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Washington Examiner

Trump demands voter ID as condition for California wildfire aid
Approved, National, Washington Examiner

Trump demands voter ID as condition for California wildfire aid

By Naomi Lim | Washington Examiner President Donald Trump named voter ID and water reforms as the two concessions he is seeking from California as Washington considers sending relief to the state as it battles wildfires around Los Angeles. “I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen,” Trump told reporters Friday after Air Force One touched down in Asheville, North Carolina. Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in California, both before and after his 2020 election loss. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE WA...
10,000 troops headed to seal the southern border, as Trump shuts down asylum process
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10,000 troops headed to seal the southern border, as Trump shuts down asylum process

By Jamie McIntyre | Washington Examiner TRUMP ‘EXPECTS IMMEDIATE RESULTS’ AT THE BORDER:  Robert Salesses may only be acting secretary of defense for a short time, but he’s acting with dispatch to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order that “suspends the physical entry of aliens engaged in an invasion of the United States through the southern border.” After a Monday meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanders of the U.S. Northern Command, Transportation Command, and National Guard, Salesses established a task force to carry out “expedited implementation” of Trump’s orders to obtain “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.” “DOD will begin augmenting its forces at the southwest border w...
DOGE co-head Vivek Ramaswamy being pushed by Trump to fill Vance’s Senate seat
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DOGE co-head Vivek Ramaswamy being pushed by Trump to fill Vance’s Senate seat

By Cami Mondeaux, Mabinty Quarshie and David Sivak | Washington Examiner President-elect Donald Trump is quietly pushing entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, three sources familiar with the matter confirmed to the Washington Examiner.  Ramaswamy previously took himself out of the running for the position last year after Trump and Vance won the November election, instead accepting a position from the president-elect to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. However, Ramaswamy’s name has been floated as a contender in recent days and is in advanced conversations, sources told the Washington Post.  Vance resigned from his seat Friday ahead of his swearing-in Monday. Under...
York: Jack Smith, the prosecutor who would never admit what he was doing
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York: Jack Smith, the prosecutor who would never admit what he was doing

By Byron York | Commentary, Washington Examiner JACK SMITH, THE PROSECUTOR WHO WOULD NEVER ADMIT WHAT HE WAS DOING. Just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, the Biden Justice Department’s hand-picked Trump prosecutor, Jack Smith, released a report on the investigation that resulted in the indictment of Donald Trump on four counts involving the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The report did not have a lot of new information in it — Smith has poured out his evidence in filing after filing for more than a year — but it did contain Smith’s assessment that he could have convicted Trump had Trump not won the presidency and is thus no longer subject to federal prosecution. What else could Smith say? That he had spent all that time and money, and stirred up the country so m...
In suit with McDonald’s, plaintiffs claim   race-based Hispanic-only scholarship is unconstitutional
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In suit with McDonald’s, plaintiffs claim race-based Hispanic-only scholarship is unconstitutional

By Emily Hallas | Washington Examiner A civil rights organization filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s over concerns the company’s scholarship program for high schoolers discriminates against non-Hispanic students.  The American Alliance for Equal Rights mounted the challenge to McDonald’s HACER program over the weekend, arguing that denying aid on the basis of race is unconstitutional. The group alleged that the scholarship initiative, which has handed out $33 million in funding to thousands of Latino students, violates the United States’s civil rights laws because it doesn’t offer the same opportunities to non-Hispanic students.  AAER filed the lawsuit after a high school senior from Arkansas was turned down for the HACER program because she was ...
California Democrats held special session to ‘Trump-proof’ the state as fires rage
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California Democrats held special session to ‘Trump-proof’ the state as fires rage

By Emily Hallas | Washington Examiner California Democrats are being denounced for calling a special legislative session to target the incoming Trump administration as the state reels from devastating wildfires.  At the direction of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), the state legislature convened on Thursday to move forward with plans to provide $25 million to the California Department of Justice in preparation for lawsuits against the incoming Trump administration.  The move prompted immediate backlash from California Republicans, who argued that instead of focusing on “Trump-proofing” the state, Democrats should be invested in “fire-proofing California.”  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Trump shakes hands with Pence, chats with Obama at Carter funeral
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Trump shakes hands with Pence, chats with Obama at Carter funeral

By Naomi Lim | Washington Examiner President-elect Donald Trump and his former vice president, Mike Pence, were reunited for the first time since January, 2021 at the funeral of the late Jimmy Carter. The handshake between the two men, almost four years to the day when Trump supporters called for Pence’s execution for not stopping the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results, were one of many notable interactions between the living current and former presidents and vice presidents gathered at the Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday for Carter’s official state funeral service. Carter died last month at the age of 100. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Exhausted Democrats plan muted resistance for Trump’s inauguration
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Exhausted Democrats plan muted resistance for Trump’s inauguration

By Emily Hallas | Washington Examiner Democrats are prepared to protest President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., ahead of and during his inauguration on Jan. 20, although their opposition is muted compared to the reactions when he took office in 2017.  The Left’s lackluster resistance comes as it has grappled with how to respond to Trump’s reelection, with Molly Murphy, a pollster for Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign, telling Democratic National Committee members last month that “the 2025 playbook cannot be the 2017 playbook.” READ THE FULL STORY AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Grossman: In Trump 2.0, experience from the first administration will help tame the administrative state
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Grossman: In Trump 2.0, experience from the first administration will help tame the administrative state

By Andrew Grossman | Commentary, Washington Examiner President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration will have a running start on regulatory reform thanks to the experience of his first. A few key moves will go a long way toward taming the administrative state.  Similarly, Trump should end independent agencies’ exemption from the centralized regulatory review process administered by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. That will improve the quality of their regulatory analyses and actions and ensure that they aren’t working at cross-purposes with other agencies. READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
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Surgeon general calls for cancer warning labels on alcohol

By Gabrielle M. Etzel | Washington Examiner Alcohol should come with a warning label indicating it is a leading cause of preventable cancer, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a new report Friday.  “Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a press release announcing the new 22-page report. Nearly three-quarters of all U.S. adults, 72%, reported that they consumed one or more alcoholic drinks per week, but fewer than half reported that they were aware of the documented relationship between alcohol co...