South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette launches 2026 gubernatorial bid, touts Trump ties
Evette, first elected as McMaster's running mate in 2018, spoke to hundreds of supporters Monday evening shortly after she released a short video confirming her run, news outlets reported.
'I stand before you as a mother, a conservative businesswoman and a fighter who is ready on day one to continue that conservative legacy as your next governor,' Evette said in her speech in Greenville.
The announcement video included earlier footage of Evette being praised by McMaster, who is term-limited from seeking reelection, and by Trump, for whom Evette has spoken at his rallies.
'With President Trump back in the White House, South Carolina needs a governor who has his trust, a governor who doesn't need to build a relationship, a governor who can pick up the phone and get things done for South Carolina, because that relationship already exists,' Evette told supporters.
Four-term Attorney General Alan Wilson and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell have already entered the race for the Republican nomination. Others, including U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, are expected to join them.
An endorsement by Trump, who won South Carolina's electoral votes in 2024 by 18 percentage points, could go a long way toward winning the primary, which isn't until next June. South Carolina hasn't had a Democratic governor in more than 20 years. The general election is in November 2026.
Evette entered Republican politics as a businessperson with no previous political experience — a trained accountant who cofounded a payroll, human resources and benefits firm with her husband.
Evette on Monday promoted a record while working with McMaster that included supporting law enforcement, tightening state immigration policies and backing abortion restrictions. She also pointed to barring transgender women from participating in women's sports.
She said her top priorities as governor would include expanding school choice, eliminating income taxes and enforcing Trump's immigration agenda. Evette also vowed in her speech to eliminate 10 regulations for every new one created and to fight 'woke corporations' on the 'radical left' that she said were trying to 'transform our state.'
'I'll follow the playbook that made South Carolina so successful,' Evette said.
Evette, from Travelers Rest, is the state's first female Republican lieutenant governor. She and McMaster were the first team ticket jointly elected in state history after a change in the law.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Supreme Court lets Trump remove 3 Dems from Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who had been fired by President Donald Trump and then reinstated by a federal judge. The justices acted on an emergency appeal from the Justice Department, which argued that the agency is under Trump's control and the president is free to remove commissioners without cause. The court provided a brief, unsigned explanation that the case is similar to earlier ones in which it allowed Trump to fire board members of other independent agencies, whom Congress protected from arbitrary dismissals. 3 Signage is seen outside of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in Rockville, Maryland, U.S., August 31, 2020. REUTERS The three liberal justices dissented. 'By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another,' Justice Elena Kagan wrote for herself, as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The commission helps protect consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls, suing errant companies and more. Trump fired the three Democrats on the five-member commission in May. They were serving seven-year terms after being nominated by President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox in Baltimore ruled in June that the dismissals were unlawful. Maddox sought to distinguish the commission's role from those of other agencies where the Supreme Court has allowed firings to go forward. A month earlier, the high court's conservative majority declined to reinstate members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, finding that the Constitution appears to give the president the authority to fire the board members 'without cause.' The administration has argued that all the agencies are under Trump's control as the head of the executive branch. 3 President Donald Trump speaks during an AI summit at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Washington. AP Maddox, a Biden nominee, noted that it can be difficult to characterize the product safety commission's functions as purely executive. The fight over the president's power to fire could prompt the court to consider overturning a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision known as Humphrey's Executor. In that case from 1935, the court unanimously held that presidents cannot fire independent board members without cause. The decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination, the airwaves and much else. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue the modern administrative state gets the Constitution all wrong because such agencies should answer to the president. Kagan wrote that the court already has 'all but overturned Humphrey's Executor.' 3 Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who was the ship sponsor, speaks during the christening for the USNS Earl Warren (T-AO 207) in San Diego on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. AP Other removals are making their way to the high court, including the firing of a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the very agency at issue in Humphrey's Executor. Last week, a federal judge ordered Rebecca Slaughter reinstated as a commissioner. Slaughter returned to work Friday. By Tuesday, she had been sidelined again after an appeals court temporarily blocked the judge's order. The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1972. Its five members must maintain a partisan split, with no more than three representing the president's party. They serve staggered terms. That structure ensures that each president has 'the opportunity to influence, but not control,' the commission, attorneys for the fired commissioners wrote in court filings. They argued the recent terminations could jeopardize the commission's independence.
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Sen. John Kennedy, 73, clarifies why he froze up on live TV
Soundbite savant Sen. John Kennedy clarified that he didn't suffer a stroke or catch a sexually transmitted disease when he dramatically froze up mid-sentence live on air Tuesday during a Fox Business hit. The one-liner whiz fired back at lefty critics for speculating he suffered a medical scare after what looked like troubling footage of the 73-year-old growing stonefaced went viral on social media. 'Yesterday I was on your show. I enjoyed it. I was just yapping away, and all of a sudden, my earpiece blew up. This one — it sounded like a 747 was taking off,' Kennedy told host Larry Kudlow on Wednesday, motioning to his earpiece. 'Man, my ears are still ringing. Anyway, so I just, assumed we were off air. I just stopped talking, and I didn't start talking again until I could hear you.' A day prior, Kennedy had been discussing the Trump administration's crackdown on sanctuary cities, when suddenly he trailed off mid-sentence before staring blankly off to the side. 4 Sen. John Kennedy wants the world to know that he didn't get an STD live on TV. FOX 4 The Louisiana Republican is famous for his snappy one-liners. REUTERS 'Jesus loves them, but everybody else thinks …' the Louisiana senator riffed before mumbling quietly. 'Everybody else thinks,' he repeated, then turned blankly with his mouth agape. Kudlow then interjected at the time after several seconds of Kennedy looking blankly into the camera and cut him off, claiming there were 'technical problems.' 'That was the same mic we lost with Sen. Rand Paul,' Kudlow added. Paul (R-Ky.) had done an interview on his program before Kennedy and, at one point, complained mid-interview about losing his connection to the program. The Louisiana Republican later returned to the air Tuesday, about half a minute after the incident and was still mired by technical issues and trouble hearing Kudlow. Kudlow seemed to corroborate Kennedy's claim that there was a technical issue, stressing 'I think that's all that happened' and 'a lot of people are making conclusions about your health that they had no business making.' 4 Sen. John Kennedy ripped into coverage of what appeared to be a freeze-up of his live on television. AP 'I don't know, some of the rags up here have they've got all kind of stories that I had a brain freeze live on TV or a stroke or caught an STD live on television or something?' Kennedy quipped about the media speculation after the incident. 'I'm OK, I'm here. I'm back here today. I'm full of piss and vinegar.' When questioned about the incident, Kennedy's office sent a statement to The Post from the senator explaining 'there was a malfunction in my earpiece. 'I heard a loud screeching noise with a lot of static.' Before the clarification, speculation quickly swirled about Kennedy, and some observers drew comparisons to Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) repeated freeze-ups in the public eye. 4 Sen. Mitch McConnell had frozen up several times during the end of his time as Senate GOP leader. AP McConnell's team later chalked up the health scares to a concussion he suffered from a fall in March 2023. The former leader of the Senate GOP later announced that he would not be seeking reelection in 2026. Concerns about the health and vitality of lawmakers have been elevated over recent months. This year alone, three House Democrats died from illnesses or old age. Democrats in particular have been forced to reckon with former President Joe Biden's mental acuity amid a string of new revelations about the 82-year-old's condition.
New York Post
25 minutes ago
- New York Post
Federal judge protects Kilmar Abrego Garcia from deportation by Trump admin
A federal judge in Maryland issued an emergency ruling Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from immediately taking Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia into ICE custody for 72 hours after he is released from criminal custody in Nashville, Tennessee — attempting to slow, if only temporarily, a case at the center of a legal and political maelstrom. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order that the government must refrain from immediately taking Abrego into ICE custody pending release from criminal custody in Tennessee, and ordered he be returned to the ICE Order of Supervision at the Baltimore Field Office— the closest ICE facility near the district of Maryland where Abrego was arrested earlier this year. Advertisement Xinis said at an evidentiary hearing this month that she would take action soon, in anticipation of a looming detention hearing for Abrego Garcia in his criminal case. She said she planned to issue the order with sufficient time to block the Trump administration's stated plans to immediately begin the process of deporting Abrego Garcia again upon release — this time to a third country such as Mexico or South Sudan. 9 This undated photo provided by CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization, in April 2025, shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. AP Xinis's order said the additional time will ensure Abrego can raise any credible fears of removal to a third country, and via 'the appropriate channels in the immigration process.' She also ordered the government to provide Abrego and his attorneys with 'immediate written notice' of plans to transport him to a third country, again with the 72-hour notice period, 'so that Abrego Garcia may assert claims of credible fear or seek any other relief available to him under the law and the Constitution.' Xinis said in her order Wednesday that the 72-hour notice period is necessary 'to prevent a repeat of Abrego Garcia's unlawful deportation to El Salvador by way of third-country removal.' Advertisement 'Defendants have taken no concrete steps to ensure that any prospective third country would not summarily return Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in an end-run around the very withholding order that offers him uncontroverted protection,' she said. 9 Maryland Federal Judge Paula Xinis. Senate Judiciary Committee The order from Xinis, who presided over Abrego Garcia's civil case, was ultimately handed down on Wednesday just two minutes after a federal judge in Nashville — U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw — issued a separate order, upholding a lower judge's decision that Abrego should be released from criminal custody pending trial in January. Crenshaw said in his order that the government failed to provide 'any evidence that there is something in Abrego's history at warrants detention.' Advertisement The plans, which Xinis ascertained over the course of a multi-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month, capped an exhausting, 19-week legal saga in the case of Abrego Garcia that spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court, and inspired countless hours of news coverage. 9 The indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia that charges him with transporting people who were in the United States illegally, is photographed, Friday, June 6, 2025, in Washington. AP Still, it ultimately yielded little in the way of new answers, and Xinis likened the process to 'nailing Jell-O to a wall,' and 'beating a frustrated and dead horse,' among other things. 'We operate as government of laws,' she scolded lawyers for the Trump administration in one of many terse exchanges. 'We don't operate as a government of 'take my word for it.'' Advertisement Xinis had repeatedly floated the notion of a temporary restraining order, or TRO, to ensure certain safeguards were in place to keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody, and appeared to agree with his attorneys that such an order is likely needed to prevent their client from being removed again, without access to counsel or without a chance to appeal his country of removal. 'I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to do,' Xinis said on more than one occasion, growing visibly frustrated. 9 Kilmar Abrego Garcia is seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. via REUTERS 'I'm deeply concerned that if there's no restraint on you, Abrego will be on another plane to another country,' she told the Justice Department, noting pointedly that 'that's what you've done in other cases.' Those concerns were echoed repeatedly by Abrego Garcia's attorneys in a court filing earlier this month. They noted the number of times that the Trump administration has appeared to have undercut or misrepresented its position before the court in months past, as Xinis attempted to ascertain the status of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, and what efforts, if any, the Trump administration was making to comply with a court order to facilitate his return. The Trump administration, who reiterated their belief that the case is no longer in her jurisdiction, will almost certainly move to immediately appeal the restraining order to a higher court. 9 Supporters of Kilmar Abrego Garcia rally outside the U.S. District Court for Maryland during a hearing on his case on July 10, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Getty Images Advertisement The order comes two weeks after an extraordinary, multi-day evidentiary hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Xinis sparred with Trump administration officials as she attempted to make sense of their remarks and ascertain their next steps as they look to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country. She said she planned to issue the order before the date that Abrego could possibly be released from federal custody— a request made by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, who asked the court for more time in criminal custody, citing the many countries he might suffer persecution in — and concerns about what legal status he would have in the third country of removal. Without legal status in Mexico, Xinis said, it would likely be a 'quick road' to being deported by the country's government to El Salvador, in violation of the withholding of removal order. And in South Sudan, another country DHS is apparently considering, lawyers for Abrego noted the State Department currently has a Level 4 advisory in place discouraging U.S. travel due to violence and armed conflict. Advertisement 9 A rally sign is seen during a news conference outside the federal courthouse before a hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee. AP Americans who do travel there should 'draft a will' beforehand and designate insurance beneficiaries, according to official guidance on the site. In court, both in July and in earlier hearings, Xinis struggled to keep her own frustration and her incredulity at bay after months of back-and-forth with Justice Department attorneys. Xinis has presided over Abrego Garcia's civil case since March, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of an existing court order in what Trump administration officials described as an 'administrative error.' Advertisement She spent hours pressing Justice Department officials, over the course of three separate hearings, for details on the government's plans for removing Abrego Garcia to a third country — a process she likened to 'trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.' 9 Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. via REUTERS Xinis chastised the Justice Department this month for presenting a DHS witness to testify under oath about ICE's plans to deport Abrego Garcia, fuming that the official, Thomas Giles, 'knew nothing' about his case, and made no effort to ascertain answers — despite his rank as ICE's third-highest enforcement official. The four hours of testimony he provided was 'fairly stunning,' and 'insulting to her intelligence,' Xinis said. Advertisement Ultimately, the court would not allow the 'unfettered release' of Abrego Garcia pending release from federal custody in Tennessee without 'full-throated assurances' from the Trump administration that it will keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody for a set period of time and locally, Xinis said, to ensure immigration officials do not 'spirit him away to Nome, Alaska.' During the July hearing, Judge Xinis notably declined to weigh in on the request for sanctions filed by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, but alluded to it in her ruling Wednesday. 'Defendants' defiance and foot-dragging are, to be sure, the subject of a separate sanctions motion,' she said in the ruling — indicating further steps could be taken as she attempts to square months of differing statements from Trump officials. 9 A sign is placed outside the federal courthouse where a hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia is taking place, during which a judge will determine the conditions of his release, in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., July 16, 2025. REUTERS 'The Court will not recount this troubling history in detail, other than to note Defendants' persistent lack of transparency with the tribunal adds to why further injunctive relief is warranted,' she said. The Justice Department, after a short recess, declined to agree, prompting Xinis to proceed with her plans for the TRO. Xinis told the court that ultimately, 'much delta' remains between where they ended things in court, and what she is comfortable with, given the government's actions in the past. This was apparent on multiple occasions Friday, when Xinis told lawyers for the Trump administration that she 'isn't buying' their arguments or doesn't 'have faith' in the statements they made — reflecting an erosion of trust that could prove damaging in the longer-term. 9 Supporters rally for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador prior to a status hearing outside the federal court house in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA 16 May 2025. SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The hearings this week capped months of back-and-forth between Xinis and the Trump administration, as she tried, over the course of 19 weeks, to track the status of a single migrant deported erroneously by the Trump administration to El Salvador—and to trace what attempts, if any, they had made facilitate his return to the U.S. Xinis previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered this year, describing the government's submissions as 'vague, evasive and incomplete'— and which she said demonstrated 'willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.' On Friday, she echoed this view. 'You have taken the presumption of regularity and you've destroyed it, in my view,' Xinis said.
