DeSantis: Hunter Biden Would Have Been In Jail 'Years Ago' If He Were A Republican 

Sarah Arnold / Townhall Tipsheet

Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) ripped the Biden Administration apart during his trip to Iowa, claiming that Washington D.C. has been "weaponized." 

Promising to send President Joe Biden "back to his basement," DeSantis also fired shots at Hunter Biden, who is currently under investigation by the GOP for its shady overseas business dealings. 

Going into his fifth year of being investigated, the governor claimed that Hunter Biden "would have been in jail years ago" if he were a Republican. 

"Two different sets of rules depending on whether you're a member in good standing of elite society or not," DeSantis said. "We have a bureaucracy that our Founding Fathers would find unrecognizable. It is an unaccountable, weaponized, administrative state that unevenly wields authority depending on its targets."

DeSantis's Iowa visit marked his first stop on a three-state, 12-city tour that will also take place in the first two primary states— New Hampshire and South Carolina. 

House Passes Debt Deal to Avoid Default

Spencer Brown / Townhall Tipsheet

 

With barely five days remaining until the projected "X-date" on which the United States is set to default on its debt, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) brought the Fiscal Responsibility Act — legislation resulting from a negotiated spending deal made with President Joe Biden — to the floor for consideration.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) heralded the successful vote on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, calling it "the most conservative spending package during my time in Congress" and "the largest deficit-reduction bill in at least a decade," one that "will fundamentally change the spending trajectory in Washington."

McHenry added:

"For the first time in a debt-limit negotiation, the U.S. government will spend less money than it did the year before. We achieved historic spending cuts that will help bring down inflation, consequential reforms to help Americans get out of poverty and back into the workforce, claw backs of billions of dollars of COVID...Read more and see tweets here.

Chris Christie to announce 2024 presidential campaign next week: report

Christie, who's making his second White House run, dropped out of the 2016 presidential race after disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire

Paul Steinhauser , Brandon Gillespie , Anders Hagstrom | Fox News

 

The formation of the group, Tell It Like It Is, was considered a key step ahead of Christie's expected entry into the White House race. Christie said on May 4 that he would make a 2024 decision in next two weeks, but has yet to announce his intentions.

Christie, who is considered one of the best communicators in the GOP, was once a strong ally of then-President Trump but has become one of the former president's most vocal GOP critics.

Christie, who held New Jersey's highest office from 2010-2018 and was the deep-blue state's last Republican governor, first ran for president in the 2016 cycle.

He placed all his chips in New Hampshire, but his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary, boosting him towards the nomination and eventually the White House. Read more and see videos here.

Debt Vote Today: Rules Committee Sends McCarthy's Deal to the House Floor

Matt Vespa / Townhall Tipsheet 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy falls short of his deal to increase the debt ceiling for the next two years. It’s a $4 trillion increase but comes with little to no guardrails; it could be unlimited. There’s no cap, and the spending cuts, while touted as an accomplishment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) of all people, are trivial at best. Regardless, his support guaranteed that the bill would pass the House Rules Committee, which it did last night, and now we expect the vote sometime this evening. Speaker McCarthy faces internal divisions, with the usual suspects on our side of the aisle forming the opposition. It’s not unwarranted. 

There are bad portions of this legislation, something you can’t gamble on with a meager five-seat majority, but we’re at a crisis point here. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gave a June 5 date for the default deadline. It was June 1, but no one knew the actual date. I feel like Yellen extended the deadline like a college professor would for a term paper (via NBC News): Read more here.

(Almost) Daily Meme

 

Panicked Much? Joe Biden Rebuffs Peter Doocy When Asked About DeSantis Potentially Pardoning Trump

Rebecca Downs / Townhall Tipsheet

 

President Joe Biden once again issued a reminder of what little regard he has for members of the press, as he laughed off Fox News' Peter Doocy's question with a non-answer before boarding Marine One this Memorial Day.

Doocy had asked the president if he had seen that "[Florida's Governor] Ron DeSantis said that if he became president, he would pardon Trump?" He also asked "where are you on the idea of the president pardoning Trump?" 

In response, Biden laughed and gestured before heading off. "I’ll see you guys," he offered," also adding "that’s a great question." He clearly doesn't think it's that great a question if he's not going to answer the question about two Republican candidates, with at least one of them being the likely nominee to face Biden, assuming he wins his primary.

DeSantis' comments had come on Thursday, right after he made it official that he was running for president, while he appeared on "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show"  Read more, see tweets, and videos here.

Jewish groups, allies demand CUNY Law lose funding after student's 'vile' anti-Israel commencement speech

The graduation speech was condemned as 'vitriolic, evil, antisemitic' propaganda

Yael Halon | Fox News

 

Pro-Israel groups and Jewish allies are calling for the City University of New York's (CUNY) public law school to lose its funding after a graduating student accused Israel of "indiscriminately raining bullets and bombs" on Palestinians during her commencement speech. She also claimed laws are "white supremacy" and attacked the "fascist" NYPD and U.S. military.

Fatima Mousa Mohammed, who was selected by the 2023 class to speak at the May 12 CUNY Law ceremony, accused Israel of "indiscriminately" murdering Palestinians and encouraging "lynch mobs." She also celebrated resistance to "Zionism around the world" while lauding the school's support of the anti-Israel BDS movement. 

The law school initially took the speech down from YouTube but released it in full last week following public outcry from both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups.

 "I want to celebrate CUNY Law as one of the few, if not the only law school to make a public statement defending the rights of its students to organize and speak out against Israeli settler colonialism," Mohammed said from the podium. Read more and see video here.