Democratic congresswoman says federal charges in ICE facility scuffle are ‘absurd'
'I think the charges are absurd. You know, it's ridiculous. I was there to do my job, along with my other colleagues. We have done this before. This is our obligation to do. It's in our job description to have oversight over facility, and the entire situation was escalated by ICE,' the New Jersey lawmaker said on CNN's 'News Central' in her first interview since being charged with assaulting federal law enforcement.
Lawmakers faced off with Homeland Security Department officers earlier this month as they tried to visit a Newark, New Jersey, ICE facility, despite Congress' oversight authority of federal facilities.
The incident started as officers attempted to arrest the Democratic mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, after he tried to join the lawmakers inside the facility.
Prosecutors said Monday that they will drop the federal trespassing charge against Baraka, but acting US Attorney Alina Habba accused McIver of assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.
The Democratic congresswoman said she's still trying to get more information on next steps, but so far, it's 'business as usual.'
'So, we are still trying to get more information on what the next steps are. My attorneys are in contact with the federal courts in New Jersey, and North New Jersey, so we're just waiting on direction for now, it's business as usual. I'm going to do my job,' she said.
CNN's Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
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Vox
11 minutes ago
- Vox
The Trump administration attack dog you should pay attention to
is a senior politics correspondent at Vox, covering the White House, elections, and political scandals and investigations. He's worked at Vox since the site's launch in 2014, and before that, he worked as a research assistant at the New Yorker's Washington, DC, bureau. Bill Pulte is the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, tasked with overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty The Trump administration's loudest attack dog of late holds an unlikely position: director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The FHFA's 37-year old director, Bill Pulte, has been pounding the drums to get Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell fired. He's publicly pressured Powell on social media, he gave Trump a draft letter that would have ordered Powell's firing, and he's tried to establish a pretext Trump could use to fire Powell. But Pulte has also played a broader role in Trump's retribution campaign. He's used his position to try and get two of Trump's Democratic enemies — Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James — prosecuted for mortgage fraud. Some of his allies hope this is just the start, and that even bigger things lie in Pulte's future. 'Bill Pulte would be an exceptional pick to run the Federal Reserve,' venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya posted on X last week. 'Attack dog' is an unusual role for the director of the FHFA, who is charged with overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the government-backed companies crucial to the functioning of US mortgage markets. (Vox requested comment from Pulte through the FHFA for this story, but received no response.) The Logoff The email you need to stay informed about Trump — without letting the news take over your life. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. But it's a good fit for Pulte. The grandson of the founder of a major home-building company, Pulte has demonstrated a remarkable knack for getting attention and building his public profile. He has 3 million followers on X, and his posts there have started to move markets, according to Bloomberg. Pulte has his enemies in the administration; the Wall Street Journal recently reported his anti-Powell campaign has 'irritated' some senior officials. One person is quite happy with him, though. After that Journal story was published, Trump posted that Pulte was doing an 'outstanding job,' and added: 'KEEP MOVING FORWARD, WILLIAM, DON'T LET THE RADICAL LEFT WEAKLINGS STOP YOU!' Who is Bill Pulte, and how did he get millions of social media followers? Housing is the Pulte family business. Pulte's grandfather, also named Bill, founded what eventually became one of the largest home-building companies in the US, PulteGroup. The younger Bill was barely done with college when, in 2011, he founded a Michigan-based private equity fund focused on the housing industry. The board included such local luminaries such as Rick DeVos (son of future Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos) and Scott Romney (brother of Mitt Romney). Grandpa Pulte died in 2018. The following year, then-31-year-old Bill got his first taste of national fame by going viral for giving people money. Pulte gave or offered to give sometimes hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands or even tens of thousands, and he posted on Twitter about it. He called this 'Twitter Philanthropy.' (He insisted he was not giving away his inheritance money, but rather money he'd independently made.) Some of the giveaways were for people posting stories about why they needed help, others were purely random — but the common thread was that, if you wanted a shot at the cash, you needed to follow or retweet him on Twitter. (Following him was necessary so he could send you a direct message if you won, he explained.) In July 2019, Pulte said he'd give $30,000 to 'a veteran on Twitter' if President Trump retweeted him, and the president did so. All this proved highly successful at increasing Pulte's Twitter following, which rose from the low tens of thousands to 2 million in early 2020. But his relationship with the company his grandfather founded deteriorated. He lost his seat on PulteGroup's board of directors, after the board unanimously voted not to renominate him. The meme stock saga and online feuding With the novelty of Twitter Philanthropy worn off, Pulte found a new focus for his self-promotion: the meme stock craze. Pulte particularly cultivated the beleaguered Bed Bath & Beyond investors, many of whom hoped this wealthy and successful philanthropist would somehow find a way to get them back the money they'd lost. In January 2024, Pulte released a statement saying the 'Pulte family' would purchase Bed Bath & Beyond bonds so they could 'demand answers' for wiped-out retail shareholders. The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation, which he is not involved with, wanted to be excluded from this narrative, and released a statement distancing themselves from him. Pulte fired back with an X post calling his aunt, Nancy Pulte Rickard, who heads the foundation, 'a fake representative of the Pulte Family.' He added that his aunt 'is angry she wasn't in my grandpa's will when I, the namesake, was in the will.' As it became clear that there would be no miraculous recovery for $BBBY shareholders, Pulte amassed his share of dedicated online haters, who mocked him as 'Ploot' and chronicled what they saw as his strange behavior on subreddits like /r/GME_meltdown. These haters would soon watch agog as Pulte, who they viewed as a 'fraud and weirdo,' suddenly scored a powerful position in the federal government. This, one Redditor wrote, was 'an absolutely wild plot twist.' Pulte and the Federal Housing Finance Agency Through all this time, Pulte's public persona hadn't been particularly political. But he figured out a good way to gain entry into Trumpworld — by, again, giving people money. He gave $500,000 to a pro-Trump Super PAC in 2022. He'd also donated to Turning Point USA, the young conservatives' group co-founded by Charlie Kirk. (Kirk is a close ally of Donald Trump Jr.) After Trump won in November 2024, the New York Post floated Pulte as a potential Housing and Urban Development secretary, quoting a 'source' calling him 'probably overqualified' and stressing those past donations to vouch for his loyalty to Trumpworld. Trump nominated him for FHFA director instead, and before his confirmation hearings, he deleted tens of thousands of his old tweets, to Senate Democrats' annoyance. Shortly after he was confirmed in March, Pulte posted on X: 'You didn't really think I'd stop tweeting did you'. The FHFA job is a consequential one. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed under government conservatorship during the 2008 financial crisis, but the Trump team is now planning to reprivatize them. It is unclear how involved Pulte is in these discussions (one report claimed he'd been 'largely cut out'). Pulte has, however, been quite quick to use his position to go after Trump's enemies — specifically, James, the New York attorney general, and Sen. Schiff, who have for years been leading figures in Democrat-led investigations of Trump. Pulte took public credit for the Schiff investigation, posting on X: 'Fannie Mae's Financial Crimes Division concluded that Mr. Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud.' A confidential Fannie Mae memo alleging misconduct by Schiff — a memo addressed to Pulte — was provided to the Washington Post earlier this month. Both Schiff and James have denied any wrongdoing and said they are being targeted politically, and it remains to be seen whether DOJ will charge them. Federal prosecutors pursuing complex corruption cases against public officials have long found the mortgage fraud statute to be a useful tool — it's relatively easy to prove, and it carries a steep, 30-year maximum sentence. (According to David Simon, federal prosecutors in Baltimore called it the 'Head Shot.') But it's not yet clear whether they have enough to make and sustain either case. With Powell having earned Trump's ire for his reluctance to lower interest rates, Pulte started going after him, too. For the past two months, he's been publicly criticizing the Fed chair and urging him to resign. Since the law only permits Trump to fire Powell 'for cause' — meaning 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office' — Pulte has been laying the groundwork for that. He's been arguing that the expensive renovation of the Fed's headquarters is a 'scandal' that merits Powell's firing for misconduct. 'I remain optimistic Jerome Powell will do the right thing, and as early as next week,' Pulte posted Friday on X. Could Trump be considering replacing Powell with Pulte himself? So far, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett is said to be the frontrunner. And a Pulte nomination may not be received kindly by the Senate or the markets. But maybe Pulte can post his way into the job. After all, social media has gotten him this far.
New York Post
12 minutes ago
- New York Post
ICE agents training at Suffolk gun range under controversial contract with Long Island town: ‘Dehumanizing'
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The Hill
12 minutes ago
- The Hill
Don't just listen to what voters say — they will show what they care about
For decades, campaigns have relied on polling to guide strategy, messaging, and resource allocation. But polling has a fundamental blind spot: It only tells you what voters say they care about, not what they're actually paying attention to. That gap is widening, and it is costing campaigns. Take the 2025 Democratic gubernatorial primary in New Jersey. Most candidates focused on national politics, President Trump, and the economy in their messaging. Traditional polling supported that focus. But real-time news engagement data told a different story. Among likely Democratic voters, education coverage was the top-performing issue by a wide margin. It accounted for 30 percent of all top-read local news content (up from just 18 percent the previous cycle), overtaking economic coverage for the first time. Yet polling from the same period showed only 5 percent of voters ranking education as their top concern. Why the disconnect? Voters don't always engage most with the issues they claim to prioritize. The data shows that stated preferences can often diverge sharply from demonstrated ones — and that gap has strategic consequences. Campaigns that rely solely on polling are making high-stakes decisions — from ad strategy to field targeting — based on static data. Behavioral data, in contrast, gives campaigns a dynamic, real-time picture of what voters are thinking about right now, and how that attention shifts over time. Think of it this time: Polling is a snapshot, but voter behavior is a live feed. During the 2024 presidential election, voters in Pennsylvania who lacked college degrees were consistently reading stories about job loss and plant closures, even while national headlines painted a picture of a stable economy. In North Carolina, younger and non-white voters gravitated toward stories about business closures in their own neighborhoods, while major media outlets focused on the political horse race. These weren't minor deviations. They were early indicators of what would influence voter turnout. And they weren't reflected in the polling. Timing plays a critical role as well. In New Jersey, voters who had already returned their ballots were mostly consuming national political stories. But those who hadn't — the persuadable, undecided voters — were focused on local and practical issues. Still, many campaigns aimed their closing arguments at the former group, missing the chance to shift opinion where it mattered most. This is the opportunity heading into 2026 — to move from reactive strategies based on outdated assumptions to proactive strategies grounded in what voters are paying attention to in real time. Behavioral data offers that opportunity. By tracking the news content that voters are reading and engaging with — and tying that behavior to location, demographics, and vote history — campaigns can segment audiences more effectively and deliver messaging that aligns with the moment. Polling still has value, but it is no longer enough on its own. In a digital media environment that changes by the hour, campaigns need tools that evolve just as quickly. Too often, campaigns wait until after the election to realize they missed key warning signs in voter behavior. By then, it's too late. Behavioral data allows for real-time course correction — a vital capability in an environment where a single week's narrative can change the trajectory of an entire race. Behavioral data isn't just another metric. It's a strategic advantage. It provides insight not only into what voters care about, but when and why. It offers the ability to adjust messaging midstream and avoid the trap of building strategy on outdated perceptions. The winning campaigns in 2026 will be the ones that recognize: Voters' stated preferences matter, but where they focus their attention matters just as much.
