President Donald Trump bashed Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is running for reelection, in a Saturday morning Truth Social Post, calling him a “sleazebag” and “a terrible guy.”
Trump had already endorsed Cassidy’s primary challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La.
On the morning of the primary, Trump on Saturday further urged Lousiana voters to back Letlow.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A Muslim scholar who was forced to flee Egypt after criticizing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks is warning America’s far left that its alliance with Islamist extremism could end the same way Iran’s did in 1979 — with an Islamic regime seizing power after partnering with leftist factions.
Dalia Ziada, a Middle East scholar and Washington, D.C.-based coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, later relocated to the United States and said she is now seeing similar and troubling dynamics take shape here.
Her warning comes as a global network of anti-Israel activist groups is mobilizing coordinated “Nakba 78” protests across the United States and around the world this weekend, with organizers using the anniversary of Israel’s founding to stage demonstrations that critics say challenge the Jewish state’s legitimacy, and, in some cases, call for its dismantling
“For five or seven years now, we have been seeing some kind of a ‘sinful marriage’ between the radical left and the radical Islamism, the groups that hate Western liberal democracies and desire to destroy them,” she told Fox News Digital.
Ziada said Islamist movements, including groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, have for years sought to use the Palestinian cause as a way to mobilize support and build alliances with other activist movements in the West, a phenomenon some analysts have described as a “red–green alliance.
She also argued that Islamist movements have increasingly targeted Jewish communities in the West, which she described as a “pillar” supporting liberal democratic systems.
“They agree on one thing, that they need to destroy the West as we know it today and replace it with something else. For the radicalists, they want to replace it with the Marxist system. For the Islamists, they want to replace it with an Islamist system, which they think is the ideal system,” she said.
Global protest network
A Fox News Digital investigation found that approximately 425 organizations — including communist groups, Muslim advocacy organizations and anti-Israel activist coalitions — are operating within a coordinated transnational protest network with a combined funding footprint of roughly $1 billion in annual revenues.
The groups have organized an estimated 736 events across 39 countries this weekend.
Ziada said the alliance reflects what she described as a shared hostility toward Western liberal democracies and has intensified in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
She argued the war in Gaza has provided what she described as a “moral umbrella” for the movement.
“They used that to give themselves some moral legitimacy to go on and accelerate the process of destroying the West,” she said.
Lessons from Iran
Ziada pointed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a cautionary example.
“We saw this exactly happening in Iran in the 1970s. The Islamists used the left because the legitimacy of the left is stronger, because they don’t come from a religious background,” she said. “They allied the communists there, made them believe that we all are going to change Iran and make it a better place. And how it ended in 1979, the Islamic Revolution happened. The Islamists took over the country and the first group they sacrificed … was the communists, the leftists in Iran.”
Ziada warned that similar dynamics could emerge in the United States if ideological alliances continue to deepen, arguing that movements built around shared opposition can fracture once power shifts.
She said that while the groups involved may appear aligned in the short term, their long-term goals are fundamentally incompatible — a pattern she said has played out repeatedly in the Middle East.
She said such alliances are often temporary, warning that once power is secured, more extreme factions tend to dominate.
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She said the protests themselves are expected to follow a familiar pattern of anti-Israel demonstrations that she described as “very well organized worldwide.”
“I don’t think this time it would be any different in the general sense of demonizing Israel, trying to blame Israel for everything,” she said.
Ziada said protesters are likely to frame Israel using terms such as “apartheid” and “genocide,” language she argued points to a broader, coordinated alignment of groups operating with similar messaging and goals.
Ziada said the term “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe,” has been reframed over time, arguing it was originally used in part to criticize Arab leaders for rejecting a proposed Palestinian state — a context she said is largely absent from modern protests.
“I wouldn’t say it’s kind of a bureau… but they all agree on one thing, which is destroying the United States or weakening the Western world,” she said.
Ziada said she has already seen the consequences of such alliances firsthand in the Middle East.
“I have seen my native Egypt being destroyed by these groups, by these people, and I’ve seen the entire Middle East actually falling under this. And I don’t want to see the United States, the country that has given me my education, has given my career, has given me a refuge when these radicals tried to kill me — I don’t want to see being destroyed by the same bad guys.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris faced swift Republican backlash after calling on Democrats to consider expanding the Supreme Court and gutting the Electoral College the next time they are in power.
“Let’s invite ideas, for example, that are about Supreme Court reform, including the notion of expanding the court,” Harris said on a call with the left-wing nonprofit Emerge. “Let’s invite a discussion about how do we push for statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.; how are we thinking about the Electoral College.”
“We’ve got to neutralize this red state cheating,” she continued. “There’s a brutality at play on the other side, and a ruthlessness. And we need to play to win.”
Harris’ plea for “bold” reforms came after Democrats suffered two major setbacks in the redistricting wars, as both parties scramble to draw new congressional seats ahead of November’s midterm elections.
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In late April, the Supreme Court moved to curb the use of race in the drawing of electoral districts, effectively gutting Black-majority districts held by Democrats across the South. Democrats were dealt another blow at the Virginia Supreme Court earlier in May when a Democratic-friendly gerrymander was struck down over a procedural concern.
“What they have done with this decision, by saying that the politics of redistricting is okay, is they are back-dooring racism through politics,” Harris also said on the call. “What they are doing is intentionally about trying to suppress the voice of the people.”
The 2024 presidential candidate’s ideas drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who accused Democrats of being “institutional arsonists.”
“It’s a dangerous thing, a dangerous gambit,” the speaker said. “You don’t just blow up the system when you lose.”
“For the former vice president of the United States and a candidate for president to suggest that you should pack the Supreme Court or destroy these institutions because they lost is I just think outrageous,” he added.
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Conservative Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., also criticized Harris’ comments, calling them “totally insane” in an interview with Fox News.
“That’s why we can’t let her become president,” he said. “People … rejected her before; they’ll reject her again.”
Not all Democrats are in agreement with Harris.
“I think that’s putting the cart before the horse,” Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News. “Right now I’m focusing on lowering costs, health care, ending a runaway war that’s costing Americans tens of billions of dollars. Those are the things that my constituents are talking to me about.”
Harris’ calls for Democratic retaliation come as Republicans are emerging as the clear winners in the redistricting battle ahead of the midterms. The GOP could pick up more than a dozen seats after a bevy of GOP-led states have drawn new congressional maps while Democratic gains have so far been limited to California and Utah.
Earlier in May, Tennessee carved up its lone Black-majority district, represented for decades by a white Democrat, allowing Republicans to pick up a seat that had long eluded them.
Louisiana and South Carolina are conducting similar efforts to erase several Democratic-held seats following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has vowed to respond with his own gerrymander push in a swath of blue and purple states, including New York, New Jersey, Colorado and Oregon. But those states are not likely to move forward with new maps until 2028, making it a moot point ahead of November.
A wave of social media-fueled teen takeovers in cities from Chicago to Washington, D.C., is putting officials on alert for a potentially volatile summer as experts warn the large youth gatherings could strain police, fuel violence and threaten recent public-safety gains.
“It usually increases during the summer,” Zack Smith, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital of crime trends. “I think anyone who has looked at crime data and some kind of criminological studies recognized that that will increase and I think that is something that the city should be very worried about.”
The warning comes after a wave of spring incidents across the country, where large teen crowds organized or amplified online have led to arrests, fights, weapons charges and emergency curfew debates.
“So many of these incidents are fueled by two things: social media and boredom. That’s it,” Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital.
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“There is potential for this to escalate, and to really damage some really good progress that we’ve made in cutting back on that post-COVID violent crime spike,” Swearer added. Violent crime surged nationally during the pandemic, with homicides rising sharply in 2020 as cities were also rocked by protests and riots following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Social media has contributed to “under-the-radar” meetups, Swearer said, explaining that many teens are working to boost their “clout” online with outrageous videos.
“There are massive accounts that are just dedicated to showing the chaos and the carnage and the street takeover events, where it’s almost like a social media clout thing,” she said.
A Chicago teen takeover erupted Wednesday night when a car rammed a police cruiser as teen mobs cheered and filmed. In a similar incident last week, 22 people were arrested, ages 12 to 21, in Tampa, Florida, after a “teen takeover” at Curtis Hixon Park erupted into fights and disruptions, resulting in charges of affray, drug possession, resisting arrest and unlawful weapon possession.
In March, about 200 teens swarmed D.C.’s Navy Yard, where fights broke out and a 15-year-old was arrested after allegedly firing a gun, days after a temporary curfew was imposed. Nearly a dozen more juveniles were arrested a month later after street brawls in Southwest D.C., prompting a push to extend emergency powers. A large crowd returned to Navy Yard a week later, where police reported no major incidents or arrests.
The D.C. Council approved a long-term youth curfew earlier in May in an 8-5 vote after weeks of debate. The legislation still needs the mayor’s signature and congressional review before taking effect.
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Chicago was also hit with more chaos in March and April. Hundreds of teens flooded streets, filled intersections and broke out into fights, resulting in multiple arrests and curfew violations.
Mayor Brandon Johnson warned parents about the “teen trends” following the incidents, saying they “are dangerous and can often turn violent.” Johnson avoided using the term “takeover.”
Struggles among teens, like poverty and mental health, could be fueling the “chaos,” Swearer said.
“There’s a huge overlap between juvenile delinquency and poverty and mental health issues, and even delinquencies from school, truancy,” she said.
Despite those broader challenges, she said the takeovers are not justified.
“None of that is an excuse for allowing this type of large-scale chaotic disruption in this planned way,” she said.
Authorities have made multiple arrests nationwide this year tied to the meetups, with several in the nation’s capital. President Trump, who campaigned on lowering crime and has warned criminals will face prosecution, has carried that message into efforts such as the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.
The incidents have also created a political and public-safety test in Trump’s backyard, where the president has made D.C. crime a signature issue and deployed federal muscle to back it up.
Trump’s Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force has made more than 10,000 arrests and recovered more than 1,000 illegal firearms since its launch, but the continued teen takeovers show how juvenile disorder remains a stubborn challenge even amid the broader crackdown.
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However, the concern over an escalation in teen takeovers persists.
The White House told Fox News Digital that the administration is ready to tackle potential rising crime “head on” when asked about concerns the teen takeover trends could spike in the warm summer months.
“President Trump’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force has yielded tremendous results in a very short period of time – driving down crime rates in all categories and making the city safer for residents and visitors alike,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital. “As new law enforcement challenges arise, the Task Force remains committed to addressing them head on.”
CHICAGO TEEN TAKEOVER MOB RAMS POLICE CRUISER BACKWARD, SWARMS CAR AS ONLOOKERS CHEER: VIDEO
The D.C. incidents have revived a broader fight over juvenile accountability in the capital.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday that parents who let kids take part in violent D.C. teen takeovers could now face fines and up to six months in jail under the city’s curfew law.
“As we grapple with this problem, there is one area that hasn’t been discussed,” Pirro said. “Parent involvement has been a noted gap in any discussion, and I am here to say, as the United States attorney in the District of Columbia, that ends today.”
“If the evidence shows the parent knew or should have known, permitted or failed to prevent participation, we’re gonna charge them,” she added.
She criticized the city’s response to teen takeovers in April, saying the disorder falls largely outside her office’s jurisdiction because most juvenile cases in D.C. are handled by the local attorney general.
“These alleged social gatherings turn into criminal chaos,” Pirro told Fox & Friends. “Families are affected by it, businesses end up being shuttered, there’s violence that occurs.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office generally handles adult felonies and only a narrower set of serious juvenile cases charged as adult matters, including certain violent crimes involving 16- and 17-year-olds.
“Since I have been here, my mission has been to change the law to make some of the young punks criminally responsible for what they’re doing,” Pirro told Navy Yard residents at an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting in March.
Smith said the D.C. attorney general’s office, led by Brian Schwalb, has repeatedly mishandled juvenile prosecutions.
“This narrow slice of crime that’s committed by juvenile offenders, primary responsibility lies to prosecute those offenders with the D.C. attorney general’s office, and frankly, he’s just not doing his job right now,” he said.
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The Department of Justice, Pirro’s office, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“You can put more officers on the street, you can put more National Guard members on the streets, and they can arrest individuals who break the law, but if those juvenile offenders are not being held accountable at the end of the day, they recognize that there are no real consequences,” Smith said.
He said teens who don’t fear punishment are more likely to commit crimes.
“Too many juveniles, particularly juvenile offenders in the District, recognize that there is a lack of consequences for their violent actions,” he said.
A small group of repeat offenders may actually be driving the crime, and authorities already know who many of them are, Swearer said.
“Juvenile crime tracks the same way as adult crime,” she said. “It’s driven predominantly by a small number of repeat, almost incorrigible offenders who are well known to the criminal justice system.”
She said leaders can address these problems, but whether they’re willing to act is unclear.
“In many respects, we saw that this was a willpower issue,” she said. “Did we have the power to actually do something about this?”
Senators will now go without pay during future government shutdowns, but for many, they don’t need the paycheck.
The Senate unanimously agreed to forgo their paychecks during future shutdowns, with the money being withheld until a deal is struck to reopen the government. But much of the upper chamber is populated with lawmakers who are already wealthy before their time in office.
“There are some members who are very independently wealthy that their congressional paycheck is a rounding error to their investments,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. “Fine, I’m not pejorative of that at all. But we need to actually end government shutdowns.”
SENATORS AGREE TO GO WITHOUT PAY DURING SHUTDOWNS AFTER HISTORIC CLOSURES LEFT WORKERS UNPAID
In the last year, Congress has been unable to keep the government open twice. The first time for 43 days, and the most recent for 76 days.
Republicans worry that before the midterm elections, and before the rule change becomes official, that Senate Democrats may again try to shutter the government to gain a political edge. They hope that the rule change, pushed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is at least enough to convince some lawmakers not to do it.
However, nearly three-quarters of the Senate are millionaires, according to an analysis of financial disclosure data reviewed by Fox News Digital and first reported by NOTUS, meaning the fear of missing a paycheck may not be enough to quell the desire to score political points.
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“It certainly doesn’t stop future shutdowns,” Lankford said. “It just says, ‘Hey, people are not being paid, we’re not being paid either.’”
Others were more optimistic that by installing the new guardrails on themselves, it could open the door to future legislation that may take shutdowns off the table entirely — like Lankford’s bill that would automatically extend government funding on a temporary, two-week basis if lawmakers miss the mark.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, who is one of the wealthier members of the Senate, believed that the success of Kennedy’s resolution could open the valve to his legislation that would dock members’ pay during shutdowns.
“It’s about brick by brick, rebuilding confidence in the institution,” Moreno told Fox News Digital.
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Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., another of the Senate’s wealthiest members, contended that lawmakers shouldn’t hold federal workers “hostage based on what we’re doing.”
Over the past several months, hundreds of thousands of federal employees went without pay. And in the case of workers under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), they went without paychecks twice.
“Hopefully it’ll get people to focus on getting [appropriations] done, because, you know, we don’t have a process to get this stuff done,” Scott told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Kennedy, who successfully pushed Senate Republican leadership to put the bill on the floor, viewed its success as progress.
But it’s not as far as he wanted to go.
“Look, if I were king for a day, I would pass a bill that doesn’t suspend member pay, it forfeits member pay during a shutdown,” Kennedy told Fox News Digital. “And I will also include in the bill a prohibition against members leaving Washington while we’re in a shutdown. But I don’t have the votes to do that. So I’m doing as much as I can.”
EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden was spotted by paparazzi in West Los Angeles this week, where the former first son briefly reacted to questions about ongoing litigation surrounding former President Joe Biden’s interview tapes and alleged government UFO files.
“Hunter, what do you think of the DOJ when they release your father’s interview tapes from the biography that he did?” a reporter asked as he approached Biden near Wilshire Boulevard.
“What are you talking about?” Hunter Biden said.
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The exchange comes amid ongoing litigation seeking the release of audio tied to former President Joe Biden’s classified-documents probe, which fueled scrutiny over the elder Biden’s memory and fitness while in office.
The probe examined Joe Biden’s handling and discussion of classified material during conversations with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. Special Counsel Rob Hur said the author had deleted the files, but the Justice Department was able to recover them.
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The conservative watchdog Oversight Project sued the DOJ seeking release of audio recordings from Joe Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur. Biden has denied wrongdoing and said he cooperated fully with the probe.
“I don’t know, man — I hadn’t heard that one,” Hunter Biden later said.
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The reporter also asked about the recently released UFO Files.
“It’s crazy right?” Hunter Biden replied, but did not elaborate.
Hunter Biden was also one of several recent individuals whose Secret Service protection was rescinded by the Trump administration.
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Trump announced in March 2025 that Hunter Biden and his half-sister Ashley Blazer Biden — child of Jill and Joe — would cease to have such protection.
The president criticized the fact that Hunter had “as many as 18 people” on his USSS detail.
Hunter Biden’s appearance marked a rare public sighting for the former first son, who has largely stayed out of public view in recent months.
EXCLUSIVE: At President Donald Trump’s “Rededicate 250” prayer event on the National Mall this weekend, Bishop Robert Barron will address the “marginalization of God” and religion in society, which he said he considers a “true threat to democracy.”
Rededicate 250 is a major prayer event set for Sunday as a way of “rededicating” the nation as “One Nation Under God” ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. The event, which is being organized by the Trump-aligned “Freedom 250” nonprofit, is expected to include the president, White House Cabinet members and major faith leaders.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Barron, perhaps America’s most well-known and beloved Catholic bishop, revealed that his address at the event will emphasize his belief that “if you marginalize and privatize religion, democracy is in danger.”
“God is essential to the very foundations of American democracy,” he asserted. “There’s a lot of talk today about the threats to democracy, that is a true threat to democracy, the marginalization of God.”
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Barron explained that many of the societal ills seen today are due to this cultural separation from God.
“Take God out of the equation, what are you left with? Radical self-choice. Welcome to wokeism. Welcome to the culture of self-invention. ‘I make myself up, values is up to me, my gender, it’s up to the whole structure of my life, it’s my choice,’” he said. “That’s deadly to our democracy.”
“Religion belongs to the very fabric of our democracy, that’s the theme of my talk,” he said.
Barron said he will begin his speech by invoking Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
“We know from the early written versions [that] Lincoln didn’t have the phrase ‘under God’ when he said that this nation might have a new birth of freedom. But when he delivered the speech, he said this nation ‘Under God might have a new birth of freedom.’ So, what prompted Lincoln, as he was giving the Gettysburg Address, to add that phrase?” he said. “You could say, ‘Oh, it’s just a little pious declaration.’ No, no, no, I think that’s born of a very, very deep and correct intuition, America is a nation that’s conditioned by these great values, moral values, spiritual values that come finally from God.”
Barron argued that one of America’s most foundational ideas — that all men are created equal — is a novel concept made possible only by Christianity.
“We’re not equal in any way. Look at the classical political philosophers; they would never affirm the equality of all people. We’re not equal in intelligence or moral virtue or beauty or courage or anything. We’re radically unequal. So where does this come from?” he asked. “Why would you go from we’re not equal at all to it’s ‘self-evident that we’re equal’? And the answer is in that little word, ‘created,’ that ‘all men are created equal.’ So, despite all our differences, we are all equally children of God and then endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.”
This second concept of all possessing inalienable rights, Barron argued, is a uniquely Christian idea imbued in America’s values.
“No one in the classical world believed that. Aristotle didn’t, Plato didn’t. Cicero didn’t, none of them,” he explained. “Look in societies more recent that don’t believe in God. Go to Soviet Russia, go to communist China, everyone has rights? No way.”
“Where do they come from?” he said. “Well, Jefferson gives away the game. They’re endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Take the creator out of the equation, rights will go out in a minute. So, Lincoln’s intuition to say that this nation under God would have a new birth of freedom, God is essential to the very foundations of American democracy. If you marginalize and privatize religion, democracy is in danger.”
Barron said he will also address the nature of freedom itself.
“It’s a very modern sense of freedom that it means spontaneous choice, I’m free if I could just do whatever I want,’” he said. “But see, the founding fathers were trained both biblically and classically; they did not understand freedom that way.”
“Freedom is more like this, it’s an ordering of desire toward the good, so as to make the achievement of the good first possible and then effortless.”
He pointed to mastering a new language or the piano as examples.
“Think of the way you become a free speaker of a language, not by talking any old way you want, but rather internalizing the laws of the language. How do you become a free player with the piano? Not by doing whatever you want, but by internalizing the structure of music.”
“That’s the kind of freedom we’re talking about,” he said. “It’s the moral freedom to become the person you’re meant to be, that you can now effortlessly achieve the good, that this nation under God might have a new birth of freedom.”
BATON ROUGE, La. — After taking out five Indiana state senators who opposed his push for congressional redistricting, President Donald Trump‘s next target is Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Cassidy, who five and a half years ago voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial, is fighting for his political life in a competitive race against two major challengers, including one backed by the president, in Saturday’s GOP Senate primary in the solidly red southern state.
Trump and his allies, including Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, are backing GOP Rep. Julia Letlow in the Senate primary. Also in the race is former Rep. John Fleming, who is the state treasurer. If no candidate cracks 50% of the primary vote, the top two finishers will face off for the nomination in a June 27 runoff election.
The primary is the latest test of Trump’s endorsements in GOP nomination races and of the president’s immense grip over the Republican Party.
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After cruising to re-election six years ago, Cassidy was one of only seven Senate Republicans who voted in early 2021 to convict Trump after he was impeached by the House for his role in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters who aimed to upend congressional certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
But since the start of Trump’s second term, Cassidy has been supportive of the president’s agenda and his nominees, including voting to approve Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement are out for revenge.
That’s because Cassidy, a doctor, has been a skeptic of Kennedy’s push to reform the nation’s health policies, including Kennedy’s efforts to cut back on vaccine recommendations.
And Kennedy allies blamed Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, for helping sink the surgeon general nomination of Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally and top MAHA advocate, after Cassidy did not bring it to a committee vote.
Meanwhile, Trump has blasted the senator as a “very disloyal person.”
And on the eve of the primary, the president took to social media to praise Letlow as a “Highly Respected America First Congresswoman.”
Making Cassidy’s climb to renomination even tougher, Louisiana will now run separate party primaries in the Senate race, which replaces a system where all candidates appeared in one single jungle primary. That guarantees a more conservative and pro-Trump electorate for the GOP nomination.
Cassidy is highlighting his record over two terms in the Senate in delivering for Louisiana, which is one of the nation’s poorest states. And he’s showcased his support for Louisiana’s large oil and gas industry, which accounts for roughly 15% of the state’s workforce.
“When people ask things such as, can you work with President Trump, I point out that he has signed into law four bills that I wrote or negotiated,” the senator said in a primary eve interview with Fox News Digital. “We continue to work together, by the way.”
And Cassidy touted that he’s “a conservative senator who delivers.”
In trying to avert becoming the first elected Republican senator in nearly a decade and a half to be ousted in a primary, Cassidy and an allied super PAC have dished out more than $20 million on ads, according to AdImpact, a national ad tracking firm. That total is more than Letlow and Fleming, combined, have spent.
Some of those ads have knocked Letlow over her past support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during her tenure at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
Cassidy argued that Republican voters are “concerned about her shifting position on DEI. She was all in for DEI.”
LETLOW EXPLAINS HER PAST SUPPORT FOR DIVERSITY PROGRAMS
Defending her record, Letlow explained in a Fox News Digital interview on Friday that “back in 2020 whenever DEI was introduced to us, we had no idea what it was back then, and I quickly witnessed it. I was in higher education at the time. I quickly witnessed the left completely hijack it, turn it into this Marxist leftist indoctrination of our children. And so, when I got to Congress for the last five years, I’ve been fighting against it.
And she charged that the criticism of her from Cassidy and Fleming over DEI is “all baseless attacks, desperate attacks.”
Letlow won her congressional seat in 2021, after her husband, Luke Letlow, died six days after being sworn into the U.S. House after his 2020 election victory for the seat she now holds.
She was backed by Trump even before she entered the race.
“Not only did he encourage me to get into this race, but also to have his complete and total endorsement has been, wow, the honor of a lifetime,” Letlow said.
Letlow has taken aim at Cassidy for his bipartisan efforts in the Senate, including his vote for the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law that was a signature domestic achievement for then-President Joe Biden.
Asked about her criticism, Cassidy said the “people want someone who can deliver for Louisiana. The Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act has brought $13.5 billion to Louisiana for roads and bridges and high-speed internet, and along the way creating a lot of good paying jobs. My opponent opposed that bill.”
Fleming, who served as a White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term, has argued that he’s the most conservative candidate in the GOP Senate primary.
‘They see me clearly MAGA,” Fleming told Fox News Digital, as he referred to Louisiana Republicans. “I served in his entire first administration at various capacities. I was one of the first congressmen that endorsed him in 2016.”
Fleming claimed that Letlow is “not the prototype for a Trump endorsement. She’s much more like a Democrat.”
And Fleming, apparently, has become a threat to Letlow, as a super PAC supporting the congresswoman started to run ads attacking him.
But Trump’s endorsement in the nomination race weighs heavily in a state he carried by 22 points in his 2024 election victory.
“It’s the most powerful endorsement in the world,” Letlow said, adding that Louisiana Republicans “are huge fans of the president.”
And the Louisiana primary comes a week and a half after Indiana’s primary, where Trump-backed challengers ousted five state senators who had defied the president over his redistricting push.
The political world was closely watching Indiana’s primary because it was the first of a series of major tests this month of Trump’s endorsement power in GOP nomination showdowns, and the president cleared his first hurdle with ease.
Voters in Louisiana will also cast ballots in primary contests for State Supreme Court, Public Service Commission and state school board, along with five proposed state constitutional amendments.
But the primaries for the U.S. House seats were postponed by Landry after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current congressional district map.
Republican state senators in Louisiana on Thursday advanced a plan to eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional seats ahead of the midterms. Louisiana’s state House will likely vote on the map next week. The U.S. House primaries are being postponed until November.
Nebraska’s top auditor says fraud complaints are surging as waste, fraud, and abuse dominate the national conversation, telling Fox News Digital that his own crackdown has uncovered alleged misuse of taxpayer resources inside state government.
“It’s just extraordinary the explosion of phone calls and allegations and emails and so forth that are pouring into my office,” Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley said as the fraud crackdown have become a national news story and the Trump administration, led by Vice President JD Vance, unleashed a task force to root out fraud.
“And as the media focuses on this more and more, it just makes the phone ring all the more, which is fine. We’re happy to receive those calls and try to filter through them and find out which ones are the most legitimate ones for us to pursue. But it’s clearly on the rise.”
Foley, speaking with Fox News Digital from the State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Clearwater, Florida, is sounding the alarm specifically on what he says is an issue with taxpayer money being wasted or possibly defrauded by state workers, which he has made efforts to crack down on.
“Many of our state vehicles are now equipped with a GPS tracker,” Foley explained. “We can see precisely where these state vehicles are really going during work hours and they’re going to liquor stores. They’re going into health appointments that the employee might have. They’re on personal errands all across the state, and it’s racking up a lot of expense for the taxpayers in a very improper way.”
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Foley’s office reviewed GPS data from 45 state fleet vehicles and found employees allegedly using them for “trips to retail outlets, restaurants, medical facilities, residences of relatives, commuting home without permission and other private errands,” the Nebraska Examiner reported last year.
Foley put out a press release last year documenting how he uncovered what he described as a “disturbing uptick” in alleged financial improprieties across local governments statewide, detailing eight recent investigations involving suspected misuse of public money, questionable reimbursements and possible fraud.
“I can cite so many examples of contractors that are over billing or double-billing the state, all kinds of state employee infractions of using state vehicles and state assets improperly, having contractors bill us for hours which we know they did not work, having state employees billed us for time served when we know that they were at a different place of employment, public school districts that are milking public school funds for all kinds of extravagances and so forth, but at the end of the day, the tone has to be set at the top.”
At the top, Foley’s efforts on waste, fraud, and abuse have led him to a situation that he describes as “uncomfortable,” which has put him at odds with Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen.
Foley has been involved in a highly publicized debate with Pillen, arguing that the governor improperly awarded a no-bid state contract worth roughly $2 million to a consultant with ties to the governor. Nebraska law generally requires public bidding for contracts over $50,000 and says the administration wrongly claimed there was an “emergency” to bypass that process.
“There was no emergency and later now they’re claiming that she brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in grant awards,” Foley said. “The truth is those grant award applications were filed by other people, other contractors before she was even on the job. So this is a very, very serious abuse and it sets the tone in the wrong way. For other people in the state government who can say the governor can do that, I can do it too. And that’s wrong.”
Pillen’s administration has denied wrongdoing, maintaining the contract was justified because of the need to quickly pursue economic development opportunities and federal funding.
“The contract was done the right way and is bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of value to Nebraska, which otherwise would have been wasted in California,” Pillen spokesperson Laura Strimple told Fox News Digital. “Auditor Foley disagrees and he is entitled to his opinion.”
Foley has referred the matter to law enforcement for further review, saying his office’s role is limited to conducting audits and highlighting potential violations.
“I’m not the most popular person in state government,” Foley jokingly told Fox News Digital, but said “we must” track expenditures in order to safeguard taxpayer funds.
“Nebraska regrettably is a high-tax state and people know that, and they’re fed up with these high taxes, and they know that money is not being spent properly in so many instances, and they are relying on me and my office to catch this kind of thing, and we’re doing a good job,” Foley said.
“There needs to be consequences when we find these kinds of abuses, and there are. Many people are losing their jobs because they’ve abused the trust of having access to a credit card or other assets of the government, or there could be even further legal complications and infractions and jail sentences even. We’ve put a number of people behind bars because of abuse and stealing of public funds.”
Margaret Thatcher once ran Britain. John Kennedy’s “Margaret” mostly runs him into the ground.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is going viral after posting a tongue-in-cheek workout video introducing followers to “Margaret” — his elliptical trainer named after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — while wearing a red bandanna and speaking directly to the camera from his Louisiana carport.
“Hey X, I have somebody I’d like you to meet,” Kennedy says at the start of the minute-long video posted to social media Friday.
“This is Margaret. Margaret is my elliptical trainer. I named Margaret after Margaret Thatcher because both kick butt and take names.”
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Kennedy goes on to explain that “Margaret” lives outside under the carport for three reasons: the machine is too heavy to move, his wife “won’t let” him bring it inside and because he enjoys getting in a workout during Louisiana summers.
The Senator said he enjoys working outside during Louisiana summers, a detail that drew disbelief from many viewers familiar with the state’s famously brutal heat and humidity.
“As you can see, Margaret, my elliptical trainer, is out here under my carport in Louisiana,” Kennedy says. “After Margaret kicks my butt, I look for air conditioning.”
The surreal, self-aware clip quickly drew thousands of reactions online, with users roasting Kennedy’s bandanna look while also praising the senator’s everyman personality.
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“You are rocking the dadgum crap outta that bandana,” one user wrote. “I thought you were representing the Bloods for a minute. Tell Margaret I think she’s cute but evil.”
Others praised Kennedy’s personality and down-home delivery style.
“You are a gem to us normal folk Mr. Kennedy. Live long and prosper!” one supporter posted.
“Senator Kennedy is that kind of Southerner that makes you feel you’re sitting on the front porch having some bit of common sense enlighten you in that poetic Southern way,” another wrote.
The Louisiana Republican has long cultivated a folksy, humorous public image that often breaks through online with colorful one-liners and unconventional social media moments.
Kennedy ended the video with a line that only added to the internet’s fascination.
“My work here is done,” he said. “And I can see myself out.”