‘He was packing up his hangar’: Jenner says wealthy Californians are moving to avoid the homeless

Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, lamented on Wednesday that her wealthy friends were leaving the state in droves, recounting the story of one man who decided to pack up his private airplane hangar because he was tired of seeing homeless people.

The remarks from Jenner came in her first major media appearance since announcing her gubernatorial bid last month: a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, conducted in Jenner’s own Malibu-area hangar.

“My friends are leaving California,” Jenner said. “Actually, my hangar, the guy across … he was packing up his hangar. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless.’”

“I don’t want to leave,” Jenner added. “Either I stay and fight, or I get out of here.”

Jenner’s complaints about her friends’ exodus from California were criticized by some on social media as tone-deaf and unhelpful to her developing campaign. As of Thursday morning, “Sedona” was still trending on Twitter.

The comments also seemingly undercut Republican efforts to portray Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, as an elite career politician who remains out of touch with the state’s residents amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Jenner and other Republicans have particularly sought to highlight Newsom’s attendance last November at a multi-person birthday dinner at California’s upscale French Laundry restaurant, as Newsom was urging constituents to stay home and avoid congregating in groups.

In her interview with Hannity, Jenner also offered praise for former President Donald Trump, describing him as a “disrupter” who “shook the system up” and saying she was “all for the wall” Trump pledged to construct separating the U.S. and Mexico.

Over the past two weeks, however, Jenner largely eschewed public appearances after formally launching her gubernatorial campaign, provoking concerns among state Republicans who were broadly skeptical of her bid.

A notable exception to Jenner’s silence came last weekend, when she announced her opposition to female transgender athletes competing on all-girls school sports teams. “It just isn’t fair, and we have to protect girls sports in our schools,” she told TMZ.

Jenner, a socialite and reality television personality, is herself one of the most high-profile transgender Americans and a former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.

In a campaign video introducing herself to California voters on Monday, Jenner showed footage of her athletic achievements and transgender activism, while also flashing images of Newsom, homeless tents and a bin of discarded needles.

“California was once the envy of the world,” Jenner said in the video. “We had what everybody else wanted. The American Dream grew up here. Yet career politicians and their policies have destroyed that dream.”

She also vowed to serve as “a compassionate disrupter” for the state if elected.

The Real Reason Republicans Want to Oust Liz Cheney

To hear most media observers tell it, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is being martyred for having the courage of her convictions, and the House Republican Conference can no longer abide her truth-telling. Republican lawmakers, the narrative goes, are campaigning to oust her from her leadership role as the No. 3 Republican in the House because she has continued to make Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud the center of her public remarks.

But that is a partial understanding of the dynamics at work, which have more to do with the inside game essential to political survival in Washington, including Cheney’s ability—or inability, as the case may be—to cultivate the loyalty of colleagues, donors and friendly journalists. At this point, the conflict isn’t so much about Cheney’s principles; it’s about the way she’s gone about articulating them, publicly and privately.

In conversations with nearly a dozen GOP operatives and lawmakers, many of whom are now indifferent to or supportive of Cheney’s ouster, they say they are not unsympathetic to her views either on Trump or on foreign policy, where she is and always has been an important voice within the Republican Party. That’s in part why, just three months ago, Cheney beat back—by a convincing margin—an attempt to oust her from House leadership.

But Republican lawmakers and GOP operatives alike are frustrated that, after standing by her, Cheney has repaid the favor by continuing to draw attention to an issue that divides Republicans, rather than training her fire on the Biden administration. And while, yes, it is possible to do both, take a look at the headlines and see which message is getting more traction.

Cheney’s allies say that allowing Trump to promulgate lies about the election, as he has done since November, risks another insurrection. She has every right to make that her focus. But it’s one thing to do that as a rank-and-file member; her job as conference chairwoman is to help the party regain a House majority next year by rallying Republicans around a message that unites them and damages Democrats’ prospects.

The divide is deeper than pro- or anti-Trump. Rather, it’s a disagreement about how influential an out-of-office Trump continues to be on the party and whether, politically speaking, GOP energy is best spent fighting him or President Joe Biden. Cheney and her allies say Trump is an electoral loser for the GOP and won’t fade on his own; others argue his influence is diminishing and it’s disastrous to keep fighting the last war.

That sentiment is behind the exasperation with Cheney that extends even to some of the Republicans who joined her in voting for Trump’s second impeachment, according to two GOP lawmakers. They say Cheney is hurting the electoral prospects of the anti-Trumpers in the conference, who are being asked about her, rather than Biden, when they return home to their districts.

“People who voted to impeach stand by their decision, but they don’t want to be litigating that,” a top Republican operative told me. “We should be litigating why the Democrats suck and how Republicans are going to win the majority.”

Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the January 6 attack, Cheney told donors she wanted to make her forthcoming primary battle a referendum on the attacks, according to people on the call. It is not a message that resonates particularly well with a group that struggled with how to approach the Trump era altogether, and is eager to put the divisions of the past four years behind them.

Cheney might have understood her colleagues’ thinking better if she spent some more time hearing them out. POLITICO’s John Harris made the point in a column in March that asked, pointedly, why some politicians are such a--holes. He contrasted the friendless and scandal-plagued New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, with the late presidential adviser Vernon Jordan, a man of a thousand close friends. At the time, I wrote Harris telling him that Cheney was another example of the former, and the retired Gen. David Petraeus, who survived a public scandal mostly intact, of the latter.

Cuomo and Cheney don’t have much else in common, but both are second-generation politicos whose rise in public life was propelled in large part by their father’s networks. As a result, they seem to have learned less about what it takes to develop and maintain professional friendships and alliances.

Since Cheney’s arrival in Congress in 2017, I’ve heard complaints from operatives, donors and fellow reporters about Cheney’s political operation, which has been described as difficult, brittle, unresponsive and tone deaf. To wit, she is not working her colleagues to hold onto her leadership role. As repellent as it might seem, the cultivation of allies and the trading of favors is essential to political survival, a lesson Cheney seems to be learning the hard way.

As a counterexample to Cheney’s persistent focus on Trump, take Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose distaste for the former president is hardly a state secret and who has demonstrated that it’s possible to stand on principle without belaboring it. It wasn’t so long ago that McConnell, a ruthless political operative, called his vote to affirm the results of the November election the most important he had cast in his political career. The former president has responded by calling McConnell a “dumb son of a bitch.”

But asked about a recent Trump broadside, McConnell told Fox News last week: “We’re looking to the future, not the past. And if you want to see the future of the Republican Party, watch [Sen.] Tim Scott’s response to President Biden last night. … We’re not preoccupied with the past but looking forward.”

Or, as a second GOP operative put it: “She is choosing not to pivot. Mitch McConnell is no fan of Donald Trump, but he doesn’t say a goddamned word.”

Team Cheney argues that Trump remains a threat even if he is tapping out inanities from a beach chair at Mar-a-Lago, rather than from the Oval Office, and that Cheney’s silence would be a concession to Trump’s version of events.

But Cheney’s ideological allies are now left wondering: What is her end game?

The irony of the situation is that Cheney has rightfully derided some of her colleagues for using their positions to peacock for the most pathetic pro-Trump grifters and media outlets. Cheney’s audience is different, and her cause more righteous, but that’s where she is headed.

Trump attorney, other allies launch voter fraud organization

Former President Donald Trump has been fixated on election fraud since leaving the White House, and now a group of prominent allies are launching a new initiative focused on it.

The American Greatness Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group aligned with the ex-president, is set to unveil the formation of the Election Integrity Alliance on Wednesday, which it says will be “focused on ending election fraud and strengthening election safeguards by providing information, resources, endorsements of allies’ efforts, and solutions to secure free and fair elections.”

Ballot fraud has become an animating issue for Trump supporters, since the former president has baselessly claimed the 2020 election was tainted by it. Several of the alliance’s board members, including former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik became prominent voices in the former president’s failed effort to fight the election outcome.

“The Election Integrity Alliance’s National Board is comprised of individuals who have fought for election integrity at great personal risk and who are champions for free and fair elections,” the organization said in a statement.

People familiar with the project say it is intended to be a centralized hub for providing information on issues related to ballot fraud and election security. It is also aimed at coordinating with other organizations that are focused on election integrity.

American Greatness Fund, which was founded by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, is part of an ever-expanding web of Trump-aligned advocacy groups that have popped up since the 2020 election. Former Trump senior advisers Brooke Rollins and Larry Kudlow have started the America First Policy Institute; Ben Carson, who served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration, has launched the American Cornerstone Institute; Russ Vought, who oversaw Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, has unveiled the Center for American Restoration.

Another recent entrant is former Trump speechwriter Stephen Miller, who has formed America First Legal, an outfit aimed at combating the Biden White House.

Conservatives say they view the groups as key in a broader effort to match a formidable liberal "dark money" machine. The Conservative Policy Institute, an organization overseen by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and ex-South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint which provides support to non-profit groups, convened a group of major donors at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month to discuss a path forward.

Netanyahu misses deadline to form government in Israel

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has missed a midnight deadline for putting together a new coalition government.

His failure to reach an agreement late Tuesday raises the possibility that Netanyahu’s Likud party could be pushed into the opposition for the first time in 12 years.

The matter now bounces back to Israel’s figurehead president, Reuven Rivlin, who is expected to consult with leaders of the parties elected to parliament in March before deciding how to proceed.

The turmoil does not mean that Netanyahu will immediately be forced out as prime minister. But he suddenly faces a serious threat to his lengthy rule. His opponents already have been holding informal talks in recent weeks to lay the groundwork for a power-sharing deal.

He suffered a last minute defeat late Tuesday after a key committee failed to hold a vote on his proposal to stage direct elections for the premiership. A main rival, Benny Gantz, said Netanyahu “failed again to form a government. It is now your duty to think of the country, to look honestly at reality and concede your failure.”

Netanyahu had struggled to secure a parliamentary majority since March 23 — when elections ended in deadlock for the fourth consecutive time in the past two years.

In the election, Netanyahu’s Likud emerged as the largest single party, with 30 seats in the 120-member parliament. But to form a government, he needed to have the support of a 61-seat majority. That task has been complicated in large part by members of his own religious and nationalist base.

Jenner backs transgender athlete ban for girls’ sports in schools

Caitlyn Jenner, a Republican candidate for California governor, said in a new interview that female transgender athletes should be barred from competing on all-girls school sports teams.

“This is a question of fairness,” Jenner told TMZ on Saturday. “That’s why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports in school. It just isn’t fair, and we have to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”

The remarks from Jenner — one of the most high-profile transgender Americans and a former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete — reflect the efforts of several state legislatures to restrict transgender women and girls from participation in high school and college sports.

The comments also come as Jenner enters the second full week of her candidacy to replace embattled Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recall election. State Republicans had been critical of her relative silence in recent days since formally launching her campaign last month.

Jenner, a socialite and reality television personality, revealed she was transgender in a 2015 interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer that was widely regarded as a watershed moment for LGBTQ issues and the visibility of transgender people. But activists have frequently criticized Jenner’s conservative politics and support for a Republican Party historically averse to advancing LGBTQ rights.

'Like searching for a unicorn': Few moderates in sight as GOP plots Cuomo takedown

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Republicans are about to get their best chance in years to take back state government: A five-alarm scandal that’s left Gov. Andrew Cuomo facing an impeachment inquiry and multiple investigations.

But 15 years after the departure of George Pataki — a moderate and the only Republican to win a New York governor’s race in five decades — the GOP is bucking conventional wisdom that suggests a center-right gubernatorial candidate is their best, perhaps only, shot at success.

Party leaders from across the state, looking to avoid a potential civil war, have been rallying around Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island — a Donald Trump-loving conservative who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has fought ardently to oppose abortion rights. Other contenders look much the same and include upstate firebrand Rep. Elise Stefanik and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani. Both are also backers of Trump, who lost the state by some 2 million votes last year.

The dynamics are not the result of choice or strategy but rather environment. The GOP is nearly decimated across the state, and with a polarized landscape on the heels of a Trump presidency, it might be impossible to find a GOP candidate who can appeal to center-right Democrats and independents — especially one who has the kind of financing and zeal Zeldin does.

The next George Pataki simply doesn't exist.

“Right now, it’s beginning to look like searching for a unicorn, because such a Republican is not likely to emerge from the primary,” said Bruce Gyory, a long-time Democratic strategist in Albany.

On Friday, Zeldin notched another clear marker when he announced he’d been backed by Republican county chairs representing more than half the party’s weighted vote, positioning him as the party’s designated gubernatorial candidate if the support holds until next year’s convention.

It’s not the same as a nomination; any Republican who secures 25 percent of the weighted vote at the convention would automatically receive a spot on the primary ballot, and others would be able to gather petitions for a primary challenge. Ten potential candidates appeared on a poll the party sent out to supporters in mid-April, each of whom had been invited to an in-person vetting in Albany. GOP leaders have also set up times for candidates to come speak to their committees on a regional basis.

But Zeldin’s campaign is far ahead of his peers’. He has been courting local county leaders and hauled in $2.5 million during his campaign’s first 10 days. Zeldin met with the Republican Governors Association executive director Dave Rexrode on Thursday, and has picked up support from leaders of the small-but-powerful Conservative Party in New York.

The goal has always been to get a player in the game sooner rather than later, according to state party chair Nick Langworthy. And when it comes down to the most important factor in choosing a candidate, there’s really only one answer, said Marc Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive who lost to Cuomo in the 2018 general election and is considering another run.

“Winning,” Molinaro said in an interview. “My message is very simple: We just have to be unified. This is not going to be easy no matter who the candidate is.”

Zeldin has not made an effort so far to downplay his record or connections.

When asked at the Albany vetting session about how his relationship with Trump and his anti-abortion record might play in a general election, Zeldin characterized them as distractions and said he would instead “triple down” on the issues that he says matter most to the New Yorkers with whom he has been speaking.

“They are saying, ‘if you don't run, and you don’t win, I'm leaving,’” he told reporters and party leadership during the mid-April candidate forum. “And I'm telling you the issues that they are citing are issues related to the economy, issues related to public safety, issues related to education, and being embarrassed about the governor. And I'm just going to continue to focus on what New Yorkers are telling me they want me to be focused on.”

Still, there's little question that a Republican candidate for statewide office in New York cannot simply rely on fellow party members to win a general election. Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, another potential candidate who has been aggressively wooing local party leaders, said as much during the forum in Albany, noting that bringing in Democrats would be vital during the general election.

Astorino speaks from experience — he lost to Cuomo in 2014 by 14 points. But the plan he floated for 2022 didn’t include highlighting bipartisanship as much as communicating the Republican message to a wider audience, maybe in Spanish, he said.

“Hablo español y esto es muy importante: because I’m going to be able to go into neighborhoods and espouse our virtues as a Republican, and talk about issues that are important, not just in the Hispanic community,” he said. He pointed to support he received from the NAACP and members of the African American and Hispanic communities during his past campaigns. "That’s how I won in Westchester," he said.

For years political observers have theorized that if the GOP wished to break the recent Democratic monopoly on the governor's office, it would have to follow the playbook of 1994, when Pataki beat Mario Cuomo as a pro-choice, pro-environment center-right candidate with a reputation for a quieter pragmatism that contrasted with Cuomo’s more dramatic politicking.

It was a different time; the Republican party had vital anchors across New York — a more vibrant presence upstate, failsafe Republican strongholds on Long Island, an incumbent U.S. senator in Al D’Amato, who functioned as a party boss, a healthy GOP majority in the state Senate and a new mayor in New York City, Rudy Giuliani, the first Republican to win the city's top job since John Lindsay in 1965.

In theory, a well-funded moderate candidate — someone like central New York’s longtime GOP Rep. John Katko — could thread the ideological needle to pose a true challenge to a Democrat next year, said Gyory, the Albany political strategist. But first he or she would have to get through the primary, and that could lead to problems. More New York voters are affiliated with no party than they are registered as Republicans — appealing to them in a general election after winning over the GOP's pro-Trump conservatives will be difficult, Gyory said.

There are about 6.7 million registered Democrats in New York, about 3 million registered in no party, and about 2.9 million registered Republicans.

Though Zeldin already clinched the support of several key county chairs, others who are still waiting on feedback from members said they, too, welcome his momentum and energy.

“I don’t think there is a slow button on Lee Zeldin,” Albany County Republican Party Chair Randy Bashwinger said in an interview. “He is very aggressive, a very energetic person, and that’s what we need ... He’s proven he can win [downstate], and proven he can raise money.”

Richard L. Andres Jr., who heads the Niagara County Republicans, thinks voters want a “clear choice” between candidates because they are more clearly defining themselves than they were in ’94, when the parties were less ideological.

Republicans have pointed out that in 2020 Trump received tens of thousands more votes in New York City than he did in 2016, driven in part by gains in Latino-majority communities like the Bronx. But he still lost the state by more than 20 percentage points both years.

So this year, Republicans are banking on the idea that traditional issues — taxes and crime, for starters — will play better next year than in 2018.

“We’ve always felt that we’ve had a message that would appeal should we be able to get it out,” Andres Jr. said. With Trump in the White House, he said, the language from the party leader was “was so over the top our candidates locally couldn’t cut through the noise and there was no way to distinguish between his policies and our policies.

“Now there’s time before election day to do that. Midterms have historically went in favor of the challenging party and I’m hoping history repeats itself,” he said. “I’m a government teacher, I’m a history teacher. There’s a 150 years of history telling me its going to be a good year for Republicans, the question is just how good?”

Could Andres be right about history repeating itself? That may depend on who the Democrat will be. Cuomo said in 2019 that he intended to run for a fourth term and, despite the scandals eating away at his popularity, has not rescinded that position. When asked in March about his intentions for 2022, a his fellow Democrats began calling for his resignation in droves, Cuomo responded that it was “not a day for politics.”

The governor, who must contend with an impeachment inquiry and multiple criminal criminal investigations, is facing accusations of sexual misconduct and claims he hid the number of Covid-related deaths tied to nursing homes. Just 40 percent of New York voters say they view Cuomo favorably, while 52 percent view him unfavorably — a record, according to an April Siena College Research Institute. That’s down from 77-21 a year ago.

Should Cuomo resign or decide not to run for a fourth term, GOP leaders and consultants acknowledge that a fresh face in the form of Attorney General Tish James or Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul would change the nature of the race. But, so far, no Democrat has declared a 2022 bid for governor.

The GOP is banking on running against Cuomo for a fourth time and counting on the idea that New Yorkers are fed up with more than a decade of his leadership.

That’s where some 1994 parallels do get to play. Pataki’s victory is widely attributed, among other things, to “Cuomo fatigue” that characterized Mario Cuomo’s third term. And Pataki ran on simple concepts that hit close to home: cut taxes, cut spending, snuff out crime.

That same policy messaging is relevant again in 2021, with the GOP assailing Cuomo and Democrats for raising taxes and passing controversial criminal justice reform bills when they regained two-house rule 2019.

Those issues and the general sense of exhaustion — rather than political affiliations — should be enough for anyone on the fence to support a change in leadership next year, Kings County GOP chair Ted Ghorra said.

“Taking all other factors out — New Yorkers need to think with their heads, and not their hearts,” he said. “Just seeing what one-party rule has done? It should largely be based on policy and common sense.”

Hillary Clinton talks Afghanistan, Russia and Giuliani

Hillary Clinton on Friday weighed in on a host of foreign policy issues facing the Biden administration, including the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Russian treatment of Alexei Navalny and the FBI investigation into Rudy Giuliani.

In an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, the former secretary of State said she was concerned about the potential fallout for the Afghan people, especially women, if the Taliban were to come back into power.

When asked if she was "comfortable" with President Joe Biden's announced timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, Clinton declined to answer. Instead, she called it a "wicked problem" and said Biden "made the decision that he thought was the right decision."

Her focus, however, would be "on what happens to the people, particularly the women in Afghanistan, if the Taliban come back into power, if the government collapses," she said, echoing concerns among some about a potential power vacuum after U.S. forces leave. If that happened, she said she hoped the U.S. and its allies would help Afghans out of the country to "deal with what I expect to be a very large refugee flow."

Clinton also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying she approved of the U.S. sanctions over Navalny, an imprisoned regime critic whose treatment she called "particularly troubling."

"He represents millions of Russians who deserve to have a better government that is actually, you know, working to move Russia forward, which Putin is not," she said, adding that the White House and Congress should speak out "very forcefully" about Navalny's release.

The former New York senator also talked about Giuliani, the longtime political opponent she defeated in her successful 2000 Senate campaign. On Wednesday, FBI agents raided Giuliani's home and office, seizing materials in connection with an investigation into his work in Ukraine while serving as President Donald Trump's personal lawyer.

Clinton said she would "let the justice system work," but added that Giuliani has "been behaving so erratically and seemingly illegally for so long" that "I don't recognize him now."

"I don't know what's gotten into him, and we'll see what the investigation concludes," she added.

Clinton also touched upon a pressing domestic issue, urging the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, saying that "its usefulness has passed us by."

It's a stance that many Democrats have adopted, due to concerns that Republicans will use it as a roadblock to the Biden agenda. Barring that, she said she supported lifting the filibuster for "constitutional matters," such as voting rights.

The former Democratic Party nominee also nodded to the historic moment of two women — Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — sitting behind Biden during his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday.

"It really was a watershed moment," she said. "I think it's still not sinking in on people, that the, you know, combination of the speaker of the House and our vice president has shattered so many barriers and, as you say, the glass ceiling. It's just thrilling to see."