Deja Foxx celebrated her April birthday in a way most 25-year-olds don’t. The extra candle meant she was now eligible to represent Arizona in Congress, and Foxx marked the occasion with a fundraiser.

She’s part of a wide-ranging group of young Democratic candidates, many running to replace older incumbents, who have grown restless waiting for their turn to lead their party back to power.

After a crushing 2024 election loss, they say the party desperately needs a rebranding — and young leaders should steer it.

In southern Arizona on Tuesday, Foxx is one of several Democrats hoping to step into a deep blue seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a longtime political power broker in Tucson. He had become one of the most senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill over two decades in Congress. Grijalva’s daughter, Adelita, is one of the contenders, and three Republicans are vying in the GOP primary.

But the push for younger leaders won’t end there. In next year’s midterm elections, primary challengers have already begun to emerge in states like California and Indiana that will give Democratic voters choices between longtime lawmakers and younger candidates.

In Georgia, for example, 80-year-old Democratic Rep. David Scott’s decades-long legacy could end with a primary he’s expected to join. This has drawn challengers fed up with his refusal to step aside despite years of concern about his declining health and rare public appearances. The primary got crowded almost a year after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 election race amid similar scrutiny over his age.

Challenging well-connected candidates can be daunting, but progressive leaders say the moment calls for urgency.

“Passing of the torch implies the leaders are handing it off,” said Amanda Litman, head of a group called Run for Something that bolsters progressive young candidates. “What we’re seeing right now is, the new generation is taking the torch. They’re not waiting for it to be passed.”

Many Boomer and Gen Z candidates alike have largely abandoned the traditional playbook of spending millions on TV ads in favor of TikTok and social media. But it’s a pivot that older political hands would recognize from an older playbook: meeting voters where they are.

Foxx, a digital strategist, led influencer strategy for Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign bid. On TikTok, she speaks to nearly 400,000 followers, saying she’d be the first woman of “our” generation elected to Congress. In 2022, Florida voters elected the generation’s first congressman — Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost. The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, which Frost co-chairs, has endorsed Adelita Grijalva.

Foxx has leaned into popular Gen Z internet slang in branding her district tour “Crashout or Congress.”

“Does the news make you feel like you’re about to crash out? Be honest,” Foxx posted.

Foxx said her campaign turned a corner after a primary debate in late May, when some clips of her performance drew the eyes of millions and helped spark a fundraising boost.

If Scott seeks another term in his suburban Atlanta district, he’ll face several candidates in the Democratic primary next May: microbiologist and state Rep. Jasmine Clark, 42; state Sen. Emanuel Jones, 66; and 33-year-old Everton Blair, former chair of the state’s largest school district. Scott’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview.

Clark racked up 7,000 TikTok followers after a popular influencer reposted her. She occasionally pops in with solutions to people’s problems on NextDoor and is sometimes recognized as a podcast host instead of a state representative. She says Republicans have done a better job at saturating social media with their messaging.

“Instead of looking at Republicans and wagging our fingers at them, we could take some lessons from them,” she said.

Voters have been crushed by high living costs, Clark said, but Republicans, not Democrats, have been the ones to tell people their pain is real — even though Democrats have better ideas for fixing things.

Blair agreed that Democrats have better policy prescriptions for addressing voters’ economic concerns, but he said too many longtime lawmakers have stifled the party’s ability to get that message across. He said President Donald Trump is fattening the wallets of billionaires but cheating low- and middle-income voters “out of the American dream.”

“We have an incumbent who is just not doing the job, and we need a better fighter,” Blair said. “The stakes are just too high.”

Young people have grown up in a political climate dominated by algorithms, said 21-year-old Akbar Ali, first vice chair of the Democratic Party in Gwinnett County, home to some of Scott’s district. That gives them a built-in understanding of how information spreads today, he said, but doesn’t replace on-the-ground outreach to voters of all ages.

He said Scott’s physical absence is palpable, both in the community and as a voice in Congress.

“A lot of people are upset on a national level because we can’t hit back with enough vigor.” he said.

Adelita Grijalva carries a household name in Tucson and is regarded as the frontrunner. To Foxx, Grijalva benefits from her “legacy” last name.

Grijalva, who has received several endorsements, including from Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, has pushed back. She said she brings her own credentials to the table. Her father was progressive and antiestablishment, and she said she is, too.

But Foxx, who benefited personally from some government programs the Trump administration has slashed or is looking to slash, said Democrats need to do more to reach new voters.

“We are bringing people into this party, into this democracy, who have felt left out — by and large young people and working-class folks,” Foxx said.

In New York City, 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani recently won the mayor’s race with an upbeat campaign that leaned heavily on TikTok and emphasized finding new ways to make city life more affordable.

In an era where so many young people doubt they’ll ever be better off than their parents, they’re increasingly willing to ditch pragmatism for bold policy platforms, said David Hogg.

Hogg was removed from his leadership role with the Democratic National Committee, which said his election broke party rules. His decision not to run again followed his push to oust long-serving Democrats in safe congressional seats. He has not backed away from his vow to primary “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats with fresher faces.

People of all ages want a fighter who understands what’s at stake as Trump cuts Medicaid and other programs that millions of Americans rely on, Hogg said. That’s why his political action committee, Leaders We Deserve, endorsed Foxx.

Young voters were key to Democratic wins in recent years, but some swung to the right as Trump made gains in 2024. Hogg said he’s looking for candidates to “win them back” by talking about how change happens.

Older candidates can do that too, he said, but for better or worse, young people aren’t yet “jaded” by politics.

“In this dark moment, we need people who can provide us a general sense of hope, as crazy that can feel sometimes,” Hogg said. “To believe that maybe things won’t be as screwed up as they are now forever.”

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon raised eyebrows this week with comments he made Friday regarding Democrats and their ability to navigate the “real world.”

“I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed,” Dimon said during a foreign ministry event in Dublin, Ireland.

Dimon has long supported Democrats but the leftward lurch of the party on social issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts has forced him to speak out. “We all were devoted to reaching out to the Black community, Hispanic, the LGBT community, the disabled — we do all of that. But the extent, they gotta stop it. And they gotta go back to being more practical. They’re very ideological,” he said.

https://player.hbmp.ops.co/prebid/iframe.html?adid=607953fea656076d8&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsmax.com

A registered Democrat, Dimon has been comfortable supporting President Donald Trump’s policies even if they go against the majority in his party. The president’s on-again, off-again stance on tariffs has some in the financial world coin the phrase “TACO,” or “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Dimon has said he doesn’t support the pejorative and has insisted the president has been correct in reversing course on tariffs in some cases.

The separation between Dimon and his fellow Democrats extends well beyond DEI and Trump. The JPMorgan Chase CEO often took issue with the Biden administration and their “lack of knowledge” regarding fundamental business strategy. When far-left socialist Zohran Mamdani secured the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, Dimon described his policies as being “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”

Dimon has performed an ideological balancing act over the years having given campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats. His recent remarks echo his own self critique in 2019 when said, “My heart is Democratic but my brain is kind of Republican,” expressing a desire to blend social liberalism with fiscal conservatism.

James Morley III ✉

James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature. 

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Penn., told Newsmax on Friday that legislators should continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump that occurred almost one year ago.

On July 13, 2024, a gunman fired at Trump from a rooftop while the then-former president was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter was quickly killed by the Secret Service, which recently suspended six agency for failures related to the incident.

Reschenthaler, speaking to “Wake Up America” just a few days before the one-year anniversary of the incident, said, “in retrospect, it’s amazing how fast the media moved off the assassination attempt.”

He added “We still don’t know too much about Matthew Thomas Crooks at all. How did a [20]-year-old kid have the wherewithal to do this? Why did he not have any social media profile at all? Anybody that knows a teenage kid now, they live on social media. What’s going on with that?”

The congressman also questioned the Secret Service’s comments about the situation, specifically the claim by the agency that they were unable to place a person on top of the roof where Crooks fired the shots because the steepness presented a safety concern.

“That building in particular has a sloped roof, at its highest point,” former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in an interview that aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in July of last year. “And so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”

Reschenthaler said, “Why are we told that that roof was too steep to put Secret Service on … when we know it wasn’t that steep, because when Crooks was shot, his body didn’t roll off the roof, it stayed on the roof. So how steep could it have been?”

He added that there are “tons of questions. We need to look more into it.”

The congressman also criticized the Biden administration for not conducting proper oversight of the Secret Service after the incident, saying, “You don’t have any other consequences until now.”

“I feel like there was very little oversight by the Biden administration on what went wrong that day,” he said.

Certainly it does raise a red flag when you don’t have anybody except Cheatle” leave the agency.

Theodore Bunker ✉

Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon on Thursday blasted the Democrat Party for being too devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

“I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed,” Dimon said.

The JP Morgan chief executive has said that too many American companies focused too much time and energy with DEI and that the banking company he led would pull back its focus on these topics.

“They overdid DEI,” Dimon said, noting that he refers to himself as “barely a Democrat.”

He added, “We all were devoted to reaching out to the Black community, Hispanic, the LGBT community, the disabled — we do all of that. But the extent, they gotta stop it. And they gotta go back to being more practical. They’re very ideological.”

Dimon said that former President Joe Biden “didn’t have one business person” advising him and that he was “speechless about the lack of knowledge” in the administration.

Bloomberg continued:

The JPMorgan CEO’s criticism of the Democratic Party extended to the mayoral race in New York, where his bank is based. Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old assemblyman and democratic socialist, won the Democratic primary after vowing to freeze rents, make city buses free and create city-owned grocery stores.

“This guy just got elected — he’s more of a Marxist than a socialist, and now you see these Democrats falling all over themselves saying, ‘Well, he’s pointing out some real problems, affordable housing and grocery prices.’ OK, maybe,” Dimon continued. “There’s the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.

Tyrants like Obama-Hillary Deep State henchman John Brennan love to talk about “democracy.” In their sociopathic lexicon, “democracy” is code for “What I want.” They actually rather like democracy. As totalitarian elitists with media and schools uncritically behind them, they’re confident they can get a lot of stupid people on their side in order for them to acquire the unearned wealth, power and attention they so crave.

When they’re unsuccessful at doing so, as in the elections of 2016 and 2024, they’re confident in their ability to sustain or recover power through deception and rigging the outcomes, as they have managed in most other elections (most notably 2020 and 2022). That’s why it’s important to try, convict and thoroughly punish these loathsome enemies of individual liberty. Because unless we the people stop them, they will keep doing it.

*******

“The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” — Hannah Arendt

We live in an era of global socialism, self-conscious woke “sensitivity” and all the rest of the crap … and never have we witnessed less empathy. She nailed it.

*******

Jewish Democrat lawmakers on Capitol Hill are sounding the alarm on Democratic Socialist New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, pointing to his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” or recognize Israel as a Jewish state, especially at a time when antisemitism is on the rise in the United States.

Jihad, bread lines, terrorist drag queens and three-families-to-an-apartment social worker enforcement teams are on the verge of taking over New York City…and now Jewish Establishment Democrats are starting to panic.

Too late, leftists. These are your comrades. And you brought it all on yourselves.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

I want to add my $.02 to the excellent piece Ed wrote this morning about the farm raid in California that so exorcised the Democrats. 

You know, the one where a violent “protester” shot at law enforcement, risking everybody around him in the process. 

Democrats were livid at…ICE…apparently for provoking a well-justified armed response from a good citizen who rightly wanted to ensure that the pot farm he was protecting could continue to employ children to harvest the crop. 

Unaccompanied migrant children are doing what amounts to slave labor, and the Democrats are incensed that their pot supply might become more expensive or even be reduced a bit by the federal government rescuing children from abuse. They need a steady supply of illegal aliens to keep their precious industry healthy and productive. 

NEW MEDIA SPIN JUST DROPPED

“ICE forcefully raided a California farm and arrested farmers.”

REALITY: It was a WEED farm exploiting child labor, and ICE agents had rocks thrown and a gun fired at them

You don’t hate the media enough.

Democrats seem obsessed with ensuring that industries that rely on cheap and slave labor thrive. Child slaves in the Congo are reportedly mining with their bare hands the cobalt used in EV batteries, and apparently, pot farms thrive when they use underage, often unaccompanied minors in their fields.

Yes, potheads will attack federal law enforcement to protect their right to cheap cannabis farmed by children

The moral bankruptcy of drug legalizers has never been clearer.

Without the slaves, who will pick the pot? We might have to actually pay people!

From Ed:

The scene left Gavin Newsom outraged. He wasn’t outraged by the shooter, nor the mob that showed up to obstruct federal agents enforcing immigration law. Newsom saved his ire for Trump and his adviser Stephen Miller for taking someone’s “mother” from the “fields”:

“Kids running from tear gas, crying on the phone because their mother was just taken from the fields,” the governor wrote in a post accompanied by a video showing people running to avoid tear gas deployed by authorities. “Trump calls me ‘Newscum’ — but he’s the real scum.” …

“Instead of supporting the businesses and workers that drive our economy and way of life, Stephen Miller’s tactics evoke chaos, fear and terror within our communities at every turn,” he wrote. “At Miller’s direction, Trump’s agents continue to detain U.S. citizens and racially profile Americans, ripping families apart and disappearing parents and workers into cruel federal detention centers to meet their self-imposed arrest quotas.”

Ahem. In the first place, despite some uninformed commentary on social media, these were not Strawberry Fields Forever. This was a cannabis farm, which in itself is still technically illegal under federal law. Furthermore, the state of California routinely separates mothers from children when mothers commit crimes, and sometimes violently and in front of those children. It’s called getting arrested, which happens when mommies and daddies violate the law. That also “rips families apart” and puts parents into “detention centers.” How is that any different, except that Newsom doesn’t like the federal laws in question?

Speaking of children, though …

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott responded to Newsom’s post.

“Here’s some breaking news: 10 juveniles were found at this marijuana facility – all illegal aliens, 8 of them unaccompanied. It’s now under investigation for child labor violations,” Scott wrote.

Newsom was fine with the shooting, apparently. It was entirely justified since ICE was trying to enforce a law he happens to find inconvenient. California needs those children to pick the crops, you know. And what about the gardeners, and the people who we need to wipe our a$$es?

BREAKING 🚨 Trump said “300,000 children went MISSING under Joe Biden” and They have already saved 10,000 of them

“We’re getting them back by the THOUSANDS”

AMEN 🙏

pic.twitter.com/heou5LKp8j— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 11, 2025

As I have written several times this week, the Democrats are calling for blood. Literally, as Axios reported–they are calling for gunfire and what amounts to revolution–and politicians like Newsom are egging them on. Any bad thing that happens is Trump’s fault, you see. 

🚨 BREAKING: The weed farm that was raided by ICE agents yesterday is a donor for Gavin Newsom.

It’s now officially under investigation for child labor violations.

Hakeem Jeffries smirked when asked about fellow Democrats declaring open season on Republicans and Trump–after all, their anger is totally justified because Trump is Orange. 

NEW: The President of Glasshouse Farms, which had two cannabis farms raided by ICE & Border Patrol in Camarillo yesterday, has donated thousands of dollars to Democrats in California, including $10,000 to Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2018.
Story:

@cameron_arcand https://t.co/tl3LH6j6EJ— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 11, 2025

Democrats are the party of Luigi Mangione and Antifa. 

David Strom, Hotair

The federal government posted an unexpected budget surplus in June, fueled by a sharp rise in tariff revenues and higher-than-anticipated tax receipts, marking a notable vindication for President Donald Trump’s economic strategy.

The $27 billion surplus reported Friday by the Treasury Department stood in stark contrast to forecasts for a $50 billion deficit, representing one of the largest upside surprises in recent budget data.

Monthly surpluses typically occur in April, when many Americans file their taxes. Surpluses are also common in January and September. A June surplus is highly unusual.

Much of the improvement stemmed from a 301 percent increase in tariff collections compared to June of last year. Customs duties totaled $27 billion in June, up from $23 billion in May and more than quadruple the $6.7 billion collected a year earlier. For the fiscal year to date, tariff revenues have reached $113 billion, an 86% increase over the same period in 2024.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that he expects tariffs to bring in as much as $300 billion in revenues this year.

The surge follows Mr. Trump’s sweeping 10 percent universal tariff on imports implemented in April, as well as a growing array of reciprocal duties aimed at specific trading partners. Administration officials have pointed to the June surplus as evidence that the new trade regime is strengthening federal finances without imposing the widespread inflationary pressure critics once warned about.

Receipts overall rose 13 percent from the prior year, driven in part by quarterly corporate tax payments. At the same time, federal outlays fell 7 percent, contributing to the favorable monthly balance. The June surplus followed a $316 billion deficit in May.

Through the first nine months of the fiscal year that started on October 1, the federal deficit stands at $1.34 trillion, up 5 percent from the prior year. But the Treasury noted that, after accounting for calendar shifts, the adjusted deficit is down 1 percent year-over-year—a notable development at a time when interest payments are consuming a larger share of federal spending.

In June alone, net interest payments on the $36 trillion national debt totaled $84 billion, second only to Social Security outlays. Cumulative interest costs for the year have reached $749 billion, with full-year totals projected to top $1.2 trillion. President Trump has criticized the Fed for holding interest rates too high, adding to the cost of debt service.

John Carney, Breitbart

For years, the MAGA base has been demanding real accountability, not just for January 6th protestors or anti-Hillary meme posters, but for the actual predators and monsters who walk free among us under our broken, two-tier justice system.

One of the biggest demands from Trump’s America First supporters has been the truth around Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed client list. MAGA was promised sunlight on this issue. They were promised justice. And instead, many feel as if they’ve been gaslit, stalled, and handed recycled documents while the real power players skate free, without a care in the world.

From the very beginning, many believed Pam Bondi botched the Epstein rollout. MAGA supporters haven’t forgotten that awkward February stunt at the White House, where so-called “Epstein files” were handed out to conservative influencers. They were actually old files that turned out to be publicly available court records everyone had already seen. The base expected bombshells. What they got felt like a cover-up. It was an embarrassing moment for Bondi and the Trump administration.

Bondi even made the cover of the box look like some official classified documents.

People were furious.

The Vigilant Fox:

NEW: @Liz_Wheeler says Pam Bondi BRAGGED about personally making the cover of the Epstein Files binders before handing them out to influencers. Wheeler was one of those influencers, and now she’s furious. “That day in the White House, Pam Bondi bragged about making that cover sheet on the binder you’re showing on the screen. That cover sheet that reads, ‘The most transparent administration in history: Epstein Files, Phase One.’ She told us she made that. She printed it. She put it in that binder.” Bondi worked hard to make the cover look like an exposé but put in no effort to actually do one.

But things actually got worse for Pam.

After that stunt fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a supposed truckload of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI. In a March TV interview, she claimed the Biden administration “sat on these documents; no one did anything with them.” She then went on to say the following: “Sadly these people don’t believe in transparency, but I think more unfortunately, I think a lot of them don’t believe in honesty.”

Pam was digging herself a hole that she may never get out of… because now, after months of Pam’s hype and speculation, the DOJ has released a memo that’s ignited a political firestorm, claiming there is no Epstein list and there will be no further disclosures. The End.

What?

AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a “client list,” the Justice Department acknowledged Monday as it said no more files related to the wealthy financier’s sex trafficking investigation would be made public despite promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi that had raised the expectations of conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represents a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote, with Bondi suggesting in a Fox News interview earlier this year that such a document was “sitting on my desk” for review. Even as it released video from inside a New York jail meant to definitively prove that Epstein killed himself, the department also said in a memo that it was refusing to disclose other evidence investigators had collected.

Bondi for weeks had suggested more material was going to be revealed — “It’s a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public,” she said at one point — after a first document dump she had hyped angered President Donald Trump’s base by failing to deliver revelations.

The backlash inside the MAGA movement has been fast and furious. People want answers and are not taking this latest stunt sitting down.

It’s gotten so bad that, according to investigative reporter Laura Loomer, the anger is boiling over inside the Trump administration. According to Loomer, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are absolutely livid with Pam Bondi, and the damage she’s caused is serious enough that some want her gone.

Laura Loomer:

SCOOP: @FBIDirectorKash and @dbongino are LIVID with @AGPamBondi over her DOJ Memo and the lack of transparency from her office regarding the Jeffery Epstein files.

Source tells me Dan Bongino is taking the day off today from his job as Deputy Director of the FBI, and there’s now speculation on whether or not he will return to his job at the @FBI over his disgust with Blondi’s lack of transparency and handling of the Epstein files.

Pam Blondi has brought total embarrassment to President Trump, @JDVance, @dbongino and @Kash_Patel. She has also LIED to the American people.

I’m told Kash and Bongino are furious with Blondi and the blowback she has caused them with her lack of transparency.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino should call for Blondi’s public resignation today to save themselves and to also push for full transparency into the Epstein files.

This is an issue the American people care deeply about.

Someone needs to be fired for this. Giving Blondi courtesy to resign is more than she deserves.

Trump should just FIRE her.

That’s some heavy-duty stuff, if true.

Adding another layer to this already convoluted story, Bill O’Reilly recently said that President Trump gave him a direct reason for not disclosing Epstein-related names. According to O’Reilly, Trump said he didn’t want innocent people, like a golf buddy or casual acquaintance, dragged through the mud just for appearing on a list, without context.

This is a powder keg issue and one of the biggest that President Trump has faced since he’s been in office.

But the bottom line is this: the American people deserve to know what really happened. We were promised transparency, and more importantly, we were promised justice. If we want a country where citizens respect their leaders, then morality matters. Crimes against children matter. And if there are names on that list of people who did nothing wrong, then fine… put it into context and release the thing.

Don’t bury the truth. Let the chips fall where they may.

Now we want to hear from you: Should Pam Bondi be fired over this mess? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

UPDATE:

This story is heating up and spreading like wildfire. Now, Axios is also reporting the same story, claiming they have two sources who’ve corroborated Bongino’s ire with Pam Bondi and the handling of the Epstein files.

Axios:

FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.

Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn’t have a celebrity “client list,” and that he wasn’t murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.

Bongino didn’t come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he’s still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues. Zoom in: At the center of the argument: a surveillance video from outside of Epstein’s cell that the administration released, saying it was proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.

The 10-hour video had what has widely been called a “missing minute,” fueling conspiracy theories in MAGA’s online world about a cover-up involving Epstein’s death.

The “missing minute,” authorities say, stemmed from an old surveillance recording system that goes down each day at midnight to reset and record anew. It takes a minute for that process to occur, which effectively means that 60 seconds of every day aren’t recorded.

Bongino — who had pushed Epstein conspiracy theories as a MAGA-friendly podcast host before President Trump appointed him to help lead the FBI — had found the video and touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein actually hadn’t been murdered. That conclusion — shared by FBI Director Kash Patel, another conspiracy theorist-turned-insider — angered many in Trump’s MAGA base, criticism that increased after Axios first reported the release of the video and a related memo.

After the video’s “missing minute” was discovered, Bongino was blamed internally for the oversight, according to three sources.

Two sources familiar with Bongino’s position say he was increasingly displeased with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case because she had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures about an Epstein “client list” that apparently never existed.

As the Epstein scandal backlash grows bigger and louder, Laura Loomer just dropped yet another thread exposing even more behind-the-scenes chaos. This time she’s accusing Pam Bondi of actively blocking the FBI from releasing more Epstein-related files.

It all started when Laura responded to this X post from Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General under Pam Bondi.

I worked closely with @FBIDirectorKash and @FBIDDBongino on the joint FBI and DOJ memo regarding the Epstein Files. All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.

Laura Loomer:

How come nobody signed their name to the memo? @DAGToddBlanche

My sources tell me that the FBI wanted to release more information about Jeffrey Epstein, and Pam Blondi @AGPamBondi and her DOJ said NO. This has caused tension between Blondi, Kash, and Bongino.

Asking for transparency isn’t difficult.

Blondi is literally blowing up the Trump admin by concealing information, spending time on Fox News lying to MAGA base and by releasing contradictory statements.

There is information that can be released that the public wants to see.

Why was the Memo released on a Sunday night on 4th of July weekend with no official signage and no names of any admin officials?

You only release memos on Sunday evening on holiday weekends when you don’t want anyone paying attention to the contents.

Trump’s team needs to READ THE ROOM.

Blondi has been very DAMAGING to the admin and she has damaged public trust in the DOJ.

She is hurting President Trump and his staff/advisors.

She lied on national TV and needs to be held accountable for harming the Trump admin and public trust.

Stay tuned, folks. Something tells us this story’s far from over.

Staff, Revolver News

This below average woman doesn’t even rise to the status of a villain. She’s a lightweight elevated to a level she never was capable of achieving, greeted with hollow and nervous applause by a culture of sycophants afraid to tell her the truth.

*******

“As the world watches, Trump’s presidency burns brighter than ever.
It is a beacon of audacity in a time of uncertainty.”

— Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax

*******

The thing I have noticed about most leftists that I haven’t seen with nearly as many nonleftists: Leftists will not tolerate or interact with people of differing views. Not for a moment, once the discovery is made. When they get the slightest inkling you might have voted for Trump, that you might support tax cuts, that you think fossil fuels should be legal after 2030, or that you have any questions at all about the logical tenability of “transgender” — they are done with you. Even if people with nonleftist views don’t bring up the subject, most leftists dismiss the dissenters with a considerable amount of hostility. No common ground is desired, or thought possible by the leftist.

The leftist reaction to dissenting views is similar to what you’d expect from someone guilty of physical violence or overt verbal nastiness, even though no such thing has occurred. It’s almost as if the leftist genuinely believes that: “You, the nonleftist, merely by holding different views from me, have done the equivalent of physically assaulting me.” It’s rather fascinating, and also pretty disturbing.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

By S. David Sultzer

The Democrat party has just taken a huge step. For the first time, it has openly embraced not merely hard-left socialism, but the bloody and evil antisemitism of its radical Islamist allies.

The hard left—whether you denominate them socialists, communists, or progressives—are determined to destroy traditional Western Civilization and the Judaeo-Christian religions that are its foundation. Then they would rule over the ruins.

This has been true ever since socialism and state-mandated atheism were birthed in 1792, in the crucible of the French Revolution. It has been true since Karl Marx, the virulent antisemite, wrote in 1843 On the Jewish Question, linking Jews to capitalism, the main enemy of Marx’s communist utopia to come. And it has been true since the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party made an alliance with radical Islamists in Jerusalem in 1941.

Indeed, ever since Hitler’s alliance with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the hard left and radical Islam have been in a blood-soaked partnership. Radical Islamists, like the hard left, are dedicated to the destruction of Western Civilization. Radical Islamists, like the hard left, are inveterate enemies of Judaism and Christianity, seeking to destroy those religions.

Until recently, socialists and Islamists were on the very fringes of American society, only spreading their cancer in our nation’s ivory towers. But as was inevitable, that cancer has now leaked into society. The cancer announced its arrival with the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democrat primary for Mayor of New York City. Mamdani is both a socialist and an Islamist who has called to “globalize” the bloody war on Jews, “the intifada.”

One could take some comfort in the fact that the election of Mamdani was simply in one city, but then the unthinkable happened. The leader of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, appearing on the PBS Newshour, has given his imprimatur, not only to the hard-left socialists, but to their embrace of radical Islam and its war on Jews as well. The evil is now mainstream and acceptable.

 The dissimulation from Martin is stomach-churning. “Globalize the Intifada” is not a call for “debate.” It is a call for genocide.

Moreover, while this embrace of a dangerous fringe may allow Democrats to win elections, the costs will be paid by the nation at large. Mamdani and his ilk have nothing in common with the Democrats of old. They do not seek to argue about strengthening government institutions and redirecting policy around the center. They seek only to tear down government institutions and use each resulting crisis as a justification for more power and control.

Dean Phillips, despite trying desperately to deflect to almost non-existent problems among Republicans, has conceded that the new Democrats cannot coexist with the old ones:

On a final note, the hard left does not seem to have thought through their alliance and what will happen when they and their radical Islamic allies succeed in their efforts to tear down society. The hard left expects to rule over the ruins in a socialist, atheist paradise where the Constitution says whatever they want it to say. That is suicidally naïve. A millennium of history tells us that the Islamists are far more likely to toss the hard-left off rooftops than they are to share power with the godless, and that the Constitution will take on a complexion that matches.

American Thinker