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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. The first speech of a marathon Memorial Day weekend went as well as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) could have hoped. He quoted his old boss, Ronald Reagan. He thanked the military for saving America, from its founding through those long years when communism threatened to establish atheist dictatorships around the world.

And after he wrapped, retirees in star-spangled polo shirts chased him down to thank him and to say how well hed done the other night on Fox News.

These people arent going to vote for Democrats, Rohrabacher said, strolling along the water on the way to his house. A lot of Republican women voted for Hillary. That is not going to translate into anything else next year. Trump is a very boisterous guy, and that was a turnoff for some people, but these are Reagan-type conservatives.

Democrats dont share that read on Rohrabachers district. In 2016, for the first time in 80 years, the Democratic presidential nominee carried Orange County, sweeping up districts including Rohrabachers beach-bound 48th. A stretch of pristine beaches and increasingly diverse suburbs, the 48th District had previously been one of the nations wellsprings of modern conservatism.

Down the ballot from Hillary Clinton, Democrats didnt recruit candidates to take advantage of Californias anti-Trump swing, and Rohrabacher kept his seat. But now, Democrats are trying to fix that and they view Rohrabacher, elected in 1988 and rarely challenged since, as a target.

Yet Rohrabacher, 69, is not behaving like a politician facing oblivion. Many of the 23 Republicans in districts that backed Clinton, or only narrowly backed Trump, have agonized over the American Health Care Act and grimaced when asked about the probe into possible Russian meddling in the election.

The reason: Like the north Atlanta suburbs where Jon Ossoff is trying to flip a seat for Democrats, Orange Countys coast is tempting Democrats with a rising electorate college-educated, rich, only two-thirds white.

Rohrabacher understands as much This is not a blue-collar area, he said but he does not acknowledge a larger political threat.

Rohrabacher, without question the most resolute supporter in Congress of closer ties to Russia, never grimaces. In an interview this weekend, and in the wake of stories about Russians sounding him out as a spy and colleagues joking that he was paid by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rohrabacher simply restated his strategic theory: It is better for America to be friends with Russia than spit at it as an enemy.

I was hard-core anti-communist and anti-Soviet; I was never anti-Russian, said Rohrabacher, who paused the interview occasionally to say hi to neighbors on the walk home. The very same groups of people who are unrelenting in their hostility today wanted to be friends with Russia when it was run by atheistic communist dictators.

Democrats, who have put the 48th and other Orange County districts on their 2018 dream board, are convinced that Rohrabacher is busily un-electing himself.

He is who he is, but Republicans vote for him because hes a Republican, and weve never had much luck finding a challenger, said Fran Sdao, the chair of Orange Countys Democrats. This year, theyre coming out the woodwork.

Even lower-information voters, she suggested, could not miss the stories of Rohrabacher defending Trump or the Russian intrigue spilling into the paper every day. Hes gotten a lot more attention because of the Russia stuff.

Outside Orange County, Democrats cant quite agree on how big a part Russia should play in their 2018 comeback strategy. In the 48th District, its at least an irresistible hook. Los Angeles-area Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D), whose role on the House Intelligence Committee has made him a party star, has spent parts of congressional recesses introducing new candidates to party clubs; he did so for the Democrats favored candidate against Rohrabacher, Harley Rouda, earlier in May.

Rouda, a 55-year-old lawyer and businessman, had been in electoral politics for just a few weeks. If Hillary Clinton had won, I dont think Id be sitting here, Rouda said over coffee at a spot near Laguna Beachs sandy coast. If Romney was president, voters wouldnt be as engaged and enraged as they are now. Its about Trump and his cronies.

To take the House, Democrats are salivating over half a dozen California districts; in each one, theyre scouting for candidates who can run against the Republican majority by making their opponents infamous and sidestepping their own ideological swamps. Rouda, who donated $1,000 to John Kasichs presidential campaign, blends country club issues such as balancing the budget with left-wing issues such as a $15 minimum wage and a move toward single-payer health care.

Trump even praised the health-care system in Australia, he said.

Confidently, Rouda and Democrats speculate that simply informing Orange County voters who represents them in Congress would knock Rohrabacher out, and a few other Republicans besides. In 2010, Republicans found conservative districts that had been controlled by Democrats for generations falling their way, simply because they had candidates, money and a president to rally against.

Thats why raising enough money is so important, Rouda said. The Democrats tend to be very aware of his record; Republicans, I dont think, fully understand where he is. Most Republicans in this district are moderate. They do not want to see offshore drilling. They do believe in climate change. And we have a congressman who doesnt agree with them.

In some districts, embattled Republicans are adjusting by looking for political space. In Orange County, Rohrabacher sees no need. Over 24 hours of Memorial Day events, no voters came up to him to complain. A few encouraged the president to tweet less; more thanked the congressman for doing his job.

For many, the perception of that job has been shaped by a conservative media that has dug in against Democratic story lines. The Fox News segment that many constituents said theyd watched portrayed Rohrabacher as an avuncular victim of character smears, a surfer and public servant who had been attacked unfairly.

McCarthyism by its nature hurts people, makes it harder for them to do the jobs they do, Foxs Tucker Carlson said. Has this affected your life? I mean, youre running for reelection is this an issue in your campaign?

They have been putting out these hit pieces that are aimed at trying to convince people that I have been engaged in some type of illegal act or something, Rohrabacher replied. Its the same thing they are doing with Trump.

Later in the interview, Rohrabacher said hed been looking for proof that the coverage of Russia would amount to something. He cited the stories of Russia-linked hackers breaking into the Democratic National Committee allegations that did not convince him.

In The Washington Post interview Sunday, he asked how the newspaper had been able to run an article saying definitively that a murdered DNC staffer had nothing to do with the release of party documents to WikiLeaks and other sites.

I hope youre wrong, he said. The story says these various people had determined that there was a Russian connection to the hacking. Well, I havent seen any. Can you tell me any conclusion where the Russians were involved?

As he hustled to his next event, pausing at home to make (and share) an energy drink with yogurt, Rohrabacher explained that he knew too much about spycraft and intelligence to believe every accusation that blipped across the news.

There are people who work for the intelligence agencies who are very dedicated conservatives, right-wingers, patriots, he said. There are people who work for the agencies who are on the left. Just because they work for the agency, that doesnt mean you can always trust them. If an intelligence agency verifies this or that, I dont take that for granted.

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His district voted for Clinton, but this Republican congressman isn't worried - Washington Post

PHOENIX (AP) - U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday launched an effort to save the North American Free Trade Agreement even as President Donald Trump begins a renegotiation he promised during his election campaign.

The Arizona Republican said in an interview that the agreement known as NAFTA has been a huge boon to Arizona and the U.S. and that any honest accounting of the 23-year-old agreement shows that its been good for everybody. He said thats especially true in Arizona, where a boost in cross-border trade has increased jobs and economic growth. He said hes worried that an overhaul could essentially gut the positive effect of the trade deal.

The president campaigned on negotiating a new NAFTA deal with Canada and Mexico and called the current agreement a disaster. Aides signaled a potential pull out in April but Trump changed course and started the formal renegotiation process in mid-May.

Flake said he doesnt know what the president has in mind but could be supportive under the right circumstances.

If hes modernizing it, great, more power to him, Flake said. I think any honest accounting of NAFTA would show that its been good for everybody. Certainly good for Arizonas economy, good for the united States economy. When trade has gone from under $60 billion a year to over $600 billion a year, whats not to like?

The trade agreement has drawn criticism since it was being negotiated in the early 1990s, with some warning it would result in U.S. factory jobs moving to Mexico. The deal triggered a big boost in trade among the three counties when it went into effect in 1994, with farmers especially benefiting, but factory jobs did move south.

Flake hopes to gather success stories from Arizonans to help ensure any new agreement continues to spur job creation and growth. The effort is prompted in part by concerns that Trump will abandon the agreement.

In the campaign many times it was were going to rip it up - it was the worst trade deal ever negotiated, Flake said. Theres a lot of rhetoric that was tough.

There are other implications to pulling out of the deal, Flake said. They including influencing Mexican voters to move toward a populist president of their own, and putting pressure on migration by cutting employment in Mexico.

For us, obviously if Mexicos economy is better thats less pressure on the border, Flake said. The net of Mexican migrants is south rather than north. We have security arrangements that are better than they were, the Mexican economy is doing better, better rule of law, criminal justice reform is moving ahead that we worked with them on.

A lot of good things that we can point to, that if our trade relationship goes south, or sour I should say, then those things are in jeopardy, he said.

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Arizona Republican Sen. Flake highlighting NAFTA positives - Washington Times

Financially outgunned in the Virginia governors race GOP primary, Corey Stewart is trying to blow a hole in the conventional political wisdom that winning comes down to who racks up the biggest war chest.

The self-described Trump acolyte has been trying to make the most of his cash-strapped situation by turning to the Trump playbook, harnessing social media and harping on issues such as immigration that get the Republican base going.

On Wednesday he made the trek across the Potomac with a staffer and streamed through Facebook Live an attack against Ed Gillespie, the GOP front-runner, accusing him of being beholden to large corporations trying to undercut Americans with a stream of foreign workers.

He was the lobbyist on record for Tyson Foods when they smuggled in thousands of illegal aliens, taking American jobs and then, of course, exploiting these people you know, paying them next to nothing when they got here and making them work in inhumane conditions, Mr. Stewart said into a handheld camera phone. Not to mention the fact that the biggest victims here are those who are victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

Mr. Gillespies campaign dismissed the attack as part of a constant stream of fabrication and falsehoods from Mr. Stewart.

Immigration has long been a thorny issue for Republicans a potentially powerful cudgel, as then-candidate Donald Trump proved in last years elections, but one that also invites charges of racism.

Its not the only area where Mr. Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, is following Mr. Trumps campaign playbook. Hes also trying to create the kind of online presence that made Mr. Trump the talk of the campaign in 2015, long before the first GOP primary.

I think that social media has transformed so many industries, but especially politics, Mr. Stewart said Wednesday after he launched his Facebook Live attack at Mr. Gillespie. You dont need $3 million to $3.8 million that Ed has raised in order to win a primary for [a] governors race anymore.

Mr. Stewart, 48, has remained loyal to Mr. Trump since getting fired as chairman of Mr. Trumps Virginia campaign over a dustup with the Republican National Committee. He signaled Wednesday he hopes to recreate some of the social media magic that helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election.

But, unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Stewart has consistently trailed in the polls and on the fundraising front.

Mr. Gillespie, who served as a top adviser to President George W. Bush, has raised about $3 million more than Mr. Stewart, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, and leads him by 20 percentage points in a Washington Post-Schar School poll released this month. Also in the GOP race is state Sen. Frank Wagner.

Searching for ways to make up ground, Mr. Stewart has turned in part to first-person riffs on social media that have been viewed by tens of thousands and feature him, among other things, knocking Establishment Ed for not taking a firmer stand against Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe on illegal immigration and against Democrats who want to tear down the states Confederate memorials.

While Mr. Stewart isnt the political neophyte Mr. Trump was when entering the GOP presidential primary, hes never run statewide in Virginia. Mr. Gillespie, however, ran a closer-than-expected battle to unseat U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat, in 2014.

Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, said Mr. Stewarts strategy suggests he knows how difficult his path to the nomination is.

Hes trying to activate a base that is not terribly large using overheated rhetoric, divisive issues and wrapping himself in the Confederate flag, Mr. Rozell said. The latest statewide poll has Gillespie way up over Stewart right now. So Stewart has to count on most of his base showing up and most of Gillespies supporters sitting out the primary. Very, very long shot strategy.

This weeks immigration attack stems from a Washington Post report highlighting the work Mr. Gillespies firm, Quinn Gillespie and Associates, did on behalf of Tyson Foods after the chicken processing giant was prosecuted for hiring illegal immigrants.

Mr. Stewarts Facebook post read: LIVE! From Quinn-Gillespie lobbyists in DC to discuss the Washington Posts bombshell article about Eds complicity in Human Trafficking.

A jury acquitted Tyson Foods of the charges in 2003, and Abbi Sigler, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gillespie, said her boss wasnt involved in the matter anyway.

Tyson Foods retained Quinn Gillespie in 2001 to provide public relations services dealing with charges for which a jury later found the company not guilty, Ms. Sigler said. As The Washington Post reported, Tysons made clear the firm was not retained to lobby on the issue and Ed was not involved in the day-to-day work for them.

Mr. Gillespie has promised to stiffen immigration enforcement in Virginia, including encouraging state and local police to sign up to help federal officials and cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities that try to thwart enforcement.

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Corey Stewart, Republican candidate for Virginia governor, applies Trump playbook in election - Washington Times

Two days after a hate crime left two people dead on a Portland, Ore., train, thechairman of theMultnomah County Republican Party is considering using right-wing militias to protect members of the GOP when they are in the public square.

James Buchal told The Guardian that he was sort of evolving to the point where I think that it is appropriate for Republicans to continue to go out there. And if they need to have a security force protecting them, thats an appropriate thing too.

Although Buchal cited the cancellation of Avenue of the Roses Parade, which occurred after someone anonymous threatened Trump supporters and 3 percent militia who attended, it is impossible to consider Buchals rhetoric without the context of the recent violence in the city. Jeremy Christian, 35, who held white supremacist opinions, is accused of committingracially motivated murder in that city. The victims include Rick Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23. A third person Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, was injured in the altercation, which started when the trio tried to help womenwho were being targeted by hate speech.

As Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said, These were folks just riding the train and unfortunately got caught up in this. He was talking about a lot of different things, not just specifically anti-Muslim. We dont know if hes got mental health issues. We dont know if hes under the influence of drugs or alcohol or all of the above.

When asked if he was thinking of having Republicans arrange for private security instead of relying on municipal or state police, Buchal confirmed this before adding that there are these people arising, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Buchal said it could be necessary to use them for protection because there are now belligerent, unstable people who are convinced that Republicans are like Nazis.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifiesthe Three Percenters as an active antigovernment groupand describes the Oath Keepers as based on a set of baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties of Americans. One passage quoted by SPLC shows an Oath Keeper describing former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as Herr Hitlery and argued she would persecute militia movements by subjecting them to secret military detention without jury trial, enhanced interrogation techniques, and trial before a military tribunal hand-picked by the dominatrix-in-chief herself.

Although the attacks occurred on Friday, President Donald Trump did not tweet out a response to them until Sunday and not from his personal account.

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Portland Republican suggests allowing right-wing militias to protect people, days after alleged hate crime - Salon

Texas state lawmakers got into a scuffle on May 29 on the House floor in Austin amid protests over immigration. (Nar Dorrycott)

UPDATE: Texas Rep. Cesar Blanco (D) posted audio of a phone call to his Twitter account late Monday night, in which a man is heard making racist remarks and saying he stands with Rinaldi.

WARNING: This video contains foul language.

My office is now receiving these calls. @MattRinaldiTX comments incite hate and racism, Blanco said in a separate tweet.

The phone calls and Blanco's decision to post the audio online show how angry both sides are in this debate. Our original post is below.

Lawmakers scuffled on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives on Mondayafter a Dallas-area Republican told Democrats that he called Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on protesters in the House gallery.

We were just on the floor talking about the SB4 protests, and [stateRep.] Matt Rinaldi came up to us and made it a point to say, I called (ICE) on all of them, state Rep. Philip Cortez (D) said. And this is completely unacceptable. We will not be intimidated. We will not be disrespected.

The protesters were apparently chanting and waving signsagainst Senate Bill 4, the controversial Texas legislationthat Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law this month. Itbans sanctuary cities, allows police to question anyone they detain about their immigration status, and compels local officials to comply with federal requests to detain individuals in state and local law enforcement facilities. The law was passed amid a national conversation about immigration enforcement priorities and promises from the Trump administration to aggressively pursue and deport undocumentedimmigrants.

Signing SB4 into law was seen as a big victory for Texas Republicans, who had tried unsuccessfully to pass a ban on sanctuary cities in each legislative session since 2011. Texas Democrats reacted to the bills passage with alarm; one lawmaker went on a hunger strike.

Video of thescuffle shows lawmakers pushing one another, yelling and gesticulating. Later, Democrats said, Rinaldi repeatedly got in their faces and cursed at them.

Afterward, Democrats held a news conference, furious at what they called disrespect.

Texas Democrats held a news conference after legislators scuffled on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives on May 29 in Austin. (Todd Wiseman/The Texas Tribune)

He saw the crowd, and he saw illegals, state Rep. Ramon Romero Jr. said. He saw people that, whether he likes to accept it or not, in his heart, he has hate for those people, and he wants to see them gone. He wants to see them gone so much, to the point that he called ICE.

At one point, some of the language between the two sidesapparently turned violent.

There was a threat made from Representative Rinaldi to put a bullet in one of my colleagues heads, state Rep. Justin Rodriguez said during the news conference. That kind of threatening language, he needs to be called out and held accountable for.

But Rinaldi said the threat went the other way that state Rep. Poncho Nevrez (D) threatened my life on the House floor.

I called ICE on several illegal immigrants who held signs in the gallery that said, I am an illegal immigrant and here to stay, hesaid in a statement after the incident. Rinaldi went on to detail purported threats against him from Democratic lawmakers, saying he was assaulted and had sought the protection of law enforcement officials.

Rinaldi is reportedly under the protection of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Without audio of the exchange on the Texas House floor, its impossible to say who threatened whom. But scuffles in the legislature show how theissue of immigration enforcement can stir passions onboth sides.

Rinaldis decision to call ICE agents fits in with Texas Republicans main argument on immigration: that laws on the books should be enforced more strictly, and undocumentedimmigrants should be processed for deportation. Democrats say Rinaldi crossed a huge line, accusing him of profiling Hispanics in the House gallery.

And the fight over sanctuary cities isnt over. In April, a federal judge said President Trumps executive order on sanctuary cities is unconstitutional, and a barrage of legal challenges to the new Texas law is expected soon.

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A Texas Republican is accused of threatening to 'put a bullet in one of my colleagues' heads' - Washington Post