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Politics

RNC Day 2 underway with DeSantis and Haley set to speak

by NewsB
written by NewsB


The second night of the Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee, where former President Donald Trump’s onetime rivals for the party’s nomination are set to speak in support of his candidacy as the party tries to project a united front heading into November.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy are all scheduled to address delegates on Tuesday evening. Sen. Marco Rubio, who Trump passed over for his vice presidential running mate, is also among the list of speakers.

The theme for the second day of the convention is “Make America Safe Once Again,” a variation of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” tagline. 

Trump made his first appearance at the convention on Monday night, appearing with a bandage over his ear that was pierced by a sniper’s bullet in an assassination attempt over the weekend. Trump greeted delegates alongside JD Vance, the Ohio senator he tapped to join him on the ticket.

Here’s the latest from the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee:



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Politics

Resurgent Trump Has Democrats in Swing Districts Despondent

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Adam Frisch, a Democrat trying to flip a Republican House seat in Colorado, was frustrated enough that calls for President Biden to step aside — including his own — were having little impact on the president.

Then reports came Tuesday that leaders of the Democratic National Committee were moving to confirm Mr. Biden as his party’s presidential nominee by the end of July and his anger boiled over.

“It’s so frustrating, to Democratic voters, to donors, to the double haters who don’t like Biden or Trump,” Mr. Frisch said in an interview on Tuesday. “This is why people hate politics. It looks like the books are being cooked.”

The debate over whether Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee has alternately simmered and boiled since his disastrous debate performance late last month. Now the party is seeking to rapidly bring that conversation to a close with a virtual roll call of state delegates in July that would make Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris the official nominees.

Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman, said it was “false” that a long-planned virtual roll call was being accelerated, but having it this month — rather than waiting until the August convention — has drawn growing opposition.

The nomination would come just after an extraordinary series of events: a failed attempt on former President Donald J. Trump’s life; bipartisan calls to lower the temperature of the country’s politics and tone down the rhetoric, including on Democratic warnings of the dangers of a second Trump administration; a series of legal victories for Mr. Trump that postponed his sentencing on 34 felony convictions, tossed out indictments over classified documents taken from the White House and jeopardized the federal government’s case that he illegally pushed to overturn the 2020 election.

All this, plus the ebullient start to the Republican convention, has left vulnerable Democrats with the sinking feeling that they could face far-reaching losses in November.

“We are continuing to see polling of a chilling effect on young voters, of decreased enthusiasm,” Representative Hillary Scholten, a Democrat who flipped a Republican seat in western Michigan two years ago, said on Thursday, just after calling for Mr. Biden to drop out and before the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life rattled the presidential race further. “That’s why it’s incumbent on us to make this change now.”

House Democrats, led by Representative Jared Huffman of California, are circulating a letter, first reported by The New York Times, then obtained by Axios, demanding that the roll call vote be put off.

“Stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea,” the draft letter said. “It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats.”

Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania and Representative Pat Ryan of New York said Tuesday that they would sign on to that letter, while Representative Mike Levin of California was also expected to add his name, according to a person familiar with his plans who insisted on anonymity to discuss them. The lawmakers are from highly competitive districts Republicans are looking to flip.

Mr. Harrison has so far held firm: “We look forward to nominating Joe Biden through a virtual roll call and celebrating with fanfare together in Chicago in August alongside the 99 percent of delegates who are supporting the Biden-Harris ticket,” he said.

The worry about Democratic fortunes — which spilled out into the open after the debate — has only intensified in recent days. Democrats need just four seats to take back control of the House, a target that leaders and candidates still insist is possible. But they must hold every endangered Senate seat they occupy to have even a wisp of a chance to maintain their grasp on the chamber. And with their presidential candidate engulfed in extraordinary turmoil, catastrophic losses are possible.

More than 30 Democratic House seats are in play right now, and with the presidential battlefield spreading to once-safe states like New Mexico and Minnesota, Democratic House and Senate members who expected to cruise to re-election are suddenly looking over their shoulders. A collapse at the top of the ticket could bring losses in Congress that would reverberate for years.

Democrats on Tuesday acknowledged the bind they are in. To some, the attempted assassination and its aftermath cry for the stability of an incumbent president and the quiet acceptance of his party. Ending the discussion with an early nomination would help.

“After this weekend, you know, it’s just starting to settle in,” said Representative John Larson, a veteran Democrat from Connecticut who favors accepting Mr. Biden. “I don’t want to suppress any debate, but at some point, come on, who’s your nominee?” he asked fellow Democrats looking to replace the president.

To others, the trajectory looks so bad that Democrats have to take risks. Nothing could be worse than the current situation.

John Avlon, the Democratic candidate trying to win a Republican-leaning swing district on Eastern Long Island, declined to weigh in on Mr. Biden’s future, but he said on Tuesday that the nomination of Senator J.D. Vance for Republican vice president could ultimately be more politically important than the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life.

He added that Democrats needed to ignore Republican entreaties for them to stop warning of the threat to democracy.

“Obviously we all need to condemn political violence; it has no place in American democracy,” Mr. Avlon said. “But we need to be able to say that clearly and unequivocally without downplaying the dangers that a second Trump term could pose to our democracy.”

Mr. Frisch acknowledged his calls for Mr. Biden to step aside had split the partisan Democrats in the district that he nearly took from Representative Lauren Boebert, a Republican, in 2022. But the alternative is “resignation.”

With Mr. Biden at the top of the ticket, “there’s no upside and a lot of downside risk” ahead, he said.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden, said on Friday that “led by Joe Biden, Democrats have an incredible agenda to run on.”

Republicans “are forced to answer for their support for abortion bans, shipping jobs abroad and undermining our democracy,” she said. “This election, whether it’s top-of-ticket or a state election, will be decided on the issues that matter most to voters, which is why Democrats will win.”

While pushback on Mr. Biden is picking up again from within his party, there is no question that momentum around urging him to step aside has been uneven. The assassination attempt on his opponent — a wrenching moment for the country — slowed those public discussions, leaving limited time to press for a change.

“It is a very big deal,” Representative Greg Landsman, an Ohio Democrat, said of the shooting. “Getting into anything else for some period of time is, I think, a mistake. I think people need to, you know, appreciate how bad this is, and what we have to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Mr. Landsman, who has expressed concerns about Mr. Biden, said he would “pick up the Biden stuff at some point maybe later in the week or next week.”

For their part, Republicans have delighted over the division, figuring that Democrats are stuck. If they break with Mr. Biden, they will alienate Democratic base voters. If they stick with the president and embrace a quick virtual nomination, they will lose swing voters ready to move to Mr. Trump.

Regardless, Democrats are worried about depressed turnout.

“If Democrat voters believe Biden has no chance to win, then their turnout will obviously be lower,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republicans’ official super PAC. “And that will hurt across most every race.”

There are glimmers of hope, however. House Democratic incumbents, like their Senate counterparts, are consistently running ahead of Mr. Biden in internal polls, though even they say there are limits to how far they can run ahead of him. At the same time, Democrats argue, voters who dislike both presidential candidates but grudgingly back Mr. Trump might still be persuaded to change sides or split their tickets. Or they might not vote at all.

Democrats have proved themselves to be masters at mobilizing their core voters in off-year and special elections when turnout is lower. Mike Smith, the president of House Majority PAC, the Democratic leadership’s super PAC, said Democrats won virtually every tossup seat in 2022, when Mr. Biden’s approval ratings were comparable to where they are today. They then won a seat on Long Island last year, cutting the Republican majority to four.

“The president’s approval has not shifted in the last three years,” Mr. Smith said, “and I don’t think the top of the ticket is going to have that much of an impact.”

As the Republican convention unfolded, some Democrats noted that the G.O.P. was offering fresh opportunities for sharp contrasts, especially with the elevation of Mr. Vance, who has transformed from staunch Trump critic to a vigorous defender with a range of hard-right views.

The country, Mr. Landsman said, needs “folks who can turn the temperature down and bring people together. And I do think that’s going to play out in these very competitive districts.”

Other Democrats have given voice to the belief that the presidential race is over, turning their attention to Congress. Two of the most endangered Democrats, Representatives Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, have said publicly they expect Mr. Trump to win, but they can still prevail, even before the shooting at Mr. Trump’s rally on Saturday.

In Colorado, Mr. Frisch said voters had approached him to say, “I’m voting for Trump, but I don’t want an unfettered Trump, so I’m splitting my ticket.”

“Is that 17 people or 17 percent” of the district, enough for him to win, he asked?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting.



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Politics

JD Vance could become first vice president with facial hair in decades

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Trump VP pick JD Vance tours stage at RNC

Trump VP pick JD Vance tours stage at RNC

03:06

Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio could become the first vice president with facial hair in nearly a century if former President Donald Trump retakes the presidency in November. 

On Monday, the 39-year-old junior senator was announced as Trump’s running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 

Vance, who could become the first millennial vice president, would also bring back facial hair to one of the highest elected offices in the nation.

The Wall Street Journal reported Vance could be the first major vice presidential or presidential candidate in almost a century to have facial hair. Former President Harry Truman sported a goatee while in office in 1948. Charles Curtis, the VP to President Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933, had a mustache and was the last vice president to have facial hair, according to Slate. 

The 2024 Republican National Convention
Ohio Senator JD Vance was selected by former President Donald Trump to join the Republican ticket as his vice president. 

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images


Photos in the Library of Congress online show other vice presidents further back in history with notable facial hair. Schuyler Colfax, who was vice president from 1869-1873 with President Ulysses S. Grant, had a full beard. Charles A. Fairbanks, who served from 1905-1909 in the Theodore Roosevelt administration, had a thick goatee. Thomas Marshall, President Woodrow Wilson’s vice president from 1912-1916, had a neat mustache. 

There was speculation ahead of Trump’s VP pick that he’d steer away from someone with facial hair. In 2018, CNN and other outlets reported that Trump had reservations about hiring John Bolton because of his thick mustache. However, Trump picked him anyway to replace H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser.

Before the RNC, Trump was asked to respond to a report in the conservative news site The Bulwark on whether Vance’s facial hair would hurt his chances to be VP. Trump said no and that Vance looked “good.”

“He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,” Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on July 10.

Christopher Brito

Christopher Brito is a social media manager and trending content writer for CBS News.



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Biden Finally Got Border Numbers Down. Will He See the Political Benefits?

by NewsB
written by NewsB


The number of migrants crossing the southern border has dropped sharply since the Biden administration imposed severe restrictions on asylum last month.

In June, just over 83,000 migrants crossed the border illegally, according to U.S. border officials, down from around 117,000 in May and the lowest monthly total since January 2021.

The downturn in crossings has continued into July. The daily average of encounters at the border in the past week was under 1,900 as of Monday, according a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal statistics.

The steep decrease coincides with the implementation of a June policy that bans asylum at the southern border, along with ramped-up enforcement from Mexican officials starting this year.

But it comes at a time when the country’s attention is focused on the questions surrounding the continued candidacy of President Biden in this year’s presidential election and the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump. The political benefits of a border crackdown may yet prove fleeting.

And as a harsher view of illegal immigration has taken hold among many Americans, surveys suggest Mr. Trump’s harder line may resonate more with swing voters, including some Hispanic Americans.

Still, if the numbers remained stable, that would put July on track for about 60,000 crossings, around figures seen at the end of the Trump administration. The decrease in recent months has been especially stark compared with heights reached at the end of last year: In December alone, around 250,000 migrant apprehensions were reported.

“The Biden administration has been around for 41 full months; June 2024 will have been the month with the fewest migrant apprehensions,” said Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. “By far — no other month comes close.”

“And of those 41 months,” he added, “the first six months of 2024 are all within the top quarter of months with the fewest migrants.”

The senior Customs and Border Protection official said that increased enforcement at the border had made a difference. The official also pointed to the ability for migrants to have options other than crossing the border illegally, like gaining entry through an application with a government app.

Matthew Hudak, former deputy chief at the U.S. Border Patrol, said the White House’s messaging in June when it instituted the asylum restrictions has had a major impact on migrants considering journeys across the border.

“There’s never been outright, direct, unambiguous messaging from the White House — that was the first time that’s happened,” he said.

Mr. Biden himself said last month that he needed to get the border under control.

“The simple truth is there is a worldwide migrant crisis, and if the United States doesn’t secure our border, there is no limit to the number of people who may try to come here, because there is no better place on the planet than the United States of America,” Mr. Biden said in early June as he announced the asylum measure.

The Biden administration has long struggled to contain the flows of migrants crossing the border and has aimed to bring the numbers down to a manageable level. But the downturn has spurred new concerns, including that the figures could drop so low that the administration would be forced to pause the asylum crackdown.

The current rules allow for the ban on asylum to be lifted if the fewer than 1,500 migrants cross illegally per day over a period of about two weeks. Such a drop has seemed unlikely, given trends in recent years.

The shift on the ground at the border was notable, according to advocates and experts who recently visited.

In Arizona, Yael Schacher, the director of the Americas and Europe for Refugees International, said that a shelter she visited in Tucson had more than 1,300 people in December. But in June, she said, the shelter’s highest day was around 300.

“There’s been a huge change,” she said.

Whether the downturn stays consistent remains to be seen.

In June last year, illegal crossings dropped to around 100,000 after the Biden administration instituted some restrictions on asylum at the border.

The drop did not last long, though the senior Customs and Border Protection official said that the number of migrants congregating near the border on the Mexico side has dropped compared with last year.

If illegal immigration recedes from the forefront of political conversation, that might still be to Mr. Biden’s benefit, whether or not voters give him credit.

“For the Biden administration, it means a few months in which the ‘border crisis’ won’t be as much of a campaign issue,” Mr. Isacson said.



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U.S. military recommends permanently dismantling pier that’s helping deliver aid into Gaza, sources say

by NewsB
written by NewsB


U.S. Central Command has recommended permanently dismantling the Gaza pier, according to two U.S. officials. 

The pier, bedeviled by bad weather and mechanical malfunctions, has been in operation for only about 20 days since it was installed in May. In those 20 days, it has managed to deliver nearly 20 million pounds of aid.  

The pier is currently in Ashdod, Israel, and the Pentagon has already announced it will soon cease operations, although there was a chance that it would be installed one final time to deliver the remaining aid supplies from Cyprus.  

“The pier has always been intended as a temporary solution, and it will conclude its mission soon, but as of today, I don’t have any announcements to make in terms of when the mission will officially conclude,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Tuesday. 

The Pentagon has not announced a final decision, but commanders in charge of the operation have now recommended pulling the plug.

President Biden previewed the temporary maritime corridor to help deliver aid to Gaza in his State of the Union address in March. The pier was part of the administration’s effort to supplement the amount of aid reaching Palestinians by trucks via road and by air drops. 

The plan called for about 1,000 U.S. forces to construct and operate the maritime corridor without stepping foot in Gaza. Since the beginning of the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel, Mr. Biden has said that no U.S. boots would enter Gaza. 

The corridor is made up of a floating dock out in the eastern Mediterranean where ships bring aid from Cyprus that is then transferred to U.S. military support vessels. The vessels then transport the aid to the pier attached to the shore for trucks to drive into Gaza. 

The Defense Department never set a timeline for how long the temporary pier would be in place, but officials said weather has historically been hospitable between May and August. 

However, rough weather delayed the initial installment of the pier, and then in late May, broke pieces of it that were quickly repaired. Since then, the U.S. military has detached the pier and placed it at the Port of Ashdod several times to wait out choppy seas. 

Gaza aid pier
The reinstallation of the U.S.-built floating pier on the coast in the Wadi Gaza area of central Gaza, on July 10, 2024. 

Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg via Getty Images


Last Thursday, Mr. Biden in a press conference said he was disappointed with the corridor. 

“I’ve been disappointed that some of the things that I’ve put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port we attached from Cyprus. I was hopeful that would be more successful,” Biden said. 

The Defense Department estimated constructing and operating the pier would cost $230 million. 

David Martin

headshot-600-david-martin.jpg

David Martin has been CBS News’ national security correspondent, covering the Pentagon and the State Department, since 1993.



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Politics

Inside the downfall of a senator who operated in ‘shades of gray’

by NewsB
written by NewsB



Inside the downfall of a senator who operated in ‘shades of gray’

Over the years, Bob Menendez gained a reputation as New Jersey’s ultimate political survivor. On Tuesday, his endurance ran out.

The conviction of the Democratic senator on 16 counts in a sweeping bribery case comes nearly seven years after he beat prior corruption charges thanks to a hung jury — and 18 years after another federal investigation ended without charges.

When Menendez walked out of court following his 2017 mistrial, he ominously warned the Democrats who were “digging my political grave” that he would not forget them. On Tuesday, he vowed to keep fighting for his freedom, declaring “the law and the facts did not sustain” his conviction. He’s already running for reelection as an independent.

But this isn’t 2017. Menendez’s political career has been dead and buried since his indictment in September, when his party abandoned him and Rep. Andy Kim launched a winning primary bid to replace Menendez. In the ensuing months, New Jersey’s political system effectively collapsed, with Democrats upending the way they’ve done business in the state for decades. Just last month, a state grand jury indicted New Jersey’s most powerful Democratic political boss, George Norcross, on charges he led a different corruption scheme.

Now Menendez, who has virtually no chance of winning reelection as an independent in the deep-blue state, is staring at the ruins of a 50-year political career and the prospect of decades in prison.

It was a spectacular downfall that, despite the two-month-long trial and mountains of damning evidence, still evinced a measure of shock from New Jersey politicos used to seeing the senator survive federal investigations and prosecutions — all while accumulating power in the Senate and gaining a reputation as a policy wonk.

Menendez, the 70-year-old son of working-class Cuban immigrants, wasn’t always loved by all of his fellow New Jersey Democrats. But his political acumen was universally respected — and feared. His influence peaked as chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, a position he held while taking bribes in exchange for favors to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

“For his entire career, he’s operated in shades of gray closer to black,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democratic candidate for governor in 2025. “Every step of the way he’s operated in a questionable manner while at the same time being extremely well-versed in policy, very smart in his politics, and at the same time having a natural base in the Latino community.”

Even Fulop — who began his political career in 2004 with a hopeless primary campaign against Menendez, then a member of the House — credited the senator with getting important things done for New Jersey, like advocating for a light rail that “transformed” public transit in his home base of Hudson County, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Julie Roginsky, a Democratic consultant, said Menendez’s downfall is tragic considering his record and what he represented to many.

“I don’t know if disbelief is the word. It’s tremendous sadness,” Roginsky said of the conviction. “He’s an incredibly effective senator, a trailblazer for the Latino community, and a throwback to the days when somebody attained the highest offices in the state by climbing their way up the ladder and not by purchasing a seat.”

For decades, Menendez instilled a mix of reverence and fear in fellow Democrats.

During that 2017 corruption trial in Newark, prominent Democrat after prominent Democrat showed up to court to watch the proceedings, signaling their support for the senator, who appeared to take account of the few who didn’t show. Even a bipartisan duo of Senate colleagues, New Jersey’s Cory Booker and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, took the stand as character witnesses.

The latest case against him was a stark contrast. Elected officials avoided Menendez’s first public appearance following his September indictment and didn’t attend his trial in lower Manhattan.

Nevertheless, the stench of corruption around Menendez wasn’t enough to derail the career of his son, Rep. Rob Menendez, whose 2022 political rise from relative obscurity was engineered by his father. Most of New Jersey’s Democratic establishment stuck with the younger Menendez in his successful primary reelection run against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla.

Reformer to defendant

Menendez was shaped by New Jersey’s boss-driven political system much the way he would later shape it.

“He’s a guy who grew up in a corrupt system and figured out how to navigate it, and it eventually caught up with him. I think that’s what his legacy is going to be,” said Chris Russell, a Republican consultant who worked on the 2018 campaign against Menendez.

Born to blue-collar Cuban immigrants who fled during the Fulgencio Batista regime, Menendez was raised in a tenement in Union City, a one-square mile, extremely densely populated municipality with a big Hispanic population.

His first campaign was 50 years ago: For Union City school board, when he was a protege of the city’s mayor and powerful political boss, William Musto. Later, after being appointed board secretary, Menendez, alleging corruption, broke with Musto and would later testify at his benefactor’s corruption trial in 1982. He donned a bulletproof vest — a tale he would tell throughout his political rise to boost his credibility as a reformer.

Menendez was elected mayor of Union City in 1986, a position he continued to hold after he was elected to the state Assembly and then the state Senate. He won a seat in the U.S. House in 1992 and became a statewide figure with his appointment to the Senate by Gov. Jon Corzine at the beginning of 2006.

Corruption allegations and rumors soon haunted Menendez. During his campaign for a full first term, then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie subpoenaed records related to Menendez and a nonprofit, North Hudson Community Action Corp., that over a nine-year period paid the senator about $300,000 to rent office space in a Union City house he owned. Menendez, as a House member, had helped the nonprofit secure federal grants.

Menendez won a full term during the 2006 Democratic wave and the investigation died down, with many Democrats arguing Christie had gone after Menendez to boost his own political career or to please the Bush administration. A year before his 2012 reelection campaign, Menendez showed off a clearance letter from federal prosecutors stating that the case was formally closed. But just a year later, federal prosecutors began looking at Menendez again, this time regarding his relationship with wealthy Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen.

Menendez’s first indictment dropped in 2015. Prosecutors accused him of blocking a U.S. donation of security screening equipment to the Dominican Republic to benefit a company owned by Melgen, and interceding on Melgen’s behalf on a multimillion-dollar Medicare dispute, among other things. Melgen, they alleged, in turn provided Menendez with millions of dollars in campaign contributions, private jet flights and Dominican villa stays.

Menendez never disputed that he did favors for Melgen. But his legal team successfully argued in court that the favors were not in exchange for gifts, but out of friendship. The jury deadlocked on all counts, with most favoring acquittal. The judge declared a mistrial.

Still, the case hurt Menendez — never spectacularly popular with voters in New Jersey — in the polls, and it ended just a year before his 2018 reelection campaign. But, once again, it was a Democratic wave year, and Menendez managed an 11-point victory over Republican opponent Bob Hugin, who put tens of millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign.

The close call did not cow the senator. In their 2023 indictment, prosecutors in this latest case charged that Menendez and his wife, Nadine — a codefendant whose trial has been delayed due to her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment — began hatching a scheme in 2018 to accept bribes. In exchange, prosecutors alleged, they did favors for two other co-defendants, one with ties to the Egyptian government, and a cooperating witness.

“The arrogance went to his head. He thought he was so powerful and so important that he believed his own PR,” said Hugin, who also grew up in Union City and knew Menendez when the two served as student representatives on its school board. Hugin now chairs the New Jersey Republican State Committee.

What’s next

Senate Democrats have yet to say whether they’ll seek to expel Menendez but had resisted calls to do so before his conviction. Shortly after the jury read the verdict, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Menendez to resign, joining more than half of Senate Democrats who had already done so. At least one Democratic senator is considering a push to expel Menendez.

“In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, and our country, and resign,” Schumer said.

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday also called for Menendez to resign and, barring that, said the Senate should expel him. Murphy said he would appoint a temporary replacement for the seat. If he chooses Kim, who beat Murphy’s wife in the primary, that would give the senator a bump in seniority should he win the November election.

The conviction news could actually be construed as positive for New Jersey Democrats, since it makes a Menendez independent bid harder to gain traction at Kim’s expense. Kim is facing wealthy Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw, a moderate, in November.

“Every percent he gets is coming from an Andy Kim voter. In a close race, he could do a lot of damage,” Fulop said.

There’s also speculation that Menendez could stay in the race to damage Democrats in an attempt to gain clemency from Donald Trump should he win in November. Trump called Menendez’s prosecution an “attack,” commuted the prison sentence of Melgen, Menendez’s former co-defendant, and it was during his administration that the Department of Justice chose not to retry Menendez after his prior mistrial.

“I think anyone who got convicted would be looking for clemency. I think he’s also going to be looking for revenge,” Russell said. “That’s a hallmark of Bob Menendez, to exact revenge on people who wronged him. This time he thinks he’s got a whole party of people who wronged him.”



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Georgia Appeals Court to hear arguments in December in Trump effort to disqualify Fani Willis

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Washington — The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear arguments Dec. 5 in a bid by former President Donald Trump and his allies to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office removed from the case involving an alleged scheme to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

The appeals court agreed in May to review a decision from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to allow Willis to continue prosecuting the case against Trump. Arguments will be heard before a three-judge panel composed of Judges Trenton Brown, Todd Markle and Benjamin Land.

The former president and a group of his co-defendants had requested oral argument before the appeals court. They were tentatively set for Oct. 4

Trump and his allies sought to disqualify Willis and her office from the sprawling racketeering case because of a personal relationship she had with Nathan Wade, who was hired as a special prosecutor. But McAfee denied the request and let Willis and her office continue working on the case as long as Wade withdrew, which he did. Trump and a group of his co-defendants then appealed the decision. 

The Georgia Appeals Court agreed to pause proceedings in the case in June while it reviews McAfee’s ruling, and the Dec. 5 argument date means the prosecution will remain on hold into the new year. State law requires the appeals court to hand down a ruling by March 14, 2025, as the case was docketed for its August term. 

The former president faces 10 charges in Georgia, where he and more than a dozen of his allies were indicted in what prosecutors allege was an unlawful scheme to overturn the state’s results in the 2020 election. Trump and all 18 of his initial co-defendants pleaded not guilty, though four went on to accept plea deals.

Proceedings were derailed earlier this year after one of those co-defendants, GOP operative Michael Roman, claimed Willis and Wade had an improper romantic relationship that Willis financially benefited from it.

Roman claimed the relationship began before Wade was hired in November 2021 to work on the case involving Trump, and he sought to have Willis and her office disqualified and the charges dismissed. Trump and several others joined Roman’s motion claiming the prosecution was invalid and unconstitutional. 

Willis and Wade admitted they were romantically involved, but said it began after Wade was brought on to the investigation and ended in the summer of 2023. They both also denied that Willis financially benefited from the relationship and said they split the costs associated with trips they took together.

McAfee issued his ruling rejecting the disqualification effort in mid-March but denounced Willis’ conduct. The judge said that while he couldn’t conclusively determine when the prosecutors’ relationship turned romantic, “an odor of mendacity remains.” He criticized Willis for a “tremendous lapse in judgment.”

Trump has attempted to dismiss the indictment on numerous grounds, including that he is absolutely immune from prosecution and the charges violate the First Amendment. But McAfee in April denied the former president’s request to toss out the charges on free speech grounds, which Trump has also appealed.

A recent ruling from the Supreme Court in a different case involving Trump and the 2020 election, brought in federal court, could have an impact on his prosecution in Georgia. That case was brought by special counsel Jack Smith and claims Trump unlawfully attempted to reverse the results of the 2020 election. He pleaded not guilty to four charges.

The court’s conservative majority found that former presidents are immune from federal prosecution for official acts taken while in office and it sent the case back to the federal district court to evaluate which actions alleged in the indictment are shielded. It’s likely McAfee will conduct a similar review of the indictment in Fulton County to determine which actions are official or unofficial.

Melissa Quinn

Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.



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Elon Musk announces X, SpaceX headquarters to relocate to Texas from California

by NewsB
written by NewsB


PIX Now Afternoon Edition 7-16-2024

PIX Now Afternoon Edition 7-16-2024

07:09

Tech mogul Elon Musk announced Tuesday afternoon that he would be moving the headquarters of both his social media company X and SpaceX to Texas in response to a new California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Musk made the announcement in a pair of posts to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter at around 12:13 p.m. and 12:30 p.m., saying that SpaceX would be moving its headquarters from Hawthorne to Starbase, Texas, while X would relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to the tech hub of Austin.

“Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building,” Musk added in a separate post, apparently referring to issues in the neighborhood surrounding the X headquarters in the city’s mid-Market Street area.

Musk called the new law that banned school districts from passing policies requiring schools to notify parents if their child asks to change their gender identification as the “final straw” in his decision. 

“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk wrote in another post on X.  

Musk had already moved the corporate headquarters of his electric car company Tesla to Austin from Palo Alto in 2021, though the company still has a large factory in Fremont that has expanded since that move.

Musk has also previously said that he moved his private residence from California to Texas.

Dave Pehling

Dave Pehling is website managing editor for CBS Bay Area. He started his journalism career doing freelance writing about music in the late 1990s, eventually working as a web writer, editor and producer for KTVU.com in 2003. He began his role with CBS Bay Area in 2015.




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The billionaire who fueled JD Vance’s rapid rise to the Trump VP spot — analysis

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Former President Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio GOP Sen. JD Vance to be his running mate shows one thing remains constant, even in a presidential race upended by an attempt to assassinate one candidate and doubts about whether the other is fit to run: money in presidential politics is still king. 

Vance, a relative newcomer to national politics, has assiduously courted billionaires and Silicon Valley titans to bankroll his unlikely rise from bestselling memoirist of despair, drugs and generational poverty in Appalachia to a ticket that could seat him a heartbeat away from the presidency.  

During his rapid rise, he has emerged as an ardent and effective defender of Trump, putting an intellectual gloss on the former president’s raw MAGA populism. But Vance may never have been in serious consideration for the No. 2 spot on the ticket had he not won elective office in a major Rust Belt state in the first place.

And big donors, particularly from the tech sector, provided the rocket fuel he needed to advance in electoral politics. Vance’s most prominent benefactor over the years is Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic tech pioneer and investor. Thiel hired Vance at his global investment firm in 2017, and then nurtured Vance’s political rise, donating $15 million to his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign and helping him win a closely fought GOP primary before going on to capture the seat in the general election. 

Thiel Marks Palantirs Asia Push with $150 Million Japan Venture
File: Peter Thiel, co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 18, 2019. 

Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images


Since then, Vance has received entrée to other tech mega-investors and was instrumental in organizing a $12 million fundraiser for Trump in June that included venture capitalists Chamath Paldihapitiya, an early senior executive at Facebook, and David Sacks, who was a key figure in developing Paypal, served as its COO and later founded the social networking service Yammer. Sacks previously chipped in $1 million of his personal fortune to a pro-Vance super PAC, according to FEC records.

But it’s the relationship with Thiel that has been the most consequential for Vance. Their personal and financial ties formed long before Vance formally entered politics.

At Yale Law, Vance attended a talk by Thiel about technological stagnation and the decline of American elites.

“He saw these two trends … as connected,” Vance later wrote about his first encounter with Thiel in a 2020 blog post in the Catholic journal The Lamp Magazine. “If technological innovation were actually driving real prosperity, our elites wouldn’t feel increasingly competitive with one another over a dwindling number of prestigious outcomes.” Vance called Thiel’s talk “the most significant moment” of his time at Yale.

After Yale Law and a short stint at a corporate law firm, Vance moved to San Francisco to work as a venture capitalist. Thiel hired him to join his tech fund, Mithril Capital — all while Vance continued to work on his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

In 2019 Vance moved back to his native Ohio, where he started his own venture capitalist firm, heavily backed by Thiel and other elite tech investors. By then he was flirting with a potential run for elective office, and Thiel was encouraging him. By the time Vance finally took the plunge in 2021, he had been transformed from one of Trump’s most vitriolic critics (he once called Trump “an American Hitler” in a private message to a friend) into one of his most effective defenders and fundraisers. 

Thiel brought Vance to his very first meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February 2021, according to the New York Times.

In the 2022 campaign, Thiel made $15 million in donations to Vance’s SuperPAC, Protect Ohio Values, a staggering amount from a single individual for a Senate race, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks the influence of money on politics. But that wasn’t all. Thiel also steered at least $200,000 to Vance’s super PAC from a group he controlled called Per Aspera Policy, according to the Kansas City Star and OpenSecrets. Per Aspera is a dark money nonprofit, which means that its spending is used to influence elections, but it is not required to disclose its donors. In the same cycle, Vance’s super PAC also received hundreds of thousands in contributions from the Mercer, Uihlein and Lindner families, all staples of mega-conservative political giving in recent years.  

It is not entirely clear what Thiel may have wanted in exchange for his largesse. (Thiel declined comment for this story.)  Thiel’s philosophy has been described as “techno-libertarian,” but critics say it veers toward authoritarianism, and even fascism (he wrote in an article in a libertarian journal in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”).  

A co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor in Facebook, Thiel also has business interests with the U.S. government, which may be especially important at a time when the tech sector is under intense scrutiny from both Democrats and Republicans. Whether his goals are ideological or financial, government watchdogs are watching closely.  

“We’ve seen this long history of financial entanglements between Thiel and Vance,” said Anna Massoglia, editorial and investigations manager at OpenSecrets. “Thiel’s interests in having Vance in office are not explicit, but there’s no question he has business interests that could be benefited by having someone like JD Vance in his corner.”  

There are at least some indications that Thiel’s political generosity has translated into influence. In 2016, Thiel helped bail out Trump financially at a time when he most needed it: after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. He gave $1.25 million, and shortly after Trump’s 2016 victory, Thiel was given an office at Trump Tower where he recommended candidates for jobs in the incoming administration, according to The Atlantic’s Barton Gellman. In short order, two close associates of Thiel’s won plum positions in the Trump administration. One was tapped to be chief technology officer; another was named to the senior staff of the National Security Council. 

But after years of handing tens of millions to Vance, Trump and other Republicans, Thiel told Gellman that he’s not giving to any politician in 2024. In his view, they failed to make the changes he hoped to see, and he now thinks it matters little who’s in power. In April, Trump called him to ask for $10 million. Thiel said in the Atlantic interview that he turned him down, and Trump told him he was “very sad, very sad to hear that.” 

Daniel Klaidman

Daniel Klaidman, an investigative reporter based in New York, is the former editor-in-chief of Yahoo News and former managing editor of Newsweek. He has over two decades of experience covering politics, foreign affairs, national security and law.



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Oversight Committee chair to subpoena Secret Service director for testimony on Trump assassination attempt

by NewsB
written by NewsB


Washington — The House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s chairman plans to subpoena U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for testimony on the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, a spokeswoman for the panel said Tuesday.

Cheatle is set to appear before committee members for an oversight hearing on July 22, Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, announced Monday. While the Secret Service also agreed to brief lawmakers on Tuesday, the panel’s spokeswoman said, the Department of Homeland Security “took over communications” with the committee and has not confirmed a time for the briefing.

“The Oversight Committee has a long record of bipartisan oversight of the Secret Service and the unprofessionalism we are witnessing from current DHS leadership is unacceptable,” the spokeswoman said. “While the Secret Service confirmed Director Cheatle is expected to appear for the committee’s hearing on July 22, to head off any attempt by DHS to backtrack on her appearance, the chairman will issue a subpoena for her to attend. Director Cheatle must answer to Congress and the American people about the historic failure that occurred on her watch.”

Cheatle’s job at the helm of the Secret Service has come under scrutiny following the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, during which the former president was injured when a bullet grazed his ear. One spectator, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed in the attack and two others, Marine Corps veteran David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were wounded.

The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the gunman. He was killed by a Secret Service sniper. 

Questions quickly arose in the wake of the assassination attempt about how Crooks was able to gain access to a rooftop so close to where Trump was speaking to the crowd of supporters. President Biden said Sunday that he ordered an independent review of security at the rally and asked the Secret Service to review security measures for this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Cheatle said Monday that the agency will “participate fully” in the review announced by Mr. Biden and is working with federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened at Trump’s rally, how it occurred and how it can be prevented from taking place again.

The Secret Service chief said the agency provided additional security enhancements for Trump’s detail in June and implemented changes to his security detail after the shooting to ensure continued protection for the convention and rest of the campaign.

The House and Senate Homeland Security Committees have said they will also be looking into the shooting. The head of the House Homeland Security Panel, Rep. Mark Green, invited Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Chris Wray and Cheatle to testify before lawmakers next Tuesday to examine the circumstances surrounding the attack.

Michael Kaplan contributed to this report

Melissa Quinn

Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.



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