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Readers of a certain age will remember there once was a time when a man wore a Carhartt jacket because he had a job that might destroy a lesser garment. He wore Red Wing boots because the ground was unforgiving, and he drove a pickup truck because nothing else could haul the load that needed hauling or climb the path that needed climbing.

Each of these was a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

But time passes faster than the trends that follow, and today, Carhartts line the hooks of Brooklyn lofts. Heritage work boots sit ankles crossed at SoHo cocktail bars, and your next pickup truck has leather seats, a panoramic sunroof, and a price tag that would make a day laborer choke.

The American working man has officially become a luxury brand — and his uniform is everywhere.

Canvas chore coats and waxed-cotton jackets. Heavy denim. Flannel shirts. Leather boots. Olive green, tobacco brown, and endless shades of khaki. Walk through the fashionable neighborhoods of New York, San Francisco, Chicago, or Nashville, and you’ll find men dressed for jobs they have never held, in clothes designed to outlive whatever white-collar profession they currently call work.

So, how did the durable uniform of American labor become the everyday wardrobe of fashionable American men? 

It’s easy to accuse outsiders adopting American heritage workwear of cosplaying a blue-collar identity, but the real answer is that we’re witnessing the evolution of a trend two decades in the making.

Independent designers and manufacturers have been pushing back on American fast-fashion for years, and now, rising demand for responsibly-produced, American-made heritage products is meeting them in the mainstream.

The jackets really are tough. The boots do stand the test of time. And the trucks, well, most buyers will never need them to haul more than a mini-fridge, but that’s beside the point.

Today’s modern American man will pay a premium to know that if he needed to play tough, he could.

The South already dressed for this

Jay, founder of the Southern men’s lifestyle site Red Clay Soul, has been watching American men dress themselves since 2008, when he launched his blog into a menswear internet dominated by Northeastern prep, Italian tailoring, and men with too many opinions about pocket squares.

His perspective was different. His readers played golf, watched college football, hunted, fished, and occasionally needed to look good at a country club.

In other words, they already rocked the classic Southern uniform. Lately, the rest of America has been borrowing from their closet.

“I’ve noticed a lot more influence in menswear in the last 5-10 years of hunting and fishing culture,” Jay told Sport & State.

He sees waxed canvas jackets, vintage camouflage, heavy cotton, and naturally-colored fibers everywhere. “Everybody’s selling olive green now,” he said, along with dark tan and what he calls “Thanksgiving colors.”

Goodbye, pink Vineyard Vines polo. Hello, tobacco-brown hunting shirt.

Jay points to the popularity of Carhartt’s Detroit jacket, famously worn by Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, as an example of a practical garment becoming fashionable. He also sees a growing appetite for waxed-cotton outerwear from companies like Barbour and Alabama-based Tom Beckbe.

But Jay doesn’t think men are being conned into buying a new, expensive costume. Like his father before him, he believes in the tried-and-true philosophy: “Buy once, cry once.”

Jay would rather buy one excellent American-made garment than four disposable substitutes that disintegrate after one rainy season.

In past generations, this would be common-sense shopping. But in the age of offshoring and rampant commercialization, quality fell victim to cheap and fast.

Nature is healing. And quality is becoming fashionable again.

The Price of looking like you work for a living

With this rise in popularity, workwear brands like Carhartt can now cater to two distinct audiences, and the economics are getting interesting.

Carhartt’s traditional Duck Detroit (left) and the fashion-oriented WIP Detroit (right). Credit: Carhartt

Carhartt sells its staple Detroit jackets designed around durability and everyday utility. But its fashion-oriented Work in Progress line sells fashion-forward interpretations of that familiar jacket at considerably higher prices.

The wide delta doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about a difference in quality, but the rising demand for Carhartt’s products allows the company to juice prices for consumers that value an elevated version of the workwear trend over the workwear itself.

And that phenomenon extends well beyond clothing.

The $70,000 work truck

Ed Kim has spent nearly three decades studying the automotive industry. He joined the market research and consulting firm AutoPacific in 1998, eventually purchased the company, and now serves as its president.

Kim says pickup trucks first entered the luxury market in the early 2000s, with models like the Ford F-150 King Ranch and GMC Denali offering high-end models.

Back then, the first adopters were often contractors or similarly successful blue-collar workers. Men who needed trucks, but had the money to demand nicer ones. Then the typical customer changed. The contractors were joined by their affluent neighbors who could easily afford a Mercedes-Benz or BMW.

They just preferred the truck.

“There’s a significant portion of the luxury customer base that responds to the authenticity of a pickup truck,” Kim told Sport & State, citing the truck’s associations with classic Americana, patriotism, and hard work.

Full-size pickups were already enormous profit centers for American automakers, so Detroit was happy to add new luxury lines.

“The domestic automakers have very, very much pushed the idea of pickups as luxury products,” Kim said, “because they just absolutely print money for them.”

Like a city-dweller in a Filson hunting jacket, most luxury pickup owners will never push their trucks anywhere near the limits of their capabilities. But they’ll gladly pay luxury prices for the option.

“It’s the appeal of knowing that they can,” said Kim.

For a certain sect of high-end American consumers, the pickup represents more than transportation. It declares a quiet confidence and the reassurance that, should civilization collapse, you’re ready for action. With seat warmers and a premium sound system to boot.

The fantasy of competence

Jay from Red Clay Soul understands that appeal.

He owns canvas five-pocket trousers from Sid Mashburn that cost around $200. They’re sturdy enough for hunting, yard work, or laying bricks. He wears them to the office with expensive loafers.

Should he encounter a flat tire on the way home, at least he’ll be dressed for the occasion.

“It’s aspirational, right?” he laughs.

High-quality heritage brand products like Filson’s Mackinaw wool work jacket suggest an ability to handle the world without consulting an app. For many Gen X and Millennial men, that air of self-reliance is what we’re after.

David Coggins, the bestselling author of Men And Style and The Optimist, understands the attraction. He also recognizes its absurdities.

Coggins spends considerable time outdoors, particularly fly fishing, and has developed a deep appreciation for garments designed around his actual needs. But he says there’s a delicate balance between appreciating workwear and dressing like someone whose occupation exists entirely in your imagination.

For instance, if a Williamsburg graphic designer shows up wearing heavy-duty carpenter pants and Red Wing boots, mild confusion could be a natural reaction.

“I don’t want to say stolen valor,” he told Sport & State, “but you wonder if someone feels closer to having those skills because of what they’re wearing… I’m very sensitive to that.”

Jay from Red Clay Soul has his own version of the phenomenon.

“There’s this weird Yellowstone fantasy from a lot of guys,” he said. “They all think they want to be Rip [Wheeler].”

David and Jay agree there’s a difference between appreciating the quality of a ranch jacket and dressing as though Kevin Costner might summon you to settle a land dispute.

For most men, the sweet spot exists somewhere between an appreciation for genuine utility and brand history without straying too far into cosplay. But as classic Americana becomes increasingly mass-produced, a vast marketplace with endless options can complicate matters.

Rebelling against everything disposable

Coggins believes something deeper than rugged cosplay is happening.

Modern men are exhausted, he argues. Not from hauling lumber, but from being told what to buy.

Instagram serves up a new aspirational wardrobe every three months. Fashion publications constantly recalibrate trends and the algorithm never resets. Neither does the credit card.

“Durable, long-lasting products are sort of a refuge from the exhausting fashion cycle,” Coggins said.

He sees traditional clothing as a form of liberation from the endless churn of modern consumer culture.

A Barbour jacket. An L.L.Bean barn coat. A good chambray shirt. A pair of Alden loafers. Garments like this have worked for generations.

“That’s why men want a uniform,” he said, making the case for a more fashionable version of the late Steve Jobs’ famous clothing philosophy.

Buy something good. Wear it. Stop thinking about it.

And please, enough with the “athleisure.”

Strolling through Manhattan, Coggins says he sometimes can’t tell whether people are going to the gym, headed to work, or simply getting coffee. The technical fast-fashion boom that exploded during COVID has overtaken most American cities and suburbs, but Coggins prefers reserving specialized performance gear for circumstances that actually demand it.

And he has little patience for the fashion industry’s endless insistence that men reinvent themselves through new colors and silhouettes.

“Aubergine won’t solve your problems,” he jokes. “Find what works for you and stick with it.”

When authenticity becomes the luxury

There is, of course, a very large business opportunity in all this nostalgia.

Heritage brands can charge premiums for craftsmanship, durability, and historical credibility. Newer companies can build entire identities around those same qualities. And plenty of fast fashion companies will try to borrow the look.

But dismissing the movement as a marketing scam would miss something important. The designers and manufacturers leading the way are, in large part, coming from a place of purpose.

The Birmingham, Alabama-based outdoor brand Tom Beckbe has become a favorite among men who appreciate traditional sporting jackets. Coggins remembers trying one on and immediately recognizing that it must have been designed by someone who actually understood hunting.

There were subtle details in arm movement and pocket placement that would mean little to a designer who was merely copying a blueprint. Coggins later learned that the brand’s founder, Radcliff Menge, developed his flagship Tensaw jacket because he couldn’t find what he wanted for himself.

It was designed to solve a problem, and it’s made in America using Scottish waxed cotton.

Other brands like Alden continue making shoes in Massachusetts, Red Wing and Danner maintain American bootmaking operations, L.L. Bean makes its famous Bean Boots in Maine, Filson has a dedicated line of products produced in Washington, and newer brands like Buck Mason have invested in Pennsylvania textile production.

Each company differs in its manufacturing footprint, and not every product they sell is American-made, but they’re all examples of a heritage revival that isn’t entirely about selling a romanticized past.

For true fans of durable workwear, a key part of the story is about preserving what works, and pushing back against the tech-driven globalization that has upended American manufacturing for the last 50 years.

Yes, wealthy Americans are buying expensive versions of working-class products. But what they’re really buying are the qualities once associated with hard-earned utility.

Toughness, longevity, and craftsmanship have become premium selling points in today’s modern economy. The working man didn’t invent luxury. But he has helped redefine it.

A country looking for something real

Maybe this is all just another fashion cycle.

Eventually, the pendulum could swing back toward Italian tailoring and technical fabrics, sending waxed jackets back into closets and duck boots destined only for rainy days.

But there’s reason to suspect something more enduring beneath the surface.

Jay from Red Clay Soul sees a generation of consumers rediscovering the wisdom of buying fewer, better things. Coggins believes men want continuity and simplicity to combat a schizophrenic online culture. Kim says wealthy Americans want trucks with the promise of capability, even if it goes unused.

In this increasingly digital, frictionless, disposable world, our work often produces things we cannot touch. Our phones promise to make us more efficient while being made obsolete with each subsequent iPhone release.

We all crave something to hold onto, and somewhere in the middle of our digital existence, a canvas jacket that will last for decades begins to look awfully appealing.

Much like the value of human interactions, there’s a premium placed on products made with purpose by brands with a history. And that inherent price will increase with time.

So, yes, maybe the Connecticut financier wearing a $500 hunting jacket for his commute to Manhattan is playing dress-up. And maybe the suburban dad driving a $90,000 pickup to a country club is indulging in an elaborate fantasy of rugged independence.

Or, maybe both men have cornered the only commercially viable way to express real American values in 2026.

The full text of the letter has now been released for the first time, nearly six years after Biden described it as “very generous” but declined to reveal its contents.

The letter appears in Biden’s forthcoming book, “Promise Me, America,” according to an excerpt obtained by The New York Times. The newspaper also reviewed a photocopy of the original, dated January 20, 2021.

In the book, Biden describes encountering “two Donald Trumps,” writing that his predecessor “deeply destabilized our democracy” and had “not offered the traditional meeting between presidents.”

“But here he was, offering his best wishes in warm language that sounded like it was coming from an old friend,” Biden writes, according to The Times.

Trump’s letter reads: 

Dear Joe,

Coming to work every day in the Oval Office is a blessing beyond imagination. History resounds from every wall, every statue, every beautiful painting, and every corner of this magical place. Each staircase, hallway, and door leads to yet another door and memory, another inflection point in the glorious story of America.

I hope you take a moment every single day to take stock of where you are and the people who came before you, the titans who shaped the course of human events. You now have the opportunity to choose your place in history, and I know you will be true to yourself and the American people.

Many presidents have come and gone who simply governed as Republicans or Democrats. Largely, they did not change history, they were just swept along in its relentless tide. This will not happen to you because I know how much you love the American people.

Not only are you joined by the past, but you carry the hopes and dreams of the entire nation on your shoulders. The gravity of that fact never leaves you, it is the anchor that grounds every decision you make.

Your strength, your deepest reservoir of energy, comes from the knowledge that millions upon millions of people are depending on you. Their ambitions and aspirations are the reason you are here, with so many counting on your success.

May God bless you and Jill, and may God bless America!

Sincerely, Donald

The letter’s warmth contrasted with Trump’s 2020 campaign rhetoric, when he called Biden “the worst candidate” in U.S. history and repeatedly questioned his ability to serve as president. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, however, accused Biden of later weaponizing the justice system against Trump. 

“Joe Biden should have heeded the president’s wise words, but instead he tried to destroy this country and weaponize the justice system against his political enemies,” Cheung told The Times. “Biden is a disgrace, and America is better off with him no longer as president.”

Biden, 83, dropped out of the 2024 presidential race after a disastrous debate performance intensified questions about his ability to lead the country, let alone the Democratic Party. After leaving office, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He said Sunday that his cancer treatment would limit his appearances to promote the book. 

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped,” Biden said on Nov. 8. “However, I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves.” 

Jeremy Latcham, who previously helped develop the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside Kevin Feige, now takes the wheel of the comic book production company. Based on his past comments, Latcham could also be taking a unique approach to filmmaking to reach “regular people.”  

“When we were making the first Marvel movies I would always be like, ‘I don’t know if my grandma would like that.’ That became a guiding light … it became the stand-in for ‘is this going to work for regular people outside the bubble of Hollywood?’ Latcham said during an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network over the summer about his comic book movie philosophy.

This wasn’t the only time Latcham mentioned catering to a broader audience.

“In the old Marvel days, there’s this great story about my Meemaw and Peepaw because they became, like, a joke in the editing room – that we were making the movie for my grandparents in Oklahoma,” the entertainment exec said during a 2023 interview with GamesRadar+. 

“If they weren’t gonna understand it, [it was] never going to work for anybody. … I think that’s kind of the fun of these movies, of adapting material – finding a way to make it for everybody,” he added. “You have to be true to the fans, but you have to make it ultimately for everybody.”

Gunn and Safran were in charge of the DC universe since 2022 and had mixed results along the way. “Superman” had a decent showing, earning $618 million worldwide in 2025. But this year’s “Supergirl” release was a massive, embarrassing flop, earning just $126 million against a $170 million budget and generating bad press at every turn, like when the lead star said she was glad to trigger Christian dads.

Gunn released a lengthy statement after he was fired.

“What only the closest people to me have known over the past four years is my time at DC Studios has been trying, to say the least,” Gunn said. “I dislike the at-times corporate nature of the job (thanks to Peter for taking the brunt of that). I’m always a very hard worker, but as a filmmaker I would at least get to take short breaks to unwind, and I’ve stolen even that time from both myself and my loved ones over the past four years.” 

He concluded by thanking fans for “embracing the characters and stories we’ve put on screen.”

When announcing the change, Skydance CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz thanked Gunn and Safran for their efforts, crediting the duo of ushering in “a new era for DC Studios and [leading] it through a period of real transformation.”

“We’re grateful for their passion, contributions and commitment to this legendary brand,” Ellison and Kreiz said in a statement. “Jeremy has been a longtime creative partner to both, and we have complete confidence that James and Peter will ensure a smooth, collaborative transition and continue this work with care. We look forward to working with Jeremy to build the next generation of DC storytelling and to doubling down on our commitment to fans.”

Ellison also posted a statement to social media welcoming Latcham.

DC’s upcoming movies include “Superman: Man of Tomorrow,” written and directed by Gunn and scheduled for a 2027 release. The following year will bring “The Batman: Part II,” starring Robert Pattinson.

The 8-1 decision will allow the federal government to resume construction of roughly 340 miles of wall and surveillance infrastructure in the Big Bend Sector, which spans more than 500 miles of border. Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to note a dissent from the unsigned order.

Rodney Scott, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), said the federal government is “moving forward with critical border security construction in West Texas,” but added that his agency “has re-evaluated the terrain, listened to local stakeholders, and made meaningful adjustments that will secure this critical stretch of border while preserving the unique landscape and public access for generations to come.”

Environmental advocates were quick to condemn the high court’s decision.

Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the ruling “horrific,” saying it “clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal.”

“The Trump administration and its contractors are hellbent on destroying one of America’s greatest national parks, and the Supreme Court just gave them the green light,” Jordahl said.

“They’re signing off on the permanent destruction of the wildest place in Texas, and the theft of a great American river from all of us,” he added.

The border wall construction in Big Bend National Park has drawn bipartisan criticism from landowners, environmentalists, and local law enforcement.

Republican Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a former Border Patrol agent, opposed the plan and previously told The Daily Wire the rugged mountains in the area provide “big natural barriers” that keep crossings low. Instead, he said the area could use more cameras and drones.

Activists sued to stop construction in April, arguing that waivers the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued to speed up the project were a significant overreach that allowed the feds to skirt the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, according to The New York Times. A federal judge temporarily halted the construction in October, saying the legal challenge was likely to succeed.

The Trump administration asked the judge to pause the ruling while it sent an appeal to the Supreme Court, the Times reported. The judge ultimately declined, prompting the administration to file an emergency application with the high court.

The moment it became clear that Democrats were taking control of the House of Representatives, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) — who will likely chair the powerful House Oversight Committee as soon as the new Congress is seated — had warned his political opponents to “lawyer up,” promising retribution against members of the Trump administration. And according to his latest statements, he plans to target those who are no longer working in the administration in addition to those who are.

“Just because you’re Kimberly Guilfoyle or you’re Kristi Noem or you’re Pam Bondi and you’re no longer in office, that doesn’t mean that we’re still not interested in accountability for all your crimes and grift,” Garcia declared, not naming any specific crimes for which he believed those three women should be investigated.

“We’re not gonna forget, like, you know, like, we can’t forget about these folks that are causing harm. You know I think it’s like —  it’s because I’m like, I’m gay, but like, you know, like pettiness is a thing,” he said.

“Like, I am mad, you know. … This is a moment in history where all the young people, like, are in our families, in our classrooms, they have to know that what’s happening right now is wrong. And to just move on does a disservice to the future of our country,” he continued.

Garcia also warned Trump’s newly appointed White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that he should also “lawyer up,” but under direct questions from CNN anchor Dana Bash, he could not name a single crime that he believed Miller may have committed. Instead, he laid out a number of policies implemented by the Trump administration that he didn’t like and claimed that he planned to target Miller because he was “the architect” of some of them.

In April, outgoing Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to withhold millions of dollars in public safety grants to cities refusing to work with ICE. Now, with Democrat Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s leadership on the horizon, several cities are moving to end ICE cooperation.

Three days after Election Day, Houston Democrat Mayor John Whitmire signed an order limiting local police officers’ ability to contact ICE, allowing illegal immigrants considered to be non-violent offenders to walk free.

“This is the right thing to do at the right time,” Whitmire said during a press conference on Friday.

“No one has to worry about them doing a warrant, search, which includes ICE, unless they’re being charged with a new jailable offense, including dangerous crimes, violent offenders. It will improve our public safety, it will reduce the fear and anxiety of students, our workers, and I will take the responsibility of making this change even with the current administration still in office for two months,” he said.

Three Houston City Council members have also moved to codify the policy to make it more difficult to undo in the future.

Whitmire said he hopes his order will serve as a “model for Texas cities” and it already appears to be doing so.

In San Antonio, a group of city council members is pushing to prohibit local police officers from calling ICE when they encounter illegal immigrants with deportation orders.

Under the proposal, local police can only contact ICE if an illegal immigrant “is already going to jail on new charges or other warrants and has a positive National Crime Information Center hit for an ICE administrative warrant,” according to the San Antonio Express-News.

A similar effort is underway in Austin, where the city’s mayor, Kirk Watson, has indicated his intention to amend the city’s policy on working with ICE.

“I believe strongly that Austinites deserve to be safe and to feel safe,” Watson recently said. “That can only happen if people feel safe calling for help and getting needed support from law enforcement and first responders.”

Watson said he has already asked the Austin Police Department to ready a new policy for when Hinojosa assumes the governorship in January, according to Houston Public Media.

Watson said he asked Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis to craft a new policy to be ready for when Governor-elect Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, takes over in January.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire that ICE has nabbed “murderers, rapists, and arsonists” across Austin. DHS provided a list of some of the illegal immigrants detained by federal immigration agents.

Among those arrested in Austin were Honduran national Juan Fernando Lara Saavedra, a previously deported convicted murderer, Venezuelan national Daniel Alejandro Vera Belandia, a convicted rapist with a deportation order, and five-time deportee Santiago Lopez Diaz, an illegal alien from Honduras who was convicted of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.

Mullin vowed to remain undeterred by sanctuary policies being proposed across Texas.

“No matter how much sanctuary politicians try to obstruct us, the patriots of ICE will keep doing their jobs by arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens,” Mullin said.

“Sanctuary politicians are failing their constituents by limiting cooperation with ICE,” he said. “When state, local, and federal partners work together to remove illegal aliens like these, everyone is better off.”

In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in San Jose, California, on Monday, Mark Kistenmacher, a shareholder, says Huang did not disclose his relationship with Alice Huang, per TechCrunch. Huang is a former top executive at the Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed that buys chips from Nvidia and is not related to Jensen Huang.

The lawsuit also says the company’s misleading statements “artificially inflated” Nvidia’s share price and raised national security concerns.

“As a result of [Nvidia and Huang’s] wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” according to the lawsuit filed by the Rosen Law Firm.

Nvidia’s board announced Sunday that it had launched an investigation into the affair, with The New York Times reporting that U.S. intelligence officials had evidence she was “feeding information directly to Beijing.”

As one of America’s leading tech companies, the allegations carry national security implications because the technology Nvidia develops is so strategically important that the United States restricts its sale to China.

Trump, who has a close relationship with the tech titan, defended Huang and confirmed the FBI was involved. 

“I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape,” Trump said at a surprise press briefing. “He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy,’ and I really, and I really believe him.” 

Huang admitted Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife and said he would cooperate with the investigation, but did not directly address allegations that the affair was part of a honeypot operation.

“I owe my family and all of you an apology,” Huang said in a statement. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

Last month, Huang told Bloomberg that his relationship with Alice Huang was “related to Megaspeed, and it was all completely normal and not unusual.”

Huang has been married to his wife, Lori, since 1985. The two met as lab partners in an electrical engineering class at Oregon State University and married five years later, according to the university’s College of Engineering website. Their two children, Madison and Spencer, both work at Nvidia.

Nvidia shares fell more than 4% on Monday following the allegations, and the lawsuit was filed shortly after the markets closed.

Massie lost his primary in May, one day after Hegseth flew to Kentucky to campaign against him, and he has spent the months since drafting perhaps the longest grudge in the Congressional Record. He has eight weeks left. Congress has a funding deadline on December 11, a Senate that changes hands in January, and a war to deal with, and on Monday afternoon he read all eight articles from the House floor as a question of privilege, which the chamber must drop everything to dispose of within two legislative days. The vote comes by Wednesday. Hakeem Jeffries called himself a “hard yes” on Sunday; Republican leaders are counting defections, and the votes may well be there by midweek.

The law, however, is not.

The resolution runs 34 pages, which is 34 more than the War Powers Resolution devotes to the Secretary of Defense. Article I charges Hegseth with waging war in contravention of section 2(c) of the Resolution; Article II with continuing it after both houses passed a concurrent resolution directing withdrawal; Article III with continuing it past the 60-day clock. All three quote the statute at length, but none quotes the clauses that say whom it binds.

They skip those because the statute binds only one officer. Section 2(c) describes “the constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief.” Section 3 says “the President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress.” Section 4 says “the President shall submit within 48 hours” a written report. Section 5(b) says “the President shall terminate” the use of force after sixty days. Section 5(c) says forces “shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution.” Every duty the War Powers Resolution imposes outside Congress runs to the President. The word “Secretary” appears nowhere in it.

Massie’s own articles concede the point. Article I charges that Hegseth “executed unlawful orders.” Article III recites that “President Donald J. Trump transmitted” the required notification and that “President Donald J. Trump did not submit the written certification” needed to extend the clock. The resolution builds its case against the man who gave the orders, then, at the close of each article, swaps in the name of the man who answered the call.

High crimes and misdemeanors do not require a statute. But Massie oddly chose a statutory theory anyway, and pleaded it as his lead charge, so when the statute drops out, the article’s own theory of abuse, that Hegseth “executed unlawful orders,” has to carry the weight alone. It cannot. A subordinate who carries out an order the president says is lawful has not abused his office by obeying it, unless the order is unlawful on its face. This one was not. The only claim that it was unlawful is that it violated the War Powers Resolution: that the president sent forces into hostilities without a declaration or an authorization, and kept them there past the 60-day limit the statute sets. That statute is law; Congress passed it over Richard Nixon’s veto in 1973. But whether its 60-day clock is constitutional, whether Congress can end a Commander in Chief’s war by the passage of time rather than by a vote, is what the two branches have fought about ever since, and no court has ever settled it. An order does not become unlawful on its face because it collides with a law whose reach has been in dispute for 50 years.

Nor does this mean that the House should aim higher. Massie has pleaded himself out of impeachment altogether: a president who claims his conduct is lawful, and a Congress that disputes it is a war-powers argument between the political branches, and the Senate has already said what impeachment does with those. The precedent is Alejandro Mayorkas.

In February 2024, the House impeached Mayorkas for refusing to enforce the immigration laws. On April 17, 2024, Chuck Schumer rose in the Senate and raised a point of order “that impeachment article I does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor, as required under article II, section 4 of the U.S. Constitution and is, therefore, unconstitutional.” The Senate sustained it, and disposed of the second article the same way, without hearing a witness. Schumer’s speech that morning left nothing to interpretation: “The Framers were clear: Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements.” The question this week is whether that standard was a principle or a convenience.

Article II of the resolution has its own problem. It charges Hegseth with ignoring a concurrent resolution, a measure both houses pass, and the president never signs. In 1983, in INS v. Chadha, the Supreme Court held that Congress cannot change anyone’s legal obligations that way: if it wants to bind the executive branch, it has to pass a bill and send it to the president, who can sign it or veto it. So the clause of the War Powers Resolution that lets Congress order troops home by concurrent resolution has sat under a constitutional cloud for 43 years, and Article II now asks the House to impeach a cabinet officer for disobeying it. An impeachment vote is a strange place to decide, for the first time, whether that clause is even law.

To be clear, Articles IV through VIII are a different animal. They charge Hegseth with his own decisions: dismantling civilian-harm safeguards before the strike on a school in Minab, the campaign of lethal strikes on suspected drug boats, the censure of Senator Mark Kelly, the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, the Yemen campaign. But Massie, in his careless hurry, has made it impossible to vote on them alone, which makes them useless. A privileged resolution comes to the floor as one question unless the House divides it, so eight articles ride on one button. Article V, for example, treats an entire campaign of strikes and 221 deaths as a single count, and in a Senate trial each article gets one vote with no way to separate the acts inside it. That is the same defect that dogged the Clinton trial, where one obstruction article bundled seven distinct acts, and the first Trump trial, where a single count of abuse of power covered the whole Ukraine affair.

The remedies for an unauthorized war already exist, and the Framers put them where Congress could not miss them. Article I forbids any appropriation for the army “for a longer Term than two Years.” The current funding law expires December 11, and nothing stops the House from writing a rider that forbids spending another dollar on offensive operations in Iran after that date. A rider needs both chambers and either the president’s signature or a two-thirds override, which is how the Constitution meant it.

If the House wants the war to end, the Constitution handed it the checkbook. If the voters want to punish the president who oversaw it, the Constitution handed them an election. It never handed Congress an impeachment for a disputed deadline, whatever name appears in the article.

***

Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq., is Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

“And it looks like we’ve got a call from the White House,” host Mimi Geerges announced, before welcoming the unexpected caller.

“Well, thank you, Mimi, and good luck with the show,” Trump said. “I’ve watched you numerous times and you do a great job, but good luck with the show.”

When Geerges asked what he likes to watch on C-SPAN, Trump said the network’s call-in segments give him a sense of where Americans stand.

“Well, I like to watch the call-ins because it gives me a little bit of an indication of where we are,” Trump said. “I do okay in that. We have some great Republicans calling in, and I’m not so sure the Democrats are thrilled, but the Republicans seem to be.”

The surprise appearance quickly gained traction online, with a video of the exchange posted to X garnering nearly one million views. Some commenters praised Trump for calling into the program and taking questions directly from the host.

“I don’t like Trump, but I like this and his reasoning for calling in,” one person wrote. Another commenter said, “I wish other presidents did this more often.”

The impromptu appearance was another example of Trump’s unusually informal approach to interacting with the media and his accessibility to the public. During his first presidential campaign and throughout his first term, Trump frequently called into television programs, particularly Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” where he regularly spoke with hosts by phone about the day’s headlines.

The president is also known for answering reporters’ calls directly and granting impromptu interviews without the usual scheduling and formalities of a presidential press appearance.

Unsurprisingly, Trump also took questions from Geerges during Monday’s call, specifically addressing immigration and a potential impeachment vote against War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Geerges asked whether Trump would consider halting deportations of longtime illegal immigrants working in industries such as agriculture and hospitality, including those who have been paying taxes and contributing to their communities. Trump said his administration had not applied the same enforcement pressure to those workers as it had to violent criminals.

“We certainly haven’t put the same push on them as we have on the murderers or the drug dealers,” he said. “We haven’t put the same pressure on waitresses and on farm workers, etc. Not even close.”

Regarding a potential impeachment vote against Hegseth, Geerges asked whether Trump expected Republicans to oppose it.

The president said he would “be disappointed in them” if they went along with the impeachment effort. He defended his War secretary and touted what he described as military victories under Hegseth’s leadership.

Trump also discussed the U.S. operation in Venezuela, saying it had been completed in 40 minutes and that the United States had secured access to enormous oil resources.

The 0.4% increase was above expectations, with analysts predicting a 0.3 percentage-point increase. The inflation report showed energy prices cooled off, rising just 0.7% over the month compared to September’s 5.2% increase. Shelter costs rose 0.3% during the month, while food prices rose 0.5%.

The new report did not include a year-over-year number due to the government shutdown last year that prevented the agency from releasing its October report with employees furloughed. 

Tuesday’s inflation report comes exactly one week after Democrats dominated in midterm elections across the country with a focus on affordability. Democrats have vowed to address Americans economic concerns when they take control of Congress in January, and President Donald Trump has suggested that he’s open to cutting deals with Democrats on some of his top priorities, including immigration and economic policies. 

Trump blamed Democrats after the midterm elections when the stock market slid.

“The Stock Market suffered one of the Worst Days in History based on the results of the Election,” Trump said two days after the elections. “Such a sad thing to watch! It took so much work to get us to a level that no one has ever seen before, and then this. Your 401(k)s have, therefore, dropped. Remember, it wasn’t Republicans, it was Dumocrats. Do not fear, however, we will soon, one way or the other, be BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE.”

Economic pressures are already shaping Americans’ holiday plans. A new Barclays survey found that 57% of Americans “cite the cost of travel or gifts among their top holiday stressors.”

Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attributed rising prices to an energy shock caused by the war in Iran, which has disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. He also highlighted how inflation was a major issue under former President Joe Biden and then cooled off under Trump.

Bessent pointed to the 21.5% cumulative increase in prices under the Biden administration, but still acknowledged that the Trump administration would take ownership of the economy.

“We will own the economy,” Bessent said. “We have so far this year, we’ve got a million private sector jobs. We’ve never had this many people working in the U.S. The net worth of American households are the highest that it’s ever been. So, Kristen, let’s be clear here. This is an energy supply side shock. We will get to the other side of this.”

The hotter-than-expected report also complicates the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision. At its October meeting, two of the Federal Open Market Committee’s 12 voting members favored raising rates to combat inflation, while the other 10 voted to maintain the federal funds rate’s target range at 3.75% to 4.0%.

Last Friday’s strong jobs report, which showed U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in October, could further strengthen the case for a rate hike by signaling a resilient labor market.

The Associated Press called the race Monday night. The results showed 53% voting against the wealth tax (known as Proposition 40) while 47% supported it. Had it passed, all billionaires in the state would have been subject to a one-time 5% tax on their net worth, and the money would have been funneled primarily to government health care programs. 

Proposition 40 was proposed and pushed by the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West, a group that represents about 120,000 health care workers in California. 

“The state would decide how and when to spend the money from the wealth tax, but it would have to be spent on certain types of services,” California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office found. “Ninety percent of the money would have to be spent on health care services for the public. The rest would have to be spent on education, food assistance, and administration of the wealth tax.”

The outcome is a major loss for Sanders and a host of far-Left organizations that supported the measure. Two potential Democrat presidential candidates, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), also backed the proposal. 

Governor Gavin Newsom, another Democrat eyeing the White House, opposed Proposition 40, arguing that the money that would have been taken in by the state through the measure should have been spread out to fund education, abortion facilities, and housing instead of mostly health care. 

Newsom said that he wanted Congress to pass a wealth tax so billionaires cannot move states to avoid punitive taxes. 

“So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay,” he said. 

The measure was opposed by officials like Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican who recently changed his affiliation to independent, who argued it would drive business out of the state. 

“California’s proposed wealth tax is an unprecedented attempt to chase down people who have already left as a result of the state’s poor policies,” he said. “As a result, many of our state’s leading job creators are leaving preemptively. No state should be allowed to reach back in time and impose a new tax on someone who no longer lives there. That is fundamentally unfair.”

Longshot gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who lost to former Biden official Xavier Becerra on Election Day, also opposed the wealth tax, arguing it would destroy the state’s economy. 

Leftist advocates had hoped the passage of a wealth tax would pave the way for similar taxes across the country.

Rachel Maddow says trying to keep men out of women’s sports is repulsive and pathetic and a made up issue. Blue state voters in Colorado and Washington, who voted to ban this, disagree. Why can’t Democrats let this issue go? https://t.co/1tTL2WNP1B

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 9, 2026

Maddow’s claim that “trans people” in sports is a “fake problem,” is no less disingenuous — or to use one of her favorite adjectives, repulsive — than Megan Rapinoe coming out in support of males in women’s sports after her playing career in women’s sports was over.

Name a sport — basketball, golf, rowing, running, swimming, volleyball — and biological boys can be found competing against girls at every level, novice to pro. The US government does not track gender identity in high school athletics, and most school districts don’t collect or publish such data because of privacy concerns, giving cover to the ideological camp occupied by Maddow and Torre. But a website, hecheated.org, is doing the legwork, and its numbers tell a story of stolen valor numbering in the thousands, with roughly 12,000 podium finishes (and counting) “won” by biological boys in all sports at all levels.

Another boy winning girls’ championship medals.

There are at least 5 boys on record running “girls'” cross country this year. Here are their best 5k times and their rankings compared to girls:

1. 18:39 – Top 1%
2. 18:47 – Top 1%
3. 18:36 – Top 1%
4. 22:59 – Top 33%
5. Did not run 5k

“Only 5” boys in the entire country participating against girls and three of them (60%) just so happen to be in the top 1% of all “female” cross country athletes.

What are the odds of that?

— HeCheated.org (@hecheateddotorg) November 8, 2026

A “B.S. issue”? Yeah, if BS stands for Boys Succeeding.

History Lesson For Maddow

Before Maddow became the first openly gay American to anchor a prime-time television program, she was a three-sport athlete on the girls’ teams at Castro Valley High School, east of San Francisco. One of the reasons the girls’ sports offerings were so bountiful at her school was the 1972 passage of Title IX, which, among other things, insured girls a safe, competitive, landing spot in sports, separate but equal to the space occupied by biological boys. Title IX is also one of the reasons the college athletic programs for women existed that were interested in recruiting her before a shoulder injury her senior year sidelined her from competitive sports for good.

Would Maddow still have won a “Most Inspirational Swimmer” award at Castro Valley if she had been forced to race over and over against a biological boy who switched from the boys’ team to the girls’ team mid-season, as a cross-country runner this fall did in Washington state?

Would her enthusiasm for sports have remained robust if she’d had to compete against several — not just one — biological boys who enjoyed a physiological advantage over her? If subjected to an unlevel playing field from grade school on, would she have stuck with sports long enough to collect all the intrinsic tools that are the biggest reward of athletics participation: self-discipline, resilience, coachability, perseverance, delayed gratification, sportsmanship?

There’s a reason that Marcia Morey, a 1976 Olympic swimmer whose world view otherwise is in near-perfect alignment with Maddow’s, draws the line at biological boys competing against biological girls starting in high school.

As a US Olympic swimmer, Marcia Morey experienced firsthand an unlevel playing field created by steroid-fueled East Germans.

So why did Morey, now a NC legislator, oppose a bill banning transgender girls in girls’ sports?

The short answer: it’s complicated, writes @Kayceeunplugged
https://t.co/PKaDAHZrY9

— Sport & State (@SportNState) November 3, 2026

Or does Maddow believe that Morey and her fellow Olympians in the women’s events should just get over being cheated out of Olympic medals since the East German women fed steroids by an authoritarian state represented such an infinitesimal percentage of the competitive swimming population?

I was an impressionable 13-year-old with my own Olympic dreams in 1976, and after watching my childhood idols get beaten over and over by swimmers from a country that hadn’t made much of a splash at the Olympics four years prior, I did pause to consider the wisdom of continuing in a sport where the cheaters appeared to prosper.

It’s an inconvenient truth to consider how steroid use at the elite level may have trickled down to the rank and file in the sport, thereby normalizing what once would have been considered a non-starter by anybody with integrity.

I believe the same holds true for girls having to compete against biological boys who identify as girls. Will the younger sisters, neighbors, and classmates of the biological girls take one look at the inequity being forced upon them and say, thanks, but no thanks, to sports participation?

Trickle-Down Effect

In that respect, “trans people” in sports has a trickle-down effect that can potentially impact far more athletes than simply those lining up alongside the “trans people.” Around the time of the 1976 Olympics, the head coach of the USA Swimming club I represented told my father I was a super hard worker, but too scrawny to compete with the best … but there was a pill I could take to remedy that.

At my father’s insistence, I changed teams immediately after that conversation, but how many other swimmers stayed and accepted the pill? And what impact did that have on how they viewed themselves, competition, and their accomplishments forevermore?

Something else for Maddow to consider. Like her, I grew up a self-described tomboy in northern California. If she or I were growing up there now, would we be encouraged to explore the possibility that our gender identity didn’t match our biological sex? Would Maddow, if she was coming of age today, be encouraged to see herself not as a gay woman but as a transgender man?

In March of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Mirabelli v. Bonta that California schools cannot conceal a child’s gender transition from parents, as a California policy enacted on Jan. 1, 2025, had allowed them to do.

The Court held that California “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents” by permitting schools to facilitate social gender transitions without parental notification or consent.

In California, they passed a bill if your child thinks they’re another gender and asking people at school to call them by the opposite sex and they are having sessions with the school counselor . They don’t have to inform the parent. It gets worse, they could take your child to a planned parenthood and start them on hormones and you would never know about it.

This bill that got passed in California is pure insanity and coming to other states real soon.

— Dr. Dawn Michael (@DawnsMission) March 18, 2026

Maddow and Torre can talk until they’re blue in the face about how the anti-trans movement is a “years long political project to scapegoat and vilify and try to direct violence and hate towards a tiny, disfavored minority,” but the headlines suggest they are dead wrong.

Or simply projecting. I’ll let you decide.

Your Tribe, Not Mine

Those aligned with “trans people” are the ones spewing hatred and threatening violence against those who show up at women’s soccer matches or women’s basketball games wearing apparel that celebrates biological women in sport. It’s not the other way around.

If you’re looking to identify the authoritarian movement in this country that is hellbent on normalizing an unlevel playing field like the GDR once did in women’s swimming, it’s the left, not the right. Your tribe, Maddow, not mine. Nobody that I’m aware of had to be escorted from the arena for harassing the Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve for wearing a “Trans Kids Belong” T-shirt during a game.

The videos that went viral of women (and men) celebrating real women being bullied to the point of having to be escorted from a sporting event had such a profound, profound impact on some of our fellow Americans — to paraphrase Maddow — that in Washington and Colorado, two true blue states, the voters passed measures to prohibit “trans people” from girls’ sports.

As Democrats nationwide rode an enormous blue wave to victory Tuesday, voters in Washington & Colorado came together to protect girls’ sports.

They proved that protecting girls’ sports was never about right versus left; it’s about right versus wrong.

Me for @nypost

https://t.co/ZMwZmyHwOG

— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) November 5, 2026

A political fantasy? The headlines in the days after last week’s midterm elections suggest otherwise. A fake problem? The statistics suggest otherwise.

So, I’m turning Maddow’s question back onto her: Why do you think you can get away with saying this crazy thing is not happening?

The school’s civil rights office has opened a formal investigation into the campus chapter of Spoon University after the group scrapped its Cultural Food Fest, a university spokesperson told the student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. The complaint alleges discrimination. Spoon University describes itself as a “food site for the next generation” with a ” network of over 3,000 students at over 100 campuses nationwide.”

Northwestern has frozen the club’s status as a registered student organization. In an email to members, the chapter’s presidents said the group can’t put on events or take part in campus-wide activities until further notice.

The trouble started when Wildcats for Israel signed up for a spot at the Nov. 6 event, which was billed as a celebration of cultures through food.

The Asian Pacific American Coalition, Alianza and the Middle Eastern North African Student Association pulled out together, blasting Spoon in a joint Instagram post, writing:

A cultural food festival ultimately provides Spoon a way to check off a box and profit off of the cultural knowledge and labor of students. Inviting MENA and other affected student organizations while simultaneously platforming an organization that supports the Israeli state’s actions places those students in an unacceptable position.

Spoon tried to fix things by telling the remaining groups that Wildcats for Israel had been dropped. But the protesting clubs said the damage was done, arguing Spoon only acted once the boycott threatened the event.

Spoon pulled the plug on the whole thing. In its own Instagram statement, the club said it opposes discrimination “in all forms.”

Chapter leaders later told The Daily Northwestern they take “full accountability” for letting the pro-Israel club in, blaming poor communication for the executive board failing to vet the guest list before it went public. They thanked the boycotting groups for holding them accountable and promised changes.

Wildcats for Israel pushed back, saying it simply wanted to share its culture and contribute to campus life.

“Our connection to Israel does not tell you anything about our values or opinions,” the group wrote, warning that students lose the ability to solve problems when they stop talking across their differences.

Spoon University, founded at Northwestern in 2012, is now a national network of more than 3,000 student food writers on over 100 campuses, operating under Her Campus Media.

Captain Royce Williams flew into history on November 18, 1952. Alone in his F9F Panther, he engaged seven Soviet MiG-15s for 35 minutes. He shot down four, took a 37-millimeter round through his fuselage, and still landed his damaged jet on the USS Oriskany. The mission remained classified for decades. Finally, in February 2026, President Trump recognized him before Congress, and the First Lady presented the medal.

Two years earlier, at age 98, Williams was still stuck at a 90% VA disability rating. His PTSD had never been properly documented in military records from the 1950s, and his claim simply kept stalling. I drove to his house, sat with him, accessed his VA account, and personally filed the claim that ultimately brought his disability rating from 90% to 100%. Millions of Americans later watched him receive the nation’s highest honor. Almost none of them knew that, not long before, one of our most decorated veterans had needed someone to come to his living room and help him secure the benefits he had earned.

A different call came from Corona, California. A veteran’s family said he had about six hours left. I drove there and saw his family gathered around him, crying. He was gravely ill, and his leg had badly deteriorated. Even then, he still needed help filing a VA claim. I sat beside him and filed it.

His wife told me that what I had done gave their family hope and helped honor her husband in his final hours. He died the next morning. His family later invited me to his funeral, and I went.

I could not save his life, but I could still serve him in his final hours.

These two men had nothing in common except their service and the fact that both needed someone willing to do more than say thank you. One lived long enough to stand before the country. The other had only hours left. The system that processes disability claims is complicated for almost everyone. Older records are incomplete, and mental health conditions from earlier generations were rarely written down. The VA is processing more claims than ever, yet hundreds of thousands remain pending. Behind every number is a person or a family waiting for an answer they often cannot get alone.

Most veterans do not need another speech, or just another thank you. They need a ride to an appointment. They need help opening the right form. Sometimes they just need someone who will sit with them while they try to explain what happened decades ago. That is not glamorous work. It is the work that actually changes outcomes.

I started helping veterans navigate these claims because I had gone through the same frustration myself after I left the Marine Corps. The system is not built for people who are tired, sick, or simply done fighting another bureaucracy. It requires persistence and, often, a second set of eyes. Today, through VetComm US, my team and I have helped more than 40,000 veterans pursue the benefits they earned through their service. When a Medal of Honor recipient and a dying man in Corona both needed that kind of help, it was clear the gap is not limited to any one generation or rank.

This Veterans Day, the parades and the handshakes will still matter. So will the medals. But the better question is not “How do we honor them?” It is “How can I be of service?” Call the veteran you know and ask if he or she has ever looked at their disability claim. Offer to drive someone to a VA appointment. Sit with a family member who is trying to figure out the next form. Help a veteran connect with a service that will actually deliver the support they need. Show up.

The country already knows how to say thank you. The true measure of how we honor our veterans isn’t how loudly we applaud them. It’s whether we show up when they need us.

***

Kate Monroe is the CEO of VetComm, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and author of “The Race to Save California” and “The Race to Save America.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said Monday evening that there were still thousands of outstanding absentee mail ballots that could still be accepted by election officials by the end of Tuesday. Colom currently leads Hyde-Smith by about 2,536 votes as Watson noted there were about 2,578 outstanding absentee-by-mail ballots. 

The ballots can be counted for up to five business days if postmarked by Election Day. Around 1,000 mail-in ballots have already been received since the polls closed. Watson noted that 75 of the state’s 82 counties had submitted unofficial results to the state portal while one county had uploaded their official results ahead of the November 13 deadline. 

“Some have asked what it means when you see ‘unofficial results’? Those counties are still working through the process, so after each round of processing more votes their totals increase,” Watson said. 

He also noted that election officials across the state had processed 15,547 affidavit ballots, with a roughly 76% acceptance rate. Counties have until November 13 to finish processing any provisional ballot. 

An affidavit ballot in Mississippi is cast if the voter’s name is not in the poll book, an address has changed, the voter does not have an ID, or the voter has previously been marked as having voted by mail. The acceptance rate for affidavit ballots in the last two election cycles was between 70-75%. 

Colom’s campaign manager Gerard Henderson said Monday they were confident that the Democrat would prevail when all the counting was completed. 

“We’re confident that once every lawful vote is counted, he’ll be Mississippi’s next U.S. senator,” he said. “Thank you to everyone who got us here and believes Mississippi Matters!”

Hyde-Smith, who said last week she was confident she would win, told reporters on Capitol Hill Monday that “they are counting votes,” when asked about the race, before saying, “I don’t do hallway interviews.” Fellow Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker said that Hyde-Smith still “has a chance.”

The Senate race in deep-red Mississippi shocked Republicans and Democrats alike as a massive blue wave surged across the country last week, flipping once safe Republican Senate seats in Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas.

Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan asked Hegseth whether he felt confident in Trump’s backing, following reports that the president had privately discussed whether Hegseth should remain in his position.

“Sounds like you feel confident in the president’s support — is that accurate?” Olohan asked.

Hegseth said he’d let the president “speak for himself” before reaffirming his support for Trump.

“We’ve never had a better commander-in-chief — full stop. I get to watch him every single day. He lives and breathes America First, and it’s the honor of a lifetime to be his Secretary of War,” he said. “Any day he’ll have me, I’ll be right here at this podium.”

Trump praised Hegseth during the War secretary’s press conference Tuesday morning.

“Pete Hegseth gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Hegseth began his press conference by ripping outgoing Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) after Massie filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth on Monday. The renewed push to impeach Hegseth, which comes after the Democrats’ midterm sweep, has sparked speculation that Hegseth could be the next top Trump official to leave the administration.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned that it appears “the votes are there” to impeach Hegseth.

“Either Hegseth is going to step down, either he will resign voluntarily, or Trump will fire him, or, if that does not happen, I think it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the House will impeach him because, on the face of it, the votes are there,” Cruz said on Monday.

CBS News reported earlier this month that Trump had been asking advisers whether Hegseth should remain War secretary, with some reportedly discussing potential replacements. Trump subsequently defended Hegseth publicly, saying he was doing a “very good job” before declaring, “I have every intention to keep him.”

Hegseth also offered an emphatic endorsement of Miller, who officially became Trump’s chief of staff on Monday after the resignation of Susie Wiles. Hegseth praised Miller’s role in advancing the administration’s immigration agenda and national security priorities.

“As far as Stephen Miller is concerned, he is an incredible American patriot and a great friend of this department. We wouldn’t have an A Triple C, America’s Counter Cartel Coalition, without Stephen Miller. We wouldn’t have a secure southwest border for 18 months without what Stephen Miller has enabled,” Hegseth said.

“We’ve got no better friend at the Department of War than Stephen Miller,” the secretary added. “He’ll be a fantastic chief of staff who understands the president’s agenda. He will stand, he will fight, and we are proud to stand right there with him.”

Asked by i24 correspondent Joe Brown about losing supporters over his stance while gaining love from Jewish communities, the “Karma Chameleon” star didn’t flinch.

“Well, you know, sometimes love affairs don’t last forever,” he said. “You know, there are certain people that are in your life for a certain period, and they provide certain things, and then things change, and that’s really what’s happened to me. Some people I will forgive because, you know, you get over stuff, but some of it is going to be, well, it won’t be forgiven. I like the fact that you know when people are boycotting my gigs now, they can be replaced by lovely Jewish fans. So please come, you know, support me, and I will continue to support my Jewish friends as well.”

In July, Boy George dropped “We Will Dance Again,” which backed Nova massacre victims and Israel’s war against Hamas. The uproar from pro-Palestinians pushed him out of playing King Herod in a London performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” The song was later yanked from streaming platform Bandcamp, supposedly over its use of artificial intelligence. The fallout also cost him his record label manager, whom he branded “gutless.” He threatened to fire any bandmates who won’t play the tune.

In Canada, the song sparked refund demands and calls to cancel his Vancouver fair performance. Some fans stayed home, but Jewish supporters turned up waving Israeli flags.

The heat started even earlier. Boy George took part in Eurovision despite boycott pressure over Israel’s inclusion. He signed a letter with more than 1,000 entertainment figures backing Israel’s place in the contest. He issued a blunt reply to the haters, “I have many, many Jewish friends that I’ve had since I was 15 or 16 years old. Are people asking me, as a principled human being, to turn my back on my Jewish friends? It’s not going to happen – it’s never going to happen.”

Last week, he played two shows at Tel Aviv’s Menora Mivtachim Arena. He told the Tel Aviv audience, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”

Israeli star Ivri Lider joined him for “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” and 1,500 tickets to the second show went to Nova survivors and their families. He also visited the Nova massacre site and met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

“What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it’s not accountability. It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment,” Hegseth said as he began his Tuesday morning press conference.

On Monday, outgoing Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of “high crimes and misdemeanors” over his handling of the war in Iran, U.S. military operations in Yemen and the Caribbean, the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and the Pentagon’s scrutiny of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Massie introduced the articles as a privileged resolution, requiring House leadership to bring the measure forward for action within two legislative days, The Daily Wire previously reported.

In a defiant tone, Hegseth defended his record in the Trump administration and argued that a successful impeachment effort would jeopardize national security.

“It puts a target on the backs of American warriors by signaling that Congress will undermine their missions in real time,” he said. “This is not patriotism. This is sabotage.”

He also argued that all military operations were ordered by President Trump, approved through the proper chain of command, reported to Congress, and carried out by U.S. service members.

“For the first time in American history, a cabinet secretary overseeing America’s military is being attacked not for losing conflicts with our enemies, but for winning them,” he said. Hegseth acknowledged that at least 18 U.S. service members have been killed since the military campaign began. 

On Truth Social, Trump defended his embattled cabinet secretary. “Pete Hegseth gets an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie,” Trump said, calling the Republican “a TOTAL LOSER!”

Vice President JD Vance also assailed the effort as “absurd” and said, “impeachment has become a ridiculous show that stands in for actual policymaking.”

“This isn’t about Iran, this is about the fact that Pete took on the bureaucracy at the Pentagon,” Vance said.

Massie, who lost his primary earlier this year to Trump-backed challenger and eventual general election winner Ed Gallrein, is set to leave Congress in January. His impeachment effort represents one of his final major confrontations with an administration he has repeatedly challenged.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned that it appears “the votes are there” to impeach Hegseth.

“Either Hegseth is going to step down, either he will resign voluntarily, or Trump will fire him, or, if that does not happen, I think it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the House will impeach him because, on the face of it, the votes are there,” Cruz said on Monday.

Later Tuesday, the House is expected to hold a procedural vote that will offer a clearer picture of whether Massie has enough Republican support to advance impeachment proceedings against Hegseth. Republicans currently hold a narrow 218-214 majority, and the Republican-controlled Senate could refuse to take up the charges. If the House approves the articles, Hegseth would become only the third Cabinet secretary in American history to be impeached.

But even if Tuesday’s effort fails, the impeachment push could gain momentum under the incoming Democratic majority. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the frontrunner to become the next Speaker, has already declared he is a “hard yes” on impeaching Hegseth.

This is a developing story; stay with The Daily Wire for updates.

During an interview with 60 Minutes, the president told CBS News’ Ross Douthat that he would “love” to work with Democrats on immigration, said the issue had both “helped and hurt” him in the midterms, and suggested that he might allow certain illegal immigrants to remain in the United States.

The interview was taped shortly before he announced that Stephen Miller would be his new chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Miller is one of the chief architects of Trump’s current deportation policy and a staunch immigration hardliner.

The president’s remarks sparked strong backlash from supporters of his deportation agenda. On Monday, Trump appeared to walk the suggestion back — while still leaving the door open for some kind of bargain for illegals who are working and paying taxes.

“We have a very strong deportation policy,” the president said during an impromptu briefing at the White House on Monday. “There’s no amnesty, no, no anything. We keep that, but we focus on the worst of the worst. We want to get the murderers out. We’ve got most of them out. We’ve got most of the really bad.”

Trump reflected on the border crisis during President Joe Biden’s administration, saying, “You know, Joe Biden allowed 100, well 25 million people to come in. Of that, 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder. We’ve gotten most of them.”

Photographer: Tierney L. Cross/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The president emphasized that his administration wants to get “the worst of the worst” and then “we’ll see what happens.” And he noted that while the illegal aliens in the country entered in violation of the law, many of them have “good jobs now.”

“Some of them are even paying taxes,” he added. “And we’re seeing what’s going to happen. There won’t be amnesty. Somebody suggested won’t be amnesty, no. They came in. They knew the law.”

The president then again suggested he is working with different groups discussing the question of these productive illegal immigrants, and what to do about their situation.

“We’re working with a lot of different groups to see whether or not — but my policy hasn’t changed,” he said.

He again emphasized deporting murderers and criticized countries that “emptied their prisons” into the United States, allowing drug dealers and criminals to cross the U.S. border.

“What Biden did to this country should never, ever be forgotten, and I hope the Democrats will not try and allow that to happen again,” he added.

Trump said he called Huang earlier in the day “to see if he’s feeling all right,” following Nvidia’s announcement Sunday night that its board had launched an investigation into national security concerns surrounding the relationship.

“He said I had no idea that she was a spy, and I really, and I really believe him,” Trump said at Monday’s impromptu press briefing.

The allegations center on Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed who is not related to him. The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had evidence she was passing information she learned from the Nvidia CEO to Beijing.

The allegations carry national security implications because Nvidia is one of America’s leading tech companies and creates technology so strategically important that the United States restricts its sale to China.

Trump had also defended Huang on Sunday, calling the head of one of America’s leading technology companies “an honorable guy.”

“I just know he’s a fine person but you never know what is going on. I hope everything is fine there. He’s done such an incredible job,” Trump said before boarding Air Force One in West Palm Beach. “I think he’s an honorable guy, I think he probably has an excuse for it…he’s done an amazing job for our country.”

Huang admitted Sunday night that he had been unfaithful to his wife but did not directly address allegations that the affair was part of a honeypot operation.

“I owe my family and all of you an apology,” Huang said in a statement. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

He also pledged to cooperate with the board’s investigation.

“I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American,” he said.

Nvidia’s board said it had “no reason to believe” that national security or company secrets had been compromised, but that its inquiry would “examine all available information.”

Last month, Huang told Bloomberg that his relationship with Alice Huang was “related to Megaspeed, and it was all completely normal and not unusual.”

Huang has been married to his wife, Lori, since 1985. The two met as lab partners in an electrical engineering class at Oregon State University and married five years later, according to the university’s College of Engineering website. Their two children, Madison and Spencer, both work at Nvidia.

Nvidia shares fell nearly 5% on Monday following the allegations.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Monday that the cockpit voice recorder was found at the site of the crash. The recorder could help investigators determine what went wrong on the Learjet 60 before it slammed nose-first into the street in South Florida.

“The [cockpit voice recorder] is being evaluated in the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C. The excavation work at the impact site has been completed,” the NTSB said.

National Transportation Safety Board

The NTSB is expected to issue a preliminary report on the crash in December.

NTSB member Tom Chapman said the investigation will focus on looking into how the pilots and air-traffic controllers determined the plane would fly into thunderstorms that were in the area at the time of the crash.

“The factual details of how this transpired is exactly what we’re trying to determine,” Chapman said. “Who knew what and when and what actions were taken and whether those actions were appropriate.”

The agency aims to complete full investigations within one to two years of a crash. 

The private jet was piloted by Jeff Gregory, 55, and Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20. Previously released air traffic control audio revealed the pilots were battling turbulence and “light, clear ice.” Filgueiras asked air traffic controllers if there was a better route in the area and asked for permission to climb. Over the roughly one-minute recording, the situation rapidly deteriorated, with Filgueiras issuing a mayday call and reporting a descent rate of 20,000 feet per minute.

Video footage from a nearby dash cam showed the private jet hitting the ground nose-first before exploding into a fireball and leaving a massive crater. Witnesses nearby said the crash sounded “like a missile.” 

DeWitt Ingram, a Learjet type-rated captain, said severe turbulence inside a thunderstorm could have damaged the aircraft and caused the pilots to lose control.

“If the pilot flew into the tops of one of the thunderstorms, in that very rough air, he could have damaged the airplane to the point where he lost control,” he said. 

“The airplane was seen to have entered a very powerful, isolated thunderstorm that was high as to where that airplane was flying,” Jeff Guzzetti, a former top U.S. aircraft accident investigator told The Wall Street Journal. “Typically, these business jets can fly over the weather. But in this case, this weather was building up so much that it was reaching some very high altitudes.”

The flight took off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed for the Bahamas when it flew into thunderstorms. Along with Gregory and Filgueiras, tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, their two young children, the family’s nanny Anita Maria Cetina, and the couple’s friends, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, all died in the crash.

Gay Rabb Small died on September 4, one week after being diagnosed with dengue, a viral infection that’s spread through mosquito bites. Her daughter, Anna Small, took her to the emergency room after she noticed her mother had developed a tremor. 

Small was active and in good shape, aiming to walk at least five miles a day. She may have contracted the virus through a mosquito bite during one of her walks. Most people infected with dengue do not show symptoms. 

Historically, dengue infections in the continental United States have generally been linked to travel. But most of Florida’s cases this year were acquired locally, according to CDC figures cited by The New York Times.

“It is very unusual to have transmission in the United States,” Eva Harris, a professor of infectious diseases and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Times. “This is so very much of an eye-opener.”

More than 2,500 dengue cases have been reported nationwide this year, including 880 in Florida, making it the hardest-hit state. Florida reported 517 cases in 2025.

Experts say Florida’s warm, wet weather has created favorable breeding conditions for mosquitoes, helping fuel the larger-than-usual outbreak.

The outbreak prompted emergency declarations in three Florida counties — Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco — with the CDC awarding $800,000 to support surveillance and mosquito-control efforts.

Travel-associated cases have also been reported as far north as Minnesota and Maine. Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, warned that outbreaks could worsen.

“I think the dengue outbreaks will get worse over the coming years in the United States,” he said.

Potterheads lit fan fiction aflame by reimagining Draco as an anime-style female in September, 29 years after the book came out. The concept caught so much attention on social media that even the Department of Education jumped on the bandwagon. 

After posting a long-haired Draco image on X with the message “There’s Magic in Learning,” the department unpacked the image for The Daily Wire with a head-scratching explanation: “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry. Why should that mean it’s not real?” It’s a quote from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” when Dumbledore responds to Harry wondering if this new reality is “just happening inside my head.” What does that mean in this context? Who knows!

There’s Magic in Learning! 🪄 https://t.co/rbOY84jffA

— U.S. Department of Education (@usedgov) October 27, 2026

Commenters quickly dubbed Malfoid energy “canon,” “peak,” and “based” which — for anyone not chronically on X — means girl-Draco (also known as Draconia) was legitimately a thing. Now that she’s been recognized by the U.S. government, please enjoy AI Trump-Malfoid slop set to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.” Detractors claimed the Trump admin was clueless about the reference, or somehow in bed with J.K. Rowling on an “anti-transgender agenda.” For the record, a Trump admin-Rowling collab is something we could get behind. 

I reached out to Tom Felton — the actor who played Draco Malfoy — for his take on the situation, but he declined to comment.

Still, Malfoid is nothing new. She caught fire thanks to an illustration by Twitter user redteneri. But as one Redditor posted: “All of a sudden the whole internet has gone crazy for this premise that has been around for at least 17 years and I’m [thinking,] ‘What the hell is going on?’”

A little hazy on Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, who’s who at Hogwarts, or the exact rules to Quidditch? Same. But you don’t need to remember the combination lock to your secret diary of Slytherin House alums to appreciate this table turn.

All of the “Harry Potter” characters have been genderbent by fans in some form over the years (Rule 63 of fandom where every character gets redone as the opposite sex), but female Draco has recently taken on a life of her own. As one user wrote, “Malfoid appears to have broken containment and become nationally recognized.” And as Draco sneered in the movie, “I didn’t know you could read.”

 

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Draconia is basically Regina George from “Mean Girls,” bossing Harry around while casting spells to catch his attention. She’s icy and emotional, leading with a tough-as-nails facade to provide cover for her brat-coded heart. Her long white-blonde locks, teary blue eyes, freckled cheeks, and button nose get packaged in standard-issue Hogwarts robes.

So why did Draco need to be body snatched by a tsundere girl (simultaneously standoffish and lovey-dovey) in the first place? Fans think the gender recast fills in the gaps of the original story — and might even make more sense when it comes to Draco’s odd obsession with Harry. For anyone with a more-than-casual understanding of Draco’s eight-movie story arc, his vibe, which some thought was uncharacteristic of a teen boy, seems totally normal for a pouty rich girl with a hopeless crush. 

Turning Draco from a petulant and sallow schoolyard bully into Draconia — Harry’s manic pixie dream girl — also follows J.K. Rowling’s original inspiration for Draco, which she drew from girl bullies she knew in school. The overly emotional responses, stalker-like competitiveness, petty insults, and passion for grudge-holding befit a girl coming of age and threatening to get her dad involved. 

Fans who never really bought Ginny Weasley as Harry’s love interest didn’t miss the chemistry between Draco and Harry. Since, as the story goes, Draco eventually married Astoria Greengrass, anything beyond a bromance was impossible with two straight dudes. Stories shipping “Drarry” as gay lovers existed before, but once Draco became Draconia, the fantasy snowballed as a repackaged Romeo and Juliet. It’s a narrative that seems to have answered our culture’s plea for a classic love story featuring a princess who didn’t stomp all over the prince acting like she don’t need no man.

Believe what you will from the outside, but fan criticism around the “fem!Draco” trend lands in two camps. The first hints at questionable terminology. “Malfoid,” a portmanteau of Malfoy and the term femoid (female humanoid), is considered derogatory by some. One Redditor suggested it “originated directly from incel forums and the manosphere as a slur meant to strip women of their humanity.” Others who are equally offended by the overuse of “maxxing” upvoted “Galfoy” as an alternative.

The second complaint? Draconia’s looks aren’t suitable for work. Since she’s sometimes portrayed with exaggerated features barely contained by her clothes, I see the issue. While she’s intended to look appealing, one fan observed, “I think the whole trend is really weird. There’s the weird sexism and sexualization of a minor. Which is all terrible. The weirdest part is that it feels like this is a hair’s [breadth] away from making Malfoy trans.” Still, artists dedicated to creating the female Draco universe insist the character retain her modest innocence while attending boarding school for witches and wizards.

Will fans effectively ship Draconia into an official spinoff of the original “Harry Potter” franchise? And does she deserve to tell her version of the story? As Draco said in the movie, “You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort.”

***

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

“Jimmy” focuses on the pivotal moment in Stewart’s career in which he left his golden age of Hollywood lifestyle behind to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. The film follows his harrowing experiences serving as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot on the European front. After making the difficult decision to abandon the safety of stardom, he fearlessly throws himself into the war, flying 20 missions and earning the rank of colonel. Stewart, played by K.J. Apa, clings to his earnestness and bravery, revealing the humanity that lay at the heart of Stewart.

Throughout the course of the movie, audiences see how the brutality of war grinds the actor down. He ignores his self-doubt in order to serve his country and lead his men. “We’re not here because it’s easy; we’re here because our country needs us,” Stewart tells his men, inspiring them to embark on a dangerous mission. However, after his unit suffers casualties, partially due to the difficult decisions he had to make as a leader, he struggles to find closure. Steeped in trauma, he wrestles with the question: “Am I a good man?”

While Jimmy Stewart might have asked the question, George Bailey had the answer. Around the conclusion of the war, Stewart is approached to star in a film directed and produced by Frank Capra, whom Stewart had worked with prior to his time in the Army. Capra convinces him to take on the role of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The character of George Bailey wrestles with the meaning of life, contemplating suicide after giving up his personal ambitions to serve his family and friends. Stewart, who was facing similar struggles, used the role to work through his trauma and eventually find peace. “It’s a Wonderful Life” becomes Stewart’s artistic lifeline and ultimately rebuilds his faith in himself, mankind, and God.

At the heart of “Jimmy,” there is a deep reverence for Christ that we rarely find, especially in biopics. The movie shows us that Jimmy Stewart left the legacy he did because of his faith, not in spite of it. Many of the most revered biopics, ranging from “Oppenheimer” to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” have portrayed their subjects as inherently prodigious. In contrast, “Jimmy” shows us that Stewart isn’t sufficient by his own strength, despite his humility and charm. The glamour of Hollywood pales in comparison to the glory of God. 

Before Stewart leaves for the Army, his father gives him a pocket-sized collection of Psalms, which he says helped him during his own years of military service. While he is stationed overseas, Stewart steps inside of a church, sits in an empty pew, and reads Psalm 91 aloud from the collection his father gave him. In a moment of turmoil, he says he isn’t much of a praying man, then proceeds to ask God for help. 

Perhaps the most profound display of faith comes while filming “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Capra tells Stewart that he needs to speak from the heart if he’s going to make George Bailey’s story feel poignant. While shooting the scene in which George Bailey desperately prays to God at a bar, Stewart’s mind returns to the fellow servicemen he lost during the war. His script melds with his soul as he asks, “Dear Father in Heaven, I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope.” The prayer shows how Christ alone gives respite to both George Bailey and Jimmy Stewart.

Right now, many Americans feel like they are at the end of their rope. The blue tsunami, the war in Iran, and the climbing prices of gas and housing feel insurmountable. Young men in particular have been alienated, resulting in them shifting a whopping 36 points toward the Democratic Party during the 2026 midterms. Further, young men reportedly have the highest rates of loneliness, and men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.

“Jimmy” gives its audience hope. While Jimmy Stewart is an American hero who bravely risked his life in duty to his nation, he was also imperfect. What makes Stewart a hero is not his own strength, but his faith in God. Young men don’t have to be Jimmy Stewart; they don’t have to win Oscars, date movie stars, or win world wars. They simply need to trust God. 

In this moment of desperation, inflation, and congressional minorities, there are great men rising to the occasion. “Jimmy” is a reminder that every young man can achieve excellence, no matter what his mission is.

***

Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is a senior contributor at New Guard Press, a publication she joined while attending Hillsdale College.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

America’s homelessness crisis is too serious for a federal funding system that incentivizes activity over results. Federal policy too often rewards providers for beds, housing slots, and services instead of helping people exit homelessness.

A new Cicero Institute report makes a persuasive case for change: taxpayers should finance results, not simply activity.

The report examines IRS filings from 1,458 nonprofit providers receiving Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care funding. Between 2013 and 2024, their total revenue increased 123.9%, compared with 34.7% inflation. Over the same period, the national one-night count of people experiencing homelessness rose 30.7%. The report’s analysis documents these concerning figures.

Federal funding has also grown. HUD Continuum of Care awards increased 67.3% between fiscal years 2018 and 2024, according to the report’s analysis of HUD award data. Meanwhile, the National Alliance to End Homelessness has called for $9.6 billion in additional federal appropriations, including $4.8 billion specifically for salary increases at homeless-service organizations. Congress should ask whether more money on the same terms will produce better outcomes.

The answer, in large part, lies in the incentives. Under the traditional Continuum of Care model, grants have largely funded activities such as maintaining beds, operating housing units, and delivering services. Renewal funding has depended more on carrying out funded activities and meeting compliance requirements than on measurable outcomes. As the Cicero report explains, this is essentially a fee-for-service model. Providers are paid to maintain services, not necessarily to reduce the number of people who need them.

Judge a homelessness program by whether it helps people move from the streets or shelters toward stable housing, treatment, employment, and greater independence — not by how many beds it funds. Funding should reward measurable progress without penalizing providers who serve people with complex needs.

The Cicero report supports HUD’s fiscal year 2026 shift toward a more competitive, outcome-oriented Continuum of Care program. The FY2026 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) makes 40% of renewal funding competitive and sets aside $1.3 billion for transitional housing and supportive services. It gives greater weight to reductions in unsheltered homelessness, treatment, employment income, and exits to housing without ongoing subsidies. The competition is proceeding under a First Circuit stay pending appeal, after a district court ruling vacated the NOFO.

These changes do not guarantee success; they must be judged by results. HUD should publish performance data and refine its measures. But preserving a system that rewards inputs over outcomes is no answer.

Better government programs are only part of the answer. The most enduring way to expand society’s capacity to address difficult problems is sustained economic growth and rising prosperity. Economic growth supports job creation and higher incomes, while higher incomes expand the tax base and resources available to finance public services.

As a commissioner of The Growth Commission, I work alongside colleagues focused on policies that expand growth and prosperity. Our International Advisory Board brings together current and former national leaders who understand firsthand the transformative power of economic growth. We share a conviction that prosperity is essential to rising living standards and addressing longstanding challenges, including homelessness.

A wealthier society can do more for its most vulnerable citizens, including people who may never achieve full independence. Growth will not eliminate human suffering, but stagnation makes it harder to address. Washington should pursue economic opportunity and accountability in public spending. Federal grants should reward genuine progress, while economic policy should expand the prosperity that makes lasting solutions possible. Taxpayers deserve no less, and people experiencing homelessness deserve a system measured by whether it helps them rebuild their lives.

***

James Carter is a commissioner on The Growth Commission. He previously served as associate director of the National Economic Council at the White House and deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor.

But — as with most things — college sports can easily get out of hand without proper limits.

College athletics are almost unrecognizable from a few years ago. At least 30 states allow student-athletes to profit from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), and the 2025 House v. NCAA decision allows schools to pay their athletes up to $20.5 million, increasing each year. This is a radical shift from college sports’ long history of amateurism. College athletes operate as professionals who transfer between institutions in order to chase the most lucrative deal. The incentives in such a system serve the goals of professionalized, big-time sports, especially athletes who want to accelerate their path to fame and fortune.

The problem is that colleges and universities have a very distinct mission. Their core goal is educating students. Study, growth in knowledge, practicing hard and soft skills — these all serve universities’ primary educational purpose. Athletics can, too, so long as they support, not frustrate, this mission. The scorecard is in, however, and college athletics too often side with the latter.

The University of North Carolina (UNC) system, home of the Carolina Tar Heels, is one case study of this unfortunate phenomenon. A new report from the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal examines the academic and financial data for the system’s 15 intercollegiate athletics departments, and uncovers some sobering findings:

Students Bear the Cost

For one, athletics place an excessive financial burden on students. Student fees that fund student groups and access to recreational facilities seem reasonable. Paying a high amount directly to the athletic department is harder to justify. Nonetheless, most North Carolina institutions require students to pay upwards of $800 a year for their sports teams. Some examples include UNC-Asheville’s athletics fee of $906 and Elizabeth City State University’s $899 fee.

Significant Reliance on Institutional and Government Support

At most North Carolina schools, at least half — and often more — of athletics revenue comes from institutional and government support. The highest-revenue-generating schools, UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State, rely least on these funds. For example, only about 1% of UNC-Chapel Hill’s athletics revenue comes from institutional and government support. Other Division I schools, however, don’t fare as well. About 50% of North Carolina Central’s and 36% of Western Carolina’s athletic revenue comes from institutional or government sources. The takeaway here shouldn’t be for these schools to become more like Chapel Hill. Mimicking its success is both unlikely and undesirable, as competitive high-pressure sports often come at a high academic cost. Instead, institutions should cut superfluous expenses, such as high coach compensation.

Educational Cost

Playing football or basketball at schools like UNC or NC State often opens doors to professional stardom. High-stakes competition, however, can clash with colleges’ and universities’ academic mission. Student athletes must balance demanding training and travel schedules alongside their studies. Graduation rates indicate that many athletes struggle to strike that balance.

Basketball and football players at UNC-Chapel Hill graduate at much lower rates than the overall student body, at 54%, 76%, and 91.3%, respectively. NC State is similar, with basketball players graduating at 18%, football at 55%, and the overall student body at 85.5%.

Reports of misbehavior emanating from Chapel Hill’s football program also indicate a lack of respect from some athletes and even personnel for the university.

Playing the Long Game

Reforming intercollegiate athletics is possible, but it will not be popular. It’s also not one-size-fits-all. Safeguarding academia’s higher mission requires bold action. The Martin Center recommends a varied approach depending on schools’ division and financial status.

Some schools, for example, should consider dropping down to Division III. DIII is far less costly, which would lower the price tag for both the institutions and students. It would also relieve pressure on athletes, allowing them to focus on their education.

Another recommendation is for states to impose NIL caps. The current ecosystem allows student-athletes to transfer between institutions to chase the best NIL deal. Capping NIL may slow down institution-hopping and allow athletes to pay more attention to their studies. Ending large buyouts for coaches and conducting a sport-by-sport audit are other opportunities for cost savings. To learn more about these and other recommendations, read the Martin Center’s full report here.

Academics cannot be the runner-up on a university campus. In a competition between a university’s educational mission and its sports team, the educational mission must win.

***

Shannon Watkins is a research and policy fellow at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

The 40-year-old “Mamma Mia!” star is getting pushback for the Instagram Story she shared on Sunday, which said, “The most radical thing we can do is make divorce boring. Make it normal. Make it accessible. Because the system thrives on confusion and stigma, on making you believe you’re the first one to ever walk this road. But when divorce becomes just another life transition – like a wedding, like a graduation – the patriarchy loses one of its most effective weapons.”

Right after that, Seyfried shared a black-and-white photo of her with her current husband, Thomas Sadoski, hugging each other. The couple confirmed they were headed for divorce in September after nine years of marriage.

“We have been separated for a while, and it’s proven to be the right move for us and our family unit. We’ve got each other forever—and it’s GOOD,” Seyfried and Sadoski told People in a statement about their marriage ending.

They have two children, a six-year-old and a nine-year-old. 

Attempts to “normalize” divorce have become a bit of a trend in Hollywood. Last month, “Spider-Man” actor Tobey Maguire officiated his ex-wife’s wedding just weeks after their divorce was finalized. 

And in July, Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle” fame posted a video of himself, his soon-to-be ex-wife, and their son dancing to an upbeat song while announcing their divorce, as The Daily Wire previously reported. 

Commenters called the spectacle sad and strange, especially with a small child taking part in the upbeat announcement of his parents’ split. Muniz quickly pulled the clip down under an avalanche of backlash.

Muniz’s almost-ex, Paige Price, shot back at the critics, insisting that two adults who can still function as a team shouldn’t be mocked for their choices.

“Frankie, I am so sorry that you felt the need to delete an old fun video of our family because people are so cruel to you. This world is so f*cked … divorce is bad, sure — it’s not like we’re excited about it … but we’re two adults who know how to be on the same team. I can’t believe people could scrutinize that,” Price wrote under the revised version of their divorce announcement.

The man fell from Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas, a 14-deck cruise ship that holds more than 4,000 passengers and 1,500 crew members. Officials believe he entered the water around 2:30 a.m.

Fishermen Sean Norton and Grant Garrett found him floating nearly 20 miles offshore around noon as they returned from a fishing trip near Catalina Island. They pulled him into their boat and made an emergency maritime call.

Garrett said he spotted the man in the water and told Norton to stop the boat so they could reel in their fishing lines.

“The only thing he [the pianist] said to me was, ‘Thank you. I thought I was gonna die,’” Norton told CBS News.

The pianist was brought ashore and rushed to a nearby hospital in stable condition. 

Norton credited unusually warm ocean temperatures with helping the man survive.

“You have this crazy super El Niño year. This guy was in the water for probably 10 hours, but the water’s 76 degrees,” he said. “A different year, no way he makes it.”

“We are providing support and assistance to our crew member during this difficult time,” a Royal Caribbean spokesperson told the Daily Wire. “To respect the privacy of our employee, we have no additional details to share.”

The rescue comes after another passenger fell overboard from a Royal Caribbean ship in October and survived 20 hours in the water, aided in part by warm temperatures and a lifebuoy she clung to until help arrived.

Vanderbilt Athletics received an alert just after 10 a.m, and the university sent a memo to all staff at 11:26 a.m.

“We are currently responding to an active cybersecurity incident that may impact university devices, systems and cloud-based services,” the memo said. “Our information technology team is actively investigating and working to contain the situation.”

The university asked all employees to turn off any university-issued devices and remain vigilant for suspicious activity.

Some employees also reported hearing a recorded message on their devices.

“Make the right choice or rot with the wrong one,” a voice said in a message received by some Vanderbilt staff members, according to a source.

Laurie Woods, a criminology professor, told the university’s newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler, that the voice message played during her class.

“I received the message on the computer with about 40 documents that said ‘Read Me’ and a verbal message, both of which I shared with students,” Woods told The Hustler. “It is out of our control, so all we can do is make the best of it. On the other hand, it reminds us of the power of internet and AI.”

Students were urged to continue attending classes despite the disruption. Some services were unavailable, including access to tickets for the Commodores’ upcoming game against the University of Alabama.

The ransomware group BYOD appeared to claim to be behind this attack, per the Nashville Banner.

The same group also claimed responsibility for recent cyberattacks on Michigan State University and the University of New Mexico Health System.

In a message about Vanderbilt, BYOD claimed it had obtained university research data, student and employee records, and more than 1 million Social Security numbers, The Hustler reported. The newspaper said it had not confirmed those claims.

Vanderbilt University officials told the staff to watch out for other signs of an attack and act immediately if something suspicious occurs on a device. The list of suspicious activity the university listed includes:

• Unexpected pop-ups, warnings or security notifications
• Unusual changes to files, folders or permissions in OneDrive, Box or other cloud storage platforms
• Files that have been unexpectedly moved, deleted, renamed or modified
• Unfamiliar applications, messages, or prompts appearing on your device
• Unexpected requests to enter passwords, approve authentication requests, or provide login credentials
• Any other unexpected or unusual behavior on your device

The extent of any data theft remained unclear.

Vanderbilt University has 14,000 students and more than 7,000 faculty and staff members.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is seeking international arrest warrants for the leader and two deputies of Shahid Kaveh — an IRGC-aligned organized cybercrime group.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced a formal judicial investigation on Monday, saying the attack had “been committed to serve the interests of a foreign power — in this case, Iran.”

The attack “marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Monday. “We will impose sanctions at the European level against all those responsible for this attack,” he added, vowing to take “any other measures needed” to respond to it and deter future attacks.

The French government’s cybersecurity authority traced multiple IP addresses involved in the cyberattack back to devices located in Iran and found that the hackers organized the operation in Farsi.

Barrot said he had summoned Iran’s ambassador to “strongly protest against this extremely grave act.” Iran has yet to respond to the accusations.

The October 11 cyberattack struck about 700 grocery stores, according to the prosecutor’s office, out of roughly 10,000 nationwide. The hackers seized control of the software that lets retailers remotely manage their refrigerators and freezers, leading to “significant food spoilage” and roughly 20 fires as the temperatures inside the units climbed as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

The hacked systems, primarily made by Danish manufacturer Danfoss, typically undergo a short defrost cycle as part of a nightly routine. Prosecutors said hackers triggered endless defrost cycles and disabled alarms meant to alert staff to the high temperatures.

Two supermarkets in eastern France alone suffered about $302,000 in combined losses, The Daily Wire previously reported.

Les Mousquetaires, which owns the major French grocery chain Intermarché, reported that refrigerators at around 180 of its stores remained at 122 degrees Fahrenheit for about six hours overnight.

Les Mousquetaires CEO Thierry Cotillard estimated that the hack cost French grocery chains “tens of millions of euros” nationwide in a single day.

Danfoss said at the time that almost all hacked units were “legacy” products that “no longer receive software or security updates,” and that it had previously urged French grocery chains to upgrade these models for better security.

Last week, the FBI released a joint fact sheet with four other federal agencies detailing the risk of a similar cyberattack on American grocery stores and cold storage facilities. The agencies urged operators to take at-risk systems off the public internet, warning that poorly managed systems could create fire hazards.

Pro-Palestinian cyclists from Philly Bike On Your Left and allied groups rolled into Rittenhouse Square targeting spots including Mac Mart, Goldie, Dizengoff, K’Far, Huda and Schlesinger’s Deli. Flyers screamed, “No business for Zionists” and branded owners “disgusting humans.” Organizers insisted it was purely about Israel, not Jews, and denied picking the date on purpose. Police put the bike contingent at roughly 200, with total protesters around 300.

Hundreds of counterprotesters and customers from across the East Coast showed up in response. Lines snaked around blocks for hours. Customers waited 90 minutes or more just to grab a bowl of mac and cheese or a falafel. Supporters waved Israeli flags, flipped off the riders, and shouted, “This is America, not Nazi Germany” and “Shame!” One New Yorker who drove down called the boycott “the biggest bust” imaginable and joked the protesters had turned the restaurants into “rock stars.”

Jewish organizations led the charge. The ADL urged people to eat at the targeted spots. The Jewish Federation pushed a food crawl and told people to spend money rather than argue. Synagogues placed big group orders. Billboards from JewBelong told the city to “boycott the boycott ride.” Local rabbis, the AJC, StandWithUs and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum all condemned the ride as straight-up Jew-hatred.

Owners felt the love. Mac Mart’s Marti Lieberman said the outpouring was overwhelming and that everyone remains welcome. Huda’s Yehuda Sichel explained why the boycott hit close to home.

It’s pretty personal to me. Not okay. My grandfather witnessed [Kristallnacht] as a 10-year-old child in Germany … people singling out Jewish businesses, using Zionism as a euphemism to attack Jewish people is not okay.

The timing was impossible to ignore. November 9-10 marks the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 Nazi pogrom across Germany and Austria. After a Jewish teenager shot a German diplomat in Paris, Nazi leaders used the killing as the excuse for a coordinated night of terror. Mobs burned more than a thousand synagogues, smashed the windows of roughly 7,500 Jewish businesses, ransacked homes and schools, and killed at least 91 Jews. Some 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and shipped to concentration camps. The broken glass littering the streets gave the night its name. It was the open declaration that legal discrimination was giving way to organized violence, a clear step toward the Holocaust.

In Philly, the opposite happened. A boycott meant to cost Jewish restaurants business instead filled their registers and filled the streets with people who refused to look away.

Three people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian bicycle protest in Philadelphia on Sunday.

The boycott was organized by Philly Bike On Your Left, and it targeted several Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses around Center City, according to a flyer on social media. The… pic.twitter.com/Znp417zVfy

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 9, 2026

Wow 🤩 – look at the lines outside of the Jewish owned eateries being boycotted today by the “Free Palestine” crowd in Philadelphia!

Am Israel Chai. pic.twitter.com/xJtxYLjRQm

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 8, 2026

Philly 'Kristallnacht' protests at Jewish-owned businesses drowned out, shouted down by huge crowds https://t.co/XcNBMGFHNT pic.twitter.com/Md9VDYrrTs

— New York Post (@nypost) November 8, 2026

White joined Trump at a White House press briefing, even taking a few questions.

“I’ve always wanted to do this: Who has the first question?” he asked, prompting laughs from around the room. “I have zero political aspirations. I was at a fight … when he called me and told me that he had done this, and the last 24 hours of my life has been insane. But … yeah, good to see you!”

The first question, as it happened, was right up White’s alley: the reporter asked whether Trump or former President Joe Biden would win in a cage match, all other things being equal.

“The toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my entire life,” White said, gesturing toward Trump as he spoke.

“Many times during the last eight, ten years — whatever it’s been — I’ve told him, ‘Why do you keep doing this? Why are you doing this?’ When he was going through everything that he went through, and as tough and as resilient as I thought, after he got shot, I, ah … yeah.”

“He is a on-of-one unique human being and —” he trailed off.

Then came the follow-up question: “Would it be a knockout victory for the president?”

“It would be — it would be very bad, yeah,” White said. “Yeah, I think it would be very bad.”

As reporters continued to wave their hands and call out his name, White seemed both baffled and amused: “I can’t believe you actually have questions for me.”

Another reporter asked about a possible pardon for the late Pete Rose — which both White and Trump seemed to agree was a good idea.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed White on a more pressing issue, asking whether he’d ever officially told President Trump “no” to the job offer.

“No, I don’t tell the president ‘no’ to anything,” White said. “I didn’t say ‘no.’ I — literally every media outlet was calling me and I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.”

Trump then described how the situation had played out, saying that he’d been having a “bad press day” and thought of White’s name — and so as a joke, he’d said to the press that he intended to have White come and be his new press secretary. Of course, he said, the press ran with the story as if it wasn’t a joke — so he’d invited White to come to Washington so they could “have a little fun with it.”

Trump later asked White directly whether he’d like the job — “or do you just want to stay with this ridiculous UFC?”

He immediately got a firm response: “I do not want to be in politics. No.”

“I am devastated to hear this,” Trump laughed. “Goodbye everybody!”

🚨 LMAO! President Trump just had this gem moment then walked out of the room

“Dana — would you like to be PRESS SECRETARY of the United States of America? Or do you just want to stay with this ridiculous UFC?”

DANA WHITE: “I do not want to be in politics. No.”

TRUMP: “I am devastated to hear this. Goodbye everybody!”

Definitely one of the most memorable pressers of this administration 🤣

Trump should rotate in @NICKIMINAJ next!

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 9, 2026

Responding to a reporter’s question, Trump said that the market drop came only after Democrats swept the midterm elections.

“We’ve seen the stock market really take an up and down, like a roller coaster, the last couple of days, today. Last week it tanked —” a reporter began.

“Not last week. Right after the election. It went down three trillion dollars. That was because of the result of the election because the stock market does not want to see Democrats,” Trump said. “And your 401(k)s have gone way down because of the ridiculous result. It’s not even a result. It’s almost hard to believe.”

“Now I wasn’t on the ballot; I shouldn’t take anything personally, but I will tell you I thought it was ridiculous,” he said.

“But the stock market went way down right after that event. Today it’s way up, because I think they feel we have things under control,” he added.

The stock market suffered one of its worst drops of the year two days after Election Day on November 5.

Just two days after results came in, the S&P 500 sank 4.36% to 7,353.73, and its companies lost a record $2.9 trillion in value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 5.52% to 24,315 and wiped out $2.5 trillion, while the Dow dropped 1,833 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523.06.

Trump said Thursday that the stock market slide was “a sad thing to watch” and pinned the blame on Democrats and the blue tsunami election results.

“It took so much work to get us to a level that no one has ever seen before, and then this. Your 401(k)s have, therefore, dropped. Remember, it wasn’t Republicans, it was Dumocrats. Do not fear, however, we will soon, one way or the other, be BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE,” he said.

Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images

Speaking during an impromptu White House press conference, Trump said Iran’s missile and drone manufacturing capabilities had been reduced by approximately 85% and said the regime was negotiating with the United States. He also defended Secretary of War Pete Hegseth against an impeachment effort launched by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).

“They’re talking to us, and they’re talking very politely,” Trump said of Iran. “There’s a good chance that that could get ended.”

Trump declined to declare the conflict over, saying Iran’s remaining capabilities threaten regional allies and that the administration wants to prevent Tehran from rebuilding its nuclear program.

“It’s ending quickly, but we want to take care of people that have been very good to us over the years,” Trump said.

The president also warned that American forces are prepared to resume operations if negotiations fail.

“If we do have to go back in, we are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said.

Trump also defended Hegseth after Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment against him on Monday.

Massie’s resolution accuses Hegseth of committing high crimes and misdemeanors through his handling of the Iran war, military operations in Yemen and the Caribbean, the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and the Pentagon’s scrutiny of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

Trump dismissed Massie as a “stone cold loser” and accused him of reflexively opposing the administration’s agenda. Massie lost his Republican primary earlier this year to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein, who won the general election last week and will succeed him in January.  

“Now he’s after Pete Hegseth. He doesn’t like Hegseth, but really, what has Hegseth done?” Trump said. The president credited Hegseth with overseeing the military operations in Iran and Venezuela, describing both as victories for the United States. 

“Pete Hegseth won two wars,” Trump said. “Oh, let’s impeach him.”

Trump also said that Hegseth had helped reverse a military recruitment crisis, claiming the armed forces now have their strongest recruiting numbers in history and waiting lists of people seeking to enlist.

“The actual soldiers, the great people that do the work, the great patriots, they love Pete Hegseth,” Trump said. “He’s done a very good job.”

Hegseth has similarly dismissed the impeachment effort as a political stunt. Asked Monday whether he was concerned about having enough Republican support to defeat the resolution, he said, “We’re not worried about that.”

Judge Tony Graf Jr. announced the date Monday in Provo after Utah County prosecutors requested a January 2028 trial and Robinson’s defense lawyers sought a start date in late 2029.

Prosecutors expect a 17-week trial and previously said they could be ready by October 2027. Their proposed January start would avoid holding the trial over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk, had requested that the trial start no later than October 2027. Her attorney, Jeffrey Neiman, said dragging out the trial would violate her right to a speedy trial under Utah law.

“This case should be tried within a month, not three years — and it should be over with,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The judge is desecrating the memory of the Great Charlie Kirk, while taking forever to ask questions that people already know the answer to. The whole Country is mocking him and our ‘Legal’ System. JUSTICE FOR CHARLIE!”

In September, Graf ruled that Robinson will stand trial on all seven charges in the assassination, leaving him eligible for the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder.

Robinson, who pleaded not guilty, faces one count of aggravated murder, one count of felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, two counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of tampering with a witness, and one count of committing a violent offense in the presence of a child, according to court records.

Robinson is accused of fatally shooting Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, where the conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder was speaking at an outdoor event.

That was Dave Chappelle, a comedian. Comedians are held to a different standard than other people, mainly because they’re supposed to be joking.

But that was not really a joke. It wasn’t even close to a joke. It reflected deep, underlying hatred.

Let’s be clear. The supposedly “tolerant,” “optimistic” Left is filled with that hatred.

Some members of the Democratic Party don’t feel this way. But there are also a lot of Democrats who pretend to be uncomfortable with this trash but are, in reality, fine with it.

There’s a game being played in which many of the pseudo-moderates of the Democratic Party pretend to dislike the radicals, and then promptly work with them to shove the Overton Window — the range of acceptable discourse — far to the left.

Dave Chappelle will hide behind the fact that he’s a comedian because this is the game: Clown nose on, clown nose off. He’s a political analyst when he doesn’t wish to be taken as a jokester. But the minute he says something controversial, the clown nose is back on. It was all a joke, you see.

We can tell the difference between a joke and what is not a joke. In fact, Chappelle told another joke that same night that’s not getting quite the same play — for a reason. It’s a bad joke, but it does live in the joke universe.

“I’m sure Charlie Kirk is looking up at us right now, laughing so hard he can’t breathe.”

Chappelle took that from a joke that Tony Hinchcliffe did during the roast of Kevin Hart back in May.

“The black community is so proud of you right now. Right now George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe,” Hinchcliffe said.

This was Chappelle taking that same joke, inserting the name Charlie Kirk for George Floyd, and then telling it. The very fact that Chappelle puts Charlie Kirk, a political activist not arrested or accused of any crime, in the same category as George Floyd — an arrested criminal who experienced excited delirium in a cop car and then died under disputed circumstances — is pretty telling.

But again, Chappelle’s George Floyd/Tony Hinchcliffe comparison joke is a troll designed to elicit a response from the Right so he can say, “You don’t like free speech.”

But it’s the other joke that’s not really a joke. Chappelle is obviously perfectly fine seeing conservatives get shot to death.

Side note to conservatives, because this is something we’ve been dealing with in the conservative movement for decades at this point: Just because a famous person might agree with you on one core issue — say, trans radicalism, the way Chappelle does — doesn’t mean that person is decent, or a thought leader for your side, or worthy of broad respect.  

Back to Chappelle and the far-Left. The far-Left is perfectly happy with violence against the Right. Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan of the “I’ve Had It” podcast were cracking up at a comment about Charlie Kirk’s death.

They read, “Dread Moroz says, ‘We’re digging up Charlie Kirk and doing it again.’” That prompted them to laugh and laugh.

Pretty evil people.

The podcast posted an apology. There were a bunch of sponsors who dropped them. But their fans showed up to defend them.

“We laughed at a joke about Charlie Kirk. It was an insensitive joke, and we should not have laughed. We regret it, and we apologize. Whatever our political differences, there’s nothing funny about gun violence. We’ve long supported common-sense gun safety reform,” the two wrote in a post on the show’s Instagram page.

Oh, that was the issue: gun violence. You don’t want to be shown as supportive of gun violence.

Not the fact that you laughed at the murder of a political opponent, but the fact that it might seem like you’re okay with gun violence.

So they donated to Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in America, saying, “We’ll keep using our platforms to fight for the safety of all Americans.”

The sin, according to the podcast, was not that they were laughing at Charlie Kirk’s murder. It was that they might have legitimized guns. Other commenters were totally on their side. One commenter said, “You don’t need to apologize. Charlie wouldn’t have.” Another one said, “Why are you showing empathy? Charlie hated that. Honor him with your disrespect.”

Someone said, “I don’t think he heard it. You’re good.”

These posts have thousands or tens of thousands of likes on X, which has become a trash machine.

This isn’t foreign to Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan. Remember, these are the same people who brag about how much they hate Trump and everyone who voted for Trump.

“I have so much more hate to give towards him,” Welch gushed, continuing:

I’ve barely even tapped into it. I would say out of my potential of hating him 100%. I’m only 10 to 15% there. I still have eighty-five more percent to realize in these next two terms. Like, I feel invigorated. I feel like, my God, I can go, I’m going to go, here’s 5% more hate here. Here’s three more percent there. And I can just go, I mean, and this show is going to be full-blown nonstop hater-Aid, hater-Aid for the country because there’s going to be no Kumbaya. No, I will hate this motherf*cker forever and ever and ever and everybody that voted for him.

Not just Trump, everybody who voted for him. That is the underlying glue that is holding together much of the left-wing coalition. “But hey,” they say, “it’s just the radicals.”

It’s the same line from when Hasan Piker was campaigning with half the Democratic Party: He was just “some podcaster from California.”

They’re not really like this, they say. Democrats are moderates.

Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro, who wants to run for president. put out this tweet over the weekend: “We’re going to more than double Pennsylvania’s minimum wage. Codify abortion rights into our state Constitution. Fund mass transit. Build more housing. These are the commonsense things that Pennsylvanians want done. And with a Democratic trifecta, we will deliver on all of them.”

Moderation, right?

After all, the new Democratic caucus is filled with amazing people like Howdy Doody Pastor James Talarico, the biggest celeb, because he is the new senator from Texas. He opened “Saturday Night Live” by being bipartisan and kind, generous, and clean-cut.

Except for one thing: Guess who he was with to close out SNL?

Dave Chappelle. Chris Rock, who once said you weren’t allowed to tell jokes about Barack Obama because he was like your father. And Druski, who became best known over the past year for a skit mocking Erika Kirk, widow of the assassinated Charlie Kirk.

They’re all moderate. They’re all wonderful. They don’t have anything in common with the crazies. Not at all.

All the Democratic activists all together, all at once. Isn’t that nice?

The “moderation” is an act. Erika Kirk put out a tweet saying:

To see leftists, podcasters, comedians and commentators laugh about political assassination as though it’s entertainment and the destruction of human life as a punchline is beyond disgusting. My husband, Charlie Kirk, was killed in an act of political violence, something our two children I will live with every day for the rest of our lives.

A culture that laughs at assassination is one of profound moral decay. It threatens the very foundation of our country and the principles that hold our democracy together. You don’t have to agree with someone’s politics to recognize the value of their life. This should not be so hard. Political violence must never be something that’s this country tolerates, excuses or celebrates.

People on all sides of the political aisle are willing to joke about this, particularly about Charlie Kirk. People on the Right and the Left are willing to do this routine.

The moderation is an act. Many of these people are simply lying to you. Zohran Mamdani, a full-fledged member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is now appearing on Fox News to explain that he disagrees with all the elements of the DSA policy proposals.

I don’t believe him because I am not a stupid person. You can tell he is lying whenever he smiles. You’re a fool if you fall for this sort of stuff.

You remember Abdul El-Sayed, the new senator from Michigan? He spent the entire campaign saying that if you mentioned his associations with radical Islam, it’s because you were an Islamophobe. All he wanted to do was talk about “affordability,” right? There was nothing to worry about — at all. If you focused on his radical Islamic beliefs, on his solidarity with terrorists, that was because you were some sort of bigot.

He won. And so now he’s out and proud about it. He jokes, “Look, I have a brother. He’s Muslim, and he and I have a Muslim brotherhood.” He said, “Michigan is the capital of Arab America.”

Scratch the supposedly moderate Democrats or the affordability Democrats, and you find the radicals underneath.

Now they can say all the things they meant all along out loud.

When you hear Democrats say they are moderate, that they’re going to be responsible, get ready.

When the pendulum swings, it really, really swings hard.

What Democrats are about to implement when they get power is going to be truly terrible. 

Rubio made it clear he stood firmly behind Hegseth and believed he’d done an excellent job in his current role, saying the people attacking Hegseth were doing so because of politics rather than any real failure on the War Secretary’s behalf.

“I think he’s done a great job. I mean, I’ve worked with him every single day on many of these topics, I’ve seen the work he does and seen the professionalism he brings to it,” Rubio said. “He’s very smart, he works very hard, he puts a lot of hours into this. And on all of the policy issues we’ve worked on together, I think he’s done a very good job.”

One reporter tried to ask about artificial intelligence, but another reporter cut in with a follow-up on Hegseth. Specifically, did it concern Rubio that one of the loudest voices calling for Hegseth’s impeachment was a Republican: ousted Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who lost his primary and will be replaced in January.

“I think it’s unfair,” Rubio replied. “Yeah, look, I think it’s — I think Pete’s done a good job, I really do. Again, I work with him, and so I see perhaps a side of him that the media doesn’t see and members of Congress may not see. But I think Pete works really hard; he’s incredibly smart.”

Rubio went on to note that Hegseth and the War Department had been instrumental in delivering on key priorities — in Iran and around the world — for President Donald Trump’s administration.

“But obviously politics are politics,” Rubio concluded, acknowledging that there would always be opposition but saying again that he believed Hegseth had done a great job as War Secretary.

At some particular moment in time, he transitioned from a world-class comedian to a guy with the sense of humor and comic instincts of a public school teacher. Scholars and historians have debated when this shift took place and why. We concluded that there’s a lot of truth to the theory that he married a black feminist and the rest was history. 

No man’s sense of humor can survive a marriage to a feminist. Neither can his bank account, or his self-respect, or, in many cases, his children. So the once-edgy and funny comedian is now a finger-wagging HR representative. A fate that has claimed Howard Stern as well, and a whole host of other Gen X and Boomer comedians. 

George Carlin was perhaps a pioneer in this regard. He was one of the first major comedians to deflate like a balloon toward the end of his life, becoming a limp, sad, droopy shell of what he had been. He stopped telling jokes entirely and just sat on stage delivering philosophical exposition that seemed really insightful and interesting if you were a freshman in high school enrolled in special ed classes. To anyone who went to a Carlin show expecting maybe a joke or two, it was confusing and disappointing. 

A similar transformation has occurred with Dave Chappelle. Now, Chappelle has always been overrated. But he at least used to tell jokes. He’d give the setup and then land on the punchline. That’s how jokes work, in case you’re curious. Sometimes the punchlines were pretty good. He had a routine 20 years ago where he critiqued the residents of Sesame Street for their unfair treatment of Oscar the Grouch. It’s not funny when I retell it, but from Chappelle, it was amusing. 

Mostly, though, Chappelle has spent his career making essentially the same three jokes about white people. The media treated him like Jesus back in the day for that reason alone. He was revolutionary. He made fun of white people. Who had ever heard of a black comedian making fun of white people? No black comedian had ever done it before, with the exception of every black comedian who has ever lived. 

People consequently discuss “Chappelle’s Show” with the same reverence they reserve for “Citizen Kane” or Shakespeare. But if you go back and watch Chappelle’s Show now, you’ll be shocked by how lame a lot of it is. Not because it’s offensive or anything like that. It just lands flat. 

There are about five Chappelle’s Show skits you remember because they introduced catchphrases into the culture. What you might not realize, or recall — I know I didn’t, until I went back and checked — is that those five skits are the only things the show ever did. When Chappelle ended his show, Comedy Central immediately went out seeking another black comedian to do skits about white people. That gave birth to “Key & Peele,” which actually holds up much better than Chappelle’s Show, probably because they produced a bunch of skits that had nothing to do with race at all. Then Peele left and started making horror movies, where every single movie is about how white people are evil. So, regression to the mean, I suppose.

At least, back then, Chappelle was trying to be funny. In recent years, however, he’s taken the Bill Burr-George Carlin-Howard Stern route. He ran out of jokes years ago. He told his three “white people are lame” jokes and couldn’t think of a fourth. So now he wanders around stage telling long, discursive stories, philosophizing, and impressing himself (if no one else) with how insightful he thinks he is. 

Performing at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Chappelle reminded everyone — once again — that he’s no longer even vaguely interested in comedy, jokes, or making people laugh. He took the opportunity, without any kind of punchline in mind, to declare that he felt good about the fact that Charlie Kirk was publicly executed because of his political beliefs:

THIS IS NOT A JOKE ABOUT CHARLIE KIRK -> Dave Chapelle is creating public permission for more assassinations. He is telling his audience that if, hypothetically, they assassinated a RW figure, he would feel good about that too. That is what this is. https://t.co/fpcMoexIKE

— Joe Wargo (@JoeWargo22) November 8, 2026

Source: @JoeWargo22/X.com

There’s no joke here, no punchline. Like millions of other Leftists, he’s just happy that Charlie Kirk — a young man and the father of young children — was shot in the neck, on camera. That’s the only takeaway. 

To be clear, this wasn’t an ad-lib. He’s apparently said the same thing before, most recently at a show in Toronto — although they confiscate phones at these shows, apparently out of embarrassment, and the footage hasn’t leaked, so we don’t know exactly what he said. But I saw people posting (at the time) that he joked about Charlie Kirk at a show in October, which makes this even worse — not because it’s offensive, but because it’s so incredibly lazy and witless. 

It’s an offense against comedy more than anything else. Saying that you’re happy someone died is not a punchline, especially if it’s actually just a genuine reflection of what you truly think. It could be the setup to a punchline. A comedian may say something shocking or outrageous and then follow it with a punchline that subverts your expectations, goes in a direction you weren’t expecting, or somehow draws comedy out of that dark place. 

Louis C.K. is particularly good at that. Which is why he’s maybe the only comedian of his generation who has managed to produce a funny comedy special at any point this decade. But Chappelle doesn’t subvert expectations, take the conversation in a surprising direction, or deliver any sort of punchline at all. What you just heard there is the whole joke. Which is to say, it’s not a joke. It’s just a statement. And making an outrageous statement with no setup or punchline is, at best, the “comedy” of a 75-IQ YouTube commenter. It’s the “comedy” of a Nigerian bot on Twitter. It’s not the comedy you’d expect from a guy performing at Madison Square Garden.

Yes, that footage does not include the full context of his statements. That’s true. A lot of people were saying, well, in context it might not be so bad.  But when you look at additional footage that’s leaked from the set, it turns out that the full context is actually even worse:

“I’m sure Charlie Kirk is looking up at us right now, laughing so hard he can’t breathe”

Dave Chappelle makes a joke about Charlie Kirk during his show at Madison Square Garden https://t.co/in4UIQaiyx

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) November 9, 2026

Source: @FearBuck/X.com

It’s surprising — and somewhat encouraging — that, if you listen to these clips, the audience at Madison Square Garden didn’t burst out laughing. That’s what you’d expect, given how Leftists have been celebrating Kirk’s murder all over the Internet for the past year. But Chappelle’s audience — some of them, anyway — seemed shocked by what he said, more than anything. So maybe there’s some decency left, even in a city like New York. Of course, the glass-half-empty perspective is that it’s a sad thing to take solace in the fact that only half of the audience at Madison Square Garden laughed about Charlie Kirk getting murdered rather than the whole audience. 

In any case, I’ve seen some people suggest that, well, Chappelle is just doing what comedians are supposed to do. He’s being “transgressive.” He’s saying something you’re not supposed to say, and therefore he’s “brave.” He’s carrying on the time-honored tradition of comedians who aren’t afraid to “speak truth to power.” There are a few major problems with this argument. 

First of all, everyone on the Left mocks Charlie Kirk, so this doesn’t even qualify as “a thing you aren’t supposed to say.” Second, no, the point of comedy is not merely to say things you’re not supposed to say. Anyone can do that. Anyone can stand on stage and just rattle off a series of statements that will seem offensive to normal, decent people. 

The art of comedy, again, is to find the funny thing in those dark places. The setup and the punchline. Chappelle skipped that step. It’s not comedy. It’s the equivalent of standing on stage and saying, “So, a rabbi and a nun walked into a bar.” And then just moving on to the next bit. You skipped the joke part. Instead, you just made an observation about a couple of random bar patrons.

Third, again, this is what he really believes. If I get up on stage and say, for instance, George Floyd was a drug-addled vagrant who died of an overdose, and his death was his own fault — that would qualify as something you aren’t supposed to say. But it’s not a joke. It’s not comedy, because it’s just a plain statement of a thing I actually believe. The thing I believe in this case — and which is definitely true — may be offensive to some people. But that doesn’t make it a joke. And if I made that statement — which I have plenty of times — and someone became offended, and I responded by saying, “Hey man, relax, it’s comedy,” that wouldn’t make me a comedian. It would make me a coward, too afraid to stand by my own beliefs. 

Speaking of George Floyd, the other problem with this argument is that, when Chappelle had the opportunity to comment on Floyd’s overdose, he took a very different approach. Mocking George Floyd, of course, would’ve been “transgressive” and “brave,” especially for a guy like Chappelle. It’s one thing for a right-wing podcaster like myself to be harsh and blunt about George Floyd. If a guy like Chappelle had done that, it would have been truly courageous. But Chappelle chose, instead, to use Floyd’s overdose as an excuse to deliver a weepy, self-serious sermon. He did his best Amy Coney Barrett impersonation, and whined about how Floyd’s overdose death was supposedly a tragedy. Here are a few examples:

and:

Dave Chapelle is out there making “edgy” “jokes” about Charlie Kirk’s death but of course when George Floyd died of an overdose this unfunny gutless hack was practically in tears, calling it “tragic” and “a lot to unpack.” https://t.co/XlDez4PYQw

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 8, 2026

That first clip is of a Dave Chappelle stand-up show. There are many factual inaccuracies, for one thing. He calls George Floyd a “kid.” Even though George Floyd was a 46-year-old criminal the size of a parade float. Also, Derek Chauvin did not have his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes or whatever (which is why Floyd didn’t have any semblance of a neck injury). And Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breathe” while he was in the squad car, and the police were trying to calm him down — long before they had to restrain him on the ground. He was panicking and desperate, perhaps because he sensed that he may have finally taken enough drugs to end his life. But Floyd was in that position because of his own choices. He was dying because of the multiple serious crimes he chose to commit on the day he died. He was a degenerate who died by his own actions.

Leaving that aside, though, that was also perhaps the least funny, most self-serious, most contrived and affected and tedious performance we’ve ever seen from a comedian. I don’t say this lightly, but Chappelle makes feminist comedians look hilarious by comparison. 

I would rather attend a comedy festival with a lineup of Hannah Gadsby, Samantha Bee, and Wanda Sykes than sit and listen to any more of that. This is the guy who we’re supposed to believe is an edgy provocateur who just enjoys poking the bear. Hardly. 

For Chappelle, Floyd’s death was an opportunity for a serious national conversation. He even unironically used the phrase “this is a lot to unpack,” which is a comedic crime that should get you arrested and deported, or at least heavily fined. Chappelle was reduced to blurting out clichés because Floyd’s overdose was a travesty of historic proportions. It reminded him of a massive earthquake. It certainly wasn’t a topic he’d ever joke about, under any circumstances. Saint Floyd cannot be criticized. So when people make this claim that Chappelle just “says things that are forbidden,” they’re lying to you. He absolutely has sacred cows he doesn’t want to touch. And a drug-addicted, career-criminal hobo is one of those sacred cows.

So what might explain why he’s so happy about Charlie Kirk’s death? Why does Chappelle feel comfortable standing in front of a crowd at Madison Square Garden and gloating about Kirk’s death, if he was so horrified by what happened to George Floyd? The answer is pretty obvious: Charlie Kirk was a white guy. And he challenged the false narratives about black victimhood, which Chappelle has relentlessly pushed in his stand-up routines for decades. Therefore, Chappelle is happy about the fact that Charlie Kirk was brutally murdered.

On X, I pointed out how grotesque this is and received a lot of replies like the following:

im sure you feel the same way about George Floyd jokes or Trayvon Martin jokes or the jokes about Melissa Hortman.

I’ve even seen a number of conservatives make a version of this argument. First of all, I’m honestly not aware of any jokes about “Melissa Hortman,” the Minnesota lawmaker who was shot at her home by a schizophrenic who was appointed by Tim Walz to serve on some state-level advisory board. Hortman was not shot because of her political views. She was shot by a lunatic who wrote a rambling manifesto about how he was going to “war” on behalf of the Democrat governor of the state. He also made numerous other false claims about his own biography, about getting elite military training and so on. This was not an instance of “MAGA violence” or “Left-wing violence.” And to my knowledge, no one was joking about it.

As for Trayvon Martin and George Floyd — yes, people were making very critical remarks about the deceased. Some people were even telling jokes, and rightfully so. And no, the situations are not remotely comparable. Unlike Charlie Kirk, neither Trayvon Martin nor George Floyd was murdered. And that’s a very big distinction. Trayvon Martin tried to beat a Hispanic guy’s head into the pavement before he was shot in self-defense. George Floyd, as we’ve discussed, was a career criminal who died doing what he loved — committing multiple felonies while overdosing and resisting arrest. 

That’s not to say we should take some form of sociopathic glee in the fact that Trayvon Martin and George Floyd are dead. But we’re under no obligation to pretend that their deaths were a great tragedy of some kind. These thugs were a menace to everyone around them. Their communities, as a factual matter, are safer without them. They lived highly disordered, dysfunctional lives. They were criminals. The more the Left treated Floyd like a messiah, the more it made sense to joke about his alleged “legacy,” precisely because his legacy was actually a rap sheet that included things like home invasion and armed robbery.

Charlie Kirk, on the other hand, did not break any laws. He never forced himself into a woman’s house at gunpoint, as Floyd did. He didn’t commit any acts of violence against anyone — much less police officers. He never overdosed on fentanyl. No one would want to live anywhere near George Floyd or Trayvon Martin, but Charlie Kirk was a good man who respected everyone he interacted with, regardless of their politics. 

In summary, not to belabor the point, George Floyd was a drug-addled, violent criminal hobo who died of a drug overdose and then was venerated as a literal saint, while leftists burned down entire city blocks in revenge. 

Charlie Kirk was a political commentator who never committed any crimes and was gunned down on camera while speaking peacefully in front of an audience, and nobody responded by rioting or committing any acts of violence or reprisals anywhere at all. So, no, joking about George Floyd is not the same as joking about Charlie Kirk. 

The two men, and the circumstances around their deaths, and the subsequent reactions, have no resemblance at all. There is no comparison except that they both died, and that’s it. Anyone trying to draw this moral equivalency is lying, stupid, or both. And any conservative claiming that we have to tolerate the Charlie jokes because we criticized George Floyd is a submissive, cucked shill and should be disregarded on this issue and every other, just to be totally clear.

If you’re going to mock Charlie Kirk, what exactly is the reason for it? What’s the “larger point” you’re getting at? On the one hand, you might say that the answer to that question seems pretty obvious. The “larger point” is simply that the Left wants to murder conservatives. I’m not going to spend too much time on this — I mainly want to discuss Chappelle today — but we’ll deviate momentarily, just to establish this basic point. There’s been plenty of evidence that the Left wants to kill us lately, particularly since the midterms. Here’s one recent example, from Jennifer Welch’s podcast:

Evil.

Jennifer Welch can’t control her laughter after reading a tweet that says, “We’re digging up Charlie Kirk and doing it again.” https://t.co/Co6riq0bla

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 5, 2026

A lot has been said already about how these women are clearly sociopaths — aging, decrepit shrews who are channeling their self-hatred and loneliness into rambling, hateful political commentary. All of that is true. It’s also true Jennifer Welch looks like Willem Dafoe in drag, except worse, because you can find more plastic in her face than in a river in Indonesia. The other woman on the show looks like John Kerry in a blonde wig. Those are also facts. We’ve already been through them. 

What’s notable is the end of this clip, where Willem and John claim that the alleged shooter — Tyler Robinson — came from a white MAGA family. This is a common tactic on the Left when it comes to talking about this assassination. On the one hand, they’ll celebrate it, as if they’re rooting for the assassin — which is exactly what they’re doing. But in the same breath, they’ll pretend that Tyler Robinson was actually a MAGA figure they have nothing to do with.

If you’re familiar with the book “Days of Rage” and Leftist terrorism in general, this will seem familiar. Leftists have learned to openly engage in violent revolutionary terrorism, while also denying that they’re doing it — even when their denials are clearly absurd, they still serve some purpose. Bill Ayers and the “Weather Underground,” for example, would pretend that they never engaged in deliberate acts of violence — they would claim that they only bombed empty buildings. That was a lie — a brazen one — but they stuck with it. And eventually, it became the dominant narrative about the “Weather Underground.”

The same thing is happening here. They know that Tyler Robinson had a trans furry boyfriend. They know he allegedly killed Charlie Kirk explicitly because, in his view, Kirk had “hateful” political views. They know Tyler Robinson allegedly wrote Antifa messages on the bullets he loaded into his rifle — including the words, “hey fascist, catch.” They know that the political views of Robinson’s parents are irrelevant. But they still want to suggest that, although it makes no sense, Charlie Kirk was killed by someone who was on his political side. They did the same thing with the Trump assassination attempt. This is the Bolshevik playbook. These are truly reprehensible, cowardly people.

Here’s more of the same, from Scott Galloway:

At an event with Kara Swisher, Scott Galloway called for the execution of Elon Musk for being a “traitor to the west” live on stage. https://t.co/nRq5xnwEXO

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) November 4, 2026

Source: @alx/X.com

and:

Scott Galloway says he owned a Tesla, but sold it because of Elon.

“Not before taking a giant dump in the passenger seat. True story.”

He’s gone from suggesting Elon be executed to telling stories of taking dumps in a car he owned because it was made by Elon’s company.

This is a broken, deranged and utterly toxic individual.

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 8, 2026

Source: @WesternLensman/X.com

Yes, he claims he took a dump in his own vehicle before he sold it. And this defecation was apparently a way of “owning” Elon Musk, whom he wants the state to execute. This is a guy the Left considers an intellectual, by the way. This is one of their “sober thinkers.” 

You have to wonder: What’s he going to do next, now that he’s soiled his own vehicle in a particularly bold act of protest? Is he going to buy 100 Tesla t-shirts, douse them in gasoline, and light them on fire inside his house? That would really show Elon Musk. Or, better yet, he could light one on fire while he’s still wearing it. Elon Musk would never recover from that. Of course, neither would Scott Galloway, but he doesn’t seem to mind a little self-sabotage in the name of defeating fascism. 

I’ve heard the counterargument that, when it comes to Charlie Kirk, Leftists like this aren’t really mocking his murder. Instead, they’re supposedly mocking Turning Point USA, and the Right’s alleged glorification of Charlie Kirk after his death. I’m told Hasan Piker said this recently, although I didn’t watch his show, and can’t imagine why anyone would. I also saw a few people making this claim on X as well, in response to a post I made. 

It’s not a very persuasive argument. Mainly because all of the gloating started within seconds of Charlie’s murder. It’s impossible to blame TPUSA for that. Long before Charlie’s funeral, leftists were celebrating his death. The idea that they’re not really mocking his murder simply does not wash. To be as fair as possible to these people — if they deserve it, which they don’t — we can acknowledge that TPUSA is still very much a political organization. They’re staying in the arena. Therefore, they should not be immune to criticism or mockery. I don’t think anyone at TPUSA would disagree with that. Everything is fair game for criticism — TPUSA’s podcast, their ground game, their organization. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. TPUSA certainly hasn’t suggested otherwise.

But there’s a vast difference between attacking or criticizing TPUSA, and going out of your way — in the most classless, obscene way imaginable — to mock Charlie Kirk’s murder. The people who are joking about digging up Charlie’s corpse, and then lying about the Antifa furry-chaser who allegedly shot him, are not mocking TPUSA as an organization. They’re not making some subtle jab at how Charlie’s legacy is supposedly being overhyped by the Right. They’re just mocking his death because they think political assassinations are good. And they want more of them. It’s not that complicated.  

The “jokes” about Charlie Kirk are especially heinous for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that I agree with his politics. There is something especially callous about gloating over a brutal, bloody murder we all saw with our own eyes. He was a young man and father of young children. 

We saw him get shot in the neck. We saw the blood come gushing out. The natural human reaction when seeing something so violent, bloody, and shocking — no matter the identity of the victim — is to be moved and shaken by it. We are visual creatures. Images stick with us. They resonate. That’s natural. It’s human. The image of a man — any man — being shot in the neck and killed in front of a live audience is haunting and horrible. Your immediate instinct as a human being should be to feel horrified, repulsed, sad. 

If, instead, you’re gloating about it, telling “jokes,” it shows that this human part of you is dead. You truly are a soulless goblin in a way that’s only vaguely distinguishable from the guy who actually committed the murder. That’s what makes your callousness so disturbing for those of us who still have souls. We’re human, and you no longer are, which makes you a monstrosity to us. We’re not “offended” so much as revolted by the sight of you. You’ve become the spiritual equivalent of a maggot-eaten corpse. You are a grotesquery, a morally disfigured beast.

In the case of Dave Chappelle, it’s particularly nauseating and pathetic. In 2022, Chappelle was attacked on stage in Hollywood — a guy tackled him, armed with a replica handgun that had a real knife blade inside. Here’s what it looked like:

Shame, shame, shame on Chappelle

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 8, 2026

Source: @elonmusk/X.com

After this attack, Charlie posted the following message on X. Instead of mocking Chappelle, he went after the prosecutor who refused to bring charges.

By refusing to charge the armed maniac who attacked Dave Chappelle on stage, George Gascon is sending a clear message that public acts of political violence are justifiable—and even encouraged—against anyone who dares speak out against The Regime.   It’s Sinister & Un-American.

Four years later, Chappelle is giddy about Charlie’s assassination. He’s not weeping as he did after George Floyd’s overdose.

We shouldn’t be surprised by that because, again, he’s always been a bitter anti-white hack. His entire career, from its earliest days, has been built on his open disdain for white people. And self-loathing white liberals absolutely loved it. They couldn’t get enough. They feel like good people when they support a mainstream black comedian who mocks whites, just like they felt like good people when they spent $1,000 on Hamilton tickets so they could watch black rappers make a mockery of the white Founding Fathers. 

If you’re a white liberal, a core part of your identity is recognizing your “privilege,” and being cucked by celebrities — preferably non-white celebrities — who hate you. 

Here’s just one illustration of this phenomenon in action. Here is a 2004 NPR interview that Chappelle did with a white lady on NPR at the height of his fame. Listen to how enamored the white lady is when she asks about how Chappelle does his white person accent.

Unfortunately, his “white accent” doesn’t sound anything like an actual white person. But other than that, he nailed it. I mean, as a white guy who talks in monotone for a living, I can say with some authority that this isn’t what white people sound like. But the white NPR lady eats it up. Of course, if a white comedian had been talking to her and started talking in Ebonics — which is actually how a lot of black people talk — she would’ve had a very different reaction. But NPR has no problem with mocking white people, because for decades now, the entire Leftist agenda has been premised on humiliating, disenfranchising, and ultimately replacing white people. And now (particularly in states like Texas) they’re getting exactly what they’ve always wanted.

To the extent that Chappelle has done anything interesting or brave in his entire career, it was to mock transgenderism. The problem is, he took the safest “politically incorrect” route he could, by doing a few anti-trans jokes years after we’d already made it safe to go there (kind of like how he did a routine on Jussie Smollett years after the fact). 

In the spirit of openness and honesty, I think we can now admit that we, as conservatives, gave Chappelle way too much credit for making a few trans jokes. I’m certainly guilty of that. In our defense, this was at a time when every major institution in the country had gone insane, and everyone was insisting that men in dresses were actually women, so we were desperate for anyone in mainstream culture to simply acknowledge the basic reality that was sitting in front of all of our faces. And then Chappelle came along with material like this: 

I agree with the point, obviously. And the joke is fine. And we gave Chappelle a lot of credit for the joke at the time. It is at least a joke, sort of. So that’s an improvement for Chappelle. But it’s also a joke that, by the time Chappelle landed on it, had already been made by approximately every single conservative on social media a billion times. 

That’s part of what made it seem notable at the time. He’s saying the thing that right-wingers have been saying. But that’s also what makes it, in retrospect, not very impressive. And hardly a comedic revelation. The more important point, though, is that ever since the backlash he received after his brief foray into slaughtering leftist sacred cows, he’s been trying to claw his way back into the good graces of the Left. That’s why he’s now going after Charlie Kirk.

If you ask Chappelle’s defenders, they’ll tell you that, actually, he’s a highly principled comedian who walked away from a $50 million payday, solely because he wasn’t comfortable with how some white people were laughing at his humor. As the story goes, he was uncomfortable when a white person on set appeared to be laughing at his black stereotypes, instead of laughing along with them. But the truth is that Chappelle was a deadbeat who walked off the job because he couldn’t hack it. Then he blamed his own laziness and incompetence on racist white guys.

According to TIME, Chappelle left the show because:

He was taping a sketch about magic pixies that embody stereotypes about the races. The black pixie—played by Chappelle—wears blackface and tries to convince blacks to act in stereotypical ways. Chappelle thought the sketch was funny, the kind of thing his friends would laugh at. But at the taping, one spectator, a white man, laughed particularly loud and long. His laughter struck Chappelle as wrong, and he wondered if the new season of his show had gone from sending up stereotypes to merely reinforcing them. “When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable,” says Chappelle. “As a matter of fact, that was the last thing I shot before I told myself I gotta take f______ time out after this. Because my head almost exploded.”

When you look back, it’s funny that Chappelle became, briefly, a hero to the Right. This is a guy who says he stopped doing his show because he doesn’t want white people laughing at his jokes. Imagine a white comedian complaining about black people laughing at his jokes, and then still having any kind of career after the fact. You can’t imagine that because it would never happen. 

The point here isn’t that we should be offended by the fact that Chappelle is a bitter, anti-white hack. The point is just that he is a bitter anti-white hack and has been for decades — to an extent that a lot of people probably didn’t realize if they didn’t follow Chappelle’s career that closely or never read anything about why he stopped doing his show 20 years ago. I know I certainly never did, because really, who cares? 

There’s no reason to care now, except as a way to put context on his Charlie Kirk comments, as the Left insists we do. Well, here’s the context: Chappelle has always hated white people. Charlie was white. He was successful. He was conservative. That’s why Chappelle was happy to watch a young man and father of young children get shot through the neck. There’s your context. 

So, yes, contrary to what he told the white NPR lady, he is indeed malicious. He will celebrate your death, as he celebrates the murder of Charlie Kirk. But on the bright side, we can be sure of one thing, which is that — regardless of how ascendant the Left is right now — Dave Chappelle will not get the last laugh. 

That’s because, if this footage from Madison Square Garden is any indication, at this stage of his career, he’s having a lot of trouble getting any laughs at all.

The controversy began when one purchaser shared a video on TikTok of herself opening the trinkets. The popular gift item is already sold out with a wait list.

The video has racked up more than 65 million views as of Monday. The social media user said the calendar was “very expensive” and reported being more and more “pissed off” as she unwrapped low-cost items like a SKIMS-branded keychain, silk hair ties, hair pins, a SKIMS-branded foam squishy, and Christmas ornaments. There was also what appeared to be a “bra strap made into a hairtie.”

“Kimberly, you’re genuinely about to piss me off,” the TikTok user said in the clip. “This is way too expensive.”

Commenters agreed with her review, with one person saying it “should be lawsuit-worthy, and I’m not joking.”

“Box full of pranks,” another agreed.

“So basically everything that falls between my car seats,” echoed a third.

“Did she say SKIMS, or scams,” another person questioned.

A rep for SKIMS told Page Six they were working to fix the situation. 

“We’re aware of the feedback some customers have shared about the SKIMS Advent Calendar, and we’ve listened carefully,” the statement said.

“We understand that for some, the calendar didn’t meet expectations and we have personally contacted every customer who purchased the calendar and offered them a choice of a full refund or a SKIMS credit to put towards other products.”

SKIMS is a hugely successful brand for Kardashian, but this isn’t the company’s first miss. Last year they launched the “Ultimate Bush” underwear collection, which included thongs with fake hair attached to them. Styles were offered in 12 different color and style variations, such as “Clay Ginger Straight.” 

Social media users heavily ridiculed the product, with many joking that they were “calling 911” and kept checking the date to make sure it wasn’t an April Fool’s prank. 

The New York Post has a foolproof formula for generating postgame clicks and manufactured sports controversies: Take someone’s comments, strip away all nuance, and watch the clicks roll in.

Despite this being his third season in New York, apparently Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers hasn’t gotten the memo.

Nabers took to Instagram following his team’s 19-11 win over the division rival Eagles to clap back at Fox Sports analyst Greg Olsen for criticizing his body language and calling him a “bad teammate” on the broadcast.

Malik Nabers sounds off on IG about what the FOX Broadcast had to say about his overall demeanor during the game today https://t.co/X7kIDQuhDF

— Talkin’ Giants (@TalkinGiants) November 9, 2026

There’s only one problem: Olsen never said Nabers was a bad teammate.

In fact, Olsen wasn’t the one in the booth hammering the young wideout. That distinction belongs to Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Davis, whose criticism helped spark the controversy.

“His body language has been terrible today,” Davis said after Nabers slammed his helmet on the sideline.

Olsen went on to defend Nabers while acknowledging that his body language could create a negative impression.

Since people are going to just make up quotes and put worlds in my mouth, here were my comments on Malik Nabers

At no point did we ever say he was a bad teammate.

Hopefully @nypost and @USATODAY adjust their stories https://t.co/qV9XR9x5yj

— Greg Olsen (@gregolsen88) November 9, 2026

NYP ran with this quote, which Nabers saw and blasted Olsen on Instagram:

“It’s not been good,” Olsen replied. “There’s a fine line between being demanding and chasing greatness and then being a bad teammate… like if your teammate scores a touchdown for the lead and you’re still worried about your touches.”

Olsen wasn’t having it. He called out the New York Post and USA Today for publishing a fake quote:

Since people are going to just make up quotes and put worlds in my mouth, here were my comments on Malik Nabers

At no point did we ever say he was a bad teammate.

Hopefully @nypost and @USATODAY adjust their stories https://t.co/qV9XR9x5yj

— Greg Olsen (@gregolsen88) November 9, 2026

Olsen’s defense clearly made it to the NY Post editorial staff, because that fake quote no longer appears anywhere on the page. Predictably, it was a silent edit.

In the end, it’s a whole lot about nothing — Nabers will move forward with a new chip on his shoulder, and Davis escapes the entire ordeal relatively unscathed. As for Olsen — a guy who clearly takes pride in the accuracy of his work — he gets dragged by Giants fans for eternity.

And NYP? It’ll rinse, repeat, and collect the clicks.

Marine Maj. Scott Laux was the first to be removed from the team, the New York Post reported. A third-year member who served as narrator for the group, Laux was reportedly pulled from the last performance this year for “failing to uphold standards” — but there was no explanation regarding which standards he might have violated.

The Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) confirmed Laux’s departure on Friday with a statement from the public affairs office: “Blue Angel #6 was removed from the team for failing to uphold the standards expected of members of the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron and will not participate in the team’s remaining performance this season.”

That last performance — the annual homecoming air show at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida — took place on November 6 and 7 with only five of the usual six jets in the air.

But the story did not end there: as The Aviationist first reported, Marine Capt. Danielle Cribb was also scrubbed from the team in recent weeks. She had listed Laux as her “mentor.”

Cribb, who served as the Blue Angels’ Public Affairs Officer, disappeared from the team’s website sometime between August 7 and October 16, The Aviationist reported based on archived snapshots stored on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Both her bio and photo were removed from the website — and Laux’s have as well.

According to the now-removed bio, Laux spent nearly a decade as a Marine fighter pilot in the cockpit of an F/A-18 Hornet before joining the Blue Angels in 2024. In the 2025 season, he became the group’s narrator — and in 2026, he was moved to the No. 6 position, flying as the opposing solo.

The opposing solo position flies a series of high-speed head-on crossing passes, mirror-image maneuvers, and minimum-radius turns in coordination with the lead solo — the No. 5 position.

Losing the opposing solo means the team’s lead solo flies the patterns alone. Opposing crossing maneuvers, for example, would be replaced by single-aircraft passes executed by the lead solo while the other four jets fly in the traditional diamond pattern. Instead of maneuvers like the “Mirror Image Dirty Pass,” in which the lead and opposing solos fly together (one inverted and one upright), the lead solo executes an “Inverted Dirty Flat Pass” down the flight line.

The rigorous training — which includes more than 120 practice flights during winter training at Naval Air Facility El Centro, California — does not allow the team to keep backup pilots on standby.

None of the reports have indicated whether Laux or Cribbs have been permanently removed. Cribb’s family members, according to the New York Post, have said that her removal from the team is unrelated to Laux.

Massie’s resolution accuses Hegseth of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” through his handling of the Iran war, military operations in Yemen and the Caribbean, the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and the Pentagon’s scrutiny of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The Kentucky Republican introduced the articles as a privileged resolution, requiring House leaders to bring the measure up for action within two legislative days.

The move revives an effort Massie first launched in September, when he accused Hegseth of abusing his authority and violating the Constitution through military operations ordered by President Donald Trump. House Republican leaders adjourned before the chamber could vote, delaying the confrontation until after the midterm elections.

Massie, who lost his primary earlier this year to Trump-backed challenger —and eventual general election winner— Ed Gallrein, is leaving Congress in January. His impeachment effort represents one of his final major confrontations with an administration he has repeatedly challenged.

Three focus on the Iran war, accusing Hegseth of waging military operations without congressional authorization, defying congressional directives, and continuing hostilities in violation of the War Powers Resolution. Another accuses him of failing to take sufficient steps to minimize civilian casualties, citing a strike on an Iranian school.

The remaining articles target U.S. strikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the operation that captured Maduro, the administration’s military campaign in Yemen, and Hegseth’s treatment of Kelly after the Arizona senator participated in a video urging service members to refuse illegal orders.

“Wherefore, Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with his duties and the rule of law,” the articles state.

“The question is whether he committed impeachable acts,” Massie wrote on X. “And the answer is yes, eight times.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Sunday that he is a “hard yes” on the measure.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who is retiring, said he was still wrestling with how to vote. Bacon criticized Hegseth’s decision to remove or sideline dozens of senior military officers, but said he did not believe poor performance alone justified impeachment.

“I don’t think he’s been a good secretary, but do you impeach a guy for that? It has to be a high crime or misdemeanor,” Bacon said Monday, according to CBS.

Hegseth has dismissed the impeachment push as political theater. In a video posted last week, he called the articles a “sham” brought by a “disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democratic allies.”

Asked Monday whether he had enough Republican support to defeat the effort, Hegseth responded, “We’re not worried about that.” He said he planned to hold a news conference Tuesday to address the impeachment push.

Trump has also expressed confidence in his Secretary of War, telling reporters last week that Hegseth was doing “a very good job.”

If the House approves the articles, Hegseth would become only the third Cabinet secretary in American history to be impeached. Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached in 1876 amid corruption allegations, while Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the Republican-controlled House in 2024 over the Biden administration’s border policies. Belknap was acquitted by the Senate, while the Senate dismissed the charges against Mayorkas.

The 41-year-old star of “Little Rascals” (1994) says he “self-cancelled” six years ago to live out his trad life dream in peace. But now with a sixth child on the way, he’s seeking financial assistance. “I have always said this was my choice, and so I didn’t want to offload the glorious burden of it unless there was no other choice. Well here we are,” Hall wrote in the fundraiser description.

The former child star explained that he was behind on some bills after moving to a new property in rural Arkansas and wanted help “getting the last few things buttoned up” before his baby is born in less than one month.

“Times are hard for everyone, and I’m no more deserving than anyone else, but I ask in your charity that you help where you can, whether monetarily, by sharing this, or by prayer and sacrifice for the Hall-Barnetts of the Holy Cross,” he wrote.

The actor told the Daily Mail in January that he had taken a vow of “extreme poverty,” had donated all his Hollywood earnings to charity, and planned to live as a “radical Catholic extremist.”

“My goal is to maintain a life as free of any need for an income as possible,” he told the outlet earlier this year. “If there’s a financial need that comes up, I’ll go take some work or do an odd job, for cash to fulfill that need,” Hall added.

The GoFundMe has raised just over $28,000, which is a giant leap from the original goal of $2,000. Hall responded to critics who suggested he work for money instead of resorting to fundraisers.

“I’m going to keep impregnating my wife,” he replied to someone who suggested he “get a real job.”

Another commenter said he should “move to a small town and put your skills to work and get a job like everyone else.” This prompted Hall to reply, “Nah. I’m busy building a farm and feeding my family and community.”

Many other commenters supported Hall’s decision to pursue a traditional lifestyle and said on the fundraiser page that they contributed for that reason. “As the 7th of 9 children, I am doing this for your children,” one person wrote. “I wish you all the happiness and strength in your decisions.”

Hall is best known for playing the lead role of Alfalfa in the 1994 comedy “The Little Rascals,” produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.

The 119th Congress returns to Washington Monday facing a crowded to-do list, from preventing a government shutdown and passing the annual defense bill to confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees. Republicans are also weighing a final party-line spending package that could provide additional money for the military, cut taxes, and reduce federal spending.

The most immediate deadline is government funding. Current funding expires December 11, meaning Congress must pass another temporary funding measure or a full-year spending package to prevent a shutdown.

Negotiations have been stalled for months, with Democrats demanding increases in domestic spending to match proposed increases in defense spending. 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who is expected to lead the Senate Appropriations Committee when Democrats take control, has already signaled that her party intends to use its leverage over federal spending.

“The power of the purse belongs to CONGRESS!” Murray wrote on X last week. “It’s NOT Trump’s money. Taxpayer dollars belong to the American PEOPLE.”

Congress must also pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which sets policy and authorizes funding for the Pentagon. Lawmakers have passed the defense policy bill every year since 1961, making it one of the most important pieces of must-pass legislation remaining.

The House approved its version in July, authorizing more than $1 trillion in defense spending, but Senate Democrats blocked their chamber’s version amid objections to Trump’s handling of the Iran war. The conflict has created another potential obstacle: The Pentagon says it needs additional funding to replenish precision weapons and other munitions expended during the fighting.

Republicans could attempt to address those needs through a budget reconciliation bill, which would allow them to pass certain budget-related legislation with a simple majority in the Senate rather than overcoming the usual 60-vote filibuster threshold.

But reconciliation is a complicated process requiring both chambers to approve a budget resolution before drafting and passing the legislation itself. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) said last week that the White House had expressed interest in another package, but lawmakers had not yet settled on what it would contain.

Another potential accomplishment is bipartisan permitting reform, a longtime priority for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and lawmakers seeking to make it easier to build energy infrastructure and other major projects. The Senate is scheduled to hold an initial procedural vote on the proposal Monday.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are demanding that Republican leaders use the remaining weeks to push through as much of the party’s agenda as possible.

“In the two months remaining in the 119th Congress, we have an enormous amount of unfinished business to preserve and protect the Republic from an incoming majority party hell-bent on radically changing it,” the group’s board wrote in a Monday letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Thune.

The group called for legislation codifying Trump’s border policies, strengthening voter ID requirements for federal elections, and holding federal spending at current levels. It also wants Republicans to pass a final reconciliation package that would modernize the military, provide tax relief for families, and offset the costs with at least $1 trillion in spending reductions.

“We respectfully request that we take action in the next 60 days to protect the citizens we represent,” the group wrote. “We request that we not leave town until we accomplish these objectives.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has made a similar demand, telling Fox News over the weekend that lawmakers should remain in Washington through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day if necessary.

“Let’s get everything done,” Scott said. “Just stay every day — all through Christmas, all through Thanksgiving, all through New Year’s. Every day.”

Even relatively straightforward legislation could prove difficult with Republicans holding such slim margins. The party can afford to lose only two votes in the House, where several members have been absent or frequently break with leadership. In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats, but their advantage will shrink further when Ohio Republican Jon Husted leaves office Dec. 15 and Democrat Sherrod Brown, who defeated him in last week’s special election, returns to the chamber.

Republicans are also under pressure to confirm as many of Trump’s nominees as possible, particularly judicial nominees who must receive individual Senate votes rather than being included in a package of executive-branch confirmations. Conservative judicial advocate Mike Davis has urged Senate Republicans to confirm nearly two dozen judges before Democrats take control.

The House may also spend time considering articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is sponsoring the resolution, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Sunday that he is a “hard yes” on impeachment. If the measure passes, the Senate could face an impeachment trial that consumes additional time.

Hegseth stands behind the war and the president — who has repeatedly praised him this week — and argues that history will look kindly on Donald Trump for what he has done. 

“Iran is devastated,” he told The Daily Wire on Monday afternoon, asked what needs to happen for the war to officially conclude. “Iran is in the weakest position it’s been in a very, very long time. The president has the upper hand on any path that he chooses to take — to include saying, ‘Hey, we’re done, and we’re going to watch your nuclear material, you better not move it.’”

“Whatever he wants to do is his prerogative,” he added, “and the War Department is prepared to give him the tools to execute on that.” 

Asked whether Democrats will have enough votes to impeach him, Hegseth said he wasn’t worried and previewed a Tuesday press conference at the Pentagon.

“Actually, I hope all of you will join us,” he told reporters Monday in Newport, Rhode Island. “We’re going to do a press conference tomorrow morning at the Pentagon on this very topic.” 

House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries said this week that he is a “hard yes” on a resolution to impeach Hegseth, joining outgoing Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in his aggressive effort to remove Hegseth from his role. Massie introduced the articles of impeachment on the House floor on Monday. 

“The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran,” Jeffries told ABC News. “Pete Hegseth has to go.” 

Hegseth spoke as he departed the Naval War College, where he delivered a series of announcements and slammed those at the college harboring a “stubborn undercurrent of passive-aggressive institutional resistance” to the Trump administration’s changes. 

He accused Democrats of playing “the political games” they have long directed at Trump.

“Their disagreements are with [our] success,” he argued. He cited European partners increasing their commitments, a counter-cartel coalitiion in Central and South America, and alliances in the Pacific.

“The things that we’ve accomplished and with Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve and Southern Spear and Epic Fury are things that will change the face of the globe for generations,” he said. “We are very proud of the president’s America First agenda, of our peace through strength posture. We know the world is a better and safer place as a result, and so if we want to litigate that, the success of those things, I’m happy to do that all day long.” 

Hegseth also addressed divisions within the Republican Party about the war in Iran, responding to a question from The Daily Signal’s Reagan Reese about Vice President JD Vance’s post linking the midterm losses to the war. 

“I appreciate the Vice President very much, and I’m not going to get in the middle of a finger-pointing exercise,” he said. “He’s been an incredibly substantive member of the team from the very beginning. We all give earnest feedback on everything, and ultimately, when the president says, he’d do it again, I agree.”

Sometimes a decision can be unpopular, the Secretary of War argued, but still necessary. 

“And that’s I think, where I land on that,” he said. “Someone had to confront the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and for 47 years, no president was willing to do it.” 

“History will judge him very kindly, and the military delivered,” he argued. 

Before Democrats take power in January, Hegseth said, Republicans’ priority should be securing funding for the War Department.

“My call to Republicans is: let’s come together through a reconciliation bill to fund President Trump’s War Department with a historic generational investment…we need to have dominance at every echelon, and that reconciliation bill, from super-intelligence, to space, to Iron Dome, to munitions, to shipbuilding, you name it, is going to ensure that our department not just stays toe to toe, but dominates into the future, which is what the president expects.” 

“My team, we’re not worried about the noise,” he added. “This is what I told the troops too: don’t worry about the noise. There’s partisan noise all over our town. We’re focused on delivering the president’s agenda, which is the kind of funding our department needs in order to dominate the future”

Trump was asked Sunday night by Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan what he thought about Democrat vows to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The president responded by calling on Democrats “to get back to the country” instead of attacking Republicans. 

“These are two very fine people. RFK Jr. was a Democrat,” Trump said. “And he’s had those views and the views on all of the things that he’s been doing, and he’s a very popular guy. A lot of people agree.”

Trump also praised Hegseth’s handling of the operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and the Iran war. 

“So he wins two wars. We won in Venezuela. We’ve taken out hundreds of billions of dollars, we won in 48 minutes, and we won in Iran. We won that in Iran. It’s just a question of closing it out now or later, we may wait. Some of their neighbors would prefer that we just keep it the way it is, and, again, we haven’t lost anybody, no soldiers, been lost,” Trump said. 

“So we’ve gone two wars, we’ve lost, and by the way, one is too many, but we’ve lost 18 soldiers in two wars. And the one war is seven months, the other one was 58, 48 hours and we made a fortune on Venezuela,” the president added. 

He said that the Iran war “knocked out their nuclear capacity, and probably saved Israel and probably saved the Middle East. I believe we saved the Middle East and Israel combined.”

Trump also questioned why Lloyd Austin was not impeached after he spent two weeks in the hospital following treatment for prostate cancer. He was criticized because many top officials, including then-President Joe Biden, were unaware of Austin’s hospitalization for several days. 

“Why didn’t they impeach Lloyd Austin when he was missing in action for two weeks, right? And presided over one of the worst things anyone’s ever seen,” Trump said referring to the terrorist attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate that left 13 U.S. service members and nearly two hundred civilians dead.

* * * * *

It’s official. The College Football Playoff is doubling in size, and college football is about to look a whole lot different.

Nearly a month after reports of a handshake agreement between the CFP and ESPN, the two sides finalized a five-year media rights deal Monday morning, officially expanding the playoff field from 12 to 24 teams beginning in 2027.

PLAYOFF EXPANSION: The CFP and ESPN have agreed to a 5-year, $1.7B deal to expand the playoff to 24-teams. https://t.co/xbVLcznMWy

— Sport & State (@SportNState) November 9, 2026

The CFP Management Committee unanimously approved the expansion, with ESPN reportedly agreeing to pay nearly $1.7 billion for the additional games while retaining broadcasting rights to all 23 playoff matchups.

But while the expansion is officially happening, plenty of questions remain about what college football will look like next season.

From automatic bids and scheduling changes to conference championships and selection criteria, there’s a lot to unpack. Here’s everything we know, what remains undecided and how the 24-team playoff will change college football beginning in 2027.

What we know

The field

The CFP has officially adopted a 24-team format featuring five automatic qualifiers and 19 at-large selections.

The four conference champions from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC will automatically qualify, along with the highest-ranked team from the six remaining conferences: the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 and Sun Belt.

The other 19 spots will be awarded to the highest-ranked remaining teams in the selection committee’s final rankings.

The eight highest-seeded teams will receive first-round byes, while the remaining 16 compete for the opportunity to face them in the second round.

One notable change involves Notre Dame. Under the current 12-team format, the Fighting Irish receive an automatic bid if they finish inside the committee’s top 12. Beginning in 2027, that guarantee disappears.

Notable in reporting by @CFBHeather on the CFP expansion: Notre Dame will no longer have an automatic inclusion clause if it meets a certain ranking criteria.

RIP Notre Dame Clause

Born: December 2025
Died: November 2026

But what a full life it lived.

— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) November 9, 2026

Notre Dame can still qualify through one of the 19 at-large spots, but it will no longer have a special path into the field.

While doubling the playoff sounds like a massive opportunity for smaller programs, we’ll get to why that might not be entirely true.

Elimination of conference championship games

This might be the most controversial change of them all.

Beginning in 2027, the Power Four conferences will no longer hold their annual football championship games. They all announced Monday that their 2026 championship games will be their last.

THE DEATH OF CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES

With the CFP officially expanding to a 24-team playoff, this year will mark the final season for conference title games. https://t.co/KhC8bEv2lg

— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) November 9, 2026

The ACC is already promoting its final championship game in Charlotte, scheduled for Dec. 5, 2026.

Last one, best one 🏆

The 2026 ACC Football Championship Game marks the final annual championship game for the Conference as the CFP moves to a 24-team format. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this historic moment. Get your tickets now!

🎟️: https://t.co/V1doIP3hE1 | 🔗: https://t.co/AYQhJLXLOm

— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) November 9, 2026

The decision is largely about making room for the additional playoff games.

The regular season will conclude on Thanksgiving weekend, with the final games scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 27, 2027. Although Nov. 28 has been reported as the expected Selection Sunday, the CFP has not formally announced that date.

That leaves the first weekend of December available before the expanded playoff begins.

But while the Power Four have made their decisions, the smaller conferences haven’t.

FOX Sports‘ Ben Portnoy reports that none of the Group of Six conferences had decided whether to eliminate their championship games as of Monday’s announcement.

Sources: The American, MAC, Mountain West and CUSA are undetermined on whether they will eliminate their conference title games following CFP expansion.

Those conversations are ongoing but expect some resolutions in the near future.

@CFBONFOX | @FOXSports

— Ben Portnoy (@bportnoy15) November 9, 2026

There is also a significant question about how the Power Four will determine their champions without a championship game. The Big 12 has already confirmed that its regular-season champion will receive the conference’s automatic playoff bid, while the other conferences are still finalizing their procedures.

Where the games are played

One of the more exciting changes is the massive increase in playoff games played on college campuses.

Under the new format, 16 of the 23 playoff games will take place on campus, compared to just four under the current system.

The No. 9 through 16 seeds will host the first round against seeds 17 through 24. The eight winners will then travel to face the top eight seeds, who receive a bye and host their second-round games.

Both rounds will be played between Thursday and Saturday of their respective weekends.

The quarterfinals and semifinals will remain at the six traditional CFP bowl locations: the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose and Sugar bowls.

The first 24-team national championship will take place in New Orleans on Jan. 24, 2028, followed by Tampa on Jan. 22, 2029.

ESPN and ABC will carry the expanded playoff, with ESPN retaining the ability to sublicense select games.

Army-Navy rescheduling

One of college football’s greatest traditions is also getting moved.

The annual Army-Navy Game, traditionally played on the second Saturday of December, will move to Dec. 4, 2027, at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

The game will retain its exclusive television window on CBS, with the CFP agreeing not to schedule playoff games against it.

The Army-Navy Game announced today that the 2027 Army-Navy Game presented by USAA, the 128th playing of America’s Game, will be played Saturday, Dec. 4 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

The date change from Dec. 11 was necessitated by the CFP moving to 24 teams and starting on Dec. 9.

→ https://t.co/lCIx6Pbqmp

#ArmyNavy

— Army-Navy Game (@ArmyNavyGame) November 9, 2026

That same weekend will also feature the Heisman Trophy festivities, which have been moved up a week. The first round of the 2027 playoff is scheduled to begin Thursday, Dec. 9.

But protecting the rivalry’s television window doesn’t necessarily solve every potential scheduling issue.

Scheduling requirements

The CFP is also changing how it evaluates teams’ regular-season schedules, hoping to encourage more competitive nonconference matchups.

Under the new guidelines, each Power Four program will be expected to play at least 10 qualifying regular-season games. Conference games automatically count toward that total, as do nonconference matchups against other Power Four programs and Notre Dame.

Group of Six programs face a similar requirement, with qualifying games including conference opponents, other Group of Six programs, Power Four teams and FBS independents.

New regular-season scheduling requirements from the CFP: https://t.co/FGb19ZVBL7

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) November 9, 2026

The committee also announced that it will not give any weight to victories over more than one FCS opponent per season.

Additionally, the regular-season calendar will include two open weeks beginning in 2027, with the season starting earlier to accommodate the expanded postseason.

These changes should encourage more meaningful regular-season games rather than rewarding programs for loading up on easier opponents. Whether the committee actually follows through with rewarding those schedules is just one of the open questions.

What we don’t know

What really happens to Army-Navy?

While the game has a confirmed date, an interesting problem remains: What happens if Army or Navy qualifies for the playoff?

Under the new schedule, the rivalry will take place Dec. 4, just five days before the first playoff games begin. If either academy earns a playoff spot, its players could face a demanding turnaround before competing in the postseason.

There’s also the question of how the committee would handle the result if the playoff field has already been finalized.

The CFP says it has worked with both academies to preserve their opportunity to compete for a national championship, but the complete procedure for handling those circumstances hasn’t been outlined publicly.

For now, the tradition is protected. The finer details still need answers.

The future of CFP rankings

The selection committee might have an entirely different challenge on its hands with twice as many teams competing for a championship.

Currently, the committee releases weekly rankings of the Top 25 programs, ultimately selecting 12 teams for the playoff.

But with 24 spots available beginning next year, would revealing only the Top 25 provide enough information?

It remains to be decided how many teams the CFP will rank each week with a 24-team field.

— Pete Nakos (@PeteNakos) November 9, 2026

The new agreement maintains ESPN’s rights to the weekly CFP Top 25 rankings shows, suggesting the familiar presentation will continue.

However, the committee has not announced its complete selection and voting procedures for the expanded field.

Could the rankings eventually be adjusted to emphasize teams competing for at-large spots? How will automatic qualifiers outside the Top 25 be seeded?

With conference championship games disappearing, how much weight will the committee place on regular-season conference standings?

Those are questions worth answering before next season.

What about the little guys?

For a playoff supposedly focused on giving more programs an opportunity to compete for a national championship, the Group of Six isn’t receiving much additional protection.

Despite the field doubling, only one automatic bid is reserved for the six conferences outside the Power Four, and that spot goes to the highest-ranked eligible Group of Six team, not necessarily a conference champion.

The remaining 19 at-large spots are technically open to everyone, but there is no guarantee that another smaller-conference program will receive one.

I’ve written before about how expanding the playoff without providing smaller programs greater access could leave them in essentially the same position. That’s exactly the concern here.

Sure, an undefeated smaller program could theoretically earn an at-large bid.

But if the committee consistently values strength of schedule over win-loss records, how many of those programs are realistically going to receive favorable consideration?

What’s next?

For now, college football fans can enjoy the final season of the 12-team playoff before the sport undergoes another massive transformation.

We also have one last chance to experience the traditional Power Four conference championship games before they disappear.

There has already been considerable pushback against the expansion, including from legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who recently argued that 24 teams are simply too many and questioned sacrificing conference championships for additional playoff games.

His concerns are certainly worth considering.

The CFP has confirmed the field, automatic bids, campus games and broad scheduling structure, but there are still important questions about the selection process and how conferences will adapt.

What we do know is that college football’s postseason is about to become bigger, longer and significantly different from anything we’ve seen before.

Whether that makes the sport better remains to be seen.

Biden reportedly forgot Dole’s death despite delivering “a nationally televised, roughly eighteen-minute eulogy for him at the Washington National Cathedral in December 2021.”

“On another occasion, Biden seemed to think his son Beau, who died in 2015, was still alive and fighting cancer,” the authors write.

The updated edition includes new reporting that was not included in the book’s original May 2025 release.

A spokesman for Biden pushed back on the account involving Beau.

“There has not been a single day since May 30, 2015 when President Biden has not felt the pain of losing his son Beau to cancer, and for anyone to suggest otherwise, much less profit off that lie, speaks volumes about the character and credibility of the authors.”

Thompson responded: “Read the book, make up your own mind.”

Biden ended his 2024 reelection campaign after a disastrous debate against Donald Trump in which his answers were at times incoherent.

“I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a statement announcing his withdrawal. 

Tapper, who co-moderated the debate, has said he regrets not investigating Biden’s decline more aggressively. 

“I can point to times where I asked him this or I asked them that … but knowing what I know now, I barely scratched the surface,” Tapper said. “I need to run more towards the discomfort of questions about health because they’re so important and they’re so under-covered in Washington.”