House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said Sunday that the shooting at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner underscored the need to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), arguing that law enforcement officers performed “flawlessly” despite uncertainty surrounding their paychecks.

The congressman cast blame on Democrats for “refusing to fund some of the most important law enforcement officers in our country,” like the Secret Service, TSA and Coast Guard, on “The Sunday Briefing.”

“This is a big, big deal that these Democrats are literally playing with the safety of Americans — by the way, Republican, Democrat and other, it doesn’t matter what your political perspective is. It’s about Americans’ safety,” he said.

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“The fact that [Secret Service] performed so flawlessly last night while under the stress of wondering whether they’re going to continue to get paid and all the rest of it is even more impressive,” he added.

The shooting comes amid a more than two-month DHS funding stalemate in Congress. Democrats are seeking changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations and won’t vote for a budget without guarantees thereof, while Republicans are turning to alternative funding methods to continue enforcement as is.

Emmer blamed Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for putting a stop to the most recent funding bill that he said was supported by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress by “[pulling] out two pieces of the bill and [making] that a political issue.”

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He added that it was the “wrong time to be playing with American safety from the minority.”

Emmer himself was seen leaving the ballroom with assistance amid the chaos that followed the gunfire. To put to rest rumors that he may have been injured in the incident, he clarified that, because his leg is in a cast, he had been using a mobility scooter at the event.

“But you couldn’t keep it on the floor because there were 3,000 people there and it was so tight. So they had to take the scooter elsewhere. And obviously, when this thing broke, they told us we had to get out. So I had a couple human crutches that were helping me escape out the side door to get to the scooter, which ultimately I rode out.”

The suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting told law enforcement after his arrest Saturday night that he intended to target Trump administration officials, senior federal law enforcement sources confirmed to Fox News.

Authorities identified the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Allen, of Torrance, Calif., adding that he prepared a manifesto outlining his intent and shared anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on social media.

Fox News Digital’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

One of the more unexpected storylines in the early portion of the 2026 Major League Baseball season has been the complaints from opposing managers about Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. 

Ohtani, you might remember, started his career with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. While with the Angels, he was a two-way player who both pitched and hit. The league, attempting to ensure that the additional value of a two-way player, particularly the most marketable and talented two-way player, would be properly recognized, enacted a rule ensuring that any two-way player would be able to stay in the game as a designated hitter after exiting as a pitcher. 

Essentially, treating that player as two separate entities. To use Ohtani as an example, Ohtani the hitter, and Ohtani the pitcher. That rule was put in place in 2019 to create a template for him or any other two-way players that emerge. 

Then, in 2022, when MLB moved to 26 players, and enacted roster restrictions, 13 pitchers and 13 hitters, in order to maintain the importance of starting pitching, they set up another rule that meant designated two-way players who met certain criteria would not count against the maximum number of pitchers allowed on a roster. This, again, was enacted when Ohtani was with the Angels. 

For some reason, Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell decided to criticize these years-old rules in April 2026. And in a new interview, one of the Dodgers’ top executives addressed Counsell’s comments and didn’t seem too pleased with them.

In a new interview with AM 570, the Dodgers’ home radio station in LA, the team’s president of Baseball Operations was asked about Counsell’s comments by broadcaster David Vassegh. Specifically, why he thought Counsell brought it up now, years into this process. And in response, he brought up that the rule was discussed with input from the teams themselves, making the criticism even more bizarre.

“I don’t know,” Friedman said. “It felt very random and strange to me that he felt the need to bring it up. And when Shohei was on the Angels and MLB was considering this, they reached out to a bunch of teams, us included. And I said, ‘look, from a competitive standpoint as the Dodgers, I don’t love it, but wearing my industry hat and what’s best for Major League Baseball, it’s to do everything we can for Shohei Ohtani to be in and stay in games.’”

“So that’s the part of him being able to stay in the game when he pitches. When he comes off the mound, the old rule would have been, then the hitter has to come out as well. But I was able to look at what is best for the industry and Shohei playing, and playing more often and staying in games is what is best for this game and best for the fans and everything else.”

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If the teams were contacted about this rule, and the league implemented it after considering their feedback, why the complaining now? That’s unclear, but one of the big problems seems to be a complete misunderstanding of what the rule actually is and the advantage the Dodgers have. Jim Bowden, for example, a former general manager himself and current baseball commentator, apparently got it completely wrong.

“So that was when he was with the Angels, and as far as the 13 pitcher rule, again, it is more that we have 13 pitchers…I had to clarify this with Jim Bowden, who said that we have nine relievers…We don’t have nine relievers, we have eight relievers just like everyone else, we have five starters, like everyone else,” Friedman explained. “It’s just when Shohei is able and the rest makes sense, Shohei pitches also. It is not that we are carrying an extra reliever relative to others.

“So it’s certainly an advantage but it should be an advantage. What Shohei does and what he is capable of is so unique, it should be rewarded, it should be celebrated. And everyone knew the Shohei rules and had an equal opportunity to sign him two years ago. So I’m not sure where the Cubs were in that process, or what Counsell’s thoughts were on it then, but that seems like more of the relevant time to voice it than now.”

This is what made Counsell’s comments, and the ensuing fan outrage, so odd. Ohtani’s unique value is that he can hit and pitch, at a high level. That advantage would exist regardless of roster limits or restrictions. They don’t get to carry an “extra” reliever because of Ohtani. They get a benefit when he makes his once-a-week scheduled start. And again, this advantage would exist regardless, because no other team has a starter who can have a 50/50 season and put up a 0.38 ERA in the first month of the year. Which is why he got $700 million and fully deserved it. The Cubs have plenty of money; they could have signed him and taken advantage of that rule. Or find a two-way player of their own to develop. They didn’t, and now they’re mad about it, years after the rule was enacted and benefited the Angels. Weird.

Bill MaherBill Maher’s “Real Time” show on HBO has become something of a unicorn in the modern political media landscape, a place where liberals and conservatives can actually have substantive conversations rather than simply sling mud.

A big part of what allows for this unique discourse is that Maher is an unconventional Democrat. He’s something of a dinosaur, with a political view that seems stuck in the tar pits of 1990s Bill Clintonism. He is in some ways the avatar of the Democratic Party that was.

Maher remains pro-Israel, regularly rolls his eyes at the excesses of wokism and the trans movement, has a friendly respect for President Donald Trump, with whom he has dined, and in general is a poster child of “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me.” He’s even friends with Kid Rock!

This has led many conservatives to suggest that Maher is a better fit in the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Jump in, the water is fine, they say.

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But this misses an essential point. Maher is not a Republican, he is a Democrat. Conservatives should be rooting for him to influence his party in positive ways, not to abandon it.

Maher always makes me think of my cousin Jimmy, who has been a big fan for decades. Jimmy is in many ways the quintessential Pennsylvania Democrat. He is successful, has a beautiful Catholic family, and like me, grew up believing in the Teamsters and the pope.

I asked Jimmy what he liked so much about Maher and he told me, “I like Bill Maher a lot because he calls a spade a spade, based on facts and science and not ideological craziness. He calls out the crazy for what it is. I like that he does it regardless of who he’s talking about, left or right.”

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This is maybe a bit more of a glowing review than I would give to Maher, but it’s not far off the mark. More importantly, based on conversations I have with Democrats around the country, more of them think like Maher, than think like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D-NY, or commie podcaster Hasan Piker.

In this way, Maher is something like a focus group of one.

And it’s not just Maher clinging to the principles of the old Party of Jefferson and Jackson. Sen. John Fetterman D-Pa., also insists on being an old-school Democrat rather than changing sides and joining the GOP.

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But honestly, for all the attacks against Fetterman from the left of his party, there is no major policy issue that the senator supports that was not a mainstream Democratic position as recently as 2020.

The plain truth here is that Maher, my cousin Jimmy and Fetterman are never going to be Republicans. It’s like asking Magic Johnson to play for the Celtics. But they may be the voices that bring their party, and our nation, back from the edge.

On Saturday night, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a third attempt was made on the life of President Trump. It almost feels normal at this point, but it is not normal, and while everyone for the next 12 hours will discuss taking down the temperature, Maher really does it.

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Because of the power of the presidency under our Constitution, we will always have two parties, one that controls the White House, and another composed of everyone else. It behooves all of us for both to be measured, responsible and nonviolent.

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Maher does our nation inestimably more good as the reasonable, old-timey, joint-smoking Democrat than he does as a turncoat nouveau Trumper, and as beacon of sanity in a party flinging itself wildly to the left, he helps everyone.

So let’s stop trying to turn Maher into a Republican. We don’t need to chant “One of us!” because he is not one of us. He is a Democrat, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the importance of Maher is his remarkable staying power. In a media ecosystem in which political shows and anchors rise and fall like so many ships in a storm, he has been a Rock of Gibraltar.

Just as for decades “The McLaughlin Group” was the space for the right and left to respectfully cross rhetorical swords, today it is “Real Time” that fills this vital role, and for better or worse, it only really works, quite specifically, because Bill Maher is, and always will be, a Democrat.

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