Republican Congressman Defends Call to Arrest Student Journalist

Republican Representative Andy Harris is defending his threat to have a student journalist arrested following a disastrous debate earlier this week. 

Baltimore TV station Fox 45 asked the Maryland congressman about how he flipped out at Capital News Service reporter Cat Murphy, a student at the University of Maryland, for filming him answering questions from reporters, even though other reporters were filming him too. Harris doubled down on the way he treated Murphy.

“Look the bottom line is, it’s not very newsworthy that the liberal media badgers a conservative politician. What was newsworthy is that I actually pushed back against it,” Harris said to Fox’s Mikenzie Frost. “She actually started by criticizing the way that press gaggle was being conducted. That’s not the role of a journalist, and what I did in the end is just say, ‘Look, this is all done’ and just left.” 

Frost pointed out that Harris left out some details about threatening to have Murphy arrested over a false interpretation of Maryland’s two-party consent law on recordings. 

“Oh, there is clearly a need for two-party consent, but it would have applied to everyone. That’s why, in the end, I just left everyone and their cameras and left the room,” Harris replied. When Frost asked if Harris thought he owed Murphy an apology, he said if she called him, he’d tell her that her failure to ask for his permission was what bothered him.  

“She criticized the way I was conducting the news conference. She’s a journalism student, I think she should realize that’s not really your purpose, that’s not your purpose to attempt to run a press conference,” Harris said, adding that “she was telling me how to do my job” and continuing to blame the liberal media for “badgering a conservative politician.” 

It’s pretty clear that Harris, who has been in office since 2011, is out of touch with his constituents and his state’s own recording laws. The press gaggle around him was a public event with multiple journalists recording it, which means the two-party consent law doesn’t apply. Threatening to have any journalist arrested, let alone a college student, is a sign that he doesn’t respect the right to a free press and can’t handle any pushback. It’s obvious why Harris hasn’t held an in-person town hall since 2023.

Rudy Giuliani’s legal defense fund has spent $1.2 million throughout the 2026 election cycle—but the vast majority of it hasn’t gone to legal fees.

Instead, the former Trump adviser has spent his money on fundraising consultants, blowing $442,000 on a contract with the Texas-based fundraising service provider American Caging and $227,000 on a contract with the Virginia-based Rockwell Solutions, The Washington Sun reported Friday.

Just $57,700 was paid to Gessler Blue Law in March, according to listed PAC expenditures.

Nearly all of the fund’s donors are retirees, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Giuliani was once a beloved fixture of the Big Apple, earning the title “mob-buster” as a vicious U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s. He later gained the moniker “America’s mayor” for seeing the city through the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But the fading star lost a lot of that adoration when he saddled his political dreams on Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, closely aligning himself with the MAGA movement and its myriad political conspiracies.

Since then, Giuliani has served as an interchangeable mouthpiece to communicate Trump’s whims—a choice that has bled him dry. He spread baseless accusations of ballot manipulation about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother-daughter duo of election workers in Georgia, in the wake of the 2020 election. That decision cost Giuliani $150 million in damages (which he tried and failed to worm his way out of), his Manhattan penthouse, and his Mercedes convertible, and almost forced him to give up his Florida condominium.

Giuliani was also indicted—and pardoned—for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia and Arizona. Over the course of 2024, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, was legally disbarred, and had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies.

He also begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees, though Trump reportedly refused.

Giuliani even started his own coffee brand, “Rudy Coffee,” in an effort to funnel in some extra cash to offset the enormous costs of his unwavering MAGA allegiance. He ultimately lost his bankruptcy case due to his outlandish spending habits, with the presiding New York judge branding the former city mayor a “recalcitrant debtor.”

The 82-year-old was on a mechanical ventilator in a Florida ICU earlier this year after being diagnosed with pneumonia. He recovered and was released in May.

The president’s once-unassailable ice maiden is melting.

As Republicans brace for a midterm election blue wave, Donald Trump is looking for someone to blame. Enter: Susie Wiles. The White House chief of staff is reportedly on the brink of losing her job, according to insiders that spoke with Zeteo Friday.

One top Trump adviser told the progressive news outlet that Wiles is “in some deep shit.”

The confirmation follows reporting from Politico, which revealed in its morning newsletter Thursday that Trump has been ringing his allies for their opinions on Wiles’s potential successor—and the reviews of Wiles’s performance have not been good.

“She’s burned a lot of people,” a Republican operative close to the White House told Politico.

One senior elected Republican official who fielded Trump’s call told the digital newsroom that the president had raised “the first honest questions about Susie.”

Possible replacements include deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller or—as a left-field option—Randy Levine, the president of the New York Yankees, insiders told Politico. Other options extend to U.S. envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, real estate developer turned federal housing director Bill Pulte, and ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Still, Trump shied away from committing to the turnover, ardently defending Wiles in a statement.

“TOTAL FAKE NEWS Politico doesn’t care about facts, integrity, or honest journalism—it’s why I kicked them out of the White House!” the president told Politico. “Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff—there is a reason for that. She has been with me since the beginning, is my trusted advisor, and has my COMPLETE confidence.”

Trump reportedly “blew up” after his “human printer,” Natalie Harp, printed out copies of the Politico report for him later Thursday. The briefing sent the president into a full-blown “freakout,” according to three sources that spoke with Politico afterward. Wiles and her team “burn[ed] up phones around town” attempting to settle the situation.

“The White House is in a state of panic. Susie is looking over her shoulder, trying to solicit people to go out and say good things about her and her team and make it seem like everything is fine. It’s not,” a person close to the president told Politico.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth may have exposed U.S. troops to foreign intelligence.

The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General issued a report Wednesday calling out the failure to protect sensitive communications and location information, saying there are major security weaknesses in the Pentagon’s $2.67 billion cell phone contracts, The Daily Beast reports.

The Pentagon didn’t check if phone companies were protecting data that could reveal soldiers’ locations and who they were speaking with, the report found. DOD officials also didn’t review the companies’ security checks before renewing contracts. The independent oversight agency concluded that hackers had the ability to “map entire communication networks within the [Department of Defense], pinpoint sensitive locations like safe houses or command posts, and expose operational vulnerabilities, significantly compromising national security.”

The office’s investigators found that DOD officials were aware of security vulnerabilities regarding text messages sent to and from military phones, and the possibility that bad actors could intercept them. Despite this, the department “had not issued policy for protecting text messages.”

In response to the report, Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the Pentagon’s security issues with cell phones.

“I remain concerned that our servicemembers remain at risk from the military’s insecure communications and look forward to seeing what else the Inspector General finds,” Senator Ron Wyden told The Daily Beast. “I’ll continue to watchdog DOD to make sure they follow through on the Inspector General’s findings and finally secure their communications.”

The report found that the DOD has not yet addressed the security vulnerabilities, arguing internally over whose responsibility it is and failing to offer explanations about what it is doing to implement solutions. Maybe Hegseth and other top DOD officials should be focused on these security risks rather than pushing out trans service members, making bad workout videos, or obsessing over hormones.

Elon Musk has settled a class action lawsuit over allegations that his shady super PAC offered President Donald Trump’s supporters a chance to win $1 million—when the winners had already been handpicked.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Musk’s America PAC offered to “randomly” give away $1 million each day to registered voters in several battleground states if they signed an online petition to support “free speech and the right to bear arms”—and forfeited their personal information in the process.

In response to a legal challenge in Pennsylvania, Musk’s attorney Chris Gober revealed that the recipients weren’t chosen randomly at all but were picked based on their personal story and “suitability to serve” as spokespeople for the super PAC.

Considering that the petition was not an illegal lottery scheme, the judge allowed the payments to continue. But after the elections, multiple lawsuits were filed against Musk and America PAC.

A one-page filing announced that the parties had reached a settlement agreement, HuffPost reported Thursday. The exact details of the settlement, such as how much Musk will owe the plaintiffs, was not immediately published.