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We've asked Democrats seeking a congressional seat in our area where they stand on supporting President Biden's re-election bid.
In the 10th Congressional District, which includes Manassas, Manassas Park, and western Prince William County, Suhas Subramanyam gave his full-throated support to the president.
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By Sarah Roderick-Fitch
(The Center Square) – If there were any doubts that Virginia is returning to its status as a key battleground state in the upcoming presidential elections, visits by First Lady Jill Biden and former President Donald Trump would indicate confirmation.
Biden is scheduled to greet campaign volunteers in Virginia Beach on Thursday, hours before the president and former president will square off in their first presidential debate. Trump on Friday comes from Atlanta to a 3 p.m. rally in Chesapeake.
In January, the president and Vice President Kamala Harris essentially chose Virginia to kick off their bid for reelection by holding a joint event in Manassas with a focus on abortion.
In recent weeks, Trump has signaled Virginia is very much in play between visits and new campaign investments.
The most significant piece of evidence is that the Trump campaign is zeroing in on the commonwealth with plans to open 11 field offices, as reported by CBS News.
Earlier in the month, Trump met with Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin during a closed-door meeting at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling to strategize how to win in the commonwealth. At the time, Youngkin told ABC 13 News Now that the commonwealth appears “competitive” in the presidential race.
“There’s a lot of interest in how this election is going to go,” Youngkin said. “So our political teams have been coordinating on how best to do that and we had to sit down and talk about it and we talked about Virginia and, and how I was able to win my election in 2021. And the lessons learned.”
Youngkin is expected to appear with Trump at the Friday rally. The governor did not attend a March rally by the Trump campaign in Richmond.
A May poll by Roanoke College shows Trump and Biden are neck-and-neck in the commonwealth, despite Biden beating Trump by over 10% in the 2020 election and Hillary Clinton handily winning Virginia in 2016.
The commonwealth has not gone for a GOP presidential candidate in 20 years, when former President George W. Bush was up for reelection.
Updated June 27: The Fox News Channel will broadcast live from the Juke Box Diner in Manassas on Friday, June 28, 2024, at 6 a.m. 5 o'clock in the morning Gov. Glenn Youngkin will join the broadcast, according to the Manassas GOP.
President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Chesapeake, about 200 miles away, at 3 p.m. on the same day. Youngkin, a potential vice presidential candidate, is expected to join Trump at the rally.
Last year, on July 5, 2024, Youngkin appeared on Fox and Friends at the same diner. During his appearance, he discussed education and hiring more police officers. In an interview with Potomac Local News, Youngkin emphasized the need for departments to support their officers, highlighting a partnership with Petersburg that has reduced police vacancies.
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By Bethany Blankley
(The Center Square) – A group of 21 Republican U.S. senators, led by Sen. Ted Budd, R-NC, is demanding answers from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about federal agents releasing illegal border crossers into the U.S. who weren’t properly vetted and were later discovered to have alleged terrorist connections.
They sent a letter to Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray after the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman and a retired CIA director raised warnings about potential terrorist attacks happening on U.S. soil before the end of the year, The Center Square reported.
“President Biden is derelict in his duty to protect and defend our country,” Budd said. “These incidents highlight the extreme national security risks posed by the open southern border. We need to expose what happened here, and make sure it never happens again. We need to secure the border and stop the chaos.”
The senators express alarm after eight Tajikistan nationals with alleged terrorist ties to ISIS illegally entered the U.S. and were released by Border Patrol agents or used the CBP One app through the president’s and Mayorkas’ “lawful pathways” program to enter the U.S. instead of being vetted, arrested on the spot and prevented entry.
“We are deeply concerned by reports that a wiretap shows that one of the now-arrested individuals was talking about bombs and that the target of the wiretap was previously released by federal authorities at the southern border with a court date of next year,” they said. They are referring to Border Patrol agents releasing inadmissible illegal foreign nationals into the country by giving them “notice to appear” documents to appear before an immigration judge several years into the future, The Center Square has reported.
Because the alleged terrorists weren’t properly vetted, as is a consistent problem identified by the Office of Inspector General, it was only after they were released that the FBI expressed alarm and they were found and arrested, CBS News reported. The OIG has also found that CBP agents were releasing known and suspected terrorists into the country because of “ineffective practices and processes.”
Their arrests were made after Wray in April testified before Congress that Islamic terrorist and other national security threats were coming through the border. He referred to an “increasingly concerning … potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall,” referring to ISIS-Khorasan, ISIS’s Afghan affiliate. In March, he also testified that ISIS-connected smuggling organizations were coming through the border and the FBI was investigating.
The senators point to “multiple recent releases of aliens on the terrorist watchlist into the United States,” including from Afghanistan, Jordan, Somalia, Uzbekistan and others.
They cite an example of an Afghan national and suspected member of the terrorist group Hezb-e-Islami (HIG) who illegally entered the U.S. in California and was arrested on March 10, 2023. Instead of being processed for removal, he was enrolled in an Alternatives to Detention monitoring program for two weeks and then “allowed to roam free in the U.S. for ten months, unmonitored, until ICE agents arrested him again due to potential terrorist ties,” the senators said.
Another example is of a Somali national on the FBI Terrorist Watchlist as “a confirmed member” of the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, who illegally entered the U.S. in California in March 2023. Instead of being processed for removal, he was released into the country. Nearly one year later, he was arrested in Minnesota for his alleged involvement in the use, manufacture or transportation of explosives or firearms, they said.
Another is an Uzbekistan national with alleged ties to ISIS who illegally entered the U.S. in Arizona in February 2022. He was arrested by Border Patrol agents and instead of being processed for removal, he also was released into the U.S. In May 2023, the Uzbekistan government issued an international notice that he was wanted for his ties to ISIS, “which U.S. officials failed to discover until March of this year,” the senators note.
They also point to two Jordanians “posing as Amazon subcontractors attempted to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico” last month as examples of DHS failures. One had overstayed his student visa by roughly 18 months; the other illegally entered the U.S. in California in April. Instead of being detained and processed for removal, he was released on his own recognizance to appear before an immigration judge. One of the men was on the Terrorist Watch List.
These are in addition to the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) illegally entering the U.S. in the last nearly three fiscal years, according to CBP data. In fiscal 2024 through June 20, 316 KSTs have been apprehended, with the majority, 199, at the northern border, according to CBP data.
The greatest number of KSTs to ever be apprehended in U.S. history was in fiscal 2023 of 736; with the majority, 487, apprehended at the northern border, including an Iranian with terrorist ties, The Center Square first reported.
The senators asked DHS to respond to questions about the names and identities of arrested KSTs, where they illegally entered the U.S., if they claimed asylum, what the vetting process was, if they were connected to ISIS or other terrorist organizations, among other questions.
DHS was given a deadline of Tuesday to provide the requested information.
Republican Derrick Anderson emerged as the winner of the June 18, 2024, Republican Primary for Virignia’s 7th Congressional District.
The district includes eastern Prince William County, Stafford, and Spostylvania counties, and Fredericksburg.
Anderson secured 16,203 votes, accounting for 45.25% of the total votes cast. He will face Democrat Eugene Vindman in the upcoming November 2024 General Election.
The primary race saw Anderson leading comfortably among his competitors. His closest rival, Cameron Hamilton, garnered 13,333 votes, representing 37.23% of the electorate, which was not enough to close the gap with Anderson. Jon Myers came in third with 4,585 votes, capturing 12.80% of the total vote. The remaining candidates, John Prabhudoss, Maria Martin, and Terris Todd, received significantly fewer votes, with each securing less than 3% of the total.
Our country is the weakest it has been since the event that drove me to run for Congress: the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan. I lost five of my guys, including Green Berets, in Afghanistan, and I was disgusted by the weakness portrayed by the United States during the chaotic withdrawal that saw 20 years of progress and sacrifice wasted in the blink of an eye,” Andesron said in his election night speech on June 18. “We will secure our border to make sure our communities are safe again, our nation is secure, and to guarantee that those who immigrated here legally still have access to the American dream they came here for. We will make living more affordable. It’s time Washington be reminded that their policies are impacting each of us more than they try to understand, and it starts right in our pocket books, wallets, and at our kitchen tables. That ends today.”
Anderson made a bid for the nomination in 2022, but lost to Yesli Vega.Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) has held the the 7th District congressional seat since 2018. She’s not seeking re-election to Congress but is running for Virginia Governor in 2025.
Pivoting to the General Election, Anderson tells us he’ll be knocking doors in Prince William County tomorrow, June 22, 2024.
Vindman, of Dale City, ran a campaign solely to oppose Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President. He and his twin brother Alexander Vindman were key figures in Trump’s first impeachment in 2020.
Vindman cruised to victory over a sea of Democrat candidates vying for the nomination, winning nearly 50% of the vote in the district. He out raised them, too, raking in more than $5 million, mainly from out-of-state liberal donors who oppose Trump.
Vindman, of Dale City, ran a campaign solely to oppose Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President. He and his twin brother Alexander Vindman were key figures in Trump's first impeachment in 2020.
“The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher; the passion behind my campaign comes from voters wanting integrity, moderation, and professionalism in a government that works for them; and our grass-roots movement is coming for the extreme MAGA agenda," Vindman wrote in a prepared statement sent to the press after declaring victory about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 18.
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The Independent: "A law firm representing the Vindman campaign then contacted The Independent threatening litigation. The letter insisted that Vindman “is a Colonel and correctly identifies himself as such” and that “Pursuant to Army Custom and Regulation 25-50, the proper mode to address Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels is Colonel.” The letter also claimed that reporting Bedell’s statement would be defamatory.
The attorney for Vindman further stated that he “does not dispute that he retired at the grade of O5 [Lieutenant Colonel]. However, his pay grade at retirement has no impact on either pay or entitlements and on whether he is in fact a retired Colonel.”
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(The Center Square) – Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office issued an announcement Wednesday morning that as of next year, Virginia will no longer follow California’s electric vehicle mandates.
“Once again, Virginia is declaring independence – this time from a misguided electric vehicle mandate imposed by unelected leaders nearly 3,000 miles away from the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a statement.
Though Youngkin has fought green energy mandates established by the prior administration – most notably, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – the announcement comes as a surprise, as it was believed that the decision was in the hands of the General Assembly.
Youngkin encouraged state lawmakers at the start of this year’s legislative session to repeal the 2021 law tying Virginia’s vehicle emissions policies to California’s, but the bill never made it out of committee due to the Assembly’s Democratic majority.
But state Attorney General Jason Miyares has issued what is sure to be a highly contested official opinion “confirm[ing] that Virginia is not required to comply with expansive new mandates adopted by the unelected California Air Resources Board (CARB) set to take effect January 1, 2025.”
The governor held a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, proudly declaring Virginia’s emancipation from California policy.
“I have the privilege of announcing once and for all the California electric vehicle mandate in Virginia. The idea that governments should be telling Virginians what kind of car they must drive is just simply wrong,” Youngkin said.
Federal law limits state autonomy regarding vehicle emissions: States must adhere to federal vehicle emissions standards, or they can choose to adopt California’s more stringent standards.
In 2021, under a Democratic governor and a Democratic majority in the General Assembly, Virginia passed several bills that dramatically changed the state’s energy and environmental landscape. One was the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which committed to transitioning Virginia’s electric grid entirely to green energy by 2050, and another hitched Virginia’s electric vehicle policies to California’s.
California requires 100% of new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035 and can fine automakers that fail to comply.
Republicans have bucked against the mandates since they came to Virginia but have been unable to reverse them through the legislative process. But Miyares seems confident that he has found a legal loophole.
In 2012, California adopted its Advanced Clean Car Program I, regulating vehicle emissions standards from 2015 to 2025. In 2022, California adopted the Advanced Clean Cars II.
“Virginia’s air pollution control board has never approved, never adopted these ACCII (Advanced Clean Car Program II) regulations and because there was an explicit sunset provision placed on ACCI, it expires on December 31 of this year,” Miyares said.
Miyares also pointed to “permissive” language in the Virginia law referring to the first program, ACCI, which allowed the commonwealth to abandon California’s clean cars policies in 2025.
“I can reach no other conclusion as the attorney general of Virginia that the provisions tying us to California ACCII are no longer operable and yes, Virginians, yet again, have consumer freedom,” Miyares said.
Republicans are voicing their support for the move, grateful the commonwealth’s environmental policies will no longer be tied to California’s.
“Virginians, not unelected bureaucrats in California, should be able to choose the cars that fit their families needs,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Michael McDougle posted on X.
“Outstanding!! This had to be one of the most ridiculous policy decisions forced on Virginians when the Democrats took complete control of government in 2020/2021,” Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, posted on X.
Virginia Democrats have yet to issue an official response to the news.
