WaPo: Rubio's taxpayer-funded flights to son's football games cost over $1.2 million

Rubio's Taxpayer-Funded Football Flights Cost More Than $1.2 Million

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been attending college football games at taxpayer expense, The Washington Post reports. Rubio almost never misses a University of Florida Gators game, as his son Anthony is a walk-on running back for the team.

Since taking office in 2025, Rubio has flown to at least 10 football games on government planes, including a military C-37 jet earlier this month, landing at Gainesville Regional Airport before being met by security officers in unmarked SUVs. Anthony Rubio, a senior, has played in only four games in four years.

The elder Rubio, a UF alumnus, has traveled to Gainesville's airport on government aircraft at least 23 times as a Cabinet official, 15 of which the State Department classified as solely personal. According to a Post review of Defense Department published costs, the flights have cost taxpayers more than $1.2 million. Former department officials told the newspaper that Rubio takes personal trips much more often than previous secretaries of state.

Rubio is barred from taking commercial flights in his position for security reasons, as are the defense secretary, attorney general, and heads of the CIA and FBI. He is required to reimburse the government the cost of an economy-class plane ticket for every personal trip, but those reimbursements are rarely made public and cover only a small part of the true cost of a government flight.

Neither Rubio nor the State Department disclosed how much he has paid back. In a statement, Rubio said, "I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible."

Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson told the Post that Rubio takes military planes to "ensure continuity of operations, continuity of government and access to secure communications at all times. And he will continue to do so."

According to the Post, Rubio should be paying the government back anywhere from $18,000 to upward of $30,000 for his personal excursions to Florida alone.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp Claims He's "Been a Democrat" His Whole Life

Palantir CEO Alex Karp is claiming he was a Democrat all along, following Democrats' sweeping midterm election victories in the House and Senate.

In an exclusive interview with Politico's Playbook, Karp posed as a staunch progressive, using the word "progressive" eight times to describe himself. "I've been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far-left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir—all of our products are essentially progressive," he said.

The stance marks a significant shift from eight months ago, when Karp appeared eager to align his technology with GOP political strategy. "This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less, and increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters," Karp said in March, admitting his technology was "dangerous societally" but would allow the country to "be American" in the future.

Karp now claims his company is chiefly concerned with "economic justice" and that Trump's immigration policies "went too far." Palantir's technologies were essential in implementing the administration's deportation agenda; the company developed an app that provided ICE agents with a digital map populated by potential deportation targets.

The self-proclaimed "anti-woke" company reaped billions in federal contracts during the second Trump administration and recently hired former Republican Senator Jon Tester as an adviser ahead of likely congressional investigations.

"My giving is equal Democrat, Republican," Karp told Politico. "I can tell you, without going into things I'm not going to disclose, I'm very balanced, and everyone in the political arena knows it. And I'll tell you what, I'm also not the village idiot."

Mark Warner Won't Commit to Backing Schumer as Democratic Leader

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is losing support from even moderate members of the Democratic caucus.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner is not committing to supporting Schumer for majority leader next year, the Virginia Scope reports, telling the publication: "We got to reflect in leadership the real talents." Warner's comments follow his praise for Schumer on Tuesday for raising an "enormous" amount of money for Democrats in the midterms and for recruiting many of this election's winners.

Warner's stance follows Senator Bernie Sanders, who said at a Tuesday press conference, "Nobody works harder than Chuck Schumer, but in my view, the time is now for change, and I will not be supporting Chuck to be reelected as the Democratic leader."

Other senators and senators-elect refusing to commit to Schumer include Elissa Slotkin, Abdul El-Sayed, Richard Blumenthal, Juliana Stratton, Peggy Flanagan, Adam Hamilton, Troy Jackson, Chris Pappas, Annie Andrews, and James Talarico.

The alternative candidate gaining steam is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is open to the idea and criticized Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for siding "with the crypto industry" and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at a Tuesday press conference.

"I am listening to all the people from around the country that were calling for big change," Van Hollen said, noting that two of the Democrats' incoming senators, El-Sayed and Flanagan, didn't receive support from Schumer and the DSCC. "I am in the process right now of calling my colleagues."

White House Warns Democrats Against Investigating Trump

The White House is threatening Democrats in Congress, warning that investigating President Donald Trump could cross the line into criminal action.

Punchbowl News reports that White House counsel Will Scharf sent a letter Monday to Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, saying congressional investigations "must further a legitimate executive task; Congress cannot employ them to exercise powers of criminal prosecution assigned to the Executive and the Judiciary."

Scharf claims Garcia and fellow Democrats have made "it abundantly clear that any forthcoming investigative processes will be deployed to harass and aggrandize, rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end," citing statements by incoming Democrats calling for the prosecution of ICE agents, trials for tech executives, and hearings for Cabinet secretaries like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The letter is an extreme attempt to intimidate House Democrats into backing off Trump and his legally questionable actions, and it makes a mockery of the constitutional separation of powers and checks and balances between the three branches of government. Scharf is taking a questionable Republican position that effectively says Congress has no critical oversight over the executive branch.

The warning is rich considering how the Trump administration has pushed sham prosecutions against members of Congress who told military and intelligence personnel not to follow illegal orders or who protested against ICE—to say nothing of the targeting of many of Trump's perceived enemies.

House Republicans Block Hegseth Impeachment Articles

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has 11 Democratic House members to thank for tanking the nascent effort to impeach him.

House Republicans blocked Representative Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Hegseth from reaching t...

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