The Pentagon says back pay for troops fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine is not off the table but is not under active consideration, in a reversal from an earlier statement by the department.

During a press briefing Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder responded to a question about whether the department is still exploring providing back pay for service members, and said it is not an issue the DOD is ‘pursuing.’

‘We are not pursuing, as a matter of policy, back pay for those who refused the vaccine,’ said Ryder.

He continued: ‘So [I can] tell you that right now we’re not currently pursuing back pay.’

Ryder’s statements at the press briefing come after Department of Defense spokesperson Maj. Charlie Dietz said recently that the department is ‘exploring’ the issue of providing back pay.

‘The Department is still exploring this and will provide its views on legislation of this nature at the appropriate time and through the appropriate process,’ said Dietz to Fox News Digital Tuesday morning.

‘All Service members and Veterans may apply at any time to the appropriate Discharge Review Board or Board for Correction for Military/Naval Records if they believe that there is an error or injustice in their records – to include those that were separated by the vaccine mandate,’ continued Dietz.

President Biden last month signed the fiscal year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included a provision, cleared by the House and the Senate, to repeal the administration’s military vaccine mandate. Last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed a memo that will update the records and remove letters of reprimand from troops whose exemption requests to the vaccine were denied.

Lawmakers are pressuring the Pentagon to provide back pay for the roughly 8,400 U.S. troops fired after refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, after the department rolled back its mandate.

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Digital that Congress is already planning to add language into the next NDAA to provide back pay for terminated troops if the Pentagon does not do so.

Fox News’ Liz Friden contributed to this report.

Books containing ‘sexually explicit’ content — including depictions of sexual or gender identity — would be banned from North Dakota public libraries under legislation that state lawmakers began considering Tuesday.

The GOP-dominated state House Judiciary Committee heard arguments but did not take a vote on the measure, which applies to visual depictions of ‘sexually explicit’ content and proposes up to 30 days imprisonment for librarians who refuse to remove the offending books.

The proposal comes amid a national wave of Republican-backed laws to ban books that feature LGBTQ subject matter — though usually those bills have been limited to school libraries, not public ones.

Supporters of the bill said it would preserve children’s innocence and reduce their exposure to pornography.

But critics said the measure is ‘steeped in discrimination’ and would allow government censorship of material that is not actually obscene.

House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, of Dickinson, introduced the bill and said public libraries currently contain books that have ‘disturbing and disgusting’ content, including ones that describe virginity as a silly label and assert that gender is fluid.

Lefor argued that a child’s exposure to such content has been associated with addiction, poor self esteem, devalued intimacy, increasing divorce rates, unprotected sex among young people and poor well-being — though did he did not offer any evidence to support such claims.

Stark County resident Autumn Richard also spoke in favor of the bill, giving examples of explicit content in the graphic novel ‘Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human’ and the kids’ comic book ‘Sex Is a Funny Word’ — both available in public libraries.

Richard argued the books might have beneficial knowledge about contraceptives, body image and abusive relationships, but many sections provide information that she said was harmful for minors.

Though supporters of North Dakota’s bill repeatedly called the sexual content ‘obscene,’ opponents said the material in question is not actually considered legally obscene.

‘Nearly 50 years ago, the (U.S.) Supreme Court set the high constitutional bar that defines obscenity,’ said Cody Schuler, an advocacy manager at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota, who testified against the bill.

Obscenity is a narrow, well-defined category of unprotected speech that excludes any work with serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, Schuler said. Few, if any, books have been deemed obscene, and the standard for restraining a library’s ability to distribute a book are even more stringent, Schuler added.

The definition of pornography is also subjective, opponents of the bill said.

Library Director Christine Kujawa at Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library said the library has a book with two little hamsters on the cover. At the end of the book, the hamsters get married, and they are both male.

‘It’s a cute book,’ Kujawa said — but it would be considered pornography under the bill because the book includes gender identity.

Facing criminal charges for keeping books on shelves is ‘something I never thought I would have to consider during my career as a librarian,’ Kujawa added.

In addition to banning depictions of ‘sexual identity’ and ‘gender identity,’ the measure specifies 10 other things that library books cannot visually depict, including ‘sexual intercourse,’ ‘sexual preference’ and ‘sexual perversion,’ — though it does not define any of those terms. The proposal does not apply to books that have ‘serious artistic significance’ or ‘materials used in science courses,’ among other exceptions.

The bill would allow prosecutors to charge any person who displays these materials at places that children visit with a class B misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is 30 days of imprisonment and a $1,500 fine.

The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify across the country, the American Library Association reported in September. Numbers for 2022 approached the previous year’s totals, which were the highest in decades. Bills to restrict mature content in school libraries became laws last year in Tennessee, Utah, Missouri, Florida and Oklahoma.

The most targeted books have included Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir about sexual identity, ‘Gender Queer,’ and Jonathan Evison’s ‘Lawn Boy,’ a coming-of-age novel narrated by a young gay man, according to an April report.

The U.S. Department of Education investigated the removal of LGBTQ-themed books from the library of a Texas school district in December. The investigation followed a complaint by the ACLU and appeared to be the first based on a nationwide movement to ban school library books dealing with sexuality and gender.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing a competitive re-election bid ahead of Thursday’s debate with a large field of opposing candidates expected to challenge what many view as a disappointing performance related to the COVID-19 pandemic and in tackling violent crime plaguing the Windy City.

Lightfoot, a 60-year-old former prosecutor, was championed in 2019 for becoming the first Black and first openly gay mayor elected in Chicago, ousting Rahm Emanuel, now the current U.S. ambassador to Japan. But The Wall Street Journal reported that Lightfoot is now considered an ‘underdog’ ahead of the Feb. 28 election against eight challengers who include U.S. Rep. Jesús ‘Chuy’ Garcia, D-Ill., and former schools chief Paul Vallas, recently endorsed by the city’s Fraternal Order of Police.

The remaining six candidates — Illinois State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, activist Ja’Mal Green, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, Ald. Sophia King, 4th Ward, Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th Ward, and businessman Willie Wilson – are Black, which the Journal reports could dilute some of Lightfoot’s support. Lightfoot did secure a key endorsement, however, from the head of the city’s Black caucus. 

The Chicago Tribune reported that Lightfoot’s campaign has spent twice as much as she’s raised in the final three months of 2022. The incumbent, who’s been investing in expensive TV ads, spent roughly $3 million from October to December, leaving Lightfoot with about $1.4 million in her coffers before the February election. If no candidates secure a majority, the top two candidates will face an April run-off.   

Lightfoot’s campaign rejected the notion she was an underdog in the race. 

‘They just are not scientific polls and haven’t done a good job of capturing the electorate of the city,’ Lightfoot campaign spokeswoman Christina Freundlich told The Journal. ‘We feel really confident in our strategy and where we’re moving here in the next few weeks.’ 

Lightfoot has made a reputation of butting heads with teaching unions during the pandemic and police unions amid the fallout of the civil unrest that came from the George Floyd 2020 protests. Amid rampant public safety concerns, several wealthy neighborhoods in Chicago have turned to hiring private security as police walked off the job, and McDonald’s Corp. and well as billionaire Ken Griffin’s market-making business Citadel Securities have moved headquarters out of the Windy City, citing crime. 

At the start of last quarter, Lightfoot’s campaign had $2.9 million in the bank and raised a little less than $1.5 million, according to the Tribune. In one attack ad last month, Lightfoot went after her top rival, Garcia, ridiculing the congressman’s alleged ties to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who was indicted for corruption. Unlike Lightfoot, as well as Vallas and Johnson, the Journal notes how Garcia has yet to launch any TV ads before the election. 

The congressman is the only other mayoral candidate besides Lightfoot to raise more than $1 million.  

Wisconsin Democratic state senators on Wednesday joined calls for the Republican leader of the state Senate to remove his appointee to the state’s bipartisan election commission over comments he made about minority turnout in Milwaukee.

Ten of the 11 Democratic members of the Senate signed onto a statement asking Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu to rescind his appointment of Commissioner Robert Spindell, who publicly applauded GOP tactics in Milwaukee during the 2022 midterm. He credited the efforts with depressing turnout from Black and Hispanic voters.

‘Remove this man,’ Democratic Sen. LaTonya Johnson, who is Black and from Milwaukee, said at a news conference. ‘There’s nothing that can be said, there’s no apology. Even when he tried to clarify his comments, he made them worse.’

In the week since the comments became public, LeMahieu has declined on several occasions to comment. LeMahieu did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. A spokesperson said the senator was unavailable.

Democratic Sen. Kelda Roys said the request from Senate Democrats presented an chance for LeMahieu to prove he’s willing to work across the aisle, as he’s suggested he wants to do more frequently in the new legislative session.

Spindell did not immediately respond to a voicemail and email left Wednesday requesting his comment.

The University of Pennsylvania, which runs the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., where classified documents were recently discovered from Biden’s time as vice president, has received millions from unnamed Chinese donors since Joe Biden became president, a new investigation found.

The university took $14 million from unnamed contributors in China and Hong Kong and $2.4 million from unnamed contributors in Saudi Arabia since 2021, the Washington Free Beacon first reported in a review of government records. Another $1 million was given to the university by a donor in the Cayman Islands to fund the Penn Wharton China program, according to the report. 

The money donated amid the Biden presidency adds to the $61 million Chinese donors have given the university between the years 2017 and 2020, according to previous Free Beacon reporting. 

President Biden’s lawyers turned over at least 10 classified documents located at the Biden Penn Center from his vice presidency to the National Archives in November, which was later revealed to the public in January. Two additional batches of classified documents were recovered by his lawyers at his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

The names of the donors are concealed by the Department of Education, which is required to report donations to universities it funds with federal dollars. The agency reportedly declined a request to provide the names. 

The White House and University of Pennsylvania did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

Biden’s son, Hunter, is loosely tied to both locations where classified materials were recovered. Hunter, who has business in China, helped orchestrate the founding of the Penn Biden Center prior to its launch 2017 for after his father left office as vice president. Hunter also falsely claimed to own his father’s Wilmington, Delaware, property, where he has lived. 

The Marguerite Casey Foundation, a left-wing grantmaking group that counts Stacey Abrams as a board member, financially backed several more anti-police groups and campaigns in 2021, tax forms reviewed by Fox News Digital shows.

Abrams’ campaign attempted to put her at arms-length away from the foundation during her second failed attempt at becoming Georgia’s governor by telling Fox News Digital that she does not share their views when questioned on its vocal calls to defund and abolish law enforcement. 

Abrams, however, had backed an initiative shortly after joining its board in May 2021 to increase funding to such organizations. The foundation’s new tax documents contain its financial support during the launch of the anti-cop initiative and include Abrams’ first seven months on its board.

Throughout 2021, the Marguerite Casey Foundation doled out six figures to groups such as the Black Organizing Project, which received $100,000 from the foundation for general operating support.

The Black Organizing Project is part of the Anti Police-Terror Project, a coalition of far-left groups seeking to defund the Oakland Police Department and ‘build a replicable and sustainable model to eradicate police terror in communities of color.’

‘For the past 5 years, APTP’s Defund OPD committee has been leading the call to defund the police and invest in our communities,’ the project’s website states. ‘Our work has grown into the Defund Police Coalition with 13 BIPOC-led grassroots organizations* dedicated to refunding, restoring, and reimagining Oakland.’

The Black Organizing Project has also voiced its support for abolishing police. ‘We want to abolish police COMPLETELY!!!’ the group tweeted shortly after George Floyd’s death. 

The Marguerite Casey Foundation also pushed $160,000 in grants to the Color of Change Education Fund, which is part of ‘the nation’s largest online racial justice organization.’

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, joined the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s board at the same time as Abrams and has tweeted his support of defunding the police several times. His group also backed a failed Minneapolis effort to disband its police department and replace it with a department of public safety. 

Additionally, the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), which approaches its work ‘through an explicit racial lens,’ received a $100,000 grant from the Marguerite Casey Foundation marked towards ‘ending police violence.’

In the wake of the Floyd riots and unrest, ACRE was vocal about how it viewed the future of policing, using its social media platforms to call for defunding and abolishing police. 

‘In the coming weeks, we at ACRE will continue our work as an organization set on abolition and defunding the police as well as ensuring justice in a number of other areas – not the least of which is the impending eviction crisis,’ ACRE said in a June 2020 press release. ‘We will not allow white supremacy to stop us, nor will we cower in its face. The time is now.’

Less than a week before the midterms in November, ACRE tweeted, ‘We need to abolish this system of policing and build a justice system that prioritizes the needs and well-being of all people.’ A couple of months before, they tweeted, ‘We need to abolish this system of policing…’

‘To truly build a world that is safe for Black people, we must fully defund & abolish the police,’ the group tweeted in September 2020.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation’s newest funding follows its substantial past support of anti-law enforcement groups. It also came as the group launched the Abrams-backed ‘Answer the Uprising’ initiative, which devoted more cash to programs and organizations ‘that directly address racial injustice in policing and the justice system,’ Fox News Digital previously reported.

‘This latest initiative is fully supported by Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Board of Directors, which recently named seven new changemakers to the Board, including Stacey Abrams and Rashad Robinson, President of Color Of Change,’ the group wrote in a May 2021 press release.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation recruited other left-wing organizations for the initiative, including Borealis Philanthropy, which has partnered with Black Lives Matter. Borealis Philanthropy acts as an intermediary for donors and provides large sums to numerous liberal activist groups, including those who want to strip the police of their budget. 

According to the 2021 tax forms, Borealis Philanthropy received $500,000 for its Communities Transforming Policing Fund (CTPF), which was launched in 2017 and works on campaigns ‘focused on shifting power and resources from policing to communities to create public safety’ and reducing ‘the size, scope, and role of police,’ according to its website. 

Borealis Philanthropy’s president Amoretta Morris also supported defunding police in an April 2021 tweet promoting CTPF.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation made its way into last year’s gubernatorial race and could later pose additional problems for Abrams, who recently said she’s eyeing another run for office.

‘I will likely run again,’ Abrams recently said, adding that she doesn’t know when that campaign will be.

The Marguerite Casey Foundation and Abrams’ campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

WASHINGTON – Federal officials must do a better job tracking and retaining classified documents, Americans in the nation’s capital told Fox News as a scandal involving President Biden’s handling of government records unfolds.

‘The way the federal government keeps their top-secret documents seems kind of loose,’ a D.C. resident, Edward, told Fox News. ‘It should be looked at.’

‘I think the public library does a better job of keeping track of their books,’ he continued.  

Biden’s personal attorneys found classified documents improperly stored at the president’s old office in the Penn Biden Center, media outlets reported last week — months after the White House became aware. Additional news reports days later revealed that more documents were discovered at the president’s personal home in Wilmington, Delaware.

AMERICANS CONSIDER HOW WELL THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HANDLES CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS:

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last Friday that the search for documents was complete but more classified material was found at Biden’s Wilmington home the next day.

‘These are confidential documents or high-security documents, and they shouldn’t be in someone’s home,’ Sue told Fox News. ‘Somebody should be looking into it.’ 

Another woman in D.C., Mary, said: ‘Whatever can be done to secure those documents, absolutely, is extremely important.’

The Department of Justice is also investigating former President Trump over classified material the FBI found at his Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022.

‘If it’s going to happen back-to-back with multiple people, then it needs to be looked into so it doesn’t happen no more,’ Chris said. 

Emily, a D.C. native, said: ‘They should make sure they turn all those in before they leave office.’

Some were surprised that the chain of custody of these documents was broken. 

‘I don’t know what protocol is in place,’ Mary said. ‘There is a very robust system for every single document that’s ever produced.’

 ‘They review where that document is, who has it, the chain of custody every time it’s checked out,’ she continued.

Another resident, Charles, agreed.

‘The federal government has to do a better job,’ he said.

To watch D.C. residents’ entire interviews, click here. 

The Republican candidate arrested this week in connection with a string of recent shootings targeting Democratic politicians’ homes in New Mexico following his failed statehouse bid there paid at least $500 to four men to open fire at the properties, police have revealed. 

Solomon Pena, 39, is now set to make an initial court appearance Wednesday on charges including multiple counts of shooting at a home and shooting from a motor vehicle, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and being a felon in possession of a firearm. 

The shootings began Dec. 4, when eight rounds were fired at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa. Days later, state Rep. Javier Martinez’s home was targeted. On Dec. 11, more than a dozen rounds were fired at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, police said. 

The final related shooting, targeting state Sen. Linda Lopez’s home, unfolded in the midnight hour of Jan. 3. Police said more than a dozen shots were fired, including three that Lopez said passed through the bedroom of her sleeping 10-year-old daughter. 

NEW MEXICO POLICE ARREST FAILED GOP HOUSE CANDIDATE IN SHOOTINGS TARGETING DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS’ HOMES 

Pena went along for the final drive-by, with his gun jamming as bullets ripped into the bedroom of the girl, police said. He was detained by a SWAT team Monday at a condominium building in Albuquerque. 

Pena ran unsuccessfully in November against incumbent state Rep. Miguel P. Garcia, the longtime Democrat representing House District 14 in the South Valley. Pena got 26% of the vote. 

Prior to being taken into custody this week, Pena spent nine years behind bars following an arrest in April 2007 for stealing electronics and other goods from several retail stores as part of what authorities described as a burglary crew.  

He was released from prison in March 2016, and had his voting rights restored after completing five years probation in April 2021, corrections officials said, according to The Associated Press. 

Pena, whose criminal past came up during his recent campaign, repeatedly made claims that the election was ‘rigged’ against him. 

NEW MEXICO TOP PROSECUTOR SHIFTS FOCUS TO ADDRESSING CHILD CIVIL RIGHTS 

On Nov. 15, he posted an image of himself in a ‘Make America Great Again’ hoodie, The Associated Press reported, saying, ‘Trump just announced for 2024. I stand with him. I never conceded my HD 14 race. Now researching my options.’ 

No one was wounded in the drive-by shootings. But the New Mexico Republican Party has said, ‘If Peña is found guilty, he must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’ 

A criminal complaint viewed by the AP said Pena hired a father and son with criminal histories of their own as well as two brothers whom authorities have yet to identify. Officials accuse Pena of paying at least $500 to the four men to shoot at the homes 

Detectives identified Pena as their key suspect using a combination of cellphone and vehicle records, witness interviews and bullet casings collected at the lawmakers’ homes, police said. 

One of the witnesses, according to the AP, said one of the men told the shooters to aim above the homes’ windows to avoid striking anyone inside, but Pena showed up for the Lopez shooting ‘to ensure better target acquisition.’ 

Elsewhere, neighbors who lived next to Pena at the condo building in Albuquerque told NBC News he was not a ‘nice person’ and once was ordered to take down a ‘F— Biden’ banner hanging in his window there. 

‘We made him take it down, because it violated one of the guidelines of our building, which is you can’t put flags in the window,’ Tom Parks, a Six Hundred Alcalde West condominiums board member, told the network, adding that the banner said ‘F— Biden and anybody who voted for him.’ 

‘My partner got into difficult, unsolicited conversations with him as she came in and out of the building,’ Sharon Bode, identified by NBC News as another neighbor, also said. ‘He’s not a polite, nice person.’ 

Fox News’ Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Four years ago this month, the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race was in full swing.

Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey were days away from declaring their candidacies.

Sen. Kamala Harris was announcing her campaign and then-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was launching an exploratory committee, which Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York had already done days earlier.

Then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro were declared candidates, and long shots like Andrew Yang and former Rep. John Delaney had already been in the race for well over a year.

Fast-forward four years, and it’s a very different story in the 2024 race for the Republican presidential nomination.

The only declared candidate is former President Donald Trump, whose campaign has been mostly flying under the radar since his launch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida in mid-November.

‘It certainly does seem slower this time,’ longtime GOP consultant David Kochel noted.

A number of well-known Republicans are seriously mulling a 2024 White House run, with some of them making the early moves that come ahead of a formal campaign launch. That list includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo, former South Carolina Gov. and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, now-former Govs. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Asa Hutchison of Arkansas, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Rick Scott of Florida, Govs. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas.

But to date, none of these likely or potential contenders has come close to actually launching a campaign.

And one main reason is the former president. 

More than two years after his 2020 election defeat at the hands of President Biden, Trump remains the most influential politician and ferocious fundraiser in the Republican Party, and until recently, he was the clear and overwhelming front-runner in the early 2024 GOP presidential nomination polls.

‘You have an incumbent to some degree in Donald Trump. As much he would be a challenger in the general election, you still have to look at him as an incumbent in the primaries,’ a longtime Republican consultant and veteran of numerous presidential campaigns told Fox News.

‘The real question is who wants to be second to Trump,’ added the consultant, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely. ‘I don’t think Pence or DeSantis – who appear to be the two of the big heavyweights out there – I don’t think either of them want to be the second one in.’

Kochel, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns in Iowa and nationally, emphasized that once someone else jumps into the race, ‘Trump’s going to turn on the guns and come after you and start to draw contrasts and find the right nickname.’

‘There’s no benefit for someone like DeSantis, who will have all the money he needs, to get in early and start the burn rate. There’s no upside to it,’ Kochel argued. But he stressed that for some of the lesser-known candidates, ‘the incentive would be to get in, try to say some things that really make news and drive attention. Strategically I think there’s reasons for some of these lesser-known candidates to get going soon.’

Another reason for the slow start may be name recognition.

‘Many of the people who are considering this – DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo, Haley – they’re pretty much universal names’ among Republican primary voters, the GOP consultant said. ‘I don’t think they have as much of a need to jump in this as quickly as opposed to some of the people who are known in their states but not well-known across the country.’

Trump’s 2024 campaign launch didn’t grab rave reviews, and it was criticized not only by Democrats, but also by fellow Republicans. Some in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News the early announcement was intended in part to clear the field of potential rivals and help the former president avoid the growing net of legal entanglements, but it appears to have failed on both accounts.

Trump also appears to be the victim of self-inflicted wounds from his heavily criticized dinner at Mar-a-Lago over the Thanksgiving holiday with the antisemitic rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – and White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, to a widely panned social media post which appeared to suggest the ‘termination’ of the U.S. Constitution, as well as a profitable but mocked roll out of digital trading cards portraying Trump as a superhero, and his controversial abortion comments earlier this month that received pushback from some social conservatives in the party’s base.

Trump has also faced plenty of incoming fire over the midterm election losses of GOP nominees handpicked and supported by the former president, which were a contributing factor in the lackluster results for Republicans in November in what many had hoped would be a red wave year.

These stumbles may be another contributing factor in apparent hesitancy of other potential contenders from launching campaigns. 

‘I do feel they think the longer Trump is by himself, it maybe gives the others an advantage, because there’s more of a focus on Trump’s negatives rather than his positives,’ the consultant who asked to remain anonymous argued. ‘I do think there’s some tendency to say, ‘Let’s let Trump implode.’ Nobody feels like Trump’s getting a lot of momentum.’

Kochel pointed out that ‘Trump is best when he’s counter punching, when he’s drawing contrasts. So, denying him the direct conflict is also a way to starve him of oxygen.’

The conventional wisdom is that once a potential GOP presidential contender launches a campaign, the flood gates will open and others will follow.

But no one’s expecting a very large field – similar to the 17 Republicans who ran in the 2016 presidential cycle, or the 27 Democrats who ran in 2020, which were wide open races for their respective parties.

New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Jim Merrill, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns, predicted with Trump in the race, ‘instead of 12-16 candidates, you might end up getting 6-10.’

He added, ‘You’re going to have a robust field. I don’t think he’s [Trump] clearing anybody out. The losses the Republican Party has taken the last three cycles make it clear that people are going to be clamoring for different voices. I think we need to have a competitive primary and I think you’re going to get one.’

But longtime GOP consultant and former New Hampshire attorney general Tom Rath noted that the White House race is ‘a battle for oxygen and attention, and Trump takes up so much oxygen and attention, it’s hard for some of the others to emerge.’

And Rath, who’s also a presidential campaign veteran, argued that ‘the coverage seems to have anointed DeSantis as the alternative.’

Rep. Katie Porter of California, who recently announced her run for U.S. Senate, will not be meeting with President Biden on Thursday as he arrives to survey the areas devastated by severe weather.

Biden will be visiting California’s central coastal region this week to meet with local officials and emergency responders. 

The area has been ravaged by weeks of heavy precipitation which has caused flooding, landslides and deaths. 

Asked by reporters after a town hall on Tuesday whether she will be meeting up with the president, Porter said she would instead be in Orange County.

‘With regard to the president, I’m going to be back home in Orange County on Thursday,’ Porter said. 

She continued, ‘I’m back home in Orange County on Thursday doing some work in my district. But I was thrilled to have President Biden come out in October. We had a terrific visit.’

Porter, at the same town hall, was asked about her role in the House Oversight Committee and the ongoing investigation into Biden’s illicit storage of classified documents at his private residence, inside his garage, and in the office of his think tank.

‘So I definitely think that we want to get answers from the White House,’ Porter said. 

Porter, however, wouldn’t say if she will sign on to a request from Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer for records related to the classified documents.

‘I don’t know if that document request – I have not reviewed the line by line of the request that Chairman [James] Comer made – but I definitely think we want answers. Classified documents belong in classified settings, and I think you heard me say oversight is not a partisan thing. Good oversight means you’re willing to hold any rule breaker to account.’

Porter has also announced she will be running for U.S. Senate in California in 2024 despite no indication from incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein that she plans to step down.

‘I don’t know what Sen. Feinstein will decide to do, and I have tremendous respect for her making her own decision in her own time,’ Porter said Tuesday. ‘And that’s exactly what I’ve done, is make my own decision in my own time. So I don’t know when she’ll make a decision or what her decision will be. But I think we should let her make it.’

At one point in the town hall, Porter was asked about the role of diversity and racial representation in the Senate.

‘We need more Black women in the Senate. We need more Latina women in the Senate. We need more AAPI women in the Senate. We need indigenous people in the Senate. We need a more diverse representation, a landscape that’s absolutely clear,’ said Porter, who is White. 

She continued, ‘And the Senate, as well as the House, needs to do that work. But I think every candidate needs to make their own choice about whether to enter this race, what they’re going to fight for, whose voices they’re going to lift up. And I’m really excited about having launched my campaign.’