Host Dana Bash said, “I do want to ask one question about something that’s happening in the building of the Capitol, on the other side, where you used to serve in the House. House Speaker Mike Johnson said this week, ‘all single sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings such as restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.’ This is of course, because the first transgender member of Congress Sarah McBride, was just elected. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace is leading the charge to prevent her from using the women’s bathrooms. What’s your reaction to this? And broadly, how should Democrats be approaching this issue of trans rights?”

Duckworth said, “Yeah, I think that we need to make sure that people are people. And frankly, you know, I think that we have so much other to worry about. We have you know, budget deficits. We have crisis all around the world. We have a humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza. We have Ukraine, Russia is making headway there. And it’s an illegitimate invasion of Ukraine. We have issues here in this country. And yet she’s worried about one member of Congress using the bathroom. Number one, I think her position is disgusting and wrong but I also think that we have a lot more to worry about than where somebody goes to pee.” […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

The New York Times reports that in the midst of significant changes in the social media landscape, Bluesky, a relatively new social network, has experienced an unprecedented surge in growth. Founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was initially introduced as an invitation-only prototype with the intention of closely managing its growth. However, the past week has seen the platform’s user base more than double, surpassing 15 million users as people seek alternatives to established networks such as X, Facebook, and Threads.

The rapid growth of Bluesky has propelled the app to the top of both Apple’s and Google’s app stores, where it currently holds the position of the most downloaded free app. This sudden influx of users has forced the company, which consists of only 20 full-time employees, to adapt and scale up its operations practically overnight.

Jay Graber, the 33-year-old chief executive of Bluesky, acknowledged the challenges that come with such rapid growth. “We as a team take pride in our ability to scale quickly,” she said in an interview. “But there’s always some growing pains.” Graber revealed that the app, which is still significantly smaller than its competitors, is adding more than one million new users per day.

After days of explosive growth on the platform, the Bluesky Safety team posted Friday that it received 42,000 moderation reports in the preceding 24 hours, compared to 360,000 in all of 2023. Most troublingly, the company acknowledged that it is receiving reports of “CSAM” or child sexual abuse material, commonly known as child pornography. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Phillip issued her diagnosis of the Democratic Party’s issues when speaking at the Institute of Politics for the Harvard Kennedy School of Business last week.

“Democrats are in that place now where they have to break out of it, and I think it is a real problem. It’s not as simple as wokeness or whatever. It’s about people who are being incentivized to think about issues in a particular way,” Phillip said.

The CNN anchor said that Democrats could fall victim to “groupthink” if they become too circular in their lines of communication.

“I have observed that elites increasingly talk only to each other and come to believe that because there is consensus among them, that that consensus is shared broadly, and there are not enough voices that are confident enough to disagree and to present alternatives,” she said. “And we as a society need to find better ways to uplift divergent voices. Otherwise, we will be victims of groupthink.”

Phillip chalked the party’s problem up to “elitism in general.”

“There needs to be more courage among people to speak out and to voice diverging opinion. Otherwise, you know, I think it’s a real issue, and it’s not just the Ivy League. I think it’s elitism in general,” she said. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Hegseth, along with Vice President-Elect Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), met with Republican Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

Senators indicated that 2017 allegations of a sexual assault — that ended in no charges and that Hegseth has said stemmed from a consensual sexual encounter — would not derail his confirmation.

In a statement, Barrasso, who will soon be the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said:

Pete Hegseth is a strong nominee to lead the Department of Defense. We had an excellent discussion about the need for America’s military to remain the best in the world. That means taking care of our service members, equipping them with the latest technology, and focusing on making our military the most lethal force on the planet. Pete pledged that the Pentagon will focus on strength and hard power – not the current administration’s woke political agenda.

National security nominations have a history of quick confirmations in the Senate. I look forward to Pete’s hearing and a vote on the floor in January. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

The survey asked respondents, “Do you think Donald Trump has been trying to unify the country since the election or has he been acting to divide the country?”

A majority, 54 percent, said they believe Trump has been trying to unify the country, compared to 46 percent who believe is trying to divide the country. The breakdown, predictably, has nearly three-quarters of Democrats, 76 percent, expressing the belief that Trump is trying to divide the country — a sentiment held by just 11 percent of Republicans. Conversely, 89 percent of Republicans believe Trump is trying to unify the country, and nearly one quarter of Democrats, 24 percent, agree. Independents are split 50-50.

The survey also asked respondents if they believe Trump is a threat to democracy, or if they believe that was just “overblown campaign rhetoric.”

A slight majority, 52 percent, deemed that narrative “overblown campaign rhetoric,” while 48 percent genuinely believe that he is a threat to democracy. That includes 81 percent of Democrats, 16 percent of Republicans, and 45 percent of independents. Most independents, 55 percent, as well as Republicans — 84 percent — believe that it was nothing more than “overblown campaign rhetoric.” […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Homan dismissed calls for amnesty and argued that consequences would deter illegal immigration.

“AOC is saying the answer is mass amnesty,” host Jesse Watters said. “I mean, it would save you a lot of work, but what do you say to her?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Homan replied. “You’re going to reward illegal behavior. If you reward amnesty, you’re never going to fix the border. This country is showing over and over again that if you don’t have consequences, they’re going to keep coming. Rewarding amnesty means millions of them are going to come saying, look, I can cross the border illegally. I can lose my case in front of an immigration judge, and I still get to stay. And that’s what people don’t understand. People say mass deportation is a bad thing. No, we just had historic illegal immigrant crisis on the border. Millions of people crossed the border illegally.”

“Every one of them committed a crime by crossing the border illegally,” he continued. “If you look at the immigration stats, nine out of 10 of them will get an order removal. They have to be executed because if we don’t execute those orders. Then what the hell are we doing, Jesse? Just shut down the immigration court. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Take the Border Patrol off the border because there are no consequences. The law is clear. We’ll give you a due process. You can have your day in court. When you’re ordered move, you’re going to leave and we’re going to make you leave. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Here’s the breakdown:

• Vice President Kamala Harris — 41 percent
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom — 8 percent
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — 7 percent
• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — 6 percent
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — 6 percent

On one side of the scenario, you can see why Democrat voters still support her, even after her decisive loss to President-elect Donald Trump two weeks ago. She still has the best name recognition. She’s been vice president for four years. She never worked at McDonald’s. She received 74 million votes. You can also argue that with only a little over 100 days to pull a campaign together, she did pretty well.

On the other side of the argument is the fact that Democrats have a pretty weak field. Newsom has done a terrible job governing California. Buttigieg is a weirdo who failed as transportation secretary. Walz is even weirder. Shapiro is Jewish, and that’s a problem for the pro-Hamas wing of the party.

Above all, who gazes upon Kamala Harris and sees her as ready for another run at a presidential campaign? Her first attempt to become president in 2020 was such a disaster she ended up dropping out before a single vote was cast. And while you can sympathize with Kamala being thrust into the middle of the 2024 campaign without much notice, one fact remains: she never improved as a candidate. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Host Manu Raju said, “Democrats are in the very early stages in trying to determine what went so terribly wrong for them in the elections. And there is no consensus. Moderate Democrats believe the party shifted too far to the left. Progressives say they struggled to properly convey the benefits of their agenda, and all sides agree they have failed to tap into the deep unrest over economic conditions and the direction of the country. So Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, has kicked off a series of listening sessions with his members, which have grown tense at times. And the first postmortem meeting, several Democrats said the party had a lackluster approach to addressing issues like border security and crime.”

Raju asked, “What was the biggest mistake that needs to be corrected?”

Moulton said, “Well, obviously, we’ve lost touch with the majority of Americans. Democrats have a habit of preaching down to people and telling them that if they don’t 100% agree with our orthodox view, often defined by the far left, then they’re just bad people. They’re morally wrong. And that’s not going to win us any elections.” […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Johnson said, “What I’ll say about the nominees, that the president has put forward, is that they are persons who will shake up the status quo. And I think what the American people have have believed and what they’ve delivered with the mandate in this election is a demand that we shake up the status quo. It’s not working for the American people. So use the term in the opening about how these are disruptors. They are. I think that’s by design. Any president has the right to name their own cabinet to nominate persons that they think the people that that are on this list will do that. They will go into the agencies that they’re being asked to lead and they will reform them. these agencies need reform.”

He added, “I think the vast majority of the American people understand that you can’t have status quo appointments in a moment like this I’m really excited about the days ahead I think the America first policies will deliver for the American people. I think we’re going to have a warm embrace of all the new folks who came into the Republican Party in this election cycle, the demographic shifts that we saw that were historic because we have a chance now to demonstrate for them that our policies are conservative, constitutional policies, common sense policies are best for them as individuals and families and and communities and states in the nation as a whole. So exciting days ahead. It is a new day in America these these individuals will help deliver that. And I think the Senate needs to do its job and get them appointed so that the President Donald Trump and JD Vance can begin that administration.” […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com

Democrats planned on President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris to lead them for at least the next four years, but Trump’s dominant performance appears to have broken them until a new dynamic emerges.

Many of the current Democrat leaders are too old to represent the next generation of Democrats. Gone are the heydays of Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and John Kerry. Current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is 73. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-NY) is 84. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is young enough but under his leadership House Democrats were defeated in 2022 and 2024. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison is also younger but he faces the same challenge as Jeffries.

Some Democrats who could emerge as leaders might be found in the governors, who still remain in power but whose resumes were not harmed by Trump’s landslide victory. Those include Govs. Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, and J.B. Pritzker. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has a chance to gain power, although she is only a representative from a very blue district in New York State.

New York Magazine’s Gabriel Debenedetti reported on the Democrat disarray:

All of this would likely have happened to some lesser degree if it were President-elect Harris now considering how to build her Cabinet in order to steer the direction of the new administration. Yet there’s already an underlying consensus across the party that these first squabbles are all just fine as a short-term coping mechanism but that the real work of diagnosis and soul-searching about both its own failures and Trump’s significant inroads into its base will take months, if not years. Some of this will be formal, conducted by the party committees and data firms and by the super-PACs currently getting incoming from furious donors. In the meantime, there will be casual recriminations against Biden and Harris specifically; already, some people close to Biden’s initial operation have wondered aloud how he got away with refusing to run polls to understand his own image before launching a campaign in 2023, while others around Harris have questioned how her advisers meshed with Biden’s loyalists when the campaign turned over and how some of the people who knew her best in California were shut out. Most are convinced that a real deep dive into the party’s more fundamental shortcomings in voters’ eyes will be necessary before they map a coherent and aggressive path forward for themselves. For now, as one top strategist told me this week, they are “licking the wounds” as they contemplate “diagnosing the patient.”

In this way, the mood is more in line with 2004-style desperation and introspection than 2016-style fury. It will likely continue to be, even if the party can somehow agree about whether this result was more a rejection of Biden and the inflation he oversaw or part of a more profound and global anti-incumbent mood. It’s why even if Democrats largely agreed with Elizabeth Warren’s postelection message about the importance of vigilance in Trump’s return, they greeted her particular warning that Republicans were relying on them to “point fingers at each other” with a collective shrug. Now is, in fact, the time for finger-pointing.

But the biggest difference between now and 2016 is the lack of clarity, or even initial ideas, about whom the party can or should turn to for leadership and a vision. […]

— Read More: www.breitbart.com