Join us Dec. 4 in Austin and online for a preview of the 2025 Legislative Session
We’ll explore state lawmakers’ top priorities and what’s ahead for Texans.
Somber Walz spotted on daughter’s Instagram after election loss: ‘Live to fight another day’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was spotted on his daughter’s Instagram page this week shortly after he and Vice President Kamala Harris were defeated by President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance in Tuesday’s election. “The Earth keeps spinning and we live to fight another day,’ Walz’s daughter Hope posted on her Instagram story along with a photo of a somber Walz, wearing a sweatshirt and cargo pants, holding and petting his cat. The video is the first sighting of Walz since he appeared at Harris’ concession speech on Wednesday at Howard University in Washington, D.C. “Thank you Vice President @KamalaHarris for putting your faith in me, and selecting me as your running mate,” Walz posted on X this week. “Campaigning at your side was the honor and privilege of my life.” ‘SHOULD HAVE BEEN JOSH SHAPIRO’: HARRIS’ VP CONTENDERS PASSED OVER FOR WALZ DODGE MASSIVE CAMPAIGN LOSS Harris faced scrutiny even from some in her own party over her decision to name Walz, who many view as further to the left than she is, rather than a more moderate choice. Prominent Democrat Josh Shapiro, governor of the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania that Trump carried on Tuesday night, was viewed by some as a more practical choice. “One of the things that are top of mind is the choice of Tim Walz as vice presidential candidate,” Harris-Walz surrogate Lindy Li told Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich at Howard University. “A lot of people are saying tonight that it should have been Josh Shapiro. Frankly, people have been saying that for months.” Rob Bluey, president and executive editor of The Daily Signal, told Fox News Digital that Walz being added to the ticket was a significant error in judgment. “Historically, vice presidents have little impact on a presidential candidate’s fate,” Bluey said. “But in the case of Tim Walz, it proved to be a disastrous decision that doomed Kamala Harris from the moment she made it. Not only was Walz ill-prepared for the national spotlight and media scrutiny, but Harris passed over several better options. Given how little Americans knew about Harris or her policy positions, they were right to question her judgment on this big decision.” HARRIS WORLD BLAME GAME BEGINS AFTER CRUSHING LOSS TO TRUMP Walz was heavily criticized on the campaign trail over questions about his honesty regarding his military service, ties to China, response to the George Floyd riots in 2020, and policy agenda as governor that several Minnesotans who spoke to Fox News Digital described as radical. “The choice of Walz was only one of many disastrous mistakes but symptomatic of one larger problem — the Democratic Party leadership is too scared to say no to the hard-left progressive wing of the party,” Julian Epstein, longtime Democratic operative and former chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital. “This hard left opposes commonsense solutions that Gov. Shapiro supports — charter schools, for example. Or defeating terrorists rather than aping their talking points and positions, which allow them to stay in power and rearm for the next genocidal attack,” Epstein continued. “It’s the hard-left progressive wing that looks first to welfare and redistribution rather than economic growth, and to cultural extremism on migration and gender deeply out of touch with the American electorate. Walz was a really bad choice for sure, but their choice was part of a deeper problem.”
House Dem describes awkward past encounter with Harris: ‘She just walked away from me’
A House Democrat says, following Kamala Harris’ election loss, that the vice president once “walked away from me” and that “There was kind of an eye roll” during a past interaction she had with her in Washington, D.C. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez recounted her experience to the New York Times as the race for her seat in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District remains too close to call. As of Friday, with around 87% of the vote in, Gluesenkamp Perez leads her Republican challenger Joe Kent by nearly 11,000 votes. “When Harris first came out, I was open to talking with her. I know she called a lot of my colleagues; she never called me,” Gluesenkamp Perez said to the newspaper when asked for her thoughts on Harris’ presidential campaign. “I’ve had one interaction with Harris, at her Naval Observatory Christmas party.” “I’m not super comfortable at that kind of thing. I’d had a couple of beers, and I noticed that almost all of the garlands were plastic. My district grows a hell of a lot of Christmas trees. I was strong-armed into taking a picture. I said, “Madam Vice President, we grow those where I live,’” Gluesenkamp Perez continued. “She just walked away from me. There was kind of an eye roll, maybe. My thinking was, it does matter to people where I live. It’s the respect, the cultural regard for farmers. I didn’t feel like she understood what I was trying to say.” DEMOCRATS LOOKING TO POINT FINGERS AFTER ‘HUMILIATING’ ELECTION DEFEAT SHOULD START WITH MEDIA: WSJ COLUMNIST Harris’ office did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Heading into Election Day, Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign told Fox News Digital that she had “no plans” to endorse Harris. In July, Gluesenkamp Perez also had called for President Biden not only to drop out of the presidential race, but also to resign from his position as commander in chief. 4 KEY TIMES BIDEN UNDERMINED HARRIS’ CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP “Americans deserve to feel their president is fit enough to do the job. The crisis of confidence in the President’s leadership needs to come to an end. The President should do what he knows is right for the country and put the national interest first,” she said at the time. When asked by the New York Times this week how Democrats should respond to Harris’ election loss, Gluesenkamp Perez, she said, “It’s a lot easier to look outward, to blame and demonize other people, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do. It is not fun to feel accountability. It requires a mental flexibility that’s painful. So, who knows?”
Senate races in Arizona, Nevada still not called; Democrats hold slim leads
Three days after Election Day on Nov. 5, the U.S. Senate races in the western states of Arizona and Nevada remain undecided. Democratic candidates in both races have maintained a slight lead, offering hope for Democratic leader Chuck Schumer that his incoming minority might not shrink further. Republicans have flipped four senate seats so far and are set to start next year in the majority. As of Friday morning, incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., leads her Republican challenger Ret. Army Capt. Sam Brown by more than 17,500 votes, or 1.2 percentage points. The deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive and be counted in Nevada is Saturday. With tens of thousands of ballots potentially outstanding, The Associated Press said on Thursday that the race is still too close to call. So far, Rosen has 665,840 votes, or 47.76%. Brown has earned 648,292 votes, or 46.50%. Nearly 96% of Nevada precincts have reported their results. PA SEN-ELECT MCCORMICK THANKS CASEY FAMILY FOR DECADES OF SERVICE AS DEMOCRAT DECLINES TO CONCEDE “There are still tens of thousands of uncounted ballots in the race for U.S. Senate, and the candidates are separated by less than one percent,” the Brown campaign said on Thursday. “There are also thousands of ballots which need to be cured. Sam Brown is committed to ensuring every legally cast, valid vote is counted.” On Wednesday, Rosen said, “We feel good about the results we’re seeing, but there are still thousands of votes to be counted. Our democracy takes time, and I’m confident that we will win as more votes come in.” REPUBLICANS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF HOUSE MAJORITY AS KEY RACES REMAIN TOO CLOSE TO CALL In neighboring Arizona, only 76.05% of precincts are reporting. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Marine, currently leads Republican Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor, by more than 43,000 votes. The winner of this contest will succeed retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who formerly was a Democrat. She left the party after clashing with its far-left element and decided against running for re-election as an independent when it became clear there was no path for her to do so. The Arizona results are pouring in slowly, mostly because of how the state counts votes and the complexity of this year’s ballot. The delays were expected to be most pronounced in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county. TOSS-UP MAINE HOUSE RACE MOVES TO RANKED-CHOICE TABULATION WITH GOLDEN, THERIAULT SEPARATED BY 1,414 VOTES “For the first time since 2006 here in Maricopa County, we have a two-page ballot, and we have races on both sides of those,” Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates told Fox 10 Phoenix last month. “We’re talking about four different sides of contests, seventy-nine contests on average. We anticipate that it will take people a little bit longer.” Officials said a GOP-backed state law that adds extra steps to verify ballots might also cause delays. The law requires poll workers to wait for the polls to close before counting begins. Then, all green envelope ballots that were dropped off need to be hand counted before they are delivered to the elections center, where the signatures are verified, and the votes are counted. If the election office finds an error on a voter’s ballot, the voter is permitted five days to fix it. Election workers say it could take up to two weeks for every ballot to be cured and counted. Mail ballots also need to be scanned, sorted and signature-verified before they can be counted. And voters may return mail ballots at any time before polls close on Election Day. “The most important thing you can be doing for the next few days is helping [Turning Point Action] cure these ballots and make sure every vote counts in Arizona,” Lake posted on X on Thursday. The AP reported there are still hundred of thousands of ballots left to count in Arizona, including nearly half a million in Maricopa County. Officials are currently counting early votes that arrived in October. Until more ballots are counted, the race remains too early to call.
‘Rapid pace’: Former Trump official makes prediction about incoming admin’s aggressive border plan
The Trump administration’s border security efforts will hit the ground running in 2025, having defeated “lawfare” in the courts and Republican opposition in Trump’s first term, a former top official predicts while telling Fox News Digital that he is “willing and ready” to be part of the effort to secure the border. Mark Morgan was the acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner in the Trump administration and was a critical official in the construction of hundreds of miles of border wall and the implementation of policies like “Remain-in-Mexico.” He said that the Trump administration would likely repeat the same strategies at the border that pushed a combination of consequences for illegal entry and deterrence from entering. ‘LIBERATION DAY’: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP ON BORDER SECURITY, IMMIGRATION “More importantly, we’re not going to be just reactive. We want to actually try to prevent the flow of illegal immigration, we want to go after the cartels to prevent the drugs from, you know, making it to our border. The border should be our last line of defense. That’s the same methodology, same strategy that we used in the first Trump administration that led to the most secure border in our lifetime,” he said. But Morgan believes that this time, it will be more efficient. Trump struggled in his first term to overcome opposition in Congress to border wall construction, and he had to put structures and procedures in place. His policies saw a number of lawsuits in the courts. “We already had a series, really a network of tools, authorities and policies in place that were already tested. We knew they worked,” Morgan said. “And equally important is they’d already gone through the continuum of lawfare.” He pointed to Safe Third Country agreements and the Remain-in-Mexico policy as examples. He also noted that mass deportations had been conducted under the Trump administration, as well as administrations before that. “So the statutory authority is already there. The foundation is already there. We’re just going to have to use it with a kind of a a good dose of whole-of-government steroids and just increase the magnitude of those operations,” he said. Similarly, on border wall construction, there were over 450 miles built during the administration, and the foundations are there for more construction. HOW HARRIS WAS DOGGED BY ‘BORDER CZAR’ LABEL, PAST RADICAL IMMIGRATION VIEWS DURING FAILED CAMPAIGN “I’m hoping that there will be a national emergency declared, so that’s going to give and open up the opportunity to get funding from other resources that will help us get that started right away. We won’t have to wait for Congress. But in addition to that, we’ve already been there, right?” he said. “So we’ve already had the contracts before. We already have the design. We’ve already had the systems in place . . . the materials already sitting in there. Everything is going to be put in place at a much more exponentially rapid pace.” He also said that he believes that with the strong victory of Trump in the election, and control of both chambers of Congress, that there will be more action in D.C. “I think with the overwhelming victory and the degree of chaos, the lawlessness at our border that we’ve had over the past four years, I think those Republicans that have been resistant to strong border security action that have remained in the shadows, I think they’re going to be forced from those shadows,” he said. “And I think we have a really good shot at a permanent legislative reform and not just having to rely on executive orders.” CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS He said that legislation in Congress could look like the House border security bill, known as HR2, but it could end up packaged differently to avoid Democratic resistance. As for whether Morgan will be returning to government, he said that it would be inappropriate to speculate, but he said that “if the president calls, there’s only one answer.” “There’s only one person that’s going to select his cabinet and that’s going to be President Trump. So to presume that any of us know exactly what those names are going to be, I think is misleading, we don’t. But look, if he asks, I’m able, willing and ready, and I’d be absolutely thrilled to be part of the next administration to get this country back on track and specifically secure our borders.”
Trump’s ‘they/them’ ads combined culture war, economic worries to make effective pitch: expert
In the final days of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, he honed in on a culture war issue that may have locked in more swing votes and with it the election, a conservative activist instrumental in the ad campaign argues. “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” the narrator of Trump’s advertisement said. The ad, which focused on men in women’s sports and Vice President Kamala Harris’ track record of ushering in sex change procedures for incarcerated people in California, was in part due to the influence of American Principles Project’s president, Terry Schilling, who began pushing out these ads in 2019. HARRIS NOW THE SECOND DEM CANDIDATE TO LOSE TO TRUMP AND NOT SPEAK TO SUPPORTERS ON ELECTION NIGHT Schilling said back then, the issue was “too premature” to make waves in the conservative movement. But over the course of the Biden-Harris administration, as the gender ideology wars began to make it into the mainstream spotlight, Schilling believed it would be a winning issue for conservatives. The American Principles Project spent tens of millions on ads highlighting the transgender issue in states across the country, and Schilling went to Mar-a-Lago a few months ago to personally encourage Trump to lean in on the opportunity. “The cue of giving sex change procedures to inmates is so radical, it’s so extreme, and it’s one of those issues that touches on not just the culture war, but the economy, too,” Schilling told Fox News Digital. “You have a lot of families that are hurting, they’re struggling to put food on the table,” Schilling said. “They’re struggling to be able to afford to send their kids to a decent school where they can learn to read and write properly, and they’re scrapping all their pains together, and then they see that their government is paying to give people that committed very serious crimes that are in federal prisons, sex change procedures that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.” CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS IN THE 2024 ELECTION “When you go to prison, you have to lose some rights, and it was an issue that really resonated,” he continued. “Trump gets so much credit. I have heard from several people that that maniac-madman-genius actually came up with that closing line of, ‘Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump’s for you.’ He’s so good at the branding.” Schilling said there was record-breaking fundraising for his organization this year, noting a 50% increase from the previous year, growing from $12 million to $18 million. He highlighted that this funding has driven extensive research, ad production, and messaging guidance, which has reportedly influenced Republicans to focus on transgender issues in campaign ads. According to Schilling, Republicans spent over $215 million on ads targeting transgender issues. Last year, Schilling’s organization produced an ad featuring women’s activist Riley Gaines advocating for candidate Daniel Cameron against Democrat Andy Beshear for governor in Kentucky. ADVOCATE FOR ‘GENDER AFFIRMING CARE’ FOR PRISONERS NAMED BY AG GARLAND TO CORRECTIONS ADVISORY BOARD In August 2023, APP released a post-2022 election report, titled, “The Failed Red Wave: Lessons from the GOP Letdown,” arguing that Republicans performed poorly in part because they failed to take advantage of Democrats’ cultural extremism on transgender issues. This summer, APP announced an $18 million ad campaign exposing Kamala Harris and other Democrats’ stances on transgender issues. “We spent over seven figures on polling and focus groups and message testing, and we’ve been passing it out, beating our heads against the wall with candidates up and down the ballot. And 2024 was the year that it finally broke through,” Schilling said. The ads came during a time during the election cycle where several actions by the Biden-Harris administration gave the messaging a boost. In June, health officials in the Biden administration urged international transgender health nonprofit, World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), to omit the age limit in its guidelines for transgender surgical procedures for adolescents – and succeeded – according to unsealed court documents. More than a dozen states in the U.S. have enacted bans on surgical procedures and hormonal prescriptions for transgender youth. Idaho, North Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama have passed laws making it a felony to perform sex changes on children. Several blue states, meanwhile, have enacted “sanctuary state” laws in recent years shielding medical providers from facing penalties for conducting transgender procedures on adolescents. Trump’s success in reaching people in this issue hasn’t come without its opposition. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union pledged “to combat” the forthcoming Trump administration’s proposed policies on critical issues such as abortion, border security and LGBTQ rights. The left-wing civil liberties organization launched 434 legal challenges against President Trump during his first term, and will continue during his second term, according to Romero’s open letter. They plan, for example, to use the courts to “invalidate Trump administration policies” impacting the gay and transgender communities, such as actions that keep biological males out of women’s bathrooms or that prevent them from playing on women’s sports teams. Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick names private school vouchers as his top legislative priority
School voucher supporters say they have the votes to get a bill across both the Texas Senate, led by Patrick, and the House, which has repeatedly blocked such proposals.
Republican senator says Trump should not pardon Hunter Biden
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., says President-elect Trump should not offer Hunter Biden a pardon after Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September. “I don’t think he should pardon Hunter,” Johnson said in an interview on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live.” “I think we need to be very careful about having a dual system of justice where the powerful, or the sons and daughters of the powerful get off scot-free,” he said. Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have spearheaded the Senate GOP’s investigations into President Biden’s son and allegations of corruption surrounding the Biden family. He has often criticized the Biden administration’s Justice Department for purportedly treating Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes with kid gloves, all the while calling the various criminal investigations into Trump politically motivated. KJP SAYS PRESIDENT BIDEN STILL HAS NO PLANS TO PARDON HUNTER BIDEN FOR TAX FRAUD, GUN CHARGES While Johnson is opposed to letting Biden off the hook, he did suggest that Trump might commute or otherwise reduce the first son’s sentence as a show of good will and effort to unify the country. “I could see possibly commuting the sentence, reducing it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if President Trump would do that,” he said. “I would not pardon Hunter. I would certainly not. I wouldn’t scream about commuting his sentence or reducing it in some way, shape or form.” Hunter Biden was indicted on three felonies and six misdemeanor counts alleging he evaded paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while simultaneously spending money on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” according to the December 2023 indictment. POLL COMPARES WHETHER TRUMP, HUNTER BIDEN SHOULD GET PRISON SENTENCES, ACCORDING TO US ADULTS Prosecutors also allege the tax returns Hunter ultimately did file falsely claimed that things like prostitutes, strip club visits, porn website subscriptions and other personal expenses were actually deductible business expenses. The aim, according to the indictment, was to “evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities” that Hunter faced. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been repeatedly asked whether President Biden might pardon his son before leaving office. Asked again on Thursday, Jean-Pierre said the president still had no intention of doing so. BIDEN COMMITTED ‘IMPEACHABLE CONDUCT,’ DEFRAUDED UNITED STATES TO ENRICH HIS FAMILY’: HOUSE GOP REPORT “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no,” she said. Trump himself floated the idea of a pardon or commuted sentence for Biden in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt in October. “Will you pardon Hunter Biden,” Hewitt asked the former and future president on Oct. 24. “I wouldn’t take it off the books,” Trump replied. “See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what, and Hunter’s a bad boy. There’s no question about it. He’s been a bad boy. All you had to do is see the laptop from hell. But I happen to think it’s very bad for our country.” Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Chinese spies hacked Trump attorney Todd Blanche’s phone: source
The FBI notified Todd Blanche, an attorney for President-elect Donald Trump, that Chinese hackers breached his phone and procured voice recordings and texts, though the material did not pertain to Trump, according to a source familiar with the matter. Reports last month suggested that hackers tied to China had targeted Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and others, including individuals connected with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. CNN first reported the news. “The U.S. Government is investigating the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China,” the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement last month. CHINESE HACKERS ATTEMPTED TO BREACH TRUMP AND HARRIS CAMPAIGNS’ CELLPHONE DATA “After the FBI identified specific malicious activity targeting the sector, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims,” the statement noted. Trump is now president-elect after decisively defeating Harris in the 2024 White House contest earlier this week. He won key swing states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, sailing to an Electoral College blowout. CHINA-LINKED HACKING GROUP TARGETS PHONES BELONGING TO TRUMP FAMILY, BIDEN AIDES: REPORT While the U.S. and China engage in significant trade, the Communist nation is widely viewed as a rising competitor and adversary that challenges U.S. hegemony on the world stage. U.S.-China relations are one of the many challenges Trump is expected to confront next year after he returns to the White House. “On November 7, 2024, President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to Donald J. Trump on his election as the next President of the United States,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated. XI JINPING WARNS TRUMP US WOULD ‘LOSE FROM CONFRONTATION’ WITH CHINA AS RENEWED TRADE WAR LOOMS “Xi Jinping noted that history tells us that both countries stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation,” the ministry added.
DNA TV Show: Loudspeaker controversy erupts ahead of Maharashtra Polls
Raj Thackeray says that if his government is formed, he will remove loudspeakers from all mosques. Nitesh Rane has also supported this statement of Raj Thackeray.