Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took a cheap shot at former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines on Monday, siding with trans-identifying men over women in her desperation to land an attack on Gaines.
The spat — which played out on X — began on Sunday with a photo Gaines posted from a New York City political rally. The photo showed Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), both of whom self-identify as democratic socialists, campaigning for a fellow socialist — Zohran Mamdani — in New York City&#8217;s mayoral race.
&#8220;We&#8217;re being destroyed from within,&#8221; Gaines posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
We&#8217;re being destroyed from within <a href="https://t.co/hsD3mYkc6t">pic.twitter.com/hsD3mYkc6t</a>
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1982654572075360550?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez jabbed back, referencing the 2022 NCAA championships where Gaines had tied for 5th place with trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It&#8217;s *always* &#8220;we support women&#8217;s rights!&#8221; until it&#8217;s a woman who wants the right to compete &amp; undress free from less than mediocre men
Keep your mentally ill men out of our sports, locker rooms, prisons, etc.
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1982885793954967637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It&#8217;s *always* &#8216;we support women&#8217;s rights!&#8217; until it&#8217;s a woman who wants the right to compete &amp; undress free from less than mediocre men,&#8221; Gaines replied. &#8220;Keep your mentally ill men out of our sports, locker rooms, prisons, etc.&#8221;
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&#8220;It’s always hilarious when they think they’ve landed a &#8216;gotcha&#8217; by pointing out I was the 5th-fastest woman *in the nation* yet they conveniently forget the mediocre man who ranked 462nd in the men’s division lol. Misogynistic dunce,&#8221; Gaines added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It’s always hilarious when they think they’ve landed a “gotcha” by pointing out I was the 5th-fastest woman *in the nation* yet they conveniently forget the mediocre man who ranked 462nd in the men’s division lol
Misogynistic dunce <a href="https://t.co/d1aiAHHoYQ">https://t.co/d1aiAHHoYQ</a>
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1982886290912883102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Gaines, host of OutKick&#8217;s &#8220;Gaines for Girls&#8221; podcast, joined Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday&#8217;s broadcast of &#8220;The Ingraham Angle&#8221; and challenged Ocasio-Cortez to debate her.
&#8220;I’ll debate her anytime. She can defend socialism — I’ll defend capitalism. She can defend removing God — I’ll defend a biblical worldview. She can defend child sacrifice — I’ll defend the sanctity of life,&#8221; the 12-time All American offered.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨RILEY GAINES CHALLENGES <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> 🚨
“I’ll debate her anytime. She can defend socialism — I’ll defend capitalism. She can defend removing God — I’ll defend a biblical worldview. She can defend child sacrifice — I’ll defend the sanctity of life.” —<a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Riley_Gaines_</a> <a href="https://t.co/teaTLDh5Vp">pic.twitter.com/teaTLDh5Vp</a>
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) <a href="https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1982979855772987600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez tried to jab at Gaines again, responding to her debate challenge by saying, &#8220;And I would like to challenge this person to get a real job.&#8221;
&#8220;I have a real job. I&#8217;m a mom. It&#8217;s the most important &amp; rewarding job in the world. I think if you had a baby girl like I do, you&#8217;d understand my positions a little better,&#8221; was Gaines&#8217; reply.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I have a real job. I&#8217;m a mom. It&#8217;s the most important &amp; rewarding job in the world.
I think if you had a baby girl like I do, you&#8217;d understand my positions a little better. <a href="https://t.co/to8syxkXjP">https://t.co/to8syxkXjP</a>
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1983009006122684775?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Photo courtesy of Riley Gaines

AOC Takes Cheap Shot At Riley Gaines, And Gaines Lets Her Have It: ‘Misogynistic Dunce’

AOC Takes Cheap Shot At Riley Gaines, And Gaines Lets Her Have It: 'Misogynistic Dunce'

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

General

Lia Thomas

Politics

Riley Gaines

Social Media

Transgender Athletes

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Sunday acknowledged that much of the country thinks New Yorkers who embrace her socialist views and those of New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are crazy.
Speaking at a rally for Mamdani titled “New York is Not for Sale,” held at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, AOC declared, “We must remember in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones, New York City. We are not the outlandish ones, New York City. They want us to think we are crazy.”
She then launched into her typical anti-Israel rhetoric and laundry list of leftist demands from the government: “We are sane to demand affordable and decent housing, a decent wage, the right to health care, that we pay to care for our people instead of the flattening of Palestinians and oppressed people abroad.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
AOC just delivered the worst speech you’ll ever hear. “We are not the crazy ones. We are sane.” <a href="https://t.co/tgvHch49ws">pic.twitter.com/tgvHch49ws</a>
&mdash; Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1982617438362706127?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
When New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul — who has endorsed Mamdani — <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/26/mamdani-seeks-to-unite-sanders-aoc-and-hochul-00623500?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spoke</a>, the crowd began chanting, “Tax the rich!” She capitulated, “I hear you, I love to see this energy and this passion.”
Mamdani, obviously pleased with the chant, laughed, “Hell, yeah. Obviously.” He later <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/27/our-work-has-only-just-begun-mamdani-sanders-and-aoc-rally-the-faithful-ahead-of-nyc-mayoral-election?utm_source=chatgpt.com">pronounced</a>, “Our work has only just begun. On 4 November we set ourselves free.”
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Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist prescriptions have <a href="https://www.ocasiocortez.com/issues?utm">included</a> a massive 70% marginal tax rate on income above $10 million, making public colleges tuition-free and canceling all federal student debt, pushing the Green New Deal, which would cost trillions of dollars, pushing Medicare for All, which, according to economists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget could cost between $30–40 trillion over 10 years, and championing rent control, which could reduce housing supply by discouraging new construction and maintenance.
In mid-October, after Ocasio-Cortez joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at a CNN town hall to discuss the government shutdown and repeatedly attacked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Johnson fired back, “With every ounce of Christian character that I can muster … bless her heart.”
“With every ounce of Christian character that I can muster, Laura, let me just say, bless her heart,” Johnson replied. “This would be comical if it were not so dangerous. You’re looking at the two leaders of the modern Democratic Party. We say all the time, ‘This is not your father’s party.’ It’s not. These guys are full Marxists. You hear how vapid their ideology is; what empty suits they are.”

‘New York is Not For Sale’ rally at Forest Hills Stadium

AOC: Our Critics Are The ‘Crazy Ones’

Democratic Socialism

New York City

Zohran Mamdani

The vast majority of Americans are no longer willing to pay a $1 monthly fee to supposedly help combat climate change, signaling a major shift in attitude from just years ago.
A poll <a href="https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/EPIC-AP-NORC-Press-Release-FINAL-10.22-1.pdf">released</a> on Thursday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) found that only 38% of Americans are on board with paying a $1 monthly carbon fee.
Back in 2021, 52% of Americans were willing to pay the supposed climate-fighting fee.
Unsurprisingly, as the hypothetical fee goes up from $1 monthly to $10 or $20, only 3 in 10 Americans are okay with paying up. And only 2 in 10 said they would pay $75 or $100 monthly.
Climate activism has become a key issue for Democrats in recent years. High-profile politicians like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NYC), for example, famously said back in 2019 that the world would end in 12 years if we don&#8217;t drastically address climate change.
“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'&#8221; AOC said.
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&#8220;Millennials, and Gen z, and all these folks that come after us, are looking up and we&#8217;re like &#8216;the world will end in 12 years if we don&#8217;t address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLKNow?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MLKNow</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLK2019?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MLK2019</a> <a href="https://t.co/fbUxr2C0tJ">pic.twitter.com/fbUxr2C0tJ</a>
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) <a href="https://twitter.com/People4Bernie/status/1087443780565782528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
Failed 2024 Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris was also a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/presidential-candidates-2024-policies-issues/kamala-harris-climate-change/">climate alarmist</a>, calling climate change an existential threat and releasing a $10 trillion climate plan during her 2019 presidential run.
While an increasing number of young Americans now believe that climate change is mostly man-made, Americans in general are just not okay with personally paying any tax or fee to help combat the apparent threat. They are, however, willing to shift payment to energy companies, according to the AP-NORC/EPIC poll.
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&#8220;While less than half of Americans support paying a monthly carbon fee on their energy use, 56% support taxing companies for the carbon they emit,&#8221; a press release outlined.
&#8220;About six in 10 Americans say oil and gas companies (62%), the federal government (60%), and large businesses and corporations (58%) bear a great deal or a lot of responsibility. By contrast, 31% say the same about individuals, a drop of 19 percentage points from 50% in 2019,&#8221; the poll found.
Old-school environmental activism, like protecting conservation lands and wildlife, was, however, supported by a vast majority of Americans, at 70%.

2024 Democratic National Convention

Is The Climate Cult Losing? A New Poll Shows It Might Be.

Carbon Emissions

Climate Change

Global Warming

U.S.

Bernie Sanders let the cat out of the bag yesterday.
In an interview with <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/10/23/bernie-sanders-aoc-2028-presidential-election">Axios</a>, he said what I think we&#8217;ve all been thinking: that AOC is almost certainly going to run for president in 2028 — with the backing of Bernie Sanders.
<blockquote>“She is an incredibly intelligent person and in the best sense of the word, a very, very good politician,” he declared. “I&#8217;ve been out on the streets where the people come up and how she responds to people is so incredibly genuine and open, you know, it&#8217;s just something. That&#8217;s a gift that she has. It&#8217;s a quality that she has. She&#8217;s a great speaker out there. She comes from the working class. She was a kid who was cleaning houses with her mother. She knows what it&#8217;s like not to have any money. And she&#8217;s going out fighting for working families all over this country. And I think as a young person who six years ago was a waitress, becoming politically prominent has been incredibly inspiring.”</blockquote>
She&#8217;s not inspiring.
To the wild Left, however, she is inspiring.
Sure, she is a dunderhead who says unintelligent things every five seconds.
But Bernie Sanders is also a dunderhead, and he&#8217;s been able to get away with it for 2,000 decades at this point. I believe he was a contemporaneous follower of Methuselah.
Sanders has taken over the Democratic Party wholesale at this point.
They are moving further and further to the Left. And one of his chosen acolytes is Graham Platner, the Maine Democrat running for the Senate who leads in the polls by leaps and bounds.
According to new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maine-senate-candidate-graham-platner-socialist-group-linked-to-ice-attack-tesla-bombings?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=24&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Maine+Dem+Graham+Platner+Belonged+To+Socialist+Group+Linked+To+ICE+Attack%2C+Tesla+Bombings">reporting</a> from our own Luke Rosiak:
<blockquote>Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner was a member of a radical Left group whose members have been linked to a slew of attacks, including an assault on an ICE facility that was designated a terrorist attack this month as part of a crackdown on Antifa.
Maine’s Democrat Senate primary was upended after <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/politics/kfile-graham-platner-maine-senate-candidate-deleted-reddit-posts">CNN</a> reported that Platner had called himself a “communist” in posts on the Reddit forum r/SocialistRA, where he wrote that if people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”
The forum name refers to the Socialist Rifle Association, a group whose members have been repeatedly linked to violent political crimes.
On July 4, a group of militants allegedly swarmed law enforcement at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas and “opened fire at the unarmed DHS correctional officers.” One of them, Benjamin Hanil Song, is charged with shooting a police officer in the neck. Song was a member of the Socialist Rifle Association’s Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, a fellow group member told <a href="https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-07-22/shooting-at-alvarado-ice-facility-other-attacks-the-new-normal">KERA</a>.
Last week, the Department of Justice charged two suspects in that attack, Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts, with providing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-hits-antifa-with-very-first-terrorism-charges-in-anti-ice-attack">material support to terrorists</a>, calling their crew an “Antifa Cell.” It was the first use of the terrorism statute against domestic extremists since Trump ordered a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-ups-the-ante-orders-cabinet-to-label-antifa-a-foreign-terror-organization">crackdown</a> on far-left political violence. Arnold, like the founders of the Socialist Rifle Association, is transgender and goes by the name Autumn Hill.
Membership in the Socialist Rifle Association isn’t required for users to post on the Reddit forum. But a New England publication, the <a href="https://robinsonreport.substack.com/p/ex-marine-graham-platner-taught-military">Robinson Report</a>, revealed that Platner explicitly described his membership in the group.
“Check out the Maine SRA chapter, we’re quite active,” he wrote in April 2020. In August 2020, he said “my local SRA chapter” does “lots of range days, firearms education classes, and developing mutual aid networks in our community.”</blockquote>
Images of the main chapter include a man training in a pink tutu shooting a gun, and one who has facial hair matching Platner’s.
This is a person, a Nazi-tattooed Antifa-training pseudo-man-of-the-people oyster farmer, who went to a $75,000-a-year prep school when he was younger.
And he’s Sanders’ chosen guy in the Senate race in Maine. If the Democrats wish to embrace this sort of radicalism, I do not think the American people will move alongside them.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2303-i-m-shocked-shocked-to-find-nba-gambling-going-on?elementPosition=2&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
I know there are a lot of Republicans who are rooting for the socialists to take over the Democratic Party.
I am not.
I&#8217;ve been saying this since 2020, when Bernie Sanders was running against Joe Biden. I said I preferred Joe Biden to be the nominee rather than Bernie Sanders, even if Bernie was more likely to lose to Donald Trump.
Why? Because the risk factor in having a socialist leader was higher than the risk factor in having a “dead” leader like Joe Biden.
Even if Joe Biden had slightly higher odds to win the presidency than Bernie Sanders, if I had to calculate the damage that a Bernie Sanders presidency would do versus a Joe Biden presidency, it would be astronomically higher under Bernie Sanders than Joe Biden, no matter how bad Joe Biden was.
I feel the same way about the Democratic Party falling wholesale to the wild-Left democratic socialists. If they do that, it’s true there&#8217;s a lower chance that they will win power anytime soon.
But to pretend that chance doesn&#8217;t exist is to whistle past the graveyard.
Let&#8217;s say, for example, that the Democratic Party has a 40% shot of winning the White House in 2028 right now with some sort of pseudo-moderate, like a Gavin Newsom or a Wes Moore. And let&#8217;s say they have a 30% shot of winning the White House with a clear, insane socialist like AOC at the top of the ticket.
The damage that would be done by Wes Moore or Gavin Newsom would be a seven out of ten, and the damage done by an AOC would be a ten out of ten.
I would rather take the low-risk scenario, even if there&#8217;s a greater risk that the person might become president, than take the absolutely disastrous apocalyptic scenario of having a Democratic party controlled by the nutjobs.
This is why the rise of the Zohran Mamdani Left is truly, truly troubling.
* * *
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Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hold “Fighting Oligarchy” Rally In L.A.

Sanders Backs AOC For 2028. The Radical Left’s Grip On Democrats Tightens.

Ben Shapiro

Bernie Sanders

Democrats

graham platner

Leftists

Maine

Opinion

After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on a CNN town hall to discuss the government shutdown—and repeatedly attacked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) while issuing demands for President Donald Trump to meet—Johnson fired back, “With every ounce of Christian character that I can muster &#8230; bless her heart.”
Ocasio-Cortez accused Johnson of “choosing to punish the American people,” declaring that she would not “enable it by acquiescing and enabling the behavior of bullies.” She added, “So it ends today,” and warned, “If I were Mike Johnson, you should be in that office negotiating with Hakeem Jeffries every damn day until we reopen this government.” Ocasio-Cortez also demanded, “I will not accept a measly one-year extension of the ACA,” and argued that “health care is a human right &#8230; the minimum wage should be a living wage in this country &#8230; [and] public colleges and universities should be tuition-free.”
“Does AOC, does she have both oars in the water here, thinking that the president is going to bow down to these demands?” Fox News’ Laura Ingraham asked Johnson.
“With every ounce of Christian character that I can muster, Laura, let me just say, bless her heart,” Johnson replied. “This would be comical if it were not so dangerous. You’re looking at the two leaders of the modern Democratic Party. We say all the time, ‘This is not your father‘s party.’ It’s not. These guys are full Marxists. You hear how vapid their ideology is; what empty suits they are.”
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“But they are the leaders of the party,” he continued. “They are dragging the rest of the old guard, the old party leaders, around by the nose, and they are subservient to their wishes. Chuck Schumer has picked a fight over this very simple clean CR to just keep the government funded for 21 additional days, till November 21, seven more weeks, so we can get this appropriations process done. And the reason he did it is because he’s afraid of that voice you just heard on that stage. He’s afraid AOC  is going to challenge him.”
“There’s a rise of Marxism in the party; it’s happening in New York, in their state, and he’s terrified. That’s why everybody around the country is feeling such pain right now, because of this nonsense,” he concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨“Bless her heart.”
“This would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> and her fellow Marxists are dragging the Democratic Party into chaos while Schumer panics to keep his job.” — <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerJohnson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SpeakerJohnson</a> <a href="https://t.co/DdGQ3pAcfN">pic.twitter.com/DdGQ3pAcfN</a>
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) <a href="https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1978972928789073984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

MixCollage-17-Oct-2025-11-26-AM-4521

‘Bless Her Heart’: Speaker Johnson Torches AOC After She Attacks Him, Makes Demands On Trump

Congress

Donald Trump

Government Shutdown

House Speaker

Marxism

Mike Johnson

The Democratic Party may be regretting a Wednesday night town hall that saw CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins moderating as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — both of whom identify as Democratic socialists — fielded questions from the public about the ongoing government shutdown.
Collins pressed Sanders on his own previous statements — namely that government shutdowns were &#8220;dangerous&#8221; to the American people because they put at risk not just those who worked for the federal government and might be furloughed, but also anyone who depended on services provided by the federal government in their daily lives.
Quoting Sanders directly, Collins said he&#8217;d referred to shutting down the government as &#8220;a serious and dangerous action that we must do everything possible to prevent,&#8221; before asking, &#8220;What would you say to people who are missing their paychecks about why it&#8217;s worth it now?&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🤔 <a href="https://t.co/04CRYe4N5y">https://t.co/04CRYe4N5y</a> <a href="https://t.co/KIRQdiFH4Y">pic.twitter.com/KIRQdiFH4Y</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1978631136931656039?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sanders, who has repeatedly voted against the clean continuing resolution that would reopen the government, claimed that he and other Democrats would &#8220;do everything they can&#8221; to get the government reopened quickly.
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Collins then asked Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to explain what the end of the shutdown looked like to them — and they laughed off the idea of taking President Donald Trump and Republicans at their word that health care would be up for negotiations. Instead, Ocasio-Cortez made it clear that she wouldn&#8217;t vote to reopen the government — despite the fact that the CR in question has already passed the House in spite of her no vote — until she saw legislation guaranteeing what she wanted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
These losers — the leaders of the Democrat Party — are not serious people. They don&#8217;t have any clue what they&#8217;re talking about other than demanding free health care for illegals to vote to re-open the government.
Shame on them. <a href="https://t.co/IdygxnEB8r">pic.twitter.com/IdygxnEB8r</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1978633289742045298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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One question from a young woman in the audience pertained to social media messaging – and why Republicans seemed to be more effective at getting their points across. After a brief moment in which Sanders appeared to freeze like a deer in headlights, he claimed that Republicans were more effective in their messaging because their &#8220;friends&#8221; owned the big tech companies and controlled much of legacy media.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Crazy Bernie thinks Republicans are more &#8220;effective&#8221; at messaging on social media than Democrats because tech companies and the mainstream media are in the tank for us.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 <a href="https://t.co/eHDjDdKjsm">pic.twitter.com/eHDjDdKjsm</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1978635415507644451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Sanders went on to claim — with encouragement from Ocasio-Cortez — that President Donald Trump was ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to enforce federal immigration policy because he wanted legal citizens to live in fear that they, too, could be plucked off the streets without any notice.
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Crazy Bernie says ICE raids — in which some of the most dangerous criminals on earth have been taken off American streets — are “about a movement toward authoritarianism.”
Absolutely deranged. <a href="https://t.co/wUoaPsrk9v">pic.twitter.com/wUoaPsrk9v</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1978640477168578733?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Things only got worse for Sanders after that, when a member of the audience — student Rohan Naval — asked him to explain how the shutdown would ultimately reflect on Senator Chuck Schumer&#8217;s (D-NY) leadership.
&#8220;I think it reflects more on [House Speaker] Mike Johnson&#8217;s leadership,&#8221; Sanders replied, failing to mention the fact that Johnson had gotten the clean CR passed in his chamber. &#8220;And President Trump&#8217;s leadership. This is a leadership that said it&#8217;s okay to — well, how do you feel? You tell me. Do you think it&#8217;s a good idea to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in the country and then make massive cuts to health care for working-class people?&#8221;
&#8220;I think Chuck Schumer has voted for continuing resolutions 13 times in the last four years, and he has the opportunity to vote for one again, but he‘s refusing to come to the table,&#8221; Naval responded.
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Crazy Bernie just got wrecked on national television 🤣 <a href="https://t.co/G5Emm2gY6v">pic.twitter.com/G5Emm2gY6v</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1978641695760662647?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;As I have said, there are 53 Republicans in the Senate, correct? They need 60. What does that mean? It means you have to talk to the other side. Mike Johnson is not talking. John Thune is not talking. President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,&#8221; Sanders complained — but thus far, Democrats have not proposed compromises, and have instead made a list of demands that would undo provisions of duly passed legislation (the Big Beautiful Bill in particular) that they dislike.

Democrats Send Least Effective Messengers Possible To Defend Shutdown Stand-Off

Chuck Schumer

Schumer Shutdown

WASHINGTON — The White House and its allies are circling Chuck Schumer&#8217;s wagon, and he&#8217;s not making it that hard for them.
&#8220;Every day gets better for us,&#8221; Schumer <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/senate/schumer-dems-momentum/">said in an interview with Punchbowl News</a>. “It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance, and we knew that health care would be the focal point on Sept. 30, and we prepared for it&#8230;Their whole theory was — threaten us, bamboozle us, and we would submit in a day or two.”
That first line was yet another messaging gem for Republicans who have argued that Democrats do not care about whether the shutdown is hurting Americans, and he drew criticism from not only Vice President JD Vance and a slew of other angry Republicans, but also the president himself.
&#8220;Better for Schumer. Worse for Americans,&#8221; posted Vance on Thursday morning. &#8220;What a vile sentiment from an alleged leader in our country.&#8221;
&#8220;Chuck Schumer proclaimed this morning that every day gets better for them,&#8221; Trump said during today&#8217;s cabinet meeting. &#8220;No, it&#8217;s actually getting worse for them. &#8230; This is a confession that he&#8217;s acting not to serve the people, but to serve the partisan interests of his party.&#8221;
The White House put out messaging promptly on Thursday morning arguing that the &#8220;disgusting claim&#8221; is a &#8220;sickening display of elitist indifference&#8221; as the shutdown &#8220;plunges hardworking Americans into anxiety, despair, and financial ruin.&#8221;
&#8220;His arrogance lays bare the Democrats’ sick betrayal of service members missing paychecks, families turning to food pantries to survive, small businesses teetering on the brink, and travelers facing excruciating delays,&#8221; the White House argued.
<div id="attachment_983773" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-republicans-circle-chuck-schumer-as-shutdown-continues/president-trump-holds-cabinet-meeting-at-the-white-house-2" rel="attachment wp-att-983773"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-983773" class="wp-image-983773 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2240149696-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2240149696-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2240149696-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2240149696-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/GettyImages-2240149696.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; OCTOBER 09: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting at the White House on October 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)</div>
“Definitely terrifying thinking in my head, ‘Oh God, how are we going to pay for our bills? How are we going to afford our rent? How are we going to pay for her formula, her diapers, everything?’&#8221; said an unnamed military spouse, cited by the White House, whose family is reportedly in crisis as service members go without pay. &#8220;Our military, they’re the ones that sign the government contract to go fight for our country. But our lawmakers who are supposed to be in charge of our country, they aren’t really doing what’s best for the American people.”
The White House messaging also quoted an air traffic controller who must continue fulfilling his job responsibilities without knowing whether he will get his next paycheck: “The financial anxiety doesn’t just hurt morale; it directly affects safety. When someone responsible for thousands of lives a day is worrying about whether they can pay rent or feed their kids, focus suffers. Sometimes that small moment where your mind is elsewhere can have serious impacts. Controllers were already underwater with pay and staffing before the shutdown. Now, we’re drowning.”
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial">Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout</a>
The bottom line, the White House argues, is that Americans want the &#8220;Democrat shutdown to end,&#8221; and they &#8220;know Democrats are to blame.&#8221;
&#8220;While federal workers stress over missed paychecks, military families turn to food pantries, and airports around the country face delays — Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are bragging that &#8216;every day gets better&#8217; for them,&#8221; wrote Karoline Leavitt in a scathing post on X. &#8220;What a disgusting and revealing statement.  Democrats are gleeful about inflicting pain on the American people.&#8221;
Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The president also argued during his cabinet meeting that Schumer knows he is in deep political trouble, potentially facing an ouster from Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who continues to assert herself as a leader in the shutdown fight.
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Senators Meet For Their Weekly Policy Luncheons

White House, Republicans Circle Chuck Schumer As Shutdown Continues

Democrat

White House

WASHINGTON—As the government shutdown rolls into the weekend, Republicans are making something very clear: this may be the &#8220;Schumer Shutdown,&#8221; but it&#8217;s a different New Yorker who&#8217;s really to blame.
It started on Wednesday, when Vice President JD Vance surprised the White House press corps at the day&#8217;s briefing.
&#8220;The reality here, and let&#8217;s be honest about the politics, is that Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,&#8221; Vance <a href="https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1973442899892191464">said.</a>
From there, it was off to the races. House Speaker Mike Johnson took the talking point and ran with it, highlighting an alleged rift between New York&#8217;s senior senator and the congresswoman from Queens in several interviews and <a href="https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1973501784909029810">on X,</a> where he proclaimed &#8220;Chuck Schumer is driving his party OFF A CLIFF because he’s TERRIFIED of AOC and the far left. That’s not leadership.&#8221;
All manner of prominent Republicans have invoked the looming Schumer-AOC contest as the reason for the shutdown, including Treasury Secretary <a href="https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1973727982280663179">Scott Bessent,</a> Senators <a href="https://x.com/SenBillCassidy/status/1973756759904039089">Bill Cassidy</a> (LA), <a href="https://x.com/TomCottonAR/status/1973024614487056463">Tom Cotton</a> (AR), and <a href="https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-marshall-chuck-schumer-is-afraid-that-aoc-will-primary-him/">Roger Marshall</a> (Kansas), as well as <a href="https://x.com/RepDonaldsPress/status/1973172460943274034">Reps. Byron Donalds (FL)</a>, and <a href="https://x.com/NancyMace/status/1973223980036501796">Nancy Mace</a> (SC).
Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) told The Daily Wire that the &#8220;Schumer Shutdown&#8221; has &#8220;nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics.&#8221;
&#8220;Chuck is so consumed by the threat of a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that he’s willing to put his own job security ahead of the American people,&#8221; Lawler said.
He slammed Schumer for &#8220;cowardice&#8221; and said his actions only &#8220;hurt hardworking New York taxpayers.&#8221;
This is hardly the first time lawmakers have blamed the opposing party and their policies for shutting the government down. In 2013 it was Harry Reid and Obamacare; in 2017, Donald Trump and the border wall. But this time around, Republicans are going beyond blaming Democrats or even Democratic leaders. Notably absent from these conversations is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) who has been as active on the issue as Schumer.
The attempt to drive a wedge between Schumer and AOC — whether to alienate the moderate and radical wings of the Democratic Party, or signal that there&#8217;s no daylight between them — seems to be as much about defining the post-shutdown conversation as it is about assigning blame. Like President Donald Trump, who is leveraging the shutdown to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-meeting-set-to-axe-democrat-agencies">curtail the federal government</a>, congressional Republicans seem intent on using this shutdown to their advantage.
On Friday afternoon, Senate Democrats for the fourth time <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes_new.htm">blocked</a> a continuing resolution that would reopen the government. Republicans&#8217; rhetorical strategy continued apace.
NRSC spokeswoman Joanna Rodriguez pointed The Daily Wire an <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/09/26/schumer-government-shutdown-democrats-strategy">Axios report</a> that indicates Schumer &#8220;has been plotting this government shutdown with far-Left radical activists for months.&#8221;
She said she believes Democrats&#8217; low approval ratings are &#8220;only going to keep getting worse&#8221; because Schumer and &#8220;rank-and-file Democrats&#8221; including Georgia Senator John Ossoff are &#8220;more focused on appeasing the deranged rage of their liberal base that wants illegal aliens to have free healthcare.&#8221;
&#8220;There are two very big reasons why Chuck Schumer would make a toxically-leftist policy like free healthcare for illegals as his &#8216;why&#8217; for this shutdown: crazy Democrat primary voters love it, so it could help in an AOC primary. And he is desperate to win over this radical group of openly socialist Senate candidates leading in Democrat primaries across the country that want to end Schumer’s reign as Senate Democrats’ leader if any of them win in the midterms next year,&#8221; Rodriguez said.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) <a href="https://mariodiazbalart.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-diaz-balart-schumers-shutdown-shows-democrats-are-disarray">observed</a> that the continuing resolution, already passed by the House, is the &#8220;same clean bill Senate Democrats — including Schumer — voted for in March.&#8221;
So, what changed?
Sources with knowledge of the issue told The Daily Wire it all began after Schumer voted to fund the government until Sept. 30, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5327600/house-democrats-outrage-spending#:~:text='Deep%20sense%20of%20outrage%20and%20betrayal':,Democrats%20react%20to%20Schumer%20announcement&amp;text=When%20Senate%20Minority%20Leader%20Chuck,the%20face%2C%22%20she%20said.">reportedly</a> receiving backlash from Democrats.
A month later, a <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2025/4/4/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-leads-chuck-schumer-in-hypothetical-2028-matchup-by-19-points">poll</a> showed AOC leading Schumer in a hypothetical 2028 matchup by 19 points.
“Because Schumer allowed the government to be funded several months ago, the Left wing rose up against him,&#8221; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on his <a href="https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1973513750926991502">podcast</a> this week. &#8220;You want to understand why we have a shutdown? It’s one thing: Schumer is looking over his left shoulder and he sees AOC running up behind him — and he is terrified he is going to lose his job,” Cruz said.
Perhaps the surest sign Republicans&#8217; strategy is working is that AOC keeps responding. On Tuesday, she told <a href="https://x.com/BreitbartNews/status/1973186304205865213">MSNBC</a> that the shutdown is &#8220;so not about me.&#8221; Two days later, she and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — the leaders of the Democrat Party&#8217;s radical wing — released a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5535687-sanders-ocasio-cortez-aca-subsidies-shutdown/">three-minute video</a> on the shutdown.
The next day, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-schumer-jeffries-are-leading-democrats-s-rcna235300">NBC</a> pressed AOC again about a possible Senate run. The congresswoman equivocated, saying “I think the answer is that people are sick of politics being determined by these horse races.&#8221;
Schumer&#8217;s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Untitled design (50)

Republicans Are Calling It The ‘Schumer Shutdown.’ Why Are They Making It All About AOC?

Democratic Party

JD Vance

Leftism

New York

People from all over pack Arizona’s State Farm Stadium to honor Charlie Kirk, Democrats resist a Kirk resolution, and several countries break with the United States and move to recognize a Palestinian state.
It’s Monday, September 22, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Kirk’s Historic Funeral</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-975223" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/America-Honors-Kirk.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: President Donald Trump joined hundreds of thousands of Americans in Arizona on Sunday to celebrate the life of Charlie Kirk. 
An estimated 200,000 people descended on State Farm Stadium in Glendale, home of the Arizona Cardinals, for a final memorial service honoring the conservative activist. For a private citizen, drawing a crowd of that magnitude is nearly unprecedented.. It could be the largest funeral turnout since Martin Luther King Jr. back in 1968 — that event drew 300,000 people.
Mourners, who were encouraged by Turning Point USA to wear red, white, and blue, came from all over the world. Some camped out for 48 hours to get in.
The Lineup: The morning started with an extended time of worship led by Christian music stars Phil Wickham, Kari Jobe, Brandon Lake, and Chris Tomlin. 
Charlie’s pastor, Rob McCoy, then shared personal stories before offering a chance for attendees to put their faith in Jesus and become Christians. Hundreds of attendees stood up and proclaimed their new faith.
The speaker list included a who’s who from the Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and President Trump, whose family says viewed Charlie as another son.
Trump said of Kirk’s impact: “On that terrible day, September 10, 2025, our greatest evangelist for American liberty became immortal. He&#8217;s a martyr now for American freedom. I know I speak for everyone here today when I say that none of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither now will history.”
Erika Kirk’s forgiveness: Erika Kirk, Charlie&#8217;s wife, gave the penultimate speech honoring her husband before joining the president on stage for a final wave to the audience. Kirk, the newly chosen CEO of Turning Point USA, in front of the packed stadium, offered forgiveness to her husband’s suspected killer.
“My husband Charlie … he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life … that young man … I forgive him,” she <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/1969893178393206823">said</a>. “I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Divisions Over Kirk And Kimmel</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-975225" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Kirk-Resolution-Resistance.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The past week saw support for Charlie Kirk pour in nationwide, even as criticism from the Left and the fallout over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension persisted—events that ultimately culminated in a shooting at an ABC station.
A U.S. House divided: On Friday, House Republicans proposed a resolution condemning the assassination of Kirk and honoring his life, saying he “engaged in respectful, civil discourse.” But 118 Democrats did not support the measure. 
The resolution was ultimately approved, but not in the unified way that has happened in the past. At the end of June, for example, Republicans unanimously joined Democrats in passing a similar resolution rejecting violence in the wake of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state representative from Minnesota.
Although Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) generally condemned political violence, on the House floor, she urged Democrats to vote against the Kirk resolution. Then, she turned the focus to ABC’s decision to suspend late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his false remarks about Kirk’s killer.
“All in the name of Charlie Kirk, President Trump and the FCC are now cynically threatening to shut down ABC and any outlets who give airtime to the administration&#8217;s political critics. This is a disgusting attack on the American people and the very First Amendment rights that define us as a country,” Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/1969067634399629430">said</a> on the floor of the House.
ABC under fire: A few hours later, during a protest against Kimmel’s suspension, 64-year-old Anibal Hernandez Santana allegedly fired three shots into the lobby of a Sacramento ABC station while employees were still working inside. Hernandez is reportedly a former teachers union official whose social media accounts are filled with anti-Trump rants. He was initially taken into local custody and released on bail. But the FBI later rearrested him, so he is now in federal custody.
Dems stand for Kimmel: Democrats and the Left more broadly are more focused on Kimmel’s suspension than Kirk’s assassination. Conservatives have <a href="https://x.com/bonchieredstate/status/1969805326711914726">pointed out</a> that The Atlantic has now published more articles lamenting Kimmel being benched than Kirk being killed, for example. 
And Democrats&#8217; criticism of Kirk has not slowed. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, on CNN Sunday morning, lambasted her colleagues who voted for the Kirk resolution.
But there have been exceptions. Former Obama official and CNN contributor Van Jones shared that he received a note from Charlie Kirk that he did not find until after Kirk’s death. And it really revealed Kirk’s character.
“We were beefing. We were going at it online, on air, and then, after he died, after he was murdered, my team called and said, ‘Van, he was trying to reach you, man,’” <a href="https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1969447671581622554/video/1">said</a> Jones. “This guy is reaching out to his mortal enemy, saying we need to be gentlemen, sit down together, and disagree agreeably.”
“He was not for censorship. He was not for civil war. He was not for violence. He was for dialogue, open debate, and dialogue, even with me,” he said.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Western Countries Recognize &#8216;The State Of Palestine&#8217;</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-975227" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Palestinian-State-Recognized.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: That was British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing Sunday that the UK is joining Canada and Australia in formally recognizing &#8220;Palestine&#8221; as a state. The move puts the countries at odds with the United States as the UN General Assembly is set to convene. 
Expert opines: Victoria Coates, vice president of the National Security and Foreign Policy Institute at The Heritage Foundation: “This is a recognition so far by Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia of a Palestinian entity. And it means absolutely nothing. It doesn&#8217;t have borders. It doesn&#8217;t have any of the trappings of a nation-state that we would understand in terms of civic institutions. This is simply an action taken in a multilateral body with no binding legal authority to make the respective prime ministers of those three countries, I guess, feel better about themselves because it&#8217;s certainly not doing anything to help the Palestinians.”
Coates on the timing: “They announced it now because the United Nations General Assembly is in session this month. President Trump will be addressing the body on Tuesday, but this is when all the world leaders come together and take these kinds of diplomatic theatrical actions, again, to try to look big on the world stage. But again, there is no binding authority here. This is meaningless.”
“It makes peace less likely because it encourages the Palestinian Arabs to think that they can have it all, that these countries are going to reject Israel and isolate Israel. And one of the things that&#8217;s striking to me is this does nothing to help any Palestinian in Gaza. No Palestinian in Gaza will eat because of this. No Israeli hostage will come home because of this. It will simply be, as I said, political theater to make these leaders pander to their very far left bases in all three countries.”

MRN 9.22.25 Thumbnail V1

Morning Brief: Kirk’s Historic Memorial, Democrat Defiance, & The Palestinian State Push

Charlie Kirk

Jasmine Crockett

Jimmy Kimmel

Media

Morning Wire

Former Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV) said that comments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in the wake of Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination were proof that the Democratic Party was &#8220;getting worse, not better.&#8221;
Manchin joined CNN host Kasie Hunt to discuss the current political climate, and she began by referring to Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s comments objecting to the Congressional resolution to honor the recently murdered conservative commentator.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Former Democrat Senator Joe Manchin TORCHES AOC over her vile rhetoric about Charlie Kirk during a vote to condemn his assassination:
“If that’s the way the Democrat Party is going, it’s getting worse, not better.” <a href="https://t.co/D7W18ohKlN">pic.twitter.com/D7W18ohKlN</a>
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1969185370722984263?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;She does say that we should &#8216;be clear about who Charlie Kirk was, a man who believed that the Civil Rights Act that granted black Americans the right to vote was a mistake,'&#8221; Hunt began. &#8220;She goes on to name some of the other things that he believes in. What was your reaction to her vote and to her statement afterward?&#8221;
&#8220;First of all, I just saw a little while ago, and I was stunned, Kasie. I really was,&#8221; Manchin replied. &#8220;This is not the place and the time for that at all. If the Democrats — if AOC and the far Left, the extreme Left I want to say — believe that&#8217;s where the party, the Democratic Party, is today, then that&#8217;ll tell you why you lost people like me, and an awful lot.&#8221;
&#8220;Now, let me tell you what you&#8217;ve lost,&#8221; Manchin continued. &#8220;Since the last election, they&#8217;ve been doing their national tour and thinking, boy, that&#8217;s something, we&#8217;re really getting into something. The Democratic Party has lost more than 160,000 Democrats that have basically left the party since the November election. So if that&#8217;s the way the Democrat Party is going, it’s getting worse, not better.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez was not the only one to use the resolution as an opportunity to smear Kirk and his legacy.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ):
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
My statement on the House vote on the Charlie Kirk resolution. <a href="https://t.co/bU0GAG6WD2">pic.twitter.com/bU0GAG6WD2</a>
— Rep. Mikie Sherrill (@RepSherrill) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepSherrill/status/1969094290304328100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS):
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Today, I voted against the Charlie Kirk Resolution.
While I condemn his violent murder, this resolution sought to elevate Charlie Kirk as a role model.
I could not support in good conscience.
Read my statement below: <a href="https://t.co/LLou7Xq8on">pic.twitter.com/LLou7Xq8on</a>
— Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) <a href="https://twitter.com/BennieGThompson/status/1969056681502892354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA):
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Charlie Kirk’s death is a tragedy, and I condemn all political violence from wherever it comes.
House Republicans designed today’s resolution as a political “gotcha” — one that attempts to put words in my mouth to endorse Kirk’s views.
I cannot do that, so I voted “no.” <a href="https://t.co/9BuYajl7J8">pic.twitter.com/9BuYajl7J8</a>
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/status/1969055583916433808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Joe Manchin 11/13

Joe Manchin ‘Stunned’ By AOC’s Charlie Kirk Rant: Dems ‘Are Getting Worse, Not Better’

assassination

Joe Manchin

Nearly 60 Democrats on Friday voted against a resolution from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to honor conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and condemn all political violence. 
The resolution, which denounced the assassination of Kirk in Utah last week, <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025282">passed</a> the House with a 310-58 vote. All Republicans and 95 Democrats voted in favor, while 58 Democrats voted against it and 38 voted present. 
Johnson’s resolution “honors the life, leadership, and legacy of Charlie Kirk, whose steadfast dedication to the Constitution, civil discourse, and Biblical truth inspired a generation to cherish and defend the blessings of liberty.”
It also calls upon “all Americans — regardless of race, party affiliation, or creed — to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values, and respect one another as fellow Americans.”
In a speech, Johnson <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-oppose-resolution-honoring-charlie-kirk-condemning-political-rcna232150">said</a> that after political debates, Kirk would “reach out a hand of friendship or offer an arm around the shoulder of someone who he had just defeated in a contest.”
“Why? Because it wasn’t about winning … the policy arguments. It was about the people,” he said. “And Charlie loved vigorous debate, but he loved people more.”
Prominent Democrats who voted against the resolution included Reps. Jasmine Crockett (Texas), Pramila Jayapal (Washington), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota). 
During debate on the floor, Ocasio-Cortez attacked Kirk over his political views, labeling him a racist. 
“His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans — far from ‘working tirelessly to promote unity’ as asserted by the majority in this resolution,” she <a href="https://x.com/AOC/status/1969074559602110509">wrote</a> on X. “We can condemn his horrific assassination and the scourge of political violence without uplifting these ideas.”
House Democrat leadership agreed Thursday that they would vote in support of Johnson’s resolution.
Earlier this year, a <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025179?RollCallNum=179&amp;BillNum=H.RES.519" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> to condemn the assassination of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband passed unanimously, with all Republicans voting in support.
The Senate on Thursday <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/charlie-kirks-birthday-officially-recognized-by-senate-as-national-day-of-remembrance?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Charlie+Kirk’s+Birthday+Officially+Recognized+By+Senate+As+‘National+Day+Of+Remembrance’">passed</a> a resolution to recognize Kirk’s birthday on October 14 as the “National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk.” The resolution passed unanimously and is essentially a ceremonial move, as it lacks the authority of law.
A memorial service for Kirk is set for Sunday in Glendale, Arizona, that will feature remarks from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration officials.

Big City Mayors Testify At House Hearing On Sanctuary Cities And Immigration

AOC, Dozens Of House Democrats Vote Against Resolution Condemning Kirk Assassination

House of Representatives

Ilhan Omar

Some political observers are saying that New York Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a sleazy, two-faced, peddler of political snake-oil whose Communist agenda would only demonstrate yet one more wearisome time the capability of Marxism to reduce a city striving toward prosperity and peace to a rubble-strewn ruin of homelessness, crime and poverty in order to create an urban hellscape that would express through the human misery of others, a leftist like Mamdani’s virulent hatred of God, America, the Jews, humanity and himself even while he continues to disguise that hatred behind a smile of chilling insincerity and the sort of vague, Obama-like bromides of deceptive political oration that anyone but an idiot or a Democrat would recognize instantaneously as the mesmeric lies of a man whose heart has been poisoned by a diabolical socialist ideology that transforms every natural human instinct toward goodness into a bubbling black tar of destructive evil.
Other political observers are saying other things. Like, “What’s on TV tonight?” or “I wonder if it’s too late to get a reservation for dinner.” Because watching Mamdani’s rise to front-runner in the New York mayoral race is so disturbing, they’d rather think about practically anything else.
Left-leaning New York politicians are uncertain whether or not they should endorse Mamdani and have been nervously tracking the opinions of a mob of naked, blood-drenched maniacs who at first seemed to be the extras who played the rage zombies in “28 Years Later” but instead turned out to be the Democrat base. As New York Senator and career corruptocrat Chuck Schumer said, “I am one hundred percent in favor of Zohran Mamdani if that shrieking mob of naked blood-drenched zombies supports him, but if they would prefer to rampage down Fifth Avenue killing and devouring anyone who gets in their way, then I’m in favor of that instead. In other words, a lifetime of ideological pandering has left me a hollow doppelganger of the man God created me to be and I’ll basically do anything for just one more term in power before delivering the husk of what was once a human being into the hands of the Satanic overlord who owns the flaming ashes of my former soul.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
On the other hand, shapely-but-evil New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Mamdani enthusiastically, telling her supporters, “Men have sleep-walked into self-destruction while gazing at a hot rack like mine through all of human history, I don’t see why this mayoral election should be any different.”
Some journalists have temporarily roused themselves from the sleep of reason that produces monsters to report on some of Mamdani’s little peccadillos, like the fact that he’s a Jew-hating, Islamist-appeasing, anti-American dirtbag who once gave the finger to a statue of Christopher Columbus, and wants to defund the police, seize the means of production, transform the state of Israel into a rerun of the holocaust and reduce New York to a socialist slave-city on the order of 1970s Detroit.
But Mamdani answered those accusations in a charming speech to a vast collection of matrix-like pods that contained residents of Park Slope Brooklyn, who were happily living in a dream that the world was like it is in the New York Times while their brains were being drained of electricity in order to power the Democrat machine. Mamdani said, “Sure, I’ve got some ideas that would make New York City look like it had been trampled by a Stalinist Godzilla, but, you know, Ronald Reagan used to say that a person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally, and in the same way, a person who agrees with me 80 percent of the time will soon be lying in the gutter in a pool of his own vomit wishing he’d paid closer attention to that other 20 percent.”
The Park Slope residents greeted this speech with thunderous applause and then went back to dodging bullets in slow motion because they were dreaming they were in a New York Times editorial that said yes, Mamdani’s crime-infested New York would be riddled with gunfire, but don’t worry, just take this blue pill, and you’ll be able to dodge the bullets in slow motion.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins). Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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Intifada! Communism! Cannibal Rage Mobs! It’s Just Another NYC Election Season

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