First Dem senator calls for Biden to drop out ‘for the good of the country’
A Democratic senator became the first in Congress’s upper chamber to call on President Biden to exit the 2024 race on Wednesday night, and left the question of Biden’s successor open-ended. “We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post on Wednesday, which was published shortly after the Senate adjourned for the evening. SENATE DEMS TEST WHETHER ABORTION CAN BREAK THROUGH TALK OF BIDEN CONCERNS Only one day earlier, Welch didn’t answer a question from Fox News Digital about whether he wanted Biden to be the party’s nominee. “He’s our nominee,” he said. In his essay, Welch heaped praise onto Biden and his presidency. “But I, like folks across the country, am worried about November’s election,” he added. BIDEN ADVISERS TO JOIN SENATE DEMS FOR SPECIAL MEETING AMID SWELLING CONCERNS “For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” the senator wrote. He urged Biden to “reassess whether he is the best candidate” to beat former President Trump. “In my view, he is not,” Welch said. For a replacement, Welch said Vice President Kamala Harris is “a capable, proven leader,” but stopped short of endorsing her alone. He added, “we have other electable, young, energizing Democratic governors and senators in swing states.” TOP DEM CONTRADICTS PAST DEFENSE OF BIDEN ABILITY: ‘MUST DO MORE’ TO PROVE HIMSELF Welch laid out all the problems he sees with Trump’s candidacy in the op-ed, but noted, “the national conversation is focused on President Biden’s age and capacity” instead. “Only he can change it,” the Democrat said of Biden. The Vermont senator cited “real concerns of regular voters who I’ve heard from recently” about Biden, explaining that they “are worried that he can’t win this time, and they’re terrified of another Trump presidency.” WARNER SAYS PEOPLE ARE ‘RAISING SOME QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO GET ASKED’ ABOUT BIDEN “These new shifts — in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — must be taken seriously, not denied or ignored,” Welch warned of the new polls coming out of previously safe states for Democrats. Welch ended the essay by once again pleading with Biden “to put us first, as he has done before. I urge him to do it now.” While the Vermont Democrat is the first in his caucus to make the request of Biden, he isn’t the only one making his concern known. On Tuesday, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., shared that he told his colleagues during a caucus meeting that he didn’t believe Biden could beat Trump in an appearance on CNN. The Senate Democrats discussed Biden and his candidacy during their regularly scheduled caucus meeting on Tuesday, where Bennet said he made his worry known. Democratic senators will also be headed to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) on Thursday afternoon for a special meeting with top Biden campaign advisers. Senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, and campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon will join the senators, a source familiar confirmed to Fox News Digital.
Beryl power outages crowd hospitals, delay new admissions
In Houston, discharged patients remain in an arena to avoid powerless homes. Some 70 miles north, Livingston’s hospital is one of 17 in the state relying on a generator because of Hurricane Beryl power outages.
Trump likens possible VP pick to ‘young Abraham Lincoln’ for one surprising reason
Former President Donald Trump is comparing one of the top names on his running mate shortlist to a “young Abraham Lincoln” for a reason you may not have expected. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee made the comparison to Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday when asked about a recent report by the conservative-leaning website The Bulwark that said he found facial hair like Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance’s to be distasteful. “No. I’ve never heard that one,” Trump said when asked about the report, which suggested Vance’s facial hair could potentially hinder his selection as his running mate. “He looks good… He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln.” BIDEN CAMPAIGN SCHEDULE REVEALS PRESIDENT’S PLANS AMID CALLS TO EXIT 2024 RACE Vance is one of a few top names either rumored or reported to be on Trump’s shortlist, which includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. However, the first-term senator and rising star in the party has been viewed by some top GOP strategists as the best choice to flip traditional working-class Democrat votes in a number of battleground states. Trump’s pick remains a mystery for the time being, but the former president said during a Monday appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” he would “probably” name the individual “a little before” next week’s Republican National Convention. “It could even be during the convention that we’d do it,” he reiterated after stating such timing could be “a little complicated.” Trump will hold a rally near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, not far from the Ohio border, on Saturday, but there’s no word at this time if Vance will join him. Vance’s team declined to comment for this story. Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Amy Coney Barrett asserts her voice, carries on Scalia legacy
After her fourth term on the bench, Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett is asserting her voice and following in the footsteps of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a pioneer of originalism on the high court and her former boss. Barrett, appointed by President Donald Trump in October 2020 to fill the seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, surprised some this term by voting in a few key cases with the Democrat-appointed minority. But legal experts say that the former law professor is proving that her interpretation of the Constitution is consistent with what the Founding Fathers intended, and that disagreements between her and her fellow conservative justices should be “celebrated.” “This term we have seen all the originalist justices engaged in a healthy debate about how to apply tenets of originalism and textualism in many different contexts,” Carrie Severino, president of JCN, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “And that is a sign that the originalist project has matured, and that the justices are fleshing out these important principles, and it should be celebrated.” AOC FILES ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST JUSTICES ALITO, THOMAS, ALLEGES ‘UNCHECKED CORRUPTION’ For many years, a widely lauded and accepted judicial philosophy was that the Constitution was a “living and breathing document.” But conservative legal practitioners contested that approach as too volatile to political whims, judicially inappropriate and a departure from what the founders actually wrote in their original intent. But in the 1980s, the concept of an originalist interpretation of the law started to grow, largely driven by Reagan-appointed Justice Scalia. “It used to be that the late, great, Justice Scalia was basically the only originalist on the court,” said John Shu, a constitutional lawyer and former official in both Bush administrations. “Then, in 1991, it became Scalia and Thomas and sometimes Rehnquist. In 2005 and 2006, it became Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. And since 2017, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and of course Justice Barrett joined the Court, and she is very much following in Justice Scalia’s, for whom she clerked, footsteps.” Some experts say that approach bore out this term when Barrett sided with her liberal colleagues in the case in which the majority ruled in favor of a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot who challenged his conviction for a federal “obstruction” crime. That case will likely aid the legal arguments of former President Trump who was charged with obstruction, among other crimes, by Special Counsel Jack Smith. JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT SAYS PUBLIC SCRUTINY OF SCOTUS IS ‘WELCOME’ In her dissent, Barrett wrote that by “narrowing” a federal statute, the Court “failed to respect the prerogatives of the political branches.” “[S]tatutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway,” Barrett wrote, adding that the Court’s majority abandoned that approach and does “textual backflips to find some way— any way—to narrow the reach” of the statue at issue. Severino says that in her dissent, Barrett was “exactly in line” with Scalia’s approach to that type of clause. “Within originalism and textualism, there are people who in some particular instances may disagree on how those principles apply in a specific case,” Severino wrote. “So it’s not surprising that Barrett is going to have a different approach than Thomas or Alito or Gorsuch or Kavanaugh. They all have their own slightly different flavors, different personality, to exactly how they apply those,” Severino said. “It’s a great sign that the justices are openly discussing what’s the best way to apply originalism and textualism, the original intent and the actual text, which is what good and fair judges are supposed to do,” said Shu. “Justice Barrett’s opinions from this term indicate that the Scalia approach, over time, carried the day,” he said. “He also was great at showing how the originalist perspective is the common-sense perspective, and the one most faithful to the law and to a judge’s responsibilities.” Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, noted that Barrett “was law professor for a long time, so she has a different background than everybody else on the court.” “She’s very thoughtful, she’s very intellectual, she’s very theoretical. She wants to get the theory right. She’s a professor’s justice,” he observed. “She’s still very much in the Scalia mode. She’s thinking about how to apply history and tradition and what that test means, and getting the theory of the matter right,” he said. Which he said “was clear in the immunity decision, where she agreed fully with Robert’s majority opinion, but said it would have been better to reframe this as an unconstitutional application of criminal law, rather than calling it immunity.” BIDEN’S SCOTUS CRITIQUES LARGELY UNPRECEDENTED, EXPERTS SAY, CONTRAST WITH CLINTON’S DEFERENCE IN 2000 “She’s not a moderate. She’s not a centrist. She’s not moving left,” Shapiro said. “She’s an originalist and a textualist.” Jennifer Mascott, law professor at Catholic University and former Justice Department official, said Barrett’s writings this term “show a highly intelligent, careful principal jurist who is looking herself, as all the justices do, independently at the questions before her, and just taking the time for the American public to explain in important cases where she may have done something differently than the majority opinion.” Notably, Barrett authored a concurrence in the case in which the high court unanimously ruled that Colorado could not remove Trump from 2024 election ballot. “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” she wrote. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.” The former Notre Dame professor is not without criticism on the right, with some conservative observers saying she can be too cautious or timid when it comes to upsetting precedent.
John Bolton claims just two questions matter in Trump’s VP decision
As former President Donald Trump narrows the field of his prospective running mates, a senior official from his previous administration says he may only ask two questions of each candidate before he makes his decision. Former national security adviser John Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday that he thinks the questions that are most important to the presumptive GOP nominee are, “No. 1, do you think the 2020 election was stolen? And number 2, ‘If I told you to do what I told Mike Pence to do on Jan. 6, would you do it?’” It has been widely reported that three names remain in play for the Republican VP spot: Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Vance and Burgum are considered front-runners with Rubio more of a long shot. THE VEEPSTAKES GOES ‘APPRENTICE’: WILL TRUMP REALLY PICK RUBIO, VANCE OR BURGUM? The former cabinet member said the right answers may move any of those candidates up in Trump’s view, but said at a personal cost, “it would be a great loss of integrity for any of those people if they said ‘Yes’ to both those questions,” Bolton said. “I think the highest priority is absolute personal loyalty to him,” Bolton said of Trump, reminding viewers that although former Vice President Mike Pence was loyal to the former President, on January 6, 2021 when Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, Pence was the one person among senior members of the administration that stood up to Trump saying he did the “right thing even when the rest of them failed.” He went on to say of the current VP hopefuls, “I don’t know whether these three are capable of doing that, honestly,”. TRUMP VP CHOICES ARE ‘EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES,’ THE CHOICE IS IMMINENT: JASON MILLER Trump has hinted that he will announce his choice for running mate at next week’s Republican National Convention. The former president even said he has a good idea who it will be. Bolton thinks his former boss shouldn’t make the announcement at the RNC next week while Biden’s campaign is still dealing with the question of his mental fitness and ability to lead the country, let alone beat his predecessor in a general election. “There’s no news that is gonna come out of the Republican National Convention, other than the vice presidential nomination. Why waste it in a week when the Democrats may still be talking about whether Joe Biden is competent to be president,” Bolton said. While it’s widely believed that Vance or Burgum will be the former president’s choice, Bolton warned, “I think what we have to remember with Trump is, it’s never final ’til it’s final and then sometimes it’s still not final,” Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
‘Obama bro’ confirms claims in Clooney’s damaging op-ed on Biden’s mental fitness
A former adviser to President Obama broke his silence concerning President Biden’s mental fitness on Wednesday, just hours after a damaging op-ed by actor George Clooney was published in The New York Times calling on the president to quit the 2024 race. “It was not surprising to any of us who were at the fundraiser. I was there. Clooney was exactly right, and every single person I talked to at the fundraiser thought the same thing, except for the people working for Joe Biden, or at least they didn’t say that,” Jon Favreau, a member of the group often referred to as the “Obama bros” during his tenure in the White House, said during an appearance on CNN. Favreau was citing the same fundraiser as Clooney in his guest essay where the actor claimed the Biden that showed up there was “not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” ‘OBAMA BROS’ GANG UP ON BIDEN AS LONGSTANDING RUMORS OF TENSION LINGER: ‘HARD TO WATCH’ Clooney wrote that Democratic Party leaders needed to stop trying to convince Americans they “didn’t see what we just saw,” and accused them of ignoring “warning signs” concerning Biden. Favreau agreed, telling CNN, “I remember my wife, Emily, turned to me after the fundraiser and said, ‘What are we going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, there is a debate in a week. Either he’ll do well in the debate, and we’ll think he was just tired because he flew all the way back from Europe, and that’ll be that, or he’ll be like this at the debate and then the whole country will be talking about it. So, here we are.” Favreau’s blunt comments come just a day after he joined two of his fellow advisers and members of the “Obama bros” in dedicating the majority of their latest “Pod Save America” episode to ganging up on Biden following his poor performance in the first presidential debate and in a subsequent interview. BIDEN CAMPAIGN SCHEDULE REVEALS PRESIDENT’S PLANS AMID CALLS TO EXIT 2024 RACE “I thought it was bad, and, at times, very hard to watch,” former Obama adviser Tommy Vietor said during the podcast, referencing Biden’s sit-down interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last week that came as part of an effort by Biden to quell critics calling for him to exit the presidential race. “The debate was just a bad night. We all saw it,” fellow former adviser Jon Lovett said. “The explanations are kind of vague… That doesn’t do enough to assuage our concerns about what we saw that night. Right? So, the explanations don’t offer anything.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Biden has said he will not be leaving the 2024 race, and his campaign is continuing to go “full steam ahead,” as one source put it to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. Fox News’ Kristine Parks contributed to this report. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Israel orders Palestinians to leave Gaza city as Doha truce talks continue
The Israeli military has ordered all Palestinians to leave Gaza City and head south, as it presses ahead with a fresh offensive across the north, south and centre of the Gaza Strip that has killed dozens of people over the past 48 hours. Leaflets dropped from the air on Wednesday urged “everyone in Gaza City” to leave and to take “safe routes” south towards Deir el-Balah and az-Zawayda. Gaza’s interior ministry has called on residents in Gaza City to refrain from following Israeli evacuation orders, saying the instructions are a part of the Israeli army’s psychological warfare against Palestinians. The United Nations said the latest evacuations “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times”. “The civilians must be protected,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. Reporting from Deir-el Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said that Palestinians in Gaza City – where Israeli attacks have intensified – felt trapped and did not know where to go. “Let me also remind you that there are no civil defence teams, and there’s no Red Cross. No one is there to evacuate those Palestinians,” she said. Israel issued the first formal evacuation order for part of the city on June 27, and two more in the following days. The government says it is pursuing Hamas fighters who are regrouping in various parts of Gaza nine months into the war. The renewed ground assault started in the city’s eastern Shujayea neighbourhood, but this week tanks also moved to central and western districts, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee southwards. Israel ramps up attacks in Gaza The latest evacuation order comes a day after an Israeli air attack on al-Awdah School, killed at least 30 people and wounded 53 others, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian medics. Exclusive footage from the school, obtained by Al Jazeera, shows young Palestinians playing football outside the school as dozens of people watch. Then a loud explosion is heard, sending people running for cover. A Palestinian boy told Al Jazeera he lost several relatives in the attack. “We were sitting and a missile fell and destroyed everything,” he said, sobbing. “I lost my uncle, my cousins and my relatives.” The attack has been condemned by world leaders and the Israeli military has said it is investigating. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on X that two-thirds of the schools it administers in the Gaza Strip, which have served as shelters for displaced Palestinians since the war began, have been hit, killing 524 people. “UN structures, schools and shelters are not a target,” it said. On Wednesday, the Israeli army also said it attacked fighters inside the headquarters of UNRWA. In a visit to central Gaza on Wednesday, Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said forces were operating in different ways, in multiple parts of the territory “to carry out a very important mission: pressure”. “We will continue operating to bring home the hostages,” Halevi said. At least 38,295 people have been killed and 88,241 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian officials. Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday that 52 Palestinians were killed and 208 injured in the previous 24 hours. Israel launched its war on Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics, and seized about 250 others as hostages, dozens of whom remain in captivity in Gaza. Progress in ceasefire talks? The stepped-up Israeli military activity comes as United States, Egyptian and Qatari mediators met with Israeli officials in Qatar’s capital, Doha, for talks seeking a long-elusive ceasefire deal and an exchange of captives held by Hamas for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Hamas officials have raised concerns that heavy Israeli strikes in recent days along the length of the territory could derail the negotiations. Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, said on Monday that Israel’s escalating assault has threatened talks at a crucial time and could bring negotiations “back to square one”. Hamas, however, still wants international mediators to guarantee that truce talks in Doha conclude with a permanent ceasefire. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted he will not agree to any deal forcing Israel to stop its campaign in Gaza without eliminating Hamas. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Last chance’: Activist Leonard Peltier’s family reflects on life in prison
For decades, the family has pushed for Peltier’s release. But he was previously denied parole in 2009, and attempts to petition for a presidential pardon have been rejected. Peltier’s lawyer Kevin Sharp told US media in June that he considered this month’s parole hearing to be the activist’s “last chance” to be free. But in the lead-up to the hearing, FBI director Christopher Wray wrote a fiery letter expressing “adamant opposition” to Peltier’s release, describing him as a “remorseless killer”. “Peltier is a ruthless murderer who has shown an utter lack of remorse for his many crimes,” Wray wrote. “His release would strike a serious blow to the rule of law.” With the failure of Peltier’s most recent application, the parole commission scheduled an interim hearing for 2026. The next full parole hearing will be in June 2039, by which time Peltier will be 94 years old. Sharp said he plans to appeal this month’s decision. He maintains his client may not survive the wait. Leonard Peltier’s family said they would like him remembered for his activism [Courtesy of Chauncey Peltier] According to Peltier’s family, the activist contends with several serious health conditions, including kidney disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. He also suffered a stroke in 1986 that left him nearly blind in one eye. And in January 2016, he was diagnosed with a life-threatening abdominal aortic aneurysm. “I know he won’t make it to his next parole with the conditions he’s living under. He won’t make it that long,” said Pamela Bravo, Betty Ann’s daughter. She remembers Peltier as her “cool uncle” who used to drive her around the Turtle Mountain Reservation in his convertible car. Her aunt Sheila Peltier warned that, even if Peltier lived to see his next parole hearing, some of his family members might not. He has already lost his parents, a son and a few of his siblings. “We might not even be here. I might not even be here,” Sheila, 59, said. “We’re hoping that this appeal goes through.” She explained that, by speaking out, she aims to remind the world of the good Peltier has done — and that his life did not begin and end at the shootout at Pine Ridge. “He also did a lot for his people,” Sheila said, citing his work with the American Indian Movement. “AIM, they got us fishing rights, our water rights and the Child Act,” she added, referencing the Indian Child Welfare Act, which passed in 1977 as a result of sustained Indigenous advocacy. Leonard Peltier, left, with his wife and family before he was incarcerated in 1977 [Courtesy of Chauncey Peltier] Chauncey, too, would like to see his father recognised for his activism — and for the hardships he faced as an Indigenous man in the US. Peltier, for instance, was a survivor of the Indigenous boarding school system, a web of government- and church-run institutions designed to wipe out Native culture. “He stands for what our people have been struggling with for 500 years,” Chauncey explained. “His release would start the healing of what Native people have gone through for 500 years.” Ultimately, Chauncey said, his father is no threat, “just an old man”. He believes it’s past time for Peltier to be released. “He just wants to go home and paint and work on old cars.” Adblock test (Why?)
What’s next for NATO?
Military alliance marks 75 years at summit with Ukraine war centre stage. The Russia-Ukraine war and the risk of Donald Trump becoming US president again are major issues at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington. The military alliance faces many challenges. What are they and what’s next for NATO? Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom Guests: Shashank Joshi – Defence editor at The Economist. Janine di Giovanni – Foreign policy analyst who has reported from several NATO wars as a correspondent Geoffrey Roberts – Emeritus professor of history at University College Cork Adblock test (Why?)
Newsom under fire for ignoring state’s problems while out campaigning for Biden-Harris ticket
President Biden’s inability to energetically campaign has pushed surrogates such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom into extra work rallying for the president — as he faces mounting pressure from his base to drop out — instead of focusing on his own state’s woes. This week, Newsom rallied Democrats in Michigan and Pennsylvania before stumping for Biden in New Hampshire — which has been reliably Democratic the last few decades, but now appears to be a 2024 battleground — as part of his swing state tour on the Biden-Harris campaign trail. “I think most of America doesn’t understand that Gavin Newsom’s goal is to be president, and it’s always been that,” state Sen. Brian Dahle, who ran against Newsom during the special recall election in 2022, told Fox News Digital in an interview. BIDEN ‘WORKING THE PHONES’ IN BATTLE TO SAVE RE-ELECTION BID, WITH DEMOCRATS STARTING TO RETURN TO HIS CAMP “Our budget’s upside down. We have businesses leaving California. You can’t afford to live here, and so those are all things that obviously we need to work on here, and he’s not here to work on those,” Dahle said. Last month, the state’s Democrat-dominated legislature passed a controversial budget package intended to close an estimated $46.8 billion deficit which Republicans say they were largely left out of. Newsom, who has vehemently denied he’s running a “shadow campaign” to replace the president, said during a Biden-Harris rally in Michigan on Thursday that he was tapped by the campaign and has been “going wherever” the Biden administration asks him, and doing “whatever task, large and small, because I believe in this man.” “I believe in his character,” he said. Biden’s campaign also held an all-hands conference call on Monday with Democratic National Committee staffers, hoping to address collapsing morale, according to a report. Newsom was present on that call and reportedly urged Biden staffers to “worry less.” “I plead with you: Worry less, do the work,” Newsom told Biden staffers on the call, according to Axios. “I think there is an old African proverb that says, ‘You wanna go fast, go alone. You wanna go far, go together.’ And that’s what this is all about.” BIDEN EXITING RACE BUT SERVING OUT TERM WOULD LEAVE HARRIS IN DILEMMA: EXPERT On Wednesday, however, Newsom held a press conference in California about the state’s excessive heat and large number of wildfires burning. Fox News Digital reached out to the governor’s office to get more information about his Biden-Harris campaign schedule, and a spokesperson said his office is “not currently tracking any additional out-of-state travel on the immediate horizon.” The spokesperson added that “the Governor was regularly briefed on timely incidents, making emergency response decisions, and addressing key issues impacting the state.” Meanwhile, California continues to lose residents in droves to other conservative states, and its big cities are struggling with lowering crime and reducing homelessness. The Golden State has nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, totaling more than 181,000 people living outdoors, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2023 homelessness assessment. “You can’t afford to live in California. It’s because we have regulations and just a liberal legislature that continues to drive up the cost of everything,” Dahle said. “And so housing is high, electricity is high, food’s high, everything is higher.” “The thing about Gavin Newsom is he’ll put out a policy and talk about it and talk about spending money, but none of it’s worked. He spent $20 billion on homelessness, and we did nothing but increase homelessness,” he said. BIDEN TELLS WHITE HOUSE AUDIENCE HE’S ‘NOT GOING ANYWHERE’ DURING FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION After Biden’s lackluster performance during the debate against former President Trump last month, Newsom was present and assured reporters in the spin room that he remained firmly behind Biden. “I will never turn my back on President Biden,” Newsom said Thursday in a comment that appeared designed to dispel rumors that he’s running a shadow campaign. “I don’t know a Democrat in my party that would do so. And especially after tonight, we have his back.” Leading up to the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, Biden’s mental acuity became the center of political discourse after a bombshell Wall Street Journal report — which the White House dismissed — revealed that many lawmakers on Capitol Hill had questions. Fox News Digital’s Timothy Nerozzi contributed to this report.