First Run News

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday placed responsibility for inaction on gun violence in the hands of President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, in the face of broad national support for some gun control measures. ‘‘If most Americans insist that something be done and it doesn’t happen, it means we need fundamental reform,’’ Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said at a presidential forum on gun violence in downtown Des Moines. The forum comes a week after a pair of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas

WASHINGTON — It’s not quite ‘‘Trump-McConnell 2020,’’ but it might as well be. As he runs for reelection, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is positioning himself as the president’s wingman, his trusted right hand in Congress, transformed from a behind-the-scenes player into a prominent if sometimes reviled Republican like none other besides Donald Trump himself. ‘‘In Washington, President Trump and I are making America great again!’’ he declared at a rally in Kentucky. Other than Democrat Nancy Pelosi — and more recently Alexandria Ocasio-Cort

The FBI on Thursday released the bureau's notes from its Russia probe interviews with Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official who has come under GOP fire for his ties to the Steele dossier. Ohr emerged as a key figure in the counterintelligence investigation examining ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, particularly after his connections to former British spy Christopher Steele and the opposition research firm Fusion GPS were revealed.  As a result of these ties, Ohr became a GOP target of attacks by MORE and others who have called for his firing from the Dep

MORE is doubling down on his attacks against Silicon Valley, fueled by his party’s conviction that social media companies are working to silence right-wing voices. That hostility has reportedly led the White House to consider an executive order that would task the federal government with overseeing social media platforms’ handling of online political speech. And the escalation comes as Trump is also trying to push the tech industry on other fronts, including to do more to help law enforcement find and stop extremists online, following two mass shootings last weekend.

Just over half of Republicans — 51 percent — said in a new Hill-HarrisX poll that the federal deficit is a problem that the government needs to deal with immediately.  The poll showed strong support across party lines, with 50 percent of Democratic voters saying that the government should make the growing federal debt a top priority, while 58 percent of independents said the same.

The suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, reportedly told police he was targeting “Mexicans” and confessed to carrying out the attack when he surrendered to law enforcement. The suspect, identified as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, told police “I’m the shooter,” detective Adrian Garcia wrote in the arrest affidavit obtained by The Washin

MORE is flirting with taking action on gun control in the wake of a pair of mass shootings that left 31 people dead and shook a country clearly tiring of a seemingly endless series of shootings. Trump on Friday voiced clear support for background checks and legislation that would keep weapons away from dangerous individuals, and expressed confidence a deal could be put together. “I see a better feeling right now toward getting something meaningful done,” Trump told reporters at the White House, comparing the present day to the situation after the 2018 shooting at a hi

Breitbart News reported on National Public Radio’s (NPR) effort to find Trump haters in El Paso and instead the tax-payer funded media outlet came face to face with Tito Anchondo, who lost his brother and sister-in-law.

On Monday, President Donald Trump voiced his support for “strong background checks,” saying, “Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!” On Wednesday, Trump followed up by pushing background checks again.

The aging Biden fired off his racist “white kids” dog whistle while addressing the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday. “We should challenge these students, we should challenge students in these schools to have advanced placement programs in these schools,” the former vice president said.