Huffines Backed by Gaines, Kirk In ‘DOGE Texas' Comptroller Race
Riley Gaines, a national advocate for protecting women's sports from 'transgender' participation, has endorsed Don Huffines for Texas Comptroller in a video posted to X.
She was quickly joined by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who called Huffines 'Ron Paul meets Donald Trump.'
'This is a spiritual battle,' Gaines said, praising Huffines for opposing DEI and gender identity programs in government spending. 'He's been calling this out long before it was politically convenient.'
In the 90-second video, Gaines calls the Comptroller role 'the CFO of Texas,' with the power to defund what she described as 'anti-American hatred' funded through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
She urged Texans who care about protecting children, parental rights, and women's sports to rally behind Huffines.
Huffines responded: 'Thank you, Riley! You're absolutely right, this is a spiritual battle. I'm honored to have your support as we DOGE Texas and expose the taxpayer-funded DEI and transgender madness infecting government.'
Charlie Kirk also posted his endorsement on X:
As The Dallas Express previously reported, Huffines is campaigning on his DOGE Texas platform—Dedicated to Optimizing Government Efficiency—with a focus on exposing waste, fraud, and abuse in state government and directing savings to property tax relief.
The former state senator and Dallas businessman has pledged $10 million of his own money to the race and has secured endorsements from Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Right to Life, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
His main Republican primary opponent, Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick, is backed by major energy sector donors. Craddick emphasizes regulatory experience, while Huffines casts himself as an outsider determined to shake up state government.
With endorsements from high-profile conservative voices and grassroots influencers alike, Huffines is positioning his campaign as a cultural and fiscal reckoning—one that aims to root out waste, defund 'woke' spending, and restore accountability in Austin.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Trump says he has group of ‘very wealthy people' ready to buy TikTok
U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview aired on Sunday that he has a group of "very wealthy people" ready to buy TikTok, whose identities he can reveal in about two weeks. Trump added that the deal will probably need Beijing's approval to move forward, but said "I think President Xi will probably do it," in reference to China's leader Xi Jinping. The president made the off-the-cuff remarks while discussing the possibility of another pause of his "reciprocal" tariffs on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo." Tiktok's fate in the U.S. has been in doubt since the approval of a law in 2024 that sought to ban the platform unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divested from it. The legislation was driven by concerns that the Chinese government could manipulate content and access sensitive data from American users. Earlier this month, Trump extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest from the platform's U.S. business. It was his third extension since the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok law just a few days before Trump's second presidential inauguration in January. The new deadline is Sept. 17. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, of PAFACA, had originally been set to take effect on Jan. 19, after which app store operators and internet service providers would be penalized for supporting TikTok. TikTok went dark in the U.S. ahead of the original deadline, but was restored after Trump provided it with assurances on the extension. Trump, who credited the app with boosting his support among young voters in the last presidential election, has maintained that he would like to see the platform stay afloat under new ownership. Potential buyers that have voiced interest in the app include Trump insiders such as Oracle's Larry Ellison to firms like AppLovin and Perplexity AI. However, it's unclear if ByteDance would be willing to sell the company. Any potential divestiture is likely to require approval from the Chinese government. A deal that would have spun off TikTok's U.S. operations and allowed ByteDance to retain a minority position had been in the works in April, but was derailed by the announcement of Donald Trump's tariffs on China, Reuters reported that month. The president previously floated a proposal for American stakeholders to buy the company and then sell a 50% stake to the U.S. government as part of a joint venture. Experts have previously told CNBC that any potential deal could face legal challenges in the U.S., depending on whether it complies with PAFACA.
Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Canada Will Scrap Tax That Prompted Trump to Suspend Trade Talks
EDITORS NOTE: EDS: SUBS starting with 4th graf to update and expand; ADDS dateline. TORONTO -- Canada's government announced Sunday night that it would cancel a tax on American technology companies that led President Donald Trump to suspend trade talks between the two countries, handing an important victory to Trump. Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the decision to scrap Canada's digital services tax with Trump on Sunday, Carney's office said. In a sign that trade talks were resuming, Canada's finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, spoke with the U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, on Sunday, according to Carney's office. The tax, which had been due to take effect Monday, became the latest flash point in difficult negotiations between the United States and Canada on Friday, when Trump said the talks were off. On social media, Trump called the levy a "blatant attack" and said he would inform Canada within a week about the duties "they will be paying to do business with the United States of America." Forty-eight hours later, the Canadian government folded, announcing it would not go ahead with the tax. The Finance Ministry said the government had decided to "rescind the Digital Services Tax in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States." Technically, the cancellation of the tax needs to be approved in legislation, so until that time, the government is suspending its collection. Politically, canceling the tax should be a simple matter for the government. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Canada's 3% digital services tax has been in place since last year, but the first payments were only due beginning Monday. Because the tax is retroactive, American companies were preparing to turn over roughly $2.7 billion to the Canadian government, according to a trade group for large American tech companies. U.S. officials from both parties have long chafed at taxes like the one Canada has imposed, calling them unfairly targeted at services provided by American companies like Google, Apple and Amazon. Carney said that the cancellation of the tax would put the talks back on track with the goal of reaching an agreement on July 21. The Trump administration has imposed a 25% tariff on most goods from Canada, with which it has a free-trade agreement together with Mexico. Like other countries, Canada is also subject to a 50% U.S. tariff on its exports of steel and aluminum. Talks on reaching a new trade deal are particularly crucial for Canada, whose economy is heavily dependent on exports to the United States. Canada is America's second-largest trade partner. "In our negotiations on a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States, Canada's new government will always be guided by the overall contribution of any possible agreement to the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses," Carney said in a written statement. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Nations are meeting to drum up trillions to combat poverty — but the US isn't going
Advertisement U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said Wednesday that despite 'the headwinds' and high geopolitical tensions, there is hope the world can address one of the most important global challenges — ensuring all people have access to food, health care, education and water. 'This conference is an appeal to action,' Spain's U.N. Ambassador Hector Gomez Hernandez said, 'and we have the extraordinary opportunity to send a very strong message to defend the international community's commitment to multilateralism.' High-level delegations, including more than 70 world leaders, are expected in Seville, Mohammed said, along with several thousand others from international financial institutions, development banks, philanthropic organizations, the private sector and civil society. At its last preparatory meeting on June 17, the United States rejected the 38-page outcome document that had been negotiated for months by the U.N.'s 193 member nations and announced its withdrawal from the process and from the Seville conference. Advertisement The rest of the countries then approved the document by consensus and sent it to Seville, where it is expected to be adopted by conference participants without changes. It will be known as the Seville Commitment — or Compromiso de Sevilla in Spanish. The document says the leaders and high-level representatives have decided to launch 'an ambitious package of reforms and actions to close the financing gap with urgency,' saying it is now estimated at $4 trillion a year. Among the proposals and actions, it calls for minimum tax revenue of 15% of a country's gross domestic product to increase government resources, a tripling of lending by multilateral development banks, and scaling up private financing by providing incentives for investing in critical areas like infrastructure. It also calls for a number of reforms to help countries deal with rising debt. U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan told a news conference Friday that 'development is going backward' and the global debt crisis has worsened. Last year, 3.3 billion people were living in countries that pay more interest on their debts than they spend on health or education — and the number will increase to 3.4 billion people this year, she said. And developing countries will pay $947 billion to service debts this year, up from $847 billion last year. She spoke at a press conference where an expert group on debt appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented 11 recommendations that they say can resolve the debt crisis, empower borrowing countries and create a fairer system. Advertisement While the U.S. objected to many actions in the outcome document, American diplomat Jonathan Shrier told the June 17 meeting: 'Our commitment to international cooperation and long-term economic development remains steadfast.' He said, however, that the text 'crosses many of our red lines,' including interfering with the governance of international financial institutions, tripling the annual lending capacity of multilateral development banks and proposals envisioning a role for the U.N. in the global debt architecture. Shrier also objected to proposals on trade, tax and innovation that are not in line with U.S. policy, as well as language on a U.N. framework convention on international tax cooperation. The United States was the world's largest single funder of foreign aid. The Trump administration has dismantled its main aid agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, while drastically slashing foreign assistance funding, calling it wasteful and contrary to the Republican president's agenda. Other Western donors also have cut back international aid. The U.N.'s Mohammed said the U.S. withdrawal from the conference was 'unfortunate,' stressing that 'many of the recommendations you see cannot be pursued without a continuous engagement with the U.S.' After Seville, 'we will engage again with the U.S. and hope that we can make the case that they be part of the success of pulling millions of people out of poverty.'
