Pope Francis passes away just one day after delivering an Easter message to millions of Christian faithful. It will be days before the church picks a new pontiff, but some favorites have already emerged. And, with Republicans in control of D.C., Democrats are searching for a strategy and a leader to pull them out of the political abyss.
It’s Tuesday, April 22, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. 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>Pope Francis’ Legacy</h2>
<div id="attachment_910567" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910567" class="size-large wp-image-910567" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Pope-Francis-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Pope Francis, the 266th head of the Catholic Church, died Monday at the age of 88. His death marks the end of a transformative and, at times, polarizing papacy.
Pope Francis will likely be remembered as a progressive reformer. In 2013, shortly after he was elected, he made his famously controversial statement about gay priests, “Who am I to judge?” His 2015 encyclical called for environmental action, and he continually urged world leaders to address climate change. During his last Easter address on Sunday, after meeting with Vice President JD Vance, he warned against politicians stirring up “anti-migrant” sentiments.
But his papacy wasn’t as transformative as many theological progressives would have liked. Francis did endorse civil unions for same-sex couples, which was a historic move for a pope, and approved a document saying priests could “bless” gay couples. But he also upheld the Church’s stance that marriage is between a man and a woman. He also refused to approve the use of contraception and ordaining women, and was staunchly pro-life.
Francis took steps to curb the influence of conservative prelates who viewed his reforms as a threat to Church tradition. In 2014, he removed conservative cardinals like Raymond Burke, a vocal critic, from a key Vatican post. He also appointed more moderate or progressive bishops to various roles of authority and elevated like-minded clerics to the College of Cardinals. Because of this, critics accused him of stacking the deck and stifling dissent.
“He was really progressive,” Robert Sirico, former president of the conservative Acton Institute, told Morning Wire. “People call him a Marxist. They don&#8217;t think he was a Marxist. He certainly wasn&#8217;t a free market kind of guy, the way John Paul was. But on the other hand, I think he profoundly misunderstood the United States on a very visceral level, and I think that is owing to his Argentinian background.”
Despite possibly being the most progressive pope in history, Francis’ tenure saw a resurgence of conservative Catholicism, especially among young believers. Last year, we reported on the surge in Catholic conversions among young people in New York City. However, there is also evidence that this trend is happening in Europe. According to the Bishops’ Conference of France, more than 10,000 adults were baptized into the Roman Catholic Church on Easter Sunday – mostly young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. Something similar is happening in England, where surveys now show that Catholics outnumber Anglicans by more than two to one among Gen Z and younger millennials. These younger people, particularly young men, are <a href="https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/best-of-the-week/honorable-mention/2024/americas-catholic-church-seeing-shift-toward-more-conservative-ways/">being especially drawn</a> to more conservative expressions of faith.
<h2>The Next Pope</h2>
<div id="attachment_910565" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910565" class="size-large wp-image-910565" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Conclave-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Speculation is already swirling about who will become the next head of the Catholic Church.
When a pope dies, eligible cardinals convene a papal conclave, where they cast ballots for the next pope. Famously, white smoke appears from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney when a new pope is elected, and a cardinal comes out to announce the new pope to cheering crowds in St. Peter’s Square. Usually, one of the cardinals is elected the next pope, and the big question on many Catholics’ minds is whether the new pope will lean conservative or progressive on controversial issues.
One of the more conservative candidates being discussed as a possible successor is Cardinal Robert Sarah, 79, an African cardinal from Guinea who has been an outspoken critic of Francis.
“The Church is not a social organization to meet [the] problem of migration or poverty,” Sarah <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0YSN7LeAM">said</a>, in response to Pope Francis’s stance on immigration policy. “The Church is a divine purpose to save the world.”
Sarah was critical of Francis’ restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass and his statement on blessings for same-sex couples.
Cardinal Wim Eijk, 71, is also considered a conservative potential successor. Eijk is a former medical doctor from the Netherlands – and he’s been a sharp critic of Francis. He is one of the authors of a 2015 document opposing the pope’s approval of civil remarriages among people who have not received an annulment, <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/18/world-news/who-are-the-frontrunners-to-be-elected-next-pontiff-after-pope-francis/">calling</a> them “a form of structured and institutionalized adultery.” Eijk also <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal-eijk-pope-francis-needed-to-give-clarity-on-intercommunion">criticized</a> Francis for giving what he called a “completely incomprehensible” response to a German Bishops’ Conference proposal on allowing Protestants to receive the Eucharist.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, 77, is another conservative from Sri Lanka. He criticized bishops who did not obey Pope Benedict on allowing the Latin Mass.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, 76, is one of the few potential successors from the United States. Burke has criticized the Church’s more liberal language under Francis, and he said that Catholic politicians who support legal abortion, like former President Joe Biden, should not receive the Eucharist.
A number of more progressive and politically moderate candidates are also likely to take the reins of the Church.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, who’s been <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151124125431/http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/15/manila-cardinal-luis-tagle-the-asian-pope-francis/">called</a> the “Asian Pope Francis” and would likely continue Francis’ more left-leaning stances. Tagle has defended the Church’s teachings on abortion and contraception, but he has also criticized the Church for using “harsh words” for LGBT people and divorced and remarried Catholics.
Another more progressive cardinal in the running is the French Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, 66, who was reportedly Francis’ “favorite” to succeed him and is well-liked in left-wing circles.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, is an Italian cardinal who has been in the Holy See’s diplomatic service since the 1980s, is considered a political moderate and has played a role in many political issues, including moderating 2014 talks between Cuban and American officials, asking the United States to find an “adequate humanitarian solution” for Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and urging countries to implement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
<h2>Democrats Tilt Left As They Search For A Standard Bearer</h2>
<div id="attachment_910569" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910569" class="size-large wp-image-910569" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Liberal-Tilt-Graphic-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Gajus via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: As President Donald Trump approaches his 100th day in office, Democrats are still searching for a message — and messenger — to lead their party.
Since their defeat in November, there’s been little cause for confidence within the Democratic Party. For the optimists on the Left, Democrats did see strong turnout in special elections in a dozen or so states, where their candidates outperformed Kamala Harris by an average of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/democratic-performance-improving-slew-special-elections-weary-party-lo-rcna198984">more than 10 percentage points</a>. Most notably, Democrats won a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dangerously-liberal-judge-projected-to-win-wisconsin-supreme-court-race">resounding victory</a> for a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin — a state Trump won by a point.
But: The bad news outweighs the good. First, <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nn1HT9AZ2OPFuB1z2jKHM6OMrh-NONO0NIzOoHqjxk8/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.35xntky3bxsv">Gallup</a> just found that the approval rating for Democrat leaders in Congress has fallen to just 25%. Not only is that the lowest mark in the poll&#8217;s history, it’s a full nine points lower than the previous record. That disapproval is crossing party lines – according to the latest numbers from CNN, only 63% of Democrats even view their own party favorably.
Polling shows that folks on the Left feel their leaders don’t have a clear strategy for standing up to Trump. A recent survey from Data for Progress asked Democrat voters how they would grade their party leaders’ response to Donald Trump &#8212; 7 in 10 gave a C, D, or F. If they had a singular leader to rally around, there might be more optimism, but there isn’t a clear standard bearer waiting in the wings for them to rally around. President Barack Obama can’t run again and is seemingly content to work primarily behind the scenes. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is 85 years old and could retire at any moment. President Joe Biden is 82 and still unpopular with the general public. Vice President Kamala Harris could come back into the fray, but she’s essentially been in hiding since November.
That void has left an opportunity for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — two of the Left’s most popular, and controversial lawmakers — to take center stage. A poll last week from Survey USA found that 50% of Democrats want the party to “become more progressive,” while just 18% said “more moderate.” AOC and Sanders&#8217; &#8220;Fighting Oligarchy&#8221; speaking tour has drawn massive crowds all across the country, including in deep-red states like Idaho and Utah. Instead of embracing a more moderate approach, they’ve gone all-in on calling for Democrats to embrace their far-Left base and oppose Trump at all costs.
“Donald Trump is a criminal who was found guilty of 34 counts of fraud,” AOC <a href="https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1911951880395055606">told</a> a cheering crowd in Idaho. “Of course he’s lying and abusing and manipulating the stock market, too. When he talks about rapists and criminals he should look in the mirror.”
Ocasio-Cortez raised nearly $10 million last quarter — by far her largest haul since taking office, and according to a recent YouGov poll, she’s got a +61 approval rating among Democrat voters. Polls now show that Ocasio-Cortez is a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Plenty of Republicans are salivating at the idea of AOC becoming the party’s leader or nominee, given her endorsements of measures that are unpopular with the general public, including the Green New Deal, defunding the police, and abolishing ICE.
To that point, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom appears to be pushing his party to make a beeline for the middle, urging it to retreat from political correctness, oppose boys in girls&#8217; sports, and refrain from apocalyptic language about Donald Trump and his supporters. But right now, that message doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction with Democratic voters.

Pope Francis Leads Way Of The Cross On Rio’s Copacabana Beach

Morning Brief: The Pope’s Legacy, Potential Successors & The Future Of The Democratic Party

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Bernie Sanders

Catholic Church

Democratic Party

General

Pope Francis

World

While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has traveled around the country since late February on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” his principal campaign committee has reportedly spent more than $200,000 chartering private jets in the last few months.
“Friends of Bernie Sanders, which manages the Fighting Oligarchy Tour, contracted three firms that charter jets: Cirrus Aviation Services, N-Jet, and Ventura Jets, according to the filings,” The Washington Free Beacon, which examined the campaign’s expenditures, <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/bernie-spent-221k-on-private-jets-while-railing-against-trump-during-fighting-oligarchy-tour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported.</a> “Payments to those three firms accounted for nearly 75 percent of the campaign&#8217;s total transportation costs during that period. The campaign spent another $63,830 on commercial airline tickets. It also spent nearly $41,000 on lodging and $248,245 on event production.”
Sanders and his chosen favorite Rep. Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) “chartered a private jet worth up to a staggering $15,000 an hour for several West Coast stops on their ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour,” Fox News<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/champagne-socialists-sanders-aoc-spotted-boarding-private-jet-fighting-oligarchy-tour" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reported</a> Thursday.
“Champagne socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demand Americans surrender their pick-up trucks, air conditioning and meat from the luxe leather seats of their private jets that cost more per hour than most Americans earn in months. Their hypocrisy is staggering,” National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokesperson Ben Petersen <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/champagne-socialists-sanders-aoc-spotted-154847767.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>.
In the third quarter of 2017, Sanders’ campaign spent more than $37,000 on private jet travel, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bernie-sanders-senate-campaign-spent-nearly-40g-on-private-jets-last-quarter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Federal Election Commission records. In 2014, Sanders railed against carbon emissions, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-we-need-a-carbon-tax_b_5571408" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>, “The fossil fuel industry is destroying the planet with impunity and getting rich while doing it. That must end.”
“We will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer,&#8221; Sanders said on Tuesday. “We have got to create an economy that works for working people, not just Mr. [Elon] Musk and the billionaire class.”
In the February 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada, Sanders <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/full-transcript-ninth-democratic-debate-las-vegas-n1139546" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a>, “We are living in many ways in a socialist society right now.” He continued by attacking former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, saying, “I believe in democratic socialism for working people, not billionaires, health care for all, educational opportunities for all. Creating a government that works for all, not just for Mr. Bloomberg.”
Bloomberg fired back, “What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What did I miss here?”
Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus once <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/home-depot-cofounder-bernie-sanders-is-the-enemy-of-every-entrepreneur" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> of Sanders, “Don’t bring up Bernie Sanders, because that&#8217;s a red flag in front of me. He is the enemy of every entrepreneur that&#8217;s ever going to be born in this country and has been born in the past.&#8221;

Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hold “Fighting Oligarchy” Rally In L.A.

‘Friends Of Bernie Sanders’ Spent 200K On Jets For His ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ Tour

Congress

Politics

Private jets

The internet is going hard on CNN anchor Anderson Cooper for referring to a woman who prefers “they/them” pronouns as “she.”
The incident took place during a Bernie Sanders town hall event on Wednesday. Cooper introduced Democratic activist Grace Thomas by saying, “She’s a local civil rights attorney. She’s a Democrat.”
That inspired Thomas to reply, “It’s they/them pronouns, actually,” leading Cooper to respond with, “Oh.”
Thomas followed up by asking Cooper why the Democratic party is losing so many young male voters. Social media viewers were quick to suggest that the interaction between the activist and Cooper was a prime example of what’s going on.
“The best part is that right after scolding Anderson Cooper for not calling her ‘they,’ she asks a question about why Democrats are losing men,” one person <a href="https://x.com/evitaduffy_1/status/1910349774290551073">observed</a> on X.
“Anderson Cooper just misgendered a civil rights attorney,” another response <a href="https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1910150077361856554">said</a>. “They are not serious. Keep on putting the pronoun police on camera, we will win every election.”
Former U.S. college swimmer Riley Gaines, who rose to national prominence by taking a stand against men infiltrating women’s sports, reacted by saying, “Calling for Anderson Cooper&#8217;s immediate resignation for believing what his eyes were telling him he saw. Bigot.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Calling for Anderson Cooper&#39;s immediate resignation for believing what his eyes were telling him he saw 
Bigot<a href="https://t.co/GpaZML7irO">pic.twitter.com/GpaZML7irO</a>
&mdash; Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1910175582609867160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
President Donald Trump capitalized on the Democrats’ extreme stance on gender issues while campaigning ahead of the 2024 election. One of his most popular political advertisements included the line, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
While many Democrats fully support radical left-wing gender theory, the majority of American voters have taken a much more reserved approach to the issue, and are largely opposed to the most extreme suggestions, such as the idea of providing life-altering drugs and surgeries to children and allowing trans-identifying biological males to compete against women in sports, the Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/">found</a>. 
Some prominent Democrats are backing off the most extreme stances, including California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who is a potential presidential candidate in 2028. Newsom <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/profoundly-sickened-everyone-slams-newsoms-attempt-to-play-both-sides-on-trans-issue">told</a> Charlie Kirk during an interview last month that men in women’s sports is “an issue of fairness” that is “easy to call out.” 
Liberals blasted Newsom for backing down on the issue, while conservatives criticized him for trying to play both sides.

Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper Mocked After Getting Corrected By Activist During Town Hall: ‘It’s They/Them’

Anderson Cooper Mocked After Getting Corrected By Activist During Town Hall: 'It's They/Them'

Democrats

gender ideology

Gender Pronouns

As we all know, in last November’s presidential election, Donald Trump defeated what’s-her-name and left Democrats trailing Republicans in popularity by a margin of approximately everybody to nothing. Now, Democrats are trying to find a new way forward that does not involve finding a new way forward. Democrat National Committee Chairman Mao Tse Muhammed Jihad Vladimir Muhammed Allahu Akbar Stalin Jihad Mohammed recently addressed the subject in a speech entitled “How Can They Hate Us When We’re So Hep?” The Speech was delivered to the annual meeting of the Future Illegal Alien Terrorists Who Hate America of America, or the FIATWHA – and then another A. Mr. Jihad, who goes by the name of Miss Jihad and uses the pronouns He and Be, as in the sentence “He be giving me the heebee geebees,” told the gathering, “It’s time to face up to the truth. We Democrats instigated fatal riots and then pretended they weren’t happening, we opened our borders to criminals and terrorists and pretended that wasn’t happening, we sexually mutilated children in the name of a perverted fantasy, we censored anyone who disagreed with us and tried to put our political opponents in jail, and we acted with such weakness and incompetence overseas that it inspired our enemies to begin wars in both Europe and the Middle East. Now we must ask ourselves, since we’re doing everything perfectly according to plan, why the hell doesn’t the public love us like they should?”
In an attempt to refresh the party’s image, the Democrats have turned to 83-year-old Senator Bernie Sanders, a man who lived through the Communist gulags of Russia, the Communist enslavement of Eastern Europe, the Communist slaughter in China, and the Communist genocide in Cambodia without once changing his opinion that Communism works great, especially in Norway, where they don’t have it. Sanders has been declared the new face of the Democrat party and has been teamed up with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who has been declared the new rack of the Democrat party. Asked about this arrangement, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Junior Senator from the State of Unbelievable Corruption, said “With Bernie Sanders as our new face and AOC as our new rack we will have a hideous old face with a great rack and that’s a winning combination because when you have a great rack, no one looks at your face.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1223-stuck-in-the-story">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
Sanders and AOC have been traveling the country staging what they call the “Rally in Favor of a Failed Economic System that has led to Enslavement and Mass Murder Wherever it’s Been Tried but For Some Reason we still Think Is Great.”
The rallies generally open with a ringing speech from Sanders who tells the crowd, “I happen to believe that billionaires should pay their fair share of utterly useless programs that nonetheless convince poor people to vote for us even as their states and cities descend into apocalyptic dysfunction because of those same programs. I happen to believe that socialism has worked really great, especially in Norway. And I happen to believe that what I happen to believe should happen to matter to every person who happens to care what an octogenarian Communist just happens to believe. And by the way, here’s AOC and, golly, will you look at the rack on that woman.”
When Sanders finishes his speech, he turns the microphone over to AOC who says, “I’ve come here today to say completely nonsensical things in a loud shrill voice full of make-believe sincerity. All across this country, I see people left behind by capitalism for no other reason than that they don’t work or contribute to society in any way. It isn’t fair. Well, okay, it actually is kind of fair, but it isn’t right. And even if it is right, I think there are enough total wastrels who feel entitled to a portion of the wealth created by other people that we might have enough votes to turn this country around. And hey, my eyes are up here. Why aren’t you looking in my eyes?”
So far the rallies have been filled with thousands of cheering people, most of them Republicans who feel they’ll never lose an election again.
* * *
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>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
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).

Senate Holds Confirmation Hearings For HHS Secretary Nominee Robert Kennedy

Democrats Turn To 83-Year-Old Communist Bernie Sanders For Image Makeover

Andrew Klavan

Communism

Humor

Islamic Jihad

Satire

Democrats have a serious problem. President Trump&#8217;s approval ratings maintain their status, hovering somewhere close to 50%, which is higher than they have been in nearly his entire political career.
His main policies are quite popular, ranging from crackdowns on illegal immigration — which is a very popular position — to his positions with regard to DOGE. Most Americans favor cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, and Democrats really don&#8217;t know how to deal with it.
The Democrats have missed governance at nearly every level of government. Meanwhile, President Trump is moving incredibly fast, making it very difficult for the Democrats to figure out what the point of differentiation is. Where do they want to put their chips? Where is the line of attack they can use against President Trump going to be?
Political commentator Matthew Continetti has put forward a rule, which I think is exactly right: If you are trying to scope out the future candidates of any party, the going rule for the last several decades has been that the successful presidential candidate first runs against his or her own party, and then runs for the presidency.
President Trump is an excellent example of this. He came in 2016. He ran against every aspect of the Republican Party. He broke the Republican Party, and then he took the presidency. Barack Obama did this in 2008. He overcame Hillary Clinton (who was considered the establishment pick), took over the party, and then won.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2164-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
There are a few angles that could be used to take over the Democratic Party. The first (and better) administrative angle would suggest that the federal government is actually good at certain things and then should get a lot of regulations out of the way so the government can build things again, like a Hoover Dam, affordable housing, or a bullet train.
One problem for Democrats is that they have a very bad record of administration, as demonstrated by places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit. That&#8217;s problem number one.
Problem number two is that most of the Democratic hard-core does not care about any of that. They care more deeply about the “moral issues” in the country, rather than caring deeply about being good at administration. They don&#8217;t understand that being a good administrator on the local or state level actually does have a moral component, because if you wish to alleviate poverty, for example, one of the best ways is to provide a stable and useful local government.
But Democrats have stopped believing that to be true, so they are left with a couple of other angles.
One is the DEI angle: that the Democratic Party stands for recentering the marginalized. This is the attempt to elevate candidates of color (see: Kamala Harris) or elevating people on the basis of sexual orientation (see: Pete Buttigieg, who is gay) to a presidential candidacy at the expense of other candidates who might be better qualified.
There&#8217;s a lot of support for that inside the Democratic Party. That is the angle they&#8217;ve been taking, and it has been failing. Democrats may double down on stupid. If they do, they&#8217;re unlikely to win back the presidency.
The Democratic establishment has failed the Democratic Party and they know it, which is why Chuck Schumer is under serious fire right now.
So, what are Democrats left with?
The Bernie-Sanders’ wing.
He’s too old. He&#8217;s not going to be the guy. Nevertheless, the Bernie-Sanders’ energy is the insurgent energy inside the Democratic Party — energy that is full-scale class warfare. DEI has been played out. So, they are reverting to the original Marxism from race or sex Marxism.
This is the direction of the Democratic Party. This is where the energy is.
And this is exactly what the Trump administration should be concerned about. The Trump administration has to be exceptionally good at what it does. If they fail, the next thing up on the Democratic side of the aisle is Sanders and whomever he (an 83-year-old lifelong, useless leech on the rear of society) taps on the shoulder.
It is not a coincidence that Sanders is tapping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who is appearing with him at rallies — on the shoulder. Sanders is abandoning certain issues that are tent-pole Democrat issues right now and focusing on pure class warfare.
Sanders is running around because he knows that he&#8217;s being asked to create a war inside the party. What he actually wants is for AOC to run for president.
 Meanwhile, she is positioning herself against an establishment Democratic Party that is unwilling to face up to the challenges of President Trump, which is smart.
The goal right now for Democrats is very simple: to steer into full-scale class warfare.
There&#8217;s a reason they keep using the word “oligarchy.” What they&#8217;re attempting to do is craft a narrative about a group of people at the top of government, in private industry and the public sector, working together to corrupt the system.
The typical comeback to that from the conservative side of the aisle is, “If the economy is booming, what are you complaining about?”
But the reason the class warfare argument is clever is because of the way that people tend to filter politics. We talk about politics every day on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">my show</a>, and if you listen to the show, you&#8217;re a member of a tiny group in the American public who watch politics at a fairly granular level. You know the players and the general arguments.
But the vast majority of  people in the United States have a picture of politics that is significantly less granular.
Georges Seurat was a famous Impressionist painter. He created paintings by using thousands of dots. People who watch politics closely are like people who view a Seurat painting up close and see every single dot, every pixel.
But if you draw back from a Seurat painting, you see the painting is a picture of something. Most people wander into a room with a Seurat painting, observe the painting as people who are walking by a river, and then walk out of the room. They do not analyze a granular view.
So Democrats are counting on people seeing a picture of President Trump at the inauguration, flanked by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Neal Mohan, and all the other tech CEOs in a room together, with a bird’s-eye view — not a granular view.
What the Democrats are banking on is a close coordination between private industry and the president — and then for the economy to fail.
And if there&#8217;s an economic fall, AOC is right there, and so is Bernie.
Let&#8217;s be clear about what the threat level is: It is serious. This is why the economy must succeed.
The greatest danger to the Trump administration is an economic downturn. Anything else can be overcome. An economic downturn gets attributed to the president who is the president when it happens, whether or not he deserves it. That&#8217;s just the way it works.
Therefore, that is the great danger.
This White House being very friendly toward business is great. That is wonderful. But every image showing how friendly this White House is toward business becomes a weapon in the arsenal of people like AOC, who doesn&#8217;t understand business, doesn&#8217;t understand economics, truly hates the rich, and thinks there&#8217;s an immoral quality that adheres to you as you gain wealth and makes you immoral and bad.
That’s a Marxist sentiment that makes no sense on a moral level. Pretty much everyone I know who was at one point not rich and then became rich is the same person they always were.
I know many people who are wonderful and are not rich. I know many people who are wonderful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are not rich.
Wealth does not define character.
But for people like Sanders and AOC, there&#8217;s a flattering view they can present to the vast majority of Americans, which is that if you are rich, it&#8217;s because you suckered someone and did something wrong or corrupt; further, they contend that participating in the capitalist system makes you morally inferior in some way.
That’s why Sanders will say billionaires should not exist. He doesn&#8217;t just mean we should redistribute wealth. He means there is something immoral in being a billionaire.
But people tend to judge politics that way: walking through the room, looking once at the painting, and walking out.
If they observe the White House as being close to various industrial capitalists and tech bros who are and have been successful, and then the economy sinks, all will be tied to the sinking ship.
Which is why it is imperative that the Trump administration not let the economic ship sink.

US-POLITICS-DEMOCRACY

The Democrats’ 2028 Frontrunner Is … AOC?!

The Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner Is … AOC?!

Ben Shapiro

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Elections

Opinion

President Trump

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) almost walked out of an interview when pressed about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joining him in the Senate.
On ABC&#8217;s <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/americans-trump-establish-oligarchic-form-government-bernie-sanders/story?id=120058332" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;This Week,&#8221;</a> co-anchor Jonathan Karl was in the middle of asking Sanders about Ocasio-Cortez when he popped the question.
&#8220;Would you like to see her join you in the Senate?&#8221; Karl asked.
&#8220;I — right now we have, as I said, just a whole lot of people in the Congress. OK, Jonathan, thanks,&#8221; Sanders replied.
As the senator got out of his chair, Karl exclaimed, &#8220;Wait! I got one more — I got one more. This is an important one.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨Angry Bernie gets up and threatens to walk out of interview after ABC’s Karl asks him about AOC joining him in the Senate:
“You wanna do nonsense, do nonsense!” <a href="https://t.co/lfTjgXMyAX">pic.twitter.com/lfTjgXMyAX</a>
&mdash; Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1903832489040171464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sanders, who had moved off-camera, indicated that he did not like the question about Ocasio-Cortez potentially becoming a member of the upper chamber.
&#8220;No, you want to do nonsense? Do nonsense,&#8221; Sanders said.
After Karl responded in the negative, the senator added, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to talk about inside-the-Beltway stuff. I got 32,000 people —&#8221;
Karl cut in to assert that he was asking Sanders about Ocasio-Cortez because the pair had just appeared together for a rally in Denver.
Sanders, who emphasized that he did not &#8220;want to talk about this,&#8221; returned to his seat when Karl assured him that the next question would be about his future.
The tense exchange comes as the Democratic Party grapples with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yuge-poll-numbers-for-trump-president-cracks-right-direction-threshold-not-seen-since-2004" target="_blank" rel="noopener">low approval</a> ratings and a crisis of confidence in Senate Minority Leader <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/chuck-schumer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chuck Schumer</a> (D-NY).
CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/13/politics/ocasio-cortez-schumer-democratic-shutdown-plan/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> Ocasio-Cortez was being urged to consider a primary against Schumer after he refused to mount a blockade against a GOP-backed stopgap bill.
However, Ocasio-Cortez has <a href="https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/1900344680878887394" target="_blank" rel="noopener">avoided</a> saying whether she would challenge Schumer.
Moments before the blow-up with Karl, Sanders had called Ocasio-Cortez &#8220;extraordinary.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;I am so impressed by her work in Congress and her — just, she inspires young people all over the country.&#8221;
Sanders also <a href="https://x.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1903822540176322573" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chastised</a> Senate Democrats, saying they &#8220;did virtually nothing for working people&#8221; when in control of the upper chamber.
&#8220;I have to say that. I&#8217;m a member of the Democratic caucus as an independent, so I&#8217;m not going to lie to you and tell you otherwise,&#8221; he added.
There was criticism for President Donald Trump, too, but Sanders had some positive things to say when asked if the commander in chief has done anything right.
&#8220;Yeah. I mean, I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger,&#8221; he <a href="https://x.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1903823998699323430" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replied</a>.
Sanders went on to insist that &#8220;nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate&#8221; and said he wants &#8220;comprehensive immigration reform.&#8221;

Sen. Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders Nearly Bolts On Interviewer When Asked If AOC Should Join Senate

U.S. Senate

Violence against America’s executives keeps escalating. On February 21, a gunman shot up the home of State Accident Insurance Fund Corporation CEO Chip Terhune in <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/us/us-regions/west/oregon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lake Oswego</a>, near Portland. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/insurance-ceos-home-riddled-bullets-gunman-remains-run" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reported</a> Fox News, “The shots were fired at close range by someone possibly wearing a hoodie or ski mask and carrying a light-colored object.”
His family could have also been injured or even killed. As of now, no suspect has been identified.
The attack occurred as America continues to mourn UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/unitedhealth-group-slain-ceo-brian-thompson-good-guys/story?id=116705908" target="_blank" rel="noopener">murdered</a> last December 4 in New York City. “It was a life lived to the fullest,” said the company’s CEO, Andrew Witty. “And a life that helped make a profoundly positive impact on the lives of so many people.” However, some on the Left disagree.
Alleged killer Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty, made his first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_7b7xLdISk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">court appearance</a> since his arraignment on February 21. Outside the courthouse, deranged supporters chanted, “We, the people, want Luigi free.”
Immediately after the killing, “Wanted” signs <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/executive-hit-lists-wanted-posters-nypd-warns-threats/story?id=116662519" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appeared</a> in Manhattan featuring other corporate executives. An NYPD bulletin cautioned that “some online users across social media platforms reacted positively to the killing, encouraged future targeting of similar executives, and shared conspiracy theories regarding the shooting.” Such disregard for life and free discussion is what led to the Oregon attack and potentially others.
Unfortunately, some leading public discussions on health care and corporate policies have unconditionally failed to condemn such attacks. While they profess support for nonviolence, they often equivocate.
“Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told the Huffington Post in an <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/warren-sanders-brian-thompson-health-care_n_6758bc0fe4b063b52a9a524b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a>. But what happens if they’re “pushed too far” and start killing? She further exacerbated, “The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described Thompson’s murder as “outrageous” and “unacceptable.” Then the self-proclaimed socialist equivocated, “I think what the outpouring of anger at the health care industry tells us is that millions of people understand that health care is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.” 
 
On March 4, John Stossel posted a YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IOWBjoo7Ew" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with Swedish economist Sven Larson, who now lives in Kansas, discussing Bernie Sanders&#8217; cliché for decades that healthcare is a “right.” Larson commented, “You get the right to free health care, but whether you actually get the healthcare or not is a different story.” He added, “I have friends who have died in the Swedish health care system because they couldn’t get treatment in time.” 
 
Wendell Potter, a former vice president for corporate communications at Cigna Corp., took a similarly appalling stance to that of Warren and Sanders in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/health-insurance-united-ceo-shooting.html">op-ed</a> for the New York Times. While lamenting Thompson’s “tragic assassination,” Potter used that as a tree on which to hang his position.
He stated he resigned while assisting in the planning of a financial meeting “similar to the one that UnitedHealthcare canceled after Mr. Thompson’s horrific killing.” This revealed an “uncomfortable truth&#8230; that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health insurance companies.”
If companies lose money, they go bankrupt. If the health insurance industry can’t turn a profit, the only alternative is a rationing system like those in Sweden or Canada, which means a “right” to long wait times even for routine care. Potter is taking his disgruntled former employee attitude too far.
In a rebuttal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/opinion/letters/health-insurance-failures.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the Times, Michael Keyes, an executive with 20 years in the health care industry, branded Potter’s op-ed “a misleading cheap shot” targeting a sector that “cares for hundreds of millions of Americans while navigating an exceptionally complex system.”
If Warren, Sanders, and Potter disagree with the current U.S. health care policy, fine. This is a democracy. State your case. However, taking advantage of a terrorist act as an excuse to advance a policy agenda is beyond the pale and ought to be unequivocally condemned.
Such outrages must cease, or this country will descend into Venezuelan-style anarchy, taking our economy down with it.
* * *
Haley Kennington (<a href="https://twitter.com/ladykennington?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@LadyKennington</a>) is a conservative commentator who served as the Research Director &amp; Story Editor for “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12734800/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2020:The Plot Against the President”</a> and Research/Archive Editor for “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20256528/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What Is a Woman?</a>“
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-GOVERNMENT-HEALTH-KENNEDY

Democrats Excuse Violence Against Healthcare Executives (Again)

Elizabeth Warren

Health Care

Luigi Mangione

Murder

UnitedHealthcare

A transgender-identifying punk rocker performing at a recent Bernie Sanders rally in Wisconsin brought cheers from the crowd while jeering at God with obscene lyrics.
Laura Jane Grace, Thomas James Gabel, of the punk band Against Me! sang a song titled “Your God (God&#8217;s D***).” In it, Grace chortled the following lyrics: “Does your God have a big fat d***? Cause it feels like he&#8217;s f***ing me. Are his b***s filled with lightning do they dangle like heaven’s keys?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Bernie Sanders had transgender singer Laura Jane Grace perform at his rally singing “Does your God have a big fat d***” <a href="https://t.co/Lc0jEIVBFK">pic.twitter.com/Lc0jEIVBFK</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1898895797837549607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14480485/Trans-punk-rocker-Laure-Jane-Grace-ungodly-lyrics-Bernie-Sanders-rally.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> the singer followed with these anti-God lyrics: “Does he shoot wads of honey and c** twice on Easter Sunday? Can he c** a shotgun blast and shoot salvation up your a**? Does he chew c*** like bubblegum and give b******* like a vacuum?”
Sanders, who is a non-religious Jew, has been a foe of the Jewish state of Israel as well as a foe of religious Christianity.
In October 2019, speaking at the national conference of the notoriously anti-Israel J Street organization and interviewed by former Obama officials Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, both of whom supported the Iran nuclear deal that represented an existential threat to Israel, Sanders curried favor by suggesting that Israel did not respect human rights, snapping, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion. It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.” He threatened, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza. I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
<a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2019/04/catering-to-the-democratic-fringe-bernie-sanders-defames-israel-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mosaic Magazine</a> noted:
<blockquote>
When Sanders wanted to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, he claimed that Israel had killed over 10,000 innocent Palestinians, launched indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, and shelled hospitals in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The senator not only inflated the numbers by several orders of magnitude, he even outdid the Hamas spokespersons in creating a false narrative that the IDF was intentionally attacking the civilian population.
</blockquote>
In 2017, Sanders <a href="https://erlc.com/press/russell-moore-criticizes-senator-bernie-sanders-comments-calling-them-a-religious-test-for-office/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">badgered</a> Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, about his evangelical Christian beliefs at a Senate confirmation hearing.  Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention stated, “Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders Speaks In Wisconsin On His “Fighting Oligarchy Tour”

Trans-Identifying Singer Jeers At God With Obscene Lyrics, Brings Cheers At Bernie Sanders Rally

Christianity

Israel

Obscenity

Transgender

Wisconsin

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said during an interview over the weekend that the Democrats have been &#8220;playing dead for too many years&#8221; and that they needed to resist President Donald Trump by standing up for the working class.
Sanders made the remarks during a Sunday interview on NBC News&#8217; &#8220;Meet The Press&#8221; with Kristen Welker when asked about something Democrat strategist James Carville recently said.
&#8220;You&#8217;ve been criss-crossing the country warning of what you say is an oligarchy in the United States,&#8221; Welker said. &#8220;We&#8217;re seeing some video of that right here. Some Democrats argue the best action right now for the party to counter Donald Trump is to do nothing at all.&#8221;
&#8220;Democratic strategist James Carville wrote this, quote, &#8216;Roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us,'&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Senator, what say you? Do you think that&#8217;s a good idea?&#8221;
Sanders responded: &#8220;Oh, no. I don&#8217;t. In fact, the problem is the Democrats have been playing dead for too many years. 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck. We have more income and wealth inequality than we&#8217;ve ever had in the history of this country. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country. Millions of seniors are struggling to heat their homes and put food on the table.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think you play dead,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think you stand up for the working class in this country and make the point that right now, the Trump administration is clearly an administration designed to represent the interest of the Musks of the world. Thirteen of the people that he nominated to head agencies are billionaires. You know, Kristen, when Abraham Lincoln was in Gettysburg, looking out on the field where so many had died to defend freedom, he talked about a vision of America where we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.&#8221;
&#8220;What we have right now in Washington, let me be very clear, is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And these guys want to get – their greed – their greed is uncontrollable: more tax breaks for billionaires, cuts to programs for the elderly, the children, and the poor. We&#8217;ve got to fight back. That&#8217;s what these trips to Wisconsin and Michigan will be about.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Sen. Bernie Sanders says calls for Zelenskyy to resign are ‘horrific’: Full interview" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rZt5-oQzsnI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Bernie On How Democrats Should Resist Trump: ‘Democrats Have Been Playing Dead For Too Many Years’

Donald Trump

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/bernie-sanders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT) suggested over the weekend that he was not closed off to confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Sanders left the possibility open during a Sunday interview on CBS News&#8217; &#8220;Face The Nation&#8221; with host Margaret Brennan.
&#8220;I have, up to now, voted for some Trump appointees. A few,&#8221; Sanders said. &#8220;I voted against most, and I&#8217;ll make my decisions next week. Where Kennedy is right is, we are an unhealthy society &#8212; a point I&#8217;ve been making, many others have been making for a long time. One of the things that concerns me very much, and Kennedy mentioned it, is our life expectancy. How long our people live is five years less than other wealthy countries.&#8221;
&#8220;And if you&#8217;re working class in this country, you live six or seven years lower than if you are rich,&#8221; he continued. 
&#8220;It is an issue we have to deal with. And I think the kind of addictive and poisonous food that the food industry is providing our kids is one of the factors, not many. But when you have Kennedy come forward in saying he cannot &#8212; he believes, continues to believe that autism is caused by vaccines despite the fact that there have been a dozen studies over the years which disprove that. When he has other conspiracy theories, when he cannot acknowledge that if you&#8217;re going to make America healthy, you&#8217;ve got to guarantee health care to all people. He was not clear about the need to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower prescription drug costs. So I was not particularly happy with his presentation.&#8221;
When asked if some of Kennedy&#8217;s responses were &#8220;red lines&#8221; for him, Sanders responded: &#8220;I just don&#8217;t go around making these announcements.&#8221;
&#8220;I will vote when I&#8217;ll vote,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But anybody who watched that hearing understands my deep concerns about Kennedy, but I got to tell you, the conspiracy theories that he is throwing out is not unlike what we&#8217;re hearing all over the Trump administration. And to me, what is most important in terms of what&#8217;s been happening since Trump has been president, it&#8217;s not just him having the three wealthiest people in the country stand behind them. By the way, anybody, any working person in this country, should understand what that means. It means that you can have a government working for the very rich, not for the working class of this country, but the movement toward authoritarianism.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won&#8217;t say whether he will vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, but he still has &#8220;deep concerns&#8221; about Kennedy’s stances on vaccines and other health issues.
&#8220;The conspiracy theories that he is throwing out, it&#8217;s not unlike what… <a href="https://t.co/YAr0d6TkBM">pic.twitter.com/YAr0d6TkBM</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1886094812694376816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2025</a></blockquote>

Bernie Sanders Suggests He Is Not Closed Off To Confirming RFK Jr.

Department of Health and Human Services

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Trump Administration

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/bernie-sanders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT) erupted during a heated exchange with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the U.S. Senate on Thursday after RFK accused him of being corrupt.
The exchange happened during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee&#8217;s hearing to consider the nomination of Kennedy to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“If we want to make America healthy, will you assure the American people that you will fight to do what every other major country on earth does—guarantee healthcare to every single American?” Sanders asked.
“I’m going to make America healthier than any other country in the world right now,” Kennedy responded.
“Will you guarantee to do what every other major country is?&#8221; Sanders interrupted him. &#8220;It’s a simple question, Bobby.”
Kennedy fired back: “The problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies, it’s in Congress, too. Almost all the members of this panel are accepting, including yourself, millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry to protect their interests.”
&#8220;Oh no, no, no! No, no, no,&#8221; Sanders responded. &#8220;I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives. Not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from workers.&#8221;
“In 2020, you were the single largest recipient of pharmaceutical dollars,&#8221; Kennedy responded.
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Bernie Erupts After RFK Jr. Accuses Him Of Being ‘Single Largest Receiver Of Pharmaceutical Money’" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DJ-BmvonQDU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

WATCH: Bernie Sanders Erupts After RFK Jr. Accuses Him Of Corruption

Big Pharma

There&#8217;s a civil trial going on right now in the state of California that hasn&#8217;t gotten much attention at all. For the most part, the corporate press doesn&#8217;t want to talk about it, probably because it would upset some of their biggest advertisers. But if you have any interest in learning more about how the alleged &#8220;science&#8221; concerning vaccines actually works in this country, it&#8217;s one of the most important cases that&#8217;s ever been tried.
I&#8217;m talking about a product liability lawsuit that&#8217;s underway against the pharmaceutical giant Merck. The litigation relates to allegations that Merck concealed serious side effects of its &#8220;Gardasil&#8221; vaccine, which promised to protect people from getting HPV — a virus that can lead to cervical cancer in women. Merck of course denies the allegations, and the jury hasn&#8217;t returned a verdict yet.
But even without a verdict, the fact that this case has made it to trial, in and of itself, is worth talking about. Concerns about the Gardasil vaccine have been widespread for nearly two decades, since it was first introduced to the market. Here for example are two news clips from 2008 and 2009, related to the first version of the vaccine. Watch:
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Put aside for a second whether Gardasil was indeed dangerous, or whether Merck lied in its advertising. Those are questions that I don&#8217;t pretend to be an authority on. That&#8217;s for a jury to decide. The really interesting question is why it took until 2025 for anyone to resolve, definitively, the question of whether this vaccine is actually as safe as advertised. The fact that the judge has allowed this case to go to trial means the allegations, at a minimum, probably aren&#8217;t frivolous. So how was this vaccine — which has been taken by countless people — allowed to escape this kind of serious scrutiny for so long? 
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That fact alone — the existence of an information blackout on such an important vaccine — is of course just one of many harrowing, unexplained failures of the public health establishment in this country. If you pull up one of the complaints against Merck, which was filed by the law firm Wisner Baum, you&#8217;ll find a lot of other very disturbing allegations too. One woman, the main plaintiff in the case, alleges she&#8217;s been confined to a wheelchair since the age of 16 because of the vaccine. 
There are also allegations that Merck paid doctors and nonprofits thousands of dollars to promote the vaccine, as well as claims that Merck lied about the vaccine&#8217;s contents. Normally, allegations like this never see the inside of a courthouse, because the pharmaceutical industry enjoys a broad liability shield. This case is a rare exception.
I mention the lawsuit over the Gardasil vaccine because it came up yesterday during the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump&#8217;s nominee to be the next HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. That&#8217;s because RFK Jr. worked with the law firm that brought the case against Merck, and he stands to benefit financially from the outcome. In other words, RFK Jr. played a role in finding the plaintiffs for this very rare, and very important lawsuit that&#8217;s currently in progress against Big Pharma. Here&#8217;s how Elizabeth Warren questioned Kennedy about it. Watch:
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What&#8217;s extraordinary about this moment is that Warren has built her entire career around the lie that she&#8217;s a populist — or at least, someone who&#8217;s extremely skeptical of entrenched corporate power, particularly when it&#8217;s held by banks. But in this case, Warren is pretty much indistinguishable from a lawyer for Big Pharma. She&#8217;s berating RFK Jr. because he took Big Pharma to court over the HPV vaccine. And even though he&#8217;s stated that he won&#8217;t pursue any lawsuits while he&#8217;s in government, it&#8217;s not enough for her. She wants him to commit to renouncing lawsuits that he&#8217;s already participated in, or that he might pursue after leaving office. And he wouldn&#8217;t agree to that.
I&#8217;m not going to speculate on Warren&#8217;s motivations. You can point to various campaign contributions she&#8217;s received from the pharmaceutical industry, as many people already have. Actually, on second thought, I am speculating that Elizabeth Warren is a bought and paid for shill for Big Pharma. Not speculating but outright accusing her of it. Still the truth is, this is a much larger problem than Elizabeth Warren. Throughout the hearing, RFK Jr. was repeatedly attacked by Democrats simply for questioning the safety and efficacy of various drugs that are widely prescribed. These are drugs we&#8217;re assured are effective, even though there are very real reasons to doubt that. And in particular, Kennedy was hit over his skepticism of SSRIs, in the most unfair and disingenuous way imaginable. Here&#8217;s Tina Smith of Minnesota, in one of the most egregious moments from this hearing:
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RFK&#8217;s response at the end of that clip is obviously the right one. Remember the 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine? The shooter killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. We still don&#8217;t know what, if any, drugs he was taking at the time of the incident.
The same is true of the trans-identifying mass shooter here in Tennessee. The Tennessee Star has reported, citing a search warrant, that Vanderbilt had prescribed SSRIs to the shooter. But we don&#8217;t know if the shooter was actively taking those medications, because neither the police nor Vanderbilt will tell us. And therefore, it wouldn&#8217;t show up in any &#8220;studies&#8221; that purport to show how many mass shooters were on SSRIs.
This is the norm, when it comes to these academic papers on SSRIs. And as I&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YPzTZJubSc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously discussed</a>, there&#8217;s another way that these &#8220;studies&#8221; hide the number of mass shooters who are on SSRIs. Basically, they include inner city violence in their tally of mass shootings. So if a bunch of gang members in the South Side of Chicago shoot up a birthday party or something, that gets added to the tally of mass shootings. And because those kinds of shootings happen every day in places like Chicago — for reasons that have nothing to do with SSRIs, like turf disputes and so on — the authors of these studies can make it seem like SSRIs don&#8217;t cause mass shootings. But they&#8217;re really just obfuscating the central question by flooding the data set with unrelated shootings. The core question — which is whether SSRIs cause otherwise law-abiding young students to shoot their classmates — remains unresolved in medical literature.
It’s not surprise and no secret that young angry males who grow up in the hood with no father figures and get involved in gangs and drug dealing by the age of 12 would turn to violence. There’s no mystery there. But there is a mystery as to why a child who has never been violent, who was not raised by a street gang, who is financially stable, would one day casually execute a dozen classmates for no reason that he can even articulate. Why is that happening? And why is it that so often these kids are on psychiatric medication?
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There are definitely reasons to think SSRIs could play a role in this kind of violence. For one thing, you can look at the warning label on SSRIs, which states that the drugs can actually increase the risk of suicide and violent behavior in some cases. The drugmakers are telling us outright that these drugs can put violent thoughts into your head. They can make you want to lash out violently against yourself or other people. The pharmaceutical companies are telling us that directly. And yet when that thing happens, they will insist that the drug they said can cause it to happen, must not have caused it to happen.
Or you can look at the studies that show that SSRIs can increase the risk of violence in people who aren&#8217;t depressed at all. A few years ago, for example, researchers in Denmark reviewed experiments going back to the 1960s. And they found that, when healthy volunteers — meaning, people with no mental health issues — were given antidepressants, the drugs doubled their risk of &#8220;suicidality and violence.&#8221;
So why did that happen? Why might SSRIs make healthy people more violent?
The honest answer is that we have no idea. Just a few years ago, we learned that there&#8217;s actually no clear link between low serotonin levels and depression. This was the central claim that supposedly justified the mass-adoption of SSRIs in this country, and it&#8217;s completely false. We have no idea what these drugs are actually doing. So maybe we should pump the brakes a bit. That&#8217;s what RFK tried to say yesterday. Here&#8217;s the response he got:
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Usually, you expect that in a confirmation hearing, the worst thing that can happen is that the nominee says something disqualifying. But in this case, the senator said something disqualifying. Let me be extremely clear about this: If you need psychiatric drugs in order to function, then you are not fit to serve at the highest levels of government. You&#8217;re not qualified to teach elementary school students or operate heavy machinery, for that matter. You simply cannot claim that you&#8217;re competent to govern if you need to regularly take psychoactive substances. Am I saying that every lawmaker on anti-depressants should be removed from office? Yes, I am absolutely saying that. That should be common sense.
More importantly, RFK is obviously right about SSRIs. When the peer-reviewed journal &#8220;Molecular Psychiatry&#8221; — one of the most prominent journals in the field — admits that depression isn&#8217;t actually caused by a serotonin imbalance, which is what happened in 2022, then it&#8217;s obviously worth taking a close look at a class of antidepressants that&#8217;s entitled, &#8220;Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.&#8221; If a comprehensive review finds that we were wrong about these drugs for decades, then maybe we need some more information and studies before we prescribe them to millions of people — including children.
But of course, this is a pattern in the healthcare industry. Drugs are approved all the time when they don&#8217;t actually work — at least not in any way that we understand. As RFK Jr. said yesterday, it was a similar story for Alzheimer&#8217;s drugs. Some of these drugs received a lot of funding and fast-track approvals, only to turn out to be completely useless. In one case, the data supporting these drugs was actually faked. Watch:
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By this point you can probably tell that this hearing didn&#8217;t go very well for Democrats. Later on, they tried to attack him for pointing out that Lyme Disease has some very conspicuous origins. Apparently we&#8217;re supposed to think — post-COVID — that it&#8217;s an outlandish conspiracy theory to believe that Lyme Disease could possibly have anything to do with government labs injecting ticks with various exotic diseases.
Then there was this moment, where one Democrat tried to make the point that RFK Jr. doesn&#8217;t believe that germs can cause disease. Then he refuted what she was saying, so she just &#8220;read it into the record&#8221; anyway. Watch:
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These hearings are all like this. They&#8217;re not actually about getting any kind of thoughtful answer from the nominee. It&#8217;s all drive-by soundbites. It doesn&#8217;t even matter what he says.
But even by this low standard, there was one moment in yesterday&#8217;s hearing that managed to stand out. This moment comes to us from Bernie Sanders. Sanders began by asking RFK Jr. whether healthcare is a human right, and he said no, because no one — especially gluttons or habitual smokers — is entitled to anyone else&#8217;s labor. And then Sanders resorted to berating RFK Jr. for his support of anti-vaccine apparel — specifically, anti-vaccine onesies. Behold one of the greatest moments in modern congressional history:
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This is the level of seriousness that Democrats are applying to these confirmation hearings. They barely even mentioned gender ideology, or how RFK Jr. plans to end the castration of children in this country. They weren&#8217;t remotely interested in his call for more transparent and accurate data in modern medicine. Instead, one by one, Democrats ran interference for Big Pharma. They talked about anti-vax &#8220;onesies&#8221; and demanded that RFK stop bullying Merck.
Democrats like to pretend that they stand against “corporate greed&#8221; and so on. But you simply cannot pretend to be an avenger for the working class standing against corrupt billionaires if you will also defend the pharmaceutical industry to your dying breath. There is no greater example of corporate greed than what we have seen from Big Pharma.
This is an industry that we know for an absolute fact has pushed literal poison on people, by the millions, and done it all for no reason other than pure profit. This is the industry that supplies actual castration drugs to 13-year-olds. An industry that got millions of Americans hooked on anti-depressants on false pretenses, based on a belief in a chemical imbalance that doesn’t exist. There are dozens of other examples just like this. And they are all things that Democrats don&#8217;t want us to talk about — and have in fact attempted to forcibly prevent us from talking about.
So whatever reservations conservatives have about RFK Jr., it&#8217;s very clear that he needs to be confirmed. We have a real opportunity to install someone who is skeptical of the junk science we&#8217;ve been relentlessly fed for decades, on everything from SSRIs to Alzheimer’s to gender ideology. And after yesterday&#8217;s debacle of a confirmation hearing, it&#8217;s clear we need to take this opportunity now, while we still have it.

Senate Finance Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Democrats Shill For Big Pharma In RFK Jr. Confirmation Hearing

Matt Walsh

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