Hollywood has finally gone full tilt…
Watch Amanda break down the latest woke controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
In a disturbing expansion of the Biden White House’s illicit monitoring of political dissidents, federal authorities quietly sent letters to the operators of crowdfunding sites asking for private financial information on pages that used terms associated with Republicans, conservatism and former President Donald Trump.
In response, and to determine the extent of Biden administration’s wrongdoing, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has sent his own letter to Eventbrite and GoFundMe “requesting documents and communications between federal agencies, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”
A statement from the Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government announced they are “conducting oversight of financial surveillance of American citizens, including the tracking and monitoring of private financial records in coordination with federal law enforcement.”
According to the Judiciary Committee:
The federal government, through FinCEN, urged large financial institutions to comb through their customers’ private transactions and report charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression. The Committee and Select Subcommittee have uncovered how the FBI worked with Bank of America to gather private financial data of Americans. Congress has an important interest in protecting Americans’ privacy and First Amendment activity. Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee raise the prospect that Eventbrite and GoFundMe may have been in communication with FinCEN or other federal law-enforcement agencies about activity on Eventbrite and GoFundMe’s platform.
Excerpts of the letter to Eventbrite read:
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that following the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outlined the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provided financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement, ostensibly to aid in investigations. These materials included a document recommending that financial institutions ‘search Zelle payment messages’ using generic terms like ‘TRUMP,’ ‘MAGA,’ ‘America First,’ ‘PELOSI,’ ‘PENCE,’ ‘SCHUMER,’ as well as a document reflecting a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, the federal government, through FinCEN, urged large financial institutions to comb through their customers’ private transactions and report charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.
“In addition, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that on January 18, 2021, FinCEN emailed financial institutions a list of ‘crowdfunding sites’ that included Eventbrite, GoFundMe, and Anedot, among others, and explained how financial institutions could use a ‘transaction reference’ to identify customers making certain transactions on crowdfunding sites. For example, in the email, FinCEN alerted financial institutions to customers’ use of Eventbrite, noting that ‘people have been observed using this site to post an event and sell tickets including bus tickets to the demonstrations.’ FinCEN noted how ‘Card Purchase[s]’ to events are findable using ‘the transaction reference ‘EB [the EVENT] with the phone number’ and detailed how individuals who purchased tickets to events in support of President Trump could be identified using the transaction reference, ‘EB MARCH FOR TR 801413720.’ FinCEN also provided a second method for identifying individuals using transaction references, writing: ‘[y]ou may see a Card Purchase with the transaction reference in the following format . . . [a Message or like a cause or candidate] with the phone number in the following format . . . .’
“Despite these transactions having no apparent nexus to criminal activity—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their First Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with federal law enforcement, without legal process, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the federal government’s potential abuses of Americans’ fundamental civil liberties.”
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – No surprise to me. I ran against this disgrace in 2010 in the GOP primary. I highlighted his obscene corruption, but much of the GOP establishment backed him to the hilt.
In the ‘you can’t make this up’ category, the discredited GOP ex-congressman David Rivera has been arrested by federal officials for conspiring to lobby on behalf of America’s Latin American nemesis, socialist Venezuela.
This, despite being the GOP’s South Florida poster boy for ‘anti-communism,’ an image he assiduously cultivated for years to curry favor with the Miami conservative base and deflect from his myriad failings.
When I ran against Rivera in the South Florida 2010 GOP congressional primary as a Tea Party outsider, my motto was ‘the Marine vs. the Machine’ due to Rivera’s lifelong ties to the GOP establishment.
During that race, Rivera, a termed-out state representative, got a massive number of Republican congressional leaders to back him, even though I was beating the drum about his corruption and lack of integrity.
Rivera won that primary, in part because a politically unknown woman, and possibly Democrat-linked spoiler, named Marili Cancio jumped into the race and siphoned off about 12% of the GOP voters I would have gotten.
Rivera then went on to win the congressional seat.
However, his corruption finally caught up with him and he lost his reelection to an equally distasteful Democrat – Joe Garcia.
That was the first time the GOP had lost that seat in 30 years, and Rivera became radioactive to most in the GOP afterward.
Thankfully, Democrat Joe only lasted one term himself.
But back to Rivera’s arrest.
CNBC reports that Rivera:
A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government was arrested Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering.
Scandals have marred Rivera since he represented parts of the Miami metro area in Congress a decade ago.
The eight-count indictment against Rivera and lobbyist Esther Nuhfer chronicles the nefarious duo’s alleged dealings with Venezuela to help revive its state-run oil company.
The investigation stretches back to the start of the Trump administration when Rivera reportedly arranged meetings with an unnamed senator and a congressman as part of a conspiracy to ease tensions between the United States and South America’s socialist holdout. The unsavory politician ultimately hoped to lift sanctions on a regime universally reviled in South Florida.
Rivera began his efforts after signing a $50 million contract. Per Bloomberg, the indictment lays out the reputed method by which he unlawfully enriched himself:
The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Delcy Rodriguez, directed executives at CITGO, a Texas-based unit of PDVSA, to draw up a consulting contract with Rivera’s company, according to the indictment.
The contract was between Interamerican and PDV USA, which prosecutors allege was used by CITGO to facilitate “special projects” ordered by executives of the state-owned parent company.
Additional charges against Rivera and Nuhfer include conspiracy to commit offense against the US, conspiracy to commit money laundering and engaging in transactions in criminally deprived property. Nuhfer couldn’t immediately be located for comment.
At one point, note prosecutors, Rivera received a $5 million payment from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company and personal piggy bank for its corrupt socialist leaders, in an account at Gazprom Bank in Russia.
Thankfully Rivera’s illegal pro-Venezuela outreach effort ultimately failed, as Trump in 2019 recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and imposed stiff oil sanctions on the OPEC nation in a bid to unseat Maduro.
The U.S. Marshals Service said Rivera bailed out of jail Monday afternoon after making an initial appearance in Atlanta federal court.
Even more concerning, though, the Associated Press’ initial report detailed how Rivera attempted to arrange a meeting between a prominent female Trump campaign adviser-turned-White House “counselor” and a pro-Maduro businessman on his jet in Miami on June 27, 2017.
Kellyanne Conaway was in Miami that day to headline a Republican Party fundraiser. At the time, she served the Trump White House as the Senior Counselor to the President.
This wouldn’t surprise me either, as Conway was very close to Rivera, and may have been behind efforts to keep me from entering the Trump administration during his term, at the behest of Rivera.
Trump’s hiring of Conway, who I admired and knew casually from years in conservative circles, was one of the reasons I believed Trump could win and helped convince me to back him.
Sadly, it seems Conway’s ties to slimy Rivera may have slimed her too.
All this should remind us all to be very careful when blindly backing politicians, no matter who they are.
Opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to more than a decade each in jail after being convicted of the rarely used ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge for storming the Capitol.
They tried to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, which they considered fraudulent.
A federal judge sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison and his co-defendant Zachary Rehl to 15 years. (RELATED: Proud Boys Member Who Led Capitol Break-In Sentenced To 10 Years)
These sentences are much less than the three decades of jail time proposed by prosecutors but still very long prison terms for a few hours of rioting.
And yes, I understand that the rioting was at the U.S. Capitol and that the certification of the Electoral College vote was in process. I also understand these two guys and the two others convicted on this same charge were intimately involved in organizing what became violent chaos that day.
I was there, at the Capitol, as an observer with a TV camera crew. And I denounced the violence the next day. It was outrageous.
I believe any violent rioter who attacked police or media, or anyone else, on Jan. 6 should be put in jail – as should all the BLM rioters who earlier caused $2 billion in damages throughout the country and injured 2,000 cops months earlier.
But a decade or two behind bars for ‘conspiracy’?
Biggs and Rehl are the first Proud Boys convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The sentences kicked off a series of hearings scheduled for this week and next, where punishment will be meted out against the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio (who was not in D.C. on Jan. 6 but was unbelievably arrested earlier for burning a BLM banner!), and two other members of the group.
All were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes at a landmark conspiracy trial this spring. But was what they did really as bad as the Biden Justice Department tries to portray?
As The Guardian noted:
Seditious conspiracy is a broad statute that concerns attempts to overthrow the government, levy war against it or prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law. It also can be applied in cases where suspects seize any government property and carries up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past. “Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.
In the only similar case in the 20th century, federal prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction against Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol building in 1954.
These four armed Puerto Rican independence militants entered the House floor and fired dozens of bullets around the chamber, wounding five legislators.
The four shooters and co-conspirators were convicted of seditious conspiracy and spent over two decades in jail until Jimmy Carter commuted their sentence in 1979.
In that case, however, the perpetrators had firearms and used them to try to kill Congressmen. That’s a pretty big difference.
The last successfully prosecuted seditious conspiracy was in the mid-1990s, when authorities charged Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine Islamist co-conspirators for plotting to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building, and several other landmarks around New York City.
Again, this was very serious and involved planning mass murder and terrorism.
There is little or no evidence that any Jan. 6 rioters planned any offensive violence.
To date, of those charged in relation to Jan. 6, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.
The Guardian reported in 2022 that:
Even Rhodes, who is not believed to have actually stormed the building, is alleged to have plotted to bring weapons to the area and coordinate militia movements.
In the weeks before the insurrection, Rhodes allegedly purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of weapons and began communicating to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he messaged days after the presidential election. One Oath Keeper admitted as part of a plea deal last year that he brought an M4 rifle to a Comfort Inn hotel near the Capitol, while Rhodes and others allegedly discussed “quick reaction force” teams that could move into Washington DC with firearms. Once inside the Capitol, prosecutors state in their indictment that one group of Oath Keepers moved in a military “stack” formation and went in search of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
And at first glance, this does seem serious.
But Rhodes claims that despite earlier texts about possible ‘civil war,’ Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol went “totally off mission” and that he was only there to prevent his militia members from getting into trouble.
He has also stated that the armed ‘reaction force’ in Virginia was there to respond if armed leftist antifa thugs attacked pro-Trump protestors.
In the largest manhunt in FBI history, more than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, 597 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences. About 366 of them have been given jail time.
The vast majority of these Jan. 6 defendants, though, accepted plea deals for minor, nonviolent offenses such as trespassing or obstructing an official function. Many of them still got jail sentences totally out of proportion to their alleged crimes.
And these four got the worst of it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It was first published in American Liberty News.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) called Vice President Kamala Harris the clear winner of Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
“Oh, Kamala definitely won the debate,” Sununu said during a Wednesday morning appearance on CNN. “There’s no question about that. So the question is, what does it mean, right? And it’s not just, what does it mean to everybody? What’s going to do that 10 percent of swing voters?”
“I think if you poll those swing voters, they want results,” he said. “They’re results-driven. It’s the cost of living, it’s the border, it’s public safety, those types of issues, you can be the change agent to make that better in their lives.”
The outgoing New Hampshire governor, who considered a presidential run of his own, praised Harris’s debate strategy Tuesday night.
“She kind of talked confidence in her answers, and then she took the last 30 seconds of almost every question and hit him with a personal attack, knowing that that would get under his skin,” Sununu said. “It was a very effective measure, and I give her a lot of credit on that. It kept him on the defensive, to be sure, and it’s ultimately, definitely, stylistically, why she openly won the debate.”
Sununu said the debate would move the needle “a little bit,” but argued neither candidate explained to voters how they would help lower costs for average Americans. The GOP governor added Trump failed to take advantage of openings to go on the offense over the economy.
“He should have talked about price controls,” Sununu said. “He should have talked about the cost of living more. I think he went like an hour, not even talking about inflation and those are real issues.”
Sununu said the ex-president should also draw a bigger contrast on foreign policy with Harris, saying on CNN there “was clearly more peace when” he was in office.
“That is a strength that he has, that he has not exploited in this campaign,” he said. “There is chaos in Ukraine, chaos in Israel. You know, there’s a lot of pressure going on in Taiwan. Let’s not forget about that. Let’s not forget about Afghanistan.”
Tim Allen is reprising his beloved role as Santa Claus in Disney’s latest Christmas series. The original 1994 “The Santa Clause” movie saw massive success and Allen went on to play the role for two more movies. However, Allen says that he had some big conditions for Disney before returning to the iconic role for the new series- one of them being Disney must incorporate Christianity into the show.
Watch Amanda break down the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – In case some readers weren’t sure, this is a big reason the conservative GOP ‘Freedom Caucus’ is threatening a government shutdown. Thanks to Joe Biden’s massive spending orgy, the gross U.S. national debt has breached the $33 trillion mark for the first time.
To be precise, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, as of September 18, 2023 (just 12 days short of the end of our fiscal year), the national debt has risen to $33,053,950,837,720 or $33.05 trillion.
America’s runaway inflation, which is crushing everyone’s pocketbooks, is just one result of this part of ‘Bidenomics.’
This unprecedented debt is also fueling concerns that another fight over federal spending may trigger the first government shutdown since 2019.
Without drastic spending cuts, it’s only going to get worse, much worse.
Even accounting for newly passed spending cuts, the U.S. national debt is on track to top $50 trillion by the end of the decade, impacted by mounting interest and the cost of the nation’s social programs.
This is unsustainable; a looming catastrophe waiting to happen.
And, yes, while Donald Trump clearly overspent, especially due to the COVID-19 epidemic, this current staggering debt, and the debt going forward, is mostly Biden’s fault.
As David Winston explained in Rollcall back in April:
The president [Biden] and his White House have taken the 2020 COVID-19, one-time-only crisis budget as his administration’s working baseline, rather than the pre-Covid 2019 budget, which had a significant $4.4 trillion price tag.
In 2020, because of the pandemic, the budget jumped 47 percent to $6.5 trillion, as both Democrats and Republicans supported the need for emergency funding. That COVID funding was to sunset as the country returned to normal — as it did last year. Apparently, Biden decided to ignore that crucial point.
Instead, he saw that supersized budget in 2020 not as a crisis, but an opportunity that could be exploited going forward to pay for what amounted to a historic spending spree that kicked off with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and drove what became the worst inflation in 40 years. During Biden’s first two years in office, he oversaw spending that was 40 percent higher than the pre-COVID 2019 budget.
According to the CBO, Biden is going to match Trump’s addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years. That would be $1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending. If Biden’s 2024 proposed budget actually passed, he would add as much to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined. House Republican leaders have made clear his budget isn’t going anywhere; but it illustrates just how out of control Biden’s spending policies really are.
This is a big reason why the House Freedom Caucus is willing to shut down the government to try to impose some sort of fiscal discipline.
While much of the news has focused on the ‘intransigent’ MAGA conservatives undermining Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the House Republicans on this issue, Biden refuses to even discuss the House majority’s proposals.
Biden says he wants a “clean” debt ceiling vote without any provisions to control spending. This is not surprising since he just proposed a budget that will reach a record $10 trillion in spending by 2033.
As horrible as a government shutdown will be, allowing this massive debt to keep growing is unacceptable. Without massive cuts, everyday Americans will still be paying the bill, long after Biden is gone.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Former Trump National Security Advisor and retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster is on a tear with the media, warning the nation of the biggest threats America faces in 2023.
Earlier, I wrote about the growing risk that Israel’s new nationalist government led by prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may strike Iran before the end of this year to prevent the Islamist regime from finally getting a nuke.
In that piece I quoted McMaster as saying: “the chances are quite high of a significant conflict in the Middle East, maybe entailing an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.”
An Israeli-Iranian conflict would certainly spread across the Middle East as Iran retaliates directly and asymmetrically, including targeting U.S. bases and interests.
And now McMaster warns about something most of us already know, but he brings new urgency to the threat – that China is preparing its military for war with the United States war over Taiwan.
On CBS Face The Nation, McMaster said: “Xi Jinping has made it quite clear, in his statements, that he is going to make, from his perspective, China whole again by subsuming Taiwan.”
“And preparations are underway,” he added.
Earlier, I reported here that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had just deployed one of its three aircraft carriers within miles of the U.S. territory of Guam, America’s small but strategic outpost in the Western Pacific.
This is the closest the Chinese navy has ever sailed a warship of this size to any American territory.
And it is sending a message – Chinese naval forces can get close to U.S. bases as well.
But there is more. Newsweek also reported on McMaster’s CBS appearance:
“China has become increasingly aggressive, not only from an economic and financial perspective and a wolf warrior diplomacy perspective, but physically, with its military,” McMaster said. “And what’s really disturbing is, I think, Xi Jinping is preparing the Chinese people for war.”
He pointed to some of Xi’s speeches, which have taken on a hardline tone in recent months, as evidence that the U.S. should take the threat of war more seriously and “extend our power.” Doing so would also compel allies to invest more in their national defense, which would further serve as a deterrent, he added.
Newsweek continued:
McMaster’s warning follows other indications that China may be considering a war over Taiwan. In November, The Guardian reported that Xi told his military to “focus all its energy on fighting” to prepare for a potential war.
“Focus all [your] energy on fighting, work hard on fighting and improve [your] capability to win,” he reportedly said.
Welcome to 2023, the year America should be concerned not only with Russia’s war in Ukraine escalating and spreading into NATO Europe and possibly triggering some sort of nuclear incident, but also a war between Israel and Iran that could engulf the entire Middle East.
And to top it off, this could also be the year we see a major catastrophic war with China over Taiwan.
Or even worse – we may face all three regional military conflicts at once. Happy New Year!
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
*Warning: This article contains some graphic language.
ANALYSIS – For those conservatives who say that Republicans are weak or ineffective, take note of all the actions this GOP-led House has taken so far. And with only the slimmest of majorities. The latest effort targets a distasteful anti-Christian group that focuses on influencing Pentagon policy.
While operating under the misleading name of the ‘Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), this advocacy group is anything but an organization for religious freedom. Its real mission is to attack and remove any Christian influences from our entire military.
In February, for example, the MRFF convinced Merchant Marine Academy leaders to move a massive historical painting titled “Christ on the Water” from a public space to a chapel.
This move was attacked by Republican lawmakers and Christian groups as gross overreach, especially since it was a historical item and part of the Academy’s proud heritage.
But the Academy caved quickly to the group’s outrageous demand.
The aggressive actions of the group have raised concerns among lawmakers for years, with ill-informed military staffers often overreacting to the group’s incessant, and at times inappropriate, demands without following proper review procedures.
Thankfully, the GOP House has it in its sights.
Under an amendment to the House draft of the annual defense authorization bill last week, reported Military Times, Defense officials and troops would be barred from communicating with the Foundation or from making “any decision as a result of any claim, objection, or protest made by MRFF without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”
While the language for the amendment was offered by Republican Rep. Mike Turner, of Ohio, the amendment was adopted with unanimous, bipartisan support in the House Armed Services Committee.
The amendment is designed to simply ensure that military staffers don’t overreact to the group’s demands without following proper protocols. And its bipartisan support shows that it is very reasonable.
But that didn’t stop the group from issuing a profanity-laced tirade.
Confirming its bigoted anti-Christian bias, not to mention lack of professionalism and decorum, the MRFF’s president and founder Mikey Weinstein, angrily lashed out, calling his opponents “bastards” and “enemies.”
More specifically he said, according to Military Times: “If they don’t like what we do at MRFF … they can take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line with the rest of those fundamentalist Christian extremist bastards who constitute our enemies.”
But he didn’t stop digging his anti-Christian hole there. He went on:
If the fundamentalist Christian nationalists who are behind this are trying to execute us through legislation, we’ll take that as validation of the positive effect that we’re having for our clients and for the Constitution.”
“And they can go fuck themselves.”
Well, Mr. Weinstein, we won’t do that, but we will fight him and his group tooth and nail legislatively.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s draft of the defense authorization bill does not include any similar restrictions on communications or response to MRFF requests, but it should. Expect intense efforts to ensure that they are included in a final bill.
House Republicans will also likely add more amendments on abortion and transgender issues when the bill is debated in the full chamber next month.
If you want to be part of the solution, then contact your Senators and tell them how you feel about far-left extremists pushing a bigoted, anti-Christian agenda on our military.
Religious freedom means our troops are guaranteed the right to express their religion, even on military bases and facilities. And defending that right is a fight worth having.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Vice President JD Vance took aim at the Democratic Party’s likely 2028 presidential contenders during a lighthearted but pointed exchange on Fox News, joking that the party’s “dumbest” candidate is most likely to emerge from the primary.
In an exclusive interview released Wednesday on Jesse Watters Primetime, Watters raised speculation about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s national ambitions, noting the governor’s frequent media appearances and rumored White House aspirations.
“Gavin Newsom, obviously, is running for president. Have you seen this guy cross his legs? Have you ever seen anyone cross their legs like that?” Watters asked jokingly.
“My legs don’t cross like that, Jesse,” Vance replied with a laugh. “You can interpret that however you want to.”
Watters went on to frame the looming Democratic contest as a showdown between Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Gavin and Kamala are on a collision course,” Watters said. “Who’s gonna win?”
“The dumbest candidate will probably win,” Vance quipped. “That’s my guess with the Democratic Party.”
Vance argued that the current Democratic bench reflects deeper structural problems within the party, particularly its fixation on identity politics over competence.
“I mean, look, the Democrats have a couple of big issues, and one is that they lean so far into wokeism that they can’t see the obviousness of the fact, which is that Kamala Harris is not qualified to be president of the United States,” Vance said.
“That’s why she got the vice presidential nomination. That’s why she got the presidential nomination. This is who Kamala Harris is.”
Vance contrasted Harris with Newsom, describing the California governor as emblematic of failed progressive governance.
“Now, the flip side is, I think you have an unbelievably corrupt and incompetent governor in Gavin Newsom,” he said. “The fact that those are the two frontrunners just suggests how deeply deranged the Democrat Party is. Let them fight it out. We’ll figure it out.”
While Newsom and Harris dominate early speculation, Democrats face a thin and fractured 2028 field. Other frequently mentioned names include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—each of whom carries significant liabilities with general-election voters. Many Democrats privately acknowledge that the party lacks a unifying figure with broad national appeal, particularly as voters continue to recoil from progressive economic and cultural policies.
Republicans, by contrast, are positioning themselves as the party of stability, affordability, and public safety heading into the next election cycle.
Watters noted that Democrats are expected to campaign heavily on cost-of-living issues in upcoming elections, a strategy Vance dismissed as deeply hypocritical.
“That’s a pot-meet-kettle situation,” Vance argued, pointing to Democratic-led policies that fueled inflation, higher energy costs, and housing shortages.
He credited the Trump administration with reversing those trends.
“We haven’t even been in office for a year, and you’ve already seen prices start to come down. You’ve seen rents start to come down. You’ve seen groceries leveling off,” Vance said.
“Is there more work to do? Absolutely. But the people who are going to do that work is the Trump administration, is the president of the United States, who is solving the Democrats’ affordability crisis.”
“You don’t give power back to the very people who set the house on fire,” he added. “You give more power to the person who put the fire out.”
When asked whether Democrats would attempt to impeach President Trump again if they regain control of Congress, Vance said such a move would be predictable—and revealing.
“I’m sure he’ll get impeached,” Vance said. “Look, they have nothing to actually run on or govern on.”
“Their entire obsessive focus of that party is they hate Donald Trump,” he continued. “So, if they ever get power, are they going to lower Americans’ taxes? No. Are they going to make your life more affordable? No. Are they going to solve the crime crisis? No.”
“What they’re going to do is they’re going to spend all their time and all of your money trying to get Donald Trump.”
Vance urged voters to focus on results rather than partisan theatrics.
“I think the American people should vote for the people who want to make their life more affordable, who want to make their neighborhoods safer,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to deliver every single day.”
Newsom’s office responded to the interview with a digitally altered image of Vance crossing his legs in an exaggerated pose, captioned: “We all know JD copies Daddy.”
