New Democrats REFUSE to back Schumer & Jeffries

Democrats haven’t taken over their new majority yet, and the freshman class is already shopping for a new leader.

Annie Andrews, the pediatrician who beat Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, told Bret Baier on Fox News Thursday night that she won’t vote for Schumer.

“I believe it’s time for a generational change on both sides of the aisle,” she said.

She has company. Peggy Flanagan, Troy Jackson and Adam Hamilton have also said they won’t back him, and two petitions to replace him passed 100,000 signatures a day after they launched.

Schumer, for his part, isn’t worried. “The issue is not me. I’ll be reelected as majority leader,” he said.

Over in the House, a petition to replace Hakeem Jeffries as the Democrats’ pick for speaker had more than 762,000 signatures by Thursday night.

It took off after Jeffries ruled out impeachment as a top priority and told MS NOW, “The American people don’t want us to get even, they want us to get things done on their behalf.”

Then AIPAC congratulated Schumer and Jeffries by name. Newly elected California Rep. Angela Gonzales-Torres replied with one word.

“Bye.”

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Two days after voters handed Congress to Democrats, Trump spent Thursday afternoon on his interior design.

He signed a proclamation that he says will stop future presidents from changing the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room as he has redesigned them.

“We’re making it a national monument and it will not be allowed to be touched by anybody,” he told reporters.

Since moving back in, he has covered the Oval Office walls with portraits, a copy of the Declaration of Independence and, in the AP’s words, “numerous golden accents.”

This is the same president who had the East Wing torn down last year to make room for his ballroom.

The same night, the Justice Department told Judge Tanya Chutkan it’s moving ahead with Trump’s “victory arch” in D.C., even though the Park Service hasn’t issued the permit yet.

It was the third day this week Trump gave remarks about his Washington pet projects, the AP noted. Congress, meanwhile, now belongs to Democrats.

Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is leaving the administration. She’s the first top official to go since Tuesday.

Fox News reported she resigned Thursday. Bloomberg Law reported she’d told allies she planned to leave after the election.

Under Dhillon, the division dropped more than 50 desegregation cases. She once said, “Either DEI will end on its own or we will kill it.”

She may have company soon. The Wall Street Journal reports that after Melania Trump complained when acquaintances of hers were deported, Trump started telling aides that Stephen Miller had pushed too far.

Natalie Harp, meanwhile, appears to have taken over Trump’s personal cellphone, The Independent reports. Reporters who call his known number get a young woman asking who’s calling.

And about six days before the election, according to the New York Times, Trump’s midterm chief James Blair got more than two dozen advisers on a video call and gave them some advice.

“I’m getting my affairs in order. I suggest everybody else do the same.”

A MAGA Inc. spokesman called the story “made up quotes and false gossip.” The election results were not made up.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass conceded Thursday to City Councilmember Nithya Raman.

Raman had 429,450 votes to Bass’s 394,796 as of Thursday morning, 52.1% to 47.9%. The AP called it for her shortly before noon.

She ran on the unglamorous stuff. “We are worse off than we were four years ago -- 30,000 street lights are out, sidewalks are broken,” Raman said.

“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said, promising a “smooth and seamless transition.”

Raman joins Zohran Mamdani as a democratic socialist running a major American city. That’s the two biggest cities in the country.

Fox News is going to need a bigger graphic.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of 548 people on the state’s death row, the largest commutation of death sentences in American history.

They’ll serve life without parole instead. Commutations for people with more than one felony conviction still need review by the California Supreme Court, and there’s no clear timeline.

Newsom’s office said 220 of the 548 have waited 15 years or more for legal representation.

“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said.

He leaves office in January, when Xavier Becerra takes over.

“As Governor, I alone bear the responsibility for this decision and its impact, just as I alone would bear responsibility for each execution,” he said.

We think he made the right call.

Rep. Thomas Massie says he’ll have the 218 signatures he needs when Congress returns next week to force a House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II.

“When we return next week, we’ll get 218 signatures for Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which guarantees a vote,” he wrote on X.

Trump signed the first Epstein files law. Massie says the Justice Department has ignored it and “continues to unlawfully withhold over 3 million Epstein files.”

The new bill is written to give that law teeth. “Survivors will be able to get their own records, State Attorneys General can prosecute crimes,” Massie said.

Democrats Ro Khanna, Teresa Leger Fernández, Ben Ray Luján and Jeff Merkley are co-sponsors.

It’s the second vote Massie has promised to force next week. The other one is on impeaching Pete Hegseth.