham told Comey about an alleged plan in 2016 where Clinton wanted to distract the public from her use of a private email server and fuel the 2016 Russia investigation around Trump and Russian hackers hurting the US elections.

    That question and answer has long fed conservative theories about Comey wanting to hurt Trump and assist Clinton during the campaign and into Trump’s first presidency.

    The grand jury did not have a majority of 12 yes votes, out of a possible 23, to indict Comey for that exchange with Graham, according to the court record.

    Comey’s son-in-law resigns

    Comey’s son-in-law, Troy A. Edwards, Jr., resigned Thursday from his position as a senior national security prosecutor shortly after the former FBI director was indicted, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

    In a one-sentence letter to Halligan, Edwards wrote: “To uphold my oath to the Constitution and country, I hereby resign as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in the Department of Justice effective immediately.”

    Previous concerns about charges

    The indictment Thursday evening comes as CNN previously reported concerns Bondi and prosecutors have had about the case.

    Bondi is facing pressure from Trump, who is demanding his political enemies face criminal charges as he once did. But attorneys inside the Eastern District of Virginia recently wrote a memo detailing their reservations over seeking the indictment, ABC News first reported.

    Bondi had concerns about the case, which focuses on whether Comey made false statements during congressional testimony involving the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the US presidential election, according to a person familiar with her thinking, though she believes it would be possible to bring an indictment.

    Late Thursday, Bondi replied to CNN’s reporting, stating, “That is a flat out lie.”

    The attorney general had dinner at the White House Rose Garden with Trump and others Wednesday evening.

    ‘I just want people to act’

    Publicly and privately, Trump has complained that prosecutors were willing to bring numerous criminal cases against him while he was out of office, noting that in those instances he was charged with whatever they had at the time, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The person added that Trump has repeatedly said that the Justice Department should bring the best case it can when it comes to his political opponents and let the court decide the rest.

    “I just want people to act. And we want to act fast,” Trump told reporters Saturday as he departed the White House. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be charged, they should be charged, and we have to do it now.”

    Some inside the White House view Halligan’s willingness to bring the case as her jumping on a grenade to please Trump – though that is why she was picked to take on the role of leading the Eastern District of Virginia. While several Justice Department officials are worried about the strength of any case against Comey, multiple political aides share a different view: they prosecuted Trump, so people like Comey deserve to be prosecuted, too.

    Comey is expected to be arraigned in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on October 9, according to the court record.

    CNN’s Britney Lavecchia, Casey Gannon and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

    This story has been updated with additional developments and details of the charges from the Justice Department.

    Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, Aileen Graef, Katelyn Polantz, Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes and CNN

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  • Obama, Pelosi, other top Dems resisted instant Harris endorsement citing need to ‘earn it,’ ‘hiking’ excuse

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    Top Democrats stretching from former President Barack Obama to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi resisted giving former Vice President Kamala Harris their full public endorsements in the immediate fallout of then-President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, according to Harris’ memoir detailing her 107-day presidential campaign against President Donald Trump. 

    Harris recounted that after Biden dropped out of the race via a message posted to X on the afternoon of July 21, 2024, she made phone calls to top Democrats to feel out their endorsements. A handful offered their support right off the bat, she said, with former President Bill Clinton, for example, telling Harris he was “relieved” that Biden dropped out and called on her to, “Send me anywhere. Make this your own campaign.”

    Others, however, never got back to her or resisted offering her their support when she initially asked. 

    Harris shared her “notes of the calls” in her book, “107 Days,” which hit bookshelves Tuesday. 

    KAMALA HARRIS BREAKS SILENCE ON BIDEN DROPOUT, ADMITS SHE HAS REGRETS ABOUT HER HANDLING OF SITUATION

    Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters after delivering remarks at a church service at Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ, Nov. 3, 2024, in Detroit.  (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

    “Saddle up! Joe did what I hoped he would do. But you have to earn it,” Obama said when Harris spoke to him, according to the book. “Michelle and I are supportive but not going to put a finger on the scale right now. Let Joe have his moment. Think through timing.” 

    Pelosi said the nomination process should have included a primary style process, “not an anointment.”

    HARRIS TAPS DEM EMAILS LISTS TO MARKET NEW BOOK, SPARKING PARTY NEUTRALITY CONCERNS

    “I’m so sad about Joe. It’s so tragic. My heart is broken. But now it’s you! It’s important there’s a process, we have a great bench. We should have some kind of primary, not an anointment,” she told Harris, according to the former VP’s notes of the conversations. 

    Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a rally in Las Vegas

    Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a rally at Cheyenne High School on October 19, 2024 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

    Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who has found himself in Trump’s political crosshairs in 2025, reportedly told Harris: “You’ve been loyal. I respect that.”

    Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders reportedly advised Harris avoid an overwhelming focus on abortion in his response to Harris. 

    BIDEN TEAM IS READY TO DROP DIRT ON HARRIS IF SHE COMES AFTER HIM, MARK HALPERIN SAYS

    “I supported Joe because he was the strongest voice for the working class,” he said, according to the memoir.  “Please focus on the working class, not just on abortion.”  

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom with two American flags in the background.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom looks on during a bill signing event related to redrawing the state’s congressional maps on August 21, 2025 in Sacramento, California. Newsom’s office said Trump is ‘attacking kids’ safety and health’ when asked about inclusion of high school trans athlete AB Hernandez. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    A trio of high-profile Democrat governors also resisted giving Harris their endorsement, either ghosting Harris or noting concerns of timing over their endorsement. 

    “Hiking. Will call back. (He never did.)” Harris wrote of her conversation with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the top leader of her home state. 

    Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker cited the Democratic National Committee, which was held in Chicago that year, as to why he could not offer her an endorsement.

    “As governor of Illinois, I’m the convention host. I can’t commit,” Pritzker said. 

    KAMALA HARRIS TO PUBLISH BEHIND-THE-SCENES ACCOUNT OF FAILED 2024 CAMPAIGN

    “I believe you’ll win, but I need to let the dust settle, talk to my colleagues before I make a public statement,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said, according to Harris’ memoir. 

    Kamala Harris looking at Joe Biden during a press event in 2024

    US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, watches as President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. Russia freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as well as jailed Kremlin critics in the largest prisoner exchange with the West in decades, in return for a prized assassin sought by President Vladimir Putin. Photographer: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    Harris said she went from “call to call with the clarity that comes when stakes are high, stress is through the roof, and there’s zero ambiguity.”

    “Some people I called would offer me support and then ask, ‘What do you think the process should be?'” she continued, before bucking any floated ideas of a primary race. 

    “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them,” she said. “How much more time would it have taken to pull that off?” 

    Other high-profile Democrats offered their full endorsements to Harris, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who offered to hop on an Amtrak ride to help her out. 

    “We’re thrilled the president endorsed you. We’ll do whatever we can—we’ll jump on a plane, we’ll get on Amtrak. I want to be part of your war council,” Hillary Clinton told Harris, according to Harris’ memoir. 

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Harris’ highly anticipated book follows a handful of other political memoirs on the wild 2024 election race, which was underscored by mounting concerns over Biden’s mental acuity before he ultimately dropped out of the race — leaving Harris with just more than 100 days of campaigning to defeat Trump. 

    The former vice president is set to begin a book tour across the nation upon the release of the memoir. 

    Fox News Digital on Tuesday morning reached out to the respective offices of the top Democrats cited in the book for comment, including Newsom, Barack Obama, Pelosi, Whitmer, Sanders and Pritzker. 

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  • Scott Jennings’s Cynical Ambitions

    LATE IN THE SPRING while watching CNN NewsNight, the network’s sometimes-rowdy roundtable debate show, I caught a typically overheated exchange concerning Donald Trump’s efforts to freeze Harvard University’s research funding. As host Abby Phillip moderated the discussion, conservative pundit Scott Jennings insisted that Harvard was “turning out a bunch of professors . . . who appear to be schooled in one thing only: the downfall of Western civilization.”

    While this sort of hackish overstatement has become almost ubiquitous in television commentary, I did a double-take when I heard these words—not because of what was said, but who was saying it. Surely Jennings, of all people, did not believe all Harvard professors preached the downfall of the West. Phillip offered a gentle correction by citing famous conservatives associated with Harvard, like Tom Cotton and Brett Kavanaugh. But she didn’t say the name of the Harvard teacher who would have most definitively put the lie to Jennings’s argument: Scott Jennings.

    I know, because I was one of his students.

    Anyone who watches NewsNight will recognize Jennings, arguably the most widely reviled member of the show’s stable of regular panelists. He comes in for frequent online mockery (and sometimes elicits his copanelists’ incredulous laughter and stern challenges live on the air) for his smarmy defenses of the actions of the Trump administration. Jennings’s shtick is to advance what he imagines to be the views of normal (that is, Trump-supporting) Americans against the arguments of his liberal and centrist tablemates, an approach that generates seemingly endless viral content for his online supporters and haters alike.

    But he wasn’t always this sort of lockstep partisan.

    I first met Jennings in 2020 when he was co-teaching a Harvard Kennedy School course with Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager. Cross-party pairings like theirs were common at the Kennedy School; they were meant to give students a view from both sides of the political aisle. I enrolled because I had worked on the Clinton campaign and admired Mook’s steady, disciplined approach under historic pressure. Jennings, around that time, still occasionally criticized Trump, most notably in a January 7, 2021 op-ed that ran under the headline, “Trump caused this insurrection and every Republican must condemn it.” He wrote, “These are domestic terrorists, and they ought to be treated like any other terrorist uprising with the full force and fury of the U.S. government.” I didn’t disagree.

    Join now

    While I appreciated Jennings’s willingness to occasionally break with Trump, what stood out to me as I started to get to know him was his fixation on associating himself with elite, purportedly liberal institutions. A small-town kid from Dawson Springs, Kentucky, he often told the story of his journey from rural roots to the ivory tower of Harvard. He got a job in politics right after graduating from the University of Louisville, working on major campaigns like those of George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell before parlaying his experience and background into a career in PR and political commentary. He framed his teaching appointment as the realization of a personal American dream—his arrival in the rarefied air of the nation’s most prestigious university being the moment he well and truly made it. That framing wasn’t incidental. His association with the school seemed central to how he wanted to be seen.

    His ambitions extended to television. At the time I was taking their class, both Mook and Jennings were appearing regularly on CNN. I was beginning to get some traction of my own as a young political observer, joining Boston-based television panels and seeing my social media commentary cited in national outlets. But I also wanted to aim higher. So during office hours, I asked both professors how I might get on larger shows.

    To my surprise, Jennings told me that for a time he had paid a third-party booking agent around $25 a hit to help get him on CNN. When I later mentioned this strategy to Mook, he reacted with surprise and said he had never heard of anyone else doing that. For Jennings, airtime wasn’t primarily a byproduct of expertise—it was a commodity that could be purchased and developed. The approach worked: Jennings had become a contracted CNN commentator the year before his first Harvard appointment.

    Harvard and CNN both welcomed Jennings as a respectable partisan voice of the right—a role for which it gets harder to find suitable candidates every day, as right-wing audiences increasingly get their commentary from nontraditional and fringe sources. In his early days at CNN, Jennings was the serious-looking Republican who could spar with his liberal peers without alienating the mainstream audience. But as the political context changed, his approach did, as well. In today’s media ecosystem, he thrives as a dogmatic Trump surrogate, seemingly unwilling to question anything the president does. Most striking to me is his reversal on the subject of January 6th. The man who once demanded Republicans condemn the attack now frequently downplays it, adopting the pro-Trump framing he once warned against.

    And this has finally pushed him to castigate the institutions that gave him his lecturer title, his cable platform, and his credibility. He now accuses Harvard of creating a national security threat by admitting students who “fundamentally hate Western civilization.” And he has derided his employer, CNN, for, in his estimation, allowing Democratic guests to misconstrue the president’s words “every day,” characterizing himself as “just the designated driver at a party where everybody else is trying to crash the country into a ditch.”

    Support our independent political journalism by signing up for a free or paid subscription.

    IT’S HARD TO AVOID FEELING CYNICAL about Jennings’s evolution. But what is more troubling to me is how it reveals a deeper cynicism at the heart of some of America’s most influential institutions, which incentivized Jennings’s moral flexibility to better serve his ambitions. At the organizational level, they are modeling those behaviors themselves.

    For example, CNN is undergoing a shift to the right. In 2022, the network brought in a new executive, Chris Licht, who purged top progressive talent Don Lemon, elevated Daily Caller alum Kaitlan Collins, and insisted on making a town hall event with the then–former-and-future president “extra Trumpy.” Though Licht’s tenure was relatively short-lived, CNN is continuing to follow the course he set for the network. Recently, Phillip welcomed RFK Jr. booster and fitness coach Jillian Michaels to NewsNight to wax idiotic on the history of slavery in America, specifically taking issue with white people getting blamed for the national abomination. Earlier this week, rightwing polemicist Ben Shapiro was brought on the show to argue with Phillip about Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in American cities.

    And while Harvard has just won temporary respite from the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze billions of dollars of the school’s funding, it was widely reported last month that the school was poised to settle with the administration by making a variety of hefty concessions. Harvard President Alan Garber emailed alumni on Wednesday acknowledging the legal victory, but he also wrote that the school would still “be mindful of the changing landscape” going forward. The school has already done much to respond to that changing landscape, including by reducing its DEI efforts, renaming its office of diversity, and entertaining the idea of a $500 million-to-$1 billion investment in a new center for conservative scholarship. The moves that Harvard and other universities have made to appease Trump prompted one Atlantic writer to claim “the era of DEI for conservatives has begun.”

    Both Harvard and CNN seem downright eager to make nice with MAGA if it serves their interests—apparently, even to a point of compromising the values they claim to uphold. Was it reasonable for us to expect them to behave differently?

    Jennings, for his part, remains on contract with CNN. He has signaled nascent political ambitions, expressing interest in running for McConnell’s soon-to-be-vacant Kentucky Senate seat—but only if he receives Trump’s blessing to do so, of course. He has also written a book and launched a radio show.

    He recently scored a high-profile guest for his show: Trump himself. In a clip Jennings shared on X, the president rambled about tariffs as his host smiled complacently. It looked the expression of a man who has gotten everything he wants.

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  • Donald Trump wins US presidency, GOP reclaims Senate majority

    Republican Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.

    Republicans reclaimed control of the Senate, picking up seats in West Virginia and Ohio. Top House races are focused in New York and California, where Democrats are trying to claw back some of the 10 or so seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years.

    Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

    Here’s the latest:

    Slovakia’s prime minister congratulates Trump on his victory

    “We respect the choice of American people,” Prime Minister Robert Fico said at a news conference on Wednesday.

    Fico, who is known for pro-Russian views, said the result of the election is “certainly a defeat of liberal and progressivist ideas because the new American President is a conservative. We think he’ll focus on the economy issues in the United States.”

    Fico said what’s of importance is that “everybody is waiting for the first steps in regards of the war in Ukraine.”

    Fico added that Trump might reduce or halt the military aid for Ukraine or propose an immediate cease-fire to open the way for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

    Fico ended his state’s military aid for Ukraine.

    How are markets responding to the election results?

    Futures markets in the U.S. surged early Wednesday, with the Dow climbing 2.85% and the S&P 500 rising nearly 2%.

    Bitcoin, which many see as a winner under a Trump presidency, hit all-time highs above $75,000.

    Tesla, the company run by Trump surrogate Elon Musk, spiked 12% before the opening bell while other electric vehicle makers slumped.

    Banking stocks also moved solidly higher, with expectations of a pullback by regulators overseeing markets under Trump.

    US humanitarian group urges Trump, Congress to ‘reject policies that demonize immigrants and asylum seekers’

    The International Rescue Committee, a large humanitarian aid organization, urged the Trump administration to “continue America’s traditions of humanitarian leadership and care of the most vulnerable.”

    The New York-based nonprofit also urged the new administration and Congress to “reject policies that demonize immigrants and asylum seekers,” and noted that the U.S. program to resettle refugees has saved lives and strengthened the fabric of the United States.

    IRC is led by Britain’s former top diplomat, David Miliband, and says it provides relief services to people affected by crises in more than 40 countries.

    Barriers broken and history made in several congressional races

    With their victories, several candidates are set to be firsts.

    New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, won his race to become the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

    Delaware State Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat, won her race to become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress. The former Obama administration official was elected to the Delaware General Assembly in 2021.

    Democrat Angela Alsobrooks won her race and is set to become Maryland’s first Black senator. Alsobrooks is currently the county executive for Maryland’s Prince George’s County, one of the most prosperous Black-majority counties in the nation.

    Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, broke barriers again, becoming the first woman and first Black person elected to the Senate from the state. Seven years ago, when she was elected to the House, she was the first woman and first Black person to represent Delaware in the House. It will be the first time that two Black women will serve simultaneously in the Senate.

    North Dakota elected its first woman to Congress. Republican Julie Fedorchak, running for the House of Representatives, won her race handily in the deep red state. She’s currently a member of the state’s public service commission.

    Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio,defeated incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown to be the first Latino from the state elected to the Senate.

    Bitcoin hits new high as investors bet Trump’s victory will benefit cryptocurrencies

    Bitcoin jumped nearly 8% to a record $75,345.00 in early trading on Wednesday, before falling back and was recently trading at around $73,700.00.

    Trump was previously a crypto skeptic but changed his mind and embraced cryptocurrencies ahead of the election.

    He pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. His campaign accepted donations in cryptocurrency and he courted crypto fans at a bitcoin conference in July.

    He also launched World Liberty Financial, a new venture with family members to trade cryptocurrencies.

    Abortion proposals win in 7 states

    Despite major losses for Democrats in the Senate and White House, the party’s central campaign issue surrounding protecting reproductive rights fared much better across the country as abortion rights advocates won on measures in seven states.

    The last state to pass such a measure by early Wednesday was Montana, where abortion rights advocates pushed to enshrine abortion rights until fetal viability into the state constitution as a safeguard against future rollbacks. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say viability is sometime after 21 weeks.

    In three others — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota — voters rejected measures that would have created a constitutional right to abortion.

    Montana enshrines abortion rights

    Montana voters chose to protect the right to an abortion in their state constitution.

    The ballot initiative sought to enshrine a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that said the constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion by a provider of the patient’s choice. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say viability is sometime after 21 weeks.

    The Associated Press declared the amendment was approved at 6:01 a.m. EST Wednesday.

    Republican Ryan Zinke wins reelection to U.S. House in Montana’s 1st Congressional District

    Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Montana on Wednesday.

    Zinke will serve a second term in the western Montana district, which was drawn after the state received an additional congressional seat from the 2020 census. Zinke faced a rematch against Democrat Monica Tranel, who fell a few points short of winning the seat in 2022. Zinke was U.S. interior secretary in the Trump administration for nearly two years before resigning while facing several ethics investigations. Zinke served as Montana’s lone U.S. House member from 2015 through early 2017, when he resigned to become interior secretary. The Associated Press declared Zinke the winner at 6:28 a.m. EST.

    Republican Tim Sheehy wins election to U.S. Senate from Montana, beating incumbent Jon Tester

    Republican Tim Sheehy won the U.S. Senate seat in Montana on Wednesday, defeating three-term incumbent Jon Tester and flipping a closely watched Senate seat.

    Tester was the only Democrat holding statewide office in Montana, which has voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential contest since 1992. Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, ran as a Trump-supporting conservative in a state where the president-elect is immensely popular. The Associated Press declared Sheehy the winner at 6:26 a.m. EST.

    In Kamala Harris’ ancestral village, disappointment

    There was a sense of disappointment in Thulasendrapuram, a tiny village in southern India, where Kamala Harris’ mother’s family has ancestral ties and where people were rooting for the Democratic nominee for president.

    Residents in this village, who were keenly following the election results on their smartphones, were left silent as initial enthusiasm faded, even before the presidential race call, but many said they were proud that she put up a good fight. The villagers were hoping for a Harris victory and had Tuesday held special Hindu prayers for her at a local temple where Harris’ name is engraved in a list of donors. Some were also planning to blast off fireworks and distribute sweets had she won.

    “We are sad about it. But what can we do? It was in the hands of the voters of that country. They made Trump win. We can only wish Trump well for his victory,” said J. Sudhakar.

    As results became clearer, a gaggle of reporters that was stationed outside the village temple also quickly scattered away. The village — site of a brief media spectacle and euphoria since Tuesday — became almost deserted.

    FIFA’s president congratulates Trump

    “We will have a great FIFA World Cup and a great FIFA Club World Cup in the United States of America! Football Unites the World” FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on his Instagram account in a message of congratulations to Trump.

    Infantino had tried to build close ties to the first Trump administration, making at least two visits to the White House and joining then-President Trump at a dinner event in Davos, Switzerland during the World Economic Forum in January 2020.

    The United States will host most of the games at the 2026 World Cup in men’s soccer.

    Investors react to Trump’s victory in US election by buying on the German stock market

    The Dax rose significantly by 1.5% to 19,544 points in early Xetra trading, German news agency dpa agency reported.

    Robert Halver, Head of Capital Market Analysis at Baader Bank said that “since Donald Trump stands for the economy, it can be assumed that stock markets around the world will go up. With one exception: China, because he (Donald Trump) will definitely impose tariffs at least on China. That will certainly make life difficult for the Chinese.”

    “The nice thing is that European stocks, German stocks and export stocks can also benefit. Because we are still so well positioned in the industrial sector that we are helping America to become big again in the industrial sector, so to speak,” he added.

    No info on whether Putin will congratulate Trump, Kremlin says

    Ahead of the presidential race call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he had no information on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to congratulate Donald Trump but emphasized that Moscow views the U.S. as an “unfriendly” country.

    Peskov reaffirmed the Kremlin’s claim that the U.S. support for Ukraine amounted to its involvement in the conflict, telling reporters: “Let’s not forget that we are talking about the unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”

    Asked if Putin’s failure to congratulate Trump could hurt ties, Peskov responded that Russia-U.S. relations already are at the “lowest point in history,” adding that it will be up to the new U.S. leadership to change the situation. He noted Putin’s statements about Moscow’s readiness for a “constructive dialogue based on justice, equality and readiness to take mutual concerns into account.”

    Peskov noted Trump’s campaign statements about his intention to end wars, saying that “those were important statements, but now after the victory, while getting ready to enter the Oval Office or entering the Oval Office, statements could sometimes change.”

    Control of the US House is still up for grabs

    Republicans have taken the White House and Senate, but the House is still very much in play.

    With nearly 60 House elections still undecided, either party could gain control of the chamber. For Democrats, a House majority is the last hope of gaining a toehold in Washington and putting a check on Donald Trump’s power. Yet if Republicans win a House majority, they’ll be able to implement Trump’s agenda with more ease, including extending tax cuts, funding hardline border measures and dismantling parts of the federal government.

    Still, it might take some time before House control is decided. Neither party so far has a convincing advantage in the tally of key House races. There are tight races all over the country, including many in slow-counting California.

    Trump is elected the 47th president

    Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.

    With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.

    The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal — often misogynistic and racist — terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants.

    The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters — particularly men — in a deeply polarized nation. As president, he’s vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and retribution against his perceived enemies.

    Republican Mike Lawler wins reelection to U.S. House in New York’s 17th Congressional District

    Republican Rep. Mike Lawler won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing New York on Wednesday.

    Lawler is one of several Republicans who flipped traditionally Democratic New York districts in 2022. The 17th District contains the northern part of wealthy Westchester County and extends north and west to include suburban Rockland County and the Hudson Valley’s Putnam County. He defeated former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, who lost his seat after redistricting in 2022. The Associated Press declared Lawler the winner at 5:30 a.m. EST.

    Race to control the House intensifies with Michigan flip

    Republicans have flipped a House seat that was previously held by Democrats, giving them a valuable pickup in a frenzied race for House control.

    At this point, practically every seat matters when it comes to building a House majority. In Michigan’s 7th district, Republican Tom Barrett picked up a seat that Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin vacated to run for U.S. Senate. Barrett, a former state senator, defeated another former state lawmaker, Democrat Curtis Hertel.

    On the campaign trail, Barrett didn’t back away from his record of supporting abortion restrictions in the statehouse, but he also described abortion access as a settled issue in Michigan.

    Zelenskyy says he appreciates Trump’s ‘peace through strength’ mentality

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he appreciates Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength” as the Republican presidential nominee closes in on the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

    “I recall our great meeting with President Trump back in September, when we discussed in detail the Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership, the Victory Plan, and ways to put an end to Russian aggression against Ukraine,” said Zelenskyy on X. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is interested “in developing mutually beneficial political and economic cooperation that will benefit both of our nations.”

    “We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership,” said Zelenskyy.

    “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” he said.

    European Commission president says she’s looking forward to working with Trump

    The European Union’s top official says she’s looking forward to working with Trump again as the former president is on the cusp of victory in the U.S. presidential race.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the E.U. and U.S. “are more than just allies. We are bound by a true partnership between our people, uniting 800 million citizens.”

    “Let us work together on a transatlantic partnership that continues to deliver for our citizens. Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” she said in a statement.

    The tariffs that Trump slapped on steel and aluminum exports during his last term roiled the bloc’s economy.

    NATO leader looks forward to working with Trump

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says he looks forward to working with Trump “to advance peace through strength” as the former president closes in on the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

    “We face a growing number of challenges globally, from a more aggressive Russia, to terrorism, to strategic competition with China, as well the increasing alignment of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” Rutte said.

    “Working together through NATO helps to deter aggression, protect our collective security and support our economies,” he added.

    Rutte also praised Trump for his work during his first term to persuade U.S. allies in NATO to ramp up defense spending.

    He noted that around two-thirds of the 32 NATO allies are due to meet the organization’s main defense spending target this year.

    World leaders offer their congratulations to Trump

    The AP’s current count has Trump three electoral votes shy of winning the White House, though he is leading in key battleground states.

    “Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” wrote Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X: “Ready to work together as we were able to do during four years. With your convictions and mine. In respect and ambition. For more peace and prosperity.”

    Trump, a longtime source of division, calls on country to unite in election night speech

    Trump, someone whose political career has been defined by division and acrimony, told the audience at his election night party early on Wednesday that it was “time to unite” as a country.

    “It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us,” Trump said. “It’s time to unite.”

    “We have to put our country first for at least a period of time,” he added. “We have to fix it.”

    Trump speaks at election party flanked by family, friends and top political supporters

    Most of the important people in Trump’s personal and political life have joined him on stage in West Palm Beach, Florida.

    Former first lady Melania Trump stood near her husband and was joined by Barron, the former president’s youngest son. Trump’s older children, Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany, all joined their father on stage, too.

    Trump’s top political minds, including top campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, joined Trump on stage. And his political allies were on stage, too, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.

    Trump also celebrated a few celebrities in the audience and on stage. Dana White, the CEO of UFC, was on stage with Trump, and the former president called golfer Bryson DeChambeau on stage. Trump also shouted out Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, who has become one of his most high-profile supporters. “We have a new star. A star is born: Elon,” Trump said.

    Trump hails GOP’s congressional wins

    Donald Trump made sure to recognize GOP wins in down ballot races in his speech in the early morning Wednesday.

    “The number of victories in the senate was absolutely incredible,” Trump said.

    Republicans have so far won 51 seats, giving them a majority. But Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada have not been called, and it’s possible Republicans could pick up more seats.

    Trump also said he expected Republicans to hold the House and complimented House Speaker Mike Johnson. The House, however, is still up for grabs.

    There are over 70 House races across the country that have not been called, and neither party has a convincing edge in the tally of House races.

    Trump vows in his election night speech to fight ‘for your family and your future’

    He promised that he would “not rest until we have delivered the strong safe and prosperous America.”

    “Every single day,” Trump said, “I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body.”

    Donald Trump has taken the stage

    The AP’s current count has him at 267 of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House. He is leading in key races left to be called, including Michigan and Wisconsin.

    Pennsylvania puts Trump three electoral votes short of the presidential threshold

    Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania has put him three electoral votes short of winning the presidency. He could win the White House by capturing Alaska or any remaining swing state.

    Hugs, calls and celebration at Trump’s watch party

    Trump supporters gathered at his election night watch party were hugging one another, making calls, jumping up and down, and throwing their MAGA hats in the air every chance they got to celebrate as results continued to trickle in.

    Guests are still arriving at the convention center in West Palm Beach.

    Democrats flip another House seat in New York

    The pickups for House Democrats have mostly come from New York so far as the party flipped its second seat in the state.

    Democrat Josh Riley defeated Republican Rep. Mark Molinaro in a district that spans across the center of the state. Democrats earlier flipped a seat held by Rep. Brandon Williams.

    While a House majority is still up for grabs, the victories will buoy Democrats’ hopes, especially in House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ home state.

    Nevada polls close nearly 3 hours later

    Polls closed in Nevada nearly three hours late after voters waited in long lines to cast ballots, the state’s top election official said, and initial election results began to be posted just before 10 p.m. PST.

    Polls had been scheduled to close at 7 p.m., but state law allows anyone in line at that time to cast a ballot.

    Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar acknowledged Nevada’s position as an electoral battleground and promised to keep updating results as the counties receive “and cure” additional ballots.

    Mailed ballots are accepted and counted until Saturday, and thousands of voters whose ballots were set aside to allow for signature verification, or “curing,” have until 5 p.m. Nov. 12 to validate their vote with election officials.

    Aguilar, a Democrat, called Nevada’s elections “safe, secure and transparent” and said he was proud of reports of high voter turnout.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins Trump watch party

    The former presidential candidate has arrived at the Palm Beach Convention Center, entering and walking briskly as he made his way near the stage among crowds of supporters.

    Trump has said he will play a role when it comes to health policy but has not specified what that would be. Kennedy, who launched his own presidential bid as an independent before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump, joined him at several rallies in the last stretch of the campaign.

    Republicans celebrate early turnout among Black and Hispanic voters

    As the election stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, Republicans — seeing a map trending positively for their party — began to point to a shift in demographic support among key voting groups who often lean Democrat.

    Preliminary AP VoteCast data suggested a shift among Black and Latino voters, who appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago. About 8 in 10 Black voters backed Harris, down from the roughly 9 in 10 who backed Biden. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump’s support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020.

    Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told AP at Trump’s election watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, that he’s excited for the exit polling in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Republicans are already seeing overperformance compared to this time in the election in 2020.

    “I’m just really excited not just because I think it’s going to be a victory but about how we won,” the Florida lawmaker said.

    There are serious 2016 echoes in Harris’ 2024 election night

    Forgive Democrats if they are having a bit of déjà vu.

    There are noticeable similarities between then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s election night in 2016 and the one that Harris had planned for tonight at Howard University.

    Neither Clinton nor Harris, appeared at their election night party, despite both heading into Election Day believing they were about to defeat Donald Trump.

    Both sent top aides to inform the demoralized audience that the woman would not speak. And there were noticeable similarities between what each man said.

    “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted,” Cedric Richmond, Harris’ campaign co-chair, told the audience Tuesday. “So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”

    “We’re still counting votes,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said in 2016. “And every vote should count. Several states are too close to call. So we’re not going to have anything more to say tonight.”

    Even the mood of the events — and the trajectory they took over the course of the night — was similar. The vibe at Clinton’s event at Javits Center started jubilantly, with people dancing, smiling and eager to make history — the campaign had even planned to launch reflective confetti in the air when Clinton won to resemble a glass ceiling shattering. The same was true for Harris, with the event resembling a dance party on the campus of the Democrat’s alma mater.

    By the time Podesta and Richmond had taken the stage, the party had stopped, people had left, and those who remained looked forlorn.

    Harris’ path to the White House is growing less forgiving

    Harris still has a path to the White House through the Northern battleground states, but the map is getting less forgiving.

    Harris’ campaign has long said her surest way to 270 electoral votes was through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states Trump won in 2016 and Biden captured narrowly in 2020.

    Harris cannot lose Pennsylvania and reach 270 electoral votes. However, she can lose pieces of the blue wall — so named for its longtime reputation as a Democratic firewall — and still reach 270.

    If she loses Michigan, she can make it up by winning Arizona and Nevada. She can lose Wisconsin and make up for it with Arizona.

    But the map has surely shrunk for Harris, who cannot lose more than one in the three-state northern arc.

    Trump campaign comments on Harris’ watch party mood

    A Trump campaign spokesperson is weighing in as the mood has shifted over at Harris’ watch party.

    “Sounds like the joy has left the building,” posted Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman on X.

    The Harris campaign turned off its projected CNN broadcasts at its election night watch party at Howard University as midnight approached. And some Harris supporters began leaving the event.

    By The Associated Press

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  • The Diplomat’s Creator Knows What Happens After That Wild Ending

    The Diplomat’s Creator Knows What Happens After That Wild Ending

    What a time for Netflix’s hit political thriller to return. Days before the election, season two of Netflix’s The Diplomat starring Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, a U.S. ambassador to the U.K. caught in the midst of a political crisis, hit the streaming platform. [Spoilers ahead]. By the end of the six-episode second season, Kate learns that the mastermind behind the maritime bombing that and set off the events of the series was neither Russia nor the U.K. Prime Minister, but U.S. Vice President Grace Penn, played on the series by Oscar and Emmy winner Allison Janney. Talk about an October surprise.

    On a new episode of Still Watching, hosts Hillary Busis and Chris Murphy chat with creator and executive producer of The Diplomat Debora Cahn about how they engineered that shocker of an ending for season two, in which president William Rayburn (Michael McKean) drops dead after finding out Penn’s machinations—making nefarious Grace Penn the new President of the United States.

    “I like to come into the season with a plan, but then throw it in the garbage as soon as possible,” Cahn said—“if one of the writers has a better idea, and often they do.”

    Cahn and her writing team considered the implications of crafting a storyline that ended with an elder president dropping dead while in office—a plot twist that may have felt a bit too close to home just a few months ago. “We thought that that was going to sort of send the wrong message right before the election,” she said. Luckily for The Diplomat, U.S. politics took a different turn. “We did not anticipate this particular plot twist that happened in the real world,” said Cahn, with Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

    There are other real world political corollaries baked into The Diplomat as well. Hillary Clinton, Cahn said, has been on her mind “from the very beginning of the series,” and Janney told Vanity Fair that she partially based her character on the former Secretary of State. “It’s Hillary Clinton, but it’s also Samantha Power and Susan Rice,” says Cahn. “And certainly Kamala Harris, who was, when I was first developing the series, just being chosen as Biden’s running mate. There’s a lot about the Kate VP plot that came from the selection of Kamala Harris.”

    As for where season three will take Kate and Grace Penn, Cahn has some ideas, but notes that the direction sort of depends on how things shake out with next week’s presidential election. “I don’t know what country we’re going to be living in a week from now,” she says. “So we try to leave ourselves a little bit open for the possibility of continuing to have a conversation with the world that we’re in.”

    Chris Murphy

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  • Trump rally at MSG sees numerous speakers slur Latinos, Harris, political opponents with racist remarks | amNewYork

    Trump rally at MSG sees numerous speakers slur Latinos, Harris, political opponents with racist remarks | amNewYork

    During Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024, podcast host and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” — a line that drew some groans from the crowd — and crudely claimed Latinos “enjoy making babies.” 

    REUTERS/Andrew Kelly