Politics
Column: Kamala Harris put California at the center of politics. Will that help or hurt her?
When Kamala Harris was formally installed as the Democratic presidential nominee, her home-state delegation had the best seats in the house, right up front.
Visions of the Golden State and a parade of its personalities filled the convention’s four-day program, and passes to California’s after-parties — featuring appearances by John Legend, the Killers and Oakland’s Tony! Toni! Toné — were among the hottest tickets in Chicago.
Suddenly, California is at the center of politics, in a way the nation’s most important and populous state hasn’t been since former Gov. Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
A California Democrat sits atop the party’s presidential ticket for the first time in history, thanks in good part to the machinations of another California Democrat who helped elbow the incumbent — and nominee-in-waiting — aside.
“California is having a moment,” said Don Sipple, a political strategist who helped elect several of the state’s governors, because of “the woman who opened the door and the woman who walked through it.”
(Though, it should be noted, the door-opening woman, Nancy Pelosi, and Harris have never been close. The former House speaker publicly spoke of an “open process” to replace President Biden before endorsing his vice president as the best alternative after Biden gave up his reelection bid.)
With heightened attention comes greater scrutiny, and with that added scrutiny comes a fight to define California — and, by extension, Harris — for the rest of America.
The outcome could very well determine who wins in November.
Is California a sun-kissed incubator of innovation and opportunity that continues to beckon doers and dreamers from the world over, as it has for well over 150 years?
Or is it an overburdened and overstretched collection of struggling communities that fail to provide even the basics — safety, clean shelter, sustaining livelihoods — for a shamefully large portion of its population?
Yes and yes.
“There is plenty of evidence” to support both views, said Jack Pitney, a former Republican operative and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He paraphrased Walt Whitman.
“California is large. It contains multitudes,” Pitney said. “It is possible for two things to be true at once.”
Red and blue America. Prosperous and failing California. Two ways of seeing the same thing.
Bill Carrick, longtime political advisor to the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, scoffed at the notion that Harris’ home state will hang like a millstone around the vice president’s neck.
“Ultimately, a presidential campaign is about picking someone who you think will make your life better,” said Carrick, who has worked extensively in national politics. It’s not, he said, about a candidate’s return address.
Sure, Carrick went on, “there are some ideological Republicans who are devoted to Trump” and who eagerly lap up the California-as-hellhole narrative — but “we’re not going to get them anyway.”
Most voters, or at least those who are open to supporting Harris, know very little about the vice president. That, Carrick said, gives her an opportunity to introduce herself — and her home state — on her own terms, “as opposed to the Republican cartoon characterization.”
Maybe so.
But Trump and his fellow Republicans, abetted by Fox News and other sympathetic media, will make a case that California is a case study in what goes wrong when Democrats are put in charge. They will hold up Harris, a statewide officeholder for more than a dozen years, as the prime example of its destructive ruling class.
That vastly overstates her power and influence, first as attorney general and then for a relatively brief stint as one of California’s two U.S. senators. But that detail will surely be lost in the fog of campaign warfare.
Harris is, however, an exemplar of her home state in one significant way.
There’s no doubting she reflects the politics and makeup of modern California, just as the two presidents the state yielded, Reagan and Richard M. Nixon, embodied the California of their day and age.
The two men rose to power at a time when California was mostly white and reliably Republican, with a broad and deep conservative streak. By the time Harris arrived in Sacramento after being elected attorney general in 2010, the state was solidly Democratic, increasingly liberal and had more Black and brown than white residents. Not least, there were also significantly more opportunities for a woman in politics.
In that way, Harris and Reagan serve as perfect bookends to the state they represented.
Given the changes of the last 30-plus years, it’s surprising California Democrats haven’t managed to put one of their own in the White House, said Jim Newton, a biographer and state historian.
“We think of it as such an exceptionally blue place,” he said, “and it’s produced so many national Democratic leaders.”
Among them, the legendarily powerful Rep. Phillip Burton, Pelosi (who succeeded Burton’s widow in representing San Francisco in Congress), and Feinstein. But until Biden chose Harris as his running mate, no California Democrat had come remotely near the White House, though several tried.
Of course, Harris wouldn’t have this shot at the presidency but for a unique set of circumstances. If Biden hadn’t performed so terribly in that June debate, if Democrats hadn’t panicked afterward, if Pelosi and other party leaders hadn’t maneuvered to shove the president aside, the vice president could very well have been out of a job come January.
That still might happen. But give Harris her due for getting where she is. After 20 years in politics, she stands within hailing distance of the White House and making further history from a geographic standpoint.
In politics, as so often in life, timing is everything.
Politics
Republicans light cigars, cigarettes on burning photos of Khamenei to show support for Iranian protesters
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Republican lawmakers are jumping on a social media trend to show their support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., posted photos of themselves using burning photos of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light up a cigarette and a cigar respectively. Both lawmakers used the caption “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
The lawmaker’s images mirror a social media trend in which people are using burning photos of Khamenei to light cigarettes and cigars. The trend emerged as the people of Iran hold increasingly intense protests against the Islamic regime. The movement against the regime has seen increasing support from abroad as world leaders back the people of Iran.
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People gather during a protest on Jan. 8, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
Khamenei’s regime has started to crack down on protests and even instituted a sweeping internet blackout to try to quell the unrest. Some have posited that the internet blackout was also meant to impede the spreading of information about and visuals of abuses committed against protesters by regime-backed forces.
Recently, exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi has publicly urged President Donald Trump and the U.S. to back protesters in Iran as they fight the decades-old regime.
Sheehy told Fox News Digital that he takes the issue personally, saying that Iran has participated in the torturing, kidnapping and killing of Americans across the globe, “including friends of mine.”
“The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous b——- who have been chanting ‘death to America’ for the past 46 years. They have backed up this chant by kidnapping, torturing, and killing thousands of Americans all over the world, including friends of mine. For me, it’s personal; it’s time to take out the trash,” Sheehy said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital via email.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., showed his solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigarette. (Courtesy of Sen. Tim Sheehy’s Office)
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The senator also expressed his solidarity with the people of Iran and encouraged them to keep fighting the regime.
“To the Iranian people — we applaud your courage, keep fighting, and know we fully support your brave efforts to topple this evil regime,” he added.
Tenney’s office also spoke with Fox News Digital about the congresswoman’s post, praising the bravery of the people of Iran for standing up to the regime. Additionally, Tenney’s office expressed the congresswoman’s solidarity with the Iranian people.
“The bravery of the Iranian people in the face of decades of oppression by a brutal, extremist regime is extraordinary. Men and women across Iran are risking their lives to stand up to authoritarian mullahs who have denied them basic freedoms for generations,” Tenney’s office said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., showed her solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigar. (Courtesy of Rep. Claudia Tenney’s Office)
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“The congresswoman stands firmly with the Iranian people and their demand for dignity and self-determination, and believes their courage must be recognized and amplified. Today, the Iranian people finally have an ally in the White House, President Trump, who has made clear that the United States stands with those fighting for freedom against tyranny,” Tenney’s office added.
Trump has been vocal about his support for the people of Iran and has warned that the U.S. would be ready to step in if the regime used violence against protesters.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Jan. 10. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”
SACRAMENTO — California announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI on Wednesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom saying that the social media site owned by the billionaire is a “breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsenual sexually explicit AI deepfakes.”
Grok, the xAI chatbot, includes image-generation features that allow users to morph existing photos into new images. The newly created images are then posted publicly on X.
In some cases, users have created sexually explicit or nonconsensual images based on real people, including altered depictions that appear to show individuals partially or fully undressed. Others have generated images that appear to show minors, prompting criticism that there are not sufficient guardrails to prohibit the creation of child pornography.
The social media site has previously said “we take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
Newsom called the sexualized images being created on the platform “vile.” Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said his office will use “all tools at our disposal to keep Californians safe.”
“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said in a statement Wednesday. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further. We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”
Newsom signed a pair of bills in 2024 that made it illegal to create, possess or distribute sexually charged images of minors even when they’re created with computers, not cameras. The measures took effect last year.
Assembly Bill 1831, authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), expanded the state’s child-porn prohibition to material that “contains a digitally altered or artificial-intelligence-generated depiction [of] what appears to be a person under 18 years of age” engaging in or simulating sexual conduct. Senate Bill 1381, authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), amended state law to more clearly prohibit using AI to create images of real children engaged in sexual conduct, or using children as models for digitally altered or AI-generated child pornography.
new video loaded: Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
transcript
transcript
Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
The Supreme Court heard two cases from West Virginia and Idaho on Tuesday. Both concerned barring the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports teams.
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“It is undisputed that states may separate their sports teams based on sex in light of the real biological differences between males and females. States may equally apply that valid sex-based rule to biological males who self-identify as female. Denying a special accommodation to trans-identifying individuals does not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity or deny equal protection.” “West Virginia argues that to protect these opportunities for cisgender girls, it has to deny them to B.P.J. But Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect everyone. And if the evidence shows there are no relevant physiological differences between B.P.J. and other girls, then there’s no basis to exclude her.” “Given that half the states are allowing it, allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point, just the role of this court, jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still, as you say, uncertainty and debate, while there’s still strong interest in other side?” “This court has held in cases like V.M.I. that in general, classification based on sex is impermissible because in general, men and women are simply situated. Where that’s not true is for the sorts of real, enduring, obvious differences that this court talked about in cases like V.M.I., the differences in reproductive biology. I don’t think the pseudoscience you’re suggesting has been baked.” “Well, it’s not pseudo. It’s good science.” “It’s not pseudoscience to say boys’ brain development happens at a different stage than girls does.” “Well, with all respect, I don’t think there’s any science anywhere that is suggested that these intellectual differences are traceable to biological differences.” “Can we avoid your whole similarly situated argument that you run because I don’t really like it that much either? And I’m not trying to prejudice anyone making that argument later. But I mean, I think it opens a huge can of worms that maybe we don’t need to get into here.”
By Meg Felling
January 13, 2026
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