Years after defending California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom listed some of the mistakes made.

Newsom made the admissions in a bizarre interview with Jake Tapper of CNN where both appeared to be trying to fly-fish in a river in Montana.

‘I regret that, obviously.’

Tapper asserted that there needed to be a commission to understand the pandemic and what responses worked and which did not work.

“Yeah, look, everyone’s a genius in hindsight, so, you know, coulda woulda,” Newsom responded.

“What would you do differently?” Tapper asked.

“I had a whole chapter just about Purell. We were running around doing price-gouging legislation against Purell, and everyone was thinking it was a Purell-based crisis,” referring to his book.

“People were scrubbing their groceries,” Tapper recalled.

“Yeah! I mean, [Republican Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis was closing down his beaches before we closed ours. The idea that we closed beaches was insane. In hindsight,” Newsom replied.

“Obviously the schools taking too long,” he added. “A lot of districts were open, but the big ones weren’t. L.A. refused. And I regret that, obviously.”

Tapper noted that teachers said that reopening schools too soon would kill them. Then he pressed Newsom on the scandal when he was caught attending a dinner at a ritzy restaurant with little to no pandemic protections.

“What on earth were you thinking?” Tapper asked.

“Just a boneheaded decision, a stupid decision, I just … dialing it in, we were exhausted, friend’s birthday, it was a restaurant that was open the night before.

“And it was just against the spirit of the rules that I was promoting,” he added.

“It was completely legit condemnation.”

He said he had a mask when he walked in and when he walked out of the restaurant.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace lambasted the governor in comments to Blaze News.

“I don’t think there’s anything sincere about Gavin Newsom whatsoever except his political ambitions,” said Deace. “So I suspect this is only being said as a means by which to triangulate as the Democrat nominee in 2028, when he’d likely be running against someone seen as an extension of Trump, who was president at the advent of the scamdemic.”

RELATED: Gavin Newsom tries to dunk on Trump and gets obliterated with online ridicule

Newsom has admitted that he’s looking at a possible campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.

The entire video of the fly-fishing interview can be viewed on CNN’s YouTube channel.

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​California, Coronavirus, Gavin newsom, Jake tapper, Pandemic, Politics 

Sacha Baron Cohen is bringing Ali G back to the big screen, but the character is already stirring controversy.

Tens of thousands of emails were sent urging theaters not to screen “Ali G: Who Iz I?” over accusations that the character is rooted in offensive racial stereotypes — something that’s never stopped theaters from promoting his films before.

And for this reason, BlazeTV hosts Stu Burguiere and Dave Landau aren’t sure the negative hype is entirely organic.

Dave recalls his old films where he would interview important figures like Dick Cheney who “wouldn’t know who he was.”

“It was always a fascinating interview because he would just bomb the interview, and it was always pretty funny to watch,” he says, noting that his film “Borat” made him laugh “the hardest” he ever has in theaters at “how unbelievably funny and inappropriate it was.”

“I am not a fan at all … of this, ‘Well, our standards have changed, and now he can’t do this character anymore.’ It’s more of just like, ‘I don’t know, I’m kind of done with that character from 20 years ago,’” Stu chimes in.

“Well, everybody knows who he is,” Dave agrees. “So it’s either they’re in on the joke, or they’re being paid to be on it. I mean, half the trailer is just people breaking because they know who he is.”

“It’s played out,” he continues. “We know the joke and so do the people that he’s playing the joke on. I certainly don’t think it’s racist. If it’s racist against anybody, it’s probably Jews, and he’s Jewish.”

“I mean, the most offensive stuff in Borat was against Jewish people,” he adds.

Dave also notes sarcastically that “sending emails because a movie shouldn’t be shown and getting 37,000 of them” doesn’t “at all build hype and give incentive for places to show a film.”

“I’m kind of skeptical, honestly,” Stu says. “It feels to me like a promotional stunt, like, ‘Oh gosh, everyone’s calling him racist, this is a big controversy.’”

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​Dave landau, Emails, Sacha baron cohen, Stu burguiere, Theaters, Boycott, Borat, Ali g, Blazetv show 

The head of a Texas political action committee has been caught on an undercover video apparently admitting how his group was able to pay voters indirectly to vote for the group’s candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The undercover video, shared Wednesday, was recorded by Townhall and appeared to show Texas Majority PAC organizing manager Sky McAdams explaining how the scheme worked.

‘If I was a Republican, I would be pissed. I would be like, that’s shady as f**k.’

“We are paying people $25 to attend a one-hour Zoom class to learn why voting is important and why the Republicans are causing all of these bad things,” McAdams says, according to the video. “So it’s, like, a roundabout way of paying people for their votes, essentially. Which is interesting.”

While paying voters directly would be illegal, McAdams seemed to admit that his program is “essentially” doing that indirectly.

“You can’t pay someone to vote for someone,” McAdams continues, according to the video. “You can’t be like, ‘Here’s $25. Go vote for me.’ You can say, ‘Attend a one-hour class and you can receive $25.’ And then the class just talks about, like, the importance of it. It’s a little gray.”

On the video, McAdams smiles and adds, “If I was a Republican, I would be pissed. I would be like, that’s shady as f**k.”

The scheme is called a “paid relational program” that is run through software named “Rally” and operated by a company called “Relentless.”

Texas Majority PAC was under investigation for allegedly funding state Democrats who fled Texas in order to block a vote on congressional redistricting. The group is funded in part by billionaire leftist George Soros.

Townhall posted the edited video on social media, where it was widely circulated.

RELATED: James Talarico shamelessly politicizes Amazon worker’s tragic death to attack capitalism

In response to the video, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent, said, “Absolutely outrageous! James Talarico’s team just admitted they are trying to bribe people for votes. Texans aren’t for sale, no matter how much James Talarico thinks they are.”

A Texas Majority PAC spokesperson told Blaze News that McAdams had misrepresented the program and has since been fired.

“Participants in the program are being paid for grassroots organizing work,” the spokesman added in a statement. “The way it was described by one rogue employee is factually incorrect, not how we operate, and they were immediately fired.”

Blaze News’ requests for comment from Relentless and the Talarico campaign were not returned in time for publication.

Relentless claims on its website that it netted “47,533 Democratic votes” in other campaigns in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania in 2024.

The Texas Majority PAC said in financial disclosures that it had spent $500,000 on services from Relentless. Townhall noted hypothetically that at $25 per vote, that sum could net about 20,000 ballots.

AG Paxton also oversaw the investigation into Texas Majority PAC.

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​Undercover video, Us senate, James talarico, George soros, Voter fraud, Politics, Ken paxton, Texas 

When feelings become the ultimate authority, society is in trouble. And based on recent events, it would appear that society is indeed already in trouble — and it’s because of what Christian apologist Frank Turek calls the “war on reality.”

“I don’t have my law of gravity and you have your law of gravity. There’s just gravity. There’s not my laws of logic and your laws of logic. There’s just the laws of logic,” Turek tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey.

“And so when people come around saying, ‘I have my truth; you have your truth,’” he says, “I like to say to them, ‘Do you have your own math?’”

“You don’t have your own math. You don’t have your own truth either,” he adds.

As this way of rejecting the truth has become all too common, Turek explains, “we’re given over to futile thinking and then ultimately to a depraved mind, where not only are we doing evil, we’re cheering on other people who do it.”

“And I know you covered this,” he tells Stuckey, “but a few weeks ago, that law up in Massachusetts, which allowed a woman to kill her baby up to the moment of birth. And they’re cheering this.”

“They’re not only doing evil; they’re cheering on other people who are doing it. And every OB-GYN knows this. There’s never a reason, if a woman has a problem with her pregnancy in the third trimester, that you need to kill the baby,” he continues.

“You can just do a C-section, take care of the mom. But no, if I choose to kill my baby, then it’s a right. That’s madness,” he adds.

“I mean, we already saw the logical conclusion of that with the Lindsay Clancy trial, in the same state. You have this mentality that a person’s value is dependent upon their location or their size, which is basically the justification of abortion,” Stuckey agrees.

“Now we see that a person’s value and the justice that belongs to them is dependent upon still the woman’s choice and still her hormones and her emotions and everything that was apparently affecting her,” she continues.

“There’s just no sense of, it seems like, because of this war on reality, objective truth and therefore objective justice. You can’t have justice without objective truth, because then everything is like, you know, I call it empathy-based justice,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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​Abortion, Christian apologist, Frank turek, Justice, Math, Objective truth, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv show 

The Federal Reserve has raised the interest rate as fears of inflation persist despite economic optimism from President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, the Fed voted unanimously to increase interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, the first rate-hike since 2023.

‘We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World.’

“Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace. While uncertainty remains elevated owing, in part, to geopolitical developments, domestic spending has been resilient. Productivity growth is strong, and capital investment is robust. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little,” a press release from the Fed said.

“Inflation remains elevated. Today’s policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee’s 2 percent goal. The Committee will deliver price stability.”

New Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh voted to increase the rate even though Trump has repeatedly called for rate cuts to keep the U.S. economy growing.

The latest jobs report released two weeks ago showed impressive gains in August and revealed that reports from previous months had been revised upward.

In response to the jobs report, Trump posted, “Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago! A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE — IT’S A BETTER CREDIT … Very simple! We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World.”

He even threatened to “STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT” if the Fed failed to lower rates.

RELATED: ‘Blow expectations out of the water’: HUGE GAINS in latest jobs report

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

The rate-hike is the first major Fed move under Warsh’s leadership. Trump nominated Warsh to replace Chairman Jerome Powell, who officially stepped down in May after repeatedly butting heads with Trump, especially regarding interest rates.

Trump even took to calling Powell “Too Late,” claiming that the then-chair’s failure to lower rates was stifling the American economy. Trump blamed Powell’s obstinance on “gross incompetence, total dishonesty, or both.”

For his part, Warsh has been tight-lipped about his plans at the Federal Reserve, claiming back in August that he prefers to have a “good family fight” about interest rates and other decisions rather than tip his hand ahead of time.

Wall Street has mainly responded favorably to the rumors about the impending rate increase. The NASDAQ and S&P opened Wednesday with gains, while the Dow Jones opened slightly down. Immediately after the hike announcement, all three markets were in the green.

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​Federal reserve, Donald trump, Kevin warsh, Interest rates, Politics 

A 21-year-old Mexican national has been indicted for providing support for a terrorist cartel and committing heinous acts of brutality, according to the Justice Department.

Jose Flores-Flores is accused of kidnapping people for the notorious Gulf Cartel and dismembering at least two victims in Reynosa, Mexico.

‘Thanks to President Trump designating certain cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, federal law enforcement now has a whole new arsenal of legal tools to dismantle their activities.’

Flores-Flores was allegedly a member of the cartel for more than a year and provided services that included “personnel, regional protection and enforcement, law enforcement countersurveillance, and disposal of human remains.”

Officials encountered the man near Mission, a border town near the southern tip of Texas. They discovered that Flores-Flores had been previously removed from the U.S. earlier in the year.

The indictment claims he conducted counter-surveillance against the Mexican military and law enforcement for the cartel.

According to the allegations, he also received photographs of targets and kidnapped them in order to hand them off to higher-ranking cartel members.

Flores-Flores also allegedly dismembered two victims on the outskirts of Reynosa for the cartel.

U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz pointed out that the indictment was possible because the Trump administration officially classified the cartel as a terrorist organization in Feb. 2025.

“Thanks to President Trump designating certain cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, federal law enforcement now has a whole new arsenal of legal tools to dismantle their activities,” he said in a statement in the press release.

“Flores-Flores in just one defendant today,” he added. “But under the leadership of President Trump and Attorney General [Todd] Blanche, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas is on the very forefront of Making America Safe Again through the destruction and dismantling of these terrorist cartels.”

RELATED: Tactical agents arrest ‘active scout’ in Arizona near Mexico border, says CBP

Mission is a large gateway for trade to Mexico through the Anzalduas International Bridge to Reynosa, Mexico, where the suspect is from.

Flores-Flores faces up to 20 years in prison and a possible maximum fine of $250,000 if convicted.

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​Mexican cartels, Illegal aliens, Texas, Immigration, Politics, Donald trump 

Just a month ago, one of OpenAI’s models escaped from its testing environment and hacked into an AI repository site, Hugging Face. The news sparked concern over AI’s illicit capabilities, and it even caught the government’s attention.

Since then, leading figures in tech and politics have scrambled to draw battle lines and choose sides.

Now, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is opening an investigation to mitigate the damage of future breaches, and at least one AI CEO is asking for consequences.

In a letter sent to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on September 9, Hawley outlined the extent of the attack and its implications. According to the document, more than 1,200 OpenAI agents escaped from their testing zone and colluded across 70,000 messages and files sent among each other as they plotted their attack on Hugging Face. Reportedly, 700 of the agents successfully breached the website and accessed the site’s internal systems and code. Even more astonishing, the bots then attempted to hide their activity.

’Who is held [liable] when Al goes rogue?’

Hawley labeled this as rogue behavior. Furthermore, he called OpenAI “reckless,” accusing the company of knowing that its AI bots went rogue and continuing evaluation tests anyway, despite the illicit activity.

The letter ended by asking the questions that all of us want answers to: “What happens to critical infrastructure, banks, and utilities if Al agents hack into their systems? How can personal data of millions of Americans be properly safeguarded? And who is held [liable] when Al goes rogue?”

Seemingly, these are the answers that Hawley’s investigation aims to uncover. Now OpenAI has a deadline to turn over as much information and documentation as possible by October 1, 2026.

Hawley’s investigation comes at a time when the Big AI CEOs all suddenly agree that AI development should slow down. Over the weekend, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk all joined forces to say it’s time to “pace the frontier.”

In a blog post, Amodei warned, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.” The fear, according to Amodei, is that AI will soon reach a point of artificial superintelligence where models can build the next generation of models on their own without human intervention. He also cited the OpenAI Hugging Face incident as further proof for a necessary slowdown.

Keep in mind that even though three of the top AI platform holders have asked to ease up the gas on AI development, this doesn’t mean any of them will actually follow through and cede ground to the other. At this point, it’s just wishful thinking.

RELATED: Now they’re saying the AIs built ‘secret civilizations’ — the truth is far worse

Ole_CNX/Getty Images

The paradox of accelerating toward your own worst fears may seem irresponsible in and of itself, but for Amodei, the endgame is a more global form of governance, which he doesn’t think is a bad thing.

“My view here is it has always been very strange that this technology is being built by a private company,” Amodei confessed in a recent appearance on “Face the Nation.”

“The government and the public needs to have a stake, and this is why we’ve supported regulation of the technology. Regulation constrains the private companies. Regulation allows the public and its elected representatives to have a say and limits what the private companies can do.”

When asked if he would be willing to hand control of Anthropic’s AI to the government, Amodei admitted, “To the right combination of governments.” When pressed, he clarified, “I am concerned that one single government could abuse this technology just as easily as a single company could. But I think a combination of democratically elected governments — I don’t know about handing over, but some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance, again, that would be the work of years, but I wonder if that’s the direction we need to go in.”

In other words, Amodei is interested in a globalist government system essentially owning his AI platform and possibly others like it. This would give the body of governments control over a technology that will determine how information is gathered, processed, and shared, opening up plenty of opportunities for censorship, information suppression, and more nefarious acts.

Of course, the cause for extreme government oversight has raised plenty of eyebrows online, and it even got the Vice President’s attention. “Personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,” said JD Vance in a recent interview. “It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”

Only time will tell if he’s right. In the meantime, we have Hawley’s investigation on the horizon as he uncovers what really happened with OpenAI’s rogue agent issue.

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​Ai bots, Anthropic, Artificial superintelligence, Censorship, Critical infrastructure, Elon musk, Government, Investigation, Openai, Regulation, Technology, Vice president, Tech, Politics