First Run News

Julián Castro on Friday defended his testy exchange with Joe Biden at Thursday night’s debate over health care that seemed to jab at the former vice president’s age, saying he would not do anything differently. “I mean, he has been around for a long time, OK,” Castro said on CNN Friday morning after he was hit with strong criticism from pundits and on social media.

Former vice president Joe Biden emerged Friday from his best debate performance of the campaign on steadier ground at the top of the Democratic presidential field after a summer that saw him losing some of his lead in the polls. But he remained a wobbly front-runner after demonstrating yet again his propensity for gaffes and rambling answers — including one odd reference to a record player — that have fueled questions about his age and mental acuity. Still, with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren rising in recent weeks, Biden showed on the debate stage in Ho

The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued Friday that a federal court should reject the House Judiciary Committee’s efforts to obtain evidence and testimony from special counsel MORE’s investigation in part because Democrats cannot agree on the scope of the panel’s inquiry.  The DOJ noted conflicting language used by House Democrats as to whether the Judiciary Committee’s probe into obstruction of justice, among other things, amounted to an impeachment investigation, specifically citing reluctance among House leadership to label the inquiry as such.  “Most prominently, t

A federal appeals court in New York on Friday ruled that a lawsuit accusing MORE of violating the Emoluments Clause can proceed after a lower court had thrown out the case. A panel of judges with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which has alleged that the president violated the constitutional clause by refusing to put his business assets in a blind trust

The day White House counselor MORE, Merriam-Webster, the classic dictionary company, tracked a spike in users turning to its website to look up the definition of the word “fact.” “A fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality,” Merriam-Webster’s official Twitter account shared. “*whispers into the void* In contemporary use, fact is understood to refer to something with actual existence,” it continued.  The tweets garnered tens of thousands of likes and retweets, with Twitter users surprised that, of all places, shade was being thrown by a near

The Justice Department inspector general has completed an internal review on whether the FBI complied with the law and its own policies while applying for a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page during the 2016 election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in a letter to members of Congress on Friday that his office had “reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews” in connection with the inquiry and is in the early stages of finalizing its report.  Horowitz wrote that he has submitted a draft of the “factual findings” of the inquiry to th

Julián Castro’s attack on MORE’s memory during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate thrust questions about the former vice president’s age and mental acuity into the spotlight, forcing his fellow 2020 rivals to weigh in.

According to the poll, which surveyed 1,500 college students following Thursday night’s debate – over a quarter of Democrat or Democrat-leaning college students, 27 percent, consider Warren the winner. Her ideological ally, Sen.

“I think, whether we’re talking about James Bond or whether we’re talking about comic books, it makes sense for the portrayal of these characters to reflect the amazing cultural diversity of the country,” he said when asked about black actors playing characters that were previously played by white actors. The South Bend mayor weighed in on pop culture on Friday in an interview with TMZ Live after the Democrat debate. One of the TMZ hosts asked about the current proposal by Marvel Producer Kev

The campaign’s web store is now selling a shirt with red, white, and blue letters promising widespread gun confiscation. “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” the shirt reads, followed by the “Beto for America” slogan. The t-shirt style comes in “Unisex” and “Ladies cut.” O’Rourke made headlines in Thursday’s debate, promising to make AR-15 and AK-47 rifles illegal and to confiscate them. “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” he said, as the crowd cheered.