Politics

“Certainly we all know that every former president has access to their documents. That’s how they write their memoirs. They don’t have, you know, great recall of everything that occurred in their administration. And we don’t know that they were classified. We know according to the FBI documents that they were identified as marked classified.” – Rep. Mike Turner, on …

Mediaite reports: CNN’s Jake Tapper drilled down on Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) — as the congressman attempted to defend Trump over the FBI’s search through Mar-a-Lago. “It’s not a question that it’s bad to have classified material in a non-SCIF environment,” Crenshaw said. “I still haven’t seen any evidence that Trump was even asked to give these documents back. He’s been …

The Miami Herald reports: Snipers from Russia and other countries hostile to the United States are competing in war games being held this week in Venezuela in events described as Olympic games for soldiers that were organized not only to show that Moscow still has friends but also that some of them are in Latin America. The international war games …

The South Bend Tribune reports: Rudy Yakym, a former Walorski campaign finance director, has been named Indiana Republicans’ nominee to succeed Jackie Walorski for the 2nd congressional District race this November. Yakym was a campaign finance director for Walorski in 2011 and 2012 and was endorsed by the late Congresswoman’s husband Dean Swihart earlier this week. He won the nomination …

Texas Public Radio reports: Fredericksburg is the county seat of Gillespie County, which supported Trump in 2020 with nearly 80% of its 12,000 ballots cast during the election. Beto O’Rourke’s visit came soon after the entire three person staff of the county’s Elections Department resigned over threats made against the former elections administrator since the 2020 election. Supporters of Gov. …

The Washington Examiner reports: The Club for Growth is on television in Utah with $2.5 million in advertising to provide air cover for Sen. Mike Lee (R), who is fending off an unexpectedly aggressive challenge from independent candidate Evan McMullin. Utah is a red state, and Republicans are favored to make gains in Congress amid President Joe Biden’s languishing job …

The Detroit News reports: An Oakland County judge ruled Friday that county prosecutors cannot enforce the state’s 1931 abortion law as courts consider a Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban as unconstitutional, a decision that two GOP county prosecutors plan to appeal. Oakland Circuit Court Judge Jacob Cunningham’s preliminary injunction means abortion will likely remain legal in …

The Hill reports: “My views about Kevin McCarthy are very clear. The Speaker of the House is the second in line for the presidency. It requires somebody who understands and recognizes their duty, their oath, their obligation,” Cheney told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl in an interview on “This Week” when asked if the country would be better or worse off …

CNBC reports: Walmart on Friday told employees that it will expand abortion and related travel coverage, according to an internal memo. The change comes about two months after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to access the procedure. Effective immediately, Walmart’s health-care plans will cover abortion “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, …

The Washington Post reports: Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has ratcheted up the rhetoric about GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, describing him earlier this week as mentally unstable. Hogan, who has previously called Cox a “QAnon whack job,” described the GOP nominee as “a nut” during a recent radio interview and reiterated his prediction that Cox has “no chance whatsoever” of …

NBC News reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday downplayed expectations of Republicans capturing control of the Senate in the fall elections, describing “candidate quality” as an important factor. “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the …

Fort Lauderdale’s CBS affiliate reports: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is speaking at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale and the “major announcement” he promised was that 20 people are being arrested for illegally voting. Thursday, DeSantis said the majority of the people who were charged and are being arrested voted illegally in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. He …

Deadline reports: CNN is dropping its Sunday show Reliable Sources while its host, Brian Stelter, is exiting the network. A spokesperson for CNN said, “CNN will end its Reliable Sources program on Sunday, August 21st. As a result Brian Stelter will leave the company. We appreciate his contributions to the network and wish him well as he embarks on new …

Politico reports: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp moved Wednesday to derail a grand jury subpoena for testimony issued by the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. In a filing in Fulton County Superior Court, Kemp outlined increasingly acrimonious talks between his attorney and aides to District Attorney Fani Willis over the span of several months, …

Politico reports: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is using his rising clout among conservatives to help candidates who have openly questioned President Joe Biden’s win — even if it’s something he doesn’t like to talk about. DeSantis on Friday will speak at a Pittsburgh rally for state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor who supported efforts to contest …

Mediaite reports: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears to be already gearing up for her next move in politics as she “repurposed” her campaign account as a Political Action Committee the morning after her GOP primary loss. Punchbowl News reported that in the early morning on Wednesday, Cheney filed with the Federal Election Commission “to reorganize her campaign account – flush …

Florida Politics reports: “Fetterman, first off, lied about his health. Fetterman wasn’t even on the campaign trail for months. I’m sorry that he’s had health problems, but he lied about it. And that right there should be a disqualifying factor,” Scott said on Tuesday’s Hugh Hewitt Show. The Scott attack comes as Oz, a television star behind Fetterman in polls …

The New York Times reports: Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will not have to turn over the proceeds of his $5.1 million book deal, after a judge ruled on Tuesday that a state ethics board had violated Mr. Cuomo’s due process in seeking the money. The now-defunct Joint Commission on Public Ethics, known as JCOPE, had initially approved Mr. Cuomo’s …

The Alaska Daily News reports: In a primary race largely seen as a referendum on former President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was narrowly leading Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in early results after voting concluded Tuesday. Murkowski had 42.7% of the votes counted so far compared to Tshibaka’s 41.4%, with 233 of 402 precincts reporting. Both candidates, along with …

The Hill reports: Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday. The poll, released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms. Rubio, …