It feels like every day there’s a new viral campaign video from Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt. And every day it’s hard to reconcile that this is the same slime-ball we used to despise on “The Hills.” For just over four years — from 2006-2010 — we watched Pratt live out his mid-20s in front of an MTV camera, and the angle was typically less than flattering. Engaged at the time to his now wife Heidi Montag, Pratt appeared to manipulate and charm his way through most situations — often coming off like a used-car salesman. In more recent interviews, Pratt has said that the “villain” persona was just that: a persona, put on almost in its entirety to drive ratings. During a Sirius XM interview with host Julia Cunningham in 2025, Pratt explained that he’d received a simple piece of advice from record producer David Foster on the set of “The Princes of Malibu.” “He was like, ‘You need to be the Simon Cowell of reality TV,’ and I didn’t even watch ‘American Idol.’ I didn’t even know who Simon Cowell was. I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ … He’s like, ‘Be the bad guy. Be the villain,'” Pratt explained. “What [David] didn’t explain to me, though, why Simon Cowell was able to get away with what he did, is [that] it was grounded in, ‘I’m trying to tell you you’re not talented because it’s just the truth,’” Pratt continued. “The problem with me just being blunt and doing whatever producers wanted and making the game is [that] the audience doesn’t see any — there’s no, ‘He’s just telling it how it is.’ It was just like, ‘Oh, he’s a monster.’” Still, he leaned into the persona and even marketed it, emblazoning his personal website with the tagline, “Feel free to hate on me … daily!” And we did. But these days, Pratt says the only people who really hate him are the socialists and the communists — most of whom are currently rallying to keep him from becoming the next mayor of Los Angeles. And the more he talks, the harder it is for even those of us who grew up seeing him as the “villain” to keep seeing him that way. But in a way, it makes sense — we’re far from the same person we were 20 years ago, too. Fans of the show remember Spencer as being incredibly full of himself. That’s still true, but when it comes to running for office, his overinflated ego really comes in handy. Plus, he’s now a husband and a father watching his beloved town suffer the worst aspects of leftist policies. It’s far easier to be sympathetic now than when “The Hills” was first broadcast. But then came the real wrinkle: Pratt lost his home in the deadly Palisades fire in early 2025. His mother lost the house he’d grown up in. Neighbors and friends burned to death in their beds. Prior to the fires, Pratt hadn’t publicly expressed interest in politics — despite having earned his political science degree from USC in 2013 — and had the disaster never happened, he probably would have been content to sell crystals online forever. But the fire forced Pratt to step out of his blissful post-reality star haze, look around, and finally say what city dwellers have been thinking for years: “What the hell are we doing here?” The Trump/Pratt comparisons are reasonable. While the former MTV drama series player doesn’t quite have the same charisma as Trump, he does have that everyman quality, a penchant for showmanship, and a willingness to say what everyone is thinking without sugarcoating it in politically correct euphemisms.  Pratt’s ads, even the AI-generated ones that he has shared, work because they reflect the real conversations people are having about the state of the country. They tap into people’s worst fears about the future, giving a voice to what feels like common sense. It’s easy to nod along, a sense of righteous anger growing, wondering why homeless addicts are permitted to run the cities while law-abiding citizens cower in their homes.  Instead of using polished talking points, Pratt speaks off the cuff and just says the thing out loud that no one expects him to say. You know, like Trump does. When leftist City Council member Nithya Raman trotted out tired lines about solving homelessness, Pratt went in for the kill.  “I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her, and we can find some of these people she’s going to offer treatment for. She’s going to get stabbed in the neck,” he said during the debate that 89% of viewers said he won in a landslide. “These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or super meth.” These ads paint Pratt as a literal superhero and far-Left politicians like Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as the supervillains. Everyone’s favorite failed presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, even pops up because she helped make California awful, too. Pratt isn’t pretending to be some political genius, but is rather a stand-in for what would happen if you, or I, or some other regular person were suddenly dropped into office and given the chance to fix things.  Among a crowded field of hardcore leftists, Pratt isn’t leaning into politics to make his case. Instead, he’s counting on people ignoring party lines in favor of common sense. This is the double-edged sword of living in a city that’s so far gone — he sounds a bit radical when he makes statements that, in any other city, would sound sane.  What’s even funnier is how ads made to oppose Pratt wind up making him look better. One ad sponsored by L.A. Unions Opposed to Spencer Pratt for Mayor accused him of “[opposing] using taxpayer money to build brand new houses for our unhoused neighbors, saying it’s time for the homeless to get help or get out. Pratt thinks L.A. needs thousands more police officers rather than more social workers.” Well, yes. And that’s why his campaign is working. Pratt responded to the ad by saying, “Wait. Unions are mad that I want firefighters and city workers to get better pay and safer working conditions? What are they actually … for?” It’s a question being asked by Angelenos and beyond, and while the polls show that Pratt is still a long shot rather than a foregone conclusion, it’s tempting to believe that the polls are wrong. 

Federal investigators have made yet another discovery of a sophisticated fraud scheme involving a work authorization program for foreigners. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Tuesday that the Operational Practical Training program, known as OPT, has “become a magnet for fraud” with foreign students claiming employment from “highly suspect employers,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said. He described the controversy at a press conference, noting the program allows foreign students to work in their area of study for up to one year while attending school. Federal investigators say OPT fraud has exploded nationwide, reporting shocking discoveries upon visiting the alleged worksites claiming to employ the foreign students. They found empty buildings with locked doors where hundreds of foreign students were said to be working. In some cases, multiple employers claimed the same address, but none of them actually had a lease there. Some small homes were also listed as worksites for hundreds of foreign students, but had no employees present. When someone answered the door at one of the residences, they claimed to have no knowledge of the business. Other alleged employers claimed to have offshore HR and payroll personnel. Many of the employers had tax liens, civil lawsuit collections, and breaches of contract on their records. In some instances, foreign students who obtained work permits through the OPT program never showed up to work at the jobs they claimed to hold. Lyons said the employment program has “ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States,” adding that the latest fraud findings may be “only the tip of the iceberg.” Last week, agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a branch of ICE, visited 18 worksites in north Texas and made an “alarming” discovery of “coordinated employer clusters, where numerous employers in the same building complex are running nearly identical websites, sharing job postings and management personnel, but claiming no business relationships with each other,” John Condon, the agency’s Acting Executive Associate Director, said during Tuesday’s presser. In Houston, agents found an alleged “pay to stay visa fraud” scheme in which a company was “charging students under the table to help them fraudulently maintain visa status,” he added. Other cases also raised red flags. In New York, a supposed employer became visibly upset with federal investigators and denied having any knowledge of a company linked to his address “despite Homeland Security records and student reports confirming otherwise,” Condon said. A foreign student told investigators that the individual owned the worksite “but could not explain his denial.” Condon discussed an OPT employer in New Jersey claiming to support more than 150 foreign students who couldn’t answer federal investigators’ “basic questions about who they were or what they were hired to do.” The investigators encountered only one student at the site, “who had revealed that he had not worked for the listed copy in over a year” and “was instead being trained by a company based in India.” Lyons called the fraudulent activity “deliberate, coordinated, and criminal,” vowing that “more actions are forthcoming.” “DHS will relentlessly investigate, disrupt, and refer for prosecution anyone who exploits our programs. We have intensified our vetting at consular posts overseas, targeting trafficking, forced labor, document fraud, and unauthorized employment among student visa applicants,” Lyons said. “This fraud is not victimless. It is a blatant attack on the goodwill of the American people who generously allow foreign nationals access to our education system,” he added.

National Democrats are facing a cash crunch heading into the 2026 midterm cycle, but that has not stopped their donor base from pouring money into a familiar class of candidates: social media-friendly left-wingers running in difficult, long-shot, or outright improbable Senate races. Recent campaign finance figures show the Democratic National Committee carrying approximately $17.4 million in debt while holding just $15.9 million cash on hand, leaving the party in the difficult position of owing more than it currently has in the bank, per the Washington Post. Despite that imbalance, small-dollar donors continue flooding candidates through ActBlue, often in races where Democrats face steep structural disadvantages. The most striking example may be Texas, where Democratic online activists have spent months rallying around state Rep. James Talarico and previously Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) as possible Senate contenders. Across 205 days of fundraising activity, ActBlue donors sent roughly $1.19 million into the Texas Senate race, averaging $5,818 per day. That is a remarkable figure for a state that has repeatedly resisted Democratic attempts at a statewide breakthrough. Yet Talarico has become a favorite in liberal online spaces, where viral speeches and podcast appearances often translate into immediate fundraising spikes regardless of a candidate’s actual viability. The same pattern is playing out elsewhere. In Georgia, Sen. Jon Ossoff has raised more than $1.63 million through the platform over 455 days. Ossoff is at least an incumbent in a true battleground, but the donor enthusiasm extends far beyond competitive territory. Average donations-per-day Any Democratic candidate Top 11 Senate race ActBlue – 1/1/2025 to 3/31/2026 pic.twitter.com/vbGemU634y — Tim Tagaris (@ttagaris) May 10, 2026 In Florida, donations to Alexander Vindman have reached nearly $186,000 in just 69 days, averaging almost $2,700 per day. Florida has trended decisively Republican in recent statewide contests, but the state nonetheless continues to attract Democratic money from national donors eager for a symbolic pickup. Other examples are even more revealing. Former Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola has taken in over $131,000 in 84 days for a Senate race in Republican-leaning Alaska. In Iowa, leftwing hopefuls such as Zach Wahls and Nathan Sage have collectively drawn more than $128,000 despite Iowa’s continued rightward march in federal elections. Even in states where Democrats once had stronger footing, the spending raises questions. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown has seen nearly $377,000 flow into an Ohio comeback effort, though Republicans have steadily consolidated statewide control there. Maine, North Carolina, Minnesota, and New Hampshire are all seeing similar donor patterns, with candidates pulling in hundreds of thousands long before some races are even fully defined with primaries. The dynamic speaks to a larger problem for Democrats: their activist donor base increasingly appears driven less by electoral strategy than by internet celebrity. Candidates who perform well on X, generate viral clips, or become fixtures on left-leaning podcasts can tap into national money pipelines almost instantly. Whether or not the race is actually winnable often appears secondary. That disconnect comes at a difficult time for the party’s finances. With the national committee underwater and Republicans entering the cycle with a favorable Senate map, every dollar spent on unwinnable races is a dollar not going toward genuinely competitive contests. Yet online donors continue to reward their Twitter darlings — candidates whose national profiles far outpace their actual chances at winning statewide office. The phenomenon has become one of the defining quirks of modern Democratic fundraising: a party struggling financially at the top while its grassroots base continues to shower cash on candidates who may never come close to flipping the seats they are trying to gain.

The late-night comedy brigade gathered together during the final days of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” to participate in their favorite activity: obsessing about President Trump. Colbert hosted fellow late-night comedy hosts, including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, on Monday’s episode as he gears up for the show’s big finale on May 21. Kimmel, who was briefly suspended last fall after making false comments about the man who assassinated Charlie Kirk, suggested that viewers should watch more late-night television and cancel Paramount+.  “We have a lot of shows. 30,000 people watching each one, and it adds up,” Kimmel said. “People watch us on YouTube now. People have a lot of different options and they keep coming to us. I will tell you, when I got knocked off the air for a few days, people canceled Disney+. Why aren’t people canceling Paramount+? Because you never had it in the first place?” He also responded to Colbert’s question about whether any of the other hosts ever expected to be “doing a job that the president of the United States would have strong feelings about.” “You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about,” Kimmel replied, referring to the criticism he received for his tasteless joke about the first lady being an “expectant widow” just days before a man attempted to assassinate Trump.  Meyers, who has hosted NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers since 2014, said he appreciates having Trump as a fan. “The thing I like, he posts when the show airs, and I want to say I appreciate that he is watching linear television,” Meyers said during the “Late Show” appearance. “If I would make my case for late-night, it’s that leaders of the free world are watching it when it airs.” CBS announced that “The Late Show” was ending in July 2025, mentioning that it was “purely a financial decision.” However, some have speculated that Colbert’s show was canceled due to the merger between Paramount and Skydance.  Colbert has been vocally opposed to CBS’s decision to pull the plug on the show despite reports that the program was losing $40 million annually. The political commentator went on to blame the format rather than the content of the show. “It’s possible that two things can be true,” Colbert told NYT. “Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming. They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”

WASHINGTON—Embattled FDA COmmissioner Marty Makary resigned Tuesday, marking a major shakeup at the health agency following a reported pressure campaign to remove him for slow walking MAHA and pro-life initiatives. Makary ultimately called it quits over President Donald Trump’s push to authorize fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, an action he opposed, according to the New York Times.  But vapes may have been the last straw for Makary, who has faced growing criticism from pro-life advocates over the FDA’s handling of mifepristone and the speed of the agency’s review of the abortion drug’s safety. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing the legality of the mail-in abortion drug.  Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) celebrated Makary’s resignation, calling him “uniquely destructive to the prolife movement. “He attempted to place pro-abortion lawyers in key positions. He slow walked a vitally necessary review of the abortion drug mifepristone,” Hawley said. “He used his discretion to approve a new abortion drug when the data shows it sends 1 in 10 women to the emergency room. He froze out prolife leaders and repeatedly stonewalled Congress. His resignation is an opportunity for the FDA to reset.”  FDA Deputy ‌Commissioner ⁠Kyle Diamantas will lead the agency in an acting capacity, according to Politico.  Makary’s resignation comes after several media outlets reported that President Trump signed off on a plan to fire Makary amid agency turmoil and backlash from anti-abortion advocates. His departure follows months of mounting criticism from Democrats over vaccine policy and from pro-life advocates frustrated with the agency’s handling of mifepristone regulations. Makary had defended the FDA’s approach in recent interviews, saying the agency was conducting a detailed safety review of the abortion drug and that any next steps would be guided by that study. SBA Pro Life America led the charge calling for the termination of Makary. “Indifference is completely unacceptable to millions of pro-life voters expecting the administration to act to save lives. Abortions are up, not down, after Dobbs, with at least 1.1 million deaths a year,” the group said in a statement.  “This is a five-alarm crisis for the pro-life movement and for the GOP,” the group added. “The GOP cannot win without its base and simply will not get the enthusiasm that drives turnout without leadership from the top.” Conservative commentator Katie Pavlich said she was “sad” to see Makary leave the FDA.  “He is a good man and was a desperately need[ed]  voice of logic, reason, courage and ethics during COVID panic. He never caved to mandate pressure, even putting his job on the line at Johns Hopkins,” she said on social media.  Makary, a longtime surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and outspoken critic of the politicization of medicine during the COVID era, is the latest official to exit the Trump administration. Since January, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez DeRemer have left their roles. Drew Berkemeyer contributed to this report.