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The Republican Party's best opportunity to capture California's governorship in two decades is imploding as its two leading candidates savage each other in an increasingly vicious primary battle that threatens to destroy their joint advantage.

According to the Los Angeles Times, under California's "jungle primary" rules, the top two vote-getters in the June primary advance to November regardless of party. Fox News personality Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco have been positioned to advance because Democrats failed to coalesce behind a single nominee.

But that advantage is rapidly disintegrating.

Bianco, the archetypal law-and-order GOP candidate initially seemed positioned to capitalize on his law enforcement credentials. "If we took the names and the party off of the ballot and simply went up with resume — we made you all read a resume of who you're going to put as your next governor — I would win this election 100% to nothing," Bianco confidently told a GOP women's group.

But his badge has offered no protection from Hilton's blistering attacks on Bianco's past statements about immigration, pandemic mask mandates, and Black Lives Matter protests — positions that are proving disqualifying for significant portions of GOP voters.

The two Republicans traded brutal personal attacks at their first one-on-one debate in Rancho Mirage. Hilton accused Bianco of "coddling illegal immigrants" and called him "wishy-washy." Bianco responded by labeling Hilton, a British immigrant himself, a "fraud" and "heartless" for denying others the same pathway to citizenship he received.

"What an outrageous and offensive insult that Chad just made to every legal immigrant in this state and in this country," Hilton fumed.

Hilton has adopted the attack line "shifty sheriff," a label that's resonating with some voters. One GOP voter, Agnes Gibboney, 71, of Rancho Cucamonga, voiced her frustration: "The man lies. The man is not honest about taking a knee to BLM, which is unacceptable. And coming up with three, four different excuses is unacceptable. And then to get mad at the voters for asking the question."

Bianco has countered by portraying Hilton as a shape-shifting opportunist, highlighting his past championing of climate change while advising British Prime Minister David Cameron and his expressed support for Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 positions. Bianco has also circulated social media images of Hilton hugging California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

"Steve is a fraud. He's a liar, and I'm not going to sit by and just let him do it anymore," Bianco declared after the Rancho Mirage debate. "When he starts attacking me, he starts attacking my deputies, my profession, I'm not gonna let it happen anymore."

The internal GOP warfare threatens the party's entire strategy. The California Republican Party is meeting this weekend in San Diego to decide on an endorsement, but neither candidate appears positioned to secure the required 60% vote threshold. Most polls show both Republicans as top contenders despite registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans nearly 2-to-1 statewide.

GOP voters are growing anxious about the primary bloodletting. "We don't want to split, right? That's a problem," said Jane Price, 77, of Sherman Oaks, a longtime GOP activist. "The state of California is at stake. We were thriving here in California. But now, it has been nothing but a downhill slide. We need people who appreciate what California is all about."

The party's fracturing is precisely what Democrats hoped for when they declined to consolidate behind a single candidate.

Donald Trump's public tough-guy posturing on China masks a stunning capitulation to Beijing. When Pentagon officials presented a draft National Defense Strategy last fall that characterized China as the top U.S. security threat — the same assessment his own first administration endorsed — Trump ordered it rewritten in friendlier terms.

According to the Wall Street Journal's Heather Somerville, Alexander Ward, and Gavin Bade, Trump "balked" at the Pentagon assessment and commanded his deputy to soften the language. The revised National Defense Strategy published in January struck an entirely different tone.

"President Trump seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China," the document now declares — a stunning reversal from the bipartisan consensus that characterized China as the most consequential U.S. adversary.

The shift represents a seismic policy reversal. Trump's own first-term defense strategy took the same hardline approach the Pentagon recommended. Now Trump 2.0 is discarding that bipartisan framework in favor of a new mantra: "Don't rock the boat."

The capitulation goes far deeper than rhetoric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has imposed a stranglehold on China policy, requiring his personal sign-off for any China-related actions. The result is Kafkaesque: senior Commerce officials sit waiting by Lutnick's office or watch for his car outside the building before pursuing routine China policy actions.

Other agencies have resorted to workarounds, pursuing a ban on a China-linked router maker by strategically avoiding naming either the company or China in the official order — essentially hiding policy from public view.

The reversal has alarmed Trump's own national security aides. China hawks in the administration have adopted gallows humor, calling the shift the "Busan Freeze," referencing the South Korea meeting between Trump and Xi that produced a fragile trade detente.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials appealed to Trump to walk back tariffs and dial down the trade war so minerals could flow from China again — an apparent capitulation to economic pressure over strategic security.

The pivot was deliberate and premeditated. Trump initially asked national security advisers to develop a harder line on China's technological encroachment. But the president later abandoned the restrictions, and in April, Trump fired Douglas Feith and other China hawks from the National Security Council, dismantling the directorate that had coordinated administration actions on tech and China.

Against a president who fancies himself a master dealmaker, China is clearly winning, the Journal is reporting.

Donald Trump’s attempt to rid himself of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) for being a thorn in his side is not going according to plan, Politico is reporting.

Trump's endorsement has failed to deliver the knockout punch he expected after he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA). "The Trump endorsement has not had a close-out move. Cassidy was ready for her," said GOP state Rep. Mike Bayham. "They defined her before she introduced herself."

Letlow is underwater on every metric. She's been massively outspent by Cassidy on the airwaves, has low name ID compared to her opponents, and faces State Treasurer John Fleming — another candidate with MAGA appeal and his own political network. Running her first statewide campaign under a compressed timeline, she's unable to capitalize on Trump's endorsement or rally the base behind her.

Mark Harris, a Cassidy aide, highlighted the strategic failure: "We're in the middle of a dogfight. Everyone's expectation is that she would shoot to a large lead and that we'd all be running from behind. But frankly I think they just weren't ready for this race."

Letlow's campaign strategy has been catastrophically flawed. Her ads have almost exclusively focused on her Trump endorsement rather than attacking Cassidy or defining herself to voters. Meanwhile, Cassidy has gone hard after her on the airwaves.

Letlow's other major vulnerability: geography. She hails from a rural district in north Louisiana far from the population centers of New Orleans and Baton Rouge — a region culturally aligned with the Deep South and vastly different from the Catholic, Cajun, and Creole influence dominating southern Louisiana.

"People haven't met her. She's almost invisible as a candidate," said East Baton Rouge Parish Chair Woody Jenkins. "When you're just meeting someone new in politics, and you hear all these bad things, you might have a first impression, but you tend to start having second thoughts. And he's just relentless in it."

The race has become a critical test of Trump's power. His approval ratings are at all-time lows, and his ability to remove Republicans who crossed him — like Cassidy's 2021 impeachment conviction vote — is now in serious question.

MAGA Inc. has remained mysteriously silent about whether it will spend money on Letlow for the primary or runoff, suggesting internal doubts about her viability.

Donald Trump's refusal to referee his fractured party has created a legislative gridlock that's paralyzing Congress — with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) locked in a standoff that's grinding all major legislation to a halt.

According to Politico, Trump appears far more invested in overseas military adventures and personal brand-building than solving his own party's internal warfare. The president could intervene to settle disputes, but he has kept his distance in most cases, leaving each chamber pushing ahead with competing proposals.

The only issue where Trump has shown real leadership interest — passage of the SAVE America Act — has only made internal divisions worse. Conservative lawmakers and Trump are treating the non-citizen voting ban as a "No. 1 priority," but many Senate Republicans doubt it can survive the chamber's 60-vote filibuster threshold.

House hard-liners are pushing for a workaround, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) proposing a "talking filibuster" that would force Democrats to hold the floor continuously to block the bill. The Senate will resume debate next week with no indication of when GOP leaders will hold a likely doomed vote and move on.

Some Republicans, including Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC), want to pass parts through reconciliation later this fall. But hard-liners view that as a "nonstarter" because most of the bill violates Senate reconciliation rules.

The biggest firefight: DHS funding. A Senate-passed bill has been stuck in the House for nearly a month. Republicans there rejected the plan to fund ICE through reconciliation — an idea Speaker Johnson previously called "garbage" before flipping to support it.

Now the House is demanding the Senate pass immigration enforcement funding first. The Freedom Caucus has gone further, demanding GOP leaders fund all of DHS through reconciliation.

With a Trump-imposed June 1 deadline looming and the pre-midterm legislative calendar shrinking, GOP leaders are staring down a protracted intraparty war. One GOP senator already called the dysfunction a "circular firing squad."