“It is sitting on my desk right now for review,” Bondi answered. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.” Bondi said she was also reviewing the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King files. “That’s all in the process of being reviewed,” she said.

That was on Feb. 21.

On July 6, a Sunday, the FBI and the DOJ released a joint statement saying there was no “Epstein client list,” he really did commit suicide and all the files that they could or would release had already been made public.

This did not sit well with the roaring conservative podcaster demographic, which has been drawing crowds online with ever-wilder stories. Apparently Epstein was some sort of flying television director super-spy running a CIA honey trap for pedophiles on a remote island, controlling the world’s rich, famous and powerful by secretly recording blackmail tapes through pinholes. Trump and his once-trusted team, the keyboard cops raged, had become part of the cover-up.

Trump tried cajoling, ridiculing and disowning them, but the uproar just grew louder.

Thursday night, the president posted this message online: “Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!”

What’s the real story here? Is there a Democratic conspiracy? Is there a non-conspiracy explanation for not releasing “everything” from the Epstein files?

One thoughtful explanation comes from former federal prosecutor William Shipley, now a defense attorney, who writes about politically charged legal issues on a Substack called Shipwreckedcrew’s Port-O-Call. “There are thousands of victims who extend far beyond the minor girls who were personally abused by [Epstein],” he wrote. “Every minor depicted in a pornographic image or video that Epstein accumulated is a victim, and every transfer or republication of an electronic file or hard copy is an new crime that re-victimizes that person. That material should never be made public, and never will be.”

In other words, the Department of Justice is not going to publish a vile collection of child pornography just because people with podcasts demand to see “everything” from the Epstein files.

But what about the victims who were personally abused by Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and perhaps by others?

“The vast majority have been interviewed by law enforcement, and many have told their stories either publicly or under oath in depositions as part of litigation that has gone on for nearly a decade,” Shipley wrote. “Those who have not spoken out publicly have made that choice deliberately. Material concerning them — even if it involves uncharged third parties — cannot be made public due to their privacy rights and the fact that much of that material is sealed by court order at their request.”

Sealed records prevent the government from releasing “everything.” Longtime defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who represented Jeffrey Epstein and helped negotiate a plea deal for him in 2008, told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Monday, “many of the things that are being suppressed are being suppressed by two judges in Manhattan, and they’re doing it largely to protect the alleged accusers who are, in the view of the judges, victims, even though we don’t know what their actual status is.”

Dershowitz said there is no “client list,” only redacted FBI affidavits “that accuse various people of having improper sex.” He said he knows who they are, because he did the investigations. Some of the accused were formerly in public office, some are dead, none are currently holding a public office. “The redactions could be undone if you go to court,” Dershowitz said.

Now Trump has directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to go to court and ask to have Grand Jury testimony released. It probably won’t be, but at least the exercise will demonstrate that it’s the courts, not the president, “covering up” the Epstein files.

And speaking of going to court, Trump said Thursday night he will sue Rupert Murdoch and “his third rate newspaper,” the Wall Street Journal, for publishing what Trump says is a “FAKE” letter. The Journal reported that Trump sent the letter to Epstein in 2003 to be included in a commemorative book for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

The letter shown to the Journal is reportedly typewritten, refers to a “secret,” and shows a line drawing of a naked woman with the scribbled signature “Donald” in marker, placed in a suggestive location.

“These are not my words, not the way I talk,” Trump said. “Also, I don’t draw pictures.”

The letter sounds like it could have come from the same political communications shop that invented the “prostitutes peeing on a bed in Trump’s Moscow hotel room” story. That tale appeared in the Steele dossier, an unverified and now-discredited pile of anti-Trump “research” paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

According to Fox News, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are currently under federal criminal investigation, possibly related to lying to Congress, and to their use of the Steele dossier in an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) ordered up at the very end of the Obama administration to look into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A new CIA review of the “tradecraft” of that ICA found serious problems with it, including the fact that Brennan was unusually insistent on including the Steele dossier in the assessment, overruling analysts who said it wasn’t up to the agency’s standards.

The Intelligence Community Assessment became the basis for a politically damaging, multi-year investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, which were non-existent. Now, Sen. Chuck Grassley and others on Capitol Hill are painstakingly digging out the truth.

By total coincidence, the roar over the Epstein files is covering it up.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

It was all out of some old-fashioned allegiance to the idea of amateurism. Guys play in college for fun and maybe some glory, right? Maybe impress some girls.

If you go on to become a professional athlete, more power to you. And that’s where the money is.

No more. The fancier quarterbacks, running backs and shooting guards have for a couple of years now been able according to NCAA rules to make big bucks “from third parties using their personal brand, often referred to as their name, image and likeness,” the college sports organization says. “The NCAA fully supports these opportunities for student-athletes across all three divisions,” from big schools to small.

The apparent way forward is for members of all the big college sports teams to be able to ka-ching their way through school whether or not they ever go pro.

In California, this means that football players, for instance, at even schools with crummy recent records such as my  Cal  Golden Bears have, will pull down on the order of $200,000 a year.

That’s not NFL money, much less Shohei Ohtani money.

But, around campus? That’s Champagne money on a formerly beer budget. More on which in a sec.

Back to Jim Thorpe. The citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, one of the greatest American athletes ever, won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm in classic pentathlon and the decathlon. Then those medals were stripped from him after it was revealed he had picked up a little scratch for his enormously poor family by playing a few games of semi-pro baseball before joining the U.S. team.

Generations later, the medals were “restored” to him, 30 years after his death.

That kind of “pure amateur” nonsense was nothing more than upper-middle class White American tut-tutting. It was cool that the greatest American golfer of the early 20th century, Bobby Jones, remained an amateur through his career. One reason why? He came from the right Atlanta circles, and had the chance to make an opportune investment in Coca-Cola and practice gentlemanly part-time law.

Jim Thorpe didn’t have such connections. But he did recover from the ignominy of having his medals stripped to star both as a professional baseball player and early NFL great — and even led a barnstorming Native American basketball team. Before he died young of alcoholism.

The lesson of Jim Thorpe was that the over-enforcement of the elite amateur notion is the definition of classism.

Still and all, I remember being ticked when NBA players were first allowed to play Olympic basketball — just as foreign players began to get as good as the Yanquis at the game. For decades, sending our best college hoops players to the Games worked out fine.  Even when they weren’t pulling down 200 large in the collegiate ranks.

The new formula has not quite been figured out. But: “As of last week, California’s top universities can pay their athletes directly — a dramatic shift in college sports that blurs the line between amateur and professional play. Schools have yet to say how much individual students will actually make or when checks might arrive, though a CalMatters estimate suggests some student-athletes at UC Berkeley could make roughly $200,000 a year. … At public universities, such as UC Berkeley, schools could use taxpayer dollars to make these payments.” No one’s pretending it’s the water polo players who’ll rake it in. First is football, then men’s basketball, then women’s basketball — the cash cows.

I’m just trying to figure out the lifestyle changes. Full scholarships and nice weight-training facilities don’t put folding money in the wallet. This does. Will BMOCs rent penthouse suites rather than live in the dorms? Dine at Chez Panisse rather than Top Dog? Take their dates to Cabo for the weekend rather than the movies? Make a down payment on the Lambo now rather than on draft day?

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.

Outside of Nashville, Newsom attempted to bro-wash his image on the incredibly popular right-of-center podcast The Shawn Ryan Show hosted by a former Navy SEAL. Shawn Ryan has been criticized for even platforming Newsom, but that’s unfair. Our nation is arguably helped when Newsom’s most unbelievable and pathological tendencies are on full public display.

Ryan opened the show by giving Newsom a “California-compliant” handgun. Newsom accepted the weapon and then asserted that he is “not anti-gun at all,” a “great” skeet shooter, and primarily a “bow hunter.” Despite his stated enthusiasm for guns, this was the first gun Newsom, at 56, has owned.

Over just the next 15 minutes, Newsom brazenly misrepresented his 2020/2021 governance. Californians remember those years as a time when he abused his executive emergency powers by locking down his state longer than any other American governor and faced a recall. When Ryan asked what mistakes he made during those years, Newsom eventually said, “We realized then, after the fact, what, what the hell are we doing? Shutting down the beaches and open areas!”

Unlike Newsom, many of us knew – and publicly said in the moment – that shutting down open spaces in response to an airborne virus was asinine and dangerous. But Newsom’s over-reliance on political science over actual science doomed us. 

Other Covid-era mistakes he could have discussed but didn’t: extended mask mandates; vaccine mandates; school closures beyond any reasonable measure while his kids attended an open, private school; a $1.4 billion-dollar no-bid contract for defective masks from China; shutting down churches while allowing dispensaries, Home Depots, and strip clubs to remain open; and allowed criminals to steal over $30 billion from the state’s unemployment fund. 

Over the ensuing four-hour interview, Newsom declared that the “California exodus is a myth,” claiming that California’s population is surging again. The truth? California has lost more people domestically to other states than it has gained in every single year that Newsom has been governor. Its population growth is tied entirely to international immigration, both legal and illegal. Yet, even with those sources of growth, California has grown by only 50,000 people since Newsom came into office. Texas and Florida, governed by Newsom’s nemeses, have grown about two million each.

Ryan confronted Newsom for congratulating San Francisco on cleaning up homelessness only during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2023 visit. Back then, Newsom famously told reporters, “I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town,’ That’s true, because it’s true.” But to Shawn Ryan, Newsom said flatly, “That’s complete bulls—t.”

While many of us agree with Newsom’s literal words, we agree for reasons he surely didn’t intend.

Those of us who have lived through Newsom’s reign will be left wondering if he believed every lie and half-truth he told to Ryan, or if he hopes that the nation will believe if he tries just hard enough. As Texas Governor Greg Abbott says often to the two million people who moved to his state from California, Newsom’s approach is all hat and no cattle.

Will O’Neill is chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County and served twice as mayor of Newport Beach, including in 2020.

In the spring, Harris promised an “end of summer” decision on whether she would run for Governor of California next year, or whether she would stay out of that race in order to make another run at the White House in 2028.

Now, over halfway through the summer, Harris finds herself at a crossroads: take the – likely – easy win and become the state’s 41st Governor, or instead, commit to a grueling primary process with a spot in the general election hardly guaranteed.

To that end, new polling may push Harris to give the presidency another shot, but that does not necessarily mean she should.

Indeed, Echelon Insight’s July Omnibus poll shows that, among Democratic primary voters, Harris (26%) leads a 20-candidate field in an early 2028 presidential primary ballot test.

According to the poll, Harris leads her two biggest competitors – former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and California Governor Gavin Newsom – by 15 and 16 points, respectively.

Viewed strictly through this poll, it may seem that Harris has a considerable advantage and possibly an inside track to represent the Democratic Party again in three years. 

And yet, it would behoove Harris and her camp to ignore this poll and instead declare her candidacy for the governorship. 

Put another way, despite a seemingly encouraging lead, Harris’ position atop the field almost certainly reflects name recognition more than a genuine desire for her to run for president again.

Despite presenting respondents with more than 20 possible candidates, only the three mentioned above and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (6%) could be considered “household names” at the national level. 

Moreover, the 2028 Democratic National Convention is roughly three years away. It is extremely difficult for voters to know now who they will prefer then, thus, they often default to the familiar face.

In the summer of 2005 – analogous to right now in the 2028 presidential cycle – Gallup released a poll among Democratic primary voters. 

Hillary Clinton (40%) was dominating the field, trailed by John Kerry (16%) and John Edwards (15%). The eventual winner – former President Barack Obama – was not even considered a serious enough contender to be included in the poll. 

All of this is to say that it is entirely possible that the Democrats’ eventual nominee is not even among the list of more than 20 candidates polled by Echelon Insights. 

Underscoring the necessity for Harris to discount this poll is something I discussed in these pages earlier this month. 

A separate 2028 poll from Emerson, reported Buttigieg (16%) leading Harris (13%). 

At the time, I wrote that Emerson’s data points to a wide-open race for the party’s nomination, and Echelon’s poll showing Harris with a lead reinforces the conclusion that there is no established Democratic front runner, including Harris.

Finally, were Harris to read this poll as a desire for her candidacy in 2028, its highly likely that she will confront many – or all – of the same challenges that hobbled her 2024 candidacy. 

Back on the national stage, voters would be reminded of Harris’ position in the previous Biden administration, which was deeply unpopular at its end. 

One can easily imagine how awkward the primary would be when Harris was forced to defend the Biden administration – and her role in it – against competitors from her own party.

Throughout her campaign, Harris struggled to separate herself from former President Biden throughout her campaign, nor was she able to truly define a wholly new platform or agenda for a Harris presidency.

And, when Harris did take decisive stands on various policies, she was seen as either too far-left or inauthentic. 

Taken together, it appears that Harris’ best bet for a continued political future would be to enter the race for California Governor. 

She is almost certain to emerge from the state’s jungle primary either against a much lesser-known Democrat or a Republican, against both of whom Harris would be the clear favorite. 

As Governor, Harris would be able to gain experience in an executive position, remain politically relevant, and build a platform if she chose to run in 2032, when she’d only be 67 years old.

In that same vein, with the Democratic Party as a whole facing its own crossroads in the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in New York City, Harris would be able to survey shifting political landscapes and decide what type of candidate she wants to be in 2032.

Further, despite California’s shift to the center on certain issues such as crime and homelessness, Harris’ more left-leaning platform would not be the same obstacle in California that it would be in a national election.

Ultimately, nobody – possibly even including Harris – knows what the former vice president will decide, and few could fault her for wanting a redo after the unprecedented circumstances that led to her presidential candidacy. 

However, if Harris hopes to have another shot as a truly viable candidate, her best course of action is undoubtedly to try her hand at the job in Sacramento. 

Viewed in that light, Harris’ advisors would best serve her by convincing her that Echelon’s poll is a flash in the pan, not a sign of genuine desire for her return to the presidential conversation. 

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

I still found it reassuring that majorities hold a “very or somewhat favorable” view toward the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. However, 17% were favorably disposed toward the Dark Ages. Even funnier, 9% held the Black Plague in high esteem, with 32% positively inclined toward the Crusades—small, but not insignificant numbers. Such people live among us, although maybe they just have a great sense of humor.

Such polls confirm one of my favorite maxims: “Whoever sets the agenda wins.” Basically, if I start a public debate about whether to launch nuclear strikes against Myanmar or start electing housecats to state legislatures, some percentage of the public will support it. Once an idea is placed on the agenda it gets legs—no matter how absurd. A more thoughtful expression of this is called the Overton Window.

Developed by the Mackinac Center’s Joseph Overton, his theory explains that politicians promote policies that fall within a window of widely accepted ideas. He believed think tanks (and others) could, as The New York Times described it, turn the “politically unthinkable” into the “mainstream” by talking about ideas outside the window. Such debates shift the window—and then politicians are willing to embrace policies that had been off limits.

We’ve seen dramatic shifts in acceptable policy discussions over the past few years, mainly because of Donald Trump, who has gotten Americans talking about once-unthinkable ideas. Some of the resulting debates would strike Americans from just a decade ago as bat-guano crazy: making Canada the 51^st state, taking over Greenland, deporting celebrities, ending support for vaccines, etc. Anything Trump says—and he always has something unusual to say—instantly shifts the window (whether he’s serious or trolling) quite dramatically.

Unfortunately, his ability to shift acceptable policy debates poses dangers given that many of the shifts obliterate Democratic norms. Even if he does respect the courts’ ultimate rulings—and he’s given mixed signals—his actions erode long-held constitutional principles. When his administration dismisses the importance of due process, depicts habeas corpus as the opposite of what it means, dispatches federal troops on U.S. soil and sends alleged illegal immigrants to a Salvadoran gulag, it pushes the envelope of acceptable governmental behavior.

Given the intensity of support Trump receives from his followers, anything he says or does will instantly gain support from nearly half the public. That leaves Americans—and our republic—in the hands of Trump’s whims. Other presidents have abused executive orders, but Trump is trying to rule by edict in a way that goes much further.

Presidents from both parties have played this game to a degree, but Trump doesn’t appear bound by the usual self-imposed restrictions, or norms. Even if the guardrails hold—and that’s far from certain at this point—Trump has used his normative power to undermine faith in our institutions and in democracy itself.

Norms are exceedingly important. They are the ultimate check on big government. As a simple example, I’ve lived in neighborhoods where the norm is to maintain one’s property, be friendly and look unkindly toward any criminal behavior. I’ve also lived in the opposite, where one must always lock the doors, look out for dog poo on the sidewalk and deal with all-night parties. All the municipal codes and cops in the world cannot turn the latter into the former. Likewise, our institutions simply are not designed to resist a president who thinks he’s Juan Perón.

The obliteration of political norms has a habit of spreading. Check out Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent statements, which echo the pettiness and nastiness of the president. It was only a matter of time before Democrats, facing impotence in the face of Trump’s fusillades, would start to echo his strategies. This is how even the most stable democracies head into a death spiral, even if many Americans enjoy the ongoing spectacle.

I wouldn’t tell a pollster it’s as bad as the Inquisition or the Hundred Years War, of course, but we can all try harder to stop pushing boundaries and start rebuilding support for the fundamentals.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group Editorial Board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

It would not be easy.

The entire idea of Harris running for governor, a run in which she would have to commit to serving out a full term, thus giving up on running for president in 2028, is predicated on her having an easy time of it. The presumption is that today’s crowded field of Democrats would thin out quickly to give her a virtually free “top two” primary election finish next June. This would assure her a slot on the fall ballot, most likely against either a Republican-turned-Democrat like developer Rick Caruso – who lost a run for mayor of Los Angeles three years ago – or far-right Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

But that scenario might not come about. As Harris contemplates, none of her prospective Democratic primary rivals has dropped out quickly.

Yes, Harris can take comfort she is the early-book leader in this race. Against a host of other declared and rumored candidates, she enjoyed 24 percent support in a poll by the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. But placed in a hypothetical race against an unnamed Republican (right now, Caruso and Bianco are the most likely to be there), she led by only 41-29 percent, with heaps of undecided voters.

Undecided voters have long been poison to Harris. Their late decisions made her 2010 run for state attorney general against then-Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley a horserace lasting until the very last days of vote-counting, almost a month after Election Day. They made what looked like an easy 2016 Senate run against then-Orange County Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez tighter than most observers thought it would turn out.

And last-minute choices of the previously undecided in a few states cost her the presidency against Republican Donald Trump last fall.

So a contemplative Harris should be able to recognize a very tight race in the making and realize she just might lose – and forfeit any hope of ever becoming president.

She might even have trouble securing what figures to become the lone Democratic slot in the 2026 November runoff.

Yes, she leads the second-place Democrat, former Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter, by a 4-1 margin in the early polling and has even larger edges over other Democrats like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, ex-federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, current  Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, state Schools Supt. Tony Thurmond and ex-state Senate President Toni Adkins.

Some of them are bound to drop out of the top-of-ticket race before it gets extremely serious in late fall. But others will stick with it and – like Kounalakis, Porter and Villaraigosa – likely raise enough money to compete heavily against Harris.

History, of course, shows that when she faces stiff competition, Harris can have problems, as when she dropped out of the Democratic presidential race in 2020 even before the first primary.

So even though Dean Jon Gould of UC Irvine’s Social Ecology program told a reporter that “The path to governor seems well-paved for Vice President Harris if she decides to run,” it ain’t necessarily so.

Caruso, for one, will see these findings as extremely encouraging. Should he win a top two slot, he would likely see Harris as at least as soft a target as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, still weakened by the fact she left town when wildfire warnings were being issued before last winter’s Los Angeles area firestorms.

In debates, where Harris has never done very well, he would try to turn Harris into a pseudo-Bass, suggesting she might be a Bass clone.

This still makes a Harris entry to this race likely because of her standing as the early leader in every poll. But she’s never demonstrated an abiding interest in top California issues like homelessness or insurance company rates and performance.

All of which makes a Harris entry into this key race very much a question mark for the moment.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.

He’s similar to the old one – same hair, hand jives while speaking – but this one oozes machismo and has a brand new backstory.

California’s governor is working feverishly to reinvent himself as he plods along on his never-ending campaign for president, apparently accepting that the old Newsom is limited in appeal.

In California, old Newsom is unpopular among the voters who know him best. His approval rating is underwater at 44%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and a majority of voters think he, at best, puts the needs of Californians over his own only “a little” bit of the time, according to a Berkeley IGS poll.

Old Newsom’s list of actual accomplishments is so small that he defaults to bragging about things for which he deserves no credit, like the size of California’s gross state product and the state’s population of Nobel Laureates, that also do little to affect the lives of most Californians (except those lucky Nobel laureates!).

In other words, Gavin Newsom needed a new Gavin Newsom fast.

Back in Newsom HQ, everyone must have been scrambling: What do voters want?

Someone manly, for starters. Democrats bombed last November, and they blame their repulsiveness to men and a rejection of popular male podcasts, like The Joe Rogan Experience. So this week Newsom went on the Shawn Ryan Show, a podcast hosted by a former Navy Seal.

There’s nothing more manly than Navy Seals, but Newsom could only steal so much masculinity. To prove he’s one of the guys, Newsom started swearing a lot and calling Ryan “brother.” He unveiled an apparent love of bow hunting and skeet shooting (who knew?) and said he was a big Second Amendment supporter (again, who knew?).

The only thing Newsom could have done to be more manly would have been to gobble down a raw buffalo liver and then challenge Ryan, barechested, in arm wrestling. This is new Newsom, not the guy who railed against “toxic masculinity” and condemned as misogynists the same male voters he’s now courting.

At times, Newsom broke character and slipped back to the old, elitist self, like the Nobel laureates gaffe, but quickly moved on to Fortune 500 companies because men know Gordon Gekko was badass and had amazing hair too.

Newsom made clear Ryan was his bro, but don’t be fooled by the tone. Polling shows that Democratic voters want a fighter and Newsom is here to deliver.

An NBC News poll from March showed that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want their elected leaders to fight Trump, even if it means getting nothing done. And when it comes to getting nothing done, Newsom the man.

The swearing is not enough. Newsom’s social media game, complete with a team of towel whippers to hoot and holler, has the sass cranked to 11. The gang says it all, true or not, and Harry Potter fans will love the Voldemort memes. So tough.

These guys are brave. After all, J.K. Rowling is persona non grata with liberals and men don’t read a lot of books about teenage wizards. But the towel guys followed up with a particularly sassy post calling White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a “fascist cuck.”

In a different era, that post would be unbecoming from a taxpayer-funded account. But not this era. Not this moment. And certainly not this version of Newsom. Newsom said he would not apologize for the post. Men don’t apologize.

All of this is cosmetic. To finish the job, Newsom needed some distance between new him and old him, with his well-known and often touted (by him) record of ineffective, far-left policies.

Democrats abroad are leery of importing California policies to their states, as Newsom learned during a recent campaign trip to the early primary state of South Carolina. So he made up a whole new history.

Newsom brags about California’s strictest gun laws, but to Ryan, who said he carries a gun wherever he goes, new Newsom said he’s “deeply mindful and respectful of the Second Amendment and people’s constitutional rights.”

During COVID Newsom ran one of the longest and most restrictive responses of any state. A year into COVID, he indicated he had no regrets (besides dining unmasked with lobbyists at the French Laundry) about the severity of the response.

But Newsom told Ryan this week that shutting down beaches and open spaces, which was widely panned at the time by me and many others, was foolish.

“What the hell are we doing shutting down the beaches and open areas and you know and not understanding that early on,” Newsom said.

What the hell, indeed. The prevailing public health consensus at the time was that COVID was not particularly transmittable outside, but Newsom was thirsty for national praise (even back then) and worried about backlash from liberal hypochondriacs who saw a photo of people on the beach. The horror!

“I know folks say, ‘Oh they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town,’ and that’s true because it’s true,” Newsom said at the time.

But men don’t clean. So Newsom told Ryan this week that that story was “complete bulls—.”

Tough talk, tough on COVID, Newsom cleans for no one. Be still my male heart!

There are countless other examples out there and surely more to come. This version of Gavin Newsom is here to stay – at least until polling says it’s time to pivot.

Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Email him at flemingwords@gmail.com and follow him on X @FlemingWords.

It was the wrong number; it minimizes the state’s chronic gap between income and outgo, as the state’s official budget summary released this week confirms.

The budget projects that the state will receive $208.6 billion in general fund revenues during the fiscal year that began on July 1, but it will spend $228.4 billion, a gap just shy of $20 billion.

The $12 billion figure stems from counting a $7.1 billion diversion from one of the state’s reserve accounts as revenue — an assumption that violates common sense as well as any legitimate accounting scenario.

The more accurate figure of $20 billion is important because it squares with projections by Newsom’s Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst’s Office that California has what’s called a “structural deficit” in the range of $10 billion to $20 billion a year.

In other words financing all of the programs and services now in state law will indefinitely cost that much more each year than the state is likely to receive in revenues.

The budget closes about a third of the $20 billion gap with an aforementioned $7.1 billion shift from the emergency reserve — money that’s supposed to be used to cushion the impact of an economic downturn or calamities such as the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles, earthquakes or destructive storms.

The deficit isn’t a genuine emergency because it resulted from irresponsible political decisions, particularly Newsom’s declaration in 2022 that the state had a $97.5 billion budget surplus and thus could afford a sharp increase in spending.

The surplus was a mirage, based on assumptions of a $40 billion annual increase in revenues that never happened. Last year, the Department of Finance acknowledged that revenues over four years would fall short of expectations by $165 billion.

However, much of the phantom money was already spent, thereby creating the structural deficit that Newsom and the Legislature basically ignored in putting together the current budget.

The $12 billion gap left after the reserve fund shift was mostly papered over with on- and off-budget loans from special funds, shifting some spending into future years and using accounting gimmicks, such as shifting some current year spending, the June 2026 state payroll for instance, into the next fiscal year.

One could liken the state budget to a family that takes out loans on its credit cards to finance a lavish lifestyle, or a city that provides pension benefits it cannot afford.

States cannot file for bankruptcy, no matter how distorted their finances. If they could, California would not qualify because of its almost unlimited ability to borrow money from special funds.

However, there will be a day of judgment if California’s spending continues to outpace its revenues, particularly if the state’s economy continues its sluggish performance.

Newsom and legislators implicitly assume that at some point revenues will increase enough to cover their spending and pay off their debts — just as a debt-ridden family buys lottery tickets in hopes of avoiding bankruptcy.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Yet, Representative Young Kim has not done nearly enough to stand up to Donald Trump’s reckless trade war or to protect the people she was elected to serve.

The tomato tariff is going to be a direct hit to CA-40. Tomato prices are set to rise by 10% or more at grocery stores and restaurants, hitting working-class and immigrant families the hardest. 

In a district where over 40% of residents are immigrants and food service jobs are the backbone of our local economy, this is a direct assault on our quality of life.

Grocery bills are already up 28% over five years. Now, tariffs could add up to $4,900 to the average family’s annual food costs in 2025, with fresh produce like tomatoes among the most affected.

Local businesses, especially restaurants, retailers, and distributors, will see their costs spike, forcing them to raise prices or cut jobs. The ripple effect will be felt in every corner of our district, from family-owned taquerias to local burger joints and beyond.

Rep. Young Kim has introduced a bill that would require the president to notify Congress 48 hours before changing tariff policy and to provide a justification report. 

While this may sound like oversight, it is little more than a procedural speed bump. It does not stop the tariffs, nor does it offer real relief to families and businesses already struggling with rising costs.

Kim has not directly opposed Trump’s tariffs or called for their repeal. She has expressed “concerns” and asked for “transparency,” but has not taken a stand against the policy itself. Her bill fails to deter the President’s tariff agenda; and by her own admission, it simply asks for advance notice, not action.

Our community needs a fighter, not a bystander. We need a representative who will demand an end to these harmful tariffs, not just request a memo about them.

Thousands of jobs are at stake in California’s food, logistics, and retail sectors. The critically important ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are already seeing a 30 to 35 percent drop in cargo volume due to tariffs, threatening livelihoods up and down the supply chain.

Food insecurity will rise as working-class families are forced to choose between healthy food and other essentials. For many, this is not a political debate but a question of whether they can put fresh food on the table.

Retaliatory tariffs from Mexico could further damage California’s agricultural economy, putting even more jobs and businesses at risk.

Rep. Kim’s tepid response is not enough.

Our community deserves a leader who will:

• Publicly and unequivocally oppose the tomato tariff and all harmful trade policies that raise costs for working families.

• Fight for real solutions to lower grocery prices and protect jobs, not just ask for more paperwork from Washington.

• Stand up to her own party and to President Trump when their policies hurt the people of CA-40.

The tomato tariff is a test of leadership. So far, Young Kim is failing that test. Our families, our businesses, and our future are too important to settle for less.

Bomi Kong is CEO of KYLOBAL INC. in Los Angeles.

Given the rampant lawlessness we have seen from ICE over the past few months, we should all be extremely concerned about what this budget increase will mean for communities across America.

Under Trump, ICE is essentially operating as a lawless paramilitary operation, intended to intimidate Americans—immigrants and citizens alike—with shocking displays of brute force such as the sweep of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, in which 90 National Guardsmen and dozens of ICE agents, utilizing 17 military Humvees and four tactical vehicles, descended on a mostly empty park, terrifying the few young kids and parents playing together.

We’ve seen the videos. We’ve heard the eyewitness accounts. ICE agents are kidnapping and assaulting people in broad daylight. They are doing so while masked up, refusing to identify themselves, and wearing civilian clothing like jeans and sneakers. They jump out of unmarked vans and tackle, shove, and punch civilians, and frankly, other than the ICE vests or jackets they wear—which have been available for sale on Amazon for $29.99—they often look and act more like gang members than law enforcement agents. Bystanders who have asked for identification or arrest warrants have been assaulted and arrested. Those who seek to film these incidents have been threatened at gunpoint.

Actual police officers follow the law. They wear body cameras and are subject to disciplinary action if they violate the constitutional rights of the civilians they are meant to protect. But this is not the case with ICE agents, who are completely unaccountable and totally out of control. ICE agents have assaulted citizens, elected officials, including members of Congress, and even police officers.

And the reality here is that ICE is making our communities more dangerous, not safer. As podcaster Joe Rogan recently noted, Trump ran on a platform of deporting violent criminals and gang members. In reality, as the right-wing Cato Institute recently found, only 7% of the people being arrested by ICE have ever been convicted of a violent crime. Instead of going after criminals, ICE is targeting peaceful, law abiding immigrants, including those here with permanent residency and student visas, and their families. 

This cannot stand. We must rein in the lawlessness of ICE. That starts by demanding accountability for criminal actions by ICE agents. That’s why I’m leading a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to demand answers into the conduct of ICE agents. Americans deserve to know that the federal agents their taxpayer dollars fund are obeying the law and respecting our fundamental rights.

Like so many Americans, I’m the proud son of immigrants. My parents left Korea in search of the promise etched on our Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These attacks on our immigrant communities are not just an attack on our rule of law, they are also an attack on our most important and cherished American values. And I will continue to fight to protect our Constitution and the constituents I represent.

Dave Min represents California’s 47th congressional district.