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China-Focused Influence Program Courted Senior US Media Figures With Sponsor-Paid Trips

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

A journalist’s review of Committee of 100 (C100) records has renewed scrutiny of sponsor-paid trips that brought senior figures from major U.S. news organizations to China and recorded changes in their views and professional plans.
A tour guide stands near a display showing images of people at locations described as vocational training centers in southern Xinjiang at the Exhibition of the Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism in Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China on April 21, 2021. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo

In response to questions from The Epoch Times, C100 confirmed that it covered travel costs, selected the participants, set their itineraries, and chose whom they met.

The organization rejected journalist and media host Natalie Winters’s description of the trips as “pay-for-play,” saying no coverage was exchanged for the travel and participants retained editorial independence.

Winters published her review on Substack on July 28, characterizing the multiyear journalist delegation program as a “propaganda pipeline.” Her report drew attention to documents posted on C100’s website.

A 2012 trip report on the website marked “Internal Use” placed the cost of a nine-day delegation for five journalists at approximately $60,000.

The report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and encourage participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

The five journalists represented The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC. A page about the delegation on the C100 website says they traveled through Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou from Nov. 25 through Dec. 3, 2012.

The trip report described lodging, meals, transportation, sightseeing, corporate and cultural visits, and about 20 arranged meetings with Chinese officials, academics, media representatives, students, and business executives.

C100 Recorded Changes in Views

Winnie O’Kelley, then-deputy business editor at The New York Times, said she would return from the trip with several story ideas and “shape my staff across Asia in some different ways,” according to the report.

Gary Silverman, then-U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor at the Financial Times, said he would not again “think or write about China” without reflecting on what he had learned.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer was described as saying his perception of China had changed “in 100 ways.”

Jonathan Tepperman, then-managing editor of Foreign Affairs, said the trip had given him a “much deeper, more subtle and more nuanced” sense of China and elite opinion in the country.

He said he had made contacts he intended to continue consulting and called it the best press trip he had attended.

Clive Crook, then-senior editor at The Atlantic, said the visit reinforced his view of China as a “huge and fascinating story” and told organizers to “keep it up.”

C100’s report highlighted two articles Crook published after the trip: “Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades” and “China’s Ghost Towns Won’t Have a Hard Landing.”

C100’s delegation page links to those articles, another Crook article, three Lehrer broadcasts, and a Silverman column. The page says the visit gave participants information and perspectives for their later reporting.

Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who met the delegation, responded to the participants’ assessments with a remark recorded in the trip report.

“You made the change!” Shen said.

Participants From Major Newsrooms

C100 began its journalist-delegation program in 2007 and told The Epoch Times that it continued through 2014.

Over that period, C100 records identify participants from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, WNYC, The New Yorker, USA Today, and other outlets.

A C100 account of a gathering of 2011 and 2012 delegates described the program as an opportunity for American thought leaders to witness China’s development and challenges and meet officials, experts, journalists, businesspeople, artists, and students.

The 2012 trip report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and expected participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

In a December 2012 message, then-C100 Executive Director Angie Tang wrote that the journalist and civic-leader delegations were “shaping the U.S.-China dialogue on the frontlines.”

The 2012 delegation met Cui Tiankai, then-Chinese vice foreign minister; CCTV executive producer Cheng Yue; Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu; Shanghai financial official Fang Xinghai; and academics, corporate leaders, students, and local journalists.

C100 also held discussions with Chinese officials during the same period.

Its account of those meetings says C100 leaders met Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu, Hong Kong Chief Executive-Elect Leung Chun-ying, and C.H. Tung, chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong organization established in 2008.

C100 leaders also discussed possible collaboration on the organization’s teacher and journalist delegations to China with He Yafei, then-deputy director of the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

C100 Defends the Program

“Committee of 100’s journalist delegation program was an open professional exchange that last ran in 2014, during a period when the two economies were rapidly integrating [and] expanded U.S.-China engagement was the stated policy of both American political parties,” C100 said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

The organization said the program was intended to give American editors direct exposure to a country often covered from a distance.

“The program’s purpose, described openly for years, was understanding through direct experience,” the statement said. “Participants disclosed their trips and retained full editorial independence. Nothing in the record shows anyone wrote or edited a story at anyone’s direction.”

C100 also confirmed that it independently selected the participants, set their itineraries, chose whom they met, and covered travel costs.

The organization did not respond to follow-up questions asking whether the claimed disclosures were made to employers, audiences, or both; requesting examples of those disclosures; and asking whether participants and their employers received advance materials describing the program’s aim of improving perceptions of China.

Newsrooms Asked About Approval, Disclosure

The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC were asked by The Epoch Times whether they approved the 2012 travel, whether they paid or reimbursed any expenses, and what sponsored-travel and disclosure policies applied at the time.

They were also asked whether C100’s sponsorship was disclosed to readers or listeners in work connected to the trip.

O’Kelley, Silverman, Lehrer, Tepperman, and Crook were separately asked to verify the statements attributed to them and explain whether the trip affected any reporting, editing, staffing, sourcing, or broadcasting decision.

None of the participants or news organizations responded by publication time.

Arranged Access, Restricted Reporting

C100’s program emerged during an era when engagement with Beijing was mainstream U.S. policy. Chinese authorities, however, had long treated exchanges, hospitality, and managed access as tools for shaping foreign perceptions – a practice that continues even as U.S. policy toward Beijing has hardened.

On July 27, 19 media workers from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Bangladesh began a six-day visit to Baoshan in Yunnan Province under the guidance of the CCP’s Baoshan Municipal Propaganda Department, according to a Xinhua report.

The itinerary directed participants toward coffee production, historic towns, traditional crafts, cultural heritage, agriculture, tourism, and local-development projects.

Five days earlier, a Baoshan government account said authorities in Tengchong had trained more than 300 elementary school guides and university volunteers as local narrators tasked with carrying CCP theories and approved local accounts into communities and households.

Foreign correspondents trying to report outside official programs described a different experience in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China’s (FCCC’s) 2025 media-freedom report, titled “The New Abnormal.”

The survey found that 94 percent of respondents said reporting conditions in China did not usually, or almost never, meet international standards. Some 64 percent reported interference, harassment, or obstruction while reporting, while 77 percent said sources had declined or canceled interviews or required permission before speaking to foreign media.

Most respondents to the FCCC survey declined to be identified because they feared retaliation against themselves or their news organizations.

One unnamed European journalist said a Chinese Embassy invited the reporter on a government-organized trip to Xinjiang. After returning, the journalist was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and warned that subsequent reporting would be monitored to ensure it was “unbiased.”

Another unnamed European journalist said police surrounded a reporting team investigating detention sites and prisons in Xinjiang, examined its cameras and phones, copied footage, and deleted material.

The FCCC said government-organized tours were occasionally offered in Tibet, but journalists who joined them reported having no opportunity to work independently. No surveyed correspondent received permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous Region independently in 2025.

The survey also found that 40 percent of respondents said their Chinese colleagues had faced pressure, harassment, or intimidation from officials or while assisting with field reporting.

C100 said the journalists on its delegations disclosed their trips, but it did not provide examples or specify whether readers and listeners were told who financed the travel.
Chinese police detain a journalist at a checkpoint on the road to the riot-affected Uyghur town of Lukqun, Xinjiang Province, China, on June 28, 2013. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2026 – 19:15

The Justice Department on Friday dismissed the Lincoln Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn.
David Hearn, the former Olympian who was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for destruction of property for vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool last month, was indicted by a grand jury on felony charges earlier this month.
Hearn is a three-time Olympic canoeist.
David Hearn denied any wrongdoing.
Hearn was charged with felony destruction of government property. He was facing 10 years in prison.
A grand jury in the DC Superior Court returned the indictment.
During a press conference earlier this month, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said Hearn “violently and forcefully” ripped up the sealant.
WATCH:

WATCH LIVE: U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro updates Reflecting Pool case https://t.co/rZQTZ8vZsm
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 2, 2026

However, on Friday, Pirro said the damage to the Lincoln Reflecting Pool was the result of “flawed installation by the contractor.”
“It was not until after the return of the indictment [of Hearn], that the [Department of Interior] provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office in DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026,” Pirro’s office wrote.
Hearn’s attorneys said in a statement to CNN reacting to the decision:
“The Trump administration’s case against David Hearn should never have been brought.
Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong.
The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

The post BREAKING: Pirro Dismisses Lincoln Reflecting Pool Vandalism Criminal Case Against Former Olympian David Hearn appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
One of the things that is perplexing and often a topic of conversation is this new American-Western European alliance or absorption of Islam and Marxism-socialism-communism. In other words, people who identify as radical Muslims, often in their alliance, include people who are traditional Western Marxists, and it doesn’t seem possible for a variety of ways.
There’s a lot of antitheses. Do we really believe that these upscale people in blue enclaves in the United States who declare themselves socialist and are voting for people like Zohran Mamdani, or Ilhan Omar, or Rashida Tlaib, who are proud, and active, and often fervent Muslims, tolerate gays? Do you really believe if you said, “I am gay, and I’m proud of it, and I want to announce that in Saudi Arabia,” you wouldn’t be in trouble?
Do you really believe that if you went to Iran and said, “I want to repeal all the sodomy laws,” you wouldn’t be in trouble?
Or if you went, let’s say, to Egypt and you said, “I wanna have a trans, sexual support group,” you wouldn’t be in trouble? Do you really believe that upscale, independent women in Western cities, maybe unmarried, professional, doesn’t that bother them a little bit when they ally themselves with radical Muslims who tell them that, as far as men go, their dream is going to an Islamic heaven and having the sexual use as if they’re almost tools of 72 virgins?
Does that go well with a book editor in Manhattan or the head of an NGO in Denver? I don’t think so.
Another thing that’s quite different is Islam believes in Allah, and that’s it. All other people who are non-believers are doomed to hell, and the duty is to spread worship, loyalty, fealty to the Muslim Allah.
But throughout the history of socialism and Marxism and communism, all of them agree on one thing, that religion is really the opiate of the masses. They feel that class struggle is harmed or negated by people who believe in a God. In the Christian sense, they feel that, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor.
That Sermon on the Mount doesn’t do anything. It basically says there will be social justice in heaven, but not here. If you’re poor, you go to heaven by being morally better than the rich man. Remember, it’s harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man, Jesus says, to go to heaven.
So, the message for believers is that there is social justice in heaven. The message for a socialist, communist, Marxist is it’s right now. There is no heaven. There is no God. We have to get social justice now.
Another thing that’s very different is Marxists believe in the state control of the means of production, and socialists believe that this—there can be private property, but mostly the utilities, the railroads, the steel companies, most all of the muscles of a society are owned also by the state.
But they believe in a commission, a committee, a chairman. They don’t believe that one exercises power through royalty or succession, although most communist and Marxist states, which we see in North Korea and we see in Iran, they’re very similar in some ways. But, in the Arab world, monarchy is pretty much de rigueur, as we see in the Gulf states.
But Marxism says, “No, we don’t believe in kings. We overthrow them.” That was what the revolutions of 1848 were about. That’s what the French Revolution was about. That’s basically what the Bolsheviks were trying to get rid of an imperial dynastic tsar. So, that’s another antithesis.
Another thing is the Arab world is based on tribalism, that your first loyalty goes to people who look like you, speak a dialect of Arabic like you, and have a local or regional affinity, a proximity to you.
That’s always been the challenge of the modern Arab nation or state. How do you include people from seven, 10, 15, 20 different tribes who have fought each other for centuries and only come together when coerced to, for example, under the Ottoman Empire?
But Marxism is very different. Your first allegiance is not to people who look like you.
It’s to the global proletariat, the oppressed, the Comintern. Socialists believe that they have more in common with people in Europe who are fellow socialists than they do with rich people or, or people who are devoutly religious in their own country.
So tribalism is part of Islam’s foundation. Globalism is central to the socialist or the communist or the Marxist.
However, all of that said, someone’s going to say, “Well, Victor, they’re alike. They have a coalition. Zohran Mamdani is a hardcore Marxist, and he’s a hardcore Islamicist, and so is Ilhan Omar, and so are almost all the people in Dearborn, Michigan, it seems like, and so are these new socialist candidates that are popping up like flowers everywhere in blue cities and urban areas.”
So, what’s the similarities? One, they hate Western civilization. They can’t stand the values of Western civilization, free speech, religious opportunity, market capitalism, etc. They both hate that and Islam has been, has been at war with the West since the seventh century, and it’s fought Westerners not just in the Crusades, but all through the history of the Byzantine Empire, all through the history of Europe and North Africa.
And when [Osama] bin Laden said the great tragedy was that Islam lost its hold in Europe, what he was basically talking about was the Battle of Tours and the stopping of the Islamic movement northward into Europe. They, of course, have, in the Quran and its related apocrypha, there’s a lot of hatred of Jews.
They hate Israel with a passion. So do Marxists, socialists. I’m not sure why they do, given the creation of Israel was based on a kibbutz system, which is socialistic in nature, and many of the original generation who settled in Israel even before World War II came there as dissidents from Eastern Europe and Russia, and they believed in a socialist future.
But that’s all ancient history now. As of now, what draws Muslims to the new left-wing hardcore socialist and communist, and what draws them to include rather antithetical Muslims into their movement, they hate Israel with a passion, and they hate Jews.
There’s another, similarity. They hate capitalism.
They do not believe that a person should have freedom of opportunity to start his own business, to make a profit. In the Islamic world, interest is frowned upon officially. Not that the Gulf states are run … The Gulf states are run on hypercapitalism, but officially they find, euphemisms and mechanisms to get around prohibitions in the Quran for hypercapitalism or laissez-faire capitalism.
And of course, capitalism is the main enemy of Zohran Mamdani and others who feel it’s unfair, it doesn’t share the wealth. They believe in the message not of the Americans, “Give me liberty or give me death,” a revolution to ensure political freedom, but a holistic, totalitarian, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree revolution of fraternity egalitarianism.
In other words, we’re not just going to give people freedom to speak. We don’t want them to have freedom to speak. We want to make them equal on the back end by the use of government coercion.
Both of them hate democracy then. They don’t like the people voting because, in the Arab world or the Muslim world, there will be people who object to the role of women, especially in the modern age, or the role that intolerance for sexual minorities or the intolerance shown Christians.
And so, they will object, and they wouldn’t want to express that objection. That’s taboo. And we know from the history of socialism, they say they believe in free speech, but very quickly socialists try to outlaw it, and when they become communists, they kill for it
That’s another difference. And both of them justify violence.
They believe the violent method is necessary for the, desired end. And so you see people who are committing … Who are the people that commit violence? Who was the person just this week in New York that stabbed somebody? Who was the person in Europe that tried to run over people at a gay party?
Who are the people protesting ICE? Who are the people on the campus protesting violently? They are either radical Islamicist or they’re radical socialist communist Antifa types, or often they’re mixed together in the same demonstration.
Finally, remember that Hitler himself said he was a national socialist.
Yes, he made deals with crony capitalism, but even though he said he despised Bolshevism, he said after he was looking back in his final days that he admired Joseph Stalin’s communism, and he said that if he had defeated the United States and Russia, he would have executed American leaders, but welcomed Stalin in kind of a genteel captivity.
And by the same token, Hitler said that he preferred Islam to Christianity. He had a great deal of admiration for the Grand Mufti. There was an alliance of radical Islam with national socialists. They both hated capitalism, and they hated the same thing as we’ve just reviewed, and they liked many of the same things.
Hitler was not a hypercapitalist. He was a socialist, a national socialist. And in some ways, even though he said he despised Bolsheviks, they had a lot in common.
So, remember, next time you see this bizarre, weird, surreal alliances or people shouting Allah Akbar or, power to the people, spread the word. They’re not as different as you think.
[Editor’s note: This column originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Argentina’s Milei Borrows Warren Buffett’s Idea To Punish Deficit-Spending Politicians

More than two years after campaigning to “blow up” Argentina’s central bank, President Javier Milei has announced his “Fiscal Shackle” bill – a permanent rule aimed at preventing Argentina from approving or maintaining budgets with fiscal deficits that could have consequences for politicians.

On Thursday, in a speech recorded at the Casa Rosada and broadcast nationwide, Milei proposed an overhaul that would restore the Central Bank of Argentina’s sole mandate of preserving the currency’s value, stop direct and indirect financing of the Treasury, provinces, and municipalities, and expose officials who violate the rules to criminal charges. “It will be considered fraud and illicit association,” he explained.

Milei said this is the “most important set of structural reforms in the last 91 years,” taking the year of the Central Bank’s founding, 1935, as the starting point for that period. He argued that the central bank has functioned as “a tool for theft” and indicated that his reform proposal seeks “to put an end to the scam of counterfeiting money to finance high-level politics, whose most evident manifestation is the inflation rate.”

The plan would also strengthen independence of central bank officials, making them more difficult for future administrations to remove. Milei said the reforms were an effort to end decades of deficit monetization, the primary source of Argentina’s recurring inflation and currency crises.

He said the “Fiscal Shackle” bill would impose an automatic shutdown mechanism if public accounts remain in deficit and Congress fails to restore balance. Nonessential government functions would halt, while new spending, hiring, and discretionary provincial transfers would be frozen. Top political officials would stop receiving salaries, although pensions, family benefits, unemployment insurance, health care, and security services would remain protected.

“The results of the Central Bank’s portfolio can only be transferred to the Treasury for debt cancellation. The scam of the Non-Transferable Letters will be eliminated… This will include the Fiscal Shackle: it will ensure that Argentina cannot sustain a deficit budget,” Milei said.

Remember, the Oracle of Omaha told CNBC’s Becky Quick in a 2011 interview that he “could end the deficit in five minutes.”

Warren Buffett explained, “You just pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2026 – 18:50

Pro Bowl offensive lineman Andrus Peat announced his retirement in a social media post Friday.Peat, 32, played in the NFL for 11 seasons after being selected with the No. 13 overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft out of Stanford by the New Orleans Saints.”11 years in the league, I gave it everything I had. I may be walking away from football, but not from the lessons it taught me. Thank you to my coaches, teammates, and especially my brothers in the trenches. I’m grateful beyond words that I was able to live out this dream,” Peat wrote in his caption on Instagram.CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM”On to the next chapter with my wife and sons. All glory to God!”Peat spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Saints, primarily as their starting left guard. He made the Pro Bowl in three consecutive seasons, from 2018 to 2020.Peat was a key part of the Saints’ offensive line when the team won four straight NFC South titles from 2017 to 2020.ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!Peat left the Saints following the 2023 season and joined the Las Vegas Raiders as veteran depth on the offensive line. He played in 15 games with the Raiders, starting just one.After one season with the Raiders, he joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in a similar backup role, appearing in six games and starting three.Peat’s wife, Ashley, posted a touching comment under his post.”We are SO proud of you baby!!!! Thank you for everything you sacrificed and worked so hard to provide for us all these years. Can’t wait to enjoy this next chapter with you,” she wrote with three heart emojis.Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had lodged a detainer asking Texas to not release an El Salvadoran national, who is accused of murder in two fatal shootings and is in the country illegally, without notifying the agency.Jefferson Adonay Velasquez-Torres, 18, was charged this week with murder for an April 27 shooting outside a Houston nightclub in which Noah Ramirez, 27, died.Two others were injured in the shooting, according to a report from affiliate FOX 26 Houston.ICE ARRESTS MORE THAN 900 SUSPECTED HUMAN TRAFFICKERS DURING FIFA WORLD CUP, RESCUES 180 VICTIMS: DHSVelasquez-Torres was previously charged in June with murder for his alleged involvement in a shooting at a Houston house party last August that left Angel Garcia, 17, dead.A second suspect, Enrique Aguilar, 19, was also arrested in connection with Garcia’s death, FOX 26 reported.TWICE-DEPORTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF FIRING TOWARD TEXAS HOMES DURING NEIGHBORHOOD DISPUTEVelasquez-Torres also faces charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon and aggravated robbery.The 18-year-old came into the U.S. illegally as a minor in 2014 during former President Barack Obama’s second term and was released into the country.”This criminal illegal alien has been charged with TWO counts of murder after two fatal shootings in Houston,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement.VIDEO SHOWS ICE OFFICERS ARRESTING ALLEGED MS-13 GANG MEMBER, A ‘KNOWN SUSPECTED TERRORIST’ IN FLORIDAShe continued, “He would not be in our country if it weren’t for the reckless open-border policies of the Obama Administration. ICE asked officials in Texas to not release this heinous murderer from jail without notifying ICE. Thankfully, Texas cooperates with us and together we will ensure this public safety threat will never be loose on our streets.”Velasquez-Torres is being held in the Harry County Jail after being denied bond for charges related to the second shooting.

Francesca Hong, the likely Democratic nominee for governor in Wisconsin backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, once argued that Americans should not celebrate Thanksgiving.”Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621,” Hong wrote in a now-deleted post to X.”If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx [sic] and women, so be it,” she added, referring to the spread of smallpox that killed many indigenous Americans.WISCONSIN DEM SOCIALIST GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL DODGES WHETHER SHE STILL WANTS TO ‘ABOLISH POLICE’The post, which was originally made in November 2020, sheds more light on Hong’s progressive thinking as she emerges as a frontrunner in the Wisconsin gubernatorial contest and drew mockery online.”‘Folx,'” Stephen Miller, a conservative podcaster, posted to X, noting the term used to signal inclusivity of LGBTQ+ and other marginalized groups.”Francesca Hong is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin. She also wants to ‘Cancel Thanksgiving,’ according to a since-deleted tweet. What is going on in Wisconsin??” another observer wrote.Hong has leaned into her socialist record in her campaign, describing it as ensuring that “working-class people have their fair share.”Hong shares policy positions with other notable progressives like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, another self-proclaimed socialist. Among other platform positions, Hong is championing race-based grants for social workers, publicly funded grocery stores and a state-run bank.The stances seem to have paid off as Hong has gained momentum in recent months, and, with under two weeks to go until the primary, looks poised to capture the Democratic nomination.’FREE BEER’ FOR TRUMP DEATH DEM ACTIVIST RUNNING FOR WISCONSIN GOV: ‘I WILL WIN’ IF THEY SILENCE MEHong also started getting mocked Friday for a resurfaced 2019 post where she said, “I ate two bites of my kid’s cheeseburger at a Culver’s in black river falls and told him they ran out of ice cream. Mostly just wanted to leave bc I was on the verge of a anxiety attack…to (sic) many old white people who didn’t think we spoke english.””Omg English ***TOO **AN,” she replied.”Bold choice for Democrats in Wisconsin running someone statewide who gets a panic attack at Culver’s at the sight of ‘old white people,’” Former White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer wrote on X.”The only way this post could be worse for someone running for office in Wisconsin is if she had complained that Culver’s uses too much butter,” Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter at the Washington Free Beacon, wrote on X.”One of the democrats running for Governor of Wisconsin doesn’t know that Culver’s serves only fresh frozen custard. She thinks they serve ice cream. Disqualifying,” Brick Suit, an online MAGA personality, wrote on X.The race was shaken up on Thursday when Mandela Barnes, the state’s former lieutenant governor, dropped out of the race. Barnes was considered a frontrunner in the race because of his proximity to outgoing Gov. Tony Evers and his name recognition.His exit also coincides with rumblings that Barnes may have abused his position in the past to make sexual advances toward women in the workplace, an allegation currently under investigation by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.With his departure, Hong and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley were left as the two main contenders.Hong has received backing from a number of nationally recognized progressives, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. She has raised nearly $709,000 as of late June, according to state records.SCHIFF-BACKED CANDIDATE ABRUPTLY ENDS GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN AMID RUMBLINGS OF A DAMAGING REPORTBy comparison, Crowley has secured $250,000 and enjoys the support of a number of local organizations and figures.Gov. Evers has endorsed Crowley , citing his experience.The gubernatorial primary will take place Aug. 11.Fox News Digital has reached out to Hong’s campaign for comment.