Josh Mauro, a former NFL defensive end who carved out an eight-season career after going undrafted out of Stanford, died on April 23. He was 35 years old. His family announced the loss Tuesday in a Facebook post that leaned heavily on their Christian faith, though no cause of death has been disclosed.
Mauro's father, Greg Mauro, shared the news on the social media platform. The post did not explain how or where Josh died, only that he was gone, and that the family was turning to God and to the prayers of others to carry them through.
The elder Mauro wrote on Facebook:
"With many tears and broken hearts, yet anchored in the unshakable certainty that our precious Josh Mauro is now healed and made new, living in the presence of the Lord, we humbly covet your prayers as our family walks through the devastating loss of our amazing son, brother, uncle, grandson and friend."
He continued:
"On Thursday, April 23rd, Josh breathed his last breath on this Earth and his first breath in heaven. The Lord has been our strength in this unimaginable moment. Your prayers for continued strength and comfort mean more to us than words could ever express."
Fox News Digital first reported the death, detailing Mauro's journey from an undrafted prospect to a dependable NFL starter. The news was later confirmed by the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders on social media, as the Associated Press reported.
Josh Mauro's path to the NFL had nothing handed to him. Born in England while his father was stationed there for work, Mauro eventually moved to Texas, where he built the high school résumé that earned him a spot at Stanford. He played Division I football for the Cardinal, and when the 2014 NFL Draft came and went without his name being called, he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent.
Pittsburgh cut him during final roster moves before the season started. It was the kind of setback that ends most NFL dreams before they begin.
Mauro landed with the Arizona Cardinals instead, and stayed. Over six seasons in Arizona, he worked his way from roster filler to a legitimate contributor on the defensive line. By 2016, he had earned a starting role and recorded seven tackles for loss across 15 games. In total with the Cardinals, he collected 83 combined tackles and four sacks across 55 games and 29 starts.
Listed at 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds, Mauro was a physical presence on the edge. His career also took him to the New York Giants and the Oakland Raiders, as the New York Post noted in its coverage of his passing. He returned to the Cardinals for the 2020 and 2021 seasons before his playing days ended.
The loss of a young football figure comes during a period that has seen the sport mourn several prominent members, including legendary coach and Medal of Freedom recipient Lou Holtz, who died earlier this year at 89.
Across 80 career games, Mauro compiled five sacks, 130 combined tackles, 20 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles, and five passes defended. Those are not Pro Bowl numbers. They are the numbers of a man who showed up, did his job, and kept earning a paycheck in a league that discards hundreds of players every September.
For an undrafted free agent to appear in 80 games, with 40 starts, as the AP confirmed, is an accomplishment that speaks to durability, preparation, and the kind of quiet professionalism that rarely makes highlight reels but keeps a locker room functioning.
The Arizona Cardinals acknowledged the loss publicly. "We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Josh Mauro," the team said in a statement, as the AP reported. The Las Vegas Raiders, successors to the Oakland franchise Mauro once suited up for, also confirmed the news on social media.
The NFL world has faced its share of off-field turbulence lately, from reporter departures and league-media fallout to ongoing debates about player health and safety. Mauro's death, with no cause disclosed, adds another layer of concern for those who follow the long-term well-being of former players.
What stands out most in the family's announcement is not grief alone but the bedrock conviction underneath it. Greg Mauro did not rage at the unfairness of losing a 35-year-old son. He pointed upward. He asked for prayers. He spoke of healing and heaven with the plainness of a man who means every word.
That kind of faith statement in a public forum is worth noting in a culture that often treats religious expression as an afterthought, or an embarrassment. The Mauro family did not hedge. They did not issue a sterile press release through a publicist. A father sat down and wrote about his boy, and he did it in the language of Scripture.
Breitbart also covered the story, highlighting Greg Mauro's Facebook post and the April 23 date of Josh's passing. The coverage across multiple outlets confirmed the same core details: a young man gone far too soon, a family held together by faith, and a football career that deserved more years than it got.
The absence of a disclosed cause of death leaves an obvious and painful gap. Mauro's family has not addressed it, and no reporting has filled in the blank. Whether the family chooses to share more in time is their business alone.
Several basic facts remain unknown. Where did Josh Mauro die? What caused his death? The family's post offers no details beyond the date. No law enforcement statement, no hospital, no medical examiner's report has surfaced in any available reporting. The silence may reflect a family's right to privacy, or it may reflect a story that has not yet fully emerged.
Untimely deaths always raise hard questions, and stories of lives cut short remind us how fragile even the strongest among us can be. A 6-foot-6, 290-pound professional athlete is not supposed to die at 35. The fact that it happened, and that no one has explained why, is the kind of thing that lingers.
Josh Mauro did not have a famous name. He was not a first-round pick or a franchise cornerstone. He was a man who got cut by the Steelers before he ever played a regular-season snap, then picked himself up and played 80 NFL games across eight seasons. He earned every one of them.
His father's words say the rest. In a world that runs from grief and fumbles around faith, Greg Mauro stood flat-footed and said what he believed. That tells you something about the family Josh Mauro came from, and the kind of man he was raised to be.
Thirty-five is no age to leave this world. But if the measure of a life is how you carry yourself when no one is handing you anything, Josh Mauro left a record worth honoring.
The Supreme Court appeared sharply divided Monday over whether federal pesticide law shields Bayer from state-level lawsuits alleging its Roundup weedkiller should have carried a cancer warning, a case that could determine the fate of more than 100,000 similar claims and billions of dollars in potential liability.
The justices heard oral arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell, a dispute that pits the federal government's authority over pesticide labeling against the right of individual states, and individual juries, to hold manufacturers accountable when new science raises health alarms the EPA has not yet acted on. The question is straightforward: does the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempt state failure-to-warn claims when the EPA never required a cancer warning on the label?
The answer will reach far beyond one Missouri plaintiff. It will set the boundary between federal regulatory power and the ability of ordinary Americans to seek justice in their own state courts when a product they used for decades may have given them cancer.
John Durnell alleged that years of glyphosate exposure caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In 2019, a Missouri jury agreed and awarded him $1.25 million in damages. A Missouri appellate court sided with Durnell, and the state Supreme Court declined to take up Monsanto's second appeal.
Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in. The company's argument rests on a single statutory phrase. FIFRA says no state "shall impose or continue in effect any requirements for labeling or packaging in addition to or different from those required under" federal law. Because the EPA approved Roundup's label without a cancer warning, Bayer contends, Missouri cannot force one through the back door of tort liability.
The Justice Department lined up alongside Bayer, arguing that FIFRA gives the EPA final authority on labeling requirements for pesticides under its jurisdiction. That alignment, the Trump administration's DOJ backing a major agrochemical company against a cancer plaintiff, adds a layer of political complexity, particularly as the Make America Healthy Again movement pushes for tighter restrictions on chemicals in food and farming.
The Court's recent term has already produced sharp divisions on questions of executive power and federal preemption, and Monday's arguments showed this case will be no exception.
Paul Clement, representing Monsanto, built his case around the word "under" in FIFRA's preemption clause. He compared the statute's language to the medical-device preemption provision at issue in the Court's 2008 ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic.
Clement told the justices:
"But the language of FIFRA's preemption provision, just like the language of the preemption provision for the medical device amendments that were at issue in the Riegel case, both of those uses the word 'under,' and I think that word textually captures the various requirements that are imposed at a device-specific level or a herbicide-specific level in the context of the registration process here."
Ashley Keller, arguing for Durnell, met the textualist framing head-on. He accepted the importance of statutory text but drew a hard line between EPA registration and EPA labeling requirements, two different things, he insisted.
"Monsanto's problem is they're not relying on any of those regulations. They are relying on registration and registration alone. There is nothing in, by, under, or next to FIFRA that makes the registration decisions that EPA makes binding labeling requirements with preemptive force."
That distinction, registration versus labeling, became the fault line of the argument. If EPA registration alone carries preemptive force, then no state jury can ever second-guess a label the EPA approved, even if the science has moved on. If registration is merely an entry ticket and not a binding endorsement of every word on the label, then state tort claims survive.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared the most sympathetic to Bayer's position. He pressed Keller on the practical problem facing a manufacturer caught between federal approval and state liability, framing it as a retroactivity concern.
"I think you're saying that EPA can change requirements going forward, but if it tries to say you were misbranding when you did what they told you, that's a retroactivity problem of sorts, in the sense that they're penalizing you retroactively for something that is now required."
Kavanaugh also asked a pointed question that cut to the core of the preemption issue: "Under federal law, if they do a different label than what EPA has approved, would they be violating federal law?" The implication was clear, if Monsanto cannot legally change its own label without EPA permission, holding it liable for not changing the label creates an impossible bind.
But Kavanaugh also pushed back on the uniformity argument in a way that complicated Bayer's position. As Breitbart reported, the justice asked Clement directly: "Do you think it's uniformity when each state can require different things?"
Chief Justice John Roberts raised perhaps the sharpest concern about Bayer's argument. As the Associated Press reported, Roberts asked: "Throughout that long process, in response to information that suggests there is a risk that's not on the label, the states cannot do anything?"
That question matters. If the EPA takes years, or decades, to update a label, and new science suggests a product may cause cancer, are states simply powerless in the interim? For conservatives who value federalism and the right of states to protect their own citizens, Roberts's question lands with real force.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared the most skeptical of Bayer's argument. She noted the long gap between EPA reviews:
"There's a 15-year window between when that product has to be registered again, and lots of things can happen in science in terms of development of the product."
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett also pressed Clement during the argument, and the Court's internal divisions have been on public display throughout this term on a range of contentious issues. Clement reportedly offered conflicting answers under their questioning, a sign that Bayer's legal theory may not hold together as neatly as the company hoped.
At the heart of the case sits a genuine scientific disagreement. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a working group of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." The EPA, by contrast, has maintained that glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic" when used as directed.
That regulatory split is not academic. Roughly 280 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed onto nearly 300 million acres of American farmland every year, according to the EPA. Glyphosate is the most common weedkiller in the United States. If the Court rules for Bayer, it could effectively immunize the company, and the entire pesticide industry, from state-level accountability for labeling decisions, so long as the EPA has signed off.
Keller argued that the FDA comparison cuts against Bayer. He noted that even after the FDA approves a drug's label, the agency still recognizes that a drug can be misbranded if new information emerges.
"The FDA agrees that post-NDA application, post-approval, you can still have a misbranded drug. It shouldn't be less protective of consumers under the context of FIFRA, where the EPA is operating, with less information on those points."
Clement countered with a warning about the chaos of 50 different state standards, or worse. "On uniformity, it's worse than 50 states. It's every jury is a new day," he told the justices.
Keller's response drew a careful line. He acknowledged the need for "uniformity in the law" but argued that legal uniformity does not mean factual uniformity: "The law of Missouri and the law of the United States have to be the same.... It does not require fact finders to find the facts the same way."
The financial exposure is staggering. The Washington Times reported that Bayer has faced more than 100,000 Roundup claims and has set aside $16 billion to settle cases. The company has warned that ongoing litigation could affect glyphosate's future in U.S. markets.
A ruling for Monsanto could sharply limit those lawsuits, as Just The News noted, carrying broad implications for pesticide regulation and the agricultural industry. A ruling for Durnell would leave the floodgates open, and signal that EPA registration alone does not give manufacturers a free pass on state liability.
The political dimensions are hard to ignore. A Politico poll from early April found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support greater restrictions on pesticide use. The case has created tension inside the broader Trump coalition, with MAHA activists who oppose widespread glyphosate use finding themselves at odds with the administration's DOJ, which sided with Bayer.
The future composition of the Court could shape how cases like this are decided for a generation. But for now, the current nine justices will determine whether Americans like John Durnell can hold manufacturers accountable in state court, or whether a federal agency's approval of a label is the last word.
The Court is expected to issue its ruling by the end of June.
This case is not just about one weedkiller or one plaintiff. It is about whether federal regulators can, by inaction, strip citizens of their right to hold corporations accountable under state law. The EPA did not require a cancer warning. It also did not prohibit one. The question is whether that silence becomes a shield.
For conservatives who believe in limited federal power and robust state sovereignty, the answer should not be automatic. Federalism means something. So does the right of a jury to hear the evidence and render a verdict.
The Court has shown this term that it is willing to revisit settled assumptions. The question in Monsanto v. Durnell is whether it will side with a regulatory bureaucracy's silence, or with the people who have to live with the consequences.
When a federal agency takes 15 years between reviews, telling Americans they have no recourse in the meantime is not uniformity. It is abandonment.
Former President Barack Obama posted a statement on X on Sunday calling on Americans to "reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy" after a gunman allegedly tried to assassinate President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner the night before.
The statement came hours after 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, allegedly traveled across the country by train, arrived at the Washington Hilton armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives, and tried to storm a security checkpoint on the floor above where the dinner was being held. Allen allegedly fired two shots before U.S. Secret Service agents apprehended him. One agent was struck by gunfire but survived thanks to a bulletproof vest. No other injuries were reported.
For a president who has already survived two assassination attempts, the incident marked yet another brush with politically motivated violence, this time at an event packed with journalists, government officials, and Washington power brokers.
Obama's post on X acknowledged the shooting but hedged on motive. Breitbart reported that the former president wrote:
"Although we don't yet have the details about the motives behind last night's shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it's incumbent upon all us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy."
He added praise for the Secret Service:
"It's also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day. I'm grateful to them, and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay."
The words were measured. They were also carefully incomplete. By Sunday, when Obama posted, the suspect's own alleged manifesto had already surfaced, and it did not leave much ambiguity about motive.
Allen allegedly wrote that "Administration officials (not including Mr. [Kash] Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest." He allegedly added: "I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done." That is not a mystery waiting for "details." That is a man who, by his own alleged words, drew up a target list ranked by proximity to the sitting president.
Obama's framing, "we don't yet have the details about the motives", reads less like caution and more like a deliberate decision to keep the political temperature vague. Compare that to the way media and Democratic leaders instantly assigned blame after other acts of political violence in recent years, often before any manifesto or motive was known at all.
The former president has remained active in political fights well beyond his time in office. When the cause suits him, Obama does not typically struggle to name what he sees. On this occasion, he chose restraint at the precise moment the facts pointed in an uncomfortable direction for the political left.
President Trump struck a different tone. Speaking at a press conference after the incident, he asked Americans to recommit to resolving their differences without violence:
"I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our difference peacefully. We have to we have to resolve our differences. I will say, you had Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, Liberals, and Progressives. Those words are interchangeable perhaps, but maybe they're not."
Trump also pointed to the atmosphere inside the dinner itself, noting the bipartisan crowd that had gathered before the attack unfolded outside.
"But yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd, there was a record-setting group of people. And there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I watched, I watched and I was very, very impressed by that."
Where Obama spoke in the abstract, violence has no place, motives are unclear, Trump named the people in the room. Republicans, Democrats, Independents. He described what he saw: a crowd that came together. It was a specific, grounded appeal, not a press release drafted to avoid saying anything at all.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, lived in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance. He allegedly made the cross-country trip to Washington by train, arriving at the Washington Hilton armed with three types of weapons: a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives. He allegedly attempted to breach a security checkpoint on the floor above the dinner venue and fired two shots before Secret Service agents took him down.
One agent absorbed a round to the vest. The protective gear did its job. No one else was physically harmed.
The manifesto attributed to Allen laid out his alleged intentions with chilling specificity. Administration officials were described as "targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest." FBI Director Kash Patel was explicitly excluded from the target list, a detail that suggests Allen had done homework on the administration's internal lineup and drawn his own distinctions about who deserved to be in his crosshairs.
The alleged motive, in Allen's own reported words: "I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done." That sentence does not require a decoder ring. It is political rage, directed at a sitting president and his team, acted upon with firearms at a public event.
Questions remain about what charges Allen faces, what agency identified him, and how he managed to travel armed across the country without detection. Those gaps matter and deserve answers. But the broad outline of what happened, and why, is not ambiguous.
This was the third known attempt or alleged attempt on Donald Trump's life. The former president's statement treated it as a generic call for civility, scrubbed of any acknowledgment that the violence keeps flowing in one direction. Obama did not name the suspect. He did not reference the manifesto. He did not grapple with the fact that a man allegedly driven by hatred of the current administration's policies tried to shoot his way into a room full of officials.
That kind of selective vagueness has consequences. When leaders refuse to name the nature of a threat, they make it harder for the country to confront it. Obama's influence within the Democratic Party remains substantial, he has continued to shape the party's direction and messaging even years after leaving office. A clear, honest statement from him about politically motivated violence against a sitting president would carry real weight. What he offered instead was a template.
Meanwhile, questions about Obama's broader political activity and the network of advisers around him continue to draw scrutiny from Trump allies and conservative commentators.
The Secret Service agents who stopped Allen deserve every word of praise Obama gave them, and more. They stood between a gunman and a room full of people and did their job. One of them took a bullet for it. Their courage was specific, not abstract. It was not a "sobering reminder." It was a man absorbing a round in his vest so that others could live.
Transparency around the Obama orbit has been an ongoing concern for those who believe the former president's post-White House influence deserves the same level of public accountability as his time in office.
The open questions are serious. What charges will Allen face? How did he move armed across the country undetected? What did law enforcement know, and when? And will the political class treat this incident with the gravity it deserves, or memory-hole it the moment the news cycle turns?
Trump, for his part, spoke about love and coming together. He named the people in the room. He asked for peace. Obama posted a careful statement that could have been written about any shooting, anywhere, for any reason.
When violence targets a president, the country doesn't need a press release. It needs leaders willing to say what happened, who did it, and why. Anything less is just words arranged to avoid the point.
Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey has not cast a single vote on the House floor since March 5, and even his fellow Republican lawmakers say they cannot reach him or explain where he has been.
The congressman, who holds one of the most competitive seats in the country, has missed nearly 50 roll-call votes during his absence. His staff has offered only a vague reference to unspecified health issues. No timeline. No details. No public statement from Kean himself.
That silence matters. It matters to the voters of New Jersey's Seventh Congressional District, who sent Kean to Washington to represent them. And it matters to a Republican House majority so thin that every absent member shifts the math on every vote. A sitting congressman going dark for seven weeks, with no explanation beyond a staffer's assurance that he'll "return soon", is not normal, and the people paying his salary deserve better.
Politico first reported late Wednesday that Kean had not voted since March 5 and had missed nearly 50 roll calls. The Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed those details and noted that Kean's office did not respond to its request for comment.
GovTrack data shows Kean missed over 20 percent of all House votes between January and March 2026, and that was before the complete disappearance that followed.
Fellow New Jersey Republicans have tried to make contact. Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew both told Politico they had been calling and texting Kean out of concern. The Washington Examiner reported that Van Drew described his efforts to reach Kean as yielding "complete radio silence."
That phrase, "radio silence", appeared in multiple accounts. The New York Post reported that both Smith and Van Drew used the same description: they reached out, and they got nothing back.
The only public explanation has come not from Kean but from people around him. Dan Scharfenberger, Kean's chief of staff, told reporters:
"Congressman is addressing a personal health matter. He will be returning to a full regular schedule."
Harrison Neely, identified as a consultant for Kean, offered a similar line: "Please know that he will be back on a regular full schedule very soon."
Neither statement named the health matter. Neither gave a date. Neither explained why the congressman himself has said nothing on the record.
Kean represents a district that both parties view as a genuine battleground. President Trump carried the Seventh by just one percentage point in 2024, after losing it by four points in 2020. The Cook Political Report rates the 2026 race a "toss-up," citing "a tougher environment for the congressman, a likely stronger Democratic nominee, and this district's long-term shift away from the GOP."
That assessment should concern every Republican strategist watching the midterms. Kean first won the seat in 2022 by unseating Democrat Tom Malinowski after narrowly losing to him two years earlier. He has held the district since 2023. His father, Thomas Kean, served as governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990, giving the family deep roots in state politics.
But name recognition only carries a candidate so far when he has been invisible for weeks. Speaker Johnson, who has been managing sensitive internal GOP matters all session, was reportedly notified of the situation, a sign that leadership recognizes the gravity of a member going missing from the floor.
Kean is running unopposed in his GOP primary. But Democrats are already circling. In the neighboring 11th District, former labor union director Analilia Mejia defeated the more moderate Tom Malinowski and then beat Republican Joe Hathaway in a special election, 60 percent to 40 percent, for the seat vacated by current New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill. That lopsided result shows the kind of energy Democrats are bringing to New Jersey races.
Fox News reported that Kean has missed more than 50 votes since early March, a figure slightly higher than the "nearly 50" cited elsewhere, and that the story had risen to the level of a segment with the network's chief congressional correspondent.
Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member and attorney for the Kean campaign, tried to put the best face on things. He told Politico:
"Everyone understands from their own family experiences that people run into unexpected health issues."
He added: "Voters will be completely sympathetic and it's so early in the year that it will be long forgotten come the fall."
Maybe. But sympathy requires candor. Voters can be generous with a lawmaker who levels with them about a health crisis. They tend to be far less forgiving when the response is a wall of silence, a consultant's talking point, and a chief of staff's one-liner.
Members of Congress are public servants, not private citizens. They draw a salary from the taxpayer. They hold a vote that shapes national policy. When a congressman vanishes for seven weeks, his constituents are left without representation on the House floor, and in a majority this narrow, that absence ripples across the entire chamber. Johnson has had to navigate razor-thin margins and shifting positions all year. Every missing vote compounds the problem.
Just The News reported that associates say Kean is expected to return soon and make a full recovery. If that is true, it is welcome news. But "associates say" is not a substitute for the congressman himself addressing the people he was elected to serve.
There are legitimate reasons a lawmaker might need to step away. Serious illness. A family emergency. No one begrudges a human being time to deal with a genuine crisis. But the standard for transparency does not disappear because the situation is difficult. If anything, it rises. Voters in a toss-up district who are watching their representative's seat sit empty deserve a direct, honest explanation, not secondhand assurances filtered through campaign consultants.
The broader context makes the silence worse, not better. The House GOP majority is operating with almost no margin for error. Every absence on a close vote can determine whether legislation passes or fails. And with Capitol Hill already under pressure from multiple directions, a missing member in a competitive district is a vulnerability Republicans cannot afford to ignore.
Several basic questions remain unanswered. What is the nature of Kean's health issue? Where has he been since March 5? Has he communicated directly, even privately, with House leadership about when he will return? Why has his office refused to engage with press inquiries?
Kean's office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment. That non-response, combined with the "radio silence" his own Republican colleagues describe, paints a picture of a congressional office that has gone completely dark.
Meanwhile, Speaker Johnson, who has been publicly active on redistricting fights and other high-stakes political battles, now has another problem on his hands: a member in a must-win district who has been absent for nearly two months with no clear return date.
Palatucci may be right that voters will be sympathetic. But sympathy is earned through honesty, not through silence. And right now, the voters of New Jersey's Seventh District are getting silence.
A congressman who won't show up to vote and won't explain why isn't asking for sympathy. He's asking for a blank check, and the people who sent him to Washington have every right to say the account is overdrawn.
The same East Village voters who handed Mayor Zohran Mamdani a landslide victory are now hauling his administration into court, filing suit in Manhattan Supreme Court to stop him from converting a building on their block into New York City's main homeless intake center for adult men.
A group of residents and the Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement, known as VOICE, filed the lawsuit Monday. They want to block the city from turning 8 East 3rd Street into a citywide intake facility. A state judge granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday, freezing the plan days before the city's target opening date of May 1.
Both sides return to court May 7. But the political damage is already done. The neighborhood that gave Mamdani 70.1 percent of the vote in Election District 45, compared to just 26 percent for independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, is now the face of resistance to one of his signature moves on homelessness.
The suit, as the New York Post reported, argues the city improperly declared an emergency, failed to conduct a required Fair Share analysis, and skipped the legal procedures that must precede a decision to site a facility of this scale. The lawsuit states:
"It challenges only the City's hastily made and legally invalid decision to locate a new citywide homeless adult male intake center at 8 East 3rd Street without following any of the legal requirements that must precede such a significant and consequential decision."
At the heart of the legal challenge is a 2022 emergency declaration originally tied to the asylum-seeker crisis. The residents allege Mamdani's administration invoked that declaration to bypass required environmental reviews and community input, repurposing a crisis-era shortcut for an entirely different policy goal.
Mamdani's office framed the project as a necessary replacement for the deteriorating Bellevue Shelter on 30th Street, which housed roughly 250 people. The mayor has said he intends to close the Bellevue facility by the end of the month. In his own words, as the Post reported, Mamdani defended the urgency: "We received expert guidance that vacating that site was an urgent and immediate need, as opposed to a suggestion to consider in the years to come."
That may sound reasonable in a press release. It sounds different to the people who live on East 3rd Street.
The building at 8 East 3rd Street currently functions as a 175-bed transitional housing facility run by Project Renewal, according to PIX11 reporting cited by the Daily Caller. Residents are not objecting to the existence of shelters in their neighborhood. They are objecting to the scope of what the city wants to do next.
VOICE coalition member Caleb Berger told NY1 plainly:
"We are not against living with shelters. We all live in the East Village, they are part of the social fabric. What they are proposing is to move the entire intake operation, essentially the front door of the New York City, five-borough shelter system, to our narrow residential block."
That distinction matters. This is not a case of wealthy homeowners refusing any contact with the city's homeless population. These residents already live alongside a shelter. What they object to is the city funneling every single adult male seeking shelter in all five boroughs through one residential street, with no environmental review, no community input, and no public process.
The administration's pattern of governing by decree and ideological impulse rather than through lawful process is becoming a recurring theme under Mamdani.
Conservative commentators wasted no time pointing out the contradiction. Fox News reported that the East Village residents who backed Mamdani by a roughly 40-point margin are now the ones suing to stop his shelter plan. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz posted a single word on X: "Oops."
Former Republican New York attorney general candidate Michael Henry was more direct. He wrote on social media:
"No one is more 'not in my backyard' than white progressives. This community voted for Mamdani in a landslide but don't want to live with the consequences."
Henry's observation is blunt, but the numbers back up the core point. Election District 45 gave Mamdani a dominant 70.1 percent. Now a coalition from that same district is asking a judge to stop him. Progressive voters love progressive policy, right up until it arrives on their block, without warning, under an emergency declaration that has nothing to do with the actual emergency being cited.
The legal question at the center of this fight deserves more attention than it will probably get. The 2022 emergency declaration was issued in response to the asylum-seeker influx. Whatever one thinks of that declaration's original merits, it was tied to a specific crisis involving a surge of migrants arriving in New York City.
Using that same declaration years later to skip environmental reviews for a homeless shelter replacement is a stretch, and the kind of executive overreach that erodes public trust in government at every level. If an administration can invoke a years-old emergency order to fast-track any project it wants, the legal requirements for community input and environmental review become meaningless.
Mamdani's broader governing approach has already drawn fire on multiple fronts. His race-based tax proposals have alarmed business leaders and taxpayers alike. His administration's habit of moving fast and bypassing normal channels may play well in progressive media. It plays less well in court.
The temporary restraining order granted Wednesday suggests at least one state judge found enough merit in the residents' claims to halt the city's plans. The May 7 hearing will determine whether that order holds.
The Bellevue Shelter on 30th Street is, by the city's own description, deteriorating. Nobody disputes that New York has a serious homelessness problem that requires real infrastructure. The question is whether the mayor can ram a citywide intake facility into a residential neighborhood without following the law, and whether the voters who put him in office are willing to accept the consequences of the policies they endorsed.
So far, the answer from East 3rd Street is no.
Mamdani has already faced resistance from major business interests over his penthouse tax proposals, and his tax-the-rich agenda has stalled in Albany. Now his own base is suing him. The coalition that elected him is fracturing not because of some right-wing pressure campaign, but because his administration treated its own supporters the way progressive governments always treat the public: as people whose input is optional.
Elections have consequences. Apparently, so does skipping the paperwork.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi fired off a letter to the Department of Justice on Wednesday opposing any clemency for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, a move that lands as Maxwell's own attorney publicly boasts that a presidential pardon is within reach.
The Illinois Democrat did not mince words. In the letter, dated April 22, Krishnamoorthi told DOJ he was writing to "express my disgust at the Department of Justice's reported willingness to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell," The Hill reported.
Maxwell, the longtime partner and accomplice of deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been waging an aggressive campaign for freedom. Her attorney, David Oscar Markus, told reporters last week that "there's a good chance and for good reason" Maxwell would receive a pardon. Markus has led efforts to secure Maxwell's release since last year, and those efforts have already produced results: after Maxwell met with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Fla., Markus helped get her transferred to a lower-security prison.
That meeting, and its apparent fruits, is precisely what has members of Congress alarmed. The question now is whether DOJ will go further and recommend full clemency for a woman convicted of helping Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse underage girls.
Krishnamoorthi's letter did more than object to a pardon. He urged DOJ to "immediately reopen" and "fully resource" its probe into Epstein's sex-trafficking operation, pursuing all credible leads. He also demanded the department draw a bright public line against clemency for Maxwell, as he wrote in the letter:
"You must also publicly, and repeatedly, refuse to engage with Ghislaine Maxwell on any presidential pardons that would excuse her from serving out her full sentence."
The congressman closed with a direct appeal on behalf of Epstein's victims. "Survivors deserve answers, and those responsible must be held accountable. This is not a question of politics, it is a matter of justice," Krishnamoorthi wrote.
Maxwell's attorney has been publicly making the case for clemency for months, framing his client as someone who has already paid a sufficient price. But Krishnamoorthi's letter frames the DOJ's willingness to even entertain the conversation as a betrayal of the trafficking victims whose cases were never fully resolved.
The pardon talk arrives against a backdrop that should trouble anyone who values accountability. Months after her meeting with Blanche, Maxwell appeared for a deposition before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She refused to answer questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Think about the sequence. Maxwell met privately with the deputy attorney general. She won a transfer to a lower-security facility. Then, when Congress called her to testify about Epstein's network, she declined to say a word. And now her lawyer says a full pardon is likely.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, responded to Maxwell's refusal to cooperate by saying she deserved to be sent back to a maximum-security prison. That is a reasonable position. A convicted accomplice to one of the most notorious sex-trafficking operations in modern American history should not be rewarded for silence.
While Maxwell angles for a pardon, the broader Epstein scandal continues to produce consequences for powerful figures who associated with the financier. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was arrested at his home in February. Peter Mandelson, the United Kingdom's ambassador, was dismissed from his post. Economist Larry Summers was ousted from multiple advisory boards.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified before Congress about his own relationship with Epstein, and Republican senators have pushed DOJ to release Epstein-related files as well. New Mexico recently launched an investigation into Epstein's ranch in the state.
In other words, the net is finally tightening around the people who enabled or benefited from Epstein's crimes. A pardon for Maxwell would send exactly the wrong signal at exactly the wrong time. It would tell every victim who came forward that the system ultimately protects the powerful, even those convicted of helping abuse children.
Krishnamoorthi is not the only lawmaker raising the alarm. Rep. Jamie Raskin introduced a House resolution formally opposing any commutation or pardon for Maxwell, Newsmax reported. Raskin cited an email with the subject line "Commutation Application" as evidence that Maxwell is actively seeking presidential clemency.
Raskin acknowledged the resolution is symbolic, Congress cannot block a president from exercising the pardon power. "Congress has the unilateral power to speak on behalf of the lawmaking branch and the people we represent," Raskin said. "We have the right to speak about the abuse of the pardon power to violate the rule of law, justice and public safety."
Symbolic or not, the resolution and Krishnamoorthi's letter together represent a growing chorus of opposition. The broader political debate over presidential clemency decisions has intensified in recent years, and few cases test public patience like this one.
Krishnamoorthi's letter calls the DOJ's engagement with Maxwell's pardon request "unacceptable." That word carries weight. The Department of Justice exists to prosecute crimes, protect victims, and uphold the law. When it entertains clemency for a convicted sex trafficker, one who has refused to cooperate with congressional investigators, it undermines every one of those missions.
The DOJ has not publicly responded to Krishnamoorthi's letter. That silence matters. Every day the department declines to rule out a Maxwell pardon is a day it leaves Epstein's victims in limbo, wondering whether the system that convicted their abuser's accomplice will ultimately let her walk free.
The Epstein case has always been a story about powerful people escaping consequences. The legal and political battles surrounding the scandal have dragged on for years, touching figures across parties and continents. Maxwell's conviction was supposed to be the exception, proof that even the well-connected can be held to account.
A pardon would turn that exception back into the rule. And the people who would pay the price are the same ones who always do: the victims nobody in power bothered to protect the first time around.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Wednesday that he wants to see Gov. Ron DeSantis push through a new congressional map for Florida, hours after Virginia voters narrowly approved a referendum that will redraw that state's districts heavily in Democrats' favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The Virginia result, called by the Associated Press at 8:49 p.m. Tuesday with just 50.3% voting "yes" and 81% of ballots counted, is expected to shift the state's congressional delegation from a 6-5 Democratic edge to a lopsided 10-1 advantage. For Republicans clinging to a razor-thin House majority, the math just got worse.
Johnson framed the Florida effort as a straightforward exercise of state authority. The Washington Examiner reported his comments Wednesday:
"Florida has the right, and they've expressed the interest of doing it there, and I think that should happen. That's my view."
DeSantis has already scheduled a special legislative session for April 28 to draw and pass a new map that would favor Republicans. The governor signaled he is acting preemptively, anticipating a forthcoming Supreme Court ruling on a section of the Voting Rights Act that bans discrimination in voting systems, a decision with the potential to reshape congressional maps nationwide.
At a news conference earlier this year, DeSantis laid out his reasoning plainly:
"I don't think it's a question of if they're going to rule. It's a question of what the scope is going to be. So, we're getting out ahead of that."
Florida is not an isolated case. Both parties have been engaged in an aggressive mid-decade redistricting push across multiple states, each trying to lock in favorable House maps before voters go to the polls in November 2026. The Associated Press reported that Texas, California, Missouri, and other states are now embroiled in legal, political, and ballot-measure fights over new congressional districts.
Democrats need to gain just three seats to take control of the House. That narrow margin has turned every map battle into a high-stakes contest. Nationally, redistricting efforts from both parties are poised to net Democrats 10 new seats and Republicans nine, a gap that could prove decisive in a closely divided chamber.
In Missouri, Republicans passed a new map aimed at delivering seven of the state's eight House seats to the GOP, while opponents there are pursuing referendums and lawsuits. The pattern is the same everywhere: one side draws, the other side sues or counter-draws.
Johnson, who has faced criticism from within his own caucus on other legislative fights, is betting that a Florida redraw can offset Democratic gains elsewhere. Republicans currently hold 20 of Florida's 28 congressional seats, a strong position, but one the party sees room to strengthen.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wasted no time taking a victory lap after the Virginia results came in. At a Wednesday morning press conference, the New York Democrat cast the redistricting fight as a national battle against what he called Republican gerrymandering.
Jeffries said Democrats would, in his words:
"Not let Donald Trump rig the midterm elections by gerrymandering maps all across the country without a forceful Democratic response. That is what you saw in Virginia. That is what you will see in Florida, and that is what has taken place all across the country."
He added a taunt aimed at Republicans:
"These Republican extremists thought that we were going to step back. They had us confused. We were never going to step back."
The rhetoric is worth examining against the facts. Democrats pushed the Virginia referendum themselves, a mid-decade redraw designed to turn a competitive 6-5 delegation into a 10-1 rout. Calling that a "forceful response" to gerrymandering requires a generous definition of the term. When your side draws a map that converts a one-seat edge into a nine-seat edge, you are not fighting gerrymandering. You are practicing it.
The Florida push faces a complication that Virginia's did not. Florida's constitution explicitly bars the drawing of districts with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party. That provision, adopted by voters in 2010, has been used in past court challenges to strike down maps deemed partisan.
Newsmax reported that the Florida redistricting effort faces both legal and political obstacles under those anti-gerrymandering rules. DeSantis and Republican legislators will need to craft a map that can survive judicial scrutiny, no small task given the constitutional language.
Johnson told reporters he was not worried that the redistricting push could backfire on Republicans. That confidence may be tested quickly. Any new map passed in the April 28 special session will almost certainly face immediate legal challenge, and the timeline to resolve litigation before the 2026 cycle is tight.
The pending Supreme Court case adds another layer of uncertainty. If the Court narrows protections under the Voting Rights Act, it could open the door to more aggressive map-drawing in multiple states. If it doesn't, DeSantis's preemptive move may face stiffer headwinds than expected.
For Johnson, the Florida map is not an abstract governance question. It is a survival calculation. The Speaker manages a historically slim majority, and his leadership has been defined by high-stakes directives issued under intense pressure from within and without.
Every seat matters. The Virginia result alone could cost Republicans four net seats if the projected 10-1 Democratic map holds. Florida, with its 28-seat delegation and current 20-8 Republican advantage, represents the biggest single-state opportunity for the GOP to claw back ground.
But the map-drawing arms race also carries risks. If voters in competitive districts see mid-decade redistricting as a cynical power grab, by either party, the backlash could erase whatever gains the new lines were designed to deliver. Johnson's public endorsement of the Florida effort ties his credibility to its outcome.
Jeffries, for his part, has been eager to frame every Republican move as an extremist overreach. He has clashed repeatedly with Johnson on everything from homeland security funding to immigration enforcement. The redistricting fight gives him another talking point, but his own party's record on map manipulation in Virginia, New York, and elsewhere makes the moral high ground a crowded perch.
The AP's framing captured the stakes plainly: the push to redraw districts for partisan advantage "is unfolding during a time of unusual political balance in Congress." That balance means neither side can afford to unilaterally disarm, but it also means every aggressive move invites an equally aggressive countermove.
Johnson has shown a willingness to adjust course when political realities shift, and the Virginia loss clearly sharpened his appetite for a Florida counter-stroke. Whether DeSantis can deliver a map that holds up in court, and in the court of public opinion, will determine whether the Speaker's bet pays off.
The April 28 special session in Tallahassee will be the first concrete test. Florida legislators will need to produce a map, pass it, and prepare to defend it in court, all while navigating a state constitution that was written specifically to prevent the kind of partisan line-drawing both parties are now racing to execute.
The Supreme Court's pending ruling on the Voting Rights Act could land at any point, reshaping the legal terrain under everyone's feet. And in states like Texas, California, and Missouri, parallel fights will continue to churn.
Democrats drew first in Virginia and won by half a percentage point. Republicans are drawing next in Florida with a bigger delegation and higher stakes. The rules of the game haven't changed, but neither side is pretending anymore that the game is about fairness.
When both parties gerrymander openly and accuse only the other side of doing it, voters are left with a simple choice: judge them by what they do, not what they say. On that score, at least, the record is bipartisan.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to cut up to 500 positions, roughly one in five employees, over the coming years, and its chief executive has commissioned an outside review of the organization's past dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The twin announcements, disclosed in an internal staff memo on Tuesday, land as Bill Gates faces mounting pressure over his relationship with the late financier.
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman laid out the moves in an email to employees first reported by the New York Post, citing a Wall Street Journal account of the memo. The job reductions amount to about 20% of the foundation's workforce and will be phased in over the next several years.
Suzman framed the cuts as necessary medicine during a difficult stretch.
"This is a challenging time for our organization in many ways, but it also highlights the critical importance of taking the tough actions now."
The "challenging time" is not limited to headcount. It is inseparable from the Epstein cloud that has hung over the foundation since Department of Justice records released in January exposed a trail of emails between Epstein and Gates Foundation staff, along with photos of Bill Gates posing with Epstein and with women whose faces were redacted.
Suzman told employees he commissioned the external review to examine the foundation's past engagement with Epstein and to scrutinize current policies for vetting and developing new philanthropic partnerships. An update on the review's findings is expected sometime this summer.
The foundation itself confirmed the scope of the inquiry. Fox News reported a foundation statement saying Suzman "commissioned an external review to assess past foundation engagement with Epstein, and our current policies for vetting and developing new philanthropic partnerships." Who exactly is conducting the review, and what authority the reviewers have to compel cooperation, remain undisclosed.
The foundation said in February that it never made financial payments to Epstein and never employed him. It added that it "regrets having any employees interact with him in any way." A spokesperson told Reuters that during a February town hall meeting with foundation employees, Gates "took responsibility for his actions" regarding his Epstein ties.
What "took responsibility" means in practice is an open question. Gates has previously said his relationship with Epstein was confined to philanthropy and that meeting with Epstein was a mistake. He has denied spending time with victims of Epstein's sexual abuse. Fox News reported that Gates described himself as "foolish" for spending time with Epstein and stated, "I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit."
The January release of Justice Department documents brought fresh scrutiny. Those records showed direct communication between Epstein and foundation staff and included the photos of Gates alongside Epstein. The images of women with redacted faces raised questions that the foundation's brief public statements have not answered.
The fallout from the DOJ document releases has reached well beyond Seattle. European officials have resigned after the files revealed post-conviction ties to Epstein, and the ripple effects continue to surface across political and financial circles on both sides of the Atlantic.
Gates now faces a date with Congress. Fox News reported that he is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on June 10 regarding his relationship with Epstein. That hearing will put the Microsoft co-founder under oath in front of lawmakers who have shown little patience with evasive answers on the Epstein matter.
The congressional probe has already generated friction with other prominent figures. The House panel advanced contempt charges against the Clintons over their cooperation, or lack thereof, with the Epstein investigation, underscoring the bipartisan reach of the inquiry.
Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda French Gates started the foundation in 2000. It became the world's largest private charitable organization, spending billions on global health, education, and poverty reduction. For years its reputation rested on the premise that Gates applied the same rigor to philanthropy that he brought to building Microsoft.
That premise looks different now. The 20% staff reduction signals an institution retrenching, not expanding. Suzman's memo did not spell out a specific reason for the cuts beyond the vague reference to "tough actions." Whether the reductions are driven by budget constraints, strategic refocusing, reputational damage, or some combination remains unclear.
The foundation has not disclosed which offices or programs will absorb the losses, or whether the cuts will fall evenly across its global operations. Fox News reported the foundation's headcount target will shrink by up to 500 positions by 2030 as part of a broader restructuring effort.
Meanwhile, the Epstein document trail continues to draw in other high-profile names. Revelations from the DOJ files have touched on figures across the tech and business world, illustrating just how wide Epstein's network of elite contacts extended.
The political consequences have been equally far-reaching. In the United Kingdom, Labour MPs demanded Keir Starmer's resignation after his chief of staff stepped down over an Epstein-linked scandal involving Lord Mandelson, a reminder that the fallout respects no borders and no party.
The Gates Foundation's external review faces a credibility test before it even delivers results. The foundation chose the reviewer. The foundation set the scope. The foundation will decide when and how to share the findings. None of that inspires confidence that the process will produce the kind of unsparing accounting the public deserves.
At minimum, the review should answer several pointed questions. How many foundation employees communicated with Epstein, and over what period? Did any foundation funds flow through intermediaries to Epstein-linked entities? What did senior leadership know about the nature of Epstein's conduct before, during, and after his 2008 conviction? And why did the foundation wait until DOJ documents forced the issue before launching a formal inquiry?
Gates himself has offered a series of carefully hedged statements, philanthropy only, a mistake, foolish, nothing illicit. Each admission came only after new evidence made the previous posture untenable. The pattern is familiar: deny, then minimize, then express regret, then promise a review. The question is whether the review breaks the cycle or extends it.
The June 10 House Oversight hearing will test Gates's account under conditions he cannot control. Congressional investigators, unlike foundation-hired reviewers, have subpoena power and no obligation to protect the brand.
Five hundred employees are about to lose their jobs at an organization that exists, in theory, to do good in the world. The least they, and the public, are owed is a straight answer about how the foundation's leadership let a convicted sex offender get so close to the operation in the first place.
When a charity has to hire outsiders to explain its own conduct, the problem is not the vetting policy. It is the people at the top.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle brought a security detail, a media pack, and dozens of fans to Bondi Beach last Friday. One Australian woman lying on her towel brought a book, and never looked up.
Footage from the couple's unscheduled stop at Sydney's most famous stretch of sand captured the moment their entourage walked directly into the path of a prone sunbather who, by all appearances, could not have cared less. She kept reading. She did not move. She did not glance up. The clip went viral, and the internet had a field day.
A Reddit post captioned "Bondi beachgoer gives zero f***s" drew hundreds of comments. One user summed up the mood: "This is 2026, not everyone is going to worship the royals like it was 20 years ago." Prince Harry appeared to notice the woman and point, but she remained engrossed in her reading, a one-person rebuttal to the idea that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex still command automatic public attention wherever they go.
The Bondi stop was not on the couple's official itinerary. Harry and Meghan were in Sydney for a private meeting with first responders and survivors of the December 14 Bondi terrorist attack, which killed 15 people. After that meeting, they wandered down to the shore to watch a surf lifesaving demonstration, and were promptly mobbed by dozens of fans and a large media contingent.
The rest of the four-day whirlwind Australian tour included a sailing trip around Sydney Harbour, a women's retreat headlined by Meghan, and a night out at the rugby at Allianz Stadium. The couple have since returned home to California.
It was their first trip Down Under since 2018, when they visited as newlyweds still basking in the goodwill that surrounded their wedding. A lot has changed since then, for the monarchy, for the couple, and for public patience.
The unnamed Bondi sunbather may be an outlier, or she may be a leading indicator. The Sussexes have spent the years since their 2020 departure from senior royal duties building a media and lifestyle empire in California. The returns have been mixed at best.
Their Spotify deal collapsed. Their Netflix agreement, once reported at $100 million, was downgraded to a first-look arrangement, and the streaming giant reportedly parted ways with Meghan's "As Ever" lifestyle brand. PR expert Doug Eldridge told Fox News Digital that the couple face a fundamental marketability problem.
"When the temperature cools and the eyeballs wander, then deals are cut short, or in this case, simply aren't renewed."
Eldridge also noted the pattern of reinvention that has defined the post-royal years: "The couple have been on an endless treadmill of purported rebrands at this point." Royal and media commentators cited in that reporting argue that repeated public grievances and continued commercialization of royal ties have produced audience fatigue, the kind of fatigue a Bondi sunbather demonstrated in the most literal way possible.
While Harry and Meghan toured Sydney, the broader royal family continues to operate on a different trajectory. King Charles is planning a U.S. state visit to meet President Trump and renew transatlantic ties, the kind of high-level diplomatic engagement that underscores the gap between the working monarchy and its California offshoot.
Harry and Meghan's defenders will point to the private meeting with Bondi attack survivors as proof the couple still do meaningful work. That meeting deserves respect. But the public image that traveled farthest from the trip was not a solemn handshake with a first responder. It was a woman on a towel who could not be bothered to look up from her book.
The viral clip is short and needs no narration. The couple's group, security, handlers, media, moves across the sand. The sunbather is directly in their path. She does not flinch. Harry appears to notice her, gestures, and the group adjusts. She keeps reading.
No one was rude. No one made a scene. That is precisely what made it resonate. The moment was not hostile. It was indifferent. And indifference, for a couple whose entire post-royal business model depends on public fascination, is a far worse sign than criticism.
Criticism means people still care enough to argue. Indifference means they have moved on.
The Sussexes built their brand on the premise that leaving the monarchy would make them more relevant, not less. Every collapsed deal, every rebrand, and every unbothered sunbather suggests the opposite may be true. You can walk away from the institution, but you cannot take the institution's audience with you, especially when that audience starts bringing a good book to the beach.
Eric Swalwell's donor-funded congressional campaigns racked up more than 100 separate charges with now-defunct alcohol delivery service Drizly over a four-year period starting in 2020, federal campaign disclosures reveal, a spending spree that accounted for roughly a quarter of all payments to Drizly from every candidate campaign, political committee, and PAC in the country since 2019.
That figure comes from Federal Election Commission data, as the New York Post reported. The former California congressman, once a leading Democrat in the race for governor before his political career collapsed under sexual misconduct allegations, didn't stop when Drizly folded into Uber Eats in early 2024. His campaigns then used Uber Eats more than 220 times, running up charges exceeding $19,000. Those Uber Eats records don't specify whether the purchases were food, alcohol, or both.
The sheer volume of booze-delivery charges, the Las Vegas hotel bills, the steakhouse tabs, and the nearly $219,000 Swalwell paid himself from campaign funds for childcare, security, and other expenses since 2021 paint a picture of a congressman treating his donors' money like a personal expense account.
Campaign records show a particularly striking cluster of spending in the summer of 2021, when Swalwell's tab totaling roughly $6,100 overlapped with multiple trips to Las Vegas. He appears to have visited the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas three times over a 10-day stretch, on July 9, 12, and 19.
The charges tell their own story. A $117.54 bill at STK Steakhouse. A $439.57 tab at Jean Georges Steakhouse at Aria. A $940.01 transaction at the Cosmopolitan on July 19 alone. All told, his time in Vegas over those 10 days cost donors more than $3,100.
This wasn't an isolated quarter of loose spending. Fox News reported in 2021 that FEC records showed Swalwell's campaign had spent over $10,000 on 26 limousine and luxury car rides in the second quarter of that year, along with more than $26,000 on luxury hotels, including over $20,000 at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, where his wife had worked as director of sales.
The campaign also dropped $566 through Drizly, $1,151 at Capitol Hill Wine and Spirits, and more than $7,000 at luxury restaurants and steakhouses during that same period, Fox News found. As the outlet noted at the time, "While the payments to the wineries could have come from a campaign event, it is not clear that the seven charges at the Capitol Hill liquor store and nine Drizly charges were campaign related."
The Post's review of congressional campaign filings found 36 Drizly charges totaling $2,405 from May 2020 through the end of that year alone. The charges kept coming for four years, through the transition from Drizly to Uber Eats, and continued as recently as this year.
Newsmax reported that FEC records showed Swalwell spent more than $30,000 in campaign funds during a single fiscal quarter in 2021 on limousine rides, luxury restaurants, hotels, and alcohol delivery, including nearly $4,400 at two California wineries.
For context, Sen. Ruben Gallego, the next-highest Drizly spender the Post identified among elected officials, recorded 14 campaign charges with the alcohol delivery service worth $814 from 2022 to 2024. Swalwell's total dwarfed every comparable political account.
Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson told the Post that the volume of alcohol purchases raised serious questions. She said it was "absolutely fair" to scrutinize the spending:
"In this case, the sheer number of alcohol purchases can raise some questions about whether the campaign funds were being used for a proper purpose. Somebody should sort out whether these purchases fall within election laws."
Levinson drew a sharp line between personal spending and donor-funded campaigns:
"We're not talking about somebody spending their own money. We're talking about somebody spending donors' money."
Alex Evans, Swalwell's former chief of staff, offered a blunt assessment. Evans told the California Post that the spending "might not be the best use of donor money", then went further.
"He knew exactly what he was doing. He created a bodyguard of lies to protect himself and allow this behavior to continue."
Evans added: "He's one of the world's greatest liars ever." That's not an opposition researcher or a Republican rival talking. That's the man who ran Swalwell's congressional office.
The spending questions come on top of separate filings showing Swalwell paid himself almost $219,000 in campaign funds for childcare, security, and other expenses since 2021. A new filing on Friday listed Swalwell as his own congressional campaign's treasurer. And separate Post reporting found that Swalwell spent more than $75,000 from his defunct congressional campaign in the first quarter of 2026, after dropping his re-election bid, on hotels, meals, rideshares, airfare, and childcare. Under campaign finance law, money raised for an abandoned bid can only go toward limited uses like winding down office expenses, contributing to other candidates, or donating to charity.
Swalwell's campaign finance habits are now just one thread in a rapidly unraveling political career. The former congressman, who had been the leading Democrat in California's governor's race, suspended his campaign and relinquished his seat in Congress after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced.
Four women who spoke to CNN described a pattern of inappropriate and at times aggressive behavior by Swalwell in settings where alcohol was involved. A former staffer who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle described an encounter in which she said Swalwell made unwanted physical advances after drinking and accused him of sexual assault.
Lonna Drewes, a 50-year-old model, accused Swalwell of rape following what she described as a night involving alcohol. She said she met Swalwell at events where he offered to help her business and later accompanied him to his hotel room, where she believes her drink was drugged. She alleged she became physically incapacitated and that Swalwell raped and choked her until she lost consciousness.
Swalwell has become the focus of investigations by the Department of Justice and district attorneys in New York and Los Angeles. He hired attorney Sara Azari and denied wrongdoing while apologizing to his wife and family for "personal failings."
Azari issued a statement calling the accusations "false, fabricated, and deeply offensive" and describing them as "a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent 20 years in public service." Meanwhile, Democratic leaders have offered little public response to the mounting allegations.
Prior Post reporting described Swalwell spending half a million dollars on hotels during his time in Congress. Separate allegations have surfaced about his use of campaign funds to pay a nanny, claims that, if true, would represent yet another category of potential misuse of donor money.
The alcohol delivery charges alone tell a damning story in raw numbers: more than 100 Drizly orders, then more than 220 Uber Eats charges. Roughly $6,100 in one Las Vegas stretch. Nearly $19,000 on Uber Eats after the booze app shut down. Almost $219,000 paid to himself. And all of it drawn from the wallets of donors who thought they were funding a congressman's campaign.
Swalwell has also been entangled in other legal disputes, including a lawsuit he quietly dropped against FHFA Director Pulte over a mortgage fraud referral, another episode that raised more questions than it answered about the former congressman's financial conduct.
Key gaps remain. The Uber Eats charges don't detail whether the purchases were for food, alcohol, or both. The specific filing dates and report periods behind some of the cited disclosures are unclear. And no public accounting has explained how $219,000 in self-payments for childcare, security, and "other expenses" squares with federal campaign finance rules.
Donors gave their money to elect a congressman. What they got instead was a man who, by his own former chief of staff's account, built a wall of deception to keep the tab running. That's not a campaign. That's a racket with a filing deadline.