Bill Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States.
He was born on Aug. 19, 1946, as William Jefferson Blythe III. His parents were, William Jefferson Blythe II, who died in a car accident before Clinton was born, and Virginia Cassidy Blythe. Clinton was raised by his grandparents until his mother returned from nursing school.
Clinton, a Democrat, served two terms in the White House, but was impeached by the House of Representatives during his second term on Dec. 19, 1998, for committing perjury before a grand jury and obstructing justice.
Before Clinton led the nation as a two-term president, he graduated from Georgetown University. He later received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and a law degree from Yale University in 1973.
His political venture started in Arkansas, where he was elected attorney general in 1976 after being defeated in his first run for Congress two years prior.
Four years later, he returned to his role as governor, and then started his presidential campaign against Republican George H.W. Bush.
In 1992, Clinton and his running mate, Albert Gore Jr., were successful in their campaign, defeating Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot for the White House.
In 1996, Clinton won a second term as president, this time defeating Republican Bob Dole and, again, independent candidate Perot.
His presidency became known for accomplishments such as high homeownership, 22 million jobs created and low unemployment rates, but scandal ensued during his terms, too.
During Clinton’s second term as president, he was impeached by the House of Representatives.
His impeachment partly stemmed from sexual harassment claims against Clinton by Paula Jones, that were said to have occurred before he was elected president, according to a research guide by the Library of Congress.
Initially, Clinton denied the affair and Lewinsky corroborated the sworn testimony of Clinton.
The investigation was led by the late Kenneth Starr. Before the grand jury, Lewinsky admitted to the sexual relationship with Clinton, and the president admitted to the affair.
In December 1998, the House voted in favor of two articles of impeachment against Clinton, finding that he had committed perjury and obstructed justice. He became the second president in American history to be impeached, the first being Andrew Johnson.
During the Senate trial of 1999, Clinton was acquitted.
After the trial was over, Clinton apologized to Congress and the American people for his behavior, and continued his term as president.
Following his presidency, he continued to be involved in politics. He has shown unwavering support for Democrats, including his wife, Hillary Clinton, who ran for the presidency herself in 2016, but was defeated by Donald Trump.
Clinton has also penned a number of books through the years, including after his presidency, such as "My Life," "Back to Work" and "Citizen: My Life After the White House."
House Republicans have released their initial impeachment inquiry report into President Biden, alleging an abuse of power and obstruction of justice. But their next steps are highly uncertain.
President Biden engaged in "impeachable conduct," House Republicans found in their months-long impeachment inquiry, declaring in their highly anticipated report that he "abused his office" and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family."
Fox News Digital obtained a copy of the 292-page report prepared by the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. Those panels have been leading the impeachment inquiry against Biden.
"The Committees have accumulated evidence demonstrating that President Biden has engaged in impeachable conduct," the report, which lays out evidence gathered to date, says.
Republicans said there is "overwhelming evidence" that Biden participated in a "conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family." They alleged that the Biden family and their business associates received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by "leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden."
The committees said the Biden family and its associates received more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities since 2014.
They also alleged that the Biden family leveraged Biden’s position as vice president to obtain more than $8 million in loans from Democrat benefactors. The loans "have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the committees."
The Republicans said the conspiracy took place while Biden was serving as vice president.
"As Vice President, President Biden actively participated in his conspiracy by, among other things, attending dinners with his family’s foreign business partners and speaking to them by phone, often when being placed on speakerphone by Hunter Biden," the report states.
Republicans referenced in the report a 2014 dinner that Biden attended for his son, Hunter, with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. After the dinner, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Fox News Digital had previously reported that Biden attended dinners with Hunter Biden’s business associates, including Baturina, in Washington, D.C., at Café Milano in Georgetown in both 2014 and 2015. Biden also met with Jonathan Li of BHR in China in 2013.
Fox News Digital also previously reported that Biden met with the chair of Chinese energy firm CEFC, Ye Jianming, in 2017.
"Based on the totality of evidence, it is inconceivable that President Biden did not understand that he was taking part in an effort to enrich his family by abusing his office of public trust," the report states.
Republicans also said the Biden family "went to great lengths to conceal this conspiracy."
"Foreign money was transmitted to the Biden family through complicated financial transactions," the report states. "The Biden family laundered funds through intermediate entities and broke up large transactions into numerous smaller transactions."
Republicans said Hunter Biden and his business associates leveraged Joe Biden’s position as vice president to garner "favorable outcomes in foreign business dealings and legal proceedings."
"Several witnesses testified that Hunter Biden invoked his father in business dealings with Romanian, Chinese, Kazakhstani, and Ukrainian companies, resulting in millions of dollars flowing to the Biden family," the report states.
"President Biden’s participation in this conspiracy to enrich his family constitutes as impeachable conduct," they said. "By monetizing the Vice Presidency for his family’s benefit, he abused his office of public trust, placing the welfare of his family ahead of the welfare of the United States."
Republicans added, "He also put foreign interests ahead of the interests of the American people."
Meanwhile, Republicans in their report also said Biden used his official position to "conceal his mishandling of classified information as a private citizen."
"During his tenure as Vice President, Joe Biden removed highly sensitive classified documents from the White House, despite having no authority to do so," the report states.
Special Counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden’s improper retention of classified records for months but did not recommend charges against the president. The records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security that implicated "sensitive intelligence sources and methods."
But Hur earlier this year described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" and said it "would be difficult to convince a jury they should convict him."
The report also shifts to allegations from IRS whistleblowers, who said federal investigators allowed the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.
"The Justice Department prevented line attorneys from conducting key interviews and pursuing important lines of inquiry," the report states. "The special treatment for Hunter Biden, which only ceased at the onset of congressional attention on the Department’s investigation, may be a basis for impeachment, as the distortion of an official investigation was a basis in the prospective impeachment of President Nixon in 1974."
The report adds, "In certain circumstances the President may be impeached for the actions of subordinate officials."
"The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the Committees is egregious," the report states. "President Joe Biden conspired to commit influence peddling and grift. In doing so, he abused his office and, by repeatedly lying about his abuse of office, has defrauded the United States to enrich his family."
Republicans argue that "not one of these transactions would have occurred, but for Joe Biden’s official position in the United States government."
"This pattern of conduct ensured his family – who provided no legitimate services – lived a lavish lifestyle. The evidence uncovered in the Committees’ impeachment inquiry reflects a family selling the ‘Biden brand’ around the world with President Biden – the ‘big guy’ – swooping in to seal the deal on speaker phones or in private dinners," the report states. "It shows a concerted effort to conceal President Biden’s involvement in the family’s influence peddling scheme."
House Republicans pointed to the Constitution, saying the remedy for a president’s "flagrant abuse of office is clear: impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate."
"Despite the cheapening of the impeachment power by Democrats in recent years, the House’s decision to pursue articles of impeachment must not be made lightly," the report states. "As such, this report endeavors to present the evidence gathered to date so that all Members of the House may assess the extent of President Biden’s corruption."
House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry report comes weeks after Biden suspended his re-election campaign amid pressure from within the Democratic Party after the first presidential debate in June against former President Trump.
House Republicans have been leading the impeachment inquiry since mid-2023. The full House of Representatives formalized the inquiry in December 2023.
In June, House Republicans sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president's brother, be charged with making false statements to Congress about "key aspects" of the impeachment inquiry.
Hunter Biden was found guilty on federal gun charges in Delaware earlier this year, stemming from charges brought against him by Special Counsel David Weiss. His trial on federal tax charges is set to begin in California in September.
Corey Lewandowski is back in the Donald Trump campaign business again—if he ever really left. Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager from his 2016 run, and it’s unclear what his role will be this time, according to Politico.
CNN reports that current campaign co-managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles are not believed to be losing their positions despite the past three disastrous weeks for the campaign, which have seen Trump’s steady lead in the polls disappear.
Lewandowski is an all-time villain in Trump World. Let’s dive into a list of his MAGAchievements.
In March 2016, as Trump’s campaign manager, Lewandowski was charged with battery of a female reporter at an event in Jupiter, Florida. After he denied he ever touched the woman, video of the altercation came out and threw a big bucket of reality on how much of a scumbag Lewandowski was.
You don’t rise in the world of MAGA without disrespecting the laws of our land, and Lewandowski tried to do his part. During the first impeachment inquiry into Trump, he testified that he had no qualms with lying publicly, telling Congress, “I have no obligation to be honest with the media 'cause they're just as dishonest as anybody else.”
Then, in 2021, a GOP donor claimed Lewandowski had sexually harassed her, telling the press, “He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful. I am coming forward because he needs to be held accountable.”
Even for those in Trump’s orbit, the allegations were so bad that Lewandowski was fired from his job as the head of a Trump-affiliated super PAC. He later cut a deal with Las Vegas prosecutors that allowed him to not admit guilt in the incident.
Desperate as he faces Harris, Trump is bringing back Lewandowski (along with many other former aides) even as rumors of an affair with Kristi Noem, the married governor of South Dakota, continue to swirl. I guess it might take some of the attention away from how worthless and weird the GOP’s ticket is.
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and her past support of federal funding for sanctuary cities is being used against her ahead of her critical re-election battle in November.
"Senator Tammy Baldwin voted nine times to support federal funding for sanctuary cities," the ad from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell-aligned group One Nation.
The group cited several occasions when the Democratic senator voted against measures that would have prevented federal funds from going to cities that institute sanctuary policies.
One Nation's new ad marks the launch of its $7.5 million statewide advocacy advertising effort in Wisconsin, a pivotal swing state that could determine both the presidential election and which party will be in the majority in the Senate.
The multi-million dollar Wisconsin effort is part of the group's $88 million buy that began in April.
The video additionally hits Baldwin for voting in favor of amnesty for "11 million illegal immigrants." The ad notes that this vast group includes criminals.
Further, the ad refers to a man, reportedly an illegal immigrant, who was arrested in 2019 for several assaults, including the groping of a 13-year-old girl.
"Tell Senator Tammy Baldwin to stop protecting illegal immigrants and start protecting Wisconsin," it tells viewers.
Baldwin's campaign did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.
"Senator Tammy Baldwin had nine opportunities to make Wisconsin safer by opposing federal funding for sanctuary cities" said One Nation President and CEO Steven Law. "Instead, Senator Baldwin voted to make Wisconsin communities less safe."
Earlier this year, Baldwin voted with Senate Democrats not to continue with an impeachment trial for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. "Impeachment is a sacred and solemn duty of Congress that is solely reserved to hold those accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors. This is a responsibility that I do not take lightly. Unfortunately, what we had in front of us today entirely failed to meet that high standard, lacked evidence, and was just an attempt to score cheap political points, while moving us no closer to fixing the real issues we face at our Southern border," Baldwin said in a statement following her vote in favor of dismissing the articles of impeachment.
The Democratic senator has expressed her support for a border security bill that was negotiated between a Republican, Democratic, and independent senator, but ultimately failed to garner any support from Republicans. Many even claimed the measure would have exacerbated the existing border crisis.
Since Republican senators' rejection of the border bill touted by Democrats, Baldwin and others in her caucus have accused the GOP of being the ones unwilling to take action on the southern border.
In a July Fox News Poll, Baldwin led Republican businessman Eric Hovde 54-43%. However, the Republican primary had yet to occur when the poll was taken. Hovde officially won the GOP nod for Senate in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, fending off any challengers.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky launched a probe against Vice President Kamala Harris last week, requesting that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection turn over all correspondence with her office—despite that she never oversaw the border.
Comer says the goal of the probe is to “understand [Harris’] role” in policy about migration through the U.S.-Mexico border. The very conveniently timed probe follows Comer having to abandon his dream of impeaching President Joe Biden, due to that investigation’s total lack of evidence.
But Comer is so in the habit of baselessly investigating his rivals that he just can’t give it up. And to say the least, his latest probe is as purely political and as meritless as his Biden probe.
Comer’s probe appears to stem from the widespread GOP fiction that Harris has been Biden’s “border czar,” with Comer saying in a Sunday interview on Fox News that Harris was “in charge” of the border and that she “failed miserably.”
However, her role in the administration’s immigration policy was not focused on the border but instead on diplomacy with officials in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, with a goal of figuring out how the U.S. can help those nations stem migration to the U.S.
Furthermore, Customs and Border Protection is overseen by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom House Republicans impeached on partisan grounds earlier this year. And given Harris’ diplomatic role, she likely has very little, if anything, to do with border patrol.
In fact, in his letter to Customs and Border Protection, Comer blows up his own party’s “border czar” lie by admitting that Harris’s work wasn’t concerned with the border itself.
“Instead of focusing on the southwest border … Vice President Harris focused on the purported ‘root causes of irregular migration’ from Central America,” he writes.
In his Fox News interview, Comer attempted to further justify his probe by citing the cost of the Biden administration’s border policy.
“You know, this has had a huge impact on Medicaid because many of these people when they cross the border, they get free health care,” he said. “That’s what Medicaid is, is free health care. They get transported all over the United States.”
Oh yes, the cushy, pampered life of the Central American refugee.
Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the best trolls of Comer in the Democratic conference, is treating this new probe with the seriousness it deserves.
The House of Representatives is kicking off its formal probe into the attempted assassination of former President Trump on Monday.
The bipartisan Trump shooting task force sent a pair of letters announcing its investigation will now supersede several other ongoing House investigations into the matter and asking for all information sent to those committees about the July 13 shooting so far.
One letter was sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe; the other was addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Lawmakers are seeking staff-level briefings from each agency and department, to be scheduled by Aug. 16 – a signal that the task force is serious about its pledge for a short investigatory timeline.
"We, as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump (Task Force), write to request documents and information related to the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024," wrote Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Jason Crow, D-Colo.
There have been multiple Congressional inquiries launched into how a 20-year-old gunman was able to position himself on a rooftop just outside Trump's rally perimeter last month, opening fire and killing one rally attendee. Trump himself was shot in the ear and rushed offstage by Secret Service agents.
The task force is a push by House leadership to consolidate those efforts. The panel is armed with subpoena power and wide-ranging jurisdiction to probe the shooting, with the goal of producing an end-of-year report.
Kelly and Crow asked that the Biden administration officials they wrote to "should produce documents and information directly to the Task Force from this point forward, including any documents and information that are in process in response to pending requests."
Lawmakers also asked for "all documents and information that have been produced to date, to any committee of the House or Senate related to the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump" and "a briefing for staff to review DHS and USSS’ responses to Congress to date, and to discuss the Task Force’s priorities with respect to documents and information moving forward."
The task force, comprised of seven House Republicans and six House Democrats, was formed after a unanimous 416-0 vote last month.
One senior House Republican told Fox News Digital last month that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was inundated by House GOP lawmakers' requests and arguments to be on the panel.
Both Kelly and Crow have stressed that the investigation must be apolitical.
Crow, a former Army Ranger, told Fox News Digital earlier this month that he and Kelly were discussing a possible trip to the Pennsylvania rally site where the shooting took place. Kelly, who was at the rally in Butler, represents the surrounding district.
"Chairman Kelly and I have discussed that, and we do think that would be an important thing to do if we have the support to do it," Crow said.
Russell Vought sounds like a general marshaling troops for combat when he talks about taming a “woke and weaponized” federal government.
He recently described political opposition as “enemy fire that’s coming over the target,” while urging allies to be “fearless at the point of attack” and calling his policy proposals “battle plans.”
If former President Donald Trump wins a second term in November, Vought may get the opportunity to go on the offensive.
A chief architect of Project 2025 — the controversial conservative blueprint to remake the federal government — Vought is likely to be appointed to a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration. And he’s been drafting a so-far secret “180-Day Transition Playbook” to speed the plan’s implementation to avoid a repeat of the chaotic start that dogged Trump’s first term.
Among the small cadre of Trump advisers who has a mechanic’s understanding of how Washington operates, Vought has advised influential conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, held a top post in the Trump White House and later established his own pro-Trump think tank. Now, he’s being mentioned as a candidate to be Trump’s White House chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in government.
“If we don’t have courage, then we will step away from the battle,” Vought said in June on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. “But our view is that’s where the country needs us, and we’re not going to save our country without a little confrontation.”
Conservative blueprint to change the government
Led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Project 2025 is a detailed 920-page handbook for governing under the next Republican administration. A whirlwind of hard-right ambitions, its proposals range from ousting thousands of civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists to reversing the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medications used in abortions. Democrats for months have been using Project 2025 to hammer Trump and other Republicans, arguing to voters that it represents the former president’s true — and extreme — agenda.
Trump in recent weeks has sought to distance himself from Project 2025. He posted on social media he has not seen the plan and has “no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”
Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025.
Trump’s attempts to reject the blueprint are complicated by the connections he has with many of its contributors. More than two dozen authors served in his administration, including Vought, who was director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about which Project 2025 proposals the former president opposes or whether Vought would be offered a high-level government position in a new Trump term.
Vought did not respond to an interview request or to questions first emailed in February to his think tank, the Center for Renewing America, which played a key role in creating Project 2025.
Those who know Vought described him as fiercely dedicated to Trump’s cause, if not to the former president himself.
“A very determined warrior is how I would see Russ,” said a former Trump administration official who worked with Vought in the White House and requested anonymity to speak candidly about him. “I don’t think he thinks about whether or not he likes Donald Trump as a person. I think he likes what Donald Trump represents in terms of the political forces he’s able to harness.”
Washington insider
Born in New York and raised in Connecticut, Vought has described his family as blue collar. His parents were devout Christians. Vought’s father, a Marine Corps veteran, was a union electrician and his mother was a schoolteacher.
Vought’s father, nicknamed Turk, didn’t stand for idleness or waste. Mark Maliszewski, an electrician who knew him, recalled that after a job Turk Vought would scold his co-workers if they tossed out still usable material.
“He’d go over and kick the garbage can,” Maliszewski said. “He’d say: ‘What is this? If those were quarters or dollars in that garbage can, you’d be picking them up.’”
Russell Vought graduated in 1998 from Wheaton College, a Christian school in Illinois that counts the famed evangelist Billy Graham among its alumni. He moved to Washington to work for Republicans who championed fiscal austerity and small government.
“I worked with a lot of different staff people and as far as work ethic, tenacity, intellect, knowledge (and) commitment to principle, Russell was one of the more impressive people I worked with,” said former GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who hired Vought in 2003.
After honing his credentials as a fiscal hawk, Vought was named policy director of the House Republican Conference, the party’s primary messaging platform chaired at the time by then-Rep. Mike Pence, who went on to serve as Indiana governor and Trump’s vice president.
Vought left Capitol Hill for a lobbying organization attached to the Heritage Foundation. When Trump was elected, Vought became OMB’s deputy director.
Vought told senators his remarks were taken out of context and said he respected the right of every person to express their religious beliefs.
The Senate confirmed him to be OMB’s No. 2 by a single vote. He became acting director in early 2019 after his boss, Mick Mulvaney, was named Trump's acting chief of staff. Vought was confirmed as OMB director a year and half later as the COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping the globe.
Russell Vough served as acting director of the Office of Management under Donald Trump.
OMB is a typically sedate office that builds the president’s budget and reviews regulations. But with Vought at the helm, OMB was at the center of showdowns between Trump and Congress over federal spending and the legal bounds of presidential power.
After lawmakers refused to give Trump more money for his southern U.S. border wall, the budget office siphoned billions of dollars from the Pentagon and Treasury Department budgets to pay for it.
Under Vought, OMB also withheld military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate President Joe Biden and his son. Vought refused to comply with a congressional demand to depose him during the subsequent Democrat-led House investigation that led to Trump’s first impeachment. The inquiry, Vought said, was a sham.
Following Trump's exit from the White House, Vought formed The Center for Renewing America. The organization’s mission is to be “the tip of the America First spear” and “to renew a consensus that America is a nation under God.”
Vought has defended the concept of Christian nationalism, which is a fusion of American and Christian values, symbols and identity. Christian nationalism, he wrote three years ago, “is a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
The only way to return America to the country the Founding Fathers envisioned is “radical constitutionalism,” Vought said on Bannon’s podcast. That means ensuring control of the executive branch rests solely with the president, not a vast federal bureaucracy.
Anticipating the fights to achieve this, Trump’s backers need to be “fearless, faithful and frugal in everything we do,” he said.
A declaration of less independence
Vought’s center was part of a coalition of conservative organizations, organized by the Heritage Foundation, that launched Project 2025 and crafted a detailed plan for governing in the next Republican administration.
The project’s public-facing document, “Mandate for Leadership,” examined nearly every corner of the federal government and urged reforms large and small to bridle a “behemoth” bureaucracy.
Project 2025 calls for the U.S. Education Department to be shuttered, and the Homeland Security Department dismantled, with its various parts absorbed by other federal offices. Diversity, inclusion and equity programs would be gutted. Promotions in the U.S. military to general or admiral would go under a microscope to ensure candidates haven’t prioritized issues like climate change or critical race theory.
In 2021, Russell Vough joined Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dan Bishop to criticize "critical race theory" on Capitol Hill.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University history professor and author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,” criticized Project 2025 as “a recipe for mass chaos, abuses of power, and dysfunction in government.”
The overarching theme of Project 2025 is to strip down the “administrative state.” This, according to the blueprint, is the mass of unelected government officials who pursue policy agendas at odds with the president’s plans.
In his public comments and in a Project 2025 chapter he wrote, Vought has said that no executive branch department or agency, including the Justice Department, should operate outside the president’s authority.
“The whole notion of independent agencies is anathema from the standpoint of the Constitution,” Vought said during a recent appearance on the Fox Business Network.
Critics warn this may leave the Justice Department and other investigative agencies vulnerable to a president who might pressure them to punish or probe a political foe. Trump, who has faced four separate prosecutions, has threatened retribution against Biden and other perceived enemies.
Diminishing the Justice Department’s independence would be a “radically bad idea,” said Paul Coggins, past president of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys.
“No president deserves to sic the Justice Department on his political enemies, or, frankly, to pull the Justice Department off his political friends,” he said.
It is not clear what job Vought might get in a second Trump administration. He could return as OMB director, the job he held at the end of Trump's presidency, or an even higher-ranking post.
“Russ would make a really, really good (White House) chief of staff,” Mulvaney said.
Whatever the position, Vought is expected to be one of Trump’s top field commanders in his campaign to dominate Washington.
An Indian-born U.S. military veteran won the GOP primary in the 3rd Congressional District of Kansas on Tuesday, a seat Republicans are hoping to win back in November.
Dr. Prasanth Reddy, a former physician-turned-high level Labcorp executive, was heavily favored to win the primary against challenger Karen Crnkovich.
Reddy was endorsed by top House Republicans including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and was named to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) "Young Guns" list just last week.
He’s now moving on to face Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kan., a moderate Democrat seeking a fourth term in the House.
"Extreme House Democrat Sharice Davids has fueled the border, crime and cost of living crises that are wreaking havoc on Kansans’ safety and security. Prasanth Reddy is in a prime position to flip Kansas’ 3rd District red and help grow our House majority in November," Delanie Bomar, a spokeswoman for the House GOP campaign arm, said last week.
Davids won her seat during the blue wave of 2018 and was among the first Native American women to be sworn into Congress. Davids is also the only Democrat in Kansas’ congressional delegation.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has her seat ranked as an R+1 district, making it a top target for Republicans hoping to keep and expand their razor-thin House majority.
Davids won the district after defeating incumbent former Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., by just under 10 points, and has modestly expanded her margin of victory since.
The district is majority-White and includes much of the Kansas City metro area. It’s also the least red of Kansas’ congressional districts.
● Primary Night: Tuesday brings us one of the biggest primary nights of the cycle, and as always, Jeff Singer previews the big contests to watch—including the eight races where Donald Trump is supporting a total of 12 different candidates.
Trump issued yet another dual endorsement over the weekend when he wrote that he was now supporting motivational speaker Tiffany Smiley's intraparty bid against Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, who is one of the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 riot. Trump, though, made it clear he was also sticking with the man he backed back in April, former NASCAR driver Jerrod Sessler, ahead of the top-two primary for this conservative seat.
But while Trump offered up his "complete and total endorsement" to both Smiley and Sessler's efforts to beat Newhouse, whom MAGA's master called "a weak and pathetic RINO" that "stupidly voted to impeach me for absolutely no reason," the two challengers are anything but friends. Sessler has accused Smiley, who ran a well-funded but ill-fated 2022 campaign against Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of getting into the race in order to help Newhouse. Smiley, for her part, has run ads calling Sessler a vegan who "wants to tax our beef," allegations Sessler has ardently denied.
Meanwhile, the other Evergreen State Republican who voted to oust Trump in 2021 may be about to cost Democrats control of a statewide office months before the general election. Former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is one of two Republicans campaigning to succeed Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, a Democrat who is running for a House seat around Tacoma, in a race that includes five members of Franz's party.
Democrats lost control of the state treasurer's office in 2016 after a pair of Republicans advanced out of the top-two primary, and a late July survey from Public Policy Polling for the Northwest Progressive Institute gave them reason to fret about a repeat in the public lands race. That poll showed Herrera Beutler in front with 18% as Sue Kuehl Pederson, a Republican who badly lost to Franz in 2020, leads Democratic King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove 12-6 for second. A massive 48% remain undecided, but it remains to be seen if these voters would break for one of the five Democrats on the ballot.
It's possible, though, that a top-two disaster won't end Democratic hopes to keep this office. NPI head Andrew Villeneuve tells KUOW that his party would likely run a write-in campaign in the general election. Democrats, however, would prefer to avoid the financial and logistical obstacles of such an undertaking.
There's far more to watch in both Washington and three other states on Tuesday. A prominent progressive congresswoman in St. Louis is trying to overcome an onslaught in outside spending, while a challenger in Detroit is hoping that demographics will matter much more than money in her own battle against an incumbent.
We'll also find out if Republicans in Kansas' largest county are willing to do what their compatriots across the nation won't and oust a prominent incumbent who has spread election conspiracies. Check out Singer's preview for more―including why Darth Vader is playing a role in the contest to lead Missouri.
We'll be liveblogging the results at Daily Kos Elections on Tuesday night, starting when the first polls close at 8 PM ET. Join us for our complete coverage!
House
●AZ-03: Election officials completed their count of last week's Democratic primary on Monday, and former Phoenix City Councilmember Yassamin Ansari holds a 44.6-44.5 edge—a margin of 42 votes—over former state Sen. Raquel Terán in the safely blue 3rd District. Arizona requires a recount in races where the difference between the candidates is 0.5% or less, and the Arizona Republic's Sasha Hupka says it will be officially ordered after the Aug. 15 statewide canvas.
● TX-18: The Harris County Democratic Party said Friday that its 88 precinct chairs will meet on Aug. 13 to replace Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last month, on the general election ballot in this safely blue seat. The party says that no filing form or fee is required, though it will begin interviewing candidates on Aug. 6.
GOP Gov. Greg Abbott last week also scheduled the special election for the remainder of Jackson Lee's term to coincide with the Nov. 5 general election. The filing deadline for that contest is Aug. 22.
Several prominent Democrats launched bids last week to apply for the nomination to succeed Jackson Lee in the next Congress. One of them, former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, announced Monday that he had the support of both of the congresswoman's children.
●UT-02: Utah election officials on Monday completed their recount of the June 25 Republican primary, and while GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy's lead shrunk from 214 to 176 votes, she still retained the edge over Green Beret veteran Colby Jenkins in the conservative 2nd District.
Jenkins, though, did not concede, and he highlighted that the Utah Supreme Court is considering his lawsuit arguing that 1,171 mail-in ballots were improperly disqualified because the U.S. Postal Service was slow to provide a postmark. The Deseret News' Brigham Tomco writes that the justices have until Friday to reject Jenkins' suit or allow it to proceed.
Prosecutors & Sheriffs
● Los Angeles County, CA District Attorney: Political analyst Rob Pyers flags that former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, a Republican turned independent, ended June with a staggering $1.1 million to $47,000 cash on hand lead advantage over Democratic District Attorney George Gascón in the officially nonpartisan general election. Hochman also outraised Gascón $1.6 million to $166,000 from Feb. 18 to June 30.
Gascón, who's called himself the "godfather of progressive prosecutors," has spent his term as the top prosecutor for America's largest county defending his reforms from critics who argue they've made crime worse. Gascón took first in the 12-person nonpartisan primary in March, though his 25% of the vote was far short of the majority he needed to win outright.
Hochman, who took second with 16%, is running two years after he unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2022 as a Republican. While Hochman lost Los Angeles County 67-33 in 2022, he's hoping that he'll have more luck now that he's shed his partisan label.
Poll Pile
PA Auditor: GQR (D) for Malcolm Kenyatta: Malcolm Kenyatta (D): 47, Tim DeFoor (R-inc): 43 (50-46 Harris with third-party candidates)
