Homeownership is out of reach for too many. Congress can change that.
We each led the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We served in different administrations and hold different political views, but on this we agree: The severe homeownership gap in the United States demands urgent bipartisan action, and Congress is failing to respond.
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New York Times
5 minutes ago
- New York Times
Marjorie Taylor Greene Asks for George Santos's Sentence to Be Commuted
George Santos, the disgraced former congressman and notorious fabulist who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after being expelled from the House, has been in federal prison for 11 days on a sentence of more than seven years. On Monday, one of his former colleagues began a formal effort to get him out. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the brash Georgia Republican and MAGA adherent, sent a letter to the Justice Department's pardon attorney asking that Mr. Santos's 87-month prison term be commuted, calling it 'excessive' and a 'grave injustice.' Ms. Greene's letter came just days after President Trump, who has doled out pardons or clemency to staunch supporters and others favored by his right-wing base, did not rule out offering a pardon to Mr. Santos, saying only that he had not been asked. 'Nobody's talked to me about it,' Mr. Trump said on Friday in an interview on the right-wing channel Newsmax. Still, the president, who is known for his own exaggerations and outright falsehoods, acknowledged Mr. Santos's reputation. 'He lied like hell,' Mr. Trump said. 'And I didn't know him, but he was 100 percent for Trump.' It was an accurate assessment. Mr. Santos, 37, rode into Congress in January 2023 as the object of national scorn after The New York Times and other outlets uncovered that he had fabricated much of his résumé, including a booming Wall Street career and ties to Sept. 11 and the Holocaust. He was ejected that December, after three-quarters of the House voted to expel him. But during his 11-month stint in Congress, Mr. Santos, a Republican from New York, frequently aligned with hard-right lawmakers like Ms. Greene. And even before he took office, Mr. Santos was a reliable Trump loyalist. After both men lost their elections in 2020, Mr. Santos repeated the president's debunked claims of election fraud and falsely insisted that he, too, had an election stolen from him. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
NBC News
35 minutes ago
- NBC News
Nebraska Republican faces rowdy town hall with questions about Epstein files and fired BLS chief
Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., held a town hall Monday that started with boos from the crowd shortly after he took the stage and ended with chants of 'vote him out' when the event ended. In between, the Nebraska Republican was consistently heckled while responding to questions about releasing more information on Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump's firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner and cuts to Medicaid in the GOP's 'Big, Beautiful Bill.' Audience members began yelling at Flood and booing him when he talked about Medicaid and the impact of Trump's sweeping domestic policy law on hospitals in Nebraska. Flood argued that there's 'a lot of misinformation' about the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' which no Democrats voted for when it made its way through Congress this summer. Later he faced a question that suggested he was covering up files related to Epstein. Flood responded by saying he supports releasing the files and will co-sponsor a non-binding House resolution calling for their publication. Flood added that he supports an effort led by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., to have Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell sit for a deposition. Comer last week postponed Maxwell's deposition, previously scheduled for Aug. 11, until at least October to let the Supreme Court decide in late September whether it will review her case. Flood also weighed in on the firing of BLS chief Erika McEntarfer, who Trump dismissed Friday shortly after the agency published figures showing that hiring in the U.S. had significantly slowed significantly in recent months. The congressman suggested he might have handled the situation differently, while adding that he does not know 'all the details' about McEntarfer's firing. 'I don't know what the situation was with the Department of Labor person. Neither do you. I don't know. I don't know,' Flood said. 'I can tell you I've been an employer for a lot of years, and there's always two sides to every story, and I don't know what that side was. I will say this, though, if all that person did was get the data out there, if all that, and I don't know that's the case, but if that's all they did, I would not have fired her.' Several Republican senators, as well as economists and statisticians, took issue with Trump terminating McEntarfer last week. Audience members yelled, jeered and booed throughout the event, with audible chants of 'free Palestine,' 'tax the rich,' and during the town hall's conclusion, calls to 'vote him out.' When Flood attempted to engage with audience members on those topics, he was largely met with more protests. Attendees asked at least three different questions about the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, specifically about Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz,' which one attendee called 'Alligator Auschwitz.' Inquiring about the immigration detention facility in Florida, one attendee asked Flood, 'How much do taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?' Flood responded to by saying the majority of Americans voted for Trump and not for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. 'Americans voted for a, for a border that is secure, and I support the president enforcing our immigration laws, which, by the way, were written by Congress,' he added, prompting more boos. The Nebraska Democratic Party encouraged people to attend Flood's town hall, telling voters of Nebraska's 1st Congressional District in a social media post, 'you know what to do!' The party also encouraged attendance at Flood's last in-person town hall in the state, in May, when he was grilled by audience members and at one point conceded he had not read a bill in full before voting in favor of it.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Japan trade negotiator to visit US to press for swift implementation of auto tariff deal
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