Joe Biden

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign is off to a lackluster start, and some conservative donors who are desperate to be rid of former President Donald Trump are telling him to shape up.

CNN reports that some right-wing fundraisers are still unhappy with DeSantis' most recent missteps, including a video released by a pro-DeSantis PAC that criticized former President Donald Trump's 2016 pledge to protect LGBTQ Americans from Islamic State terrorists.

U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), along with a host of far-right wing critics on social media are fear-mongering over a Thursday White House memo announcing President Joe Biden as Commander in Chief has ordered up to 3000 reservists to be ready for deployment to Europe. Some are falsely claiming this could lead to war with Russia, World War III, or a reinstatement of the draft.

“It’s not clear whether the troops will actually be deployed,” Politico reports, “but it suggests the U.S. military presence in Europe is under strain.”

Special counsel Jack Smith recently sent a target letter to a staffer working for former President Donald Trump that indicated "he might have perjured himself" when talking to investigators this past May, reports ABC News.

According to the report, the letter "signals Smith's growing interest in the Trump Organization's handling of the surveillance footage and potential efforts to avoid sharing it with investigators."

Evangelical Christians in Iowa who backed former President Donald Trump in 2020 are expressing unease about nominating him again in 2024.

Semafor reports that a Frank Luntz-led group of Iowa evangelicals this week found cracks in the former president's support despite the fact that polls show him easily beating top rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The three leading Democrats in the House said in a joint statement late Thursday that they will vote no on an annual military policy bill that typically passes with overwhelming bipartisan support, citing Republican amendments restricting abortion access for service members and barring the Pentagon from covering gender-affirming care.

"Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said following hours of votes on mostly Republican-authored amendments.

Donald Trump is trying to reach potential voters who don't engage with traditional news media by appearing on podcasts and showing up at combat sporting events.

The former president turned up recently on boxing legend Mike Tyson's podcast "Hotboxin'" as part of his campaign's strategic outreach to men who are interested in combat or contact sports but don't watch much news, and he'll appear on the popular "UFC Unfiltered" podcast after making an appearance at an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas, reported Politico.

Fox News host "Judge" Jeanine Pirro on Thursday's edition of "The Five" demanded to know why President Joe Biden's son gets so much attention.

In a segment titled, "Cocaine 'Cover Up'," Pirro and her right-wing compatriots were criticizing the U.S. Secret Service's investigation into a small bag of cocaine that was found in a heavily-trafficked guest area of the White House. The investigation proved inconclusive, with agents unable to determine who left the drug.

The advocacy group Food & Water Watch on Thursday called out Republicans on a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee panel for pushing a 64% cut to a pair of federal clean water funds in the next fiscal year.

"House Republicans should be ashamed of themselves," declared Mary Grant, the group's Public Water for All campaign director, in a statement. "Their spending proposal threatens the very safety of our country's water and wastewater systems for the sake of political showmanship."

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) slammed his Republican colleagues on the House Oversight Committee Thursday, over Chairman Jim Comer's decision to work with a so-called "whistleblower" who was indicted by the U.S., Dept. of Justice on a litany of alleged federal crimes including arms trafficking, working as an unregistered foreign agent for China, and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.

That witness, Gal Luft, was one of Comer's star informants in the Chairman's campaign to baselessly paint President Joe Biden and his family as international criminals, using in part “second-hand hearsay,” as Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said last month. Luft is a fugitive from justice and on the run, DOJ says.

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, introduced the amendment with the backing of Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, and 70 other Republican co-sponsors.

Jackson argued that the Department of Defense policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of federal funds for abortion.

“I absolutely will not waver in my defense of the rule of law, therefore, ensuring that taxpayer money does not kill innocent babies,” Jackson said on the House floor.

Reimbursing service members for abortion-related travel if they live in states where abortion is not available recently became an issue in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Tommy Tuberville. R-Alabama, has held up 250 military promotions in protest, creating a backlog and leaving key positions unfilled.

Adding Jackson’s amendment — and several others that were adopted Thursday, including limits on gender-affirming care — is likely to jeopardize bipartisan support for the National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress has annually adopted for more than 60 consecutive years. The proposed 2024 NDAA would authorize $886.3 billion in national defense spending, including additional resources for Ukraine as well as quality-of-life improvements for service members, such as a 5.2% pay raise.

Few Democrats are expected to support the bill in its amended form, forcing House majority leadership to rely on finding most or all of the necessary 218 votes from Republicans.

Republicans’ narrow majority in the House forced leadership to accept the demands of its more conservative wing and allow votes on several hot-button amendments, including two from Roy expected Thursday night — one to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the Department of Defense and another to prohibit the department from carrying out President Joe Biden’s executive orders on climate change.

The lone Democratic vote for Jackson’s abortion amendment came from Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Cuellar, considered one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, is a longtime opponent of abortion rights.

Other Texas Democrats opposed the amendment, expressing concern about its impact on service members. The Biden administration policy was aimed at lowering barriers to abortion for service members in states with restrictive abortion laws.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, called the amendment a “backdoor effort” to ban abortion at the federal level.

After the amendment was adopted on a 221-213 vote, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, spoke on the House floor to criticize Republicans for bringing partisan issues into a typically bipartisan process.

“In 2021, women made up more than 17% of our active-duty force — 231,000 members — and 21% of our National Guard and Reserves. More than 23,000 of them are stationed in Texas. Every day the women of the United States military fight for our freedom, and yet today House Republicans are asking these women to fight for your freedom while they just voted to take away theirs,” Fletcher said.