NYT Poll: Trump Loses Massive Lead He Built Up Over Biden

Former President Donald Trump has lost almost all of his early lead over President Joe Biden in a new poll released Saturday, which showed the candidates within the margin of error.

Trump is technically still leading with a 1-point margin in the New York Times-Siena poll, with the support of 46% of the respondents, compared to Biden’s 45% if the election was just between the two major party candidates. But the numbers are significantly closer than earlier results, including closer than February’s poll, which saw Trump leading by 5%.

When asked who survey respondents would vote for in a wider context that included third-party candidates, Trump had a 2% lead with 42% of the vote compared to Biden’s 40%.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was the candidate with the third highest vote with 2%, though 7% said they would not vote if those were the candidates on the ballot.

The close results come as both campaigns prepare for a tight election in November, which is expected to come down to a handful of swing states.

Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan are among the states that have played a major role in recent elections, and will also play an important role in 2024.

The poll also found that more than half of respondents (69%) believe that Biden is “too old” to be an effective president, and 48% strongly concur.

This is compared to just 41% of respondents believing Trump is too old to be effective, and just 21% strongly agree.

Trump is currently 77, but would be 78, and Biden would be 82 when taking office next January.

When it comes to the temperament of both candidates, voters said neither candidate had the temperament to be an effective president.

The poll was conducted April 7-11 and polled a total of 1,059 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3%.

Source: CF

Lauren Boebert Wins Spot On Colorado Primary Ballot Through Delegate Process

On Friday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) secured the top spot for the GOP primary to replace former Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) after winning the highest amount of delegates in the district assembly. 

Boebert is currently running for a full term in Buck’s district rather than her current one, and received support from 41% of the 527 delegates, putting her squarely at the top of the ballot.

“Honored to have won the support and trust of CD4 Delegates as the ONLY Republican to qualify through the Assembly process today,” Boebert posted to X. “I kept my word and I will make you proud!”

In March, Buck announced his intent to retire from Congress, following through before the end of the month. 

“It has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado’s 4th District in Congress for the past 9 years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week,” Buck wrote in a release on March 12. “I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado and with my family.”

Buck’s abrupt departure prompted a special election for his seat to finish out the term. Boebert is not eligible to run for the special election due to her being a current member of Congress, and her current representation of a different district.

However, a candidate in the special election, former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, intends to finish Buck’s term only, and not hold onto the seat past the next election, allowing Boebert to run for that seat in the primary. 

Lopez won the special election’s primary and is expected to win the seat due to the conservative leanings of the district. 

The assembly process is one of three ways candidates can qualify for the ballot. Another involves securing enough signatures on a petition, and securing enough support from delegates in the assembly, requiring 10% of delegate support and 1,500 signatures. 

Candidates can also qualify by simply clearing 1,500 signatures, or by securing enough delegate support. But in order to qualify solely by delegates at the assembly, they need to secure 30% of the vote, which Boebert was able to do handily.

The reasoning behind Buck’s decision to retire from Congress is not fully known. Buck spoke with CBS News after leaving, telling them that he would be continuing to support the party from the sidelines. 

Buck has repeatedly clashed with former President Donald Trump and his supporters, so-called MAGA Republicans, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has labeled Buck as a “CNN Wannabe.”

“I’m resigning my seat and creating a vacancy in my district,” Buck told CNN’s Dana Bash after announcing his retirement. “Everywhere I go in Colorado, Dana, I hear that people are not happy with Trump, and they’re not happy with [President Joe] Biden. And I think we need to change our electoral laws here. And I have a passion for that.”

When asked if those clashes played into his decision to retire, Buck told CBS that he was aware that he would likely face challenges from other Republicans, but that did not factor into his decision to retire.

“I have never backed down from a fight and I never will back down from a fight,” Buck said.

Buck argued that his party changed around him, rather than him, and said that his decisions were guided by the constitution, not the Republican caucus. 

“I came here to represent conservatives. And I’m going to stay in that lane and not try to justify my position,” he said. “I’m not here to lie to my voters. I’m not here to lie to Coloradans or Americans. I’m here to follow the Constitution. It is the rulebook we should abide by in Congress.”

Boebert said she was seeking Buck’s seat rather than her current seat to avoid a repeat of the last election, and, should she win the primary, is expected to win the seat in November.

Source: Resistthemainstream

Black-ish Star Jennifer Lewis Warns of Trump’s Potential Re-election Consequences

One of the stars of the hit sitcom Black-ish has claimed that Donald Trump will put black people ‘in camps’ if he’s re-elected- and she also called him Hitler.

On Thursday, actress Jennifer Lewis, 67, sat down with Zerlina Maxwell, host of the radio show ‘Mornings With Zerlina’ on SiriusXM.

Lewis began by calmly discussing voter apathy, but then she appeared to lose her temper and inveighed against Trump and Trump voters.

‘This motherf***** is Hitler,’ Lewis asserted confidently.

The ‘Black-ish’ star said that if he’s re-elected, Trump would ‘take a hammer and break the glass where the Constitution is’.

She continued by saying that the current Republican frontrunner would ‘tear’ the constitution up ‘in our faces and say, “Now I’m the king of the f****** world.’

The actress paused and then, speaking as Trump, said: ‘You will bow down, b******.’

‘He will punish everybody that didn’t vote for him,’ she added.

While Lewis spoke, the show’s host, Maxwell, grunted in approval.

The actress lit into voters who are considering casting a ballot for Trump. She also criticized people who are indifferent to the voting process.

Lewis declaimed how we spend much of our time debating which ice-cream flavor to choose because there are ‘10,000’ options.

She said: ‘We spend half our lives choosing, trying to make a choice on bulls***. What movie tonight? Let me sit here for a half hour. No bombs going off.’

‘We do nothing,’ the actress continued. ‘We sit on our couches. “Oh, I don’t believe in voting.” You f****** idiot,’ Lewis said.

She said that if Trump were re-elected, ‘as soon as he takes the oath, he will have generals walk down the steps of the Capitol.’

Lewis seemed to grow angrier and angrier, and then she raged that she was certain that Trump would become a vindictive autocrat because she recognized his ‘mental illness.’

‘I know it because I know what mental illness looks like,’ she vociferated. ‘That mania is unstoppable!’

Lewis quieted herself down and said: ‘See, this motherf***** is Hitler. He didn’t come to play.’

Referring to several minority groups, Lewis said: ‘That motherf***** will have us in camps…because we sat our fat a** on the couch.’

Lewis attributed Trump’s popularity to white Americans’ fear of minorities. In the interview, she assured white people that minorities aren’t coming after them, so there’s no need to resort to extreme actions.

‘Black people don’t want to fight you. All we want to do is feed our children and be equal.’

Then she told Maxwell: ‘Honey, White people are scared. They’re becoming a minority. The world is brown.’

The actress elaborated on her apocalyptic vision of America if Trump wins in 2024.

She said that ‘white’ people would aim to inflict myriad punishments on minorities, often referring to minorities with hurtful slurs.

‘They’re going to do everything they can to stay in those gated communities, not pay taxes, and put those n***** in their places and get those wetbacks out of this country. We own this, b****.’

The Black-ish star continued: ‘You will not win because love is the answer.’

Then Lewis evoked a bloody image of America’s racist and violent past.

Lewis said: ‘We built this country for free while you raped us in your barns. While you whipped us. While you lynched us and cut babies out of our stomachs while we hung from f****** trees.’

‘And you got something to say?’ she asked.

Source: CF

Fani Willis Can Remain on Trump’s Election Case in Georgia, Judge Rules

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can remain leading her historic racketeering indictment of former President Donald Trump if special prosecutor Nathan Wade – with whom she had a romantic relationship – steps aside.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued his ruling Friday morning in arguably one of the nation’s most anticipated legal and political decisions in decades.

Willis is the locally elected district attorney who issued dozens of indictments in August 2023 accusing the nation’s 45th president and his allies of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. But she has been facing allegations she misused taxpayer funds and crossed ethical boundaries during her romantic relationship with Wade, an issue McAfee addressed in his March 15, 2024, ruling.

“As alleged, the claims presented a possible financial conflict of interest for the District Attorney,” McAfee’s order said. “More importantly, the defense motions and the State’s response created a conflict in the evidence that could only be resolved through an evidentiary hearing, and one that could not simply be ignored without endangering a criminally accused’s constitutional right to procedural due process.

“After receiving two and a half days of testimony, during which the Defendants were provided an opportunity to subpoena and introduce whatever relevant and material evidence they could muster, the Court finds that the Defendants failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor,” McAfee wrote. “The other alleged grounds for disqualification, including forensic misconduct, are also denied.

“However, the established record now highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team – an appearance that must be removed through the State’s selection of one of two options. The Defendants’ motions are therefore granted in part.”

Read McAfee’s ruling.

On March 1, McAfee heard three hours worth of closing arguments from attorneys representing Willis and some of Trump’s co-defendants, and said he hoped to make a decision on the case “over the next two weeks.” That two-week window expired Friday.

“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” McAfee wrote.

“Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”

On Wednesday, McAfee wrote that six of the charges in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump. But the order leaves intact many other charges in the indictment and McAfee wrote prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.

The six charges dismissed were related to soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021.

Last month, two days of often-explosive testimony rocked the internationally watched criminal indictment of the nation’s 45th president. During their disqualification hearing, Willis and Wade both said their romantic relationship began after Willis hired Wade, and that it had since ended.

However, three weeks ago, Trump’s Georgia attorneys filed a court document showing a private investigator’s review of Wade’s cell phone calls and texts. The document shows the couple engaged in thousands of calls and texts months before Wade was hired.

Using a cellular geo-mapping and analysis program called CellHawk, Charles Mittlestadt’s report revealed “more than 2,000 voice calls and just under 12,000 text messages exchanged over the 11-month period in 2021,” Friday’s court filing said. “A heat map … highlights the interaction patterns which demonstrate a prevalence of calls made in the evening hours.”

Mittlestadt’s investigation also indicates Wade made at least 35 visits to the Hapeville, Georgia, condo where Willis was living at the time. The property was owned by Robin Bryant-Yeartie, who also testified the duo’s relationship began before Wade’s hiring.

On the stand, Wade said he’d visited Willis at the condo no more than 10 times before he was hired in November 2021. Middelstadt’s report alleges Wade twice arrived late at night at the condo and left early the next morning, again before the couple said their romantic relationship began.

Three STAYweeks ago, Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former law partner and divorce lawyer, testified he does not know when Wade began his romantic relationship with Willis.

Under repeated questioning from Ashleigh Merchant, who represents one of Trump’s co-defendants in the racketeering indictment, Bradley also said he didn’t know when he first learned of the relationship.

Bradley said he recalled Wade telling him at some point he was dating Willis, but said he did not remember any other time Wade told him about the relationship.

“I recall him stating that at some point they were dating,” Bradley said on Tuesday. “I can’t tell you what date that was, it was made in confidence, we were in the back of our office, our offices were the only two in the back, and there was no one else present. That is all I can tell you at this time.”

The questioning started in early January, when a court filing by Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, and Merchant, his attorney, accused Willis and special prosecutor Wade of having a romantic relationship.

Roman is a former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations. Prosecutors allege Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election, a charge to which Roman has pleaded not guilty.

Roman’s court filing claims Willis and Wade took lavish vacations together and that Wade used part of his salary from the district attorney’s office to travel with Willis. Merchant also claims to have discovered “outside of court filings” that Willis and Wade went on trips together.

Trump and 18 of his GOP allies were indicted by Willis and her office in August 2023 on charges they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That election saw Democrat Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry a deep Southern state in a presidential election since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992.

Merchant became the the first person to be subpoenaed before a newly formed special Georgia senate committee empaneled to investigate Willis.

Merchant discussed much of the evidence she’s presented in court already: bank statements showing Willis and Wade took vacations and cruises together while working the case, phone records that show Wade would often spend the night at Willis’ then-home, billing invoices that showed a 24-hour day and revealed calendar details like a meeting between Willis and Vice President Kamala Harris just months before the indictment was issued.

Source: CF

Biden Hides Public Records Showing How Much Taxpayers Are Paying Unions: Report

The federal government annually allocates over $100 million to employees who primarily engage in union activities rather than fulfilling their designated government roles, effectively financing both ends of the bargaining spectrum with taxpayer money.

While these expenditures have been tracked and disclosed by the government for decades, The Daily Wire reports that the Biden administration has opted to suppress such reports.

Despite inquiries, the Biden administration has remained evasive regarding the disappearance of these reports. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) declined to clarify whether they still collect statistics on official time, why reports beyond 2019 haven’t been published, or whether access to offline reports is possible.

Previous investigations, such as one conducted by the Washington Examiner in 2014, have revealed 500 hundred employees diverting from their primary government responsibilities to engage in union activities, drawing full-time salaries funded by taxpayers.

Then-Senator Tom Coburn criticized this practice, arguing that taxpayers should not bear the burden of funding union activities that should be covered by union dues, especially when employees neglect their assigned duties.

The OPM has traditionally monitored and published data on official time usage, a practice that persisted during the Obama administration. However, this information has not been updated since 2019, when the government allocated funds equivalent to 2.6 million hours, nearly 300 years’ worth, toward union activities.

A report from the Freedom Foundation raised doubts about the accuracy of the OPM’s explanation, pointing out that the removal of factual expenditure data coincided with the introduction of a “Worker Empowerment” page in July 2023, highlighting the administration’s support for worker organizing and collective bargaining.

In response to this lack of transparency, Senator Joni Ernst introduced the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act on Thursday, aiming to reinstate detailed reporting requirements regarding taxpayer-funded union activities. 

Ernst emphasized the necessity of holding the Biden administration accountable for spending and ensuring that taxpayer dollars serve the public interest rather than bureaucratic agendas.

This current practice not only burdens taxpayers but also bolsters union influence by subsidizing their endeavors, granting resources even when employees fail to provide adequate dues.

Source: Resistthemainstream

Trump Trial on Cooked Up Stormy Daniels Charges to Be Delayed by 30 Days

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a court filing Thursday that his office doesn’t oppose Donald Trump’s request to delay the hush money trial — only days before the former president was slated to face his first criminal trial while simultaneously running to return to the White House.

The surprise move comes after federal prosecutors began turning over tens of thousands of documents this month relating to their investigation and 2018 prosecution of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness in the trial.

Bragg’s filing said that “although the People are prepared to proceed to trial on March 25, we do not oppose an adjournment in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.”

The district attorney added that his office doesn’t oppose delaying the start of the trial for 30 days. The trial was scheduled to begin March 25.

If the start date is ultimately pushed back it will be yet another win for Trump, whose strategy across the four criminal indictments he’s facing has been to seek delays.

Trump had requested a 90-day delay in the trial after the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan provided 73,000 pages of discovery since March 4. Bragg said his office’s initial review of those documents “were largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case” except for 172 pages of witness statements.

The district attorney said that the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Wednesday had produced about 31,000 pages of “additional records” to both prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers and “indicated that an additional production would follow by next week.” This came after Trump issued a subpoena in mid-January for additional materials from federal prosecutors.

“The timing of the USAO’s productions is a result solely of defendant’s delay despite the People’s diligence,” Bragg said, noting his office had received a “subset” of materials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in June, and promptly turned what they had over to Trump’s lawyers.

“Despite having access to those materials since June, defendant raised no concerns to the People about the sufficiency of our efforts to obtain materials from the USAO before last week; instead, defendant waited until January 18, 2024, to subpoena additional material,” Bragg’s filing said.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, framed Bragg’s filing as “conceding serious discovery violations.”

“We will continue to fight to end this Hoax,” Cheung said in his statement.

In mid-February, Judge Juan Merchan, who’s overseen the case, scheduled the trial to begin on March 25. He said he expected the trial would last about six weeks.

Merchan, who did not seem interested in defense requests for a delay during a scheduling hearing earlier this year, will need to rule on the requests by both sides to push back the trial day. He could rule for a delay of less than 30 days or more.

Trump’s attorneys said in a court filing last week that part of their defense of the former president will be that Trump “lacked the requisite intent to commit the conduct charged in the indictment.” Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential bid. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Source: CF

New Transcript Reveals That Biden Lied About Beau Exchange With Robert Hur During Angry Press Conference

A new transcript of the interview between President Joe Biden and special counsel Robert Hur confirms that Biden lied about an exchange regarding his son Beau during an angry press conference following the release of Hur’s report last month. 

Hur’s report, which detailed the president’s handling of classified documents, noted Biden’s memory several times, including the fact that he forgot the date of his son’s death, as well as when his vice presidency began and ended. 

Just a few hours after the release of the report in February, Biden held an impromptu, and brief, press conference, criticizing Hur for questioning his late son’s death. However, the newly released transcript confirms that Biden was the one who raised the date of his son’s death.

Hur did not push Biden about the date of his son’s death, but instead asked where work-related papers were being kept following the end of his vice presidency in January 2017. 

“Well, um … I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?” Biden began.

“Yes, sir,” Hur responded.

“Remember, in this time frame, my son is — either been deployed or is dying, and, and so it was — and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president. I’m not — and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did,” Biden began. “And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t, at this point — even though I’m at Penn, I hadn’t walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I’d be running for president. And, and so what was happening, though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30 —”

“2015,” Rachel Cotton, a White House lawyer, interjected.

“2015,” an unidentified male confirmed.

“Was it 2015 he had died?” Biden asked.

“It was May of 2015,” an unidentified male reiterated.

“It was 2015,” Biden responded.

“Or — I’m not sure of the month, sir, but I think that was the year,” Robert Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer, weighed in.

During the press conference, Biden claimed that Hur brought up Beau’s death, asking “How in the hell dare he raise that?” 

Biden told reporters, “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”

Later during the interview, the president asked when former President Donald Trump was elected, asking if it was November of 2017. The unidentified speakers tell the president that he left the vice presidency in January of 2017, which is why the year is coming up.

“OK, yeah,” Biden confirms. “And in 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal …” the president continues, appearing to forget the year of his late son’s death again.

Hur noted in his report that Biden willfully kept classified documents, but controversially declined to press charges. He justified his decision by citing the memory lapses, adding that a jury might see Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden repeatedly blames his staff for the issues, as he did during the post-report press conference, and refused to take responsibility for the mishandling of classified documents. 

“I don’t want to hold them responsible or get them in trouble, but I believe they were the ones who were packing up … and were deciding, you know, where, where things were going, to the best of my knowledge,” Biden said of his staff. He added he had “no goddamn idea” what was in one set of files shipped to his house.

Also at multiple points in the interview, Hur requested that Biden stay on topic, rather than going off on unrelated tangents. At one point, Biden blew past Hur’s attempt to refocus the interview, to explain to him how the torque on electric cars worked, complete with “car noises.”

“You step your foot on the accelerator all the way down until it gets about six, seven grand,” Biden said. “Then all the sudden it will say ‘launch.’ All you do is take your foot off the brake.”

Biden then made a car engine sound and laughed, according to the transcript.

Source: Resistthemainstream

RNC’s New Trump-Backed Leadership Orders Mass Layoffs

Trump allies welcomed reports that the Republican National Committee’s new leadership team began firing dozens of staff on Monday.

Reports of plans to purge some 60 staffers come days after likely Republican 2024 presidential nominee former President Trump’s allies were installed in key committee leadership roles.

The RNC voted for the Trump-backed Michael Whatley to become chair and the former president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to be co-chair on Friday, some eight months before the 2024 election.

“Chairman Whatley is in the process of evaluating the organization and staff to ensure the building is aligned with his vision of how to win in November,” wrote new RNC chief operating officer Sean Cairncross in an email first reported by Politico.

“During this process, certain staff are being asked to resign and reapply for a position on the team.”

Political, data and communications staffers were among those affected by the layoffs, according to multiple reports.

Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign adviser who’s the RNC’s new chief of staff, said the job cuts represented “Republicans streamlining” in order to avoid any doubling up between the committee and Trump campaign so they’re basically functioning as one, per AP.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on X: “MAGA is now in control of the Republican Party!! We will continue to need everyone’s help all the way across the finish line!”

Charlie Kirk, who leads the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA, in a post to X celebrated the “Bloodbath at the RNC” as “excellent,” adding: “The anti-Trump sleeper cells all have to go. The RNC is getting ready to win.”

Moderate Republicans, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) expressed alarm at the firings.

“The RNC, in deciding to become Trumps toilet and slush fund, is going to do real damage to down ballot races,” he wrote on X. “They deserve it for capitulating How far they have fallen.

Source: CF

FBI Director Warns of “Very Dangerous Threats” at Border, Smuggling Network with ISIS Ties

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday warned of a “wide array” of dangerous threats coming from the U.S. border, including drug trafficking, violent gangs and smugglers with ties to ISIS.

Wray was asked by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the threats at the border, including the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela. Wray said he couldn’t speak to a specific gang, but said that there were dangerous individuals entering via the southern border.

“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. And that includes everything from drug trafficking — the FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people — that’s just on the fentanyl side,” he said.

“An awful lot of the violent crime in the United States is at the hands of gangs who are themselves involved in the distribution of that fentanyl,” he said.

Officials have warned about the presence of gangs, including Tren De Aragua. Fox News reported last week about a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) internal bulletin that told agents to be on the lookout for those coming across the border who may show signs of belonging to the bloodthirsty gang. Fox News reported last week that the brother of the suspect in the killing of Georgia student Laken Riley has ties to the gang. Both the suspect and his brother are Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally.

Rubio asked Wray whether smuggling networks that are moving people all over the world could also have ties to ISIS or other terrorist organizations.

“So, I want to be a little bit careful how far I can go in open session, but there is a particular network that, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and that we’ve been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating. Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation,” he said.

Rubio asked him to confirm that there is a network “we’re concerned about” that has facilitators involved with ties to ISIS.

“Correct,” Wray said.

There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in FY 23, and FY 24 so far included a month with record encounters of over 300,000. The border has become a top political issue with both President Biden and former President Donald Trump visiting the border this month.

Republicans have blamed the crisis on the administration, while the administration says it needs more funding, staffing and immigration reform to be provided by Congress — and has accused Republicans of stalling that aid for political purposes.

Source: CF

House Republicans Tear Into Biden’s Proposed $7.3 Trillion 2025 Budget: ‘Disregard for Fiscal Responsibility’

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives issued a statement blasting President Joe Biden’s proposed government funding plan for fiscal year 2025. 

On Monday morning, Biden unveiled a $7.3 trillion budget plan, which would include proposals to hike taxes on corporations and high-income households, laying out approximately $5 trillion in tax increases overall. The White House claims that would be split evenly between corporations and the top 2% of earners. 

The budget plan also pushes forward several of Biden’s progressive policies, including dedicating $8 billion over 10 years to the American Climate Corps and $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries fight climate change, and includes $1.8 billion toward boosting development programs in the STEM fields that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The U.S. national debt is currently just over $34.5 trillion, according to the U.S. Debt Clock.

“The price tag of President Biden’s proposed budget is yet another glaring reminder of this Administration’s insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the Democrats’ disregard for fiscal responsibility. Biden’s budget doesn’t just miss the mark – it is a roadmap to accelerate America’s decline,” read a joint statement by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY). “While hardworking Americans struggle with crushing inflation and mounting national debt, the President would increase their pain to spend trillions of additional taxpayer dollars to advance his left-wing agenda.”

The budget, which is largely symbolic and has little to no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House, is a significant part of the president’s pitch to voters as he seeks to win another term in November.

Last week, House Republicans advanced their own budget, which would cut $14 trillion in federal spending over 10 years by slashing federal benefits and social programs, among other areas. It also aims to reduce taxes and roll back Biden’s green energy subsidies.

The fiscal year 2025 discussions come as negotiations continue on how to fund the remainder of fiscal year 2024. Congress passed half of their 12 spending bills for the remainder of 2024 in a massive $460 billion package last week, and the remainder must be funded by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Source: CF