A gift for the King: NBA star LeBron James posted a 75-second video to his X and Instagram accounts last October that portrayed Donald Trump as a Hitler-loving racist and offered James’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. He said at the time he made the decision organically based on his “family and how they will grow up.” But there’s no such thing as a free… LeBron James endorsement.
The Harris campaign quietly paid James’s production company $50,000 in January, two months after her election loss, for “campaign event production” according to financial disclosures released this week and reviewed by our Chuck Ross. James did not appear at any campaign events for Harris, meaning the money almost certainly funded James’s endorsement post.
“The payment to James’s company is the latest example of an exorbitant spending spree that saw the campaign burn through more than $1.5 billion only to suffer the party’s worst presidential defeat in decades,” writes Ross.
Harris has yet to decide on a potential 2026 gubernatorial run in California. Perhaps she’ll have an early supporter in Los Angeles Lakers captain James—if she’s willing to pony up.
READ MORE: LeBron James Endorsed Kamala Harris. Then She Paid His Company $50K.
By any means necessary: Hamas and its terrorist leaders are already subject to various U.S. sanctions. The Biden administration, however, never sanctioned Hamas over the use of civilians as human shields, which Congress mandated in a bipartisan bill passed in 2018 and strengthened last April.
The Trump administration plans to change that.
The Treasury and State departments, the Free Beacon‘s Adam Kredo reports, are eyeing new sanctions as outlined under that law, the Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act. They could target any terror leader who has authorized the use of human shields, providing “broad flexibility to sanction virtually anyone tied to that practice—past and present.”
“Penalties could include the seizure of all property and assets belonging to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members,” writes Kredo. “Though some of those penalties are in effect through existing sanctions, the Treasury Department said it is keen to use ‘every tool available’ to ensure Hamas gets no reprieve from punitive measures.”
READ MORE: Trump Admin Eyes Fresh Hamas Sanctions Under ‘Human Shield’ Law That Biden Admin Ignored
Let them eat cake: Freshman congressman Suhas Subramanyam profits from tech giants like Amazon and Meta through his stock portfolio. When it comes to those companies’ data centers, which are a mainstay in his Northern Virginia district, he doesn’t want his constituents to do the same.
During a recent committee hearing, Subramanyam trashed those data centers as “invasive” pollutants that could be a magnet for cyberattacks. His investment portfolio, however, is banking on them. Subramanyam holds at least $500,000 in NVIDIA, which certifies the centers, as well as at least $130,000 more in Amazon and Meta, our Jon Levine reports.
If the data centers left Virginia, Subramanyam’s stock portfolio would likely rebound—but Northern Virginia would lose 78,000 jobs and $31 billion in annual economic output. At least one Republican lawmaker, New York’s Nick Langworthy, is eager to capitalize, telling Levine: “If Rep. Subramanyam is too foolish to want these great jobs in his district, bring them to mine!”
Away from the Beacon:
- Would somebody think of the lab rats? Harvard turned to CNN to lament a devastating consequence of the Trump administration’s $2.2 billion funding freeze: the potential euthanization of the animals the university uses to conduct research.
- A messy primary fight is brewing in Michigan, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed entered the race to succeed outgoing senator Gary Peters and quickly received an endorsement from Bernie Sanders. His first move? Refusing to back Chuck Schumer as Senate Democratic leader.
- At least one top Dem official has no issue with El-Sayed’s burn-it-all-down approach: DNC vice chair David Hogg, who told MSNBC that his boss, party chair Ken Martin, did not support his decision to launch a $20 million campaign targeting the party’s incumbents.
