International
Former Clinton adviser calls for investigation of ABC debate between Trump, Harris
From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
Mark Penn, chairman of the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll, believes there is a likely chance that ABC colluded with the Harris campaign.
A former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton is calling for an investigation into the recently concluded presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
During an appearance on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, Mark Penn said he believes there is a likely chance that ABC colluded with the Harris campaign.
Describing the debate as a “staged wrestling match,” Penn commented that he thinks ABC “should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don’t know how much of this was planned in advance.”
Penn, chairman of the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll, previously worked at Microsoft and founded a prominent polling firm that has helped many high-profile public officials, including former president Bill Clinton. In recent years, he has grown close to Trump, even advising him on his impeachment in 2019.
Penn remarked on X that the “referees” of the debate were unfair and that had the moderators overseen the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden, Biden might still be in the race, as they were clearly in favor of Harris.
There can be no fair game or debate no matter what the score when the referees put their fingers on the scale.
What ABC did in poorly fact checking one side while letting the other side repeat serial falsehoods meant that one side had to do its own defense.
It robs all sides…
— Mark Penn (@Mark_Penn) September 11, 2024
He further told Solomon that the “suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that.”
Since the debate, the Trump campaign has pointed out that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis repeatedly “fact-checked” Trump but did not do so even one time with Harris. Some have also noted that Davis belongs to the same sorority as Harris and that the failure to disclose that detail was unprofessional in the least, if not a blatant conflict of interests.
Debate conflict of interest with ABC moderator Linsey Davis CONFIRMED. She is a sorority sister of Kamala Harris, and even confirmed it on a live broadcast 3 1/2 years ago. pic.twitter.com/eoJihVpZp1
— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) September 12, 2024
While Trump and his surrogates have claimed victory in the debate, not all conservatives agree with that assessment. Former Congressman Trey Gowdy told Fox News that Trump should fire the people who prepared him for the debate, which he called the “land of missed opportunities.” Fox pundit Brit Hume likewise said Trump had a “bad night” getting baited repeatedly by Harris.
Polls seem to suggest that Harris has gained several points in the last 72 hours, with betting markets now being less optimistic about a Trump victory in November. At the same time, forecaster Nate Silver gives Trump at a 60% chance of winning the Electoral College.
Unconfirmed reports on social media suggested that a possible ABC “whistleblower” may be on the verge of coming forward with evidence that the outlet fed Harris the questions ahead of time. LifeSite has found no reliable evidence of that being true as of the publication of this story. What LifeSite can confirm is that in 2016, former Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile leaked questions to the Clinton campaign that were going to be asked at a CNN town hall.
Trump recently announced that he will not participate in another debate before this year’s elections on Tuesday, November 5. Democrats currently hold a narrow edge in the U.S. Senate with 47 members plus four independents who caucus with them for a total of 51 in comparison to 49 Republicans. The House of Representatives is run Republicans, who have 220 members to 211 Democrats.
Business
How convenient: Minnesota day care reports break-in, records gone
A Minneapolis day care run by Somali immigrants is claiming that a mysterious break-in wiped out its most sensitive records, even as police say officers were never told that anything was actually stolen — a discrepancy that’s drawing sharp attention amid Minnesota’s spiraling child care fraud scandal.
According to the center’s manager, Nasrulah Mohamed, someone forced their way into Nakomis Day Care Center earlier this week by entering through a rear kitchen area, damaging a wall and accessing the office. Mohamed told reporters the intruder made off with “important documentation,” including children’s enrollment records, employee files, and checkbooks tied to the facility’s operations.
But a preliminary report from the Minneapolis Police Department tells a different story. Police say no loss was reported to officers at the time of the call. While the department confirmed the center later contacted police with additional information, an updated report was not immediately available.
Video released by the day care purporting to show damage from the incident depicts a hole punched through drywall inside what appears to be a utility closet, with stacks of cinder blocks visible just behind the wall — imagery that has only fueled skepticism as investigators continue to unravel what authorities have described as one of the largest fraud schemes ever tied to Minnesota’s human services programs.
Mohamed blamed the alleged break-in on fallout from a viral investigation by YouTuber Nick Shirley, who recently toured nearly a dozen Minnesota day care sites while questioning whether they were legitimately operating. Shirley’s video has racked up more than 110 million views. Mohamed insisted the coverage unfairly targeted Somali operators and said his center has since received what he described as hateful and threatening messages.
A manager at the Nokomis Daycare Center in Minneapolis detailed "extensive vandalism" at the facility during a Wednesday news conference.
Manager Nasrulah Mohamed reported that the suspect stole important employee and client documents, an incident he attributed to YouTuber Nick… pic.twitter.com/71nNTSXdTT
— FOX 9 (@FOX9) December 31, 2025
“This is devastating news, and we don’t know why this is targeting our Somali community,” Mohamed said, calling Shirley’s reporting false. Nakomis Day Care Center was not among the facilities featured in the video.
The break-in claim surfaced as law enforcement and federal officials continue to expose a massive fraud network centered in Minneapolis, involving food assistance, housing, and child care payments. Authorities say at least $1 billion has already been identified as fraudulent, with federal prosecutors warning the total could climb as high as $9 billion. Ninety-two people have been charged so far, 80 of them Somali immigrants.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was freezing all federal child care payments to Minnesota unless the state can prove the funds are being used lawfully. The payments totaled roughly $185 million in 2025 alone.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, under intensifying scrutiny for allowing fraud to metastasize for years, responded by attacking the Trump administration rather than addressing the substance of the findings. “This is Trump’s long game,” Walz wrote on X Tuesday night, claiming the administration was politicizing fraud enforcement to defund programs — despite federal officials pointing to documented abuse and ongoing criminal cases.
Meanwhile, questions continue to swirl around facilities already flagged by investigators. Reporters visiting several sites highlighted in Shirley’s video found at least one — Quality “Learing” Center — operating with children inside despite state officials previously saying it had been shut down. The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families later issued a confusing clarification, saying the center initially reported it would close but later claimed it would remain open.
As Minnesota scrambles to respond to the funding freeze and mounting arrests, the conflicting accounts surrounding the Nakomis Day Care incident underscore a broader problem confronting state leaders: a system so riddled with gaps and contradictions that even basic facts — like whether records were actually stolen — are now in dispute, while taxpayers are left holding the bill.
International
Trump confirms first American land strike against Venezuelan narco networks
President Trump confirmed Friday that U.S. forces have carried out what he described as the first American land strike on a Venezuelan smuggling facility, marking a significant escalation in his administration’s campaign against narco-terror networks tied to the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The disclosure came unexpectedly during a live radio broadcast on New York’s WABC Radio, when billionaire businessman and guest host John Catsimatidis told listeners his phone was ringing mid-segment — and that the caller was the president. Catsimatidis, who was filling in on Sid and Friends in the Morning, said he had been exchanging text messages with Trump the night before about U.S. military action against Islamic State targets in northern Nigeria. Trump, he said, decided to call in unannounced to discuss a range of global security issues, including maritime drug interdictions in the Caribbean and Pacific.
During that conversation, Trump revealed that U.S. forces had already struck a key Venezuelan smuggling hub on land. “I don’t know if you read it or saw it — they have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” Trump said on air. “Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”
The president did not identify the location of the facility or detail how the operation was carried out. Still, the comment appeared to confirm what Trump had been signaling publicly for weeks — that his crackdown on Venezuelan narco-terror operations would soon move beyond sea interdictions. Trump ordered U.S. forces to begin targeting drug-running boats in September and has repeatedly warned that land-based operations were coming.
In a Thanksgiving Day call with U.S. military personnel, Trump said efforts to stop Venezuelan traffickers “by land” would begin “very soon,” adding that “the land is easier.” He reiterated that message on December 11, telling reporters at the White House that land operations were imminent. If the timeline Trump laid out Friday is accurate, the strike took place less than two weeks after those remarks.
The left-leaning New York Times later reported that unnamed officials had confirmed the strike occurred but declined to provide specifics. According to the paper, U.S. officials would not disclose where the site was located, how it was targeted, or what precise role it played in drug trafficking, and there has been no public acknowledgment from Maduro’s government or other regional authorities.
Even with those details still under wraps, Trump’s remarks represent the clearest confirmation yet that U.S. military action against Venezuelan smuggling networks has expanded onto sovereign territory — a move that underscores how far his administration is willing to go to dismantle drug pipelines tied to hostile regimes in the Western Hemisphere.
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