Politics
California Senate candidates grilled in second debate, asked if Biden and Trump are too old
With millions of ballots already mailed out across the Golden State, the four leading candidates for the U.S. Senate in California spent their second televised debate on the defensive at times and were pressed to say whether they thought President Biden and former President Trump were too old to run for reelection.
Reps. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and Republican candidate Steve Garvey all faced sharp questions from moderators: Porter was asked if she waited too long to propose solutions to California’s housing crisis; Lee about her support for a $50 minimum wage and whether it would be sustainable for small businesses; and Garvey pressured to say if he would accept Trump’s endorsement, were it offered.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) avoided a similarly pointed question, though he was asked whether California’s progressive criminal justice reforms have gone too far — an area in which his views have changed significantly since his earliest days as a tough-on-crime Democrat in the California Senate.
Ballots for the primary were sent out last week. More than 22 million Californians can vote in the election to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in September.
Recent polling has shown Schiff’s lead widening. A poll conducted in January by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 21% of likely voters backed Schiff, 17% chose Porter, 13% were for Garvey and 9% picked Lee.
Garvey, who played first base for the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, aims to appeal to the shrinking but significant number of registered Republicans across the Golden State, as well as to “no party preference” voters and registered Democrats who believe their party has failed to address homelessness, the high cost of living and other pressing issues.
“These are three career politicians who have failed the people,” Garvey said during a discussion on the state’s affordability crisis. With 60 combined years of experience among Lee, Porter and Schiff, he said, “they could have solved this issue.”
In the final weeks of the primary campaign, Porter and Schiff have unleashed a multimillion-dollar barrage of television and radio advertising. A new advertising campaign from Schiff and his supporters focuses on Garvey, calling him “too conservative for California” and loyal to Trump — a strategy likely to boost the political newcomer’s profile among Republicans.
If Garvey consolidates support from Republicans, he could finish in the top two in the primary, which is all he needs to advance to the November general election. For Schiff, boosting Garvey could help edge Porter out of the November election, easing his path to victory.
Porter’s campaign ads focus on her reputation in Congress as an irritant to Washington’s entrenched political hierarchy, touting her as having an independent streak and not being beholden to corporate interests. She mentioned Monday her work on the House Oversight Committee grilling Wall Street CEOs and said she’d bring that sort of sharp inquiry to the Senate.
All four candidates were asked whether they believed Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, were too old to be running for a second term. In as many words, all said no.
Biden’s age became a major issue in the 2024 presidential race after a special counsel investigating whether Biden mishandled classified documents during his previous positions as vice president and senator claimed that the president couldn’t remember major milestones in his life.
“Experience matters, I have to say,” said Lee, 77. “With regards to term limits, age limits, this is a democracy — people have the right to vote for who they want to vote for.”
“We all in our own minds and with our own eyes and ears have to make that determination,” said Garvey, 75.
During the fast-paced, one-hour debate, hosted by San Francisco Nexstar affiliate KRON 4 and carried by news stations statewide, Schiff said Trump was unfit for office at any age, and accused Garvey supporting the former president despite his failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Garvey has said he voted for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Asked whether he had spoken to Trump since launching his campaign, or whether he would accept his endorsement, Garvey initially sidestepped the questions, but eventually said that he and the former president had not spoken. He declined to say whether he would accept Trump’s endorsement.
“These are personal choices,” Garvey said. “I answer to God, my wife, family and the people of California. And I hope you would respect that I have personal choices.”
Lee largely avoided the fray during the debate, but was asked to explain how her support for a $50 minimum wage — nearly seven times the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour — would be economically viable for a small-business owners. With California’s high cost of living, she said, the wage was necessary for families to make ends meet — but implied that it would not apply nationwide.
“I’ve got to be focused on what California needs, and what the affordability factor is,” she said.
Porter was asked why she waited until last week to release a plan to fix California’s housing crisis, one of the biggest issues facing the state. She responded that she’d been working on the issue throughout her legal career advocating for consumer rights and since she first arrived in Congress in 2018, and that she has firsthand experience.
“My own children are questioning whether they’re going to be able to live in California when they graduate from high school because of the high cost of living,” Porter said.
The moderators, KTLA 5’s Frank Buckley and Fox 40’s Nikki Laurenzo, asked Schiff whether he thought progressive criminal justice reforms, including the elimination of cash bail for nonviolent crime and the reduction of some felony crimes to misdemeanors, had “gone too far.”
Schiff said there is “no question that we have a crime problem in California, particularly these smash-and-grab robberies,” but said the data do not suggest that progressive criminal justice reforms are to blame. Instead, he said, the state needs to invest more in community policing.
“I’ve been focused on trying to keep communities safe since I was a prosecutor,” Schiff said. “Back when Mr. Garvey was playing baseball, I was prosecuting cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.”
A former federal prosecutor, Schiff campaigned for the state Senate in 1996 on a tough-on-crime platform and told voters he supported the state’s three-strikes law and the death penalty.
Schiff told The Times last week that while “there was certainly a time when I supported the death penalty for those who killed cops and those who killed kids,” he no longer supports capital punishment.
After the debate, Lee, who served in the California Legislature at the same time as Schiff, said their contrasting views on the subject offered a clear choice for voters. She recalled sponsoring a law that would’ve reformed the state’s “three strikes” law, which Schiff voted against.
“The difference between us is I looked at criminal justice reform and public safety in a comprehensive way and that enhanced sentences don’t necessarily mean a reduction in crime,” she said.
Politics
Spencer Pratt surges to runoff in LA mayor’s race after angry voters send message to Karen Bass
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Reality television personality Spencer Pratt appears on track to clear a key hurdle in Los Angeles’ mayoral race as he seeks to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November.
Bass, who has led the city since 2022 amid a turbulent stretch rocked by her response to wildfires, advanced to a runoff after failing to secure a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s primary election. With no candidate surpassing the 50% threshold, the top two finishers will face off in a November runoff.
The anticipated runoff is a symbolic blow to Bass, who was endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and former Vice President Kamala Harris and has spent decades serving California in a series of elected Democratic offices.
Pratt, a first-time candidate known for the MTV reality show “The Hills,” was running in second place as of Wednesday morning.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attends the Women for Bass Phone bank event in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles on June 1, 2026. (Louise Barnsley/Splash for Fox News Digital)
REALITY TV STAR SPENCER PRATT TESTS LA VOTERS’ APPETITE FOR POLITICAL OUTSIDER
“Obviously, God wanted five more months of me exposing the failures of our mayor,” Pratt gloated to reporters as the returns came in Tuesday evening.
Pratt has relentlessly hammered Bass on issues that have long plagued the city, including fire recovery, street homelessness and crime. The insurgent candidate holds Bass personally responsible for devastating wildfires that destroyed more than 18,000 structures in the city, including his Pacific Palisades home.
Pratt’s surge appears to have shut out Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a former ally of Bass who challenged the incumbent from the left and was once viewed as a threat to her bid for a second term. Raman is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and has argued for steering the city in a more progressive direction.
Raman has not yet conceded despite running well behind Bass and Pratt as of Wednesday morning.
Pratt, a registered Republican, faces an uphill battle to defeat Bass in November if he advances to the runoff election.
Less than 20% of voters in the heavily Democratic city identify with the GOP, though Los Angeles’ mayoral contest is officially nonpartisan.
Media personality and independent candidate Spencer Pratt, left, pictured alongside LA mayor Karen Bass, right. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
KAREN BASS GRILLED OVER BROKEN HOMELESSNESS PROMISE, BLAMES BUREAUCRACY FOR SLOWED PROGRESS
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who represents a San Diego-anchored seat, told Fox News Digital that Pratt has won a following in the mayoral contest due to widespread voter discontent with Bass’ leadership.
“He’s catching fire among ardent historic Democrat voters because Karen Bass has been so ineffective,” Issa said in an interview. “And every time she opens her mouth, she’s talking about more of the same to people who have seen their streets, both crime-ridden and in fact … ineffectively managed.”
Bass, conversely, argues that her leadership is leading Los Angeles in the right direction.
“Los Angeles is at a turning point. After decades of rising homelessness, under-built housing and a shrinking police force, it’s Mayor Karen Bass who finally stepped up to change how City Hall works,” Bass’s website reads.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman appears likely to finish in third place, keeping her out of the November runoff. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
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“Homelessness is down, more housing is being built, and the LAPD is hiring new officers,” it also claims.
Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed reporting.
Los Angeles County’s half-cent sales tax to fund healthcare services was trailing Tuesday, with early returns showing a majority of voters rejecting the measure.
The tax — a half-penny of every dollar spent in the county — is meant to prop up local hospitals and clinics that are hemorrhaging funding after recent federal cuts.
The sales tax, which needs a simple majority to pass, would take effect Oct. 1 and last five years. Officials say it would pull in $1 billion annually to help plug the budget holes hitting local hospitals and clinics.
L.A. County health officials anticipate the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Trump last summer, will slash more than $2 billion from the county’s health services budget within the next three years. Due to eligibility changes, the county will no longer be able to get reimbursements for many Californians who have lost Medi-Cal.
The measure was championed by a coalition of healthcare advocates called Restore Healthcare for Angelenos who warned that mass layoffs and emergency room closures could be imminent if new funding didn’t come fast. The Department of Public Health recently closed seven clinics — a grim sign, supporters said, of service cuts to come.
Voters haven’t rejected a sales tax hike since 2012, when a transportation measure fell just short with 66.1% support. It needed 66.7% to pass.
A majority of county supervisors had supported the new tax proposal, voting 4 to 1 this February to put it on the ballot. But the measure faced significant opposition from local cities, with opponents arguing the sales tax hike would unfairly burden the poorest county residents and encourage people to spend their dollars across the county line.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger, the board’s lone opponent of the tax, said she was concerned it was a “general” tax, meaning the money wouldn’t be earmarked for healthcare costs. Instead, she argued, politicians would have final say over how the money gets spent.
The supervisors have created a plan for spending the tax money, with the largest chunk of the money meant to cover the costs for patients without insurance. The measure also asked voters to sign off on a nine-member oversight committee.
The county currently has a base sales tax rate of 9.75%, and cities impose local taxes on top of that.
Politics
DOJ expands indictment against SPLC, alleging $4M secretly funneled to KKK and extremist groups
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The Department of Justice last month announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), alleging that the civil rights nonprofit defrauded donors by secretly paying informants associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan.
A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment in April charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, according to the Justice Department.
The superseding indictment retains those charges while expanding on the alleged misconduct.
According to the DOJ, the SPLC “secretly funneled” more than $3 million in donor funds between 2014 and 2023 to numerous individuals associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the National Socialist Movement, participants in the Unite the Right rally and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.
NEO-NAZIS, ‘SADISTIC’ BIKERS AND CHARLOTTESVILLE ORGANIZER: 5 OF THE MOST SHOCKING SPLC INFORMANTS
The Southern Poverty Law Center has widespread influence in education. FILE: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, left, and SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair are shown in a split image as the Justice Department pursues charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images; USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images)
The original indictment alleged approximately $3 million in payments between 2014 and 2023.
“The SPLC’s paid informants (‘field sources’) engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website,” the indictment states.
Prosecutors further allege the SPLC opened bank accounts tied to fictitious entities in order to conceal donor funds that were allegedly routed to confidential sources.
MIKE DAVIS: SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: A TALE OF A RACISM SCAM
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) building seen in March 2020 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)
According to the indictment, the SPLC began operating a covert informant network in the 1980s, and between 2014 and 2023 allegedly paid those sources in a clandestine manner.
The DOJ alleges an SPLC employee instead encouraged the pair to remain involved and offered them a monthly salary of $1,200.
The two subsequently agreed to remain in the organization, according to the indictment.
DR. BEN CARSON: I KNOW HOW BAD THE SPLC WAS, IT CAME AFTER ME AND PUT ME AT RISK
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at the Department of Justice on April 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C., following the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Prosecutors allege an SPLC employee instructed the individuals to claim they worked for a company called Rare Books and helped college students with research and writing assignments if anyone questioned the source of their income.
The indictment alleges donor funds were used to pay both individuals through SPLC accounts.
According to prosecutors, the pair were also reimbursed for expenses related to Ku Klux Klan activities, including cross-burning events and associated costs such as wood and fuel.
One of the individuals is also accused of recruiting new members using donor-funded payments. The indictment further alleges the SPLC knew donor funds were used to purchase materials for Ku Klux Klan garments.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, attorney Abbe Lowell, who represents the SPLC, denied the allegations.
A composite image shows Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche overlaid on photographs of the Department of Justice and FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This apparent superseding indictment attempts to shore up the flaws in the initial charges, but it changes nothing,” Lowell said.
“The SPLC did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives,” he continued.
“It appears the Justice Department shared the indictment with media before it was unsealed by the court – another example of the government’s troubling handling of this case.”
“We will be addressing these irregularities with the court and look forward to presenting the truth at trial,” he added.
NONPROFIT REVENUE TOTALS SURGE AMID GROWING SCRUTINY AFTER MAJOR FRAUD CASES
SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on March 5, 2026. (Jake Crandall/Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The superseding indictment also notes that the SPLC’s reported revenue increased from roughly $38.7 million in 2010 to more than $129 million in 2023, an increase of approximately 233%.
According to the filing, the organization’s net assets grew from approximately $238 million to nearly $787 million during the same period.
The SPLC is a longtime nonprofit organization that says it combats white supremacy and extremism through research, reporting and monitoring efforts intended to assist law enforcement and the public.
During a news conference announcing the original indictment, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged the SPLC paid members of extremist groups so it could generate “work product” documenting their activities.
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“To that end, [SPLC] was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing – not dismantling extremism but funding it,” Blanche said.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, David Spunt, Jake Gibson and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
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