AOC’s luxury spending binge in Puerto Rico reignites questions about ‘socialist’ brand: ‘Peak hypocrisy’
After dropping nearly $50,000 in Puerto Rico on luxury hotels, upscale dining and a venue rental where musical artist Bad Bunny was performing earlier this year, critics of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are questioning whether her socialist persona is more branding than belief considering she is living like the elitists she claims to fight. “This is not new for her, she’s a hypocrite,” former White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said of the revelations about AOC’s campaign spending. “Remember the dress that she wore to that famous MET Gala, where it said ‘Tax The Rich’ – it wasn’t exactly ‘off the rack,’ if you will, it was a designer dress made for her.” Spicer slammed AOC and her other “squad” lawmakers who he argued love to rally against capitalism, but certainly don’t mind benefiting from it. “These people know no bounds. They love to tell everyone what they should do about their carbon footprint, and then they fly private. They love to talk about the excesses of the rich and then they benefit from it, they trade stocks, they get rich in Congress. I’ve pretty much had it with these guys, but at the end of the day it’s great they are being called out on it because the hypocrisy knows no bounds.” DEM HOUSE CANDIDATE’S LUXURIOUS LIFESTYLE CLASHES WITH ‘WORKING-CLASS’ CAMPAIGN MESSAGE Last week, Fox News Digital revealed that in AOC’s latest campaign filings she spent nearly $50,000 in Puerto Rico, around the same time she was known to have traveled there and attended a Bad Bunny concert. Videos that emerged on social media from the August trip show AOC visiting a housing development to rail against gentrification, while other footage from social media showed her dancing in what appears to be box seats at a Bad Bunny concert on Aug. 10 alongside Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y. Between August and September, Bad Bunny held a 31-show “Residency” tour at the popular “El Choli” Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, which was attended by a slew of celebrities like LeBron James, Iggy Azalea, Penelope Cruz and Austin Butler, among others. Meanwhile, a campaign finance report from the third quarter, which records campaign expenses for members of Congress between July 1 and Sept. 30, shows that AOC’s campaign spent over $15,000 at two luxury hotels in San Juan, where Bad Bunny was holding his “Residency” tour. The campaign also spent over $10,500 on meals and catering services, the filings show. FAR-LEFT FIREBRAND ‘REFUSED’ TO PAY HIGH-END CONDO PAYMENTS DESPITE SPENDING SPREE ON LUXURY HOTELS “AOC wouldn’t be a proper socialist if she wasn’t irresponsibly spending someone else’s money,” GOP political strategist Matt Gorman said. “Whether Mamdani, or her, these people claim to advocate for the working people, yet don’t mind treating themselves to the spoils of other people’s money.” “AOC rails nonstop against ‘the rich,’ yet drops tens of thousands in campaign cash on luxury hotels, upscale catering, and elite venues on a Puerto Rico trip,” GOP Florida congressional hopeful Michael Carbonara said in response to AOC’s campaign spending uncovered by Fox News Digital. “Socialism for you, first-class living for her. The hypocrisy writes itself.” Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) called the move “peak hypocrisy from a walking scam.”
Ex-Trump DHS official sounds alarm over national security threat within critical US industry
President Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is sounding the alarm about China infiltrating America’s healthcare systems. Concern about China’s ability to infiltrate United States technology was underscored by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last week between four state attorneys general and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, aimed at ramping up protections against Chinese infiltration of communications equipment and services utilized by the United States. On Monday, the Protecting America Initiative (PAI), a conservative nonprofit aimed at fighting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts “to sabotage America,” launched a campaign to highlight the nation’s vulnerability to China as it relates to medical technology. Earlier this year, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both warned of a “backdoor” in a popular brand of patient monitoring devices. CISA found the so-called backdoor allowed the device to download remote files and send them to an IP address associated with a Chinese university. All schools in China operate under a law requiring them to support national intelligence work when called upon. CHINESE DOCTOR ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTING TO SMUGGLE CANCER RESEARCH FROM US TO CHINA “Americans rely on their doctors who take an oath to keep us safe, and first, do no harm. But when critical medical devices are made by Chinese companies, that puts our safety at risk. Chinese medical devices open the door for the CCP to access sensitive health data. President Trump and his administration always put America First and will safeguard our patients and our privacy from Beijing’s infiltration,” PAI Senior Advisor Chad Wolf told Fox News Digital. “It’s time to remove Chinese medical devices from U.S. hospitals and close the data backdoor, because patient privacy and national security are non‑negotiable.” In June, Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took legal action against the Chinese medical device manufacturers probed by the FDA and CISA, accusing the company of selling “compromised” medical devices that allegedly include a “backdoor” that bad actors can manipulate. In addition to patient data and privacy concerns, Uthmeier was also concerned about the medical device manufacturer, and those distributing its products, selling patient health monitors as approved by the FDA and other international standards, even though they were not. CONGRESS UNVEILS $900B DEFENSE BILL TARGETING CHINA WITH TECH BANS, INVESTMENT CRACKDOWN, US TROOP PAY RAISE China’s expanding presence in American medical supply chains has also been a concern among experts. “China’s growing role within the U.S. medical device supply chains is largely due to the combination of Beijing’s industrial policy and the shifting landscape of American healthcare,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. focusing on foreign affairs and national security, wrote in an October report. “The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated that in 2019, 9.2 percent of U.S.-imported pharmaceuticals and medical equipment came from China — a percentage that ‘likely understates’ American reliance on China for medical products, NIH warned,” the report continues. “This understatement is in part due to the complex nature of medical supply chains — China is both a supplier of raw materials used in medical products and the final point of assembly for goods bound for the United States, obscuring its reach into the American medical system. This percentage also does not account for the value-add or criticality of these goods, particularly those related to biodefense and managing long-term acute health issues.” FDD claims that China has “exploited” the United State’s “reliance” on it by selling and exporting deliberately compromised technology, leading to doctors “unwittingly and unwillingly” playing “Russian roulette with patient treatment plans.”
Senate advances $901B defense bill as Congress races into year-end legislative sprint
The Senate advanced the annual defense policy bill on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on Monday, teeing up final passage later in the week. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2026 is one of the must-pass legislative packages that Congress deals with on an annual basis, and it unlocked billions of dollars in funding for the Pentagon and several other defense-related items. Lawmakers pushed the colossal authorization package through a key procedural hurdle on a 76-20 vote. Senators will get their chance to tweak the package with several amendment votes in the coming days. SENATE ADVANCES 2026 DEFENSE BILL AFTER WEEKS OF DELAY AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON The roughly $901 billion package, which is about $8 billion over what President Donald Trump requested earlier this year, typically acts as a bookend for Congress, capping off the year as one of the few must-pass items on the docket. And, given that there is no government funding deadline to contend with, the NDAA is getting primetime treatment in the Senate. Still, there are myriad items that lawmakers hope to tackle before leaving until the new year, including a fix to expiring Obamacare subsidies, confirming nearly 100 of Trump’s nominees, and a potential five-bill funding package that, if passed, would go a long way toward warding off the specter of another government shutdown come Jan. 30. Scattered throughout the colossal package’s roughly 3,000 pages are several provisions dealing with decades-old war authorities, strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, Ukraine, lifting sanctions, and Washington, D.C.’s, airspace. This year’s NDAA would scrap the 1991 and 2002 authorizations of use of military force (AUMFs) for the Gulf War and Iraq War, respectively. Lawmakers have found rare bipartisan middle ground in their desire to nix the AUMFs, which have been used by previous administrations to engage in conflicts in the Middle East for decades. CONGRESS MOVES TO BLOCK PENTAGON FROM CUTTING US TROOPS IN EUROPE AND SOUTH KOREA Then there is a policy that includes several requirements to fulfill the Pentagon’s travel budget, one of which would force the agency to hand over all unedited footage from the Trump administration’s strikes against alleged drug boats. It’s a pointed provision that underscores the bipartisan concern from Congress over the administration’s handling of the strikes, particularly in the wake of a double-tap strike on Sept. 2 that has seen several lawmakers demand more transparency and access to the footage. There is also a provision that has stirred up controversy among Senate Republicans and Democrats alike that would roll back some safety standards in the Washington, D.C., airspace. It comes on the heels of the collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and passenger jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport earlier this year. CONGRESS RACES AGAINST 3-WEEK DEADLINE TO TACKLE MASSIVE YEAR-END LEGISLATIVE AGENDA Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the top ranking Democrat on the panel, are pushing to have the provision stripped with their own amendment, which would codify the safety tweaks made after the midair collision. Cruz said alongside family members of the victims of the crash, which killed 67, that the provision didn’t go through the ordinary clearances.” “Normally, when you’re adding a provision to the NDAA that impacts aviation, you would request clearance from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee,” Cruz said. “No clearance was requested. We discovered this provision when the final version of the bill dropped out of the House and it was passed.” There are also several provisions that deal with Ukraine, including an extension of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which would authorize $400 million each year to buy weapons from U.S. defense companies. There’s a provision that would prevent the U.S. from quietly cutting off intelligence support to the country by requiring at least 48-hours notice detailing why, how long it would last and the impact on Ukraine. There’s also a provision that would beef up reporting requirements for all foreign aid flowing to Ukraine from the U.S. and other allies supporting the country in its conflict with Russia.
Ilhan Omar claims ICE pulled over her son during ‘racial profiling’ sweep amid Trump’s crackdown in Minnesota
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said that her U.S.-born son was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota on Saturday, raising concerns about “racial profiling” as federal authorities ramp up immigration enforcement across the state. Omar said her son was stopped outside a Target store and released after showing his passport, an encounter that came just days after President Donald Trump defended ICE operations in Minnesota. “Yesterday after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents and once he was able to produce his passport ID they did let him go,” Omar said Sunday during an interview on WCCO-TV, CBS’s Minnesota station. Omar told the station that her son routinely carries his passport because he fears being mistaken for an illegal immigrant. BORDER CZAR TOM HOMAN FIRES BACK AT CNN HOST IN DEFENSE OF ICE TACTICS: ‘THEY’VE BEEN SHOT AT’ “I had to remind him just how worried I am because all of these areas they’re talking about are areas where he can possibly find himself in and they are racially profiling,” she said, adding that ICE is “looking for young men who look Somali.” Minnesota Gov. Walz reacted to the incident on X, writing that Omar’s son was pulled over even though he was following the law. “This isn’t a targeted operation to find violent criminals, it’s racial profiling,” he wrote. CONVICTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHILD KILLER WHO MURDERED INFANT SON ARRESTED IN TWIN CITIES ICE SWEEP The Minnesota representative’s comments came after ICE announced on Friday it has arrested more than 400 illegal immigrants as part of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, including “pedophiles, rapists and violent thugs.” President Donald Trump also told reporters Friday that Omar is “very bad for our country.” The president called Omar and a bloc of Somali migrants in Minnesota “garbage” during a cabinet meeting earlier this month, adding that Somalia “is barely a country, where they run around killing each other.” OMAR COMPARES STEPHEN MILLER’S MIGRANT RHETORIC TO NAZI DESCRIPTIONS OF JEWISH PEOPLE “When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but b—- — we don’t want them in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it,” Trump said. Last week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem asking her to “reassess” her enforcement strategy, stating that multiple U.S. citizens have been arrested by ICE agents across the state. DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN CLAIMS TRUMP’S ICE IS ‘PRIMARILY GOING AFTER INNOCENT PEOPLE, INCLUDING US CITIZENS’ “Reports indicate that some citizens were documenting federal activity, while others were going about their daily lives,” he wrote. “This troubling pattern raised serious questions, not only about due process and the rights of U.S. citizens, but also about trust between Minnesota communities and federal authorities,” he added. In response to the letter, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that Americans “who assault and obstruct law enforcement have been arrested.” she said. Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE for comment. Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Trump urges capture of ‘animal’ gunman in Brown University shooting, says no motive yet
President Donald Trump said no motive has been identified for the suspected gunman who remains at large after opening fire inside a classroom at Brown University in Rhode Island Saturday. Although police originally detained a man in a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the fatal shooting that took the lives of two students, authorities announced Sunday that they had released the man and the hunt for the suspect resumed Monday. “We’re going to see what happens,” Trump told reporters Monday. “Hopefully they’re going to capture this animal.” When asked why the FBI, who is supporting local law enforcement in Rhode Island with their investigation into the matter, had struggled to identify the shooting suspect, Trump said that doing so is always difficult and that the issue lies with the school. BROWN UNIVERSITY WAS ‘SOFT TARGET’ FOR SHOOTER WHO REMAINS AT LARGE, CRIMINAL PROFILER SAYS “This was a school problem. They had their own guards,” Trump said. “They had their own police, had their own everything. But you’d have to ask that question really to the school, not to the FBI. We came in after the fact, and the FBI will do a good job, but they came in after the fact.” Two students died in the shooting, and another nine were injured. One of the victims of the shooting was identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama who served as vice president of the Brown University College Republicans, according to authorities. The other victim was identified as Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, authorities said. Umurzokov and his family are naturalized citizens from Uzbekistan now living in Virginia, according to The New York Times. Fox News’ Stephen Sorace and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
Trump admin will recruit 1,000 technologists for elite ‘Tech Force’ to modernize government
The Trump administration launched a new initiative Monday aimed at recruiting top-tier technical talent to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) at the federal level. The hiring program, known as “Tech Force,” plans to recruit roughly 1,000 early-career technologists for a two-year service term across various federal agencies. “The main objective of this program is there’s a ton of technology modernization work that needs to get done across pretty much every agency in the government,” Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), told Fox News Digital on Monday. The initiative was announced four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlining a national policy framework designed to strengthen U.S. leadership in AI. WAR DEPARTMENT REFOCUSES ON AI, HYPERSONICS AND DIRECTED ENERGY IN MAJOR STRATEGY OVERHAUL “President Trump has made clear that securing America’s leadership in AI is the paramount national challenge of this generation,” the OPM said in a press release. “The president’s AI Action Plan focuses on unleashing private sector innovation while also recognizing the federal government must have the technical talent to lead in technology modernization. Recruits can be placed at agencies such as Departments of War, State, Homeland Security or Health and Human Services, where they would work on AI implementation, software development, data modernization and generally move federal operations off aging systems. The new program has partnered with more than 25 leading technology companies to help guide government modernization efforts. Those private-sector partners include Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon Web Services, Google Public Sector, Uber, Zoom, Adobe, NVIDIA, Dell Technologies and Palantir. TRUMP SAYS HE WILL SIGN ‘ONE RULE’ EXECUTIVE ORDER TO FEDERALIZE AI REGULATION Recruits can expect annual salaries ranging from $150,000 to $200,000, Communications Head McLaurine Pinover told Fox News Digital. Participants will also gain substantial career development opportunities spanning both the public and private sectors, Kupor added. “At the end of the program, we’re also going to run a very, very comprehensive job fair with all those private companies coming to meet all these thousand engineers and give them the opportunity if they decide they want to go into the private sector,” Kupor said. “We’re trying to demonstrate that people can come to government, even for a short period of time, even for two years, do great work, and ultimately, that work will present tremendous career opportunities for them.” The initiative is primarily designed to increase the number of early-career professionals, those with five to seven years of work experience or less, in the federal government, Kupor said. He noted that while roughly 22 percent of the private-sector workforce is made up of early-career employees, that figure is closer to 7 percent in government. Once participants complete their two-year term, they can choose to remain in government or pursue career opportunities elsewhere, he said.
One chart lays bare the sprawling fraud network Minnesota officials missed
What had been a modest stream of taxpayer dollars to Feeding Our Future suddenly became a flood, surging 2,800% in a year, an abrupt spike now at the center of mounting scrutiny and oversight concerns. The explosive growth occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization exploited a federally funded children’s nutrition program run by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), siphoning off money intended to feed low-income kids. It now stands as the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud case. MINNESOTA’S ANTI-FRAUD SPENDING HAS QUIETLY BALLOONED, LEAVING TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR FAILURE TWICE Data from the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor sheds light on how the scheme went unchecked for so long, finding that the MDE oversight was “inadequate” and that its failures “created opportunities for fraud.” State records chart the rise in payments and reveal how the fraud ballooned in plain sight. According to data from the state audit, payments to Feeding Our Future began in 2019 at $1.4 million. That figure rose to $4.8 million the following year before topping out at $140.3 million in 2021, a staggering 2,818% increase. Even before the pandemic, Feeding Our Future was already an outlier. READ ADDITIONAL FOX NEWS COVERAGE OF THE MINNESOTA FRAUD EXPOSE By the end of 2019, it sponsored more than six times the number of Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sites as its peers. When federal nutrition dollars surged during COVID-19, that gap only widened. While funding to all meal sponsors increased, Feeding Our Future’s growth far outpaced the rest of the system. According to the legislative auditor, in 2021, nearly four out of every 10 dollars sent to nonprofit meal sponsors in Minnesota flowed to Feeding Our Future alone. Taken together, the numbers show that Feeding Our Future was expanding faster, adding more sites and collecting a vastly larger share of federal meal funds than any comparable organization, long before state regulators intervened. And the oversight failures were just as striking. Flawed applications sailed through, complaints were never investigated, and the nonprofit kept expanding despite repeated red flags. What’s more, in the wake of a years-long $250 million welfare fraud scheme, Minnesota taxpayers will now finance a pricey state-level cleanup effort, effectively paying for the failure twice after state officials missed warnings. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota has said in the past that he is ultimately accountable for the fraud that took place under his administration.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin reveals he underwent surgery to remove skin cancer from his face
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin disclosed that he had skin cancer removed from his face, using his personal experience as an opportunity to urge people to wear sunscreen and regularly visit a dermatologist. “PSA: Wear sunscreen and get your skin checked. I’m grateful to the incredible medical team at Walter Reed Medical Center who recently fully removed basal cell carcinoma (BCC) from my face,” he wrote in a post on X. “It started as a small, pearl-colored, dome-shaped lesion on my nose. After a biopsy, it came back positive for BCC.” He noted that he is “relieved to be cancer-free,” and explained that his “dermatologist removed it using Mohs surgery, a precise technique that ensures all cancerous tissue is eliminated.” LEE ZELDIN: TRUMP’S EPA CLEARING THE REGULATORY PATH FOR AMERICA TO DOMINATE THE GLOBAL AI REVOLUTION Zeldin divulged that a plastic surgeon reconstructed a portion of his nose. “Following the surgery, a plastic surgeon reconstructed part of my nose using cartilage from behind my ear and a local skin flap to restore the area,” he explained, including a photo of himself in the post. He recognized the “mistake” he made by spending time out in the sun sans sunscreen. ZELDIN, MCCAIN HAMMER CROCKETT ON EPSTEIN DONATIONS CLAIM “Like many people, there were plenty of moments in my life when I spent time in the sun without sunscreen. That was a mistake. Consistently using SPF 30 or higher and getting regular skin checks can go a long way in preventing this,” he wrote. “Please encourage your friends and family to wear sunscreen and see a dermatologist regularly. Early detection matters,” he asserted. COMMON VITAMIN SHOWN TO SLASH SKIN CANCER RISK IN SOME GROUPS, STUDY SUGGESTS Zeldin lost the 2022 New York gubernatorial race to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. He served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from early 2015 until early 2023.
Democratic heavyweights Harris, Newsom turn heads, fuel 2028 speculation
It appears to be game on in the race for the next Democratic presidential nomination, as two of the party’s most high-profile politicians, who are considered potential top-tier 2028 contenders, stirred more speculation at a major Democratic Party summit. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 standard-bearer after then-President Joe Biden exited the race, showcased an edgier stump speech as she railed against both major parties and the political status quo in an address at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) winter meeting this past weekend. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom landed the red carpet treatment, as he mingled with delegates during the opening day of the DNC’s confab, which was held this year in Los Angeles, home turf to both Harris and Newsom. The main focus for the hundreds of committee members and party officials who attended the summit was reviewing the party’s decisive victories in last month’s 2025 elections and better than expected performances in this year’s special elections, and training sessions to prepare for next year’s crucial midterm contests. 21 DEMOCRATS WHO MAY RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2028 But with the unofficial start of the next White House race less than a year away, and what’s likely to be a bruising battle among Democrats over the party’s presidential nominating calendar getting underway, 2028 was also in the spotlight. “Obviously, we must focus on the midterms,” Harris said in her Friday speech. “But Democrats, we must also have a clear vision for what comes after the midterms. And then after Trump. We need to answer the question. We need to answer the question: what comes next for our party and our democracy?” Harris argued that “both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust” and that “people are done with the status quo, and they’re ready to break things to force change.” 2028 LOOMS LARGE: HARRIS, NEWSOM, PRITZKER CONVERGE AT MAJOR DNC MEETING And Harris, who was swept by President Donald Trump in all key battleground states in the 2024 election, said that Trump is representative of a bigger problem plaguing the nation’s politics. “He and the rise of the MAGA movement, I believe, are a symptom of a failed system that is the result of years of outsourcing and offshoring, financial deregulation, growing income inequality, a broken campaign finance system and endless partisan gridlock all contributing to how we got here today,” she emphasized. “The vice president received a very warm and enthusiastic reception,” a committee member told Fox News Digital. And when she alluded to who would be in contention for the 2028 nomination, some in the room shouted, “You.” According to those in the room, Harris also landed a warm welcome less than 24 hours earlier as she spoke at the United Farm Workers annual gala. Expect to see more of Harris in the new year, helping Democrats from coast to coast as the party works to win back congressional majorities in the midterms. And Harris has added more 2026 stops to her book tour promoting “107 Days,” her reflections on her abbreviated 2024 presidential campaign. Among the stops is one in South Carolina, a crucial early-voting primary state in the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating calendar. SUCCEEDING TRUMP IN 2028: SIX REPUBLICANS TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON While Newsom didn’t address the delegates at Friday’s general session, he was treated like a VIP on Thursday as he held meetings and mingled with delegates during the opening day of the winter meeting. A DNC committee member who witnessed the commotion told Fox News Digital, “Newsom received a rock star reception as he was mobbed by party leaders and activists alike while he attempted to walk from meeting to meeting.” Newsom on Thursday met with the Democratic Party chairs from New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state, and Nevada, another crucial early voting state. “We had a great discussion on a wide range of issues,” longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told Fox News Digital. Newsom’s stature in his own party has soared this year, thanks to his very vocal and visual pushback against the president, including his viral social media trolling of Trump and his successful California push to counter the Republican congressional redistricting effort. “Newsom has shown an ability to stand up to Trump in a bold and highly effective manner without shying away from core democratic values,” veteran Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo told Fox News Digital. While both Newsom and Harris made a splash at the DNC winter meeting, they both have plenty of detractors who worry that neither would be electable in 2028 when the Democrats try to win back the White House. And if one or both of them launch presidential campaigns, they’ll likely be joined by a large crowd of other contenders. One of those possible White House hopefuls is Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who was also making the rounds during the opening day of the DNC meeting. Fox News Digital confirmed that the billionaire governor helped raise over $1 million for the DNC at a fundraiser Thursday night. A DNC insider said the appearances by Harris, Newsom and Pritzker gave “them an opportunity to start honing in on a winning message for Democrats in 2028.” There are more than a dozen other Democrats thought to be potential 2028 White House contenders. And most of them have also been paying visits to the early voting states, as well as parachuting onto the 2025 campaign trail. Among them are Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan; Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut; progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, another leading progressive; and two moderate Democrats, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
House Republicans allege DC police downgraded crime classifications to manipulate statistics
The top police official in Washington, D.C., pressured commanders to lower classifications of crime and retaliated against those who reported spikes, creating a widespread culture of fear and distorted public data, according to a new congressional report. An interim report from the House Oversight Committee released on Sunday claims that outgoing Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Pamela Smith, who announced her resignation on Dec. 8, oversaw an unprecedented system of intervention in crime reporting. The Republican-led committee alleges that Smith, who is expected to remain in the position through the end of the year, pressured commanders on numerous occasions, and at times instructed them to downgrade offenses and avoid classifications that would appear on the city’s Daily Crime Report. “By pressuring her command staff to alter classifications for the sole purpose of artificially reducing crime numbers reported out to the public, Chief Smith incentivized the manipulation of crime numbers, which do not adequately account for the crime taking place in D.C.,” the report reads in part. TRUMP PRAISES DEMOCRATIC DC MAYOR FOR WORKING WITH HIS ADMINISTRATION ON CRIME CRACKDOWN The findings, based on eight transcribed interviews with MPD district commanders, describe a toxic management environment in which accuracy was sacrificed for optics, and career officials faced public humiliation or demotion for presenting Smith with unfavorable crime statistics. MPD did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about the report. “Briefings with Chief Smith involved public chastisement to the point commanders expressed feeling like they were being treated as if they had committed the crimes themselves,” the report stated. THREE DC HOMICIDES IN SIX HOURS TEST TRUMP’S CLAIM OF SAFER WASHINGTON “On two occasions I had… robbery sprees, and I think I had, like, 13 robberies in over a night period, a day period,” said one MPD commander who is identified only as “Commander E” in the report. “And, yeah, I was – usually you have, there’s – an order of how you brief out, but at the very beginning of the crime briefing, the chief said, ‘I need to see [Commander E] up front to brief first.’ So I got up there and I was basically admonished. I was like, ‘How could I let these robberies happen?’ It was embarrassing, but it happened. And then it stemmed other meetings after that to sit down and kind of drill down to what’s happening. I did feel like I did the robberies after I left. I literally was, like, I swear I did not commit them.” The committee’s investigation unfolded against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s federal crime crackdown in the nation’s capital. In August, Trump issued an executive order to address the “epidemic of crime” in the district and deployed federal law enforcement personnel, including the National Guard. DC ARRESTS SURPASS 1,000 AS TRUMP-BACKED CRACKDOWN ENTERS 12TH HOMICIDE-FREE DAY Several commanders told the committee the surge had been helpful in supplementing the department’s resources. Mayor Muriel Bowser noted last week that D.C. homicides are down 30% this year. Bowser told Fox News Digital in a statement: “The men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department run towards danger every day to reduce homicides, carjackings, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and more. The precipitous decline in crime in our city is attributable to their hard work and dedication and Chief Smith’s leadership.” “I thank Chief Smith for her commitment to the safety of DC residents and for holding the Metropolitan Police Department to an exacting standard, and I expect no less from our next Chief of Police,” she added.