Northeast
RNC co-chair Lara Trump blasts ‘ridiculous’ GOP Senate hopeful Larry Hogan for defending Trump trial verdict
Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said ex-Maryland Governor and Republican nominee for Senate Larry Hogan “doesn’t deserve the respect” of anyone in the GOP in a new interview.
Hogan, a moderate vying to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin in blue-state Maryland, last week urged Americans to “respect the verdict and the legal process” regardless of the outcome of former President Trump’s trial. The comment irked many Republicans and Lara Trump – the former president’s daughter-in-law – was asked if the RNC supported Hogan’s Senate bid after his remarks.
“I don’t support what he just said there. I think it’s ridiculous, and I think anybody who is not speaking up in the face of … a trial that would never have been brought against any other person aside from Donald Trump doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone,” she said Sunday on CNN.
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Larry Hogan, a moderate vying to succeed retiring longtime Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin in blue-state Maryland, irked Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump. (Left: (Photo by: William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images), Right: (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images))
“He doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party at this point, and quite frankly, anybody in America, if that’s the way you feel,” she continued. “That’s very upsetting to hear that.”
CNN host Kasie Hunt asked if that means the RNC is willing to cede the Senate seat in Maryland to Democrats instead of supporting Hogan.
“We, of course, want to win, as a party, but that is a shame and I think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly,” Lara Trump said, adding that she isn’t sure if RNC resources will be used to help Hogan.
“As the Republican Party co-chair, I think he should have never of said something like that,” she added. “I think that’s ridiculous.”
Her remarks raised eyebrows given the significance of the Maryland race to winning the Senate majority in the 2024 congressional elections. A Republican in a blue state, Hogan was elected to two terms as governor, serving from 2015 to 2023. His victory in the Senate GOP primary turned what was viewed as a likely Democratic hold this year into a competitive general election race.
Maryland hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988 and hasn’t elected a Republican U.S. Senator since 1980.
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Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said ex-Maryland Governor and Republican nominee for Senate Larry Hogan “doesn’t deserve the respect” of anyone in the GOP. (CNN/screenshot)
Senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita responded to Hogan’s X post last week, “You just ended your campaign.”
Hogan has been critical of the former president and said earlier this year he wouldn’t vote for him in 2024.
Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree on Thursday after two days of jury deliberations in New York. The charges were related to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, who says she was paid to remain silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, which Trump denies.
Fox News Digital’s Brianna Herlihy and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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State Treasurer Erick Russell achieved a 14% increase last year investing Connecticut’s pension fund assets, gaining roughly $8.3 billion for retirement programs for state employees, teachers and other municipal workers.
The state, which oversees nearly $69 billion in pension assets, aims for an average annual return on pension investments of 6.9%.
Expectations for bigger gains grew throughout the past year as key stock market indices surged. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges, grew by more than 13% in 2025. And the S&P 500, which follows 500 traded companies, topped 16%.
Among peer states and other entities that manage public pension funds holding more than $10 billion in assets, Connecticut’s 2025 performance ranks in the top 17%, Russell said.
But the treasurer, who also announced this week he will seek a second term, said the latest big earnings stem from more than the big gains Wall Street enjoyed in 2025.
“Markets certainly have been strong, but a lot of this is about our overall asset allocation,” said Russell, who updated the Investment Advisory Council Tuesday on the state’s portfolio. “The progress we’ve been making … is a good sign that we’re set up for future success.”
Russell also reported investment gains of 10.3% for the 2024 calendar year and 12.8% for 2023.
State officials particularly have focused on improving investment returns since a May 2023 report from Yale University researchers found Connecticut’s results badly lagged the nation’s over the prior decade.
That only compounded an even larger pension problem that state officials began to address in the early 2010s. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Connecticut governors and legislatures failed to save adequate for pension benefits for more than seven decades prior to 2011. This deprived the state treasurer of huge assets that otherwise could have been invested to generate billions of dollars in revenue over those seven decades.
The treasurer’s office under Russell has put more funds into private and domestic markets and curbed reliance on investment managers who receive large fees for their work.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly also have greatly assisted efforts to bolster the fiscal health of pension programs in recent years. Since 2020, they have used $10 billion from budget surpluses to make supplemental payments into pensions for state employees and municipal teachers. That’s in addition to annual required payments that currently approach $3.3 billion in the General Fund.
“These returns highlight the impressive work of Treasurer Russell and his team in increasing investment returns,” Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said Tuesday. “Gov. Lamont’s focus has been on building a sustainable Connecticut for the future. Every dollar in additional investment revenue is funds the state can use to cut taxes and provide more resources for essential programs like education, child care, housing, and social services safety nets.”
Russell, a New Haven Democrat, said he has tried to make the office both “disciplined and forward-looking.”
“Over the last several years, we haven’t just changed how the office works, we’ve changed who it works for. We’re ushering in a new era of fiscal responsibility, making significant payments on long-term debt that has allowed us to invest in the residents of Connecticut and begin to lift up communities across our state.”
Russell also brokered a key compromise in 2023 between Lamont and the legislature that salvaged the Baby Bonds program, an initiative that invests long-term funds in Connecticut’s poorest children when they’re born to help finance educational and business opportunities later in life.
Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org). Copyright 2026 © The Connecticut Mirror.
A person was hit by a vehicle Tuesday morning in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Police responded just after 10 a.m. to the crash at the intersection of Elm Street and Carter Street.
Officers began treating the pedestrian, who was then taken to an area hospital with unspecified injuries.
The driver stayed at the scene, the Waltham Police Department said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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