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President Donald Trump’s sway within the GOP was on display in Arizona’s primaries Tuesday night, as his endorsed candidates powered through key Republican contests while Democrats avoided a far-left upset in one of the state’s House races.

But Trump’s influence in Republican primaries was the top storyline of the night, with his endorsed candidates powering through key contests up and down the ballot.

Rep. Andy Biggs, a former House Freedom Caucus chair who landed Trump’s endorsement, easily captured the GOP nomination for governor, topping Rep. David Schweikert and the rest of the Republican field by over 50 points.

Meanwhile, former NFL kicker Jay Feely, who received Trump’s "complete and total endorsement" in the final stretch, also won the GOP primary in Arizona’s competitive 1st Congressional District. 

TRUMP-BACKED FIREBRAND WINS ARIZONA GOP GOVERNOR PRIMARY, SETTING UP HIGH-STAKES SHOWDOWN

Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, another Trump-backed candidate, won the GOP primary in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, the deep-red seat Biggs is vacating to run for governor, and Trump-backed Juan Ciscomani advanced in Arizona's 6th Congressional District after running unopposed.

Biggs’ win sets up a high-stakes general election against Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who cruised to renomination after running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Hobbs, a former Arizona Secretary of State, narrowly defeated then-GOP nominee Kari Lake four years ago and now heads into a second-term fight against one of Trump’s most prominent allies in Congress.

The race in Arizona's 1st Congressional District, where former NFL kicker Jay Feely came out victorious in the GOP primary Tuesday night, is a rare open seat contest as Schweikert, who has held the seat but gave it up to run for governor, created an open-seat battle in the suburban Arizona district.

The Phoenix-area district includes northeastern Maricopa County and large parts of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills. Feely now moves into a general election fight, where he is expected to face former state Rep. Amish Shah, who was up by almost 9 points early Wednesday morning. The Associated Press hadn't called the race as of 3AM Wednesday.

EX-NFL STAR BACKED BY TRUMP WINS BATTLEGROUND STATE PRIMARY: 'TRUE AMERICA FIRST CONSERVATIVE'

Lamb’s win in Arizona’s 5th District gave Trump another victory in a reliably Republican seat and positioned the former Pinal County sheriff to replace Biggs in Congress. Lamb, who has campaigned on "God, family, freedom" and echoed Biggs’ hard-line border message, heads into the general election as the favorite in a district that heavily leans Republican, even after his campaign faced scrutiny earlier this year over allegations involving inappropriate messages to women outside his marriage.

While Trump-backed Republicans powered through their primaries, Democrats avoided a potentially damaging left-wing upset in Arizona’s 4th District, where Rep. Greg Stanton held off progressive challenger Kai Newkirk.

Newkirk challenged Stanton from the left, making the race a test of whether the left-wing energy that has shaken Democratic primaries elsewhere could break through in Arizona. Stanton’s win blunted that narrative, at least for one night, and spared Democrats from having to defend a more polarizing nominee in a battleground Sun Belt district.

The result gave establishment Democrats a needed win after a cycle in which progressive challengers have increasingly pressured incumbents over issues including Israel, ICE, health care and corporate influence.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States remains willing to negotiate with Iran but warned there "will be consequences" if Tehran continues to violate its commitments.

Speaking at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines, hours after U.S. forces completed their 11th consecutive night of strikes against Iranian military targets, Rubio said Washington remains open to diplomacy but questioned whether Iran is negotiating in good faith.

"The problem we're having right now is they're not serious about talks. If they're serious, we're serious," Rubio said. "If they're not, then we will do what is necessary to protect our interests and also the interests of our allies."

STEVE FORBES URGES TRUMP TO KEEP THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ OPEN AT ALL COSTS

Rubio said Iran has demanded the right to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, arguing Tehran has no legal authority to do so and warning that allowing it would set a dangerous international precedent.

"If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation-state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway and, if you don't pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent, which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region," Rubio said.

Rubio argued the "fundamental principle of freedom of navigation" is at stake.

US CLAWS BACK KEY CONCESSION TO IRAN AFTER FRESH ATTACKS ON COMMERCIAL SHIPS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ

"If that is threatened, then I think the global economy is threatened, and the rules which have underpinned 150 years of international trade and commerce are also threatened, and that cannot be allowed to happen," he said.

Rubio's comments came after the U.S. and Iran passed the halfway point of the 60-day negotiating window established under a June 17 memorandum of understanding covering Iran's nuclear and missile programs, sanctions and freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the agreement, the two countries have appeared closer to a broader conflict than a diplomatic breakthrough, with Iran repeatedly attacking commercial vessels in the strait while U.S. forces continue striking Iranian military targets across the region.

TRUMP'S 60-DAY IRAN DEAL REACHES HALFWAY MARK AS CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES INTO ESCALATING WAR

While President Donald Trump has declared the ceasefire "over," he said Tuesday that Iran wants to "desperately meet."

Rubio echoed the president's remarks, saying Washington remains prepared to negotiate while making clear military force remains an option.

"The United States remains open and willing to engage in positive negotiations and talks so long as the commitments that are made are kept," he said. "When those commitments are not kept, which is what’s happened in this particular case, then there will be consequences. And that has to happen."

Rubio said maintaining the threat of military action is necessary to prevent Iran from disrupting one of the world's most important shipping lanes.

"If these consequences didn't exist, then today we would be living in a world where a significant percentage of the energy supply in this region and 20% of the world's energy supply is being held hostage by a rogue regime," Rubio said.

Fox News Digital's Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

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Two Democratic candidates remained locked in a battle as of early Wednesday morning to claim their party’s nomination in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District for a chance to face former NFL kicker Jay Feely.

Former television news anchor Marlene Galán-Woods and former state Rep. Amish Shah, the two frontrunners, fell shy of capturing enough of the vote to win the nomination outright by early Wednesday morning.

The winner of the primary will go on to have a rare opportunity to flip a seat in the Canyon State and, more broadly, potentially decide the balance of power in Washington, D.C. Feely, who received President Donald Trump’s "complete and total endorsement" in the final stretch of the race, won his GOP primary late Tuesday night.

TRUMP-BACKED FIREBRAND WINS ARIZONA GOP GOVERNOR PRIMARY, SETTING UP HIGH-STAKES SHOWDOWN

The seat could very well decide whether Republicans hold on to a slim majority in the House of Representatives or whether Democrats break a Republican governing trifecta come the November midterms.

Although the district has favored Republicans since 2020, incumbent Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., has only narrowly hung on to the seat in the past two cycles, beating out Shah in a 51.9% to 48.1% victory in 2024.

Schweikert announced that he would not pursue reelection last year, announcing that he would instead pursue a gubernatorial bid. Trump-backed Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., won his primary and was ahead of Schweikert by over 50 points early Wednesday.

VULNERABLE REPUBLICAN WINS GOP PRIMARY IN ARIZONA TOSS-UP DISTRICT DEMS AIM TO FLIP BLUE

"I’ve grown to believe Washington is unsavable. I do believe Arizona is savable," Schweikert told Axios.

This isn’t the first time Amish Shah and Marlene Galán-Woods have competed against each other for their party’s nomination, having clashed in the Democratic 2024 primary for the district.

At that time, Shah narrowly defeated Galán-Woods before advancing to the 2024 general election, where he lost to Republican Rep. David Schweikert, who has represented the Phoenix-area seat since 2013 despite Democrats investing heavily to flip the district blue.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS' CAMPAIGN ARM DRAWS PROGRESSIVE FURY FOR TRYING TO 'TIP THE SCALES' IN KEY HOUSE PRIMARY

He is seeking a second consecutive nomination after arguing he remains the strongest candidate to challenge Feely in the general election. Galán-Woods, meanwhile, is expected to emphasize her background as a longtime Arizona television journalist and her ability to appeal to independent and suburban voters.

Galán-Woods is making another bid for the nomination with support from several national Democratic organizations, which view Arizona's 1st District as one of the party's best pickup opportunities in 2026.

The winner will go on to the general election on Nov. 3.

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President Donald Trump has a good story to tell on the economy; he should be telling it, because it’s a sure bet the liberal media will not.

Consider the big picture: unemployment is low, real wages are rising, the stock market is high, investment is booming and inflation, though above the Federal Reserve’s target, came down last month, and will recede again once oil prices stabilize. (Inflation, most recently at 3.5%, and at 2.6% excluding volatile food and energy, is also significantly below the 4.95% recorded on average under President Joe Biden.)

More good news: the conservative Committee to Unleash Prosperity reports that during the first 16 months of Trump’s current term, real incomes for the lowest 25% of earners increased almost $2,100, while they actually shrank under Biden.

BESSENT CREDITS TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICIES WITH HELPING RETURN JOBS TO AMERICANS AS WAGE GAINS RESUME

Additionally, the Bank of America Institute writes that "total credit and debit card spending rising 6.3% year-over-year (YoY) in June - the strongest growth in over four years." Importantly, the Institute further reports that "gaps in wage and spending growth across income groups narrowed."

Wait! Income inequality is actually shrinking under Trump? Yes – but you sure won’t hear that from Bloomberg or CNBC – they’re too busy convincing voters that Republicans are hell-bent on pumping up the wealthy at the expense of, well, everybody else.

Sure, we have challenges, as always, and especially with the cost of living being too high and housing too expensive for many Americans. But, overall, the economy is in pretty good shape.

FOX NEWS POLL: MOST RATE THE ECONOMY NEGATIVELY, INCLUDING HALF OF REPUBLICANS

That’s not what most people think. A new survey from CNBC shows "61% of the public is pessimistic about the current state of the economy and about the outlook for the future." A Washington Post-Ipsos poll puts the president’s approval rating on the economy at a dismal 33%.

Why the disconnect? I blame the incessant negativity of the Trump-hating media and also the inability of many Republicans to articulate the benefits of lower taxes and lighter regulations, the president’s signature agenda. If your own team can’t sell your successes, you’re in trouble.

For instance, GOP candidates should be talking up the Trump accounts. Over 6 million children have already signed up for these deferred investment accounts, of which 1.4 million qualify for a $1,000 contribution from the Treasury.

Dell CEO Michael Dell who, with his wife Susan, donated $6.25 billion to the program, said, "What the research shows us, pretty clearly, is that when a kid has even a small account in their name, they start to see themselves differently, and that shows up in graduation rates, in homeownership, in the businesses they start. That’s not just a financial outcome — it’s a mindset shift."

What could possibly be more transformational than giving millions of American children the opportunity to invest for the future and introducing them to the magic of compound interest? This is the best of Trump: inventive, inclusive and pragmatic.

The president signed an executive order in April also creating a new low-cost "TrumpIRA," which Trump described as offering every American worker "the same type of retirement accounts that federal employees enjoy." According to one analysis, some 40% of full-time workers and the vast majority of part-time workers lack access to retirement savings through their employers. As of next year, when the program begins, that should change.

This is a game changer; the more people who have skin in the American economy, the better for our country.

The midterm elections are just over three months away. They will decide whether the Trump agenda can move forward or be buried under a blitzkrieg of vindictive investigations and impeachment hearings. Nothing in these remaining weeks will matter more than the state of the economy and how voters regard their own financial circumstances.

The House and the Senate are both in session this week, and not due to reconvene until mid-September. This is the moment to not only talk up recent economic successes, but also to deliver a splashy final policy assault, to convince voters that the GOP has more to offer.

Instead, Republicans appear on the cusp of passing a meager $95 billion reconciliation bill that mostly funds defense needs and helps farmers. So narrow is that legislation that some GOP House members are talking about a possible fourth reconciliation bill, to include other unaddressed priorities.

Why are Republicans playing defense? Why aren’t they taking what may be their last chance to create a bill that offers much-needed relief on housing, for instance? Many have proposed indexing the capital gains tax on home sales to inflation, to loosen up supply. Many older people, especially, cannot afford to sell their long-held homes because of the taxes they would owe. Why not fix that?

Why, in short, are Republicans in a defensive crouch?

Democrats, in charge of the most expensive cities and states in the U.S., are laughably telling voters they are the party concerned with "affordability." They also have, despite four years under Biden when inflation soared to 40-year highs, convinced voters that Republicans cannot be trusted to produce an economy that makes their lives easier.

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Democrats argue that the GOP’s tax cuts have benefited only the wealthy. That is not true. The Big Beautiful Bill’s features like an expanded child tax credit and standard deduction, "No Tax on Tips" and "No Tax on Overtime" benefited millions of working-class Americans. Families making between $15,000 and $30,000 saw tax cuts of 21%, the most of any income group, while the share of revenues coming from the top 10% actually rose.

That is a solid win for working people in the U.S. Republicans need to hit the campaign trail armed with those facts, and also with proposals that build on those gains.

To paraphrase James Carville, it is always – always – the economy, stupid.

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The Justice Department is reviewing whether Harvard University accepted foreign donations that improperly favored students from China and other countries over American students.

The department said Monday that Harvard’s foreign-funding disclosures raised concerns that some donors imposed nationality-based restrictions on financial aid. Officials are examining whether those arrangements violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars federally funded institutions from discriminating based on national origin.

"Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement.

"Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it," she continued.

KEY TRUMP AGENCY PUTS TOP UNIVERSITIES IN CROSSHAIRS OVER ALLEGED RACE-BASED DORM PROGRAMS

The DOJ said some China-based donors directed Harvard to use their money for aid programs benefiting students from particular countries. The department alleged that complying with those restrictions could disadvantage students of other nationalities, including Americans.

Officials stressed that the review remains ongoing and that the department has not reached any conclusions. The DOJ also did not identify the specific scholarships or donors under examination.

Harvard denied that its financial aid policies violate federal civil rights law.

"Harvard follows the law for required reporting of donations and, consistent with our legal obligations under Title VI, does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid," the university said in a statement.

DOJ SUES UCLA OVER ALLEGED ‘JUDENREIN’ CONDITIONS DURING ANTI-ISRAEL ENCAMPMENT

Federal law requires colleges and universities to report foreign gifts and contracts worth at least $250,000. The DOJ said a Civil Rights Division audit of those disclosures found that Harvard had reported nearly $4.5 billion in foreign funding — more than any other American university — including over $630 million from China, its largest foreign source.

The university provides need-based institutional aid to international students, while federal grants and other government assistance are generally limited to eligible US students. Harvard also uses private scholarship and employment funds to support students from outside the country.

Some private gifts have been designated for students from specific nations. In 2014, SOHO China co-founders Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin donated $15 million to support Chinese students at Harvard. The DOJ has not said whether that gift is part of its review.

The inquiry adds another front to the Trump administration’s broader conflict with Harvard. Federal officials have also scrutinized the university over alleged antisemitism, admissions practices and its treatment of foreign students.

A federal judge previously blocked the administration from cutting billions of dollars in research funding from Harvard as related litigation continues.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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"Imagine the end of capitalism." Those words in the Democratic Socialists of America manifesto offer Americans a world without landlords, debt, mandatory work hours, and "food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation ... are common goods and utilities."

The left often refers to radical changes as "reimagining" everything from police to the Supreme Court to prisons to borders. However, the rise of socialists in the Democratic Party has moved such claims from the merely rhetorical to the outright revolutionary.

The release of the DSA platform on Bastille Day, July 14, was fitting since the Jacobins pushed for the same unicameral system that the socialists are now advocating.The platform promised to change the constitutional system and end the rule of "the same criminal class of billionaires and war profiteers."

BERNIE SANDERS, DSA REVEAL DEMANDS FOR DEM PARTY AFTER SOCIALISTS SWEEP NEW YORK ELECTIONS

The DSA, which counts various Democrat figures such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, includes a plan to eliminate the Senate, the Supreme Court, the presidency and other institutions in remaking the American constitutional system.

In my new book "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution," I discuss the rise of socialism and the move among professors and pundits to scrap key aspects, or the entirety, of our constitutional system on the 250th anniversary of the republic.

The book compares many of these proposals to identical policies of the Jacobin movement in the French Revolution. It is a book about revolutions and how they can consume those who start them. Both the American and French revolutions arose during the same period, but one became the world’s oldest democracy while the other became a blood-soaked tyranny known as "The Reign of Terror."

THE FOUNDING FATHERS WOULD SOUND THE ALARM ON AOC, MAMDANI AND OUR SLIDE INTO SOCIALISM

Notably, the Jacobins pushed for the same unicameral system that the socialists are now advocating. Even figures such as Thomas Paine (one of two figures who played a significant role in both revolutions) supported such measures to allow for more direct democracy.

It was an approach that the Framers expressly rejected. Great students of history, they did not want to replicate the elements that led to the destruction of past democracies going back to ancient Athens. Benjamin Rush, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, referred to it as democracies becoming "mobocracies."

The DSA is the direct descendant of the Jacobins in seeking to tear down moderating institutions and replace the President and justices with democratically elected figures by a Congress composed only of the House of Representatives. However, many of these suggestions are also found among leading academics and influencers.

BROADCAST NETWORKS TOUT MAMDANI’S VICTORIES, PROCLAIM SOCIALISM IS ‘RESONATING’

As with the original Jacobins, those demanding these changes are not the working class but professors, pundits and young college-educated voters.

Mainstream figures such as Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law School, have published books such as "No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States."

The media eagerly publishes such radical views, such as the New York Times column, "The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed," in which Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale call for the nation to "reclaim America from constitutionalism."

As discussed in "Rage and the Republic":

"Those who want to remain in favor often pander to the extremes. Radical leftist sites like the Jacobin have grown in popularity ... They use some of the same words and symbols but still seem improvisational and inauthentic, like a child’s game of dress-up with oversized outfits. Indeed, that is precisely the danger.

There is little knowledge, let alone memory, of what such radicalism became under the real Jacobins. There is the same blissful ignorance that allowed Rousseauian dilettantes to mutate into monsters, escalating radical agendas with every failure...As the popular slogans became disastrous policies, the momentum would carry them beyond any point of recognition or return. The new Jacobins show the same blind ambition and abandon in striking out at institutions and the Constitution itself."

Those slogans are now preying on the gullible and the vulnerable. Take the recent pitch of Michaela Brangan, DSA National Political Education Chair, who declared that with socialism:

"[Y]ou are able to take a day off and not have to worry and you don't have to have a job just to pay the bills because you do not have a lot of bills. Right? Bills are no longer a thing because there's not for-profit businesses that are constantly trying to exploit you and trying, you know, to put you into debt."

She laughed at the suggestion of, "Why do we have a Senate? What is so great about the Senate?"

If she wants that answer, she only needs to look around her at the mob seeking to destroy the world's oldest and most successful republic in history.

She is right about one thing. Capitalism has played a critical role in our republic. This is the 250th anniversary of not just our Declaration but the publication of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which the Founders eagerly embraced. They believed that you could not be truly independent and free if you are not economically independent and free. They rejected the economic dependency pushed by many on the left.

The left has found a voice in the class warfare espoused by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and others. However, it is not a new voice. It is the same Siren's call that we rejected 250 years ago. Paine himself would barely survive in France and come to appreciate the structural precautions that Founding Father and President James Madison created in our system that were absent in the French system.

After the Jacobins implemented some of these very same policies, they destroyed their economy and then devoured themselves in waves of executions. Once again, these same voices are asking a people to destroy the most successful and stable democracy in history. Mainstream figures are conditioning the public for radical changes, often using the same coded messaging. Former Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed the opposition to ideas like packing the Supreme Court as mere "nostalgia" for a system that is no longer working.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently also pandered to the mob in declaring that "nostalgia is not working," and added, "capitalism as we know it doesn't work either."

It is not "nostalgia" that binds us to this constitutional system. It is the faith in a system based on natural rights; a system that protects the minority from the majority. It is a system based on faith in both political and economic independence; the embrace of freedom and free-market principles that created the greatest prosperity in history.

We have heard these voices before and we would be wise to take them seriously if we are, as Benjamin Franklin asked, to keep this Republic for the next generation.

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Two Colombian nationals were arrested in California after automated license plate readers alerted authorities to a stolen Mercedes-Benz linked to a violent carjacking days earlier, officials said.

The 2015 Mercedes-Benz C300 had been reported stolen during a violent carjacking and assault with a deadly weapon in Hawthorne, California, on July 11, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department news release.

Days later, deputies received an alert from an automated license plate reader showing that the car was traveling through Rolling Hills Estates. As deputies searched for the vehicle, they learned it had also been linked to a residential burglary that had recently occurred in Torrance, authorities said.

CALIFORNIA MEN ACCUSED OF $100K BURGLARY ALLEGEDLY TOOK SELFIES WHILE COMMITTING CRIME

Deputies found the Mercedes and conducted a traffic stop near Palos Verdes Drive North and Rolling Vista Drive.

As the vehicle came to a stop, a passenger jumped out and ran, prompting deputies to establish a perimeter, according to the sheriff’s department.

WATCH: FELONY SUSPECT'S OCEAN GETAWAY UNRAVELS AFTER 90-MINUTE STANDOFF WITH LIFEGUARDS

The driver, Yareht Pedraza, 26, of Bogotá, Colombia, was taken into custody at the scene.

"With deputies securing the perimeter and an LASD airship overhead, the search quickly shifted from the streets to the skies. Within a short time, the passenger was located and taken into custody," the sheriff's department said.

The passenger, Alan Pena Sabogn, 21, also of Bogotá, was later apprehended and arrested on suspicion of failing to obey a lawful order, obstructing a peace officer and providing false identification, authorities said.

Officials said Sabogn also had an outstanding felony no-bail burglary warrant from Colorado.

"This arrest is another example of how technology, proactive policing, and teamwork between deputies, dispatchers, and Air Support help quickly identify suspects and remove them from our communities," the sheriff's department said.

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