There are two truths about presidential candidates.  

One: There is no such thing as a perfect candidate. 

Two: It is very difficult to convince party elites that there are no perfect candidates. 

President Donald Trump’s second first 100 days are now behind him, and the Democrats are still struggling to recover after the trauma of the 2024 election. As former President Joe Biden focuses on treatment for his cancer diagnosis, fresh questions about the chronology of Biden’s decline in mental and physical health have further wafted Kamala Harris’ hopes of a second presidential or California gubernatorial bid off the political radar and out to sea. 

The Democrats have made it no secret they are in a desperate quest for the proper frontrunner/savior who can patch the torn fabric of their political and policy agenda, show enough leadership chops to unite both the Democratic Party and the country, and then go on to win back the White House in 2028.  

Former President Bill Clinton used to say of his own complicated story, ‘If you want a perfect candidate, vote for somebody else.’ Yet back in 1992, despite myriad personal dramas, Clinton possessed many elements of the classic successful contender of that era: young but seasoned, a governor from a Southern state, folksy in style but gilded academically (Georgetown and Yale), respected for his brilliance within the party but able to relate to a broad swath of the voting public.  

As always, at this stage of the cycle, the names of dozens of potential contenders from the out-party are being tossed about with the typical fervid combo of optimism, conviction, delusion and brio. But no potential candidate has yet broken out as an obvious frontrunner, let alone a great political athlete or generational talent such as Clinton or President Barack Obama. 

That is not to say that the Democratic field does not include highly intelligent, highly accomplished and highly skilled women and men. The potential contenders are an extraordinary bunch of American leaders. But none has all the necessary elements to take on the current White House or make a clear bid to win it all. 

Clinton, always good for a pithy remark, also has noted, ‘you can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.’ 

In 2028, if one could take a page from Dr. Frankenstein and turn that pig into an eagle, which attributes would the Democrats choose for their perfect model?  

Let’s start with Pete Buttigieg, the former Transportation Secretary under Biden and before that, the wunderkind ‘Mayor Pete’ of South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg, like Trump, has what one might call a ‘go-on-anything confidence.’ Pete can appear on any television network, any podcast, any stage (from vast stadiums to slatted apple crates), in any state in America, and feel comfortable and poised with his audience. That trait is an essential component for 2028.  

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, whose good looks and stylish mien often are cited more as a disadvantage than an attribute, has a profound understanding of what is modern and urgent for today’s electorate. Newsom thinks tirelessly about America’s future, and what is important to the young and the old, growing families and hard-working tradespeople, and everyone in between. 

Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, the popular governor of a swing state, understands how to connect with voters in a battleground arena by focusing on economic concerns and remaining on the right side of cultural issues despite party pressure. 

Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, White House chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, and former ambassador to Japan, brings not just his famous rough-and-tumble uncompromising bravado, but an ability to raise massive amounts of cash. His fundraising power comes from the business community, where he made millions; from Hollywood, where his brother, Ari Emanuel remains an uber mover and shaker; and from decades of fundraising amidst America’s wealthiest Democratic communities. 

Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, has a fierce determination and inner energy that will allow her to set goals and follow through with conviction. This is an essential combo required to win a modern political contest. 

Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, has shown he can twist the old adage of former New York pol Mario Cuomo, who spoke of campaigning in poetry and governing in prose. Shapiro, on the other hand, is able to merge poetry and prose in his governance, achieving solid substantive goals while creating an atmosphere of aspiration and inspiration for his constituents. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswoman from New York, has the ‘It Factor.’ Bright, charismatic, and always interesting, she commands attention whenever she speaks. (Or tweets, or comments, or posts, or poses). 

Gina Raimondo, Biden’s Commerce secretary and former governor of Rhode Island, is well-known, well-liked, and well-respected in the business community, which offsets a huge imbalance on the Republican side. A pro-business Democrat, Raimondo can speak the language of the business world, get its political support and earn its trust. 

Ro Khanna, congressman from California, understands policy and how to connect it to the real lives of real people. Khanna is a stand-out in the Democratic Party who can envision viable policy ideas and can explain his plans plainly to the American people. 

Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, has a powerful origin story and biography. After overcoming some early challenges, Moore thrived academically, served in the military, worked on Wall Street, authored several books, ran a leading nonprofit, and dedicated his life to service. He has shown a capacity to link lessons learned from his life experience to his policy goals.  

Meanwhile, over on the Republican side, the GOP already has their frontrunner. And with JD Vance, there currently is no assembly required.  

With just a few months as vice president under his (Rust) belt, Vance already has proven to be perhaps the most powerful and effectual vice president in history — yes, even including Dick Cheney, Al Gore and LBJ. Not only has Vance brilliantly managed to remain this close to the mercurial Trump without once stepping on his presidential toes, but he has forged solid bonds with fellow politicos (even those who initially looked askance when Vance was tapped for the ticket). 

He has built up an impressive, appropriate and exceedingly visible administrative portfolio and networked productively with the most powerful GOP grassroots activists and fundraising leaders around the country. 

Simultaneously, he trotted out and shielded his attractive young family; and offered a friendly hand and flash of coattails to those peers with presidential aspirations of their own, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.   

Clinton, always good for a pithy remark, also has noted, ‘you can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.’ 

Vance has an additional, and unique, advantage. Most vice presidents who are champing to step into the top spot only get the chance after slogging through eight long years as a second banana, and must fight for the job just as the country has grown weary of the current administration and are longing for a new dynamic. Some, such as George H. W. Bush, can slide into office riding the departing fumes of their popular boss, while others, such as Al Gore, fumble to seal the deal. 

Vance will be able to run as a sitting vice president after serving just one term, still relevant, still modern, but with a souped-up resume and sleek gravitas. 

That is a feature Doctor Victor Frankenstein couldn’t envision in his wildest dreams. 

And of all the current asymmetrical advantages on the Republican side, this is, by far, the most imposing. 

As a famous scientist once said, ‘It’s alive!’ 

The chairman of the House Budget Committee is pushing back on Elon Musk’s claim that President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is full of ‘pork.’

Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital it was not possible for ‘pork barrel spending’ to be included in the legislation, called a budget reconciliation bill, because the reconciliation process was simply not the mechanism for such federal funds.

‘Reconciliation does not have anything to do with discretionary spending – earmarks, and all of that,’ Arrington said. ‘And quite frankly, the [Department of Government Efficiency] findings were, I think, almost entirely an issue for . . . annual appropriations.’

‘Discretionary spending’ refers to the annual dollars allocated by Congress each year through the appropriations process – also known as ‘spending bills.’ 

It’s a process that’s historically known to be rife with ‘pork barrel spending’ from both Republicans and Democrats – funding for pet projects or other specific initiatives benefiting a certain member of Congress’ district.

But reconciliation deals with the government’s ‘mandatory spending’ – largely government welfare programs that can only be amended by changing the law.

‘We’re dealing with mandatory spending programs – entitlements, health care, welfare and the tax code,’ Arrington said. 

‘We did a responsible bill. There’s no pork in it. The question, I think, for some folks and the objective of mine and my budget committee members was, whatever we’re doing on tax or security to unleash growth and to buy greater security for the American people, we wanted it to be done in a fiscally responsible way.’

Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller echoed that sentiment on X: ‘The reconciliation bill cuts taxes, seals the border and reforms welfare. It is not a spending bill. There is no ‘pork.’ It is the campaign agenda codified.’

The vast majority of the trillions of dollars in the bill are aimed at Trump’s tax policies – extending his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) while implementing new priorities like eliminating taxes on tips and overtime wages.

There’s also $4 trillion in House Republicans’ versions of the bill aimed at raising the debt limit.

The legislation is also aimed at amending current laws to enable new funding for border security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – projected to boost those priorities by billions of dollars.

To offset those costs, House GOP leaders are seeking stricter work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps, while shifting more of the cost burden for both programs to the states.

Republicans are also looking to roll back green energy tax subsidies in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

But Musk and other fiscal hawks’ main concern has been that the legislation does not go far enough with those spending cuts.

They’ve also raised concerns about the overall bill adding to the national debt – which is currently nearing $37 trillion.

As part of his social media campaign against the bill, Musk called for both eliminating the tax cuts and removing the debt limit increase from the final legislation.

Musk reposted another X user who wrote, ‘Drop the tax cuts, cut some pork, get the bill through.’

He’s also shown support on X for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and his call to strip the debt limit provision out of the bill.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that the bill would cut taxes by $3.7 trillion while raising deficits by $2.4 trillion over a decade.

Claims that President Donald Trump dropped his well-regarded NASA nominee over Democratic donations don’t hold up, given his track record of appointing officials from across the political spectrum.

‘Trump Is Said to Have Known About NASA Nominee’s Donations Before Picking Him,’ read the latest headline from the New York Times about the president’s decision to pull Jared Isaacman’s nomination – as the firestorm continues over the spacewalking billionaire’s close ally Elon Musk’s coinciding break with the president.

Trump had known about many of his circle’s Democratic ties before Isaacson came on the scene, including his own history.

Until the Obama administration, Trump reliably donated to Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, then-Rep. Anthony Weiner, Hillary Clinton – all of New York – Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, and then-Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Since then, however, Trump has taken an adversarial tack toward Obama and Democrats associated with him, including Hillary Clinton – though he still reserves kind words for former President Bill Clinton.

While many of Trump’s cabinet picks are former congressional Republicans, like Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins of Georgia and Secretary of State Marco Rubio of Florida, many also hail from the left or are known to donate to leftist causes.

Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is the most notable example, given his surname and namesake.

Kennedy, whose father was a New York senator, attorney general and a 1968 presidential candidate until his assassination, was a noted Democrat invested in environmentalism and other liberal causes.

His sister, Kerry, was first lady of New York during her marriage to Andrew Cuomo, while another sister, Kathleen, was lieutenant governor of Maryland under Gov. Parris Glendening – and his uncles, John and Edward, were two of the most famous Democrats in U.S. history.

But Kennedy and his supporters forged a political bond with Trump and propelled him into the presidency, finding common ground on vaccine risk awareness, dangerous aspects of America’s food processing and transparency of government officials, particularly in the health care sector.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who later left her party after repeated barbs from its thought-leaders like Clinton – who accused her of being a Kremlin asset.

And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remains in office and has been widely praised by fiscal conservatives for his decisions so far, while also having a history of Democratic donations.

Bessent donated to Obama, Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, and was also head of Soros Fund Management’s United Kingdom office in the early 1990s. The company, led by George Soros and his son Alex, is often considered the most powerful financial force on the far left.

Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick – one of the lead negotiators of Trump’s tariff and trade agenda – was also a Democratic donor while head of the financial firm Cantor-Fitzgerald.

Lutnick’s donations have trended toward the GOP in recent years, and he has maintained a longtime friendship with Trump. On the Democratic side of the ledger, Lutnick historically supported the late Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, as well as Schumer and Clinton.

Lutnick has preferred pro-business and anti-regulation candidates and issues moreso than coming from a purely political point of view.

Isaacman, a New Jersey billionaire credited as the first private citizen to spacewalk, saw his May 31 nomination pulled this week after what Trump called ‘a thorough review of his prior associations,’ which many, including in the media, believed referenced his history of Democratic donations.

Isaacman has donated to fellow Garden State-born astronaut Mark Kelly – now the senior Democratic senator in Arizona – as well as former Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., D-Pa., and a SuperPAC aligned with Schumer.

He also supported Rep. George Whitesides, D-Calif., a former NASA chief of staff and congressional freshman who upset a GOP-held swing district north of Los Angeles in 2024. 

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said a thorough review of spending from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is warranted, following the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the agency.  

USAID was an independent agency to provide impoverished countries aid and offer development assistance, but the agency was upended since February when President Donald Trump installed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to oversee the organization amid concerns that USAID did not advance U.S. core interests. Since then, the agency has faced layoffs and is being absorbed into the State Department. 

This increased scrutiny on USAID spending is valid, according to Risch. 

‘The amount of money that we’re spending on that has to be reviewed top to bottom,’ Risch said during an event Wednesday at the Washington-based think tank the Hudson Institute.  

Risch said that several weeks into the Trump administration, he and others, including Rubio, evaluated a list of programs that detailed $3 million in funding for ‘promotion of democracy in Lower Slobovia.’ According to Risch, the description didn’t provide enough information and items like these are totaling up to billions of dollars that must undergo review.

‘Lower Slobovia’ is a fictional place and a term used by Americans to describe an underdeveloped foreign country.

‘We can do so much better, not only in how, how much money we spend, but how we spend it,’ Risch said. ‘So, if you say, well, we’re eliminating this program, be careful you don’t say, ‘Oh, that means we’re walking away from human rights.’ Look, America is human rights. If America leads the way on human rights. We are the world standard on human rights. We have no intention of giving that position up.’

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeted USAID in its push to eliminate wasteful spending. The agency came under fire for many funding choices, including allocating $1.5 million for a program that sought to ‘advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities’ and a $70,000 program for a ‘DEI musical’ in Ireland.

As a result, Rubio announced on March 11 that the State Department completed a six-week review and would cancel more than 80% of USAID programs — cutting roughly 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs.

Fox News Digital was the first to report later in March that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. 

The move means eliminating thousands of staff members in an attempt to enhance the existing, ‘life-saving’ foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo that Fox News Digital obtained.

‘Foreign assistance done right can advance our national interests, protect our borders, and strengthen our partnerships with key allies,’ Rubio said in a March statement to Fox News Digital. ‘Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high.’ 

‘We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,’ Rubio said. ‘We are continuing essential lifesaving programs and making strategic investments that strengthen our partners and our own country.’

Meanwhile, Democrats slammed the restructuring of the agency, labeling the move ‘illegal.’ 

‘Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s destruction and dismantling of USAID is not only disastrous foreign policy and counter to our national security interests; it is plainly illegal,’ the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said in a statement in March. ‘Congress wrote a law establishing USAID as an independent agency with its own appropriation, and only Congress can eliminate it.’ 

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk may speak to White House aides Friday in an effort to calm his ongoing feud with President Donald Trump, Fox News has learned.

Musk and Trump have been arguing over social media in recent days. The blowup came after Musk started ‘wearing thin’ on Trump for about a month, Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy reported Friday.

White House aides told Doocy they are not expecting Trump and Musk to speak to each other today, but that Trump administration staffers might try to talk to Musk. 

‘No call scheduled or had. Musk wants a call. POTUS hasn’t made a decision,’ a source familiar with the matter also told Fox News regarding a possible conversation between Trump and Musk.

Doocy also reported that a red Tesla vehicle that Trump bought during a Tesla demonstration on the South Lawn of the White House grounds earlier this year is now expected to be given away or sold off. 

The vehicle with Florida tags, as of Friday, remains parked near the White House on West Executive Drive.

Musk made allegations Thursday that Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein file.

‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,’ Musk wrote on X. ‘That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!’

Musk followed the post with another, saying, ‘Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.’

‘This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful BIll because it does not include the policies he wanted,’ White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. ‘The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.’

On Truth Social, Trump wrote Thursday that ‘Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!’

‘The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!’ Trump also said.

The feud between Musk and Trump rapidly escalated this week when Musk called the Trump-endorsed ‘big, beautiful bill’ a ‘disgusting abomination.’

Musk, who has been openly critical of the proposed reconciliation bill, said Tuesday afternoon that he ‘just can’t stand it anymore.’

‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,’ Musk added in a Tuesday afternoon post on X. ‘Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’

Fox News’ Peter Doocy, Lucas Tomlinson, Greg Wehner and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.