Trump to Pull Stefanik UN Ambassador Nomination to Protect Republican House Majority

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / March 27, 2025

President Donald Trump is pulling the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to be United Nations ambassador.

The move is designed to protect House Republicans’ slim majority, the president said.

“With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat,” the president said on Truth Social. “The people love Elise and, with her, we have nothing to worry about come Election Day.”

Others can do a good job in the position, so Stefanik “will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People,” according to Trump.

“Speaker [Mike] Johnson is thrilled! I look forward to the day when Elise is able to join my Administration in the future,” he said. “She is absolutely FANTASTIC. Thank you Elise!”

While Stefanik would likely have had no trouble getting the necessary votes for confirmation, Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House with 218 seats while Democrats hold 213 seats. There are currently four vacant seats.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, was expected to slow-walk the special election to replace Stefanik.

Stefanik’s nomination was expected to move forward on April 2, the day after the Florida special elections, Axios reported last week. She would have been the last of Trump’s Cabinet to get confirmed.

Stefanik is the second of Trump’s Cabinet picks to have their nominations withdrawn, following Rep. Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal in November after it became clear he did not have the votes to be confirmed.

This is a breaking news story and it may be updated.

Watch Our Live Inauguration Day Coverage

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / January 20, 2025

The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett will be doing live coverage today from Washington, D.C. Catch his show, which you can watch right here, starting at 10:30 a.m. Eastern and concluding half an hour after the inauguration. Stay tuned to get smart commentary from guests, including Scott Rasmussen and Kurt Schlichter, and watch the inauguration itself.

American Tea Parties, Greek Yogurt Parties

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / June 21, 2011

When it comes to crushing debts, unsustainable entitlements and ballooning deficits, Americans and Europeans are all in the same sinking boat. Where they part ways is in their response to the looming crisis.

Faced with out-of-control government spending and the prospect of a bleak economic future, Americans from across the country have rallied under the banner of the Tea Party and sent a clear message to Washington: Enough! In a vigorous manifestation of that greatest of all checks on government—the “vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America”—citizens began a grassroots wave of orderly protests that have since only grown in number and promise to keep the pressure on Washington to pull its financial act together.

Meanwhile in Greece, proposed austerity measures to avert bankruptcy have left the country paralyzed by strikes and riots. Last week in Athens, Greek police fired teargas at protesters who responded by throwing stones and yogurt. This week, the country is being hit with blackouts as the main power company goes on strike. Violent protests have sadly become the norm whenever European governments attempt to tackle their financial woes. Their citizens, coddled by the nanny-state and its promises of cradle-to-grave no-hassle living, do not take well to being told it’s time to face the music.

Cynics will say that Americans aren’t hurling stones and yogurt because the government has yet to touch their benefits, and that when it does, things will get ugly here too. Perhaps. But there are reasons to believe that Americans, who by and large still view themselves as free citizens of a republic rather than dependent wards of the welfare state, will have the fortitude to accept whatever painful cuts are necessary. And thanks to the efforts of the Tea Party, these cuts, when they do occur, will not be as drastic as they would have been had the people sat by in torpor until the crisis hit.

ALITO: A Fitting Tribute to the Justice Who Overturned Roe v. Wade

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / April 22, 2026

As rumors swirl that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito might retire at the end of this term, allowing President Donald Trump to name his replacement before the 2026 midterm elections, the justice could not have wished for a better send-off than Mollie Hemingway’s masterful and well-researched biography.

“Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution” captures Alito’s life story, his rise to the nation’s highest court, his judicial philosophy, and how the stars aligned to enable him to write the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade (1973).

Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist and senior journalism fellow for Hillsdale College, writes that an old Latin phrase best captures Alito’s fearless determination to follow the law: fiat justitia, ruat caelum, which translates to “let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

When Alito wrote the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the heavens did appear to fall. A hostile news outlet published the full draft opinion, and pro-abortion activists launched a horrific pressure campaign to stop the opinion’s finalization. Vandals targeted pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches, and many began protesting outside of justices’ homes. At least one agitator attempted to assassinate a justice.

“In spite of political threats to the legitimacy of the court—accompanied by very real threats to the justices’ own lives—Alito had quietly and consistently delivered justice while also anchoring the team through its most controversial decision in half a century,” Hemingway writes. “The heavens had fallen, and Alito had done his duty, unawed.”

Who Is Alito?

After setting the stage with Dobbs in the introduction, Hemingway delves into Alito’s history. The justice grew up in an Italian American Catholic family in New Jersey, served in the military during the Vietnam War, and distinguished himself as a brilliant legal mind early on. Unlike Chief Justice John Roberts, he didn’t play the game to try to get nominated to the Supreme Court, but lightning struck and President George H.W. Bush gave him the opportunity.

Hemingway describes Alito as an “improbable justice.” While many Washington politicos succeed through “relentless diplomacy and self-promotion,” Alito “arrived at his position solely because of his intellect and hard work.”

While telling Alito’s story, Hemingway interweaves important details about the legal profession, explaining why the philosophy of Originalism—returning to the original public meaning of the Constitution—became so important.

‘The Best Court’

Hemingway next recounts the building of “the best court in history.”

She traces the history of each member of the current court, from Democrat nominees like Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Republican nominees from President Donald Trump’s first term and before: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. She analyzes each justice’s character and role on the bench.

Hemingway praises Justice Kagan as “the smartest liberal justice,” and a “formidable writer.” She warns about Justice Barrett’s “characteristic caution,” and heavily criticizes Chief Justice Roberts for essentially rewriting the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) on the fly to save it in 2012.

“Roberts never publicly supported the conservative legal movement in speeches and was never associated with its organizations, yet he skillfully conveyed the message that he was conservative,” Hemingway notes. Roberts seems too concerned with how the media perceives him, and Hemingway warns that his bowing to “political pressure politicized the court and encouraged similar pressure campaigns in the future.”

After setting up the court’s composition, Hemingway delves into Alito’s judicial philosophy as a “practical Originalist.” While Alito aims to restore the original public meaning of the Constitution, his approach differs from Justice Thomas.

Thomas “plants a flag where he believes the court should be,” laying out “his vision in his opinions” and hoping to move the legal culture to catch up, but Alito “is more interested in the tactical work of assembling a majority to seize new ground today.” Hemingway notes that Alito’s history as a circuit court judge prepared him to deal with concrete cases more than abstract principles.

Overturning Roe

Hemingway breaks down the complex ecosystem of abortion law and the Supreme Court’s previous futile attempts to address it, before narrating Alito’s central achievement.

She recounts the many courageous decisions that had to happen in order to reverse Roe. She recounts how Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer tried to peel Justice Brett Kavanaugh off the decision.

In the end, the court overturned Roe, and Alito shepherded this key win through a complex process. It took a man of undaunted principle and unflinching courage to achieve this massive victory—and to stick by it, under pressure.

The full character of that man emerges from Hemingway’s prose, and Americans will be educated and edified by her masterful work.

If Alito does decide to retire, this book will help him do it on a high note.

DEI Not Dead as Top Law Firms Profited From Equity Audits

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / April 22, 2026

Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies may only look dead in corporate America, as high-priced racial equity audits of companies have become a lucrative industry for Democrat-leaning law firms, a watchdog group noted.

Two former attorneys general in the Obama administration—Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch—are now leading their respective law firms’ efforts on racial equity audits. Holder is a partner with the firm Covington & Burling. Lynch is the chairwoman of civil rights and racial equity audits at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

The National Legal and Policy Center noted the boon for the major law firms as the White House released a report examining the economic impact of DEI policies.

“Behind the scenes, DEI is not really dead. It’s more under the radar now, but many corporate executives are true believers,” Paul Chesser, director of the Corporate Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, told The Daily Signal. “We’ve gone from grassroots rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton shaking down companies to white-shoe law firms run by former attorneys general.”

An NLPC analysis this week found that Holder was reportedly paid $2,295 per hour for a string of racial equity audits that began in 2021 at companies including Starbucks, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Verizon, and Uber.

Lynch’s firm, Paul Weiss, touted being “possibly the nation’s first dedicated legal team focused on conducting racial equity and other civil rights audits,” conducting audits of Amazon and Chevron.

Another prominent firm, WilmerHale, also conducted racial equity audits of McDonald’s, Google, Home Depot, and Goldman Sachs, according to the NLPC.

The three law firms did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Two of the corporations identified by the NLPC as paying for the audits told the Daily Signal they had no comment; others did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report this week assessing companies that focused on DEI-based promotions, and it found they were 2.7% less productive. It also found promotions of minorities to management positions were four times higher from 2015 to 2023 than they were from 2005 to 2015. The study determined industries that focused heavily on DEI promotions experienced lower productivity.

The White House report says, “These estimates imply that DEI promotion has led to inefficient management, raising the cost of doing business. These costs lead the companies practicing DEI to hire fewer people and pay their workers less.”

While the racial equity audits have died down, the divisions of the law firms are still running, so the industry could boom again when political winds change, Chesser said.

Corporations frequently presented these audits as independent, objective reviews, but the National Legal and Policy Center contends the big fees effectively bought access to “homogeneous Democratic law firms.”

The NLPC points to a 2025 analysis by Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller of law firms’ political donations in the 2024 election cycle. The analysis found that Covington employees donated more than $1 million to Democrat-affiliated organizations and candidates, compared with just $9,053 to Republicans.

The same analysis found Paul Weiss employees spent $3.8 million on Democrat causes and candidates and $132,495 on Republican-affiliated candidates and causes.

“A number of companies have already capitulated and will likely illustrate cowardice again if there is a little social media pressure,” Chesser said. “These are multibillion-dollar companies. They can pay a few million dollars to make a problem go away.”

Trump Isn’t Negotiating—He’s Crushing Iran’s Regime

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / April 22, 2026

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: Well, you mentioned the war, Victor. So, the Straits of Hormuz are—the Iranians say they’re in control. This is from two days ago, where, clearly, [President] Donald Trump’s saying we are now in control. Anyway, what’s your take on the latest headlines, Victor?

Victor Davis Hanson: Nothing that the Iranians say can be taken at face value because there is no Iranian government. The first and second echelon of that apparatus is gone. So, you have the people in the military, that’s one clique. You’ve got the theocracy, the Khamenei, you know, surrogates. That’s another. You’ve got the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It’s probably the most dominant. Then you’ve got these elected politicians. And they have two driving concerns.

One, they are terrified that one of the other three groups will think they’re weak and are negotiating with the Americans and either kill them or marginalize them or cut off their revenues, such as it is. So, they always want to outdo each other. At the same time, they want to outdo each other by saying, you know, we’re winning and all this crazy stuff.

They are also afraid of an uprising. Because if there’s an uprising, any of their hardline stuff that protects them from each other is gonna put a noose around their neck, in a Nuremberg-like trial, given they’ve killed 30,000 to 40,000 people.

So, you got the schizophrenia that on one day they want to be moderate and signal the Iranian people that maybe we might transition someday, with me as a figure. On the other day, it’s hardliner, or please don’t kill me if you’re in the Guard Corps. So, it’s almost impossible.

The other thing that’s going on is they did a—and everybody says, well, why didn’t he blockade Iran and open the strait? He had a sequence that makes sense. He destroyed their air, capital, navy, air defenses, most of their military, industrial, nuclear complex.

And then he said, let’s talk. And he had negotiations. And now he started a blockade that reportedly is costing them $430 million a day in revenue. Now this is on top of losing probably a 50-year investment of a half a trillion dollars in a missile arsenal, barracks, military apparatus, vehicles, planes, drones, nuclear factories—you name it. It’s wiped out.

I just make a little footnote of that, Jack, because Ben Rhodes and the Obama people are all on TV saying, oh, Trump—people don’t understand, he’s just reinstituting the Obama joint plan—you know, the comprehensive plan, joint plan action.

Fowler: Are we sending pallets of cash over?

Hanson: Yeah, exactly. We’re not. It’s nothing the same. Obama was rearming an ascendant Iran that was scary and indomitable, so people thought. We are dealing with a prostrate, weakened, and feeble corpse of Iran. And we’re dictating. We’re not negotiating, we’re dictating to it.

So, if these negotiations break down and Iran thinks it’s going to send some missiles into Saudi Arabia or storm a tanker, Donald Trump will take out their bridges, the first day, probably. He will take out their power plants.

And what is Iran thinking? Well, Iran is thinking that we’re going to go into the traditional rug—I don’t think that’s an ethnic stereotype. I’ve been in the Middle East. I bought a rug in Turkey once and one in Greece, and it’s—you barter. But that’s what they think.

They’re gonna go to the bazaar and barter, and yesterday, today, and tomorrow, whatever they say doesn’t matter, and draw out the negotiations, hoping that the Left will win the midterms.

The midterms will be lost, Trump will be impeached, and the Republican congresspeople will put pressure on him, and before the midterms, to get out. The Europeans will put pressure, Japan, everybody—they think time is on their side, and he will fold, and then they can reconstruct, and they probably feel they have some fissionable material they can fish out.

OK. Time is not on their side, not when you’re losing $400 million-plus a day. All he has to do is not give in for the next five to six, 10 days, and he still has plenty of time during the midterms. Just don’t put the boot off their neck.

Make sure they suffer $400 million, $450 million in lost revenue, and that’ll mean finally these people who are living lavishly and sending their children and their friends all over Europe, the United States, money—it’ll cut off. And then they will negotiate.

And if you want to accelerate a little bit, if they start to do crazy things, then yeah, take out their bridges or something. And if anybody complains from the Left and says that you’re going to impeach them, just remind everybody that Bill Clinton took out every bridge on the Danube in 1999 when he bombed, and he also bombed all the electrical facilities in Belgrade, so don’t fall for that hysteria.

So, I think we’re in a pretty good place. I think a lot of people are getting nervous that it’s going on too long, but he’s got another week or two to put—he’s right on the verge. If he can hold out against all this European and domestic pressure and Asian pressure and the Gulf pressure. The Gulf pressure is either cut a deal with them or destroy them, but don’t leave them.

Fowler: How do you cut a deal with liars, though, Victor?

Hanson: You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You have to dictate. It’s like talking to the Japanese after World War II. We learned that they bombed Pearl Harbor while they were telling us that they wanted to have peace, and they were working right in the middle of negotiations with Cordell Hull. Right. That fleet was already on its way to Pearl Harbor when the negotiations started. So, they knew that.

And so, when we saw them on Sept. 2 in Tokyo Bay, [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur handed them a list of demands on unconditional surrender: free use of your country by the United States military, United States military will be the occupying power and the military government to reform. And they looked around and they thought, we do not want another atomic bomb. We didn’t have another atomic bomb for months, but they didn’t know that. We don’t want Curtis LeMay bombing us back to the Stone Age again. They agreed.

Same thing with Hitler. They thought as soon as [Adolf] Hitler killed himself, all these people came out of the woodwork. [Karl] Dönitz, [Hermann] Göring, they—you know, even Himmler—oh, we’re the government, deal with us, will you not?

No, no, no. You were defeated, and here’s what’s going to happen. You’re gonna be occupied, you’re gonna be zones of occupation, you’re gonna have no military, nothing. And this time you’re not gonna cheat like you did after World War I. And that’s what they did.

They don’t have any cards to play. They have none. The only card they have is the dream house of the Democratic media nexus that thinks this is a disaster.

And by the way, not to get off topic, did you see Tim Walz, Jack, in Spain?

Fowler: No. What? What happened?

Hanson: He went over to Spain to this international socialist conference at a time—

Fowler: To a socialist conference?

Hanson: Yes, in Madrid.

Fowler: What?

Hanson: Yeah. And he goes over there, and he’s one of the keynotes. Now he’s being hosted by this anti-American government that’s utterly corrupt and stolen money and is very unpopular and knows the next election it has, it’ll be thrown out. But it has just denied the United States, at a time of war, the use of its airspace and its joint NATO base, in large part paid for by the United States.

And he gets up in front of this foreign audience at a time when Americans are risking their lives in their Gulf, and he says that this is a fascistic agenda enterprise. This is fascism. What we’re doing is fascism.

In other words, you go into a foreign country and you basically say to the soldiers out risking their lives, you’re engaged in a fascist enterprise, and I’m gonna trash you to your enemies, which are our enemies—the socialist government of Spain as an enemy. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. I never have.

Fowler: Maybe he was trained well when he was in China, Communist China. How many times did he go there?

Hanson: Seventeen. You know what’s funny about all these—have you noticed all of these left-wing icons, they all had these flaws that they covered up.

Now we knew that guy was a pathological liar. He had gone to China, and they rebooted him as working man, that changed his own oil

Fowler: Coach. Coach Tim.

Hanson: And now he’s just a complete—and they did the same thing with Jussie Smollett. They said he was this, this, this. They did the same, and he was—you know, everybody knew that guy was a faker unless you believe the laws of chemistry don’t apply when you throw bleach out at minus 40 degrees and it doesn’t freeze. And you can kickbox holding your sandwich in one hand and your cellphone in the other against two huge attackers in your definitive—

Fowler: Bustle. Yeah.

Hanson: Yeah, yeah. You believe all that. And Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden did believe that. And then there was Jeffrey Epstein, who was kind—well, you know, Jeffrey’s got some girl. He’s kind of a—he always wants to be an intellectual. He wants an office at Harvard. And then there was [Eric] Swalwell. Well, you know, he is a little randy. He has this little tendency to get a little drunk and get a little handsy, but he’s our guy. And they do that with all of them.

George Floyd? Well, yeah. George Floyd put a gun to a woman’s stomach. He had a home invasion. He was four years in prison. He was a career felon. When he was arrested, he was high on fentanyl. He was resisting arrest. He was passing counterfeit currency, and you know—but he was a martyr, and he has angel wings on. He’s the same.

That’s what they do. They take all of these people and they manufacture them into something they never were, and it ends up just the opposite. I mean, they end up as just—they implode, and then they go to the next one.

Another one is that lawyer for Stormy Daniels.

Fowler: Oh, yeah.

Hanson: Michael Avenatti.

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: That guy was a complete crook. And remember, he was on CNN, and they said he is so handsome, he’s dynamic.

Fowler: He was gonna run for president.

Hanson: Yes. He was gonna run for president. Then he stole Stormy—

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: By the way, another one was Stormy Daniels. Well, she had to put out in this—she had to go into this sordid career because she was a working mom, all this stuff.

Fowler: Oh yeah.

Hanson: And then she never paid the fine. The court ordered her to pay Trump for violation of the nondisclosure—I think it was the attorney fees, $400,000, and she never paid. But they had a picture of it the other day. It was very sad. Did you see her on the internet?

FOWLER: I did, yeah.

Hanson: She kind of covered with tattoos and obese, smoking a cigarette.

Fowler: Yeah. A lot of city miles on that lady.

Hanson: Where are all her leftist champions? Why doesn’t any of them that had her on TV every night call her up and say, Stormy, I’m really sad that you’re destitute. Here’s $10,000?

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: They’ll never do that. She was a useful idiot.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

SCOTUS to Hear Immigration Case on Green Card Holders Charged With Crimes

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / April 22, 2026

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday regarding removal proceedings against an immigrant legally in the United States charged with counterfeiting.

The case has the potential to affect the operations of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and immigration courts, said Art Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.

“If the Supreme Court affirms the 2nd Circuit, it will make it much more difficult for ICE and border agents to determine that a green card holder with a criminal offense coming back into the United States is inadmissible,” Arthur, a former immigration judge, told The Daily Signal. “This could potentially impact the capacity to keep terrorists out of the U.S.”

The case itself has an interesting backstory, as the plaintiff, Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national, was charged with counterfeiting before leaving the country but was convicted after returning and being placed on parole.

The case is Blanche v. Lau, renamed for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after initially being Bondi v. Lau for former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

There are two key questions in the case, Arthur said.

“First, will immigration officers or immigration judges make a determination if a person is inadmissible?” Arthur said. “Second, the court will decide whether a parole decision is reviewable by the courts.”

Lau, a lawful permanent resident in the United States, was charged in May 2012 on New Jersey state charges for selling almost $300,000 worth of knockoff Coogi shorts, according to SCOTUSblog.

Before his trial, he left the country but returned June 12, when immigration officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York stopped him.

The Immigration and Nationality Act says that green card holders who leave the country and re-enter are generally not regarded as seeking admission into the United States. However, an exception exists for “a crime involving moral turpitude,” which would include fraud or theft.

Immigration officers determined that Lau was subject to the “moral turpitude” exception and paroled him. That allowed him to stay temporarily to face prosecution but deferred his eligibility for admission.

A year later, he pleaded guilty to trademark counterfeiting and was sentenced to two years’ probation. In March 2014—during the Obama administration—the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings against Lau on the ground that he wasn’t eligible for admission.

Lau challenged the immigration officials’ decision to parole him rather than admit him into the country in June 2012. He contended he was improperly classified.

After an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government, Lau appealed his case to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In March 2025, the 2nd Circuit sided with Lau, ruling he had been improperly classified by immigration officials at the New York airport and ordering the immigration court to terminate the removal proceedings.

This should be an easy case for the high court, said Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.

“It is common for airport inspectors to parole you in deferring inspections. Think about the lines at airports,” Ries, a former lawyer with the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, told the Daily Signal. “In this case, he had to have his counterfeit case resolved. He pleaded guilty, so he was convicted. And then, they pursued removal proceedings based on that.”

Riess said the 2nd Circuit shouldn’t have reviewed the case.

“Parole is discretionary, and there’s clear statutory language that says something discretionary for the [attorney general] or the Homeland Security Secretary is not subject to judicial review. So, a court, in this case, it was the 2nd circuit, shouldn’t even be reviewing parole,” she said.

In March, a coalition of immigration advocacy groups filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Lau.

The brief argued, in part, that allowing the government to rely on charges or suspicion to commence removal proceedings would place millions of green card holders in jeopardy.

The government’s position would “hollow out the meaning of permanent residency,” said Razeen Zaman, immigrant rights director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, in a public statement about the amicus brief.

“For Asian immigrants and immigrants across all communities, the freedom to travel abroad and return home is not optional—it is the basic dignity that permanent residency is supposed to protect. That should not be a gamble,” Zaman said. “No one should have their green card taken at the airport, be placed in detention, and face the threat of deportation because of an unproven allegation.”

Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Gamble Succeeds in Special Election

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / Virginia Grace McKinnon / April 21, 2026

Virginians voted in favor of Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Democrats’ effort to completely overhaul the commonwealth’s congressional map to favor Democrats, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of “yes” at 8:50pm eastern time with an estimated 81% of the votes counted. At the time of the call, 50.3% voted in favor of the redistricting effort, while 49.7% voted against.

The AP called “yes” despite the slim margin because the outstanding ballots were in areas breaking hard for “yes.”

While 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans currently represent Virginia in Washington, the new Virginia congressional map will likely give Democrats a 10-1 advantage after the midterms. Democrats will hold this massive advantage despite the fact that Virginia went blue by less than 6% in the 2024 presidential election and voted for Spanberger by 15 points in the 2025 gubernatorial election.

The new congressional map is expected to result in 10 Democrats and one Republican by stretching congressional districts in Northern Virginia and areas of Charlottesville deep into southern and eastern portions of the state that are rural and reliably red.

Even prior to Tuesday night’s election result, voters in Virginia expressed concern with the language on the ballot. The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case over whether the language was fair. Notably, this is the same court that decided the current map was a fair one to begin with.

A recent poll conducted by Heritage Action found that nearly 50% of voters were confused by the term “restore fairness.”

VIRGINIA: Language like “restore fairness” is leading language and is there to intentionally mislead voters. The truth is our 6-5 map is fair and an accurate representation of our purple state.

If this amendment passes Virginians will lose their representation in Washington. pic.twitter.com/jXtx4gYMOm
— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) April 21, 2026

“It’s misleading,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told The Daily Signal. “That’s why I’m a plaintiff in a lawsuit to challenge the wording of the ballot.”

“We’re optimistic that even the blindest of advocates for justice can see that this wording of this question is unconstitutional,” Cline added.

VIRGINIA SCOOP: @Heritage_Action is out with a new poll that shows 70% of Virginia Democrats oppose gerrymandering redistricting efforts happening now!

“It’s very possible that this can be defeated.” @StefaniBuhajla told @DailySignal pic.twitter.com/RnTJu2a8Bg
— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) March 25, 2026

Now that the map has passed, the Virginia Supreme Court is expected to take cases challenging the map.

The Virginia redistricting effort is a blow to Republicans seeking to hold their slim House majority. The most recent majority is 217-213, as of Tuesday, when Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., resigned.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats across the country poured resources into the state, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who poured at least $70 million into the race from his super PAC, the House Majority PAC.

Nevertheless, Florida could decide to redistrict in the coming weeks to claw back the potential losses in Virginia.

? IT'S OFFICIAL: Now, FLORIDA has a chance to redistrict exactly 1 week from tonight after Virginia approved their ridiculous 10D-1R map for Congress

The special session convenes in 7 days.

Rise to the occasion, Florida Reps and Senators!

Send a map to Gov. Ron DeSantis that… https://t.co/PU4GNQRFRm pic.twitter.com/pKTHydPHzN
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 22, 2026

The SPLC Was Paying the Ku Klux Klan, DOJ Indictment Claims

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / Virginia Grace McKinnon / Tyler O'Neil / April 21, 2026

The Southern Poverty Law Center has raised money for decades claiming to dismantle white supremacy, but it funneled millions of dollars to white nationalist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal indictment handed down Tuesday.

The SPLC claims it was funding informants inside the extremist groups.

While the SPLC “purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference that “the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.”

Blanche highlighted one example from the indictment, where the SPLC paid a member of the leadership group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

?READ IT

Today, @DAGToddBlanche & @FBIDirectorKash announced an 11-count indictment against the SPLC.

While SPLC raises money by claiming to oppose white supremacy, the indictment accuses the SPLC of paying the Ku Klux Klan?https://t.co/Fl8GtFga9A

?1/12 pic.twitter.com/b567v12DAD
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026

“The Southern Poverty Law Center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent extremist groups … however, the SPLC used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel explained at the press conference.

The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, aiming to “obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.” It charges the SPLC with four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank by creating accounts for fictitious entities to funnel the money. Finally, it charges the SPLC with one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering.

The Justice Department’s indictment claims that the SPLC directed more than $1 million to an affiliate of the National Alliance; more than $300,000 to an affiliate of the Aryan Nations; more than $270,000 to a member of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017; more than $140,000 to the former chairman of the National Alliance; more than $73,000 to former Ku Klux Klan members; and more than $19,000 to the president of American Front.

?SECRET INFORMANT NETWORK

DOJ explains exactly what the SPLC was paying the "informants" to do.

It may make sense for SPLC to cultivate informants if they're tipping SPLC off to real violent threats. That's not what this shows.

?1/8https://t.co/Fl8GtFga9A pic.twitter.com/qyim7f3Wux
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 22, 2026

Blanche said the federal investigation began years ago, and the Biden administration shut it down. The Daily Signal previously reported that members of the Biden administration worked closely with the SPLC.

Patel said the FBI’s “investigation revealed that funds were used to facilitate the commission of further state and federal offenses, totaling over $3 million.”

He said the SPLC allegedly engaged in a “widespread, decade-long multimillion-dollar fraud” and proceeded to “hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network.”

A reporter noted that the FBI had previously worked with the SPLC, and asked whether the SPLC revealed to law enforcement that it was funding these entities.

Patel said he did not find it surprising that the SPLC “never told anybody that they were paying off the Ku Klux Klan.”

Bryan Fair, interim president and CEO of the SPLC, revealed the federal investigation Tuesday morning, and admitted that the SPLC had paid informants in white nationalist groups.

Fair added that the use of paid informants was “necessary” because of threats the SPLC faced.

Fair noted that in 1983, members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the SPLC’s offices, and he claimed staff have faced “countless credible threats” since.

“For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups,” he said.

“In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. We did not, however, share our use of informants broadly with anyone, to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.”

The SPLC built its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy. Now, the group publishes a “hate map” including mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters.

The SPLC did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Florida Insider Looks to Flip Democrat Seat in Florida House

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / Virginia Grace McKinnon / Tyler O'Neil / Pedro Rodriguez / April 21, 2026

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Miguel Granda, a longtime Republican staffer and “Christian conservative whose ideas are rooted in his Christian values,” told The Daily Signal he filed his candidacy for Florida House District 117 on Tuesday.

Granda, 34, told The Daily Signal that his experience as a legislative aide to Florida Rep. David Borrero has given him a “firsthand understanding of the challenges facing Miami-Dade and the legislative process needed to address them.”

“Floridians can trust me because I’ve already been doing the work,” Granda said.

Since 2020, Granda has worked for the Trump-endorsed conservative lawmaker as Borrero advanced a slate of conservative priorities. Granda also serves as president of the Miami-Dade Young Republicans.

In his interview with The Daily Signal, Granda added that he plans to bring “real-world, legislative, and legal experience that this district needs.”

During Granda’s tenure in Borrero’s office, the lawmaker introduced legislation requiring public schools to teach students about the dangers of communism. The measure was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and later approved by the Florida State Board of Education.

More recently, Borrero told The Daily Signal in March that he is considering introducing a resolution condemning the Democratic Socialists of America and seeking to strip the group of its tax-exempt status after members planned a trip to Cuba and expressed support for the communist regime.

“I promise the community one thing: No one will work harder for them than me,” Granda said.

Granda described his decision to run for office as a major milestone in a life he said was transformed by “God’s grace and purpose.”

“My story is proof that a person’s worst chapter is not their final one,” he said.

Granda said he hopes to carry that message throughout his campaign and, if elected, while in office.

“I want every young person in South Florida who has made mistakes, every family that is struggling, and every community that has been written off to see themselves in this campaign and know that there is a future waiting for them,” Granda said. “With God’s grace, I will bring that same relentless determination to every family, every business, and every neighbor in District 117.”

Trump Announces Extension of Ceasefire With Iran

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is extending the ceasefire with Iran after earlier pledging to maintain the original Wednesday night deadline for a peace agreement.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he said. Since April 13, the United States has maintained a blockade of vessels leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz.

Before the extension, Iran had until Wednesday night to agree to a peace deal. When asked by CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday morning if he would extend the ceasefire to allow time for peace talks, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.”

Vice President JD Vance was expected to fly to Pakistan on Tuesday for a second round of negotiations with Iran, but the trip was reportedly delayed on Tuesday.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, joined Vance in a delegation to Islamabad on April 11, but the negotiations did not result in a deal.

When asked Tuesday morning what would happen if Iran wouldn’t make a deal, Trump said, “I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with.”

This story is developing and may be updated.

Winning the War, Fighting the Swamp: Trump’s Toughest Battle Isn’t Iran

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.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.

We are now entering the 50th or 52nd day, somewhere in that period, of the ongoing war with Iran. We’re in the middle of negotiations. We have a blockade on Iranian shipping going in and out, Iranian-bound shipping going in or out of Iran, as well as the Iranians are claiming that they too are trying to stop shipping that is pro-Western or related to the United States.

We don’t really know who we are dealing with. We don’t know whether it’s the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the army or the elected—what’s left of the elected government or the theocrats themselves. They’re all vying for power. They’re all arguing with each other, so it’s a very complicated situation in Iran, even though they’re prostrate. They don’t have any military or economic capability left. And yet, they remain defiant.

Now, why do they remain defiant when the next cycle of this war could knock out their bridges, their electrical power, and destroy what’s left of their military, and we could do it very easily? They believe that President Donald Trump is on a tightrope, that he has certain constraints, prohibitions that are self-imposed upon him, through political calculus or other outside criteria that will force him to stop his neutering of Iran. And it will allow them, at some point, to rearm?

What are those? Well, first of all, they are watching the midterm elections very carefully, and they’re looking at the polls and they feel that the Democratic Party is a great ally, the leftists, especially in it, the hard left.

They look at Tim Walz, the former failed presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, he was in Spain this week at an international socialist conference. Spain, remember, was very anti-American, has refused American use of its NATO base and airspace. And what did he say?

He said that our war effort, now he’s talking about our soldiers at war against Iran during periods of intense combat. He is saying that they were fascists. That the whole idea was fascist. And when Iran hears that, they think, well, if a former vice presidential nominee of the United States is siding with us, then maybe Trump will relent.

There’s also edgy Republicans. They want to, of course, they have to be reelected, carry out the MAGA agenda. Some of them are looking at their internal polls and saying the price of gas is hurting us. We’re not paying attention to the economy. We have under seven months before the midterms. At some point, Mr. President, you gotta pivot.

Then there’s the Democrats. They’ve threatened the War Powers Act, where at Day 50, and at 60 days, 60 to 90, they can cut off funds. Now they don’t have the votes in the House to do that or the Senate, but they feel there’s enough renegade Republicans worried about their own seats that they might get some defections. Something to worry about.

By the way, Barack Obama didn’t worry about it at all. He bombed Libya for seven months without even consulting Congress. He had a Democratic Congress and he thought that whatever he did would be rubber-stamped. And he was absolutely correct.

The Europeans, they’re kind of like a carrion force. They look at this, they didn’t do anything to help. They did a lot of things to hamper our efforts on Iran. But they feel that the heavy lifting is over and they might just, sort of, creep back with an armada, one or two ships per country, 20 or 30 countries.

And then they can say they opened the strait. Get back in the good graces of the United States and patrol this crucial conduit that they export into and import oil out of. So, they’re trying to tell Trump, stop the kinetic action. Let us in. Please, please.

At home, he’s got, in addition to the Republicans who are worried about their, and with good reason, their careers. He has got the fanatic Left. He’s also got a kind of a fanatic Right.

This week, Tucker had a guest on and they were quoting the Book of Daniel from the Bible about the antichrist, and the argument, thinly veiled, was that Donald Trump and the Iranian war fit the prophecies and the narrative of Daniel, who was talking about a king, i.e., the antichrist, who would have success in the Middle East, but then, of course, fail and meet his fate. It was almost a wish as much as a prophecy.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a fanatic Trump supporter, without power now, and she’s out of Congress. But she’s now peddling the conspiracy theory that Trump really, really wasn’t the target of a real assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania. That he may have helped stage the incident. That’s really loony.

Of course, Candace Owens is now regretting her, not just regretting her vote for Trump, but arguing that he’s a very pernicious, almost a satanic figure. This is really unusual that somebody who was fanatically pro-Trump, as these three were and were habitues at Mar-a-Lago, all of a sudden, would not just say, well, I agree with him with 80% of his agenda. But the 20% I can’t go along with.

But they’ve turned, not just against him, but many of their positions and much of their rhetoric is not that much different than the hard Left today. We don’t know where they’re going to end up, but they’re on a trajectory to join the Never Trumpers at The Bulwark, perhaps.

And then there’s also worry about the weapons shortage. We had not invested heavily enough in quantity. We have good quality of weapons, the best in the world. But we don’t have enough Tomahawk missiles. We don’t have enough Patriot missiles. And we need to have our stocks replenished and have them replenished quickly.

And if this war were to go on another three or four weeks, we would not be able to achieve the level of competency that we had in the first four weeks, simply because we would be hoarding and worried about weapons that would be short.

Put this all together and explains a couple things that are otherwise inexplicable. Why, after Iran has been militarily destroyed, it has a restive population that at almost any minute that it feels they can survive, they will rebel. And economically it was already in a period of depression, and now it’s losing all of its revenue and it’s just about ready to implode.

Why, with all this, does Iran keep saying that it’s winning, and why do people put pressure on Donald Trump as if he’s losing?

And the answer is, the war is not necessarily about just military affairs alone. It’s politics. And Trump’s enemies at home and abroad feel that if they can drag it out. And if Donald Trump, for a variety of reasons, can’t turn the tactical victory to long-term strategic success, he will be vulnerable.

And all of his economic progress that he’s made so far, which is pretty impressive, the idea that he ended illegal immigration, the ability to flip Venezuela from an arch enemy into a successful state without any losses. All of that will be endangered. And he will be neutered in the midterm elections.

And so, therefore, Donald Trump is winning on the battlefield, but he has to keep going somehow and nullify all of these centrifugal forces around him, that are hoping for his defeat.

And yet, in the end, only he can win the war. If he continues a little bit longer, a week or two, Iran will be bankrupt. And when it’s bankrupt, it will not have enough food, not have enough fuel, not have enough key consumer commodities, and the people will be very restive.

But the question now that we’re looking at, will the pressures that surround him in a 360-degree fashion force Trump to relent when he’s inside of a spectacular and historic victory?

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

DEI Industry Litigates to Salvage Federal Contracts After Trump Anti-Discrimination Order

A coalition of liberal groups supporting DEI sued to block President Donald Trump’s order eliminating discrimination in federal contracting.

Trump signed an executive order in late March eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in federal contracts.

On Monday, associations representing diversity officers, professors’ groups, and minority contractors sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, naming Trump and multiple Cabinet secretaries as co-defendants.

The coalition is represented by Democracy Forward, a liberal litigation outfit chaired by Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias. The group has led numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration.

“The order is an unlawful attempt by the administration to erase the realities of race, ethnicity, and a history of discrimination in this country, and to dismantle the architecture of equality,” the complaint states.

Trump’s order also prohibits contractors from using DEI practices in hiring subcontractors.

“President Trump promised the American people to eliminate the scourge of DEI from American society, and he is delivering on that promise every single day by ensuring that every American, regardless of race, is treated equally,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday.

“The president’s actions to this end are lawful and well within his executive authority, no matter what left-wing organizations run by hacks like Marc Elias have to say about it,” Jackson added.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report this month assessing companies that focused on DEI-based promotions, and it found they were 2.7% less productive. It also found promotions of minorities to management positions were four times higher from 2015 to 2023 than they were from 2005 to 2015. The study determined that industries that focused heavily on DEI promotions experienced lower productivity.

The plaintiff organizations are the National Association of Diversity Officers of Higher Education; the American Association of University Professors; United Academics of Maryland–University of Maryland, College Park; the National Association of Minority Contractors; and the National Association of Minority Contractors’ District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia chapter.

“The executive order seeks to intimidate and threaten contractors, including the federal government’s longstanding partners at colleges and universities,” said Emelyn A. dela Peña, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers of Higher Education, in a public statement.

“It aims to deter them from maintaining practices or expressing views that support inclusive activities protected by law and the First Amendment,” Peña stated.

Virginia GOP on the Front Lines to ‘Keep Fairness’ in House District Maps

Today, Virginians are flocking to the polls to vote on whether to amend the Virginia Constitution and let the state Legislature redraw the state’s congressional maps.

The map state Democrats have proposed would give their party a 10-1 seat advantage, likely leaving just one Republican to represent the historically purple state.

The Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives could be on the line. Four Virginia Republicans could be out of a job, and nearly half of Virginia could lose accurate representation in Washington.

GOP Is Hopeful

“People deserve to have representation in Congress that reflects their political ideologies, and right now we have that,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., told The Daily Signal, referencing the current 6-5 congressional map in Virginia.

All five Virginia Republicans are home in their districts today—at polls, knocking on doors, and talking to voters.

“We have spent time, we’ve spent money, we’ve spent energy educating voters about these gerrymandered maps. We’re optimistic that voters are going to reject them,” Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., said.

“I think that we can win this, and especially since … we know historically that on voting day is when we have strong Republican turnout,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said.

On the Virginia redistricting referendum today @RobWittman tells me: “Describing this as ‘restoring fairness’ is a lie. It would be more accurate to say it destroys fairness!”
— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) April 21, 2026

Kiggans, who represents Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, said the GOP has done its work to inform voters and motivate them to get out to the polls.

“Republicans are much more organized this time,” she said. “I think we learned some important lessons last November that we are applying now.”

She described voters as having a lot of energy about this election, and added, “I absolutely think the momentum is on our side.”

Rep. Morgan Griffith is the only Virginia Republican whose district is predicted to stay red. He told The Daily Signal he believes all of the hard work will “bear fruit for Republicans tonight, because all we have to do is show people the map and give them the facts.”

Is This ‘Restoring Fairness’?

A recent poll from Heritage Action showed that close to 50% of Virginia voters were confused by the language on the ballot, which asks whether they want to “restore fairness.” A “Yes” vote will allow the Democrats to change the maps, while a “No” vote will keep the status quo.

“Going from a 6-5 delegation to a 10-1 delegation redistricting? That disenfranchises 2 million voters in Virginia, disenfranchises rural Virginia, and is completely opposed to what would be fair,” Wittman told The Daily Signal. “They say it restores fairness. It actually destroys fairness.”

VIRGINIA SCOOP: @Heritage_Action is out with a new poll that shows 70% of Virginia Democrats oppose gerrymandering redistricting efforts happening now!

“It’s very possible that this can be defeated.” @StefaniBuhajla told @DailySignal pic.twitter.com/RnTJu2a8Bg
— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) March 25, 2026

Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., said he thinks the wording on the ballot contains “leading language” and is “illegal.”

Cline agrees the ballot is misleading, which is why he joined a lawsuit to nullify the election.

“That’s why I’m a plaintiff in a lawsuit to challenge the wording of the ballot,” he told The Daily Signal. “The Virginia Supreme Court decided to wait until after the election to hear the case on whether this language is legal.”

“Shame on the Supreme Court,” Kiggans said. “It’s extremely biased.”

Griffith said he’s still hopeful the state Supreme Court will strike the language, calling it “very confusing.”

Democrats Have Spent Millions

This April election has had massive influence from Democrats nationwide. The party has spent nearly $100 million on the effort to redraw the maps, while Republicans have spent less than a third of that.

“The amount of money that’s been spent on this election alone should make a statement to everyone about the importance of what’s going on in Virginia,” Kiggans said.

Wittman said this spending makes sense given what he described as misleading claims Democrats are promoting.

Virginia,

Democrats are spending tens of millions of dollars to buy 4 congressional seats.

They’ve even resurrected President Obama in their quest to gerrymander the Commonwealth.

Get everyone you know in VA to vote ?NO? — tomorrow — April 21st. pic.twitter.com/aoCq7R0c9k
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) April 20, 2026

Newly elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger has given her all to support the redistricting effort—a shift from what she said during her campaign.

“She lied in the fall of last year when she looked directly at a camera and said she had no intention to gerrymander Virginia, then turned around in January and made that a top priority—so her credibility is shot. Nobody is believing anything she’s saying,” Kiggans said.

“It’s like she doesn’t care about the people she represents,” McGuire said, calling the governor “drunk with power.”

“She’s out of touch with Virginians, and I hope that Virginians—regardless of race, party, religion, or creed—send a loud message that we don’t agree with her radical leftist, anti-American policies,” McGuire concluded.

Christian Doctrine Threatens ‘Psychological Harm’ to Child, According to Maine Judge’s Ruling

Does the gospel of Jesus Christ pose a serious risk of “psychological harm,” such that a court must protect an 11-year-old girl from going to a church that preaches directly from the Bible?

Strange as it may seem, a federal judge in Maine made a ruling suggesting as much in December 2024.

The case revolves around the custody of Ava (now 12), the daughter of Emily Bickford and Matthew Bradeen, who had never married. Bickford later started attending Calvary Chapel in Portland. Bradeen objects to his daughter joining her.

Calvary Chapel, you see, teaches the Bible “verse by verse, chapter by chapter.” The pastor actually believes in God, Jesus, heaven, and hell, and takes salvation seriously. Oh, horrors!

As Maine District Court Judge Jennifer Nofsinger notes, Bradeen was horrified to discover that Ava heard sermons “about warfare, fallen angels, and eternal suffering.” The church—imagine this—“teaches that people can only be saved by meeting God on God’s terms.” (Tellingly, the order actually lowercases the name of God throughout.)

It’s as though Bradeen and Nofsinger had discovered Christianity for the very first time—and didn’t like what they saw.

But the church wasn’t out to lunch during this process. When the pastor learned about the custody dispute, he prayed about it in Ava’s presence, asking God to protect her from the schemes of the “enemy.” The judge interpreted this as demonizing Ava’s father and therefore threatening psychological harm.

While Nofsinger acknowledged that “there is nothing to suggest that [Bickford] intends to harm Ava or is intentionally trying to place her at risk,” she nevertheless concluded that “there is a compelling state interest in protecting Ava from immediate and substantial psychological harm.”

The judge gave Ava’s father responsibility over “whether Ava attends any services, gatherings, or events associated with Calvary Chapel”; whether she can see the church’s material; and whether she associates—or even communicates—with any of the church’s members other than Ava’s own mother.

Judicial Overreach

It’s not your imagination: This ruling is extreme. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel and Bickford’s attorney, told The Daily Signal that Bickford “is considered a fit parent,” and she faces “no allegations of abuse or neglect.”

“The presumption of the law is that they’re acting in the best interest of their children and that they have a right to raise them in their religious faith,” he explained.

Staver said that in domestic cases, courts honor the religious freedom of both parents, allowing a Jewish father (for example) to take his son to synagogue and a Protestant mother to take the boy to church, when in each parent’s custody.

“What you can’t do is give one parent a veto right over the religious upbringing of the other parent,” he said.

As for emotional distress, Staver noted that Bradeen made “one unsupported allegation” that Ava suffered distress when she looked at a book featuring angels and demons. “In fact, there is no evidence, and I raised that in court,” the lawyer said.

He argued the case before the Maine Supreme Court in November, and is still awaiting a decision.

‘Psychological Harm’

How did Nofsinger conclude that Ava faced a risk of harm?

Bradeen’s legal team hired Janja Lalich, who has a Ph.D. in “closed social systems”—commonly referred to as “cults.” Lalich found that “the sermons at Calvary Chapel are filled with hateful rhetoric—homophobia, disdain of science, and hatred of public schools.” She claimed the church is “based on fear.”

“Lalich does not believe that Ava’s participation in Calvary Chapel is entirely voluntary,” the judge notes, agreeing with the conclusion.

Nofsinger notes Bickford’s refusal to give Ava a COVID-19 vaccine and reviews a prayer from Pastor Travis Carey, who asked God to intervene on Bickford’s behalf.

Carey prayed that God would “bring to nothing the plans and the snares and the tricks of the enemy” and noted that Ava is “dealing with a level of persecution.”

Basic Misunderstandings

Nofsinger concluded that Carey had demonized Bradeen, but in doing so, the judge didn’t mention the fact that the pastor had prayed for Bradeen’s salvation. The judge said the pastor blamed Bradeen for Ava’s persecution, saying this risks more “psychological harm” to Ava.

Yet the pastor clearly presented Satan—not Ava’s father—as the ultimate villain. The pastor wasn’t saying Bradeen persecuted his daughter, but that she’s struggling amid a spiritual battle.

The prayer makes sense from a Christian perspective, where Jesus offers a salvation that’s far more important than custody disputes, and where the enemy isn’t flesh and blood but Satan trying to separate people from God.

Ultimately, this order doesn’t reveal “psychological harm” to Ava so much as the anti-Christian bias of Bradeen, Lalich, and Nofsinger.

Christians who believe the Bible do actually believe in heaven, hell, and eternal salvation. We do oppose homosexual activity and transgender ideology—not because we hate anyone, but because the Bible says so. We distrust public schools because they’ve started embracing ideas that oppose biblical morality. None of this makes Christianity a cult, much less a threat of “psychological harm.”

This order doesn’t just come down to whether Calvary Chapel is harming Ava’s relationship with her father—it’s about whether the very truth claims of Christianity are considered a threat to a young girl’s wellbeing. That’s not this judge’s call to make.

Democrats Give America Preview of Their ‘Bait and Switch’ Strategy to Grab Power

Democrats run on “affordability,” spend their early days in power feverishly working to make sure they can never lose again, then rule like Mao.

It’s become clear that despite the deep unpopularity of the Left’s cultural and political agenda, Democrats have no intention of pivoting from peak wokeness. The activist class that the party depends on simply won’t allow it.

They want retribution, they want blood, they want to go back to all that fun persecution of political enemies that was so easy during the Biden years. A few Democrat officials have even admitted it.

Illinois’ Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s plan for 2029 is pretty openly just to arrest political enemies.

But some of his fellow party members are a little cleverer than this. They can’t just run on exacting retribution or the “I’m a democratic socialist and PROUD of it!” platform outside of blue bastions.

So, instead of yelling about how they will out-Stalin the old USSR, they’ve opted for a subtler approach that’s already paid dividends.

The first step is to campaign on the idea that they are moderates, an approach eagerly buttressed by the media that will label them as such.

Then, once in office, they’ll ruthlessly change the system to squelch popular backlash to far-Left policies, making the inevitable popular backlash irrelevant.

Longtime Democrat political strategist James Carville explained this approach in a recent, telling moment on his podcast.

“If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico [and] D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust,” he said.

In case you wondered what the whole “D.C. Statehood” movement has been about from the beginning, there it is. To make up for Democrat states bleeding electoral votes because so many Americans have had enough of their ironically unaffordable policies, they need to add a few more to bail themselves out.

Then they’ll pack the Supreme Court so it’s filled with more Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson types who will ensure that the courts side with the Left no matter what the Constitution says.

Carville acknowledged that raw power grabs and telling voters to “eat our dust” isn’t exactly a winning campaign message. But there’s a way around this.

“Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it,” he said.

Just give the people the old bait and switch. It’s for “democracy,” of course. Congratulations, your somewhat purple city/state/country now is run like California.

Whether Democrats are listening to Carville or not, a few of them appear to have absorbed the message.

The “I’m a moderate focused on ‘X’ issue voters say they care about right now” schtick has worked well so far. It delivered big wins in New Jersey and Virginia, where the “affordability” message and a voter enthusiasm gap paid dividends.

Did Democrats actually have a plan to address affordability? LOL, of course not. Have you seen how they run the states they control? Affordability means they will shovel other people’s money at their loyal party supporters while everything becomes more expensive and less functional.

Oh, and let’s not forget the free transgender surgeries for homeless illegal aliens. That’s the blue state model.

With those early returns you won’t be able to say we couldn’t see what’s coming.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and her new Democrat majority in the state have been relentlessly passing every leftist policy they can get away with, wiping out much of what former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin did (or leaving things in place that don’t interfere with their agenda and taking credit for them).

They are doing so while producing the most absurdly gerrymandered political map in the country that will essentially disenfranchise the Republican voters who make up half the state.

Their only justification for doing this thing they said they were totally against until a moment ago is that they need to do it to stop President Donald Trump.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine: ‘Our redistricting map does not represent Virginians, we just need it to stop Trump.’ pic.twitter.com/AO6g0qwSxX
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) April 19, 2026

And if you think Virginia’s problems will stay in Virginia, Spanberger has signed the commonwealth up for the unconstitutional National Popular Vote. They don’t just care about what happens within state borders, they are looking ahead to grab what they hope will be unassailable national power in the future, too.

Their intentions couldn’t be clearer. And, in a way, that’s a blessing.

Democrats are giving the country an early warning sign that what they say on the campaign trail has little relation to what they do in office.

They intend to say whatever is necessary to win, hand governance off to their rabid left-flank, then pull the ladder up behind them so you can’t stop them now or in the future.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

The LAX Arrest That Proves Iran’s Threat Is Already Inside America

While Americans are told to think of Iran as a distant threat, the arrest of Iranian national Shamim Mafi at Los Angeles International Airport shattered that fiction on April 18.

According to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Mafi, a lawful permanent resident living in Woodland Hills, allegedly brokered more than $70.6 million in Iranian-made drones, bombs, bomb fuses, assault weapons, and millions of rounds of ammunition for Sudan.

If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in federal prison. This is not just a sanctions case. It is a homeland security warning Americans cannot afford to ignore.

The credentialed class loves to debate Iran as a theoretical policy challenge, but this case turns the abstract into reality with a California address. According to federal authorities, Mafi, who was born in Iran and became a lawful permanent resident in 2016, allegedly operated from inside the United States while maintaining approximately 62 bidirectional contacts with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. This is no longer just about what Iran is doing in the Middle East. It is about whether more regime-linked operatives are already inside America.

Politically, and more importantly for homeland security, this story matters because Americans already see Iran as a real threat. A McLaughlin poll found that 52% of voters approve of military action to eliminate Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, and that support rises to 59% when voters are reminded of Iran’s record of killing Americans, taking hostages, and attacking U.S. forces.

America is also facing growing concern that Iranian sleeper cells or covert assets could exploit the vetting and enforcement vulnerabilities exposed during the Biden-era border crisis, which left dangerous gaps in interior security.

President Donald Trump has said the administration is watching possible Iranian sleeper-cell threats, and a 2025 White House national security memorandum warned that Iran directed proxy groups, including Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization, to embed sleeper cells in the homeland. The FBI has also warned that Iran continues to plot attacks against U.S. citizens.

The Mafi case is not proof of a sleeper-cell operation, but it makes those warnings immediate. Hostile regimes are not just overseas. They can exploit weaknesses inside the United States.

The scope and details of the allegations make clear that this case should not be ignored as just an isolated arrest. The allegations involve drones, air-drop dump bombs, massive ammunition deals, an Oman-based business structure, travel through multiple countries, and repeated contacts with a suspected Iranian intelligence officer. This case reveals a broader network and a direct failure to recognize how an Iranian foreign adversary could exploit U.S. residency while using shell businesses and international trade routes to move dangerous materials.

The policy lesson is critical. This is not only about funding the Department of Homeland Security in the abstract, but is also a reminder that America must fund and strengthen the capabilities that protect its people before it is too late. If the United States wants to stop hostile-regime networks, it must prioritize the functions that disrupt them: stronger vetting, aggressive investigations, intelligence gathering and analysis, export-control enforcement, and sanctions enforcement. Homeland security is not a slogan.

Democrats will treat any strong response as fearmongering, insisting that asking tough questions about residency, networks, and regime ties is fearmongering. That argument is a political loser, given that this is not theory. Federal prosecutors allege that a lawful permanent resident living in Southern California was operating an Iranian weapons-brokering network. Asking how that happened is the bare minimum of serious homeland security oversight.

The Mafi arrest should force a broader reckoning. The Iranian threat is no longer confined to foreign battlefields or intelligence briefings overseas. It is at America’s doorstep. We are facing the possibility that Iranian-linked actors, facilitators, and covert networks increasingly see the United States itself as operating ground. That is the real warning in this case, and it is one Washington can no longer afford to dismiss.

The Non-Debate on a Non-Crisis

Is the United States committing superpower suicide? That was the question recently posed to Susan Rice and John Bolton at the University of Colorado.

Both officials previously served as America’s ambassador to the United Nations and as national security adviser—Rice for Democrat presidents, Bolton for Republican. As such, one would think that Rice would argue in the affirmative, using President Donald Trump’s policies and war in Iran as triggers for the suicide, while Bolton would serve as an apologist for the administration.

What happened was both more interesting, but also—somehow—more yawn-inducing.

Rice argued that America’s post-1945 strength as a superpower comes from five pillars: military might, economics, a global network of alliances, domestic resilience, and global soft power. She argued that each of these strengths are being deliberately undermined by Trump to achieve a goal of “dismantling America as a global superpower,” thus shrinking the U.S. to the role of being simply a “regional great power.”

While Rice failed to give a reason as to why the Trump administration wants to destroy America as a superpower, she did give reasons as to how, in her mind, the administration is undermining the five pillars.

Despite praising Trump for spending more money on defense, the ambassador claimed those efforts were outweighed by expending munitions needed to deter China on Iran and by the leadership of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, whom she referred to as “unqualified and immoral.” Further, Rice said that American operations in Venezuela and Iran come at the expense of being ready to deter China and Russia.

When it comes to ways the Trump administration is supposedly undermining the nation’s economic strength, Rice offered that the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” increased inequality in America, weakened the dollar, and eroded the dollar’s standing as a global reserve currency.

As for the third pillar, alliances, Rice claimed that the Trump administration has weakened them through tariffs, through demands for Greenland and territory from Canada, by not aiding Ukraine and pressuring it to capitulate to Russia, by renewing threats to leave NATO, and by insulting European governments. Rice said Russia and China are the biggest beneficiaries of these policies.

Rice suggested that American resiliency is being undermined as the president’s policies cut funding for the National Institutes of Health and federal funding for scientific and technological research, particularly when it comes to “green energy” technologies. The ambassador tossed in “losing access to affordable health care for common Americans” as a key factor undermining American resilience.

Rice closed her remarks by focusing on soft power in America’s foreign relations. Soft power, she correctly pointed out, has long been a source of U.S. strength. She said, however, that the nation has abandoned its commitment to democracy, human rights, development, and rule of law overseas by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Voice of America and by withdrawing from international organizations such as the World Health Organization.

She also claimed that attacking Venezuela and Iran violates international law, which further undermines American soft power. Oddly, Rice argued that soft power is somehow weakened overseas by reducing DEI requirements in federal offices and enforcing U.S. immigration law through Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

In short, Rice concluded that the Trump administration has deliberately weakened all five core elements of global superpower.

Bolton made no effort to counter any of those critiques. Instead, he opined that post-Cold War administrations made multiple mistakes and that the Trump administration has made some of these same mistakes, but that the real threat to American power comes from underestimating our adversaries. This underestimation manifested in reduced military expenditures as a share of global wealth. American military might, he said, has never recovered from this underinvestment.

This underinvestment was deeply irresponsible, as was the “consistent misreading of Russian intentions.” In Bolton’s analysis, Russia did not seek to be partners with the U.S. but has been on a decades-long nationalistic campaign to undermine American power. Bolton praised Trump for raising U.S. defense spending but questioned whether future administrations would sustain such increases.

Bolton said that the second major bipartisan problem is a 35-yearslong misreading of China. He shared that even when China abandoned communist economics in the late 1980s, American elites didn’t realize it was for a purpose. They believed Beijing would become a responsible, democratic international stakeholder. They were wrong.

China is not a responsible stakeholder or anywhere near a democracy. Chinese aggressive intentions have been misread across all administrations, including the present one. Economic growth did not change China’s behavior.

Bolton asserted that our major adversaries, Russia and China, have benefited from U.S. mistakes. In his mind, the U.S. is not committing superpower suicide but political suicide.

According to Bolton, Trump doesn’t understand that international relations are not about interpersonal relationships or deals, but about national interests. In Bolton’s analysis, Trump never learned how international relations work between nations (as opposed to negotiations between individuals).

Both ambassadors touched on the need for NATO to spend more and to reform the United Nations, but the moderator, The Washington Post’s Carine Hajjar, inserted questions that did not interrogate the proposition. She instead turned the evening into that most boring of discussions: a current events panel.

Hajjar asked about whether a post-war Iran would preserve U.S. interests, or if regime change was the only option; what the U.S. should have done differently in the Middle East over the last 12 months; whether or not China would invade Taiwan (the one interesting response to these questions was from Bolton, who offered that the U.S. should abandon strategic ambiguity and give a clear security guarantee to Taipei.)

One highlight was when Hajjar asked what a superpower looks like. Rice said that the U.S. should be “actively engaged in the world to pursue our own security and prosperity,” and exhibit a leadership that is based on “enlightened self-interest,” resulting in policies that would allow the U.S. to work with other nations to reduce conflict, increase security, and become more prosperous.

Bolton stated that both parties are now increasingly isolationist and are abandoning the proposition that American security and prosperity are based on security and prosperity overseas. He went on to blast the elite view that peace and security are secured through “the rules-based international order,” which he likened to a fiction that has never existed. Instead, Bolton said, what provides peace and security in the world is American military power and the allies. He added that allies have not contributed enough, and that the American alliance system is in place not out of charity, but because it benefits American interests.

In short, the debate was a wasted opportunity with few surprises. Rice provided well-crafted and well-delivered but entirely predictable partisan talking points. They may or may not have stood up to scrutiny if Bolton or the moderator had engaged with them.

Bolton offered a larger and potentially interesting critique of Republican and Democrat failures to prioritize the threats posed by China and Russia, resulting in a slow political suicide for American interests, security, and prosperity, but there was no response to this proposition. Even when Bolton raised non-traditional policy proposals such as raising defense spending to 6% of gross domestic product or abandoning strategic ambiguity for Taiwan, neither the moderator nor Rice engaged.

Finally, there was no full-throated defense of Trump’s policies, particularly his apparent willingness to employ military force muscularly. Debating the recent use of force and whether it strengthens or weakens the U.S. as a superpower would have been interesting and a good use of time.

Unfortunately for those watching, no debate occurred, due to the moderator’s desire to have merely a current events panel.

Does the First Amendment Protect Progressive Bakers From Serving Republicans?

A progressive baker asks Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her croissant shop because her presence makes her staff feel uncomfortable. Across the nation in Oregon, Melissa Klein and her husband await a state appellate court decision on whether their right to free exercise of religion includes the right to decline designing a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding.

The juxtaposition of these two situations shows the difference between a business owner improperly discriminating against her customers and a business owner conducting her business according to her deeply held beliefs, which the First Amendment protects. Let’s sort out which is which.

In March 2026, Sanders ate lunch with two friends at the Croissanterie in Little Rock. The governor’s police detail accompanied them. The restaurant staff told the owners that the governor’s presence made them feel “uncomfortable.” Their unease did not stem from anything the governor did at the restaurant but seemingly from her policies on LGBTQ+ issues.

The owners explained that “allowing [the governor] to stay risked being perceived as a lack of support for the community that makes up a majority of our team … Conversely, asking her to leave could be viewed as denying service based on differing beliefs.”

The owners decided “to support our employees and guests,” and then asked Sanders and her friends to leave, which they did.

Contrast that with Melissa and Aaron Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon. In 2013, Melissa declined a request to design a unique cake celebrating a couple’s same-sex wedding. Melissa did this based on her Christian beliefs, defining marriage as one man and one woman.

The Kleins made it clear that they were not refusing to serve the customers but were only refusing to design a specific cake. The Kleins said that they would design other kinds of custom cakes for them, such as birthday cakes.

The Kleins serve all customers, but they don’t create all messages.

The state of Oregon sued the Kleins for discrimination. They were found guilty and fined $135,000. The Kleins appealed, arguing that the First Amendment protects them from the government compelling them to create messages they don’t agree with or that violate their deeply held religious beliefs.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has twice ordered Oregon courts to reconsider their rulings against the Kleins, the case has been pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals for over two years, still unresolved 13 years after the original incident.

The difference in Arkansas is that the owners bake croissants that anyone can walk in and buy. They don’t create custom messages. The owners asked Sanders to leave their restaurant because they don’t appreciate people with certain political beliefs frequenting their establishment. That sounds like the old racially segregated lunch counters of the South during the 1960s.

The Kleins, on the other hand, create custom cakes for everyone and anyone; they just don’t create designs featuring messages that contradict their deeply held religious beliefs. Some businesses make their money creating custom messages: advertising agencies, social media consultants, speechwriters, ghostwriters, photographers, website designers, political campaign consultants, and even tattoo artists, to name a few. They don’t serve customers off-the-shelf products (like croissants).

The Arkansas croissant shop serves baked goods to hungry people. Feeding Sanders and her two friends does not “send a message” that the owners support her political agenda. Excluding them is little more than spiteful discrimination.

Business owners do not have a First Amendment right to say, “We don’t serve your kind here,” and kick out customers. They do have a First Amendment right protecting them from government punishment for declining to create a customer’s message they don’t support. The Supreme Court has ruled that way twice. The Oregon state courts should do the same for the Kleins.

And Arkansas bakers need to be more tolerant of people they disagree with.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

What Was ‘Operation Rampart Twelve’? Newly Released Records Expose a Hidden FBI Investigation

The Biden Justice Department’s data collection on political opponents was more expansive than initially thought, according to documents released Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s chairman, on Tuesday published documents revealing “Operation Rampart Twelve,” a Biden-era investigation that targeted Republican members of Congress, including Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. The investigation was related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Thru my investigative work+whistleblowers Ive uncovered ANOTHER weaponized Biden DOJ/FBI investigation: Operation Rampart 12

FBI spent 1yr investigating Reps Boebert/Gosar/Biggs after Jan 6 based on HEARSAY & Dem allegations Despite lacking evidence they went after Rs anyway
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) April 21, 2026

The records show the FBI secretly obtained members’ phone toll records as part of the investigation. Further, text messages from Justice Department prosecutors expressed concerns about the legal requirements for gathering such data.

This is similar to the well-known “Operation Arctic Frost,” in which the FBI scooped up the phone data of Republican members of Congress as part of a probe into President Donald Trump’s challenge to the outcome of the 2020 election.

“Rampart Twelve appears to be a predecessor case to Arctic Frost,” Grassley said Tuesday during a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The FBI opened Operation Rampart Twelve on Jan. 22, 2021, but closed it one year later after failing to uncover credible evidence to support the case.

Rampart 12 Exhibit A Download

Grassley also said that records revealed the Biden White House coordinated with the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis during her investigation into Trump, which led to state conspiracy charges against Trump and political allies.

Rampart 12 Exhibit B Download

The probe sought to find out whether GOP House members “led reconnaissance tours in advance of Jan. 6,” Grassley said. It gathered data on GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama.

“But what you’ll find in the available records is that the evidence to support the investigation didn’t exist,” Grassley said.

In post on X, Gosar said, “Biden’s FBI didn’t make a mistake, they knowingly pushed baseless claims to justify a partisan hit job targeting GOP members of Congress.”

Biden’s FBI didn’t make a mistake, they knowingly pushed baseless claims to justify a partisan hit job targeting GOP Members of Congress. That is corruption and it should enrage every American. https://t.co/Zm2NxOfrf1
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) April 21, 2026

Rampart 12 Exhibit C Download

Gosar later noted that text messages between “two partisan prosecutors who later joined Jack Smith’s team”—referring to the former special counsel who investigated Trump—expressed concerns about gathering the data. However, the FBI proceeded anyway.

Embattled Dem Calls It Quits Instead of Facing Punishment for Fraud Charges

Florida Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick announced her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday ahead of an Ethics Committee hearing that was scheduled to discuss disciplinary measures for her alleged theft of federal emergency funds.

The committee found the congresswoman guilty of 25 ethics charges in March and was meeting today to consider whether to recommend she be expelled from Congress.

“Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so that I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th district,” Cherfilus-McCormick wrote in her statement.

Cherfilus-McCormick continued to reject the charges, calling the investigation a “witch hunt.”

pic.twitter.com/u1lLBxfrI6
— Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (@CongresswomanSC) April 21, 2026

The Florida Democrat has also been indicted on Department of Justice charges that she “received an overpayment of $5 million in [Federal Emergency Management Agency] funds” through her family’s health care company in 2021.

Additionally, the Justice Department’s indictment charges Cherfilus-McCormick with illegal campaign contributions.

Cherfilus-McCormick previously told The Daily Signal in a statement that she did not plan to resign and “abandon the district.”

.@CongresswomanSC Cherfilus McCormick pushes back on calls for her removal in statement to @DailySignal

‘A state clerical or administrative error is not equivalent to allegations of sexual assault.’@RepLuna is calling for McCormick to resign amid allegations she stole FEMA $ pic.twitter.com/d7jzIlXfYr
— George Caldwell (@GCaldwell_news) April 14, 2026

Last week, Reps. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., resigned from Congress after facing accusations of sexual misconduct.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., had already announced his intention to force an expulsion resolution against Cherfilus-McCormick.

Kash Patel and the Russia Hoax Reckoning

FBI Director Kash Patel delivered a promise about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” that Americans have waited nearly a decade to hear.

“We’ve got all the evidence,” Patel declared. “We’re working with our prosecutors at the [Justice Department] under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and we are going to be making arrests—and it’s coming soon.”

I believe it will soon become clear to Americans that Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI investigation into alleged collusion between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia, was a fabricated smear to subvert the 2016 election. After years of books, congressional hearings, and the Durham report, the man now leading the FBI insists he finally possesses the goods to deliver justice.

In my new book “Clinton Hoax, Obama Coup: The Declassified Story of the Trump-Russia Delusion,” I connect the dots using newly declassified documents, Russian intelligence memos, and previously buried timelines unavailable to earlier chroniclers.

What distinguishes this account is its revelation of how the Obama administration systematically covered up Hillary Clinton’s scandals while manufacturing pretexts to target Trump. From the White House-directed scrubbing of Benghazi talking points on 12 separate occasions, to the burial of Clinton Foundation investigations, to the post-election commissioning of the Intelligence Community Assessment, the pattern is one of calculated self-preservation and political warfare.

Patel knows this terrain intimately. As a congressional staffer, he helped expose the abuses. He has warned about them for years. Now, he helms the very agency corrupted at its core during the saga. The investigator who once battled institutional stonewalling now commands the institution. It is a poetic closing of the circle. If anyone can cut through the entrenched resistance and deliver accountability, it is Patel.

Yet skepticism is not only warranted but essential. Americans have heard similar vows before. The Nunes memo. The Durham report. Waves of declassification that yielded many headlines but scant handcuffs.

Durham’s probe produced a single low-level guilty plea from FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who altered an email to secure a FISA warrant on Carter Page, and two acquittals. Even James Comey’s later indictment on charges of lying and obstruction was dismissed on procedural grounds. The Department of Justice has appealed the dismissal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case remains pending.

The familiar Washington script gets played over and over again: outrage followed by elite impunity.

The enablers who kept the machinery of deception operational have largely escaped consequences. Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official, served as a back channel for Christopher Steele long after the FBI severed ties with him for leaking.

Ohr’s wife, Nellie, conducted opposition research for Fusion GPS while her husband funneled Steele’s unverified memos into the bureau. She accessed sensitive databases using her government clearance, failed to disclose her Fusion employment on ethics forms, and committed what appear to be multiple ethical and potentially criminal violations.

Bruce Ohr neglected to report these glaring conflicts. Neither faced charges.

Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign’s legal operative, orchestrated the hiring of Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie. He laundered opposition research into the FBI, coordinated media leaks, and shielded the operation behind attorney-client privilege. His efforts transformed a partisan dirty trick into the predicate for government spying on the opposition party.

But responsibility for the effort to manufacture, legitimize, and weaponize the Trump-Russia collusion narrative does not stop with midlevel functionaries. True justice demands accountability for the architects.

In my view, Clinton stands at the apex. Intercepted Russian intelligence in the form of memos reported that she personally approved the plan to tie Trump to Russia in order to distract from her own vulnerabilities: the private email server and the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play entanglements. These Russian reports have been overwhelmingly corroborated by actual events, as I demonstrate repeatedly in my book.

The greatest irony of the Trump-Russia saga is that the most reliable intelligence about its origins came from the Russians themselves.

Through Elias and Perkins Coie, her campaign and the DNC funded the Steele dossier—a collection of unverified allegations peddled to the FBI to justify surveillance on the Trump campaign.

This could not have succeeded without the complicity of the sitting administration. President Barack Obama held ultimate authority over the FBI, DOJ, and intelligence apparatus.

Declassified records show that on Aug. 3, 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Barack Obama—and senior officials, including then-Vice President Joe Biden—on Russian intelligence about Clinton. It alleged that Clinton had approved a plan to vilify Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming Russian election interference, aimed at distracting from the scandal of her private email server.

The administration dismissed it as raw intelligence and took no public action to disclose or halt the alleged plan. Meanwhile, the FBI took seriously and acted on other raw, uncorroborated intelligence from the Steele dossier to advance the Russia collusion investigation.

Then, after Trump’s victory, Obama directed the Intelligence Community Assessment to lend institutional credence to the collusion narrative. The same officials who scrubbed Benghazi talking points—Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes—surfaced in both scandals. Obama did not merely know; he enabled and institutionalized the weaponization of government against domestic political opponents.

This precedent proved toxic. It metastasized under subsequent administrations into the full-blown lawfare we witnessed: selective prosecutions, novel legal theories, and relentless indictments aimed at crippling a former—and future—president.

If Obama’s actions crossed into criminality, then pursuing accountability is not vengeance but the necessary restoration of equal justice under law. The alternative is the normalization of two-tiered justice that erodes the republic’s foundations.

Institutional leaders bear heavy responsibility.

James Comey and Andrew McCabe politicized the FBI, signing FISA applications reliant on the discredited dossier while concealing its partisan origins. Comey leaked memos to spawn the Mueller probe. McCabe authorized leaks amid his own conflicts.

John Brennan pushed the ICA’s flawed conclusions and later orchestrated the infamous “51 intelligence officials” letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation—an act of election interference now under Patel’s scrutiny.

Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, and others helped suppress inconvenient inquiries.

These were not isolated missteps but a coordinated assault on the people’s right to choose their leaders. Patel possesses both the files and the authority. The nation watches closely. The legacy media that amplified the hoax will cry “revenge politics,” but Americans, scarred by repeated broken promises, demand results.

The republic cannot endure another decade of impunity for the powerful. The Russia hoax struck at the heart of self-government. Patel now holds the gavel. The question is not whether the case can be made, but whether this generation possesses the moral courage to see it through.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Ends Transgender Invasion of Women’s Bathrooms

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Katrina Trinko / David Azerrad / Tyler O'Neil / Fred Lucas / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / Virginia Grace McKinnon / Tyler O'Neil / Pedro Rodriguez / Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Victor Davis Hanson / Fred Lucas / Virginia Grace McKinnon / Tyler O'Neil / Jarrett Stepman / Mehek Cooke / Robert Peters / Jordan Lorence / Fred Lucas / George Caldwell / Drew Allen / Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / April 21, 2026

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The State Department is enforcing President Donald Trump’s policy banning men from using women’s restrooms and other private spaces, according to a new memo obtained by The Daily Signal.

The State Department issued a memo on Monday titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms,” which clarifies that the agency must abide by Trump’s executive order protecting sex-segregated private spaces.

“The administration affirms that there are two sexes—male and female—and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department principal deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott told The Daily Signal.

“In line with President Trump’s executive order, this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”

“ACTION: Post must abide by the President’s directive in E.O. 14168, ensuring intimate spaces are designated by biological sex,” the memo reads.

Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office directing agencies to designate private spaces by biological sex. Last summer, the Office of Personnel Management issued guidance that federal bathrooms, locker rooms, and lactation rooms must be designated by biological sex.

On Feb. 26, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that “under Title VII, federal agency employers may lawfully exclude men from the women’s bathroom, and women from the men’s bathroom.”

The ruling reverses an Obama-era EEOC decision from 2015, which required federal agencies to allow employees who identify as transgender to use bathrooms in accordance with their “gender identity,” rather than biological sex.

“When it comes to bathrooms, male and female employees are not similarly situated,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said at the time. “Biology is not bigotry.”

The new memo does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.

America, You Have a Weed Problem

Marijuana is marketed and sold as medicine. Regular users claim any number of health benefits, from pain relief and increased sleep to anxiety relief. And users do giggle a lot, so they must be happy, right?

When the science is separated from the hype, though, it becomes clear that marijuana is actually an anti-medicine.

Most medicines have a host of potential side effects, which pharmacies must list in fine print on packaging, and which prescribers are required to discuss with their patients. Usually, the side effects are tolerable or rare.

But marijuana is not benign for anyone. The “dispensaries”—a euphemism for pot shops—do not provide their customers with any list of potential side effects, even though some of these side effects impact 100% of users.

Medicine is not candy. Disguising marijuana with fruity and sweet flavors encourages addiction. No one puts their cholesterol medication in a gummy to make it more fun to treat disease.

Dosages of genuine medicine are never arbitrarily determined by the patient, yet marijuana “patients” are able to dose themselves. After all, the pot shops want to sell more.

These are some of the known side effects that come from THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and most occur no matter how the THC is consumed.

Impotence. Marijuana degrades both the quantity and the quality of sperm. Marijuana lowers testosterone and sex drive. Users even have fewer orgasms, according to a review by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Miscarriage risk. Fathers who use marijuana can cause their embryonic babies to be miscarried. Weekly use of marijuana doubles the rate of miscarriage, according to research by Boston University. To prevent this, potential fathers need to stop using marijuana six months before any pregnancy, because marijuana lingers in the body’s stored fat. Women trying to get pregnant using IVF are startled when their embryos die after three days because of the father’s marijuana habit.
Birth defects. Mothers who use marijuana during pregnancy or lactation have babies with low birth weight, smaller head circumference, and cognitive dysfunction. Like alcohol and tobacco, a mother who uses marijuana causes a lifetime injury to her baby, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Psychosis and schizophrenia. Between 30% and 50% of young people who use marijuana daily will develop psychosis or schizophrenia. These users—and their families—will suffer lifelong injury from their youthful experimentation, according to the Yale School of Medicine.
Cognitive decline. Marijuana use causes memory loss, according to Harvard Medical School. This is part of why marijuana use by the elderly is so damaging. Additionally, marijuana can interfere with other pharmaceuticals that many elderly patients need. Yet, the over-60 age set is the fastest-growing group of users.
Lung damage and cancer risk. Smoking marijuana deposits four times more tar in the lungs than smoking tobacco, and marijuana has 33 cancer-causing chemicals, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Suicidal ideation. Thirty percent of the mass shooters who have died during their rampage have been heavy marijuana users. In their altered reality, they want to blow themselves up and take others with them. JAMA Psychiatry reports a strong association between cannabis use and suicide attempts in adolescents and young adults.
Toxins. Medicine is produced in controlled and sterile laboratories, according to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. But not marijuana. No Food and Drug Administration agent minds marijuana production. The contamination in plants—including pesticides, heavy metals, and cleaning agents—stays in the marijuana.
Impact on pain relief. When undergoing surgical procedures, marijuana users need much stronger anesthesia in order to be sedated. They also require much more pain medication in recovery, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Motor skills. Marijuana greatly affects motor skills, which poses a particular threat given how many people drive under the influence of the drug. A high driver is dangerous because THC is stored in fat, which makes the impact lasts much longer in the body than alcohol.

So much for the side effects of marijuana. But what about the supposed benefits for users? Perhaps they are so earth-shattering that they make the side effects feel like a fair trade.

Insomnia. Pot shops advertise marijuana for insomnia, but it is only a superficial fix that does not cure insomnia. Sleeplessness is actually a withdrawal symptom of stopping marijuana. Regular users therefore think that marijuana helps them to sleep because they have such trouble sleeping when they stop. Users need to wait at least a month for the stored THC to clear their body, meaning that withdrawal symptoms can linger for a significant period of time.
Anxiety. Far from treating the problem, marijuana actually intensifies anxiety. Higher THC levels in a person’s body elevate anxiety by overstimulating the amygdala (the brain’s fear center), according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Weaning off opioids. The University of Sydney analyzed 54 randomly controlled trials from 1980-2025 in a study just published in The Lancet, which found no evidence that marijuana alleviates any mental condition, including opioid-use disorder.
Pain. In 2024, the American Society of Clinical Oncology said there is insufficient evidence to recommend marijuana for cancer pain.

But what about anecdotes of people who say they have been helped? They are rationalizing their recreational use under the guise of medicine.

These potheads are like the drunks who self-medicate with bourbon; everyone recognizes that the bourbon is not a genuine medicine that aids in their recovery. Addicted people are easing their withdrawal symptoms, not treating the underlying causes of their addiction.

America has a marijuana problem: 15% of Americans have used marijuana in the last month. There are now more daily pot smokers than daily drinkers.

Unfortunately, the marketing campaign to legalize and sell marijuana convinced Americans that marijuana is a harmless medicine.

Marijuana has been and should stay a Schedule 1 drug because it has no medical use, demonstrable side effects, and a high potential for abuse.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

‘Toothless’ or Unconstitutional? SCOTUS Hears Case on $100M Fines for Verizon, AT&T

Most Supreme Court justices seemed to side with the government against a claim by telecom giants that the Federal Communications Commission violated the companies’ right to a jury trial by issuing fines.

Justices heard arguments Tuesday in a case involving AT&T and Verizon and more than $100 million in fines that the government argues are warnings.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted that, under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, FCC fines aren’t binding.

“I’m just wondering, in terms of the substantive legal issue, though, you are not obligated to pay until you get a jury trial,” Chief Justice John Roberts asked.

Arguing for the telecommunications companies, Jeffrey Wall replied, “If I get a parking ticket from the government, I can ignore it and make them come after me. But I still owe it.”

The questions in the case could hinge on whether the FCC was “imposing” fines or merely “assessing” them.

The FCC had found that both companies violated the 1996 law, which requires carriers to protect the confidentiality of customer data. The FCC fined AT&T $57 million and fined Verizon $46.9 million.

Both companies sued, saying the fines imposed by an administrative body violate the right to a jury trial.

The government argued that, as an indictment is only a notice of charges before a criminal trial, similarly, an FCC fine is an assertion that the government could proceed with a lawsuit.

The high court ruled in 2024 that the Securities and Exchange Commission violated the Seventh Amendment by imposing heavy civil fines through administrative proceedings.

However, the reason an FCC fine might be different from the SEC case is that the 1996 communications law specifically says a company can refuse to pay the fine. Furthermore, if it does so, the Justice Department has five years to file a lawsuit. The lawsuit would entitle the company to a jury trial, thus giving the FCC an effective loophole around a Seventh Amendment argument.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted the government seemed to be “in retreat.”

“It seems like you’ve won on the law going forward, one way or the other,” Kavanaugh said to Wall. “The government’s in retreat.”

However, he suggested the government’s new grounding might be defensible.

“But what you’re complaining about, and it’s understandable, is you think you were misled into paying the money without getting the jury trial,” Kavanaugh said to Wall. “Is there something we can do about that?”

Wall said the first step would be requiring the government to return the money but added the second step could be more important.

“The second thing I want to say is, in effect, that the orders are toothless,” Wall argued.

Previously, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with AT&T and tossed the FCC fine. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit sided with the FCC against Verizon. When there is a circuit split, a case is decided by the Supreme Court.

Justice Neil Gorsuch noted the statute says a carrier has the right to allow the Justice Department to chase the fine.

“Are we saying it doesn’t mean what it says it means?” he continued, asking the court to assume the FCC fine is “a notice, a charge, a serious piece of paper, but it isn’t a final determination or adjudication of any liability.”

Wall said that could be the “worst of all possible worlds” by allowing the government to allege an offense without having to adjudicate the matter. He later added, “It has occurred to no one for decades that orders were nonbinding.”

Dem Senator Clarifies ‘Sarcastic’ Post About Iran Breaking US Blockade

Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut faced backlash for his reaction to news of Iranian shadow fleet vessels bypassing a U.S. blockade before clarifying on Tuesday that his original social media post was “sarcasm.”

On Monday, Murphy reposted a report on X of at least 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels breaking through a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and said, “awesome.” The post has since amassed 2.8 million views.

awesome https://t.co/nRj1trI3rF
— Chris Murphy ? (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 20, 2026

The United States on April 13 began a blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports through the strait.

Murphy faced heavy backlash for the post. Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., called for the senator’s resignation and accused him of being a traitor.

On Tuesday, Murphy clarified that his post was “sarcasm.”

“Ok Twitter, I can’t believe I need to clarify this but obviously [President Donald] Trump’s bungled mismanagement of this war is not ‘awesome,'” Murphy wrote. “As I have said a million times here, it’s a disaster and he should end the war immediately. My tweet was something called ‘sarcasm.’”

Murphy’s posts come after the senator has opposed the military operation in Iran.

In March, Murphy was one of the original sponsors of the Iran War Powers Resolution, which eventually failed in the Senate.

“If our Republican colleagues will not do their duty, if they are going to engage in an effort to hide the consequences of the war, if they are going to refuse to ask questions of our incompetent national security leaders at the White House, who have waged this war without planning for the foreseeable consequences, then we will force a debate and a vote on this floor,” Murphy said in a statement.

“This war is not going to make more sense the longer it goes.”

What Republican Senate Holdout Said to Trump’s Fed Chair Nominee

Sen. Thom Tillis praised President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, but he maintained that he will not support Warsh as long as Trump is investigating the current chair, Jerome Powell.

“I look forward to supporting your nomination, and I look forward to this investigation being taken down,” the North Carolina Republican told Warsh on Tuesday as the nominee testified before the Senate Banking Committee.

Tillis celebrated Warsh’s “impeccable” credentials.

“I love your opening statement. I love your focus on the independence of the Fed,” Tillis said. “I love the idea of Fed independence with respect to achieving the dual mandate.”

Though Tillis said Warsh is the perfect candidate, he said he is unwilling to vote for him during a criminal investigation into Powell’s construction of the Fed headquarters going over budget.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., opened the investigation in November at President Donald Trump’s bidding, reviewing whether Powell lied to a Senate committee about cost overruns. Federal prosecutors appeared last Tuesday at the construction site for the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Trump nominated Warsh to succeed Powell, but Powell has said he won’t step down until after the current investigation is finished. Powell has also said he will remain as chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors until the Senate confirms a replacement.

Tillis said that a construction project going over budget is not grounds for a criminal investigation.

“There were a variety of reasons why this building went over budget,” Tillis said. “As a matter of fact, if we put everybody in prison in federal government that had had a budget go over, we’d have to reserve an area roughly the size of Texas for a penal colony because of the way government projects work.”

“And the reality is, the overage of inflation-adjusted was about $730 million,” he added, “the majority of which seems to be legitimate.”

He said the $2.5 billion construction project was “not acceptable, unfortunate, but legitimate.”

Tillis said he has a problem with Justice Department attorneys “thinking it would be cute to bring chair Powell under an investigation just a few months before the position was going to be open.”

The senator “can’t go forward” with Warsh “until this bogus investigation is done with,” he said.

“We have got to end this investigation,” he said. “Big DOJ didn’t know about it. The president didn’t know about it. Let’s get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation, Mr. Warsh.”

22-Term Democrat in Danger of Losing Seat in Ohio

Of all the House races to watch in the Buckeye State for the midterms, Ohio’s 9th Congressional District tops the list.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, has held the seat since 1983, but newly redrawn maps in Ohio make this the year she could lose it.

The prospect of a GOP flip in an election cycle in which Republicans are widely expected to lose seats has led to a crowded Republican primary in the district.

Five Republicans and two Libertarians are running to replace Kaptur.

Former state Rep. Derek Merrin and state Rep. Josh Williams are considered the Republican front-runners. Merrin ran against Kaptur in 2024 and lost by 0.7%.

But a late entrant to the race is shaking things up. Madison Sheahan, the former deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resigned in January to run for Kaptur’s seat.

Sheahan is closely connected with now former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The same day President Donald Trump announced Noem would be leaving her post, NBC News put out a report highlighting Sheahan’s role with contractors. The report claimed Sheahan threatened the job of an ICE employee for suggesting that the agency consider contractors other than the ones Noem selected.

Questions about the noncompetitive bid process and the potential waste of taxpayer funds have also come under scrutiny in reporting from the Washington Examiner and The Daily Wire.

Lucas County Republicans, who are in the 9th District, voiced their displeasure on Facebook: “She is part of the corruption and Ohio doesn’t need that! She should pull out of the race!” one comment read.

A former GOP consultant told The Daily Signal there are “a lot of concerns” with Sheahan’s campaign following the NBC report.

“I think this is a seat we can pick up if she’s not the nominee,” the first consultant said. “She kind of parachuted her way into the district. … I think she had an opportunity, but, you know, for a lot of people, this news might be their first introduction to her, and I think that’s not a good thing.”

Another GOP consultant similarly noted that there are “pretty well-founded fears” with Sheahan’s candidacy.

The consultant emphasized concerns over a carpetbagger status for the former Department of Homeland Security employee. Sheahan spent time in Louisiana with Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration as the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, as The Daily Wire and other outlets reported.

The first consultant who spoke with The Daily Signal noted, “Congresswoman Kaptur has a robust team, and this is just the kind of thing that they are itching to sink their teeth into.” The other pointed out Sheahan has not received an endorsement by the Trump White House despite Vice President JD Vance being from Ohio.

The Sheahan campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s multiple requests for comment.

History could repeat itself if Sheahan becomes the nominee. In 2022, JR Majewski faced Kaptur as the Republican nominee and lost by 13.2%.—a result one consultant called “a tremendous waste of opportunity,” adding that Sheahan “could have a similar effect on the electorate.”

“There’s a fear amongst Republicans in the know that Madison [Sheahan] would be a very detrimental pick … because she’s a target rife with opportunities to go after,” the consultant further detailed, noting Kaptur is “very good at digging up a lot of stuff on her opponents.”

“Maybe the average Joe doesn’t think about it,” the consultant offered, “but that is something a lot of people locally, I think, [could] be kind of an albatross. … It’s going to continue to be an issue.”

Early voting has started for the May 5 primary, and Sheahan has significant competition from GOP rivals in the race.

Posting on X, Williams said, “Madison Sheahan is plagued with scandal,” and “Derrick [sic] Merrin is a proven loser.”

Madison Sheahan is plagued with scandal.

Derrick Merrin is a proven loser.

And Marcy Kaptur will waltz to another term if we nominate one of them as OH09's Republican nominee.

I am the only candidate in this primary who Marcy Kaptur has nightmares about facing in November. https://t.co/UNFOafs3og
— Rep. Josh Williams (@JoshWilliamsOH) March 6, 2026

Merrin’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but the former Kaptur challenger has posted at length about the congresswoman, including when he posted about Kaptur last month on X, connecting her to long Transportation Security Administration lines related to the partial government shutdown.

He has also made many of his social media posts about defeating Kaptur and standing with President Donald Trump.

Last week, Merrin emphasized an “America First” status on X, calling Kaptur out for her role as co-chair of the U.S. House Hungarian Caucus.

Let’s focus on America First. ??

I will not be chairing caucuses for foreign nations in Congress. https://t.co/snMLZ2eucY
— Derek Merrin (@DerekMerrin) April 13, 2026

Ohio has the largest Hungarian American population of any state in the U.S., with Cleveland often cited as having one of the highest concentration of Hungarians outside of Budapest.

In a statement to The Daily Signal, the Kaptur campaign touted the congresswoman’s record while highlighting the primary fight from a Republican challenger.

“While Republicans from near and far are fighting through a messy primary in this district they just gerrymandered to their advantage, Congresswoman Kaptur is focused on delivering for her constituents,” the campaign said.

“She’s working to lower costs for working families, protect access to affordable health care, and bring new investment home to Northwest Ohio like the $19.2 Million she announced this month for worker training and nuclear safety.

“Voters are tired of the self-dealing corruption and culture of lawlessness they see on the evening news every night. They want a leader focused on affordability and real results, and Marcy Kaptur consistently works across the aisle to deliver both,” the statement continued.

Ohio’s 9th Congressional District is considered a “Toss-Up” by Cook Political Report.

Polls Show Ohio Gubernatorial Race Still One to Watch

With just weeks to go before the general election season begins in Ohio, several polls of statewide elections in the Buckeye State show close races. This includes the gubernatorial race to see who will replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

Vivek Ramaswamy is the front-runner for the Republican nomination, having been endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party and President Donald Trump. Dr. Amy Acton is running unopposed as a Democrat.

It may be a close race. The Cook Political Report considers it as “Lean Republican.”

Multiple polls have been released in recent days regarding a Ramaswamy-Acton matchup, including those showing a race that’s within the margin of error.

According to a poll from Bowling Green State University/YouGov, Ramaswamy leads Acton with 48% of the vote to her 47%.

Ramaswamy and Acton are about even in their favorable ratings (33% and 32%, respectively), though more voters say they have neither a favorable nor unfavorable view of Acton than Ramaswamy, 41% versus 28%.

The poll was conducted April 7-14 with 1,000 Ohio registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9%.

OHIO GOV BGSU POLL (Crosstabs)

? Vivek: 48%
? Acton: 47%
? Other: 5%

Recalled: Trump 51-40%
——
Apr ’25: Vivek 50–45
Oct ’25: Vivek 50–47
Apr ’26: Vivek 48–47
——
Net
? Dem: Acton +95
? GOP: Vivek +89
? Indie: Acton +35
? Didn't in 2024: Acton +47
—
? White: Vivek +15
?… https://t.co/dhsl3QV70P pic.twitter.com/TZd24sCimk
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 20, 2026

On Tuesday, Echelon Insights released a poll, conducted April 3-9, showing Ramaswamy leading 49% to 45% among likely voters. That poll included 413 voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8%.

“Vivek is laser-focused on the issues that matter to Ohioans—lower costs, bigger paychecks, and better schools. These polls are just another indicator that his message is resonating with voters all across the state,” Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson Evan Machan said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

“Meanwhile Amy Acton is pushing out an agenda that would bankrupt the state and cost Ohio’s families $21 billion in new government spending.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the Acton campaign but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Another poll conducted last month, from the Coalition to Protect American Workers, showed Ramaswamy leading Acton among union households, 48% to 41%.

That poll included 500 union household members in Ohio with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%.

The close margins could indicate that the race is tight. While speaking at an Ohio Young Republicans event in late January, Ramaswamy addressed the issue of running in a midterm year and how he sees “complacency as [the] top risk this year.”

He warned attendees about Ohio in 2026 becoming like Ohio in 2006, when “state Democrats took [Republicans] by surprise and won the governor’s race and took back control of the Ohio House,” with Ramaswamy arguing such a move “sent this state back by decades.”

SPLC Under Criminal Investigation for Paid Informant Program

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center over its paid informant program, the SPLC announced Tuesday.

Bryan Fair, the group’s interim president and CEO, said in a video statement that the SPLC faces “a criminal investigation and possible charges.”

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” he added.

?BREAKING

The Southern Poverty Law Center says it is under "criminal investigation" for its paid informant program?

Journalists like me have long expected SPLC might have cultivated informants, but this explicit confirmation is new.

?1/5https://t.co/75hLVqs9dQ pic.twitter.com/Yw6V6Irnrw
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) April 21, 2026

Fair added that the use of paid informants was “necessary” because of threats the SPLC faced.

Fair noted that in 1983, members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the SPLC’s offices, and he claimed staff have faced “countless credible threats” since.

“For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups,” he said.

He insisted that the SPLC no longer works with paid informants, and noted that the center hired them “in the shadow of the height of the civil rights movement, which had seen bombings of churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system.”

Fair also criticized Republicans and the Trump administration for targeting the SPLC.

“In October, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the bureau would sever its ties with the SPLC, and in December, House Republicans held a hearing to accuse us of being partisan and profitable,” he stated.

Critics have long claimed the SPLC has weaponized its history of suing the KKK into bankruptcy to brand mainstream conservative and Christian groups “hateful” by putting them on a “hate map” with Klan chapters.

A terrorist told the FBI he used the SPLC’s “hate map” to target the Family Research Council in 2012. The SPLC condemned the attack but kept the council on the map.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

This is a breaking news story and may be updated.

Becerra Makes Big Move in California Governor’s Race

In the aftermath of Eric Swalwell’s controversy-filled exit from the California governor’s race, a new poll shows Xavier Becerra has surged in popularity, gaining a whopping 11 points, tying billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer for second place.

Jumping from just 4% in early April to now 15%, Becerra is in second place, even with Steyer. Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco trails the pair by one point, and Democrat Rep. Katie Porter is a point behind Bianco.

Republican Steve Hilton remains in the lead for California governor, with 20% of the vote. However, this is two points down from the beginning of April.

Since 2010, California has operated under a top-two primary system, meaning the two highest-polling candidates, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The latest results suggest Hilton is well-positioned to secure a runoff spot, while the battle for second place remains highly competitive among Steyer, Becerra, Bianco, and Porter.

In a previous interview with The Daily Signal, Klink Campaigns President Matt Klink said Becerra and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan “have a better case to pull in some of the Swalwell voters than the presumed frontrunners,” arguing that Steyer and Porter “have some baggage that they have to deal with.”

While Becerra may face fewer political liabilities than some rivals, he has drawn criticism from both the Left and Right over his record on abortion policy and his tenure as President Joe Biden’s secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As California’s attorney general in 2017, Becerra filed felony charges related to an undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood, a move that the Los Angeles Times editorial board described as a “disturbing overreach.” In 2020, he also defended a California law requiring certain health plans, including those associated with religious organizations, to cover abortion services—a policy later found by the federal Office for Civil Rights to conflict with federal law.

During his time leading HHS, Becerra faced criticism over his management style. According to a report from The New York Times, senior Biden administration officials said Becerra took “too passive a role” in the pandemic. A report by Politico stated an unnamed senior administration official said Becerra was “out of his depth” when it came to handling public health crises.

But polls seem to show that many of Swalwell’s previous voters have chosen Becerra as their alternative.

This survey was conducted April 14-18 by Gudelunas Strategies and obtained by Politico. It was commissioned by California is Not For Sale, a committee opposed to Steyer’s gubernatorial campaign.

Trump Reveals If He’ll Extend Ceasefire With Iran

The United States is “going to end up with a great deal” with Iran, President Donald Trump said in an interview Tuesday morning.

“I think they have no choice,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders.“

Trump said he doesn’t plan to extend the current ceasefire’s Wednesday deadline, which would give Iran until Wednesday night to agree to a peace deal.

“We’ve taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate things in one way, but these leaders are much more rational,” Trump said.

“It is regime change, no matter what you want to call it, which is not something I said I was going to do, but I’ve done it indirectly.”

Trump said the U.S. would resume bombing if Iran does not agree to a deal by the deadline.

“I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with,” he said. “But we’re ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go. They are absolutely incredible.”

Vice President JD Vance and other negotiators are expected to fly to Islamabad, Pakistan, for a second round of negotiations Tuesday after the first set of talks was unsuccessful.

Oil prices surged Monday, with Brent and West Texas Intermediate benchmarks rising by 5.6% and 6.9%, respectively, after Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz again and the U.S. seized an Iranian cargo ship as part of its ports blockade.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a corridor for about a fifth of the world’s oil supply, remained limited on Monday. The conflict is creating the worst energy crisis ever faced by the world, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

US Seizes Tanker in International Waters as Iran Truce Deadline Nears

WASHINGTON/CAIRO/ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Reuters)—The U.S. military said on Tuesday it had seized a tanker linked to Iran in international waters, its latest apparent action to enforce a blockade, with time running out on a ceasefire and the prospect of last-ditch further peace talks still up in the air.

Washington has expressed confidence that talks with Iran will go ahead in Pakistan, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining. But with the final hours of a two-week truce ticking by, there was little time left for the talks.

The U.S. military said it had boarded the tanker Tifani “without incident.” The ship, capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude, last reported its position on Tuesday morning as near Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, according to MarineTraffic tracking data. It was close to fully loaded and had signaled Singapore as its destination.

“As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran—anywhere they operate,” U.S. Central Command said.

In a short statement on social media, President Donald Trump said Iran had carried out numerous violations of the ceasefire, without giving further details.

There was no immediate comment from Iran on the boarding, but the move could complicate efforts to arrange peace talks: Iran has said the blockade of its ports amounts to a U.S. violation of the truce, and that it will not negotiate while the blockade is being enforced.

Iran-US Talks Up in the Air

Iranian sources told Reuters Tehran still had not made a firm decision on whether to attend another round of peace talks in Islamabad, aimed at ending the war that the U.S. and Israel unleashed on Iran on Feb. 28.

Pakistani officials said that if the delegations do attend, they will not arrive until Wednesday, leaving just hours to reach a deal before the two-week truce expires.

Trump has threatened to restart the war and attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure unless it accepts his terms. A first session of talks 10 days ago produced no agreement, and Tehran had been ruling out a second round this week after the U.S. refused to end its blockade and seized an Iranian cargo ship.

Still, a Pakistani source involved in the discussions told Reuters there was momentum for talks to resume on Wednesday and U.S. Vice President JD Vance was expected in Islamabad.

An Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that Tehran was “positively reviewing” its participation but stressed that it was waiting to see if its conditions would be met, including recognition of its right to enrich uranium.

Oil prices eased around $0.20 and stocks bounced back in Asia on expectations that peace talks will resume this week, although European stocks were flat. Oil had jumped around 6% on Monday on doubts about the talks.

A senior Iranian military commander said Iran was ready to deliver an “immediate and decisive response” to any renewed hostility, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

Top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf late on Monday accused Trump of increasing pressure through the blockade, saying Trump was deluded in seeking to “turn the negotiating table into a table of submission” or justify renewed warmongering.

Iran’s army said an Iranian tanker had entered its territorial waters from the Arabian Sea on Monday with help from the Iranian Navy, despite what it described as repeated warnings and threats from the U.S. naval task force.

Iran has largely blocked off the Strait of Hormuz, which controls access to the Gulf, to all ships but its own. It had announced last week that it would reopen the strait, but reversed that decision on Saturday after Trump refused to lift his blockade of Iranian ports.

That has left the strait closed and the world deprived of the 20 million barrels of oil that typically crossed it each day.

Iran Nuclear Program a Crucial Issue

Trump wants an agreement that would prevent further oil price rises and stock market shocks, but has insisted Iran cannot have the means to develop a nuclear weapon. He wants Iran to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which can, if further enriched, be used for a nuclear warhead.

Tehran hopes to exploit its control of the strait to strike a deal that averts a restart of the war and lifts sanctions, while retaining more of its nuclear program, which it says is for peaceful purposes.

Trump initially announced the ceasefire would last two weeks from the evening of April 7 in Washington, though he has lately suggested it runs until the evening of Wednesday, April 22, effectively an extra 24 hours. A Pakistani source involved in the talks also said it would expire at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, which is 3:30 a.m. Thursday in Iran.

Thousands of people have been killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and a parallel Israeli bombing campaign and invasion of Lebanon. The war has caused a historic shock to global energy supplies, and fears that the global economy could be pushed to the brink of recession.

Trump said on Monday that Iran was “going to negotiate, and hopefully they’ll make a fair deal.”

Pakistan has been preparing to host the talks despite the uncertainty. Nearly 20,000 security personnel have been deployed across Islamabad, officials said.

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