Dark Past of Wildfire Suspect Revealed, Trump's AG Pick Gets Unexpected Win | 8/5/26 FIRST LOOK

**Dave Rubin** (0:04)
Hey everybody, I'm Dave AI, and this is First Look. It's Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 We've got a packed show for you today. Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General clears a critical hurdle after he killed off a nearly $1.8 billion fund that some Republicans feared would become a payout vehicle for January 6th defendants and other targets of Biden era lawfare. The full Senate could vote as soon as this week. A 37-year-old Spokane man with a prior manslaughter conviction for killing his own father has been arrested for starting the largest wildfire currently torching the region, the same fire as Washington Governor Jay Inslee immediately blamed on climate change. And in a time when Americans are speaking tens of thousands fewer words a year and living more of life through screens, a leading researcher on kindness explains why small talk with strangers is one of the simplest, most underrated boosts to mental health and social trust, and how to get better at it. Let's dive in. Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General clears critical hurdle days after Trump threatened to pull his nomination. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is one big step closer to becoming the nation's top law enforcement officer. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced his nomination 12-10 along party lines, sending it to the full Senate for a confirmation vote that Majority Leader John Foon could schedule as soon as this week before the Chamber recesses until September 14
The breakthrough came after Republican holdouts, chiefly Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina were satisfied that a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund created inside the Justice Department would not be used to cut checks to pardon January 6 rioters or other people prosecuted under the Biden administration. Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa made clear before the vote that the concerns about that fund were shared by many Republicans, including himself.
Cornyn, after receiving written assurances, said his vote goes beyond this document. We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice, and Mr. Blanche deserves the opportunity to provide that. Cornyn added that President Trump needs an attorney general with a strong legal mind who is also close enough to the president to give him confidential legal advice to tell him hard truths. Tillis put it more bluntly, What I hope I see out of him is a bending of the curve of this absurdity. The fund itself had a short and contentious life. A May 18th Justice Department order created the $1.776 billion fund as part of a settlement of an IRS lawsuit President Trump filed earlier this year. That settlement also gave the Trump family potential immunity from future audits. The President had sued the IRS in 2024 for $10 billion after the leak of his and other family members' confidential tax returns. Trump insisted the fund would compensate victims of politicized prosecutions going all the way back to the Obama years. Critics on both sides of the aisle, including several Republicans, called it a slush fund for Trump allies.
Last week, the President publicly threatened to yank Blanche's nomination. Blanche formally rescinded it on Sunday, declaring the order shall have no force or effect. He had already told the Judiciary Committee during his July 15 confirmation hearing that the fund was dead, but Cornyn and Tillis demanded a written document affirming that reality and clarifying the status of any future IRS audit protection.
Some Democratic senators suggested Trump could still sue to enforce the original settlement agreement. Republicans countered that they expect Blanche to keep his word. Cornyn put it plainly, Given this agreement with Mr. Blanche, I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation, and I will vote to advance him out of the committee today.
Tillis used the moment to zero in on the broader problem Blanche is expected to fix. The weaponization of the Justice Department against political opponents. He specifically called out the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Comey was charged in April for an Instagram post that showed seashells arranged in the shape of the numbers 8647, slang for Get Rid of the 47th President. Some bonehead in North Carolina thinks that that's a crime, Tillis said, well, they better damn sure have information to back it up, because if all it is is a picture, that person should lose his job, his or her job. He went further. The people who went after Republicans in the Biden administration should probably be disbarred or disciplined. So at the end of the day, don't act like you're standing on some sort of moral high ground if you start attacking this administration, because I can match you almost deed for deed. 37-year-old man who killed his father arrested for allegedly starting wildfire that Washington governor blamed on climate change. While Washington governor Jay Inslee was busy posting a social media video blaming climate change for the fires ripping through the Spokane region, actual investigators were doing the opposite of climate theater. They were tracking down a human being with a lighter.