Politics
Republican vying for McCarthy's seat vows plan on border 'chaos' driving exodus: 'California for Californians'
Californian businessman and philanthropist Kyle Kirkland spoke to Fox News Digital recently about his decision to enter the field of nearly a dozen candidates vying for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s vacated House seat, pointing to the border crisis and the restrictive economic regulations that he blames for unfortunately driving talent from the Golden State.
Billing himself a “media underdog” among those running in the March 15 nonpartisan primary for California’s 20th district, Kirkland is the owner of Club One Casino and president of the California Gaming Association, the trade group for what amounts to a $5.6 billion industry impacting about 30,000 workers in the state. He said that although he’s relatively unknown nationally, he enjoys a strong local base of supporters who personally know of his decades-long reputation as a “highly effective business person,” namely in Fresno County and the Central Valley.
“I’m not a career politician,” Kirkland told Fox News Digital. He said voters want solutions to the high cost of living, crime, the border crisis, inflation, and government regulation amid Washington’s “grandstanding.”
In a district former President Trump largely carried in 2020, and that McCarthy represented from 2007 until his resignation in 2023, Kirkland explained what it means to him to be running as a Republican in what’s considered a heavily red area of the widely blue state of California. Though the most populous state, California lost the second-highest number of residents in the nation last year, ranking behind only New York in population exodus. And Kirkland says the migrant crisis and California’s business climate are to blame.
“I often joke to people that I live in a red state in the middle of a blue state, right? I’ve been in California now for three decades,” Kirkland told Fox News Digital. “I’m very proud of my roots back east and have brought those values with me to California. I think California has some real challenges… in terms of, you know, messaging that they’re giving to business and messaging that they’re giving to people. We need to keep talent in this state. And the way our economy works now is it’s very easy to work from other areas.”
KEVIN MCCARTHY TO RESIGN FROM CONGRESS AFTER BEING OUSTED AS HOUSE SPEAKER
Kyle Kirkland is a primary candidate in the special election for California’s 20th district after the seat was vacated by former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who resigned in December after being ousted as House speaker. (Kirkland for Congress)
“Talent is exiting the state. And I think it’s important for us to recognize that we need – California needs to keep talented people, certainly a lot of talented folks in the state,” he said. “It’s routine for me to be talking to our friends. And they’ve said, oh, I moved to Texas. I moved to Georgia. Oh, I moved to Florida. I’m in South Carolina now. Right. And California needs to recognize that it needs to be California for all Californians and not just, you know, throw open the borders, let everyone in unchecked, you know, and hope for the best.”
“I think what’s most important for California to understand is, hey, listen, people, businesses in the state want to know that it’s going to be a friendly environment to them. Where it can be regulated — but there’s a difference between regulation and suffocation,” Kirkland further explained. “And I think that’s what a lot of people feel certainly in the business community that, you know, there’s 900 new bills every year, and they’re probably well-intentioned but probably not well-read and thought through, and they’re dumped upon the business community to try to sort out with, you know, plaintiffs lawyers looking over their shoulder. And that’s a very challenging environment to operate our businesses. So, I’m bullish on California, but we’d be naive to think that, you know, smart people are looking at saying, hey, is there a better opportunity elsewhere?”
Kyle Kirkland, the owner of Club One Casino and president of the California Gaming Association, is a primary candidate running for California’s 20th district. (Kirkland for Congress)
While grateful to Trump for showing non-career politicians there’s a path to get involved,” and holding “deep respect for Kevin McCarthy,” Kirkland said he wanted to focus on the current race, championing his “unique background” compared to other primary opponents.
He’s worked with very large and visible companies, noting how he started his career at Bain & Company, around the same time Mitt Romney was at the consulting firm. In the 1980s, Kirkland said he worked in management consulting for global manufacturers analyzing oil fields during a challenging time for the energy industry. He then took on health care clients and transitioned to finance, working for a Beverly Hills firm very visible on Wall Street. Later, he moved into entrepreneurship, founding a “little fledgling music company,” with a partner that they built through acquisitions, including the global piano company, Steinway & Sons.
He said he turned that venture into a company that operated on six continents with 2,500 employees and was the longest running chairman who wasn’t named Steinway. When he sold it, he said the company had the highest product quality and profitability in its history.
From his work transforming the gaming industry from a struggling sector in California to now bigger than that of Nevada, Kirkland says he knows first hand what it’s like to deal with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration.
CALIFORNIA GOV. NEWSOM TO HOLD SPECIAL ELECTION TO REPLACE FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER MCCARTHY IN MARCH
As for the border, Kirkland said he’d bring his “ability to look at complex problems” and be “very realistic” in his approach, while avoiding the “bickering” seen in Washington.
Kyle Kirkland is competing in the March 15 primary for McCarthy’s vacated seat. (Kirkland for Congress)
“I mean, it’s chaos, right? A direct result of the Biden administration’s policy of, you know, pulling down the no vacancy sign and putting up with basically saying, hey, free buffet, come on in. And what happened was exactly what you’d expect to happen as a business person, where it went from 400,000 folks a year trying to come to the United States to 2.2 million and is overwhelming the borders,” Kirkland said. “I believe in lawful immigration. I think it’s important for the United States, certainly important for the agricultural community and the economy. A lot of folks are here lawfully, legally, and you know, again, to pursue the American dream. I’m all for that. At our core, we’re all immigrant based, right?”
“But very clearly, voters are saying we want it to be legal. We want it to be fair. It’s fundamentally unfair to let folks in unlawfully and then give them access to free health care and housing and, you know, food and cellphones or whatever, when, you know, most folks are making or struggling to make ends meet,” he continued.
“And we have in our existing infrastructure, we have housing shortages, we have an overtaxed healthcare system, in the state of California, depending on who you ask, it’s a $30 to 60 billion budget deficit. I think it’s unfair, and people definitely feel that, to say, hey, listen, we want to be humane, but we have to be realistic.”
Noting the California Gaming Association pays about half a billion in local taxes annually to benefit largely underserved communities, he stressed how the “hypocrisy” of COVID-19-era lockdowns impacted business in the state. He also took a swipe at Newsom for flouting restrictions to attend indoor dinner parties while telling everyday Californians not to gather.
California businessman and philanthropist Kyle Kirkland founded the Kirkland Foundation, an animal rescue that aims to help reduce overpopulation. (Kirkland for Congress)
“Throughout [the pandemic] we were consistently negotiating with Governor Newsom’s administration on our ability to open what parameters we could take. I also pushed back against what I think is the inequity there, frankly — the government’s saying certain industries are allowed to operate and others of us aren’t, you know, that seemed very arbitrary to a lot of us that were shut down and struggling to make ends meet,” he said. “But more than anything, it was the inequity of some of these things. I’m very big in fairness. The hypocrisy. Hey, listen, if you’re asking me to wear a mask and not participate in outings, don’t shop at French Laundry with your friends, you know, with your mask off, enjoying $1,500 person dinners, right?”
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Kirkland contrasted himself with some of the other primary candidates, namely California assemblyman Vince Fong, a former McCarthy staffer. Kirkland explained that he hasn’t built a career in politics to earn him the bigger endorsements. Fong, who McCarthy endorsed as his potential predecessor, as well as Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and teacher and small business owner David Giglio have received the most attention so far in the primary contest. After March 15, two finalists, regardless of their party, will move forward to the May 21 special election.
Also a board member of the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and founder of the Kirkland Foundation, an animal rescue that aims to help reduce overpopulation, Kirkland, a Harvard and Stanford graduate, said this next stage of him entering the political realm represents a “natural extension” of him trying to make a difference.
Politics
Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
House Republicans are demanding ActBlue, a top Democratic campaign fundraising apparatus, turn over international communications, probing whether the organization knowingly misled lawmakers and dodged subpoenas to hide weaknesses in its screening process to weed out illegal, overseas donations.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., collectively laid out their demands in a letter published on Tuesday.
“For more than a year, the Committees have conducted oversight regarding ActBlue’s ‘fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention,’” the letter reads.
“Recent reporting … strongly suggests that ActBlue deliberately obstructed the Committees’ investigation, including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”
BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL: LEFT-WING GROUPS DEFIANT AS GOP SHEDS LIGHT ON GROUPS TIED TO CHINA
Rep. Jim Jordan leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
The letter is addressed to Regina Wallace-Jones, the CEO and president of ActBlue, and is the most recent entry in investigations that began in 2023 when Republicans originally raised concerns about foreign donations possibly influencing American elections.
It also follows New York Times reporting on a memo from Covington & Burling, a law firm, warning that gaps in its screening armor could present “a substantial risk for ActBlue.”
The memo, on its own, does not implicate wrongdoing or indicate that ActBlue accepted international donations. Even so, the reporting caught the eye of Republicans in Congress.
Steil, Jordan and Comer are collectively asking ActBlue to produce two internal documents to examine the internal understanding ActBlue may have had about its own weaknesses.
The first is a resignation letter from General Counsel Aaron Ting — a document Republicans contend centers on liabilities created by ActBlue’s donation security.
Republicans believe the second, a message from ActBlue’s former legal counsel Zain Ahmad, relates to an ignored whistleblower complaint about those practices.
HOUSE HEARING RAISES RED FLAGS OVER FORMER TECH MOGUL’S ‘CCP NETWORK’ ALLEGEDLY FUNDING OF FAR-LEFT GROUPS
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) speaks to the media on his Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden’s cognitive state, in the Rayburn House Office Building on July 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Republicans have already requested those documents before, but haven’t received them.
“There is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter states.
For its own part, ActBlue has claimed it makes every effort to ensure its fundraising complies with legal requirements.
In ActBlue’s own letter published in Nov. 2023, Wallace-Jones, the CEO, affirmed that the organization maintained the highest standards for scrutiny of its fundraising.
“Our approach is multilayered, with checks and confirmations occurring throughout the donation process to verify donors and donor information,” Wallace-Jones wrote.
“These measures, which include compliance measures, technological tools, and manual reviews, help to ensure the identity of donors, root out potential foreign contributions, and protect donors from financial fraud.”
OVERSIGHT DEMANDS DOJ ANSWERS ON FOREIGN FUNDING OF AGITATOR GROUPS AS IRAN, ANTI-ICE PROTESTS CONTINUE
Regina Wallace-Jones of Palo Alto soaks up the first evening of the DNC Convention at the United Center in Chicago, IL on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Photo by Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Republican lawmakers have given ActBlue two weeks to produce the requested documentation, setting a deadline for April 28, 2026.
“Absent these steps, the Committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas,” the letter reads.
Politics
Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON — Eric Swalwell’s downfall has raised the possibility of a broader reckoning on Capitol Hill as congressional staffers, reporters and opposition researchers race to verify long-standing rumors of a sordid underground culture among the city’s most powerful.
Former lawmakers across the political spectrum have warned for years of a hushed congressional bacchanal marked by inappropriate revelry and sexual misconduct. But a sense of growing momentum gripped Congress on Tuesday, as Democrats grappled with Swalwell’s resignation and Republicans called for other lawmakers to face scrutiny.
The 72-hour collapse of Swalwell’s political career has shifted attention not only to his closest associates in Congress, but also to a larger set of sitting lawmakers from both parties suspected of lurid sexual activity. Several members have claimed that Swalwell’s alleged behavior was an open secret amid a cacophony of rumors on social media of other potential offenders.
“I think that many people knew about this for a while,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said in an interview with The Times.
Luna, who planned to lead the charge to expel Swalwell before he resigned, alleged that young staffers would talk among one another about Swalwell’s conduct. Lawmakers should have done more to approach him about the rumors, she said.
Multiple current and former female staffers who spoke with The Times described a broader culture of warning one another about lawmakers with reputations for inappropriate conduct.
But the warnings, passed privately among junior aides, have focused on “sleazy” activity and boundary-crossing behavior, said one former legislative aide, who asked to remain anonymous. Whispers about sleazy behavior generally do not meet the coverage threshold for traditional newsrooms, which are bound by strict ethical standards.
Another former aide said that quiet guidance shared among female staffers focused on behavior that is legal, but nevertheless viewed as unprofessional and unbecoming of members of Congress — a line that has prevented many from speaking out publicly.
Now, a race is on for leverage between two political parties facing comparable strategic risks — each with members facing growing questions over their alleged conduct — and for scoops among news outlets, seeking to break the story first.
The Monday resignations of Swalwell and Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who faced his own sex scandal, was also forcing lawmakers to address the issue publicly. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — one of Swalwell’s closest friends in Congress — answered questions from reporters at length Tuesday, telling them he should have confronted Swalwell when he heard rumors about his behavior.
“You let your guard down. I let him into my circle. … I deeply regret it,” Gallego said.
He denied knowing about Swalwell’s alleged misconduct when asked about the behavior.
“Look, we socialized. We went out. But I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault,” Gallego said.
Notably quiet was President Trump, who has faced sexual assault accusations of his own and frequently parried with Swalwell throughout his presidency. Although Trump posted an article reporting Swalwell’s resignation on social media, he has not commented on the matter in his own words.
The unraveling scandal comes at a time when lawmakers have come together across party lines to push for transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and alleged sex trafficker whose network of powerful associates included Democrats and Republicans alike.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, details of the Swalwell scandal continued to unfold Tuesday, as a Beverly Hills woman accused him of drugging and raping her in 2018. The Times could not immediately reach his attorney; he previously denied allegations of rape and sexual misconduct made by multiple women in published accounts last week.
Sex scandals are not a new phenomenon on Capitol Hill, which has seen over a dozen members embroiled in controversy over the last decade, including Katie Hill of California, Cory Mills and Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Blake Farenthold of Texas, among others.
But several prominent former members — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have warned of a more widespread cultural problem.
“Every member in Congress knows not to let any young staffer get around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz. It’s not a secret there,” McCarthy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Luna had pressed lawmakers to address alleged sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. In February, she called on the “predatory freaks” in Congress to leave office as she complained about the process to get ethical complaints handled.
“It pisses me off because while some of us are actually working and busting our asses, these clowns are sexually harassing their own staff, doing illegal crap, insider trading etc,” Luna wrote at the time.
Luna said Monday that she was encouraged to see bipartisan support for expelling Swalwell and Gonzales.
A longtime staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that allegations against Swalwell have sparked conversations about how to do more to help staffers report sexual misconduct, such as reforming procedural rules that would allow staffers to report any of their concerns directly to ethics panels, and about the need for ethics investigations to move more quickly.
“Congress has a short-term memory, that is the difficulty here,” the staffer said. “After these guys leave their seats, there needs to be a concerted and consistent effort for reforms to be established and be made permanent.”
Politics
Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
new video loaded: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
transcript
transcript
Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.
-
“I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace.” “Pope Leo said things that are wrong. There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.” “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person. I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.” “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and it had to do with the Red Cross. There’s a Red Cross worker there, which we support.” “It’s terrible. It’s gross. It’s blasphemous.” “I stand with the pope. I mean, the pope speaks the Gospel. He speaks for peace.”
By Shawn Paik
April 14, 2026
-
Atlanta, GA1 week ago1 teenage girl killed, another injured in shooting at Piedmont Park, police say
-
Georgia1 week agoGeorgia House Special Runoff Election 2026 Live Results
-
Arkansas4 days agoArkansas TV meteorologist Melinda Mayo retires after nearly four decades on air
-
Pennsylvania1 week agoParents charged after toddler injured by wolf at Pennsylvania zoo
-
Milwaukee, WI1 week agoPotawatomi Casino Hotel evacuated after fire breaks out in rooftop HVAC system
-
Ohio10 hours ago‘Little Rascals’ star Bug Hall arrested in Ohio
-
Austin, TX7 days agoABC Kite Fest Returns to Austin for Annual Celebration – Austin Today
-
World1 week agoZelenskyy warns US-Iran war could divert critical aid from Ukraine