Politics
Juan Rodriguez: Aspiring political kingmaker
“One of the things that I’m pretty active in trying to do is making sure that I’m not the only person in these rooms that looks like me,” Juan Rodriguez said during an interview with The Times.
Born in Burbank and raised in North Hollywood as the son of immigrants from El Salvador, the Democratic political consultant and partner at Bearstar Strategies said that as a kid he accompanied his mother to the Beverly Hills and Studio City homes she cleaned as a housekeeper. Years later, his first invitations to political fundraisers came from the people for whom she had worked.
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A 2005 meeting with Antonio Villaraigosa at one of those events reinforced his interest in politics. The former Los Angeles mayor asked him who he was there with. Rodriguez said his mother was working in the kitchen and that prompted Villaraigosa to introduce himself to her.
“Having my mother feel seen is something I hold very dear to my heart,” Rodriguez said. “I was always so intrigued by how power was always next door to the people who didn’t have it. It made me believe at the time that politics could be the great equalizer.”
Villaraigosa hired Rodriguez as an intern a few years later, launching a meteoric rise that has included stints as director of state relations for the city of Los Angeles and as a top aide to then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris. Harris later tapped Rodriguez to lead her successful 2016 Senate campaign and then her brief 2020 presidential bid, a failed endeavor for which the politician and her advisors were criticized.
Bearstar’s founders, Ace Smith and Sean Clegg, saw the millennial strategist as the vanguard of a new generation of California political kingmakers when they hired him in 2017 to open a Los Angeles office for the campaign strategy firm. In addition to Harris, his roster of Bearstar clients has included U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and, most notably, Gov. Gavin Newsom. In 2021, Rodriguez successfully led the campaign against the governor’s recall, for which he was named Democratic campaign manager of the year by the American Assn. of Political Consultants.
His work for Newsom is not over. On a Monday afternoon in late October, Rodriguez, 39, said he couldn’t talk at the moment because he was tied up in a meeting with Jane Fonda and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The actors were among a slate of high-profile supporters Rodriguez was courting to join environmental justice groups in their campaign to thwart the oil industry’s efforts to reverse a 2022 California law that created mandatory buffer zones around new wells.
Newsom championed the law. Rodriguez is leading the multimillion-dollar 2024 ballot fight to keep it in place.
“There is kind of a worldview in terms of vision and what we believe in and what we don’t,” Rodriguez said, “so we often find ourselves fighting the fight on both fronts.”
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Politics
Warren tells Trump to ‘sign the damn bill’ as bipartisan housing package remains stalled in Washington
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., lashed out at President Donald Trump during a recent local television interview, labeling him a “man-child” throwing a “tantrum” over his refusal to sign a sweeping bipartisan housing package.
Appearing on WCVB’s “On the Record,” the left-wing senator did not hold back her frustration over the stalled legislation, delivering a blunt message to the president: “Sign the damn bill.”
“If he cared about the American people, he’d have already signed the damn thing,” Warren said during the interview, arguing that Trump “does not care about the economic survival of America’s working families.”
FILE – The Senate previously advanced the massive housing package geared toward lowering the costs of homes and supercharging the housing supply. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pitched it as legislation to prevent America from becoming a “nation of renters.” (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Protect Borrowers ; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is an expansive bipartisan package that she said contains nearly 50 provisions designed to address the nationwide housing emergency.
Warren noted that decades of under-building have driven prices up, leaving the U.S. in need of millions of new units.
The primary focus of the bill is to lower the costs of construction and make it easier to build new homes.
FILE – President Donald Trump previously said lawmakers must first approve the SAVE America Act before he moves forward with the housing package. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg)
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The bill, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also includes a secondary focus aimed at blocking corporate consolidation of the housing market.
Warren explained that the legislation is designed to keep private equity firms from buying up local neighborhoods and turning America “into a nation of renters.”
According to Warren, the legislation had widespread support from both sides of the aisle before it was stalled.
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She claimed the bill was “handed to the president on a silver platter” and that lawmakers from both parties were eagerly taking credit for the legislation.
“Republicans were all going online, saying, ‘well, I helped write that bill. This bill is terrific,’” Warren said. “So everybody’s out there saying, ‘my bill, I helped make this happen,’ right up until the man-child has a tantrum and announces he will not be signing it.”
FILE – Sen. Elizabeth Warren called President Donald Trump a “man-child” during the interview, describing his refusal to sign the bill as a “tantrum.” (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Critics of the legislation claim it does not allocate fresh federal funding, directly address rising costs of homeownership, or go far enough to address permitting issues.
The president previously canceled a scheduled signing event, insisting lawmakers must first approve the unrelated SAVE America Act, a voting-focused measure, before he moves forward.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.
Politics
MS NOW anchor Alex Witt to exit as network reduces live weekend programming
Veteran MS NOW anchor Alex Witt is leaving the news network, which is moving away from live evening programming on weekends.
The new weekend programming strategy announced Friday is a cost-saving measure that will give parent company Versant more resources for a new direct-to-consumer streaming offering that makes MS NOW available to consumers without a pay-TV subscription. The company is also looking to expand its live event business.
According to a memo from MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler, “The Weekend: Primetime,” a live discussion program launched last year, will have its final airing Saturday.
One of the program’s co-hosts, Antonia Hylton, will take over Witt’s midday shifts later this year. Hylton’s co-hosts Ayman Mohyeldin, Catherine Rampell and Elise Jordan will remain with MS NOW and continue to appear on other programs.
Kutler said job losses from the moves are minimal and encouraged staffers who lose their current roles to apply for 40 current job openings at the company with more on the way. MS NOW has been staffing up its news operation since separating from NBC News last year.
MS NOW changed its name from MSNBC in November. The network, along with other Comcast-owned cable channels, were spun off into Versant in January.
Weekends have long been a ratings weak spot for MS NOW, which while a distant second to Fox News, has seen audience growth in 2026 and remains ahead of CNN. The network has started to rely on podcasts such as “Pod Save America,” from Crooked Media, to fill some hours. The episodes have performed strongly enough for MS NOW to try similar deals with outside podcast producers.
“Throughout the summer, we will expand our taped strategy and announce new content partnerships,” Kutler said in her memo.
With the changes, MS NOW will still have 20 hours of live programming each weekend and will be staffed to handle breaking news.
Witt joined the network formerly known as MSNBC in 1999, long before it began its strong tilt toward progressive political commentary. Over the years, Witt’s weekend newscast became one of the few programs on the network that delivered straight news without opinion.
Kutler called Witt “a beloved longtime member of our MS NOW family” and “a continued, trusted, and steady presence for our audiences.”
While Witt works through the summer, Hylton will anchor the 11 a.m. weekday time period, which will eventually be handled by former NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander.
Politics
McCarthy says Trump will use ‘everything he can’ to force Senate action on SAVE America Act
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As infighting over the SAVE America Act throws congressional Republicans into disarray, President Donald Trump’s bid to get the stalled election bill across the finish line gained one notable ally.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News Digital that he supports the election integrity measure and indicated that Trump should continue to use every available tool to pressure the Senate to pass it.
“He’s going to try everything he can to make sure he passes that through,” McCarthy said in a brief interview outside the U.S. Capitol.
The ex-speaker’s comments came after Trump abruptly called off a signing ceremony Wednesday for a bipartisan housing bill to pressure the Republican-controlled Senate to act on the SAVE America Act.
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs Reading Regional Airport in Reading, Pa., on June 23, 2026. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
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The move surprised Republican lawmakers, some of whom were praising the bill’s passage at a press conference when Trump’s Truth Social post broke.
But Trump has repeatedly cast the election measure — requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and voter identification requirements — as his top legislative priority.
The legislation’s momentum, however, has slowed in the upper chamber, where Republican leadership insists the votes aren’t there amid widespread Democratic opposition. Senate Republicans have also been unwilling to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold to pass the legislation.
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks during a ceremony honoring President Ronald Reagan on the 115th anniversary of his birthday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2026. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group)
TRUMP CALLS MAIL IN VOTING CORRUPT AS SENATE BEGINS DEBATE ON SAVE ACT REQUIRING VOTER ID
Amid the SAVE standoff, a group of conservative lawmakers effectively shut down the House floor in an effort to force Senate action on the election bill.
But the Senate recessed Wednesday for two weeks over the July 4 holiday, leaving the measure in limbo until lawmakers return.
The conservative-led blockade sparked fierce backlash, with several members inside the GOP conference telling Fox News Digital the move risked torpedoing their own legislative agenda.
Meanwhile, the House has also yet to pass a version of the legislation incorporating several of the president’s priorities, including a mail-in voting crackdown and provisions banning men from competing in women’s sports and child sex change procedures.
Trump has not indicated whether he will sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, despite the likely existence of a veto-proof majority.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Thursday that the housing bill had been transmitted to the White House for Trump’s signature following a meeting with the president.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol on June 10, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Trump now has 10 days to sign the package or veto it. If he does nothing, the legislation automatically becomes law at the end of the 10-day period.
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