TV News LIES

Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) campaign for California governor lost two co-chairs and key endorsements on Friday after the San Francisco Chronicle reported on allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer.

The Chronicle reported that a woman who previously worked for Swalwell alleged that he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too intoxicated to consent. The Hill has not independently verified these claims. Swalwell denied the allegations in a statement to the outlet.

“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the frontrunner for governor,” Swalwell told the Chronicle. The Hill has reached out to his campaign for additional comment.

In the wake of the reporting, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) resigned as co-chair of Swalwell’s campaign and called on the congressman to “leave the race now so there can be full accountability without doubt, distraction or delay.” The other campaign co-chair, Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.), wrote on the social platform X that he is withdrawing his support of Swalwell and urged the gubernatorial candidate to end his campaign.

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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Wednesday echoed Democratic calls to hold former Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt if she failed to comply with a subpoena to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The Justice Department told House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) Wednesday that Bondi would not appear for the scheduled April 14 deposition.

Mace, who introduced the measure to subpoena Bondi, got the backing of four GOP colleagues and all the Democrats on the panel in a vote last month.

“We expect Pam Bondi’s deposition to be rescheduled in a timely fashion. Our motion made clear the Committee must issue a subpoena to Pam Bondi, not the occupant of the office of Attorney General of the United States,” Mace wrote on social platform X.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appears to have dropped his demand that a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security include money for ICE and Border Patrol, accepting a deal he disparaged as unacceptable only days earlier.

If Johnson lets the House pass the bill, it will mean the end of a seven-week shutdown that’s caused many DHS workers to miss multiple paychecks. It’s a significant retreat for Johnson and House Republicans, though it also means Democrats could soon have little leverage in the push for reforms at the two immigration enforcement agencies.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced they would be “fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security” through two separate tracks, one a long-term budget process and the other a more immediate appropriation. President Donald Trump seemed to endorse the plan in a post on his website.

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Republicans are grappling with how to handle an expected $200 billion request for supplemental funding for the war in Iran, weighing their desire to support the president with demands from fiscal hawks, questions about the scope of the funding and the challenge of a super-slim majority in the House.

Democrats are not expected to support such a Pentagon funding boost for a war they oppose, leading Republicans to eye fulfilling the request through the special budget reconciliation process, which bypasses the need for Democratic support to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

But to do that, Republicans must get near-unanimous support in a slim House GOP majority — a tall task for even the most populist GOP priorities — while contending with demands from their own members to offset the cost of such a funding boost with cuts elsewhere.

“It needs to be paid for. We need to do the fiscally responsible thing,” said Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus.

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Democrats are now all but certain to elect another Black woman to the U.S. Senate after Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won Tuesday’s bitter and expensive primary in Illinois.

Stratton overcame a crowded Democratic contest for the state’s open Senate seat, defeating front-runner Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi with the help of millions of dollars of outside spending — much of it from her old running mate, Gov. JB Pritzker.

She is widely seen as the favorite to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin in the blue state and would become the sixth Black woman to have ever served in the upper chamber.

The contest was defined by heavy outside spending and intraparty fissures over race. It became contentions during the final weeks, with Krishnamoorthi and Stratton trading sharp attacks on the debate stage and blasting each other in TV ads over corporate money and immigration policy.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus — who backed a different contender, Rep. Robin Kelly, in the primary — also warned that Pritzker’s interference could split the Black vote and cost Democrats a chance at electing a Black woman to the Senate this year.

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Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) announced Monday that he will formally leave the Republican Party this week to become an independent..

Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) announced Monday that he will formally leave the Republican Party this week to become an independent.

Kiley had previously announced that he will run for reelection in the midterms as an independent. But he accelerated the process on Monday, saying he will file a letter with the House clerk immediately to drop his identification as a Republican for the remainder of the current Congress.

“I will be the sole independent member of the House of Representatives,” Kiley told reporters Monday during a virtual press conference. “We’re going to be submitting the letter to the clerk today.”

Optically, the switch is another setback for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders, who currently have a paper-thin majority and are scrambling to defend it in November’s elections.

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