Politics
Commentary: Two winners, one loser in L.A. mayor’s debate
Karen Bass, Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman each came into tonight’s mayoral debate with goals for what may be their only time together on stage.
As the incumbent mayor, Bass had to weather blows from her challengers while trying to sell voters on her fitness for another term, despite a disastrous 2025.
As a reality TV star with no political experience, Pratt needed to show that he could offer substance instead of just AI fanboy videos and the name-calling — “Karen Basura” — he has indulged in on social media.
Raman’s task was perhaps the hardest. As a City Council member whose two previous campaigns were backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, she needed to convince Pratt-curious voters that she’s more conservative than Bass. Yet for others, she needed to appear liberal enough to peel away support from the mayor and come out as a progressive lioness to excite Democrats in a year when GOP candidates like Pratt have to answer for the disaster that is President Trump’s second term.
Only one of the three failed.
At times, Raman was tongue-tied trying to answer simple questions. Moderators kept telling her she was going over her time. Answering a yes/no question about whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in city elections, the council member went on and on, until the moderator cut her off.
While Raman offered some policy plans, she also played a card straight out of Trump’s arsenal. She claimed that Pratt and Bass were teaming up against her — an unlikely scenario that drew laughs from the audience. She got more and more frustrated, to the point that when Bass was allowed time for a rebuttal, she dejectedly proclaimed, “I haven’t been offered that in a lot of this debate.”
Raman, who had endorsed Bass’ reelection before throwing her hat in at the last minute, came off as inexperienced, touchy and unprepared.
The line of the night was Pratt dismissing Raman as a “random council member” — which is how the L.A. political world responded to her entry into the race. She was so upset about Pratt’s remark that she continued to whine about it to a KNBC reporter after the debate.
What’s shocking about Raman’s flop is that she should know how important it is to project well to a television audience, given that her husband is a screenwriter. Her tone was flat, when she needed to be passionate.
No one had to remind Pratt of that. He was parrying tough questions on a big stage for the first time, facing an audience who knew him only as the Angry L.A. White Guy he has reveled in playing.
He mostly succeeded.
At his best, Pratt came off as a boisterous bro with enough charm to call himself “humble” without coming off as obnoxious. He dominated the flow of conversation without coming off as commandeering, even interrupting Raman at times to let Bass speak. At one point, he even said “Sorry” when he had taken up too much time and the moderators cut him off.
He was light on specifics, other than saying he was going to do better than the others and that he would prioritize public safety above all. Instead, he was the one person on stage who used anecdotes to sell himself, citing conversations about abused animals, downtown workers too afraid to eat outside and film producers hiring local gang members to keep their shoots safe.
As a TV personality-turned-influencer, Pratt knows that storytelling is far more effective than drowning the audience in statistics, as Bass and Raman did.
But the bad Pratt flared up at times. He earned a reprimand from KNBC anchor and debate co-moderator Colleen Williams when he called the mayor an “incredible liar.” Effecting high-pitched voices to mock Bass and Raman came off as juvenile and possibly sexist. And when it came to last summer’s federal immigration raids that terrorized Southern California, Pratt appeared flummoxed when Bass pointed out that 70% of those arrested didn’t have criminal records — a use of stats that hit.
Bass was also who she had to be — measured, forceful and raring to defend her record, without coming off as defensive. She wasn’t exactly inspirational, but she didn’t have to be. The city’s powerful labor unions have backed her, along with much of the Democratic establishment.
Raman and Pratt are right in deeming Bass the old guard of a beat-up city — but the old guard didn’t get there without knowing how to win.
Politics
California immigration judge sues DOJ, alleging she was fired for being a registered Democrat, a woman over 40
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A California immigration judge who was terminated by the Trump administration is alleging in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) that she was fired because she is a registered Democrat and because of her affiliations with immigrant-rights groups.
The 14-page lawsuit, filed by Kyra Lilien, names the DOJ and acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche as defendants.
Lilien claims she was not retained past her probationary period due to a number of factors, including being a woman over the age of 40, being fluent in Spanish and her associations with the Hispanic community.
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Kevin Owen of Gilbert Employment Law in Maryland, one of Lilien’s attorneys, told FOX San Francisco she didn’t fit their mold and that the actions taken against her were impermissible and unlawful.
The lawsuit alleges that her termination violated Lilien’s civil and First Amendment rights.
Asylum seekers, left, walk toward the southern border in Tijuana, Mexico, next to an image of a courtroom in the Concord Immigration Court in California. Kyra Lilien, an immigration judge, is suing the Trump administration over her termination, alleging she was fired because of her political affiliations. (Getty Images; Concord Immigration Court)
Lilien was initially appointed to serve at the San Francisco Immigration Court on July 23, 2023, before being transferred to the Concord Immigration Court in February 2024. In total, she served nearly two years, which is the standard probationary period immigration judges serve under Justice Department policy before their appointments are typically converted to permanent roles.
The lawsuit names nearly 30 other immigration judges from around the country who were either fired or not converted from probationary periods, including 14 from the Concord and San Francisco immigration courts.
The filing states that immigration judges who were not converted or were terminated around the same time as the plaintiff were overwhelmingly female. Fox News Digital has reached out to Lilien’s attorney, the DOJ and the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
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Lilien was initially appointed to serve at the San Francisco Immigration Court July 23, 2023, before being transferred to the Concord Immigration Court in California in February 2024. (iStock)
Throughout her employment and during her probationary period, Lilien met or exceeded all performance standards, according to the lawsuit.
She received satisfactory assessments — the highest possible rating — in her probationary period reports for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. As a judge, Lilien denied 34% of asylum claims brought before her, according to data from TRAC Immigration.
On July 11, 2025, Lilien received a notice that her probationary period would not be converted permanently, and the message said the attorney general had decided not to extend her term or convert it to a permanent appointment pursuant to Article II of the Constitution.
Migrants line up at the southern border in San Diego in 2024. (Fox News)
The suit also alleges that Sirce Owen, who was serving as the acting EOIR director at the time, issued controversial memoranda in early 2025 that demonstrated hostility toward immigrant advocacy groups and certain hiring practices.
Owen allegedly characterized these groups in a memo as “extremist leftist organizations” that promote illegal immigration and attempt to undermine immigration courts.
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He also issued another memo criticizing the appointment practices under the Biden administration.
Lilien’s suit states that these memoranda together laid bare management’s hostility toward hiring individuals with immigrants’ rights backgrounds, women, ethnic minorities and others who may be considered “DEI” hires.
The justices’ views did not track along simple ideological lines. Justice Byron White, a Kennedy appointee, felt that limiting spending was critical; otherwise, “you can get and spend all the money you want,” according to notes kept by Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
But five other justices were First Amendment hard-liners, from William Rehnquist, a conservative future chief justice, to Harry Blackmun, a liberal stalwart. Mr. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, both liberals, contemplated supporting Justice White, and Congress, in curbing spending. But the archives show that both feared giving the government the ability to silence groups like the NAACP, where Justice Marshall, the first Black justice, had served as lead counsel.
“On the one hand, there’s this huge concern about corruption in government,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “On the other hand, there are these very powerful First Amendment arguments that had not ever been really considered by the court.”
‘The Current World’
Even as the justices were deliberating, the Libertarian Party was exploring whether the Kochs could test the new campaign finance limits by donating $25,000 to the party itself, rather than to a specific candidate. Mr. Bolton, who also did legal work for the Libertarian Party, helped devise a plan to put a $25,000 contribution from the Kochs in escrow while they awaited word on whether it would be legal, a gambit ultimately rejected by Charles Koch.
On Jan. 30, 1976, the court handed down its decision, a 6-to-2 ruling that upheld the law’s limits on contributions to political campaigns, its disclosure requirements and the new program for public financing of campaigns. But the justices ruled 7 to 1 against limits on how much people could spend on their own campaigns, or on independent expenditures on behalf of other politicians they hoped to see elected.
Politics
Trump requests E Jean Carroll $83M judgment stay for pending Supreme Court action on presidential immunity
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President Donald Trump’s lawyers are requesting a stay of the $83.3 million judgement in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case while he seeks Supreme Court review on the grounds of presidential immunity, according to a new filing late Tuesday night.
The Trump request for a stay is unopposed by Carroll’s legal team if Trump increases the bond by roughly $7.46 million to cover post-judgment interest on the original judgment that has been under appeal.
“This Court should now stay the mandate to allow President Trump to present important questions relating to, without limitation, Presidential immunity and the Westfall Act to the Supreme Court,” the filing from Trump’s presidential lawyer Justin Smith read.
“Carroll does not oppose this motion.”
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The Supreme Court is set to review President Donald Trump’s petition to consider the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. (Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Alex Kent/Getty Images)
The Westfall Act is a federal law that protects government employees from being personally sued for common law torts like negligence or defamation committed while they were doing their jobs. Carroll originally sued for defamation in November 2019 during Trump’s first term.
Essentially, the referenced law acts as a legal “shield” by shifting the target of a lawsuit from an individual person to the United States government itself.
The 24-page filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit signals Trump’s intention to ask the Supreme Court to review where Trump is immune for this May 2023 judgment delivered as Trump was weighing another presidential primary run before 2024 and facing myriad legal cases under then-President Joe Biden.
SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW TRUMP PETITION ON E JEAN CARROLL JUDGMENT
President Donald Trump is making the case he is immune or not liable for E. Jean Carroll’s $83.3 million defamation case brought in November 2019 and the judgment brought down in May 2023. (Getty Images)
Trump’s lawyers argue there is a “reasonable probability” the Supreme Court will take the case and a “fair prospect” the justices will reverse the lower court. They point to a dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc in which three Second Circuit judges identified what Trump’s team describes as legal errors involving presidential immunity and the Westfall Act.
“Absent a stay, President Trump will suffer ongoing irreparable harm due to violation of his right to immunity from this defamation suit for his official statements as President of the United States of America,” Smith argued, adding Trump may face proceedings to execute on the $83.3 million judgment before the Supreme Court has reviewed the case.
“President Trump respectfully asks the Court to stay the mandate until the Supreme Court’s final disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari,” the filing stated.
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“There is a ‘fair prospect’ that the SupremeCourt will reverse the Panel’s erroneous decisions that Presidential immunity and the Westfall Act were both waived,” Trump’s lawyers continued. “Issuing the mandate and permitting lower court proceedings to move forward during Supreme Court review of these significant questions would ‘eviscerate the immunity [the Supreme Court has] recognized,’ as well as create a likely inability to recover funds if the Supreme Court reverses, as it should.”
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The motion was filed Tuesday by Smith of the James Otis Law Group.
Smith was nominated by Trump to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit in early March, and the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on his nomination April 15.
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