
Gallego energizes Iowa voters amid 2028 speculation
'When you're a politician that is choosing your voters, instead of being able to convince voters, you have a losing message, right?' Gallego told several hundred people, referring to the Texas redistricting battle playing out.
Gallego also knocked President Trump for the country's still high grocery prices and for Republicans cutting food stamps, a reference to Trump's mega policy bill, which cut food stamps and Medicaid to offset costs of the bill.
The Arizona Democrat said Americans were 'now sicker and poorer because of Donald Trump.'
At the same time, Gallego also offered a message of hope while traveling in the state.
'There's no governing coalition until we start winning here,' the Arizona senator told The New York Times. 'And we know how to do it, I know how to get the message to do it. So I'm here to, most of all, encourage the Democratic Party, because they feel a little down right now here.'
Gallego made several stops in the Hawkeye State, including a visit to the Iowa State Fair, amid growing speculation that he might be eyeing a bid for 2028.
Iowa has traditionally been on the early presidential nominating calendar, though Democrats knocked Iowa from its early perch last cycle as former President Biden sought to put South Carolina first instead.
2024 Election Coverage
Gallego is also expected to travel to New Hampshire later this month for several events, including 'Politics & Eggs' event, hosted by the New England Council and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
Both the Iowa State Fair and 'Politics & Eggs' event have long been testing grounds for rising political stars and potential White House hopefuls testing their message in early primary states.
Gallego has said he's thought about running for the White House but maintained it's not his focus right now.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
Trump nominates new Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner
President Donald Trump on Monday nominated E.J. Antoni to be the new commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that collects and publishes data about jobs and inflation, after firing the previous commissioner, whom he accused without evidence of rigging jobs data. 'I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Antoni's nomination comes after Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer earlier this month after the BLS' monthly jobs report showed disappointing numbers for July and sharply revised down employment growth in May and June. Trump accused McEntarfer, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden to the role of commissioner in 2023 and confirmed by a bipartisan Senate vote, of manipulating the data for 'political purposes.' 'Last weeks Job's Report was RIGGED,' Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social last week. 'Those big adjustments were made to cover up, and level out, the FAKE political numbers that were CONCOCTED in order to make a great Republican Success look less stellar!!!' McEntarfer's firing was met with backlash from many economists who argued that the move could damage the bureau's credibility. William Beach, a former Trump-nominated BLS commissioner, condemned the decision to fire McEntarfer. 'I don't think there's any grounds at all for this, for this firing, and it really hurts the statistical system,' Beach said on CNN earlier this month before Antoni was appointed. 'Suppose that they get a new commissioner … And they do a bad number. Well, everybody's going to think, 'well, it's not as bad as it probably really is,' because they're going to suspect political influence. So, this is damaging.' The BLS is a nonpartisan agency whose data underpins key decisions across the public and private sectors. Its reports influence everything from Social Security payments to corporate hiring and layoff plans, shaping how policymakers and businesses gauge the health of the US economy. Concerns over the bureau's data accuracy had surfaced even before McEntarfer's firing, with some economists warning that Trump administration budget cuts, layoffs and hiring freezes could undermine its reliability. Earlier this year, the BLS posted a notice saying it had suspended data collection entirely in three cities. Last month, the agency said it had further cut back on the data it was collecting from the rest of the country by roughly 15%. In July, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was asked about the cuts. 'The government data is really the gold standard in data,' he said. 'We need it to be good and to be able to rely on it.'


CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
‘What gives you the right?': Tapper pushes back on Abbott over calls to remove Dem lawmaker
CNN's Jake Tapper presses GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over why he took the unusual step of calling for Democratic leader state Rep. Gene Wu to be removed from office amid the ongoing redistricting fight.


CNN
a few seconds ago
- CNN
Trump has federalized DC's police force. Now what?
Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow The Metropolitan Police along with federal agencies tasked with helping curb crime in the nation's capital are scrambling to figure out roles and strategy following President Donald Trump's decision to declare a crime emergency and federalize DC's police force, multiple sources told CNN. 'We're going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be,' Trump said at the White House on Monday. 'It's going to be something very special.' But little communication seems to have been done before Trump's news conference – the Washington, DC, mayor and police chief hadn't been told about the takeover until they watched Trump say it live. It's led to confusion over who now leads the MPD, how their policing strategy will change and in what ways federal agents – many who aren't trained for community policing – are going to interact with local officers. During a separate news conference, Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was trying to set up a meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who Trump said would be overseeing the implementation of his order. She also maintained that Chief of Police Pamela Smith would still run the department and report to Bowser up through the deputy mayor. 'Nothing about our organizational chart has changed,' Bowser said. 'And nothing in the executive order would indicate otherwise.' This is the first time a president has used Section 740 of the Home Rule Act to federalize the DC metro police, said Dr. Heidi Bonner, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at East Carolina University. 'It's definitely difficult to say what that means,' she said, including it being 'an open question' as to who's in charge. 'Is the chief of police still in charge of the department once it's become federalized?' Bonner asked. 'And of course, all this is mixed up in the unique nature of DC as a district and not a state. There are different authorities – the president acts as the governor for all intents and purposes when it comes from the National Guard.' Bowser seemed resigned to the fact that Trump's decision would go into effect given the city's status. Prominent Democrats called Bowser and her office Monday to offer support but indicated there was little they could do to stop the takeover. 'I don't want to minimize what was said and I don't want to minimize the intrusion on our autonomy,' Bowser said. The mayor also called the move 'unsettling and unprecedented' and advocated for DC statehood to prevent such unilateral action from the president. Police Chief Smith said she was scheduled to meet with federal liaisons following the news conference for the first time regarding Trump's announcement in order to start to 'create an operational plan.' Trump activated 800 soldiers from the DC National Guard, with up to 200 members being assigned to supporting law enforcement, according to the Defense Department. 'Duties for those personnel include administrative and logistical roles, as well as providing a physical presence in support of law enforcement,' the DOD said. The unilateral move contrasts heavily with how Trump blamed others, including Bowser and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not deploying the National Guard on January 6, 2021, before Trump-supporters broke into the US Capitol. Over the weekend, Trump had already moved officers from several federal agencies to begin assisting MPD in policing certain areas in DC, including as many as 130 FBI agents to patrol with DC police as part of the increased federal presence, according to two people familiar with the deployment. It's not typical for FBI agents to patrol with local police, and agents are often not trained for community policing and operate under different policies – including for use of deadly force – that could create issues on the ground, two federal law enforcement sources told CNN. Because of this, pairing federal agents with officers to patrol DC could present a situation where each member of the team must respond differently to a potential threat based on the respective agency's policy. In the FBI, the plan to deploy agents to patrol the streets of Washington has been met with concern over strained resources and the safety of agents who are not trained in routine police patrols, according to multiple sources. Taking agents away from their daily investigations to patrol DC would risk not adequately addressing other serious crimes like terrorism, foreign counterintelligence threats, cyber intrusions and the nation's fentanyl epidemic, sources said. 'This isn't hard: If we're doing (policing) we're not covering down on those other threats,' said one source. Federal agents are also typically only minimally trained in conducting vehicle stops, which remains one of the most dangerous aspects of a police officer's job. Unlike routine police encounters with suspects, which may only involve one or two officers, when agencies like the FBI conduct an arrest, they typically plan out the operation methodically in advance and execute it with a complement of agents that far outnumbers the suspect. During the two sparring news conferences Monday, Trump remained adamant that crime in Washington is out of control despite data suggesting that it has decreased in recent years, and Bowser said firmly that DC is 'not experiencing a spike in crime but a decrease in crime.' Regardless of the current crime rates, Bonner noted that Trump's order has a 30-day limit and said any long-term impact on crime is doubtful. 'You can't have a long-term effect on crime with fast actions like this because it doesn't get to the root causes,' Bonner said. 'At the end of 30 days, it will be interesting to see what it has done in terms of reducing the crime rate further, or whatever the goals of this operation are, and what they might try to do moving forward to affect some long term fixes.' 'Because, again, you're not going to affect crime in the long term without addressing the symptoms of crimes,' Bonner said.