CHICAGO — Saying he would do more if he were in Congress today to support LGBTQ rights — which he opposed when he served — former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) came out as gay Thursday in social media and web posts.
In the postings on Instagram and a web page, the 38-year-old also describes his anguish at being rejected by members of his deeply religious family, including his mother, after they learned last year he was gay.
The longtime Republican laments that he opposed same-sex marriage while representing his conservative congressional district in central Illinois, noting that Democrat and fellow Illinoisan Barack Obama once stopped short of outright opposition.
“That fact doesn’t make my then position any less wrong, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that it was leaders of both parties who for so long wrongly understood what it was to defend the right to marry,” he writes.
He adds: “The truth is that if I were in Congress today, I would support LGBTQ rights in every way I could.”
The onetime rising GOP star and prolific Republican fundraiser garnered national attention after appearing on the cover of Men’s Health showing off his six-pack abs. He successfully marketed himself during six years in Congress as an unwavering fiscal conservative.
Schock resigned from Congress in 2015 amid scrutiny of his spending. He was indicted a year later on charges that accused him of illegally dipping into campaign and government coffers to subsidize a lavish lifestyle. But all charges were dropped in 2019 amid criticism of how prosecutors handled the case.
Schock confirmed the posts’ authenticity in a text message to the Journal Star in Peoria, the heart of the congressional district he represented for six years.
As he composed the social media posts, Schock said he knew he could expect sharp criticism from the community to which he said he now wanted to belong.
“Where was I, they will ask, when I was in a position to help advance issues important to gay Americans?” his posting says.
Many longtime supporters of gay rights blasted him on social media Thursday, including Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims.
“Anyone can be gay. Everyone who is should be out,” Sims, a Democrat, said in a Facebook posting. “But to be a part of a Community, especially one you’ve attacked, you better start with an apology, make amends …”
Schock now understands, he said, that he is indebted to those activists who supported rights he opposed for so long.
“I can live openly now as a gay man because of the extraordinary brave people who had the courage to fight for our rights when I did not,” he writes.
Schock starts the postings on both Instagram and the web page with the words: “I am gay.”
He said he began driving to his mother’s house from Los Angeles to tell her that last year. But she had learned of it before he arrived, and when he spoke with her on the phone en route, “she told me to turn around and go back to LA,” he writes.
He adds, “I’ve come to terms with the fact that it might take my loved ones more time than I would like. And I realize some might never come around.”
He said he still receives occasional emails from family members “trying to sell me on conversion therapy,” the widely debunked notion that someone who is gay can, with therapy, become heterosexual.
Schock described growing up in a conservative Apostolic Christian Church where members even considered “watching TV to be sinfully idle,” he writes. He said he doesn’t think he was aware there were other gays in his midst.
“I understood that the teachings of my upbringing were pretty clear on the matter,” he said.
The ambitious Schock began buying real estate in high school, became a member of the local school board at 19 and an Illinois legislator at 23, then entered Congress at just 27.
He said the fact he is gay wouldn’t be a revelation for many who know him, adding that coming out publicly as gay is “just one of those things in my life in need of explicit affirmation … to finally validate who I am as a person.”
“In many ways,” he writes, “I regret the time wasted in not having done so sooner.”
NEW YORK — President Trump on Friday dismissed Curtis Sliwa — his own party’s New York City mayoral candidate — as “not exactly prime time” and even disparaged his affinity for cats, as pressure mounts for Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani ‘s rivals to drop out of the race.
Trump has warned that Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker and democratic socialist, will likely cruise to victory over Sliwa, Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Nov. 4 unless two of those candidates dropped out. The New York-born Republican thinks Cuomo could have a chance in a one-on-one race.
On a Friday appearance on “Fox & Friends”, he threw cold water on Sliwa’s mayoral hopes, even taking a shot at the red beret-wearing candidate’s vow to fill the official residence of the New York City mayor with rescue cats if he does win.
“I’m a Republican, but Curtis is not exactly prime time,” Trump said bluntly.
“He wants cats to be in Gracie Mansion,” the president added. “We don’t need thousands of cats.”
Mamdani became the presumed favorite in the race after winning the Democratic primary over Cuomo, who is now running as an independent in the general election. Adams, a Democrat, skipped the primary due to his campaign being sidelined by a now-dismissed federal bribery case.
Two polls conducted in early September, one by the New York Times and Siena University, the other by Quinnipiac University, each showed likely voters favoring Mamdani over Cuomo, with Adams and Sliwa behind Cuomo.
The Quinnipiac poll suggested the gap between Mamdani and Cuomo could narrow if Adams dropped out. The Times/Siena poll suggested that if both Adams and Sliwa withdrew, Mamdani’s advantage over Cuomo could shrink even further.
A campaign spokesperson on Friday stressed that Adams has no intention of stepping down from office or abandoning his reelection bid — though confirmed he is commissioning a poll to gauge his support.
“He just wants to look at all factors,” said Todd Shapiro said. “There’s nothing on the table right now. He’s looking at polls just like he’s doing everything else.”
The mayor, he added, would have more to say on the polling itself next week.
“He’s still very popular,” Shapiro said. “He’s running on a record of success.”
Adams in recent weeks has sought to rebuff questions of whether he might accept an alternate job offer amid reports that he had been approached about potentially taking a role with the federal government.
In a radio interview Friday, Sliwa — the founder of New York’s Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol group — said Trump seems to be responding “to what people are telling him about me without really knowing much about me of late.”
“I would hope the president would revisit my history, not only with him but in this city,” Sliwa said on 710 WOR.
The outspoken New Yorkers both rose to prominence in the late 1970s, but Sliwa has said they haven’t spoken in years, possibly because he’d been critical of Trump at times, both on his long-running radio show and as a candidate.
In a follow up email, Sliwa also defended his love of cats, adding that “animal welfare” is among the issues “New Yorkers care about” that he hopes to focus on, if elected.
“New Yorkers care for people and for animals, and so do I,” he said. “I am proud of my wife, Nancy, who has devoted her life to fostering, caring for, and saving animals, and fighting for them when no one else would.”
Sliwa has sheltered a large collection of rescue cats in his Manhattan apartment and has noted that Gracie Mansion is far more spacious.
“We’ll be able to house unwanted cats and dogs right in the lawn, the great lawn they have,” he said recently on his radio show.
Some other year, under some other president, Republican Young Kim might have been a shoo-in to represent a majority-minority congressional district containing pieces of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.
Kim’s profile is as compelling as it is rare for someone running under the GOP banner: an immigrant, an Asian American and, perhaps most important, a woman in a year when female voter enthusiasm is surging. If she wins, she would be the first Korean American woman elected to Congress.
All of these facets might help her navigate the demographic changes that have been eroding Republican support for decades in the 39th Congressional District, where roughly two-thirds of residents are either Asian or Latino and immigrants make up about a third of the population.
But in this year’s tough midterm election, likely to be a referendum on Donald Trump’s divisive presidency, Kim will be forced to stitch together a majority out of disparate factions: die-hard Trump supporters, Trump-averse minorities and affluent suburban women. Kim, 55, finds herself in a race that’s virtually tied in a district where retiring GOP incumbent Ed Royce won the last three elections by double digits.
On the campaign trail, she says, she’s faced questions about the president — his tweets, his policies, his tone. Kim says that Trump’s rhetoric concerns her and that his disparaging remarks about immigrants and women can be frustrating.
“I try to tell them I’m not running to be his spokesperson or represent Donald Trump in the White House,” she says.
Many GOP House candidates — in similarly diverse districts from the Virginia exurbs outside Washington to the bedroom communities east of Denver — share her plight.
In Southern California, Republicans’ tactics for dealing with Trump range from avoidance, as with two-term Rep. Mimi Walters of Laguna Beach, to a full embrace by Diane Harkey, who is running for a seat left open by retiring Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista.
Kim’s 39th Congressional District includes Chino Hills, Fullerton, Yorba Linda — the birthplace of Richard Nixon — and Diamond Bar.
Here, a taqueria can share a parking lot with a Taiwanese cafe. Spanish, Korean, Mandarin and Tagalog can be heard along with English in the upscale ethnic supermarkets that dot the area.
As she travels the region, Kim has tried to drive home two major points: that people living here know her, and that she understands their stories. She’s spent decades in the public arena, first as a longtime district staffer to Royce and then as a one-term state assemblywoman. She was once a TV talk show host on Korean-language television.
Kim speaks with a knowing ease about the sacrifices immigrants make for a shot at prosperity.
She often shares memories of interpreting for her parents and picking up cans and bottles on the beaches of Guam — a way station between Seoul and Hawaii, where her family later settled — to help raise money for their church.
“My personal experience of being an immigrant, having gone through what this diverse immigrant community has gone through, struggling,” Kim said. “Those are real life experiences that really helped me understand … the district.”
Kim, who owns a government affairs consulting business, moved to Southern California 37 years ago to attend USC. She lives in Fullerton with her husband, Charles; they have four adult children.
One recent Saturday at a campaign office in Rowland Heights, Kim bowed and greeted supporters with “Annyeonghaseyo!” — “Hello!” in Korean — before Saga Conroy took the stage.
“President Trump is not on the ballot, but his agenda is totally in this midterm election,” said Conroy, trying to pump up volunteers. “If we lose the majority in Congress, everything he achieved could be lost.”
It was a departure from Kim’s attempts to cast herself as an independent voice who will call out the president when she disagrees but is willing to work with him on policies that help the district. Kim’s campaign manager, wincing at the remarks, felt compelled to point out that Conroy isn’t a staffer but a volunteer coordinator for the California Republican Party.
“Voters want somebody to stand up to Trump and put a check on him,” said Ben Tulchin, a veteran pollster helping strategize for Kim’s opponent, Democrat Gil Cisneros. “A Republican who worked for a Republican member of Congress is not the person they’re looking for.”
As supporters snacked on spicy Korean rice cakes and egg rolls at the campaign office, one young woman approached Kim with a contribution and an invitation to speak at the next Rotary Club meeting in Fullerton.
“There’s three rotary clubs in Fullerton, so which one?” Kim said without missing a beat. “The main one,” the woman replied.
Kim insists that her strategy of showing up to dozens of groundbreakings, cultural fairs and community events will insulate her from national politics in a way she couldn’t manage in 2016, when she sought reelection to her Assembly seat.
Her Democratic opponent plastered the district with mailers featuring Kim’s face alongside the polarizing GOP presidential nominee and even released an ad disguised as a music video featuring lyrics declaring “Young Kim is like Donald Trump.” It contributed to her loss in the swing district.
Back then, Kim tried to sidestep the issue, saying she’d never met Trump and calling the tactic “desperate.” This time, she’s drawing sharper distinctions between her views and the president’s.
In an interview, Kim maintained that her party has not been captured by one man. “There is no party of Trump,” she said, banging her hand on a table. She’s running, she said, “because I’ve been here, I’ve been working here, I’ve raised my family here, I know the district…. I’m not running for the party of Trump.”
Still, Trump so dominates political discussion these days Kim can’t help but be drawn into the conversation. Her strategy is to ignore the president and his serial controversies as best she can. Kim, for instance, declined this week to comment on Trump’s mocking of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Kim has sought to carve out her own identity on issues by opposing, for instance, Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents who crossed the border illegally, saying it “does not live up” to American values. She vows to fight for a pathway to citizenship for young people brought to the country illegally as children.
She also breaks with Trump by supporting what he refers to as “chain migration,” which allows citizens to sponsor family members to join them. Like many in her district, Kim’s family has benefited from the long-standing policy. Kim’s adult sister, who had married an American serviceman and joined the military herself, was able to sponsor her, both of her parents and four siblings.
But Kim echoes Trump in other ways.
She called California’s so-called sanctuary state law an “affront to law-abiding citizens and a threat to public safety.” She praised a decision by the Trump administration to weigh in on a lawsuit against Harvard that alleges the university’s admissions policies discriminate against Asian Americans.
One of her first campaign ads emphasized how her family came to the country legally “and not because we wanted handouts.”
Bernie Overland, left, speaks to Democratic congressional candidate Gil Cisneros, center, at his home in Fullerton.
(Christine Mai-Duc / Los Angeles Times)
Those positions may help Kim hold on to support from the Republican base, but they alienate others who want no part of Trump and his presidency. There are frequent reminders of the fine line she walks.
Bernie Overland, a 78-year-old Republican, opened his door in Fullerton one recent Saturday when Cisneros, the Democrat, came knocking. Cisneros was there to speak to Overland’s wife, who’s a Democrat, but he first asked Bernie what issues he cares about most.
“Well, Trump is certainly one,” he said with a laugh.
He’s angry about Trump’s plans to build a border wall (he called it “a waste”) and is incensed by the risk of ballooning national debt from recently passed tax cuts.
“I just think he is taking this country down the garden path to disaster,” Overland said in an interview later. Overland says that he wants to send a message to Trump in this midterm election and that nothing Kim does and says will change his mind.
His plan: Vote for any candidate who is not a Republican.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of President Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections.
The special session called by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe began Wednesday and will run at least a week.
Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.
But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats. California’s plan still needs voter approval at a Nov. 4 election.
Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.
Nationally, Democrats need to gain three seats next year to take control of the House. Historically, the party of the president usually loses seats in the midterm congressional elections.
What is redistricting?
At the start of each decade, the Census Bureau collects population data that is used to allot the 435 U.S. House seats proportionally among states. States that grow relative to others may gain a House seat at the expense of states where populations stagnated or declined. Though some states may have their own restrictions, there is nothing nationally that prohibits states from redrawing districts in the middle of a decade.
In many states, congressional redistricting is done by state lawmakers, subject to approval by the governor. Some states have special commissions responsible for redistricting.
What is gerrymandering?
Partisan gerrymandering occurs when a political party in charge of the redistricting process draws voting district boundaries to its advantage.
One common method is for a majority party to draw a map that packs voters who support the opposing party into only a few districts, thus allowing the majority party to win a greater number of surrounding districts. Another common method is for the majority party to dilute the power of an opposing party’s voters by spreading them thinly among multiple districts.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far. But it said state courts still can decide such cases under their own laws.
How could Missouri’s districts change?
Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map proposed by Kehoe would give Republicans a shot at winning seven seats in the 2026 elections.
It targets a Kansas City district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching it eastward into Republican-leaning rural areas. Meanwhile, other parts of Cleaver’s district would be split off and folded into heavily Republican districts currently represented by GOP Reps. Mark Alford and Sam Graves. Districts also would be realigned in the St. Louis area but with comparatively minor changes to the district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell.
Republican lawmakers had considered a potential 7-1 map when originally drawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP majority opted against it because of concerns it could face legal challenges and create more competitive districts that could backfire in a poor election year by allowing Democrats to win up to three seats.
Could other states join the redistricting battle?
Mid-decade redistricting must occur in Ohio, according to its constitution, because Republicans there adopted congressional maps without sufficient bipartisan support. That could create an opening for Republicans to try to expand their 10-5 seat majority over Democrats.
A court in Utah has ordered the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw new congressional districts after ruling that lawmakers circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor one party. A new map could help Democrats, because Republicans currently hold all four of the state’s U.S. House seats.
Other Republican-led states, such as Indiana and Florida, are considering redistricting at Trump’s urging. Officials in Democratic-led states, such as Illinois, Maryland and New York, also have talked of trying to counter the Republican push with their own revised maps.
What else is at stake in Missouri?
A special session agenda set by Kehoe also includes proposed changes to Missouri’s ballot measure process.
One key change would make it harder for citizen-initiated ballot measures to succeed. If approved by voters, Missouri’s constitution would be amended so that all future ballot initiatives would need not only a majority of the statewide vote but also a majority of the votes in each congressional district in order to pass.
If such a standard had been in place last year, an abortion-rights amendment to the state constitution would have failed. That measure narrowly passed statewide on the strength of “yes” votes in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas but failed in rural congressional districts.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has revoked former Vice President Kamala Harris’ Secret Service protection that otherwise would have ended next summer, senior Trump administration officials said Friday.
Former vice presidents typically get federal government protection for six months after leaving office, while ex-presidents do so for life. But then-President Biden quietly signed a directive, at Harris’ request, that had extended protection for her beyond the traditional six months, according to another person familiar with the matter. The people insisted on anonymity to discuss a matter not made public.
Trump, a Republican, defeated Harris, a Democrat, in the presidential election last year.
His move to drop Harris’ Secret Service protection comes as the former vice president, who became the Democratic nominee last summer after a chaotic series of events that led to Biden dropping out of the contest, is about to embark on a book tour for her memoir, titled “107 Days.” The tour has 15 stops, including visits abroad to London and Toronto. The book, which refers to the historically short length of her presidential campaign, will be released Sept. 23, and the tour begins the following day.
A recent threat intelligence assessment the Secret Service conducts on those it protects, such as Harris, found no red flags or credible evidence of a threat to the former vice president, said a White House official who also insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The administration found no reason Harris’ protection should go beyond the standard six-month period for former vice presidents, the official said.
Trump’s vice president from his first term, Mike Pence, did not have extended Secret Service protection beyond the standard six months.
Still, it is not unusual for Secret Service protection to continue well beyond the statutory six-month window, particularly when former officials face credible and ongoing threats. But Trump’s decisions to revoke the protection have stood out both for timing and for targets.
During Trump’s second presidency, he repeatedly has cut off security for adversaries and figures who have fallen from favor, including his onetime national security advisor John Bolton and members of Biden’s family, including the former president’s adult children. Outgoing presidents can extend protection for those who might otherwise not be eligible; Trump did so for his family after leaving office in 2021.
The decision to strip Harris of protection is certain to raise alarms among security experts who view continuity of protection as essential in a polarized climate.
A senior Trump administration official said an executive memorandum was issued Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security ending Harris’ security detail and security services. Those had been extended from six to 18 months by the Biden administration, so they would have ended in July 2026, but now they will be terminated on Monday.
Harris lives in the Los Angeles area. The city’s Democratic mayor, Karen Bass, called Trump’s decision “another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation” and warned that it would endanger Harris. Bass said she plans to work with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, to ensure the former vice president’s safety, and she and Harris have already been in touch about the issue, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
While she lost to Trump last November, Harris is seen as a potential candidate for 2028, and she has already announced she will not run for California governor in 2026. Harris is also a former senator, California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney.
Last year was a particularly politically charged environment with Trump facing two assassination attempts, and the Secret Service played a crucial role in protecting the now-president. While questions remain about how the agency prepared for a July 2024 rally in Butler, Pa., a Secret Service counter sniper shot a gunman dead after he fired eight shots, killing an attendee, wounding two others and grazing Trump’s right ear. Trump chose one of the agents who rushed to the stage to shield him, Sean Curran, to lead the agency earlier this year.
The news of the security revocation was first reported by CNN.
Kim and Gomez Licon write for the Associated Press. Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe is calling Missouri lawmakers into a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts as part of a growing national battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an edge in next year’s congressional elections.
Kehoe’s announcement Friday comes just hours after Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans gain five more seats in the 2026 midterm elections. It marked a win for President Trump, who has been urging Republican-led states to reshape district lines to give the party a better shot at retaining control of the House.
Missouri would become the third state to pursue an unusual mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage. Republican-led Texas took up the task first but was quickly countered by Democratic-led California.
Kehoe scheduled Missouri’s special session to begin Sept. 3.
Missouri is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats — Reps. Wesley Bell in St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver in Kansas City. Republicans hope to gain one more seat by reshaping Cleaver’s district to stretch further from Kansas City into suburban or rural areas that lean more Republican.
Some Republicans had pushed for a map that could give them a 7-1 edge when redrawing districts after the 2020 census. But the GOP legislative majority ultimately opted against it. Some feared the more aggressive plan could be susceptible to a legal challenge and could backfire in a poor election year for Republicans by creating more competitive districts that could allow Democrats to win three seats.
Republicans won a 220-215 House majority over Democrats in 2024, an outcome that aligned almost perfectly with the share of the vote won by the two parties in districts across the U.S., according to a recent Associated Press analysis. Although the overall outcome was close to neutral, the AP’s analysis shows that Democrats and Republicans each benefited from advantages in particular states stemming from the way districts were drawn.
Democrats would need to net three seats in next year’s election to take control of the chamber. The incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterm elections, as was the case for Trump in 2018, when Democrats won control of the House and subsequently launched investigations of Trump.
Seeking to avoid a similar situation in his second term, Trump has urged Republican-led states to fortify their congressional seats.
In Texas, Republicans already hold 25 of the 38 congressional seats.
“Texas is now more red in the United States Congress,” Abbott said in a video he posted on X of him signing the legislation.
In response to the Texas efforts, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a November statewide election on a revised U.S. House map that gives Democrats there a chance of winning five additional seats. Democrats already hold 43 of California’s 52 congressional seats.
Newsom, who has emerged as a leading adversary of Trump on redistricting and other issues, tauntingly labeled Abbott on X as the president’s “#1 lapdog” following the signing.
Voting rights groups filed a lawsuit this week ahead of Abbott’s signing the bill, saying the new map weakens the electoral influence of Black voters. Texas Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new map in court.
The redistricting battle could spread to other states. Republicans could seek to squeeze more seats out of Ohio, where the state constitution requires districts to be redrawn before the 2026 elections.
Republican officials in Florida, Indiana and elsewhere also are considering revising their U.S. House districts, as are Democratic officials in Illinois, Maryland and New York.
In Utah, a judge recently ordered the Republican-led Legislature to draw new congressional districts after finding that lawmakers had weakened and ignored an independent commission established by voters to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Republicans have won all four of Utah’s congressional seats under the map approved by lawmakers in 2021.
Lieb and DeMillo write for the Associated Press. DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Ark. AP journalist Jim Vertuno contributed from Austin, Texas.
Slide over, Steve Garvey. It appears another former Major League Baseball slugger with Southland ties will run for political office.
Mark Teixeira, who batted a robust .358 in a two-month stint with the Angels in 2008 before signing a longterm lucrative contract with the New York Yankees, announced his campaign for Texas’ 21st Congressional District in the U.S. House on Wednesday.
Teixeira, an avowed conservative who has lived in or near Dallas much of his adult life, said he is “ready to help defend President Trump’s America First agenda, Texas families, and individual liberty.”
Garvey is also a Republican, and he lost in a landslide to Democrat Adam Schiff for California’s open seat in the U.S. Senate last November. Despite being a beloved former Dodgers great, Garvey, 75, held few public events and struggled to gain traction with voters in a state that has not elected a Republican to statewide office in nearly two decades.
Unlike Garvey, Teixeira, 45, is running in a heavily Republican district that Chip Roy won by 26% of the vote in November. Teixeira’s announcement follows Roy’s decision not to seek re-election because he is running for the office of the Texas Attorney General.
Teixeira, a former first baseman, played 14 seasons for four MLB teams — the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Angels and Yankees. He retired after the 2016 season with 409 career home runs.
The Angels acquired him from the Braves in a trade late in the 2008 season, and he helped them to the only 100-win season in franchise history by hitting 13 home runs and driving in 43 runs while batting .358 in 54 games.
Teixeira also performed well in the American League Division Series, batting .467 with a .550 on-base percentage, although the Angels fell in four games to the Boston Red Sox. He was a free agent after the season and Angels owner Arte Moreno offered him $160 million over eight years before retracting the offer two weeks later.
Several other teams made similar if not more lucrative offers, and Teixeira signed with the Yankees for $180 million over eight years. The slugging switch-hitter helped New York to the 2009 World Series championship, leading the AL with 39 homers and 122 runs batted in.
The Yankees defeated the Angels in the AL Championship Series before beating the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. The following season, Teixeira spoke highly of the Angels despite leaving Anaheim for the greener pastures of New York.
“I hope there are no hard feelings between Arte and myself,” Teixeira told The Times’ Mike DiGiovanna. “I loved that organization. Arte, [Manager Mike] Scioscia, it’s first class, top to bottom. But your wife and kids being happy is more important than your personal desires.”
This debate takes on the growing rift in President Trump’s party. Is it driven by conservative principles or allegiance to one man?
America First was the slogan Donald Trump championed during his re-election campaign as he promised to put the interests of Americans above those of foreign governments, immigrants and large corporations. However, the United States president has made several policy decisions that have divided his electoral base. The two guests in this episode of The Stream voted for Trump in the 2024 election but now find themselves on the opposite side of several issues: economic policy, foreign military spending and the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Ethan Levins – Social media journalist Erol Morkoc – Spokesman, Republicans Overseas UK
COLUMBUS, Ind. — The welcome sign on State Road 46 promises “Unexpected” and “Unforgettable.” It stands above an outsize tribute to NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, with 10 full lines listing the accomplishments of the hometown racing hero nicknamed “Smoke.”
A smaller metal plate was added after the 2016 election. “Hometown of Michael R. Pence,” reads the three-line tribute. “United States Vice President.”
The marker for this Indiana city’s most famous son hadn’t been up long when the phone calls to City Hall began. Some people wanted to know why the sign wasn’t bigger. Others wondered whether Pence merited a sign at all.
The vice president who likes to say he is “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” claims deep roots and loyalties in the small, ambitious city of about 48,000 where he grew up. But in an adulthood that has taken him mostly to Indianapolis and Washington, he returns now to a hometown growing in unexpected and often progressive directions.
The values that molded Pence, a former congressman and Indiana governor, first loom into view on the drive into Columbus. Billboards decry the evil of abortion. One, awash in flames, suggests passersby have two choices: the Holy Bible or an eternity in hell.
About this series
Even in a pandemic, candidates spend much of their time campaigning in one town after another. But what is the America they’ve seen from their own front doorstep? In this series, Times reporters explore the communities the candidates have called home.
Campaign signs that read “Jesus 2020” seem as prevalent as any on the expansive lawns north of Columbus’ downtown. To the faithful over at the Moose Lodge car rally and outside the evangelical church where Pence still drops in, the vice president embodies what one construction worker called “the beliefs that we hold dear.” Added Brian Shelton, getting ready to hop on his Harley-Davidson after church services: “God, guns and freedom. You know?”
Though those imperatives still unite much of Columbus, the insular city that Pence mostly left behind after his 1977 high school graduation has seen its politics bending, slowly but steadily, along a more liberal arc.
Then-Rep. Mike Pence kicks off his campaign for governor of Indiana in his hometown of Columbus in 2011, promising to fight Democrats’ healthcare and climate change legislation.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
Columbus’ population has grown by more than 80% since he left, with foreign workers streaming into one of the most manufacturing-intensive counties in America. And the city government has rejected some of the hard-right social conservatism that Pence has made his signature.
As the state’s governor from 2013 to 2017, Pence signed a law that advocates said would allow businesses to deny service to gays and lesbians; Columbus parried with an ordinance protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination. Pence approved a ban on immigration by refugees from Syria; his old church fought to let them in. And while Pence railed about the “societal collapse” that would follow if traditional marriage withered, his hometown and its biggest company approved employee benefits for same-sex spouses.
Glen Pannell plays “Mike Hot-Pence” at the first Pride Festival in Columbus, Ind. A high school senior started the festival to counter Pence’s social conservatism after he became vice president.
(Keith Griner / Getty Images)
Last year, Columbus elected its first Democratic-majority City Council in 36 years. And this spring, as President Trump and Pence decried the lawlessness of protesters following the death of George Floyd, Republican Mayor Jim Lienhoop marched alongside Black Lives Matter demonstrators in downtown Columbus.
A year after Pence left Indiana to join Trump in the White House, a local teenager said she was troubled that the world would view Columbus as a peevish, unaccepting place. So Erin Bailey used her high school senior project to organize the city’s first LGBTQ Pride Festival.
A guest of honor was “Mike Hot-Pence.” The Pence doppelganger sported the veep’s white buzz cut and blue hot pants. He carried a plastic barrel to collect donations for gay and lesbian youth.
The mid-20th century Columbus of Pence’s youth was a more monochromatic place. In the 1970s, 98% of its 26,000 residents were white, compared with 78% in 2019. A huge percentage worked at Cummins Engine Co., which would eventually become the largest independent maker of diesel engines in the world.
Churches united the small community, and Pence’s parents, three brothers and two sisters helped fill the pews at St. Columba Catholic Church. The family’s Irish Catholic roots conjured a powerful bond with John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic in the White House, and young Mike would later recall that he kept a stash of Kennedy memorabilia.
Then-Rep. Mike Pence, center, with wife Karen and their children in 2011 as he kicks off his campaign for governor of Indiana.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
It was in 1977 that his watershed spiritual and ideological transformations began, after he left Columbus for Hanover College, an hour south. The first revelation came when he attended a Christian music festival during his freshman year.
“I gave my life to Jesus Christ,” he later said. “And that’s changed everything.”
A political epiphany arrived three years later when, as a senior, a history professor introduced Pence to libertarianism, supply-side economics and the argument for small government. Though he voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980, a nod to the Democratic president’s evangelical roots, he soon after became a devotee of Ronald Reagan.
Music shop owner Tom Pickett taught a young Mike Pence to play guitar in Columbus, Ind., and says his former student is standing up for conservative values as vice president.
(James Rainey / Los Angeles Times)
On the campaign trail, Pence liked to muse about his roots in a small community where he had a “cornfield in the backyard.” It might have sounded as if he were raised on a farm, but the Pence family lived in one of the expansive tract homes filled by upper-middle-class families near the center of town. The home happened to back up to farmland.
One constant in the Columbus of Pence’s youth and of 2020 has been Tom Pickett. The 89-year-old music store owner has been lending and selling instruments to the city’s young people for more than 60 years. Pickett taught a teenage Pence to play guitar. Today, a larger-than-life photo of the vice president greets visitors when they enter the store.
Pence’s office did not respond to requests to discuss how his hometown shaped him.
Pickett sees his onetime student and President Trump as the guardians of Columbus’ old-time values and fighters against “the socialists and the communists.”
The music man has heard people mock Pence for adhering to the “Billy Graham Rule” — eschewing drinks, meals or meetings alone with a woman other than his wife.
“People get a good laugh, a big hoo-hah,” said Pickett, shaking his head. “But he is the kind of person who won’t let things happen against his better values.”
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Columbus’ architectural treasures include the North Christian Church, designed by Eero Saarinen of St. Louis Gateway Arch fame.
(Andrew Laker / Associated Press)
Sleek and whimsical by design, Columbus looks nothing like any other small city in America.
It overflows with some of the celebrated modernist architecture one J. Irwin Miller brought to town. The man who led Cummins — the biggest company in Columbus — from the 1940s until 1977, Miller believed the business needed to do more than make money. He pushed for it to promote the humanities and architecture, in particular, “to make us truly human in the best sense of the word.”
The iconoclastic industrialist succeeded so famously in luring world-renowned architects that by 1991, the American Institute of Architects put Columbus on a list with New York, Chicago and San Francisco as one of the nation’s leading centers of architectural innovation and design.
The North Christian Church in Columbus, completed in 1964, draws architecture buffs with its innovative design.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
Columbus had the audacity, in the 1950s, to open a bank building with glass walls instead of the de rigueur brick or stone. One of its largest churches seats the faithful in the round, looking down on the pulpit, not consigned to look up at their minister on high.
The city-builder’s expansive worldview extended to politics. In the early 1960s Miller ordered that Cummins hire more minority executives, then set about overturning Columbus’ racially restrictive housing laws, so the newcomers could find a place to live. (Pence’s older brother Ed retired from the company three years ago as a top executive.)
Miller believed even a small, Midwestern city could be open-minded and intellectually stimulating and attract the best and the brightest. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “the most socially responsible businessman in the country.” Esquire magazine admired his sensibilities so much that in 1967, with President Lyndon B. Johnson slouching in the polls, it featured Miller on its cover with the headline: “This man ought to be the next President of the United States.”
Columbus residents hold a candlelight vigil at the Bartholomew County Memorial for Veterans in Columbus, designed by Thompson and Rose Architects.
(Mike Dickbernd / Associated Press)
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Even with its progressive crosscurrents, Columbus’ Bartholomew County has remained faithfully Republican in presidential elections. John McCain won by over 10 percentage points here in 2008, though he narrowly lost the state to Barack Obama. Four years ago, Trump and Pence stomped Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the county by more than 2 to 1.
While Trump’s America-first nativism appears to be a big seller with many here, Pence’s culture-warrior style of Republicanism — with fights over LGBTQ and immigrant rights — departs from the centrism represented by Miller and by Indiana’s past Republican luminaries.
Previous big names in the state’s GOP included Sen. Richard G. Lugar, renowned for his ability to work with Democrats, and Mitch Daniels, an avatar of wonkiness and restraint, who preceded Pence in the governor’s office.
Pence’s born-again experience was simultaneously an embrace and a rejection of his roots. Reared Roman Catholic, he said he only found a more “personal” relationship with Jesus Christ when he became evangelical.
The idea that he wasn’t fully Christian until he left the Catholic Church rankles some at the Columbus parish that his mother and brothers still attend. Father Clement T. Davis of St. Bartholomew Catholic Church recalls that another priest “blew up” at Pence years ago for suggesting he only became truly Christian in college.
“I think he learned from that experience,” Davis said, “and toned it down a little bit after that.”
There are plenty of St. Bartholomew’s parishioners who embrace Trump and his No. 2. At a recent Sunday morning Mass, a couple described how “thrilled” they were to have Pence pushing for a Supreme Court that could overturn legalized abortion.
But even at the Pence family’s home parish, the strains of a more progressive Catholicism ring out, as the priest proclaims that the town’s immigrant workers, some of whom are in the country illegally, are “gifts from God,” and promotes voting with a quote from John Lewis, the late Democratic congressman from Georgia.
Mike Pence, right, with Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin in Indianapolis after the 2016 election. When Tobin was an archbishop, he and the formerly Catholic governor clashed over allowing Syrian refugees to settle in Indiana.
(Michael Conroy/Associated Press)
Pence’s hard line on immigration has put him at odds with many in modern Columbus, including people of faith.
A notable showdown came in 2015, when the then-governor blocked the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana. He said he doubted the Muslim newcomers could be adequately screened to ensure Hoosiers didn’t become the target of terrorist attacks.
The archbishop of Indianapolis, Joseph W. Tobin, met with Pence to plead with him to help the migrants find safe harbor. He presented the case of one family, fleeing terrorism, that had been screened for almost two years and yearned to move close to their relatives in Indiana.
Pence would not budge, saying the security of his citizens was paramount. When Tobin (now a cardinal) was asked by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer whether he could think of a Christian argument for rejecting the family, Tobin said: “No.”
Pence has parted with Columbus’ moderate sensibilities and his own past beliefs on another issue of critical importance here: trade. This is a metropolitan region more reliant on exports than any other in the nation.
A career-long free-trade advocate until he signed on with Trump, the vice president has stood mute as the president has ramped up trade sanctions and tariffs, including on foreign aluminum and steel.
The Cummins corporate offices, designed by Kevin Roche, were built in 1983 in Mike Pence’s hometown of Columbus, Ind., renowned as one of America’s top cities for modernist architecture.
(Andrew Laker / (Columbus, Ind.) Republic)
Cummins Chief Executive Tom Linebarger protested that the new tariffs cost the company more than it gained when the administration passed a substantial corporate tax cut. Said Linebarger: “Our net taxes are higher now.”
Perhaps Pence’s sharpest departure from Columbus’ expansive worldview came in 2015. That’s when he signed a state law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Sondra Bolte of Columbus, Ind., recalls how business magnate J. Irwin Miller made the small city a center of progressive politics. “His wingspan was really broad,” she said of the former Cummins Engine Co. executive.
(James Rainey / Los Angeles Times)
Backers of the law said it was designed, among other things, to allow Christian bakers, florists and photographers to avoid punishment if they declined to serve people holding gay and lesbian weddings. What supporters saw as a law protecting individuals from being forced to violate their religious beliefs, critics viewed as nothing but outrageous identity discrimination.
Indiana faced a broad boycott and condemnation from the CEOs of big businesses like Apple and Salesforce. The head of the online ratings company Angie’s List cancelled a $40-million expansion of its Indianapolis headquarters.
The state passed clarifying legislation to specify that it was not condoning discrimination. But that just infuriated conservatives who viewed the law as righteous.
Back in Columbus, the City Council approved an ordinance making LGBTQ individuals a “protected class.” The rebuke of the city’s most famous political son was all the more remarkable because all seven City Council members were Republicans.
When asked what he would say today to the vice president about that stumble, Columbus’ GOP mayor shook his head. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” Lienhoop said. “So be careful.”
“Mocha Debeaute” performs in the drag show at Columbus’ 2018 Pride Festival, conceived by high school senior Erin Bailey to prove the city was more open than Vice President Mike Pence to LGBTQ people.
A quarter of Latinos who supported President Donald Trump in the November election are not guaranteed to vote for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, according to a new national poll by Equis, a leading research and polling group.
Last week Equis, alongside progressive think tank Data for Progress, released a July memo that summarized key findings from a national poll of 1,614 registered voters, conducted between July 7 and July 17.
Respondents were asked, “If the 2026 election for United States Congress were held today, for whom would you vote?” Only 27% replied that they would vote for a Republican candidate, marking a significant political party drop from the 45% who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
A quarter of those polled said they were not sure whom they would vote for (16%), would vote for someone else (5%), or would not vote at all (4%).
This shaky political alignment comes at a critical time for Republicans, who are banking on continual Latino support in 2026 — especially as Texas Republicans plan to flip five blue seats under a newly proposed congressional map.
The Equis study also found that 63% of Latinos disapproved of Trump’s job as president in July, a slight uptick from polling numbers in May, when 60% disapproved. This rating seems to reflect broader sentiments regarding the state of the U.S. economy: 64% of Latinos rated the economy as “somewhat or very poor,” while only 34% viewed it as “somewhat or very good.”
However, a disapproval of Trump does not mean Latinos have rushed to back the Democratic Party. Half the Latinos polled said Democrats care more about people like them, versus the 25% who said Republicans care more. Meanwhile, 17% said they believe that neither party cares.
Swing voters — including those who Equis calls “Biden defectors,” or voters who elected Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024 — are twice as likely to say that neither party cares about people like them (38%).
“Growing dissatisfaction with Trump offers Democrats an opportunity, but only if they are willing to capitalize on it,” the July memo states.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for the files; lawmakers believe they could implicate Trump and other former top officials in the sex-trafficking investigation.
Trump’s anti-immigration policies have also likely shifted his popularity. Early July Gallup polling revealed that Americans have grown more positive toward immigration — 79% of Americans say immigration is a “good thing” for the country, which marks a 64% increase from last year and a 25-year record high.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Rep. Mike Flood has gotten an earful during a public meeting in Lincoln aimed at discussing his support for the massive tax breaks and spending cuts bill that passed Congress and was signed into law by President Trump.
Flood, a second-term Republican who represents the GOP-leaning district that includes the University of Nebraska, on Monday braved the ire of a college town audience dominated by hundreds of people intent on expressing their displeasure chiefly with cuts to Medicaid benefits and tax reductions tilted toward the wealthy.
He described the law as less than perfect but stood firm on its Medicaid and tax provisions, fueling a 90-minute barrage of jeers and chants in a scenario House Republican leaders have specifically advised GOP members to avoid.
“More than anything I truly believe this bill protects Medicaid for the future,” Flood said, setting off a shower of boos from the audience of roughly 700 in the University of Nebraska’s Kimball Recital Hall. “We protected Medicaid.”
How voters receive the law, passed with no Democratic support in the narrowly GOP-controlled House and Senate, could go a long way to determine whether Republicans keep power in next year’s midterm elections.
Flood was resolute on his position but engaged with the audience at times. During his repeated discussions of Medicaid, he asked if people in the audience thought able-bodied Americans should be required to work. When many shouted their opposition, he replied, “I don’t think a majority of Nebraskans agree with that.”
Dozens formed a line to the microphone to speak to Flood, most asking pointed questions about the law, but many others questioning moves by the Trump administration on immigration enforcement, education spending and layoffs within the federal bureaucracy.
Some came prepared to confront him.
“You said in Seward you were not a fascist,” one man stood in line to say. “Your complicity suggests otherwise.”
Flood shot back, “Fascists don’t hold town halls with open question-and-answer sessions.”
Asked if he would block the release of files related to the sex trafficking case involving the late Jeffrey Epstein, Flood said he supports their release as a co-sponsor of a nonbinding resolution calling for their publication. Flood also said he supports requiring a deposition from Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who argues she was wrongfully prosecuted.
Flood’s audience was gathering more than an hour before the doors opened. And as people lined up in the warm August air, he sauntered by, introducing himself, shaking hands and thanking people, including retired Lincoln teacher and school administrator Mary Ells, for attending.
“I believe Congressman Flood listened in a socially appropriate way,” Ells said after expressing concerns to Flood about her grandchildren’s future. “I do not believe he listens in a responsive, action-oriented way for citizens in Nebraska that do not agree with the national playbook written elsewhere but being implemented here.”
Inside the hall, much of that decorum vanished.
During Flood’s discussion of his support of the law’s tax provisions, which he argued would benefit the middle class, the audience exploded in a deafening chant of “Tax the rich.”
Other refrains included “Vote him out!” and “Free Palestine!”
Hecklers often drowned out Flood, creating a rolling cacophony with only occasional pauses.
Republican lawmakers’ town halls have been few and far between since the bill passed early last month, in part because their leaders have advised them against it. Trump and others say the law will give the economy a jolt, but Democrats feel they’ve connected with criticism of many of its provisions, especially its cuts to Medicaid and tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy.
Flood later downplayed the confrontation as “spirited” but “part of the process” during an impromptu press conference.
“It doesn’t mean you can make everybody happy,” he said. “But, you know, if you feel strongly about what you’re doing in Congress, stand in the town square, tell them why you voted that way, listen to their questions, treat them with respect and invite them to continue to communicate.”
Unlike dozens of other Republicans in competitive districts, Flood hardly has to worry, as Republicans brace for a challenge to their razor-thin majority in the House next year. Elected in 2022, Flood was reelected to the seat last year by winning 60% of the vote in a district that includes Lincoln in Democratic-leaning Lancaster County but also vast Republican-heavy rural tracts in 11 counties that ring the Omaha metropolitan area.
Skeletal babies. Starving families shot down while waiting in line for food. Images and video of the famine in Gaza are now everywhere, and they’ve done in a few weeks what 21 months of war could not: squeeze empathy for Palestinians out of MAGA.
This week, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia became the first House Republican to publicly use the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis now gripping the Palestinian enclave. “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” Greene said in a social media post on her X account Monday evening.
More than 150 people have died because of malnutrition, including 89 children, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said this week. According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 people have been killed, most by Israeli troops, since May while trying to access food and aid at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centers. On Monday alone, Israeli strikes or gunfire killed at least 78 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday that “there is no starvation in Gaza.” And commanding officer Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters that most of the images were fake and distributed by the militant group Hamas. “It’s a campaign,” he said. “Unfortunately, some of the Israeli media, including some of the international media, is distributing this information and those false pictures, and creating an image of starvation which doesn’t exist.”
But even President Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel and Netanyahu, had to concede when asked about the crisis. “That’s real starvation stuff — I see it, and you can’t fake that,” he said Monday while in Scotland, where he met with European leaders and fielded questions about a crisis of another sort (his relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein). “We have to get the kids fed.”
The undeniable horror in Gaza has hit an inflection point, and while the spike in compassion among the MAGA set may be momentary, other world leaders are seeking solutions to the suffering with or without U.S. support. Late Tuesday, France and 14 other Western nations called on other countries to move toward recognizing a Palestinian state. The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of Andorra, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia and Spain.
Greene’s use of the word “genocide” is her strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s war conduct, and it deviates from the Republican Party line of unconditional support for that country. But she has also targeted pro-Palestinian lawmakers such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), accusing them of “antisemitic activity” and “sympathizing with terrorists” when they called for Israel to lift its blockade of humanitarian aid for Gazans.
Greene’s comments about Gaza were in part a rebuke to a Republican representative, Randy Fine of Florida. Last week, he said the images of skin-and-bones children in Gaza were “Muslim terror propaganda” and posted, “Release the hostages. Until then, starve away.” The New York Times reported that Fine’s remarks were made the same day he was promoted to a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where he would focus on international policy.
Greene posted Sunday that she “can unequivocally say that what happened to innocent people in Israel on Oct 7th was horrific. Just as I can unequivocally say that what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific.”
Recently, the IDF announced it would pause action in certain parts of Gaza for hours each day and increase aid drops. The death toll from the war in Gaza has topped 60,000, with more likely buried under rubble from nearly two years of fighting. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in an Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel.
Though there has been an outcry over the staggering number of civilian deaths since the start of the war, increasingly graphic coverage of the Gaza famine has engendered new levels of outrage on both sides of the political spectrum. Too bad it’s taken the unspeakable suffering of babies, families and innocents to get us here.
President Trump endorsed Republican John Cox for California governor on Friday, backing that could help Cox consolidate the GOP vote in the June primary and increase his chances to win a spot on the November ballot.
“California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes. John Cox is the man — he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had,” the president tweeted Friday afternoon.
Cox, who did not vote for Trump for president in 2016, said he was “honored and deeply grateful” for the endorsement.
“I am looking forward to working with [the president] to make California great again,” said Cox, who alluded to potential support from Trump during a recent debate in San Jose, when he noted that he had recently visited the White House. “Like the President, I’m a businessman who knows how to get things done. We’re going to secure the border, empower California small businesses, lower taxes, and make our state affordable for everyone.”
Trump overwhelmingly lost California to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton received nearly 8.8 million votes in the state compared to Trump’s 4.5 million., But if Cox receives anything close to Trump’s support it should be more than enough to give him a second-place finish on June 5.
Trump’s endorsement of Cox is a major blow to GOP rival Travis Allen, an assemblyman from Huntington Beach and the favorite of many California conservatives. Both men failed to win the endorsement of the California Republican Party earlier this month, but Trump’s backing is arguably more powerful.
Allen supporters fumed over the president’s announcement, and said he had been misled.
California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes. John Cox is the man – he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had. I fully endorse John Cox for Governor and look forward to working with him to Make California Great Again!
“I’m angry. I’m angry at President Trump,” said Celeste Greig, a longtime conservative leader in the California GOP, who travelled to Washington, D.C., to attend Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
When she heard the news Friday, she promptly donated an additional $300 to Allen’s campaign.
“I love the president. I have supported him, but he’s made some misjudgements and this is one. He shouldn’t have done it, he shouldn’t. I will never, never support John Cox.”
Throughout the campaign, Allen has hammered Cox for supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential race. Cox says he cast his ballot for the former New Mexico governor because, at the time, he didn’t trust that Trump was a true conservative. Cox has since said he regretted that vote because he has been pleased by Trump’s actions in office, including the tax overhaul, though he wishes the president would tweet less.
Allen voted for Trump and often boasts that he’s the only major candidate in the governor’s race to have done so. But Allen has struggled to raise funds for his campaign while Cox, a wealthy businessman from Rancho Santa Fe, has poured more than $4 million of his own money into his gubernatorial bid.
“The fact that Allen does not have the funds to compete makes this significant,” Republican political consultant Rob Stutzman said. “Allen can’t really counter it effectively.”
Stutzman, Greig and others suspect House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) may have encouraged the president to back Cox. Having a Republican on the top of the ticket in November — as opposed to two Democrats — could drive GOP voter turnout and help House Republicans in tight races that are key to the party holding on to control of Congress.
“The only reason for Donald Trump to tweet out support for a candidate for California is going to be House seats,” said Jon Fleischman, an influential conservative blogger from Orange County who plans to vote for Allen but said Trump’s endorsement helps Cox. “There is delicious irony in tweeting support for a candidate who was boasting about not voting for him.”
Attempts to reach McCarthy were unsuccessful on Friday.
But Allen told more than 400 supporters on a conference call Friday evening that the president’s endorsement would not hinder his chances, and said Trump wrongly “decided to listen to political advisors in the swamp, and Kevin McCarthy chief among them.”
“This does not stop us. This doesn’t even slow us down,” Allen said. “All this does is put a smile on our faces, because ladies and gentlemen, as God is my witness, my name is Travis Allen and I’m going to be the next governor of the state of California…. Not even the president of the United States is going to stop” that.
Democratic front-runner Gavin Newsom responded to Trump’s tweet by aligning Cox with the president, who is widely unpopular in California.
“No surprise you’re endorsing a candidate in your own image: one who attacks immigrants while opposing common sense gun laws and equal rights,” Newsom tweeted. “Time & time again, the people of California have rejected your brand of hate. The people of California will reject @TheRealJohnHCox too.”
Newsom’s campaign to be the state’s next governor will be much easier if he faces a Republican in the general election, rather than one of the other top Democrats in the race — a fact driving his strategy. No Republican candidate has won a statewide election in California since 2006, and Democrats have a 19% edge over the GOP in voter registration.
Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June 5 primary advance to the November election, regardless of party affiliation. The other top Democrats in the race include former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Treasurer John Chiang and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin.
Democrats and their allies have been spending millions of dollars to weigh in on Cox’s candidacy.
Newsom released an ad contrasting himself with Cox that notes Cox’s alignment with Trump on gun issues. The ad is being aired on broadcast television during programming popular with conservatives, including the “Roseanne” reboot, and will probably make Cox more appealing to GOP voters.
Meanwhile, backers of Villaraigosa — who is scrapping with Cox for the second spot in the primary — are airing an ad on Fox News and other stations that paints Cox as a Chicago carpetbagger and onetime Democrat who can’t win elections. While living in Illinois, Cox unsuccessfully ran for office multiple times.
During a testy televised debate earlier this month in San Jose, Newsom was asked whom he would prefer to face in the general election. The lieutenant governor quickly said he hoped to battle a Republican.
“A Republican would be ideal in the general election,” Newsom said with a grin, then glanced over at Cox and Allen. “Either one of these would do.”
WASHINGTON — A chief architect of Project 2025, Paul Dans, is launching a Republican primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, joining a crowded field that will test the loyalties of President Trump and his MAGA movement in next year’s midterm election.
Dans told the Associated Press the Trump administration’s federal workforce reductions and cuts to federal programs are what he had hoped for in drafting Project 2025. But he said there’s “more work to do,” particularly in the Senate.
“What we’ve done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era,” Dans said in an AP interview. ”If you look at where the chokepoint is, it’s the United States Senate. That’s the headwaters of the swamp.”
Dans, who is set to formally announce his campaign at an event Wednesday in Charleston, said Graham has spent most of his career in Washington and “it’s time to show him the door.”
Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to Graham’s campaign who co-managed Trump’s 2024 bid, predicted in a statement to the AP that Dans’ campaign would “end prematurely.”
“After being unceremoniously dumped in 2024 while trying to torpedo Donald Trump’s historic campaign, Paul Dans has parachuted himself into the state of South Carolina in direct opposition to President Trump’s longtime friend and ally in the Senate, Lindsey Graham,” LaCivita said.
Challenging the long-serving Graham, who has routinely batted back contenders over the years, is something of a political long shot in what is fast becoming a crowded field ahead of the November 2026 midterm election that will determine control of Congress.
Trump early on gave his endorsement of Graham, a political confidant and regular golfing partner of the president, despite their on-again-off-again relationship. Graham, in announcing he would seek a fifth term in the Senate, also secured the state’s leading Republicans, Sen. Tim Scott and Gov. Henry McMaster, to chair his 2026 run. He has amassed millions of dollars in his campaign account.
Other candidates, including Republican former South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, a wealthy developer, and Democratic challenger Dr. Annie Andrews, have announced their campaigns for the Senate seat in an early start to the election season, more than a year away.
Graham, in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” did not discuss his reelection campaign but fielded questions on topics including his push to release “as much as you can” from the case files on Jeffrey Epstein, something many of Trump’s supporters want the government to do.
Dans, an attorney who worked in the first Trump administration as White House liaison to the office of personnel management, said he expects to have support from Project 2025 allies, as well as the ranks of Trump’s supporters in the state who have publicly tired of Graham.
After Trump left the White House, Dans, now a father of four, went to work at the Heritage Foundation, often commuting on weekdays to Washington as he organized Project 2025. The nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint, with chapters written by leading conservative thinkers, calls for dismantling the federal government and downsizing the federal workforce, among other right-wing proposals for the next White House.
“To be clear, I believe that there is a ‘deep state’ out there, and I’m the single one who stepped forward at the end of the first term of Trump and really started to drain the swamp,” Dans said, noting he compiled much of the book from his kitchen table in Charleston.
Among the goals, he said, was to “deconstruct the administrative state,” which he said is what the Trump administration has been doing, pointing in particular to former Trump adviser Elon Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency shuttering federal offices.
Dans and Heritage parted ways in July 2024 amid blowback over Project 2025. It catapulted into political culture that summer during the presidential campaign season, as Democrats and their allies showcased the hard-right policy proposals — from mass firings to budget cuts — as a dire warning of what could come in a second Trump term.
Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, and his campaign insisted it had nothing to do with his own “Agenda 47.”
Dans is launching his campaign with a prayer breakfast followed by a kick-off event at a historic venue in Charleston.
Mascaro and Kinnard write for the Associated Press. Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C.
ATLANTA — It’s been six months since Joe Biden left the Oval Office. Republicans, including President Trump, can’t stop talking about him.
The House has launched investigations asserting that Biden’s closest advisers covered up a physical and mental decline during the 82-year-old Democrat’s presidency. The Senate has started a series of hearings focused on his mental fitness. And Trump’s White House has opened its own investigation into the Biden administration’s use of the presidential autopen, which Trump has called “one of the biggest scandals in the history of our country.”
It all fits with Trump’s practice of blaming his predecessors for the nation’s ills. Just last week, he tried to deflect criticism of his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case by casting blame on others, including Biden.
Turning the spotlight back on the former president carries risks for both parties heading into the 2026 midterms. The more Republicans or Democrats talk about Biden, the less they can make arguments about the impact of Trump’s presidency — positive or negative — especially his sweeping new tax cut and spending law that is reshaping the federal government.
“Most Americans consider Joe Biden to be yesterday’s news,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said.
Republicans want Biden’s autopen to become a flashpoint
Seeking to avenge his 2020 loss to Biden, Trump mocked his rival’s age and fitness incessantly in 2024, even after Biden dropped his reelection bid and yielded to then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
He and other Republicans seemed poised to spend the summer touting their new tax, spending and policy package. But Trump, now 79 and facing his own health challenges, has refused to let up on Biden, and his allies in the party have followed suit.
Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin called the Biden White House’s use of the autopen “a massive scandal,” while Republican Rep. Nick Lalota insists his New York constituents “are curious as to what was happening during President Biden’s days.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently confirmed the administration would pursue an investigation of the Biden administration’s use of the presidential autopen. Trump and other Republicans have questioned whether Biden was actually running the country and suggested aides abused a tool that has long been a routine part of signing presidentially approved actions.
“We deserve to get to the bottom of it,” Leavitt said.
Biden has responded to the criticism by issuing a statement saying he was, in fact, making the decisions during his presidency and that any suggestion otherwise “is ridiculous and false.”
Congressional committees investigate
On Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Committee has convened hearings on use of the autopen and Biden’s fitness for office. Van Orden cited the Constitution’s Article II vesting authority solely with the president.
“It doesn’t say chief of staff. It doesn’t say an autopen,” he said.
The House panel subpoenaed Biden’s physician and a top aide to former first lady Jill Biden. Both invoked Fifth Amendment protections that prevent people from being forced to testify against themselves in government proceedings.
“There was no there there,” said Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell of Missouri, a member of the committee who called the effort “an extraordinary waste of time.”
The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, wants to hear from former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; and other former top aides Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti and Annie Tomasini, among others. Republicans confirmed multiple dates for the sessions through late September, ensuring it will remain in the headlines.
Investigations could crowd out GOP efforts to define Trump positively
That GOP schedule comes as both parties work feverishly to define Trump’s start to his second term.
His so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a mix of tax cuts, border security measures and cuts to safety net programs such as Medicaid, a joint state-federal insurance program for lower-income Americans. Polls suggest some individual measures are popular while others are not and that the GOP faces headwinds on tilting the public in favor of the overall effort.
A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of U.S. adults view the bill as a win for the wealthy and another found that only about one-quarter of U.S. adults felt Trump’s policies have helped them. In the policy survey, he failed to earn majority support on any of the major issues, including the economy, immigration, government spending and health care. Immigration, especially, had been considered a major strength for Trump politically.
It is “rather tone deaf,” said Bell, for Republicans to go after Biden given those circumstances.
“Americans want us to deal with the issues that are plaguing our country now … the high cost of living, cost of food, the cost of housing, health care,” Bell said, as he blasted the GOP for a deliberate “distraction” from what challenges most U.S. households.
The effort also comes with Trump battling his own supporters over the Justice Department’s decision not to publicly release additional records related to the Epstein case.
“The Epstein saga is more important to his base than whatever happened to Joe Biden,” said Ayres, the GOP pollster.
Even Lalota, the New York congressman, acknowledged a balancing act with the Biden inquiries.
“My constituents care most about affordability and public safety,” Lalota said. “But this is an important issue nonetheless.”
Democrats don’t want to talk about Biden
With Republicans protecting a narrow House majority, every hotly contested issue could be seen as determinative in the 2026 midterm elections.
That puts added pressure on Republicans to retain Trump’s expanded 2024 coalition, when he increased support among Black and Hispanic voters, especially men, over the usual Republican levels. But that’s considerably harder without Trump himself on the ballot. That could explain Republican efforts to keep going after Biden given how unpopular he is with Trump’s core supporters.
Democrats, meanwhile, point to their success in the 2018 midterms during Trump’s first presidency, when they reclaimed the House majority on the strength of moderate voters, including disaffected Republicans. They seem confident that Republicans’ aggressiveness about Biden does not appeal to that swath of the electorate.
But even as they praise Biden’s accomplishments as president, Democrats quietly admit they don’t want to spend time talking about a figure who left office with lagging approval ratings and forced his party into a late, difficult change at the top of the ticket.
Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said Biden was productive while acknowledging he “was not at the top of his game because of his age.” He said Democrats want to look forward, most immediately on trying to win control of the House and make gains in the Senate.
“And then who’s our standard bearer in 2028?” Beyer said. “And how do we minimize the Trump damage with what we have right now?”
Barrow and Brown write for the Associated Press. Brown reported from Washington.
July 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said a deal has been made with almost all the Republican House members who sank a procedural vote on his cryptocurrency bills Tuesday.
“I am in the Oval Office with 11 of the 12 congressmen/women necessary to pass the Genius Act and, after a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the rule,” Trump said via Truth Social Tuesday.
“Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was at the meeting via telephone, and looks forward to taking the vote as early as possible,” he added.
Two of the bills in question are the aforementioned Genius Act, which would regulate stablecoins and the Clarity Act, which would set rules to decide if an asset is to be regulated as either a security by the Securities and Exchange Commission or as a commodity supervised by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The third bill would stop the creation of a central bank digital currency by the Federal Reserve.
It is unclear what guarantees Trump made to lock in the 11 switched votes of support for the procedural rule.
“I’m thankful for President Trump getting involved tonight,” posted Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to X Tuesday, who then declared that the Genius Act will pass when the new vote happens Wednesday.
Shares of stablecoin companies Circle and Coinbase had both dropped Tuesday upon the failure of the procedural vote, as did shares of the digital asset firm MARA Holdings, but all three had upward-heading premarket numbers Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — President Biden’s former White House physician is refusing to answer questions as part of the House Republican investigation into Biden’s health in office.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked doctor-client privilege and his rights under the Fifth Amendment during an appearance Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee, his attorneys said.
Republicans are conducting a sweeping investigation into Biden’s actions in office and questioning whether the Democrat’s use of an autopen in office may have been invalid. They have also claimed that some policies carried out by the White House autopen may be invalid if it is proven that Biden was mentally incapacitated for some part of his term.
Biden has strongly denied that he was not in a right state of mind at any point while in office, calling the claims “ridiculous and false.”
David Schertler, one of O’Connor’s lawyers, said in a written statement he prepared for the committee that the doctor would not violate his oath of confidentiality with his patients. He also said the House Oversight committee should hold off on its investigation until Attorney General Pam Bondi concludes an investigation that the Oversight Committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said she has launched into the use of the autopen.
“The pending Department of Justice criminal investigation leaves Dr. O’Connor no choice but to invoke his constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to any questions posed by the Committee,” Schertler said in the statement.
Comer, in a statement, said O’Connor’s decision not to testify made it “clear there was a conspiracy.”
“The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth,” Comer said.
In a June subpoena of O’Connor, Comer said that claims of physician-patient privilege under the American Medical Association’s code of ethics “lack merit” because that code is not part of federal law. He said the committee’s subpoena meets the AMA’s own requirement that physicians must share a patient’s medical information if “legally compelled to disclose the information” or “ordered to do so by legally constituted authority.”
Comer has said his committee will release a report of all its findings after the probe is complete. He has issued subpoenas for O’Connor and Anthony Bernal, former chief of staff to former first lady Jill Biden. Last month, Neera Tanden, former director of Biden’s domestic policy counsel, gave voluntary testimony.
Comer has requested testimony from nearly a dozen former senior Biden aides, including former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, former deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and a former assistant to the president, Ashley Williams.
President Trump’s White House has waived executive privilege, a right that protects many communications between the president and staff from Congress and the courts, for almost all of those senior staffers. That clears the way for those staffers to discuss their conversations with Biden while he was president.
WASHINGTON — Confident that passage of President Trump’s signature legislation was all but assured, West Wing aides summoned holdouts in the House Republican caucus Wednesday to deliver a blunt message: Follow the president’s orders and get it done by Friday.
It was a call to action after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) directed his caucus to return to Washington from home districts around the country, braving flight delays due to storms in the capital to be back in time for a vote before the Fourth of July.
But the vote was in doubt, and signs emerged of cracks in a coalition otherwise firmly under Trump’s control.
“The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican from Wisconsin, told reporters, using an expletive to suggest Trump was treating lawmakers like his minions. “I’m a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites. Is that clear?”
Frustration within the Republican Party was coming from two disparate camps of a broad-tent coalition that have their own sets of grievances: fiscal hawks who believe the bill adds too much to the national debt, and lawmakers representing districts that heavily rely on Medicaid.
One GOP lawmaker who attended the White House meeting Wednesday, Rep. David Valadao of California, represents a Central Valley district with one of the highest percentages of Medicaid enrollment in the nation.
The president’s megabill, which he calls the “Big Beautiful Bill,” levies historic cuts to the healthcare program that could result in up to 12 million Americans losing health coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, gutting $1 trillion in funding and introducing a work requirement for enrollees of 80 hours per month until they turn 65 years old.
The legislation would also restrict state taxes on healthcare providers, known as the “provider tax,” an essential tool for many states in their efforts to supplement Medicaid funding. Several Republican lawmakers fear that provision could have devastating effects on rural hospitals.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, appearing Wednesday with other Democrats on the Capitol steps, denounces President Trump’s tax and spending bill.
(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A handful of Republican lawmakers from North Carolina have bristled at the president’s pressure campaign, with Rep. Chuck Edwards telling Punchbowl News that the White House meeting “didn’t sway my opinion.” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was one of three Republicans who voted against the bill Tuesday, warning it would devastate his state. It still passed with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
The vote was shaping up to be narrow in the House as well, where Johnson can afford to lose only three votes in order to pass the omnibus legislation.
A daylong debate on the House floor allowed for private negotiations to continue, ahead of a crucial procedural vote on rules that would be the last step before a final vote. But it was unclear whether the expressions of frustration and doubt Wednesday amounted to performance art in anticipation of the bill’s inevitable passage, or signaled a genuine threat to the bill.
Earlier Wednesday, after taking meetings at the White House, members of the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc founded to promote fiscal responsibility, also met with Johnson. The speaker emerged with a message of tempered optimism and later said he was hoping to secure a final vote Wednesday night.
“I feel very positive about the progress, we’ve had lots of great conversations,” Johnson told reporters, “but we can’t make everyone 100% happy. It’s impossible.”
“This is a deliberative body. It’s a legislative process by definition — all of us have to give up on personal preferences,” he said. “I’m never going to ask anyone to compromise core principles, but preferences must be yielded for the greater good. And that’s what I think people are recognizing and coming to grips with.”
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Freedom Caucus, had been highly critical of the Senate legislation. But he signaled an openness Wednesday afternoon to vote in favor of the bill, an indication that passage could be imminent.
Democrats are out of power across Washington and have no ability to stop the legislation. But many believe it could backfire on Republicans in the midterm elections next year.
“Every single Senate Republican is going to have to answer for these cruel and unpopular cuts this election,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said after the bill passed the Senate. “This is putting their majority at serious risk.”
Trump says the legislation encompasses his entire domestic agenda, extending tax cuts passed during his first term in 2017 and beefing up funding for border security, mass deportations and the Defense Department.
Cuts to Medicaid, as well as to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, are intended to offset a fraction of the costs. But the CBO still estimates the legislation will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and hundreds of billions to the deficit, with other nonprofit budget trackers forecasting even higher figures.
NO REGRETS: As Republican former Superior Court judge Judith M. Ryan challenges Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), another jurist says his race for Dornan’s seat six years ago was well worth it, even though he lost. Superior Court Judge David O. Carter was beaten in the Democratic primary but says he has “nothing but positive things to say about the political process.” He says he liked getting out and talking to the voters and may run again someday.
Senate Republicans narrowly advanced a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.
In a 51-49 vote largely along party lines, the Senate has moved to open debate on the bill, a key initial hurdle that Republicans scrambled to overcome. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the move to take up the bill.
Party leadership had been twisting arms for the initial vote on the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Saturday, following the release of its latest version – all 940 pages – shortly after midnight.
Republicans were divided over how much to cut welfare programmes in order to extend $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.
The bill’s fate on the Senate floor remains uncertain, as Republicans in the chamber continue to quarrel over the bill’s provisions. Vice-President JD Vance travelled to the Capitol on Saturday night to offer a tiebreak vote, though party leaders were ultimately able to negotiate majority support without his help.
Meanwhile, Democrats say they will drag out the process in protest at the bill, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying his party will force Republicans to read out the nearly 1,000 pages of text before the Senate can begin debate and potentially take up a final vote.
Separately, some Republicans in the House of Representatives have expressed concerns over the changes in the Senate version of the bill. The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.
The Senate’s version of the bill included a series of changes meant to address points of disagreement among Republicans. Still, party leaders struggled to secure enough votes.
In a memo sent to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage.
The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget “would be the ultimate betrayal”.
Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in rejecting the bill.
As the Senate vote concluded, President Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Tillis was making a “BIG MISTAKE”. He wrote that he would be meeting with candidates who “come forward wanting to run in the Primary against “Senator Thom” Tillis”.
However, the bill did win over some Republicans who had expressed scepticism, including centrist Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin intially voted against it, but changed his vote at the end of the voting session.
The latest version was designed to appease some backbench Republican holdouts.
Other amendments incorporate input from the Senate parliamentarian, an official who reviews bills to ensure they comply with the chamber’s procedures.
It includes an increase in funding for rural hospitals, after some party moderates argued the original proposal would harm their constituents.
There are also changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which provides food benefits to low-income Americans.
Under the latest bill, Alaska and Hawaii would be temporarily exempt from a proposed requirement for some states to start footing the bill for the programme, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.
The revision comes after Alaska’s two Republican senators pushed for an exemption.
The legislation still contains some of its core components, including extending tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017, as well as the addition of new cuts that Trump campaigned on, such as a tax deduction on Social Security benefits and the elimination of taxes on overtime work and tips.
More contentious measures are also still in place, including restrictions and requirements on Medicaid – a healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.
Democrats have heavily criticised this piece of the bill, saying it will limit access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million people would become uninsured due to such Medicaid cuts.
Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, took to social media on Saturday to argue the bill contains “the largest healthcare cuts in history”.
Another critic of the bill is Elon Musk, who wrote on X on Saturday that the latest iteration of the bill “will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harms to our country”.
Musk took issue with taxes the bill proposes on solar and wind energy projects.
The bill now needs a simple majority to clear the Senate. With Republicans holding 53 seats out of 100, plus a tiebreaker from Vice-President JD Vance, the party can only afford three defections.
