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Joe Concha says Gavin Newsom ‘doesn’t have a record to work on’ ahead of 2028
Notice what's missing.

Washington Examiner senior writer Joe Concha suggested that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) will need to rely on voters having a “goldfish memory” to win the presidency in 2028.

Newsom has not announced his 2028 presidential bid, but his latest public events have signaled he could be considering it. Concha appeared on Fox News’s Fox and Friends First a week after Newsom appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“For the most part, Gavin Newsom certainly doesn’t get the kind of scrutiny that he should in terms of his record,” Concha said. “And, when you look at what that record is: highest taxes in the country, highest poverty rate, highest homeless rate, highest unemployment rate, the highest housing costs in the country. California is last out of 50 states in terms of cost of living. Newsom entered office with about an $80 billion surplus. Now he faces somewhere to a $30 to $40 billion deficit.”

“So now he is hoping for what [late Turning Point USA co-founder] Charlie Kirk once said after interviewing Newsom, ‘a goldfish memory’ as far as voters are concerned, and they hope that the legacy media doesn’t analyze that record,” Concha added. 

NEWSOM WALKS BACK CALLING ICE ‘TERRORISTS’ WHEN CONFRONTED BY BEN SHAPIRO

Meanwhile, large parts of the Los Angeles area have yet to be rebuilt following the fires that occurred a year ago. Newsom blamed President Donald Trump for insufficient federal aid, despite California already facing a budget deficit at the time of his remarks.

Newsom is currently serving his last year as governor of California.

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong
Who's accountable for the results?

Archive link:
Perhaps the Trump-administration officials had hoped that a few rabble-rousers would get violent, justifying the kind of crackdown he seems to fantasize about. Maybe they had assumed that they would find only a caricature of “the resistance”—people who seethed about Trump online but would be unwilling to do anything to defend themselves against him.
Instead, what they discovered in the frozen North was something different: a real resistance, broad and organized and overwhelmingly nonviolent, the kind of movement that emerges only under sustained attacks by an oppressive state. Tens of thousands of volunteers—at the very least—are risking their safety to defend their neighbors and their freedom. They aren’t looking for attention or likes on social media.
Ideology
The number of Minnesotans resisting the federal occupation is so large that relatively few could be characterized as career activists. They are ordinary Americans—people with jobs, moms and dads, friends and neighbors.
If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.
MAGA Assumptions
The federal surge into Minneapolis reflects a series of mistaken MAGA assumptions. The first is the belief that diverse communities aren’t possible: “Social bonds form among people who have something in common,” Vance said in a speech last July. “If you stop importing millions of foreigners into the country, you allow social cohesion to form naturally.” Vance’s remarks are the antithesis to the neighborism of the Twin Cities, whose people do not share the narcissism of being capable of loving only those who are exactly like them.
A second MAGA assumption is that the left is insincere in its values, and that principles of inclusion and unity are superficial forms of virtue signaling. White liberals might put a sign in their front yard saying immigrants welcome, but they will abandon those immigrants at the first sensation of sustained pressure.
Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.
Personal Opinion and Questions
The anti-ICE protestors in Minnesota have done an excellent job of optics by staying non-violent and active in the midst of subzero temperatures. Their effectiveness in recording dozens upon dozens of ICE …

Newsom spearheads investigation into TikTok for alleged suppression of anti-Trump content
The headline tells the story.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced on Monday that he is investigating whether TikTok is violating California law by allegedly censoring content critical of President Donald Trump. 

Newsom is also urging the state’s Justice Department to probe the allegations. He highlighted an apparent TikTok user who seemed to be stymied by the platform’s community guidelines policies when she tried to search “Epstein,” a reference to the deceased sex offender. Others, ranging from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) to singer Billie Eilish, have also raised concerns this week that the platform is blacklisting posts questioning Trump and controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement shootings in Minnesota. 

“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” the governor’s office said in a statement to X. 

The social media platform has pushed back against accusations of censorship, attributing issues to technical difficulties it has experienced due to power outages. And TikTok is investigating why users appear to be experiencing issues when sharing the name “Epstein” in direct messages, telling NPR it doesn’t have any rules against sharing that word. 

“It would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed,” a spokesperson for TikTok told Reuters. 

TikTok closed a $14 billion deal last week that handed over control of U.S. operations to domestic investors. The development allowed TikTok to avoid a ban in the United States if the social media platform didn’t divest from its Chinese owner, ByteDance. 

The platform’s U.S. subsidiary is now run by TikTok U.S. Data Security Joint Venture LLC, a group of primarily Trump-backed investors, including Oracle’s Larry Ellison. 

The new U.S.-run platform has announced some glitches in its first week of operations. On Monday, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC warned users that they could experience zero views or likes on videos, slower load times, and timed-out requests due to a power outage at a data center site.  

Under the new deal, TikTok is also retraining its algorithms for national security purposes, meaning U.S. users’ experience will be different than when the social media platform was fully under Chinese control. Videos served to their feeds could shift as the new ownership group takes control.

“The Joint Venture will retrain, test, and …

Trump shifts tactics and optics to calm immigration firestorm
Who's accountable for the results?

President Donald Trump is moving toward a reset on his signature issue after a pair of fatal shootings involving federal immigration officials in Minneapolis.

The question is whether Trump can successfully de-escalate without abandoning his commitment to deport illegal immigrants in the face of protests against those efforts.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become a top target of Trump’s progressive political opponents and others who disagree with his immigration agenda.

Democrats are poised to shut down part of the federal government over ICE and homeland security funding.

What may start with the reshuffling of personnel within the Trump administration could lead to a shift in the optics and messaging on immigration — or perhaps even a change in underlying policy.

For the last decade, immigration has defined Trump’s political career. He used the issue to distinguish himself from Republican primary opponents, including Jeb Bush, whose brother advocated amnesty for most illegal immigrants as president, and Marco Rubio, who, as a senator from Florida, was part of the “Gang of Eight” behind the last major bipartisan amnesty push in 2013.

Rubio recalibrated and is now Trump’s secretary of state. Bush is out of electoral politics, and his family, which included two Republican presidents, has lost influence within the GOP.

Trump’s most prominent 2016 campaign promise was his pledge to build a wall along the southern border at Mexico’s expense. It became a catchphrase at his rallies. “You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe, thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts,” Trump told the New York Times editorial board.

Immigration was once again among the reasons Trump returned to the White House. Former President Joe Biden lost control of the border and allowed record levels of illegal immigration during his term, but Trump vowed to secure it again.

During the 2024 campaign, the border crisis led to a spike in public support for mass deportations. Fifty-five percent of respondents told Gallup that they wanted a reduction in immigration, the most since 2001.

Exit polls found that 53% trusted Trump most on immigration compared to 44% who chose former Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democrats’ nominee.

Even then, there were signs of ambivalence. The same exit poll showed 56% thought most illegal immigrants should be …

Democratic candidates vying to fill Durbin’s Senate shoes all noncommittal on Schumer leadership
This is performative politics again.

Democratic candidates in Illinois’s 2026 Senate primary are steering clear of hard takes on Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) leadership in the upper chamber. 

The candidates are looking to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), 80, who announced in April 2025 that he will not seek reelection to a sixth term, ending more than four decades representing Illinois and relinquishing his role as the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat as whip. 

His retirement has left open a powerful Senate seat and a leadership question within the Democratic caucus. 

The crowded Democratic primary has converged around three front-runners: Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), each of whom faced off in a debate Monday night in Chicago.

In their debate, immigration enforcement, campaign funding, and opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies dominated, but discussion of Senate leadership dynamics in Washington was conspicuously tight-lipped. 

Krishnamoorthi and Kelly mummed on the question of Schumer’s leadership, but Stratton was a hard “no.” 

“I’ve already said that I will not support Chuck Schumer as leader in the Senate, and I’m the only person on this stage that has said so,” Stratton said during the debate. 

Krishnamoorthi said he would “hear his pitch,” while Kelly said it “depends on who’s running.” 

The question of Schumer’s leadership has arisen outside Illinois, especially after contentious Senate episodes such as the recent government funding negotiations that left some Democrats frustrated with the party’s direction.

Progressive critics nationally have even called for new leadership in the Democratic Senate caucus, questioning Schumer’s strategic choices.

Stratton, the state’s second-in-command to Trump antagonist Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), was the first major contender to enter the race last spring and has centered her campaign on her executive experience and progressive priorities. 

She has framed herself as a fighter against the Trump administration’s agenda and earned the early backing of Pritzker and Democratic heavyweights.

Kelly, who represents Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District, has focused on economic equity and social programs, including taxing billionaires, child care cost caps, and healthcare expansion.

Krishnamoorthi, from the 8th district, brings significant fundraising strengths and has pitched comprehensive plans to rein in the Trump administration and lower costs for Illinois …

How Trump lost the info war in Minneapolis
This affects the entire country.

Welcome back to Washington Secrets. Your lunchtime reading today includes the inside story of why Donald Trump backed down in Minneapolis and the lurid details of a former governor’s lunchtime conversation.

President Donald Trump’s border policy has been one of the greatest successes of his first year back in power.

But by Monday morning, senior figures knew that the means were in danger of overshadowing the ends.

Chaos on the streets of Minneapolis, where a protester was shot dead Saturday, was only adding to recent polls that showed people were in favor of the border crackdown but wary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and their tactics.

“The government is on the losing end of the info war, and that’s never a good place to be,” a senior administration official told Secrets.

“It’s hard to keep the two sides separated. And when there are clashes like we are seeing, then it is the government that comes off worst.”

That analysis was at the core of what came next. The White House backed down, reassigning officers, including Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino and his great coat, and moving to take the heat out of a growing crisis.

The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, triggered a public backlash, rumblings among senior Republicans, and a fresh spotlight on the administration’s hard-line stance on immigration.

Complicating matters was the fact that Pretti was carrying a handgun, bringing in Second Amendment groups usually sympathetic to Trump.

None of that mattered to Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, who labeled the dead man “an assassin,” accusing him of trying to “murder federal agents.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said he bore the hallmarks of “domestic terrorism.”

The familiar deny-and-attack playbook, however, was out of step with what the public could see with its own eyes on every TV channel.

The first hint of a shift came from the president himself, often the best diviner of public sentiment.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday evening, Trump would not be drawn on whether the officer who killed Pretti had done the right thing.

Instead, he said, “We’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”

Then came the de-escalation.

On Monday morning, Trump spoke with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), someone he had previously blamed for inciting street clashes.

He backed off the attacks and instead agreed to send Tom Homan to oversee the immigration …

Fetterman demands Trump fire Noem in direct appeal: ‘Americans have died’
Every delay has consequences.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) demanded that President Donald Trump fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over her handling of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.

Tagging Trump in what the senator said was a “direct appeal” on X, Fetterman pleaded with the president to fire Noem over her perceived incompetence.

“@realDonaldTrump I make a direct appeal to immediately fire @Sec_Noem,” Fetterman wrote. “Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy. DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary.”

Noem has taken heavy flak over her handling of recent events in Minneapolis, especially her initial claim that Alex Pretti was trying to assassinate federal agents when he was killed, a claim the Trump administration quickly walked back.

Fetterman has emerged as a rare congressional Democrat willing to break with his party’s consensus around hot matters such as immigration, even defending Immigration and Customs Enforcement and praising Trump. He’s condemned the inflammatory rhetoric used by Democrats to describe ICE and the Trump administration.

“I would never ever compare anybody to Nazis or the Gestapo or for those kinds of things,” Fetterman said. “Nazis are … that’s just not appropriate, and that’s why I refuse to do that. Or refer to Republicans or parts of ICE, they’re not Nazis. For me, that’s something as a Democrat, I refuse to ever engage in.”

Minneapolis has emerged as a hot spot in Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown, with headlines dominated by fights between federal immigration enforcement officials and organized protesters. The stakes were raised over the past few weeks after two protesters were fatally shot by federal officials, drawing heavy backlash.

FETTERMAN SAYS ‘ABOUT TWO-THIRDS‘ OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ICE DEPORTED HAD CRIMINAL RECORDS

Culpability for the two deaths has been squarely placed on the Trump administration by Democrats, and on activist networks in Minneapolis by Republicans. The national attention directed toward Minneapolis has triggered involvement from leftist networks across the country, who stalk and harass federal immigration personnel in the city.

Trump held calls with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday, with all parties looking to reduce tensions. After the calls, local law enforcement began cracking down on protesters, and Trump pledged to withdraw some personnel from Minnesota.

Dems' DHS shutdown threat would hit FEMA, TSA while immigration funding remains intact
This affects the entire country.

The Senate is again on the verge of entering into another government shutdown as Democrats rage over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota.
But despite Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats’ demands to sideline the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, the agency’s immigration enforcement apparatus is flush with cash thanks to Republicans’ efforts last year with President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill." 
Still, there are other vital government functions under the DHS umbrella that, should a partial government shutdown happen come Friday, would suffer.
THUNE STEAMROLLS DEMS' DHS REVOLT AS FETTERMAN DEFECTS, SCHUMER UNDER PRESSURE
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News in a statement that while Schumer and Senate Democrats "play games with Americans’ safety, they are blocking vital DHS funding that keeps our country secure and its people safe."
The department, created in 2003 after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has jurisdiction over a broad range of agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Secret Service.
That means those offices would likely be impacted by a partial government shutdown come next month.
"This funding supports national security and critical national emergency operations, including FEMA responses to a historic snowstorm that is affecting 250 million Americans," McLaughlin said. "Washington may stall, but the safety of the American people will not wait."
The current DHS funding bill, which is snarled in a political duel between Schumer and Senate Republicans, would provide $64 billion for the agency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would receive $10 billion of that. 
The largest allocation would go to FEMA at $32 billion, then TSA at $11.6 billion, and CISA at $2.6 billion. 
GOP SENATOR DEMANDS DHS IMMIGRATION CHIEFS TESTIFY AFTER FATAL SHOOTINGS IN MINNESOTA
Even if the government shuts down, immigration operations would likely be untouched.
DHS received billions as part of Trump's marquee legislation, a move to meet his and Republicans’ desire last year to turbocharge border security and immigration operations on the heels of former President Joe Biden’s term. 
In total, the "big, beautiful bill," added over $170 billion to DHS’ coffers. 
Notably, ICE received a total of $75 billion, split into two pots: $45 billion for …

All of us can see that we absolutely cannot trust trump to be honest in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but how the heck can we trust him in his statements that the boats he is blowing up off South America are carrying fentanyl?
Every delay has consequences.

We know he is very willing to lie to cover up his misdeeds -- even very serious misdeeds -- shouldn’t we now demand proof that the boats he is having blown up off South America have proof the fentanyl that he claims are on the boats are true?
His statements of “trust me, I have the evidence”, are almost certainly lies, based on his eagerness and long history to justify himself by stating false facts. Unless he provides clear proof of what he is saying, we should always doubt him on important matters.
So, if his administration is being investigated for the coverup of shootings by ice, we should also demand proof the reason he is killing unnamed people off South America. I am very sure he is lying about those needless killings as well. Anyone want to be $20 on this matter?
Thanks for your thoughts on this! Feel free to share with anyone you wish!

Support slipping for Trump immigration push as majority say crackdown ‘goes too far’: poll
This affects the entire country.

President Donald Trump's approval ratings on tackling illegal immigration dropped to a new low as a majority of Americans say the crackdown by federal agents has gone too far, according to a new national poll.
The survey, by Reuters/Ipsos, was conducted Friday through Sunday, both before and after federal immigration agents fatally shot a second U.S. citizen who was protesting enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The poll is the latest national survey to spotlight the deterioration of Trump's approval on immigration and flagging support for aggressive enforcement operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Thirty-nine percent of adults nationwide questioned in the poll said they approve of the job the president's doing on immigration, with 53% disapproving.
TRUMP IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IGNITES BACKLASH
The president's approval on the issue stands at its lowest level in Reuters/Ipsos polling since Trump returned to the White House a year ago. In February of last year, weeks after his second inauguration as president, Trump stood at 50% approval and 41% disapproval on immigration, as he quickly shut down the flow of migrants across the nation's southern border with Mexico.
Illegal immigration, with Trump promising a massive surge in deportations of undocumented migrants, was a key issue that boosted Trump and the GOP to decisive ballot box victories in 2024, as they won back the White House and Senate and successfully defended their razor-thin House majority.
WHY A MINNESOTA REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DROPPED HIS BID FOR GOVERNOR AFTER SECOND FATAL SHOOTING
But the fatal shootings of Renee Good, a mother of three, earlier this month, and nurse Alex Pretti this past weekend, as they protested aggressive actions by masked federal agents carrying out immigration operations, sparked national debate and demonstrations, further inflaming political tensions over Trump's mass deportation push.
"The approval for Donald Trump on an issue that worked for him, immigration, is down and going down further," University of Minnesota public affairs professor Larry Jacobs told Fox News Digital.
Jacobs said that the "cracking down on illegal immigration, the conduct of ICE, has squandered the advantage" in public opinion that Trump once enjoyed.
A veteran Republican strategist who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News Digital that "the missteps have turned a plus into either a neutral issue or a net negative at best. People don’t like illegal immigration, but they are also troubled by the tactics that they’re seeing." …