Sunday, September 20, 2026
peter navarro

Ex Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Found Guilty of Contempt of Congress.

Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress by a Washington, D.C. jury on Thursday, having failed to comply with a partisan subpoena issued by House Democrats as part of their sham investigation of the January 6th protests. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in prison, as well as a maximum fine of $100,000.

“I have been stripped, stripped of virtually every defense by the court and yet there is some defense left and the reality here is the government has not proved his case,” Navarro told the press outside the D.C. federal courthouse prior to the jury reaching a verdict on Thursday.

“Please understand that the Biden-weaponized Department of Justice is the biggest law firm in the world. That’s what I’m fighting against.”

Navarro’s legal team argued that federal prosecutors could not conclusively show that he willfully refused to comply with the congressional subpoena. In his closing remarks Stanley Woodward, Navarro’s attorney, told jurors: “The government provided no evidence about that. Do we know that his failure to comply beyond a reasonable doubt was not the result of inadvertence, accident, or mistake?”

The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was formed in July of 2021 when Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives. Congressional Democrats turned the committee into an elaborate and partisan show-trial against former President Donald Trump – going so far as to hire a ‘producer’ to ensure the committee’s televised hearings had the maximum political impact. The committee was dissolved in January of this year after Republicans assumed control of the House following the 2022 mid-term elections, though GOP representatives have done little to reverse the damage done by former Speaker Pelosi’s partisan operation.

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Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress by a Washington, D.C. jury on Thursday, having failed to comply with a partisan subpoena issued by House Democrats as part of their sham investigation of the January 6th protests. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in prison, as well as a maximum fine of $100,000. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
They didn’t especially target Navarro because of the Jan 6 committee alone
They didn’t especially target Navarro because of the Jan 6 committee alone show more
for exclusive members-only insights
az elections

Court Rules AZ Used Illegal Signature-Verification in Elections.

A state court has ruled that the Arizona Secretary of State used illegal signature-verification methods in the state’s prior two elections. The Superior Court for the County of Yavapai ruled that the Secretary, in permitting signature verification with documents that have no relation to the act of registering, “contradict[ed] the plain language” of the law.

In the decision, Judge John Napper wrote that the Arizona election “statute is clear and unambiguous” while adding, “…the legislature intended for the recorder to attempt to match the signature on the outside of the envelope to the signature on the documents the putative voter used to register.” By not specifically matching ballot signatures with voter registration documents, the Arizona Secretary of State acted in violation of the law.

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), a legal organization founded to defend state election laws, filed a lawsuit in March against the Arizona Secretary of State’s office – challenging it’s authority to ignore the state’s signature verification statute as written. According to RITE the Secretary’s instructions to “use a broader and less reliable universe of comparison signatures” resulted in “…ballots [being] counted despite using a signature that did not match anything in the voter’s registration record.”

Counsel for all parties have been ordered by Judge Napper to appear for a status conference on Sept. 19.

The 2022 elections in Arizona were fraught with accusations of voter fraud and mismanagement by then Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – herself a candidate for governor. Kari Lake, the Republican gubernatorial, argued at the time that many voter signatures were verified by election officials with no observers present. Lake was defeated by Hobbs by less than 20,000 votes. In the Arizona Attorney General race, Republican candidate Abraham Hamadeh was defeated his Democrat opponent by only 280 votes.

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A state court has ruled that the Arizona Secretary of State used illegal signature-verification methods in the state's prior two elections. The Superior Court for the County of Yavapai ruled that the Secretary, in permitting signature verification with documents that have no relation to the act of registering, “contradict[ed] the plain language” of the law. show more
desantis text

RonGPT: DeSantis’s New ‘Secret Strategy’ is Just an AI ChatBot.

Never Back Down, the pro-Ron DeSantis SuperPAC, is launching a massive, $25 million text message campaign over the next two months targeting Republican voters in a desperate effort to catch up with the presidential primary front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Instead of a volunteer or campaign worker, however, voters who receive a text from Never Back Down will be interacting with an AI chat bot.

The shift in Never Back Down’s political messaging strategy is driven in part by fiscal constraints – the SuperPAC has struggled to reach its $230 million fundraising goal – and by the failure of its television and radio ad campaign to sway voters towards Governor DeSantis. Chris Wilson, the SuperPAC’s data director, claims the AI-powered text campaign is more efficient in reaching voters – noting that the text messages alone can reach 70 percent of their voter targets in Iowa.

Large scale text operations can be costly for political campaigns, however. The Federal Communications Commission bars the use of auto-dialers, meaning that each text messages be individually sent by a human operator. Never Back Down has outsourced this task to third-party vendors who typically charge a few cents per message. The SuperPAC’s AI chatbot will handle subsequent text interactions with voters.

The National Pulse previously reported on South Carolina resident Alan Johnson’s encounter with Never Back Down’s AI chatbot – while it was apparently still in testing. When Johnson, a computer programmer, realized that he was conversing with an artificial intelligence and not an actual human, he used a series of prompts to make the chatbot write him a song about former President Barack Obama.

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Never Back Down, the pro-Ron DeSantis SuperPAC, is launching a massive, $25 million text message campaign over the next two months targeting Republican voters in a desperate effort to catch up with the presidential primary front-runner, former President Donald Trump. Instead of a volunteer or campaign worker, however, voters who receive a text from Never Back Down will be interacting with an AI chat bot. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
At this point they’re barely even hiding that they’re just skimming this donor money with get rich quick schemes for Jeff Roe and his buddies’ firms…
At this point they’re barely even hiding that they’re just skimming this donor money with get rich quick schemes for Jeff Roe and his buddies’ firms… show more
for exclusive members-only insights
pence populism

Pence Trashes Populism, Having Been Elected on It in 2016.

Former Vice President Mike Pence denounced populism in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College on Wednesday. Speaking to a modest crowd, Pence warned, “A populist movement is rising in the Republican Party. This growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government, and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage,” before adding, “Should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican party we have long known will cease to exist.”

Pence argued populism and progressivism “…are fellow travelers on the same road to ruin” while accusing former President Trump of abandoning conservative principles in his 2024 bid to retake the White House. In another swipe at Trump, Pence said: “Truth is, the Republican Party did not begin on a golden escalator in 2015.”

The former Vice President, who served in Trump’s presidential administration, has emerged one of the Republican frontrunner’s harshest critics since declaring his own candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Pence has focused his campaign on an aggressive push to restore the Republican Party’s support for pro-globalist policies like free-trade, open-borders, and reckless foreign military interventions.

Newt Gingrich, a former Republican House speaker and Trump ally, questioned Pence’s decision to criticize the populist movement: “Why would you attack populism if you’re trying to be the Republican nominee?… I mean, it’s now the base of the party.” Pence has so far struggled to gain any momentum for his presidential campaign and is yet to consistently poll any higher than single digits.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence denounced populism in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College on Wednesday. Speaking to a modest crowd, Pence warned, "A populist movement is rising in the Republican Party. This growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government, and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage," before adding, "Should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican party we have long known will cease to exist."
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WATCH: Full Tucker Carlson Interview With Obama’s Alleged Gay Crack Lover.

Episode 22 of Tucker Carlson’s X (formerly Twitter) series is now up, with the latest episode featuring an interview with a man called Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had gay sex and crack cocaine with former president Barack Obama.

WATCH:

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Episode 22 of Tucker Carlson's X (formerly Twitter) series is now up, with the latest episode featuring an interview with a man called Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had gay sex and crack cocaine with former president Barack Obama. show more
ron desantis warp speed

FLASHBACK: DeSantis Lauds ‘Warp Speed’, ‘Wishes’ for ‘More Vaccine’.

Ron DeSantis was one of Operation Warp Speed’s biggest fans as recently as 2021, The National Pulse can reveal, as the Florida Governor and his team continue to try to ding Donald Trump over his COVID-19 policies.

“I think in terms of the vaccines and the testing… the logistics was really, really good. If you look at how the vaccine’s been distributed – yeah, granted I wish we got more vaccine every week – but I can tell you what, the vaccine is arriving,” DeSantis told Fox News’s Mark Levin, adding that vaccine distribution was a “…very difficult logistical operation and Warp Speed got it done.”

As a 2024 presidential candidate, the Florida Governor has changed his tune on Operation Warp Speed and the COVID-19 vaccines – attempting to use the pandemic response as a wedge issue against the Republican front runner, Trump. Just days before declaring his 2024 candidacy, DeSantis told the Florida Family Policy Council that, “We can never allow ‘Warp Speed’ to trump informed consent in this country ever again.”

Some DeSantis campaign donors are under the impression that the Florida Governor’s attacks on the COVID-19 vaccine and Operation Warp Speed are merely part of the campaign’s strategy to undermine Donald Trump.

“No one believes he actually believes any of the stuff about the vaccine. If you talk to the non-crazy people he’s got working for him, they don’t believe it, either. It’s politics,” The National Pulse previously reported an early DeSantis campaign ‘megadonor’ as saying.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) from April 8, 2020, Jeremy Redfern – currently Governor DeSantis’s press secretary – was among the first people to recommend Dr. Anthony Fauci for a Presidential commendation:

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Ron DeSantis was one of Operation Warp Speed's biggest fans as recently as 2021, The National Pulse can reveal, as the Florida Governor and his team continue to try to ding Donald Trump over his COVID-19 policies. show more
trump

Jack Smith, Letitia James Want Trump to Stop Defending Himself.

Department of Justice (DOJ) special prosecutor Jack Smith accused former President Donald Trump of making “daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool” in a Washington, D.C. court filing – in an apparent attempt to muzzle the 2024 presidential candidate. At the same time, New York Attorney General Letitia James wants Donald Trump, Eric Trump, and their lawyers fined tens of thousands of dollars for defending themselves against a civil fraud lawsuit she is pursuing, alleging their legal arguments are “frivolous”.

Former President Trump’s defense team is asking for two weeks to review and respond to Smith’s filing before details are made public on the court docket, with the DOJ team arguing that a delay for would “grind litigation in this case to a halt.” The two week response time for a defendant is standard court procedure.

Judge Chutkan asked that both the Trump legal team and Jack Smith submit additional briefs on whether to unseal the Smith filing by next week. The Trump legal team must have their briefs before Judge Chutkan on September 11th, and Smith by September 13th.

Meanwhile, the New York AG claims attorneys for the Trumps and their business associates should not be disputing whether she has standing to bring the case, insisting the question has already been settled. She wants the defendants and their lawyers fined $10,000 each for even trying to make their case.

James’s lawsuit aims to hit Trump’s business with a quarter of a billion dollars in sanctions and effectively prevent it from continuing to operate in the Empire State. The case has been pursued at considerable expense for years now, despite more serious issues such as rising felony assault and grand larceny auto offenses going unchecked.

Newly released data suggests it is almost impossible for Donald Trump to receive a fair trial in Washington, D.C., with two-thirds of residents polled in the nation’s capital say they believe Trump is guilty even though a trial has yet to begin.

Jack Montgomery and Will Upton contributed to this report.

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Department of Justice (DOJ) special prosecutor Jack Smith accused former President Donald Trump of making "daily extrajudicial statements that threaten to prejudice the jury pool" in a Washington, D.C. court filing – in an apparent attempt to muzzle the 2024 presidential candidate. At the same time, New York Attorney General Letitia James wants Donald Trump, Eric Trump, and their lawyers fined tens of thousands of dollars for defending themselves against a civil fraud lawsuit she is pursuing, alleging their legal arguments are "frivolous". show more
tariffs

Trump Plans Baseline Tariff ‘Ring Around Economy’ and Massive Tax Cuts.

Former President Donald Trump is planning to introduce stronger protectionist trade tariffs, make deeper tax cuts, and reverse Joe Biden’s regulation policies if he is re-elected to the White House in January 2025, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

The 45th President has suggested retaliatory measures on countries such as India or Brazil if they decide to impose higher tariffs on American exports, a policy which he terms “reciprocity.” He also supports the idea of a “universal baseline tariff” – what he nicknames a “ring around the U.S. economy” – which would see an automatic ten percent tariff placed on imported goods, a move that is “freaking out” European Union diplomats.

Trump has been discussing the expansion of his successful first-term economic policies with a number of campaign aides in recent weeks, as well as former White House National Economic Council director Larry Ludlow and Heritage Foundation fellow Stephen Moore.

Moore has since argued that Trump should adopt a similar line of argument in the next election to that of Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter by asking the American people, “are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

“As a businessman, he understands that we are the biggest customer. Therefore, we have the most leverage if we are willing to use it,” stated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally.

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Former President Donald Trump is planning to introduce stronger protectionist trade tariffs, make deeper tax cuts, and reverse Joe Biden's regulation policies if he is re-elected to the White House in January 2025, according to a recent Bloomberg report. show more
congress

House, Senate GOP at Odds Over Expiring Funding For Deep State.

Members of Congress returned to Washington, D.C. this week with only sixteen legislative days to pass a temporary budget fix to avert a government shutdown on October 1st, when the new fiscal year begins. Congress is not expected to pass any of the twelve massive budget appropriations bills before government funding runs out; with the House and Senate instead expected to take up a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded while negotiations continue.

The House Freedom Caucus, comprising upwards of a quarter of the House Republican majority, is doubling down on calls for a return to pre-COVID spending levels in exchange for supporting Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his stop-gap funding measure. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), a Freedom Caucus member, posted more expansive demands on X, stating:

“Gov’t funding hinges on whether or not the Establishment will continue bankrolling open borders, weaponized agencies, a woke Pentagon, & an escalation of the war in Ukraine.”

– Rep. Eli Crane, September 2023.

Senate Republicans appear at odds with their House colleagues, with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) posting: “The federal government will shut down in less than a month unless a funding bill is passed by Sept. 30. That’s only 16 legislative days away (and even fewer for the House) under the current schedule. The House and Senate are in completely different universes when it comes to how lawmakers should fund federal agencies in both the short and long term.”

Cornyn is a rumored successor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) whose struggles during several recent public appearances have sparked fresh health and leadership concerns.

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to former President Donald Trump, called the funding fight, “…the most important legislative battle of the Biden presidency,” adding that if rank-and-file Republicans dig in and refuse to pass the blanket short-term funding bill, “…the Deep State expires at midnight on September 30th. After that, it’s up to Congress to decide which salaries, programs and activities to fund.”

Negotiations over the Continuing Resolution are expected to take up much – if not all – of September, while the remainder of the legislative session will be dominated by the 12 budget appropriations bills that will fund the government in its entirety for the next fiscal year.

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Members of Congress returned to Washington, D.C. this week with only sixteen legislative days to pass a temporary budget fix to avert a government shutdown on October 1st, when the new fiscal year begins. Congress is not expected to pass any of the twelve massive budget appropriations bills before government funding runs out; with the House and Senate instead expected to take up a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded while negotiations continue. show more

Data Shows It Is Almost Impossible for Trump to Get a Fair Trial in D.C.

Data shows it is almost impossible for Donald Trump to receive a fair trial in Washington, D.C, with 64 percent of residents polled revealing they would find the former president guilty, without even hearing any evidence. Just eight percent said they would presume innocence.

“Perception of Trump’s guilt varies by gender: 75% of women would vote to find Trump guilty compared to 54% of men. Men are more likely to find the former president innocent at 12%, compared to 4% of women,” according to Emerson College Polling’s executive director, Spencer Kimball.

Nearly 70 percent of Democrats in D.C. said they believe Trump is guilty ahead of the trial, with just 5 percent presuming innocence in the American judicial tradition. Over half of Independents said he was guilty, compared to just 14 percent choosing “not guilty”. Among D.C.-dwelling Republicans – just 6 percent of those registered to vote in D.C. – 36 percent think Trump is guilty, 34 percent think he is not guilty, and 30 percent are unsure.

Former President Trump’s lawyers have already filed a motion asking that the January 6 DOJ prosecution be moved from Washington, D.C. to nearby West Virginia, citing the likely biased jury pool in the nation’s capital. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said such a move would be a “win for everybody.”

The National Pulse has previously reported that Barack Obama appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the D.C. trial, has concerning and partisan history – including being a close relative of “dangerous” Marxists who operated in her native Jamaica.

Barring a change in venue, former President Trump is set to face trial in D.C. beginning on March 4, 2024.

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Data shows it is almost impossible for Donald Trump to receive a fair trial in Washington, D.C, with 64 percent of residents polled revealing they would find the former president guilty, without even hearing any evidence. Just eight percent said they would presume innocence. show more