Will Kamala actually appoint a Republican to her cabinet?

Will Kamala actually appoint a Republican to her cabinet?

A rare surprise in the otherwise routine Harris-Walz interview on CNN last night: when asked if she’d appoint a Republican to her cabinet, Kamala said, “Yes I would.” This is perhaps in response to two Democratic presidential candidates from the last decade — Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — endorsing Trump and joining his transition team. President Biden appointed a few Republicans to ambassadorial positions — notably Arizonans Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain — but Harris appears ready to go a step further.

The likeliest option would be to appoint a serious-minded ex-military Beltway figure to a role like director of national intelligence or defense secretary: Mark Esper, for instance. For more outside-the-box hints, Cockburn is reviewing the Republican speakers at the DNC last week: former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan and Mesa mayor John Giles stand out. More unserious options include former members of Congress Adam Kinzinger — who also spoke — and Liz Cheney, who didn’t.

Then again — Harris said she “would” appoint a Republican, not that she “will” or “promised to” or “is committing to.” There’s wriggle room there — and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d make use of it…

Julie Kelly’s comeuppance

There’s in-fighting in MAGA world as one of conservatives’ favorite January 6 investigators has been exposed as… a donor to Democrats.

Julie Kelly, who has written for the likes of the Federalist, American Greatness, National Review and RealClearInvestigations and has spoken at CPAC and NatCon, has dedicated her journalistic work to exposing “retaliatory vengefulness of Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.” Why then, many are wondering, did she donate to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2019?

Indeed, FEC filings posted by former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin show that Kelly and her husband have a long history of donating to Democratic political candidates. Kelly personally made the donation to Biden, as well as one to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, while her husband has given money to Elissa Slotkin, Jon Tester, Bob Casey, Dick Durbin, and other Democrats in the past couple of years.

Kelly refused to explain the donations and chose instead to post right through it. “No,” she wrote in reply to someone asking her for an explanation. Several of her higher profile conservative friends, including Federalist editor Sean Davis and radio host Dan Bongino, put out tweets supporting her. “Your J6 reporting has been essential, which is exactly why so many people want to shut you down,” Davis wrote. “If you spent the last week attacking [Julie Kelly] on your X account 24/7… you don’t give AF about saving this country,” said Catturd.

Kelly accused those going after her of being “bad actors” and the information an “op” but did not deny making the donations. Her and her brethren appeared to block anyone who asked about them. As for Cockburn, he’s had his doubts about Kelly ever since he heard an odd story from a friend, who said that, years ago, Kelly got in their face at CPAC and falsely accused them of writing a hit piece about her. The friend had no idea who she was until Kelly handed them a business card. That, and when Kelly described Nancy French’s story of being abused by a priest at age twelve as “screw[ing] around with her preacher when she was a teen.”

Fire in the disco

A big few days for hose monkeys: not only did VP candidate J.D. Vance get booed at a firefighters’ union meeting in Boston — watch it here — but thirsty female members of Congress from Minnesota were slavering members of the union on X all week.

“FIRED up to return to the Minnesota State Fair 🔥,” tweeted Senator Amy Klobuchar on Friday, quoting a picture from last year of her posing next to the shirtless heroes. This, a day after a meme manager at New York magazine had branded her “the horniest senator we’ve ever had.”

Not to be outdone, her junior senator Tina Smith quote-tweeted her colleague with her own shirtless fire pic, writing, “Can confirm: the Minnesota State Fair is on 🔥.” 

Mixing it up, Minnesota representative Angie Craig posed while being lifted by a female firefighter — and some shirtless male ones — at this year’s state fair.

Someone needs to pour cold water on this…

George Santos, jailhouse Gossip Girl (xoxo)

Former congressman George Santos is staring at a prison sentence that could last anywhere from two to twenty-two years, but that isn’t stopping him from airing his former colleagues’ dirty laundry while he awaits his sentencing.

Weeks ago, Santos tweeted that Max Miller, an actually Jewish, still congressman, filed a dissolution of his marriage. Naturally, everyone treated the gossip from Santos with suspicion. After all, Santos’s years of colorful lies were at the center of his guilty plea, which came just days after his Miller news dump.

But it turns out that Santos may have actually been right all along. The Millers filed for divorce this week, under a year after the birth of their daughter. Their wedding, held at Donald Trump’s Bedminster National Golf Club, attracted a litany of MAGA supporters only two years ago. While a “mutual” restraining order is in place between the couple, other details are currently sparse.

Santos and Miller have had bad blood for years. Miller was one of the first Republicans to demand Santos’s resignation; he also accused Santos of “charg[ing] my personal credit card — and the personal credit card of my Mother — for contribution amounts that exceeded FEC limits.” One of the crimes that Santos pleaded guilty to was “charge[ing] credit cards without authorization.”

It’s unclear who else Santos plans to break news on before he presumably heads to the chokey.

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