This September, Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro will release “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Pg18nHlVX2neyh7VlgVdIKje9EBKlWHDPzfz2hz6y3Q3oyWp8Jv4YdfQyesgs3y-.a1CzqX5hmYc9zIJ3x9S3IyReflqRxvFeP5akr1dlPB8&amp;qid=1749148351&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics)</a>,” his first book in four years. Shapiro calls it, “My most important book, certainly my most passionate.”
In the wake of the horrific attacks on innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023, Shapiro was left shocked, not only by the barbaric acts of the terrorist group Hamas, but by the strange, disturbing response he witnessed from those in the West.
“Something deeply wrong had happened in the West,” says Shapiro. 
The host of “The Ben Shapiro Show” then spent the next year traveling the globe, visiting Auschwitz alongside Elon Musk, flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to meet with newly elected president Javier Milei, and speaking at Oxford University in England. It was what he saw on the streets of London that affected him most.
“Just last weekend, London saw a massive river of protesters,” writes Shapiro. “Hundreds of thousands strong, marching with their banners unfurled: the banners of terrorist groups and of communists and of transgender activists, gathered together to revolt against the civilization that has given them their rights and their prosperity and their power.”
“Lions and Scavengers” will release on September 2, 2025, and is published by Threshold Editions, the conservative publishing imprint of Simon &amp; Schuster, an imprint originally launched by Mary Matalin, the conservative wife of Democratic talking head James Carville.
The Harvard Law graduate&#8217;s new book is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Pg18nHlVX2neyh7VlgVdIKje9EBKlWHDPzfz2hz6y3Q3oyWp8Jv4YdfQyesgs3y-.a1CzqX5hmYc9zIJ3x9S3IyReflqRxvFeP5akr1dlPB8&amp;qid=1749148351&amp;sr=1-1">now available for pre-order</a>. 
Not only that, customers can also order <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/lions-and-scavengers">AUTOGRAPHED copies of &#8220;Lions and Scavengers&#8221; now exclusively at the Daily Wire Shop</a>!
<div id="attachment_929955" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Pg18nHlVX2neyh7VlgVdIKje9EBKlWHDPzfz2hz6y3Q3oyWp8Jv4YdfQyesgs3y-.a1CzqX5hmYc9zIJ3x9S3IyReflqRxvFeP5akr1dlPB8&amp;qid=1749148351&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-929955" class="wp-image-929955 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover Art: Threshold Editions/Simon &amp; Schuster" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/MixCollage-05-Jun-2025-01-46-PM-2807-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover Art: Threshold Editions/Simon &amp; Schuster</div>
As leftist leaders continue to obfuscate the threats to Western civilization, Shapiro’s book could not have arrived at a better time.
Some say the West is experiencing 1930s Germany all over again, and Shapiro confirms that a new form of “Scavenger” is on the prowl. “The Scavengers have gathered, here in the beating heart of what was once the center of Western civilization, to bay for more blood, and to scream at a West that insists that defense against terror is the first right of all men.”
Shapiro also insists this is larger than the persecution of the Jews. “This is not mere anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is an age-old hatred rooted in a conspiracy theory; it takes many forms and has countless victims. This is something different. It is a united, coalitional hatred of the West.”
As a proven author with multiple #1 New York Times bestselling titles to his credit and as the host of one of the most widely listened-to podcasts, Shapiro has earned the authority to speak on this topic in this critical hour of world history.
While Shapiro’s “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Pg18nHlVX2neyh7VlgVdIKje9EBKlWHDPzfz2hz6y3Q3oyWp8Jv4YdfQyesgs3y-.a1CzqX5hmYc9zIJ3x9S3IyReflqRxvFeP5akr1dlPB8&amp;qid=1749148351&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers</a>” will illuminate the gathering storm facing the leaders of the West, his message, however, is not only for adults. &#8220;We need to be a civilization of Lions. We need to teach our children to be Lions, and to fight the Scavengers.&#8221;
Be prepared for the days ahead — reserve your copy of “Lions and Scavengers” now.

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Ben Shapiro Announces Release Of ‘Lions And Scavengers,’ His ‘Most Important Book’

Ben Shapiro Announces Release Of His 'Most Important Book'

Ben Shapiro

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Europe

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Western Civilization

Backlash to liberal immigration policies fuels yet another shift to the Right in Europe. The fallout from the Colorado terror attack continues as more details emerge about the victims and the illegal immigrant suspect. And, the Trump administration pauses most operations at the Department of Labor’s highly controversial Job Corps. 
It’s Tuesday, June 3, 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>Europe Updates</h2>
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Topline: As Ukraine and Russia meet this week for peace talks, a growing list of European countries have elected right-wing leaders amid growing anti-immigration sentiment.
In the last 24 hours, we’ve learned more about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-ukraine-pulled-off-its-massive-drone-strike-inside-russia">Ukraine’s surprise attack</a> on Russia last weekend. The Ukrainians managed to smuggle scores of attack drones across the border, where they were launched from wooden sheds mounted on the backs of large moving trucks. Because those drones originated within Russian territory, they were able to bypass Putin’s extensive air defense systems, targeting five separate air bases and knocking out dozens of the country’s most important planes. According to some estimates, Ukraine successfully destroyed up to one-third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. 
The strikes came at a crucial time, as the two countries began meeting Monday in Istanbul for formal peace talks. Those talks concluded after just 90 minutes, and little progress had been made. Moscow finally presented its terms for peace: Ukraine must recognize all of Russia’s territorial gains, shrink the size of its military, change its official language to Russian, agree to long-term neutrality, and forfeit the right to join NATO.
Meanwhile, Poland elected right-winger Karol Narwocki to the presidency. Many have compared the 42-year-old Narwocki, who had no prior political experience, to Donald Trump, who openly supported Narwocki’s campaign. Narwocki even adopted a similar campaign slogan: “Poland First.&#8221; Among other things, he campaigned on a promise to withdraw from the European Union’s Migration Pact, which he said flooded the continent with illegal immigrants. He’s staunchly pro-life, against same-sex marriage, and has called for a return of Christian values to public life in his country. 
Narwocki has signed a pledge to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO — and like Trump, he’s accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not showing enough gratitude for the support his country has given Ukraine for its war effort. 
In the last year, conservatives have made historic gains across the continent — largely by promising to crack down on illegal immigration from Africa and the Middle East. In Austria, the country’s right-wing Freedom Party won control of parliament — the first time a hardline Conservative Party had won since World War II. Then, conservatives made historic gains in Germany, with the right-wing AfD party surging. And last week, Portugal’s right-wing Chega party scored a number of victories to become the country’s leading opposition party. 
In Paris this week, we’ve seen mass rioting following a big soccer victory – sparking conversations about law and order and immigration policies in France.
Some left-wing politicians have even adopted a more conservative tone. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, for example, has promised to “significantly” cut down on immigration over the next four years, restrict new visas for skilled labor, and penalize companies that hire foreign labor.
“The experiment is over,” Starmer <a href="https://x.com/addicted2newz/status/1929076924392903007">said</a>. “We will deliver what you’ve asked for time and again. And we will take back control of our borders.”
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<h2>Boulder Terror Suspect Charged With Multiple Felonies</h2>
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Topline: The man suspected of attacking a Colorado demonstration in support of Israeli hostages has been hit with multiple charges, including a federal hate crime.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman is being held in Boulder County Jail on a $10 million bond.  At the state level, he’s facing felony <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/colorado-hits-egyptian-anti-israel-terror-suspect-with-charges-including-murder">charges</a> for first-degree assault and “extreme indifference” to criminal use of an incendiary device – as well as crimes against the elderly. Federal prosecutors have charged Soliman with a hate crime. The special agent in charge at the FBI’s Denver office, Mark Michalek, said the bureau is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism.
None of the people injured in the attack has died. Soliman himself was treated for burn injuries before he was booked. Police say Soliman received those injuries using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to attack demonstrators.
Soliman is an Egyptian national. He entered the United States in 2022 on a visa that then expired the next year. He was able to obtain a temporary work permit from the Biden administration, but that, too, expired in March this year. Trump said in a social media post on Monday that Soliman “came in through Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly.” The president went on to say: “This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.”
In an interview with the FBI, Soliman said that he wanted to kill “Zionists.” Law enforcement also says he screamed “free Palestine” during his assault. The demonstration targeted in the attack was a weekly march in support of the hostages held by terrorists in Gaza. The FBI said that Soliman had planned this attack for at least a year and targeted what he called a “Zionist group.” Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis called it a “targeted attack on the Jewish community.”
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<h2>Department Of Labor &#8220;Pauses&#8221; Job Corps Program</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-928429" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_02_17_23.Still004.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="360" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_02_17_23.Still004.jpeg 640w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_02_17_23.Still004-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></div>
Topline: The Department of Labor last week said it was “pausing” most operations at the Job Corps, a $1.7 billion program that trains high school dropouts on residential campuses across the country.
Job Corps was spending an average of $80,000 a year per student, training them to go on to earn an average of $16,000 a year. That’s more than Harvard charges for tuition to essentially get them minimum wage. At one campus run by ODLE Management Group LLC, the cost was $764,000 per graduate.
The Job Corps operates about 130 campuses across the country, where troubled young adults are paid $1,200, plus living expenses, to take classes towards their GED or training in the trades. Most campuses are run by companies whose staff are paid bonuses based on how many people they recruit, and how many get a job afterwards. Reports found that contractors were faking job statistics to make it look like the training worked, and were looking the other way at criminal behavior on campus, because if they expelled students, they’d get less revenue.
“The Trump administration has terminated all contracts with companies,” Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak told Morning Wire. “About one-fifth of campuses are operated by the Department of Agriculture, and those will remain open. So this is really targeted towards preventing contractors from abusing the taxpayer and using at-risk youth as a cash cow.”
Other forms of exploitation were also common. Discipline data from the Job Corps campuses show that there were 500 sex assaults and 5,000 violent assaults in the last three years. That includes a 16-year old transgender runaway who was ordered to live with a 23-year-old man who was later arrested for raping her. &#8220;One-third of students are expelled, one-third abscond, and one-third graduate,” Rosiak said. “To enroll, you’re required to be on welfare, a refugee, a high school dropout, illiterate, or a victim of sex trafficking.”
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Morning Brief: Ukraine’s Major Drone Op & Charges For Colorado’s Illegal Alien Terrorist

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illegal immigrant

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Ukraine-Russia War

It is amazing to be here in Budapest. I want to talk today about the battle for the heart of Western civilization. But to do that, we have to start with a definition of what Western civilization actually is.
Western civilization, rooted in Man&#8217;s individual liberty and his collective duty; in his freedom of speech and in his duty to act virtuously; in his property rights and in his familial obligations; in the right to the equal application of the law; is unique. It is the wellspring of virtually all human prosperity and all human progress.
Western civilization did not come from nowhere. It came from Biblical wisdom; the wisdom of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition. It came from the Bible&#8217;s admonition that we ought to seek truth through the light of reason. When we cut ourselves off from the sources of our own civilization, our civilization decays.
And make no mistake, our civilization is now in the midst of decay.
We can see that decay in the anarchic marchers in the streets, chanting on behalf of radical Islamic terror groups by the hundreds of thousands. 
We can see it in the push by intellectual elitists for a bizarre alternative morality that suggests the fundamental, free-flowing nature of sexual identity, where boys can be girls and behavior ought to be separated utterly from the realm of morality. 
We can see it in the push for an ever growing domination of a powerful governmental infrastructure, crowding out familial bonds, crowding out church. in favor of a faceless state that offers money rather than virtue.
We can see it in that crusade against churches that refuse to jettison their values in favor of moral relativism and flying rainbow flags.
What are these forces that have mobilized against our civilization?
The key force is the force of Western post-modern leftism. Sure, we can look at the radical Islamists who have invaded Europe, who support terrorism, who use Western governments to impose effective fatwas against Westerners who speak out against them, people who target Jews and Christians, who openly chant for the downfall of the civilization that they leech upon.
But the question really isn&#8217;t radical Islamists. They, after all, are doing just what they have always done: invading and conquering.
The question is why the West allowed them in.
And the answer is that the West, thanks to that post-modern Left, bears a peculiar and self-defeating blood-guilt. A guilt that says that because the West is too successful, it owes it to the rest of the world to destroy itself.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/battling-for-the-heart-of-western-civilization-cpac-hungary-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Perhaps the most colorful champion of this philosophy was the Marxist existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1961, a Francophone rebel named Frantz Fanon wrote a shockingly violent book titled “The Wretched of the Earth,” in which he posited that colonized peoples had a moral duty to kill their colonizers; that they ought to unleash, in his words, “red hot cannonballs” and “bloody knives.”
Frantz Fanon expressed that the colonized man was right to want to rape the wife of his colonizer, to murder him, to take what he had, and Sartre, a Western leftist, agreed. The West, Sartre said, was an inherent colonizer. Its very success in the world, whether through war or through markets, was a sign of its uniquely rapacious and exploitative nature.
Thus, Sartre argued, Europeans had to die at the hands of their victims. He said, “To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor, and the man he oppresses at the same time. Then there remains a dead man and a free man.”
In other words, Sartre advocated civilizational suicide, and the West largely complied.
But why did the West comply? Now, part of the answer lies in the West’s pathological and religiously based adherence to the reality of sin and the necessity of repentance. Our culture, Western culture, is a guilt culture, a culture that focuses on the reality of absolute morality and says that when we fail, we are guilty. This means that we feel bad when we sin.
That&#8217;s actually one of our virtues.
<div id="attachment_927555" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/battling-for-the-heart-of-western-civilization-cpac-hungary-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-927555" class="size-large wp-image-927555" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: DailyWire/CPAC Hungary" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-30-May-2025-05-46-PM-9133-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>Screenshot: DailyWire/CPAC Hungary</div>
But there are many other cultures, shame cultures like, say, the Islamic cultures or the pre-World War II culture of Imperial Japan, or the modern Left, that focuses not on any absolute standard of morality or conscience, but on the evil of being humiliated.
For these folks, admitting fault is the weakness. Because we in the West reflexively look to our own sins before those of others, we fall prey to civilizational suicidal impulses.
Our enemies don&#8217;t. They&#8217;re happy to blame us for their problems and unfortunately, we&#8217;re all too happy to blame ourselves. As the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner writes, “The duty to repent forbids the Western Bloc, which is eternally guilty, to judge or combat other systems, other states, other religions. Our past crimes command us to keep our mouths closed. Our only right is to remain silent.”
But why should we feel uniquely guilty? The West seems to bear a unique amount of guilt because we have come to believe a giant lie, a great giant lie about ourselves.
And that lie is that we, the West, are uniquely evil.
We hear this lie all the time. Just a couple of days ago, for example, King Charles visited Canada, a country with a parliament, only because it was once a dominion of the British Crown, and then he read a land acknowledgment to the Algonquin Indians as though the British Empire ought to repent its establishment of the country of Canada.
The very concept is ridiculous. Watching King Charles sit there in all of his royal regalia, lamenting his own empire, is insane. And yet this kind of nonsense is imitated at nearly every college event across the West.
But that&#8217;s the lie: that the West is uniquely evil, and that lie gained an enormous amount of credibility due to the horrors of the 20th century.
We were told often by Marxists like Sartre, that imperialism was a uniquely Western phenomenon, despite the fact that human beings have conquered other people for as long as human beings have existed.
We were told that the Nazis and their allies were natural outgrowths of Western civilization, rather than perversions of it.
We were told that if we abandoned Biblical values in favor of a namby-pamby secularism, we could avoid all the terrible atrocities of the past, even though it was the pagan dogmas of the Nazis and the Soviets, their secular dogmas, not their Biblical adherence that led to their assault on humanity.
We were told that if we mitigated our cultural honor, if we discarded it, we could then expunge our sins, even though it was craven cowardice in the face of transnational Left-wing movements like Nazism and Communism that led to their domination of the European continent and proud, resurgent patriotism that stopped it.
We were told that if we abandoned our borders, we could alleviate our guilt, even though obviously the Nazis and the Soviets had no respect for borders and sought to obliterate them themselves. It was not Western civilization or Biblical values, rule of law, free speech, and private property rights that led to the tragedies and horrors of the 20th century.
It was the rejection of the West&#8217;s core values that led to those horrors.
But too many in the West believed the lie that the horrors were the result of Western civilization rather than a perversion of it. And in believing that lie, we surrendered our own civilization to people who would destroy it. We turned over our nations to consortiums of international elitists who sought to rule us from above and from without. We opened our nations to groups that sought to destroy our history and our unity.
Now it is time to reverse that process. We have to, in all humility, recognize that Western civilization, like all civilizations, has, of course, committed sordid wrongs and egregious evils.
But the truth — the real truth, something we have known for a very long time, since the Garden of Eden — is that all human beings have a capacity for evil. Human evil is a universal truth.
But the glories of Western civilization are not universal. They come from a particular philosophy, a particular history, a particular culture.
Western civilization isn&#8217;t uniquely evil. Western civilization is uniquely good.
Slavery was a human universal. It was Western civilization that ended it.
Poverty is a human universal. It was Western civilization that has exponentially mitigated it.
War is a human universal Western civilization has wildly reduced it.
And the secular, post-modern leftists who refuse to admit this are engaging in evil of their own.
This country, the very country these secular, post-modern leftists seem to despise, a country they label Nazi-esque, is the only country in Europe, perhaps, that is not currently overrun by Islamic radicals.
This supposedly Nazi country is the only country in Europe where I, an Orthodox Jew, can walk in safety and comfort down the street wearing a yarmulke.
It is a country where children don&#8217;t actually have to fear that their innocence will be robbed by a perverse, anti-Biblical Left seeking the spiritual destruction of those children.
Hungary, like the rest of the West, isn&#8217;t perfect because no country is.
But Hungarians are trying to stand up for their civilization, our shared Western heritage and civilization. And that is a thing that is worth fighting for.
And if we fight for it, we will emerge victorious against the forces that seek to destroy our civilization from outside and inside as well.

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Hungary And The Fight For Western Civilization: Shapiro’s Budapest Speech

Hungary

Marxism

Opinion

There is a philosophy that has now become dominant on the Left and even parts of the center. It&#8217;s throughout the West.
The deeper roots of this philosophy bear a deadly fruit.
Let’s begin with a bizarre and hilarious spectacle. Great Britain’s King Charles III was visiting the Canadian Parliament and decided that it would be worthwhile to offer a land acknowledgment.
This is hilarious because King Charles is the King of Great Britain. The only reason the Canadian Parliament exists is because of the settlement of Canada by British citizens. That’s why he is there in the first place.
Charles doing a land acknowledgment and taking that seriously would amount to essentially disestablishing Canada, the United States, Australia, South Africa and a bunch of other countries, because all of those countries were originally created as functioning polities by the British Empire.
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This bizarre idea that Charles can arrive on Canadian territory and start apologizing to the indigenous people for the presence of white people in this particular area is absurd, especially coming from King Charles, who is the greatest beneficiary on planet Earth of the imperialism of the British Empire.
There are human universals, such as migration, settlement, annexation, and conflict, and they are not unique to white people, Westerners, or Europeans; it&#8217;s just that white people, Westerners and Europeans, have been much better at it than other parts of the population on planet Earth. They&#8217;re more successful, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, but that does not mean that there is some unique sin that attends to whiteness, being Western, or being European.
Charles said, “I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. This land acknowledgement is a recognition of shared history as a nation. While continuing to deepen my own understanding, it is my great hope that in each of your communities, and collectively as a country, a path is found toward truth and reconciliation, in both word and deed.”
Of course the land is unceded, because the nature of human conflict is that when people migrate from one part of the Earth to another part of the Earth, conflict tends to arise, and then someone wins and someone loses. And it is a very good thing that the British Empire won in Canada.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2208-the-trump-2026-victory-plan?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Here’s the basic idea: The world is better off because of the British Empire. The world is better off because of American power and the spread of European ideals. That is obviously true. The spread of things like property rights, due process of law, capitalism, freedom of religion, all of which are not human universals — those are the legacy of the West.
There&#8217;s always an attempt to take human universals and then project them as West-specific problems. That is not true.
The problems of murder and raping and looting and slavery are human universals.
What is unique about the West is all the other stuff. Reversing that polarity and suggesting that the West is somehow uniquely sinful because it was better at war than others, or because Westerners were better at settlement than the Algonquin who lived on the land where Canada&#8217;s parliament now sits, and that is a human tragedy, is not, in fact, a human tragedy.
Bad things happen throughout human history. The bad things are tragedies. But overall, in the broad scope of history, it is an absolutely wonderful thing that Europeans ended up on the North American continent.
Anyone who doesn&#8217;t believe so should probably leave. If you don&#8217;t believe that, you probably should go back to your dingy apartment and cede it back to the natives from whom your ancestors took it.
All of this ties into a deeper and more deadly philosophy.
The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, visited the White House and was asked about the “Kill the Boer” chant, which has become common at some rallies, targeting the Afrikaner farmers who originally settled in the area of South Africa as early as the 17th century, fought for hundreds of years, and were responsible at one point for tremendous racism against black people.
But the solution to that is not genocidal chants. Yet there’s an idea that as long as the people who are shouting the genocidal chants are not white, European and Western, it suddenly becomes okay.
Why? Because the rules don&#8217;t equally apply in this left-wing philosophy, where the sins of the West are unique and the West is unique in its evil.
What that means is that the West has to be destroyed. This has deadly consequences. And it doesn&#8217;t matter whether you call this stuff anti-white or anti-Semitic or anti-whatever. The problem with this generalized philosophy is that it is simply evil.
When you separate the world into victims and victimizers and you suggest that anyone who&#8217;s been uniquely successful is the victimizer and anyone who is not is a victim, what you get is victimizers with the moral impetus and the moral weight to kill people.
What you end up with is actual terrorism, actual violence, actual overthrow of the institutions that made the West great in the first place.

The King And Queen Visit Canada – Day 2

Why The West Must Not Apologize For Its Success

Boers

Canada

Colonialism

England

History

King Charles III

Murder

South Africa

Earlier this month, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, “Victory in Europe,” which marked the end of the European Theater’s part in the Second World War. It is a date certainly worth commemorating as it closed one of the darkest chapters in European history, which was the rise and fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.
For the countries in what today we call Western Europe that languished for years under the jackboot of Nazi oppression — France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Greece — the Allied victory truly represented liberation.
<div id="attachment_925633" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925633" class="size-large wp-image-925633" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-865x576.jpg" alt="Ecstatic crowds celebrating VE Day in London's Piccadilly, at the end of World War II, 8th May 1945. Original Publication: Picture Post - 1991 - This Was VE Day in London - pub. 1945 (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</div>
But there was another side to V-E Day that seems to get glossed over. And that is the less happy fate of the Eastern European nations who were not liberated by the Anglo-Americans rolling in from the west, but rather the Red Army coming in from the east. And for those nations — Poland, Hungary, then-Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states — V-E Day merely meant trading one brutal oppressor for another. Indeed, as the Allies were closing in from both sides, the dark joke in Germany was “Optimists are learning English, pessimists are learning Russian.”
We have been conditioned for over 80 years to viscerally recoil at the very mention of the Führer’s name. Just say “Hitler” and the mind conjures up images of the Holocaust and mass murder of millions of innocents carried out by robotic, goose-stepping stormtroopers wearing their signature coal scuttle helmets.
Yet, when we utter the name “Stalin,” no such dark imagery materializes in the collective mind. And yet, in terms of pure numbers, it can be argued that the Soviet “Man of Steel” had more blood on his hands than even Hitler. Why the indifferent reaction?
It could perhaps be attributed to a curious media/academic tendency of apologetics towards communism. As polls consistently show, both of these institutions lean very much to the left. And Stalinism is the ultimate expression of their collective leftist ideology come to fruition in all its destructive inevitability. During the 1930s, for example, dispatches from Moscow-based New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty were shamefully obsequious towards Stalin, offering up for his readers images of a prosperous, happy communist USSR workers’ paradise.
No matter that the Soviet dictator was coldly stripping Ukraine of food and inducing a famine in 1932-1933 (called the “Holodomor”) during which anywhere from 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians died of starvation — atrocities Duranty labeled as a “big scare” and “exaggeration.”
Then there was Stalin’s 1929-1933 genocide against the Kulaks (wealthy peasants who resisted his policies) to facilitate the expropriation of farmland. In one directive, the Soviet leader declared, “We must smash the Kulaks, liquidate them as a class.” Millions died.
And what of the estimated 700,000 to 6 million who died in Stalin’s Gulag, the far-flung network of concentration camps where he sent his enemies, whom the hyper-paranoid dictator saw all around him. (Figures vary widely; the latter number comes from dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was imprisoned for eight years.)
Starting in 1936, Stalin wiped out his political and military adversaries in a series of show trials called “The Great Purge.” Stalin’s biographer Oleg V. Khlevniuk estimates that 1.6 million were arrested, with 700,000 shot; no one knows how many died of torture.
<div id="attachment_925699" style="width: 883px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925699" class="size-large wp-image-925699" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-873x576.jpg" alt="RUSSIA - JANUARY 01: Joseph STALIN, the supreme ruler of the USSR, working in his garden around 1935 to 1936 while Lavrenti BERIA, the chief of the Soviet secret police, poses with STALIN'S daughter, SVETLANA, on his knees. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)" width="873" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-873x576.jpg 873w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-300x198.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-768x507.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 873px) 100vw, 873px" />Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</div>
During the Second World War on the Eastern Front, Stalin was so profligate with the lives of his people that by the time the red banner of the USSR was flying over the Reichstag in the conquered Berlin, some 27 million Soviets lay dead. Many as a result of combat and German atrocities, of course, but also due to Stalin’s unimaginative strategies that callously offered up both his soldiers and civilians before the guns of the Wehrmacht as fodder.
Whereas Hitler’s policies were driven by twisted racial hatred, delusions of grandeur, a sense of grievance on behalf of a nation he felt was ill-treated at Versailles, and, by the end, drug-addled bona fide madness, Stalin in some ways is even more disturbing as there was a cold, calculating, and ruthless nature to his machinations.
Stalin will also go down as one of the most treacherous characters in history. It should be remembered that until Hitler turned on him and attacked Russia in June 1941, Stalin and the German dictator were allies. Hitler only felt secure enough to invade Poland and trigger the Second World War because Berlin and Moscow had just entered into a non-aggression pact the month before. In fact, people often forget that in September 1939, Poland was not just invaded by the Wehrmacht but also by the Red Army. After which, Stalin’s NKVD promptly rounded up 22,000 members of Poland’s military and intelligentsia, marched them to the Katyn Forest, and shot them all dead.
<div id="attachment_925683" style="width: 949px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925683" class="size-large wp-image-925683" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-939x576.jpg" alt="9/28/39: Russo -German Pact Molotov signing pact directly behind is J. Von Ribbentrop on the right is Josef Stalin. (Photo by Bettmann/Corbis/Getty Images)" width="939" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-939x576.jpg 939w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-300x184.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-768x471.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 939px) 100vw, 939px" />Bettmann/Corbis/Getty Images</div>
Says historian Victor Davis Hanson: “Of the six major belligerents of World War II, on the Axis side, Italy, Japan, and Germany, and the United States, Russia, and Britain, Stalin made a deal with every one of them at one time or another, and he honored the ones with the Axis better than he did us.”
But, unlike Hitler, Stalin’s image during the war was softened by the Roosevelt administration and pliant media due to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. FDR, especially, was hopelessly naïve about the duplicitous nature of the man whose military he was now supplying through Lend-Lease. As far as he saw it, the Russians were now our allies after all. And, frankly, we needed the Red Army to kill as many Germans as possible before we invaded France. The mass murderer of Moscow was thus re-christened “Uncle Joe” Stalin. And as it was his Red Army more than any other that destroyed the Wehrmacht, what he did to his own people and those in Eastern Europe were swept under the rug until the Cold War commenced in the late 1940s. After all, as the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
<div id="attachment_925619" style="width: 762px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925619" class="size-large wp-image-925619" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-752x576.jpg" alt="Russian leader Marshal Josef Stalin and President Franklin Roosevelt confer in the Soviet Embassy during the Tehran Conference, Tehran, Iran, December 7, 1943. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)" width="752" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-752x576.jpg 752w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-300x230.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-768x588.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" />Underwood Archives/Getty Images</div>
80 years after the war in Europe ended, modern Germany is still horrified by, and ashamed of, their Nazi past. But to this day, even in a post-Cold War Russia in which information regarding the horrific crimes carried out by the Bolsheviks is now widely accessible, Stalin is revered by the Russian people. A 2021 poll by the Levada Center found that 70% of Russians held a mostly or very favorable view of Stalin.
And that same lack of revulsion over Stalin’s decades-long reign of terror carries over into the West today as a misguided affinity for Marxism slithers its insidious way through the halls of so-called higher education. A poll by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that millennials, particularly younger ones, displayed a dreadful ignorance of communism and even support for it. Almost half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 20 “said they would vote for a socialist, while 21% would go so far as to back a Communist.” Even more shocking was that a “third of millennials say they believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than Joseph Stalin.” This is criminal negligence on the part of academia — and dangerous.
I have a shirt that reads “Communism killed 100 million people and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Though gallows humor, the message is also a searing indictment of a left-leaning academic and media establishment that are utterly dismissive of the crimes perpetrated by the founding fathers of their own defunct and cruel ideologies. The verdict of history should have condemned Soviet communism to the ashbin of history decades ago. But a fatal attraction for this defunct ideology that invariably leads to mass murder is alive and well in the West today. This is a tragedy — and dangerous.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id=55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id%3D55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K_WhJtiUZw7LF1PwSIHtH">books</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/bschaeffer123&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0P6pRoAqcBhUQ1W0qwN5rH">X/Twitter</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article originally appeared on the author&#8217;s <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/p/for-eastern-europe-v-e-day-commemorates">Substack.</a>

Stalin In Moscow

From Reich To Red: Why Stalin Still Haunts Us 80 Years After V-E Day

Adolf Hitler

Communism

Germany

Josef Stalin

Leftism

Russia

World War II

President Donald Trump’s new <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/trump-most-favored-nations-drug-price-order-what-to-know.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> on prescription drug prices — which he called “one of the most consequential executive orders in our country’s history” — may well live up to the hype, but not in the way Trump intends.
Trump&#8217;s announcement of a “most favored nation” <a href="https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/global-trends/us-news-trumps-most-favored-nation-drug-pricing-policy-and-how-will-it-reduce-costs-slash-prescription-drug-prices-by-30-to-80-percent/articleshow/121109365.cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policy</a> means the United States government will only pay drug prices equal to the lowest paid by any developed nation. This is what Germany, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom currently do: pay less for drugs than they’re worth. In turn, the United States picks up the tab when it buys up drugs for Medicaid.
We overpay, and it’s easy to write it off as unfair freeloading by Europe, a recurring theme for the Trump administration. But this remedy will not come without its costs, and consumers will feel it down the line.
The Trump administration&#8217;s solution for drug pricing is identical to its approach to tariffs. Instead of finding leverage in a target-rich environment to coerce Europe into paying market rates, thus giving American consumers a break, they’ve decided to join the race to the bottom. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) must be quietly pleased to see his socialist dream of price controls go mainstream within the MAGA coalition, even though he has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-warning-trump-drug-pricing-executive-order-2071155" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> that Trump’s drug pricing measure would be better served by legislation.
If it was not clear to Republicans before, it should be now that free market policymaking is on the outs in the second Trump administration.
Let’s be honest about what’s happening. The White House wants to trim federal <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AmCRxm6P4o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spending</a> without touching politically sensitive programs like Medicaid. To square that budgetary circle, they’ve decided to force pharmaceutical companies to sell their products to American patients at the same rate they’re sold to socialized healthcare systems abroad.
This move, unthinkable for a Republican administration two decades ago, assumes that America can have the world’s most innovative pharmaceutical sector and also ask “Big Pharma” to forgo the billions in profits they reinvest back into research and development. It’s a fantasy.
The United States is the engine of pharmaceutical innovation. Over half of all new drug patents originate here specifically because America allows firms to see a return on investment. Drug development isn’t like manufacturing sneakers or soda. It’s a high-risk, capital-intensive endeavor where failure is more common than success. A single treatment can take over a decade to develop, cost billions, and then <a href="https://med.uc.edu/depart/psychiatry/research/clinical-research/crm/trial-phases-1-2-3-defined#:~:text=Subjects%20in%20a%20Phase%20II,go%20on%20to%20Phase%20III." target="_blank" rel="noopener">never make it</a> to FDA phase III trials.
Cutting-edge treatments come to market and make the impossible suddenly possible, albeit at a premium price point. It’s true, on brand-name drugs, Americans <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/comparing-prescription-drugs#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20U.S.%20prices%20across,adjustments%20for%20estimated%20U.S.%20rebates." target="_blank" rel="noopener">pay a lot</a> more.
However, like clockwork, generics get developed and costs for the consumer crater. Generic medications account for 91% of prescriptions in the United States. For those, we <a href="https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1921730579675934991" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pay far less</a> for those drugs than nearly any other country, something Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro <a href="https://youtu.be/XYBuphYtp6I?si=U5SKZ4aI99bvS70w&amp;t=2662" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a> this week.
If Medicaid won’t pay a fair price, pharmaceutical companies will raise prices on private insurers to compensate. That means higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans who get coverage through work or on the open market.
And that’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/7/22522479/medicaid-health-insurance-doctors-billing-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">assuming</a> companies continue to sell to Medicaid at all.
Why isn’t Trump hammering European nations that want access to American-made drugs and have them negotiate fair, value-based deals for our biotech? It’s a crown jewel of America that global elites travel near and far to access. We should be twisting wrists abroad, not kneecapping our pharmaceutical industry.
<div>If we want lower drug costs, allowing drug approval reciprocity — as <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/dr-rand-paul-introduces-legislation-to-modernize-fda-prescription-drug-approvals-and-lower-drug-prices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.paul.senate.gov/dr-rand-paul-introduces-legislation-to-modernize-fda-prescription-drug-approvals-and-lower-drug-prices/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1747494596378000&amp;usg=AOvVaw27BgpCiXpYt8qvN3lERP1n">suggested</a> by Sen. Rand Paul — to increase competition between drug approval regulators globally would be a great start. The FDA’s approval process could also be reformed to accelerate trials and drug approval.</div>
America leads the world in medical breakthroughs for a reason. We cannot afford to surrender that leadership by copying the failures of Europe’s socialized health systems. Europe as we know it today is a warning, not a model.
Stephen Kent is the Media Director of the Consumer Choice Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-HEALTH-TRUMP-KENNEDY

Undermining American Pharmaceutical Companies Won’t Make Drugs Cheaper

Big Pharma

Donald Trump

Executive Orders

Prescription Drugs

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that he still views Europe as &#8220;on the same team&#8221; as the United States, adding that his recent criticism of the continent is not out of any animosity toward America&#8217;s longtime allies.
Vance made the remarks during a Munich Security Council Q&amp;A nearly three months after he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-people-have-a-voice-vance-warns-europe-about-censorship-the-threat-from-within" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ripped</a> European countries over censorship, immigration, and foreign policy at the Munich Security Conference.
&#8220;I still do very much think that the United States and Europe are on the same team,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;Sometimes I&#8217;ve been criticized as a hyperrealist, [that] I think of foreign policy purely in terms of transactional values &#8230; and focus so purely on the transactional value of it that we ignore the humanitarian or the moral side of it. And I think at least with Europe that&#8217;s not a full encapsulation of my views.&#8221;
The vice president added that he believes the United States and Europe are connected by far more than transactional agreements.
&#8220;European civilization and American civilization, European culture and American culture are very much linked, and they&#8217;re always going to be linked,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;And I think that it&#8217;s completely ridiculous to think you&#8217;re ever going to be able to drive a firm wedge between the United States and Europe.&#8221;
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance told the audience that he feared Europe was leaving behind its &#8220;fundamental values&#8221; that it shared with the United States, such as free speech and fair elections.
&#8220;The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,&#8221; Vance <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/02/remarks-by-vice-president-vance-at-the-munich-security-conference/">said</a> in the speech. &#8220;What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America.&#8221;
The vice president acknowledged his February speech on Wednesday, saying that the United States and Europe will continue to &#8220;have disagreements&#8221; and criticize one another. He added, &#8220;I do think, fundamentally, we have to be and we are on the same civilizational team.&#8221;

JD Vance/Wolfgang Ischinger

Vance: U.S. And Europe Still ‘On The Same Team’

Foreign Policy

JD Vance

Before it&#8217;s possible to discuss any policy position that&#8217;s supposedly &#8220;progressive,&#8221; the first step is always to escape the world of euphemisms and start talking, in explicit detail, about what&#8217;s actually happening. This might sound straightforward, but every single organ of the Left is committed to making sure you don&#8217;t do this. They would much rather you debate the abstract concept of &#8220;a woman&#8217;s right to choose,&#8221; for example, than discuss how children are dismembered and discarded like trash. They would also prefer that you use terms like &#8220;gender-affirming care,&#8221; instead of discussing chemical castration. And on and on. Euphemisms are one of the most potent tools these people have. They are everywhere, in every single debate on every issue. And in every case, they&#8217;re a gross misrepresentation of reality. They need to be neutralized immediately before any actual discussion can begin.
To that end, take <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/14/hungary-poised-to-adopt-constitutional-amendment-to-ban-lgbtq-gatherings">this headline</a> from the other day. It ran in The Guardian: 
<blockquote>Hungary passes constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ gatherings.</blockquote>
The Associated Press ran a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hungary-pride-ban-amendment-orban-gay-rights-lgbtq-155ec12cbbde7cc6be0f96adb323de77">similar story</a>:
<blockquote>Hungary passes constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ public events, seen as a major blow to rights.</blockquote>
The article explains that Hungary&#8217;s parliament just overwhelmingly passed an amendment that will outlaw, &#8220;public events by LGBTQ+ communities.&#8221;
If you&#8217;re just skimming these headlines, this might seem like a surprising development. You might wonder: What are &#8220;public events by LGBTQ+ communities,&#8221; exactly? And what precisely is an &#8220;LGBTQ+ gathering?&#8221; If you take these headlines literally, then it sounds like the government of Hungary has just made it illegal for gay people to appear in public, for any reason. It&#8217;s a total crackdown on figure skating, musical theater and art exhibitions. Gay people can&#8217;t even get together and watch “Glee” reruns on the couch without getting hauled to prison. This is the current state of Hungary, if you believe The Guardian and the Associated Press.
In reality, of course, Hungary has not banned gay people from assembling in public. What they&#8217;ve banned are disturbing and morally objectionable public displays of sexual hedonism that can easily be observed by children. That includes Hungary&#8217;s annual pride parade. Pull up any footage of this parade that&#8217;s posted online, and you&#8217;ll quickly see exactly what I&#8217;m talking about. Here&#8217;s some of it, or at least the parts we can play. This is from Budapest several years back:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Budapest gay pride" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hMLRsBLKnEU?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>
And again, this is the most sanitized footage I could play. This is what the corporate press means when they say Hungary has banned &#8220;LGBTQ events&#8221; and &#8220;LBGTQ gatherings.&#8221; This is the truth behind the euphemism. They mean that Hungary has banned public indecency that everyone — including children — can see. In fact, in many cases, these public displays are explicitly directed at children. This is what &#8220;pride parades&#8221; always entail, as we&#8217;ve discussed dozens of times on this show.
If you actually look at the text of the amendment that just passed in Hungary — and again, it was an overwhelming vote in Hungary&#8217;s parliament, passing by a margin of 140 to 21 — then you&#8217;ll immediately understand why it passed. This is not simply an amendment about &#8220;pride parades&#8221; or &#8220;gay gatherings&#8221; or anything like that. It&#8217;s not, as the Associated Press claims, an amendment that constitutes a &#8220;major blow to rights.&#8221; In reality, it&#8217;s the exact opposite.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1577-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
This amendment, with very forceful and unapologetic language, affirms the right of everyone — and in particular children — to enjoy public spaces without being confronted by someone else’s sexual obsessions. As far as I know, this is the first major piece of legislation, and certainly the first constitutional amendment, to explicitly state that gay and trans activists are not, in fact, the only people on the planet with rights that deserve protection. Until relatively recently, that didn&#8217;t need to be spelled out.
Here&#8217;s the National Review&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hungary-approves-constitutional-amendment-banning-public-lgbt-events/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">summary</a> of the amendment:
<blockquote>The amendment forbids LGBT pride parades that conservative lawmakers argued threatened the well-being of children. One of its provisions specifically declares that children’s rights to moral, physical, and intellectual development supersede the right to peaceful assembly and almost every other right, except the right to life. Hungarian authorities are also allowed to use facial recognition software to identify and potentially fine demonstrators at the newly prohibited pride parades if they are held in defiance of the law.</blockquote>
Yes, this amendment — which codifies a law passed by the parliament a few weeks ago — states that a child has a right to be protected physically, morally, and spiritually, and that this right supersedes the right of gay people to celebrate their sexuality in the town square. That&#8217;s exactly the right way to frame this situation. It&#8217;s certainly the honest way to frame it.
Virtually all of our cultural and political debates, regardless of the particular topic, ultimately come down to a battle of competing rights and interests. That&#8217;s not how you normally see policy debates framed, but it&#8217;s the truth. Even something as simple as a speed limit involves weighing various rights and interests. On the one hand, you have people&#8217;s reasonable interest in traveling to their destination quickly. On the other hand, you have people&#8217;s reasonable interest in not being killed in a high-speed car accident. These two interests are obviously in tension. If we wanted absolute safety on the highway, we&#8217;d set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. But we don&#8217;t do that, because we&#8217;ve decided that other interests are more important. Every functioning society has to weigh competing interests like this, in every single area of policy.
The only way to sort through this mess is to come to some kind of understanding about which rights are most fundamental. With this amendment, Hungary has decided that, apart from the right to life, the most fundamental right is a child&#8217;s &#8220;right to protection and care for their adequate physical, mental and moral development.&#8221; You can agree or disagree with this philosophical claim — and of course I strongly agree with it. But regardless of your particular stance on the issue, you can&#8217;t deny that, at the very least, they are dealing with these questions in a clear and coherent way.
The opponents of the amendment, on the other hand, are not responding coherently. Instead, they&#8217;re reacting in exactly the kind of hysterical manner you would expect. They&#8217;re lying about the content of the amendment, as we just discussed. They&#8217;re also setting off smoke bombs in Hungary&#8217;s parliament and blocking the entrance to government buildings. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 smoke bombs protests" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QSWKwOCVHOc?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>
This is the response you expect from people who know they have no actual argument. They&#8217;ll blockade buildings. They&#8217;ll spread propaganda that has no basis in reality. They&#8217;ll detonate smoke bombs in parliament. But the one thing they won&#8217;t do — because they can&#8217;t do it — is rationally explain why you&#8217;re wrong, and they&#8217;re right. In this case, these LGBT activists simply cannot articulate any reason to oppose this amendment. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One of the reasons, of course, is that these so-called &#8220;pride parades&#8221; are indefensible, morally and practically. Every sane person knows that they should be banned from public streets. Anyone who&#8217;s ever seen footage of one of these parades understands this.
But the more fundamental issue is that, even if the pride parades weren&#8217;t bizarre, explicit, and objectionable, these activists would still have a problem. Put simply, the Leftist conception of human rights gives no real basis for objecting to this constitutional amendment. These people believe that rights are social constructs, codified by the government. They generally reject the idea that rights come from God. After all, it&#8217;s hard to make the case that the right to abort a baby created by God somehow comes from God. But if rights are social constructs, then society can abolish a right just as easily as it creates it. And that&#8217;s exactly what&#8217;s happened here. Hungary, through its democratically elected government, has decided that the absolute right to gay pride displays no longer exists in their culture. As a result, it makes no sense for the Leftist to object.
They can&#8217;t say that the rights of LGBT people are being infringed in Hungary. How could they? The right doesn&#8217;t exist anymore. There is no authority higher than society and government (according to them), and those authorities have spoken on the matter. That&#8217;s all there is to it.
In other words, gay activists are melting down in Hungary right now because they&#8217;re realizing, if only subconsciously, that their ideology can be erased just as quickly as it took hold. As it turns out, a fiction that&#8217;s maintained by a patchwork of laws and government policy can also be eliminated by law and government policy. And it&#8217;s not just the so-called LGBT community in Hungary that&#8217;s coming to this realization. In this country, as we&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFCCDy__os" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussed</a>, &#8220;pride parades&#8221; are also facing serious problems, mainly because the major sponsors are pulling out and people are losing interest. They&#8217;re going door-to-door in San Francisco right now to cover a multimillion-dollar funding shortfall for their pride events this summer. In every respect, these people are now weak and desperate.
If there were ever a moment to implement a Hungary-style ban on &#8220;pride parades&#8221; in this country, now is that time. Yes, activists in this country would inevitably act out, just like they&#8217;re doing in Hungary. But there are some things that are a lot more important than the feelings of screeching Left-wing protesters. One of them is the right of children to grow and develop and have their innocence protected. Hungary is now finally enforcing that right. For the benefit of every child in this country, we should do the same.

Protest Against Amendment Banning Pride In Budapest, Hungary

LGBT Activists Panic After This Huge Move In The Fight To Protect Children

LGBTQ

Matt Walsh

Parade

Parliament

Pride

Telecommunication companies have warned NATO that Russia could sabotage undersea cables with its “shadow fleet” and could trigger a “worldwide internet blackout.”
“A submarine cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations, usually to carry telecommunication signals or power. Hundreds of cables crisscross the globe carrying 98% of internet traffic, making them essential to the global economy,” Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldenziel/2025/02/13/law-doesnt-protect-undersea-cables-russia-and-china-know-it/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a>.
Companies including Vodafone, Telefonica, and Orange wrote a letter in which they stated, “The repercussions of damage to subsea cables extend far beyond Europe, potentially affecting global internet and power infrastructure, international communications, financial transactions and critical services worldwide. Subsea cable security must be a cornerstone of broader infrastructure protection efforts. By acting now, we can safeguard the networks that underpin our shared future,” <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14591345/Russia-worldwide-internet-blackouts-sabotaging-Nato-warns.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Mail</a> reported, noting, “More than 500 cables are used to carry about 95 percent of all international data.”
Since October 2023, 11 undersea cables have been damaged, most of them in the Baltic Sea. In January, NATO <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/01/10/nato-to-boost-baltic-presence-send-warships-to-guard-undersea-cables/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sent 10 ships to the Baltic Sea</a> to protect the undersea cables after a spate of sabotage attacks.
In September 2021, a Russian spy ship, the Yantar, was seen in the English Channel; the ship transported two unmanned submersibles that could be used to cut the cables. “Rossiya, a Russian state TV network, has claimed the ship is able to cut Internet cables and jam underwater sensors,” The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9985185/Russian-spy-ship-English-Channel.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>.
Matt Western, chairman of the U.K. committee supervising the U.K.’s national security strategy, <a href="https://industrialcyber.co/critical-infrastructure/uk-launches-jcnss-inquiry-into-undersea-cable-vulnerabilities-amid-rising-cybersecurity-concerns/">warned in January,</a> “As the geopolitical environment worsens, foreign states are seeking asymmetric ways to hold us at risk. Our internet cable network looks like an increasingly vulnerable soft underbelly.”
“NATO members said they reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat as part of a broader action, dubbed ‘Baltic Sentry,’ in response to <a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL5N3N30DZ&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a string of incidents</a> in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/undersea-cables-are-cut-suspicion-falls-russian-chinese-vessels-rcna187105" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC News</a> reported in January.

SPAIN-US-INTERNET-FACEBOOK-MICROSOFT

‘Worldwide Internet Blackout’: NATO Warned That Russia Could Cut Undersea Cables

Global Politics

Undersea cables

World

The European Union is considering levying a $1 billion fine against Elon Musk&#8217;s X, alleging that the social media company has violated its law against disinformation and illicit content, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/technology/eu-penalties-x-elon-musk.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Along with the hefty fine, the E.U. would also demand that X make changes to its product, according to the Times, which cited &#8220;four people with knowledge of the plans.&#8221; If the E.U. moves forward, it would be the first fine imposed by the body using its Digital Services Act (DSA). The <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en#:~:text=Digital%20Services%20Act%20(DSA)%20overview,and%20open%20online%20platform%20environment." target="_blank" rel="noopener">DSA</a> &#8220;regulates online intermediaries and platforms &#8230; to prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation.&#8221;
The social media company formerly known as Twitter, which Musk said he took over to restore free speech, <a href="https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1907963263419297893" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a> to the potential enforcement of the E.U.&#8217;s social media law, saying the move would be &#8220;an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.&#8221;
&#8220;X has gone above and beyond to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, and we will use every option at our disposal to defend our business, keep our users safe, and protect freedom of speech in Europe,&#8221; the company added.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino <a href="https://x.com/lindayaX/status/1907980612947841444" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a>, &#8220;This would be an egregious example of regulatory overreach. X continues to fight the attempts to stifle free speech taking place around the world, whether on our platform or off. We’re committed to protect this fundamental right for our users.&#8221;
Last July, the E.U. <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_3761" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concluded</a> that X violated the DSA &#8220;in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.&#8221; In its report, the E.U. claimed that X verifies accounts and hands out &#8220;Blue checkmarks&#8221; in a way that &#8220;deceives users.&#8221;
&#8220;Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a &#8216;verified&#8217; status, it negatively affects users&#8217; ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,&#8221; the E.U. said.
The E.U. also accused X of failing to provide adequate transparency in advertising and failing to hand over its public data to researchers &#8220;in line with the conditions set out in the DSA.&#8221;
E.U. regulators reportedly hit the brakes on the investigation into X to discuss potential ramifications for going after a company controlled by one of President Donald Trump&#8217;s closest advisers and top donor. The E.U. has also been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration as Vice President JD Vance called out the bloc during a speech in February, slamming the E.U. for its digital censorship.
The Times reported that Musk&#8217;s social media company could still settle the dispute with the E.U., but that would likely require X to make changes to satisfy the governing body. If X chooses to fight the fine, it&#8217;s unclear how the legal process would play out between the American social media company and the E.U. The bloc is also going after U.S. tech companies Meta and Apple for allegedly violating the DSA.

Elon Musk

E.U. Reportedly Considering Massive Fine For Elon Musk’s X Over ‘Disinformation’

Big Tech

European Union

Social Media

Twitter

Speaking at a NATO event in Brussels, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reassured NATO nations that the United States would not leave the alliance, but also warned that European nations would have to increase their own defense spending as a deterrent to outside forces.
“We want NATO to be stronger; we want NATO to be more visible, and the only way NATO can get stronger, more visible is if our partners, the nation states that comprise this important alliance, have more capability,” he <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nato-us-security-ukraine-russia-rubio-210c5c3856ab32570f165ea31be5e39e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
“I understand there&#8217;s domestic politics, after decades of building up vast social safety nets that maybe don&#8217;t want to take away from that and invest more in national security,” Rubio added. “But the events of the last few years … full-scale ground war in the heart of Europe as a reminder that hard power is still necessary as a deterrent. We do want to leave here with an understanding that we are on a pathway, a realistic pathway to every single one of the members committee, and fulfilling a promise to reach up to 5% of spending.”
Rubio stated the United States would also spend 5% of its GDP on defense as well.
“The majority of the 32 NATO members currently spend 2% of their nation’s GDP per previous NATO commitments, eight nations – Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain – have yet to meet their <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/trump-effect-forces-germany-reprioritize-defense-nation-plays-catch-up-military-spending" target="_blank" rel="noopener">defense spending</a> pledges,” <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/rubio-demands-nato-ponies-up-dismisses-hysteria-over-us-role-under-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a> noted. “Only Poland spends over 4% of its GDP on defense, while four other nations spend over 3% – Estonia, the U.S., Latvia and Greece.” The United States spent 3.38% of its GDP on defense in 2024.
“As we speak right now, the United States is as active in NATO as it has ever been,” Rubio said. “Some of this hysteria and hyperbole that I see in the global media and some domestic media in the United States about NATO is unwarranted. The United States president [has] made clear: He supports NATO. We&#8217;re going to remain in NATO.”
Roughly 100,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Europe.

NATO Foreign Ministers Meet In Brussels

Rubio Urges NATO Members To Increase Their Own Defense Spending To 5% Of GDP

Defense

Marco Rubio

NATO

Trump’s tariffs go into effect at midnight as foreign leaders and state governors scramble to negotiate last-minute deals. Populist leader Marine Le Pen is banned from running for office in France after being found guilty of embezzlement. And, Elon Musk says he&#8217;s uncovered millions of non-citizens on the social security rolls, including thousands who allegedly voted.
It’s Tuesday, April 1st, 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:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tariff-time-marine-le-pen-convicted-in-france-4-1-25/id1576594336?i=1000701702406" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2>Trump Tariffs Take Hold</h2>
<div id="attachment_900809" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900809" class="size-large wp-image-900809" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Tariff-EO-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Just hours from Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day,” consumers, corporations, and international trading partners are preparing for a slew of new tariffs that could reshape the global economy.
For weeks now, the president has floated various ideas on tariffs, sometimes saying he’d match the rates set by other countries, then floating the idea of a universal 20 percent rate, before saying that he could be “much more generous” with our trading partners. We’re still not entirely sure what the details of Trump’s “Liberation Day” policy will be – that ambiguity is almost certainly intentional.
The Art of the Deal: By waiting until the last minute, Trump has left the door open for negotiating. On Friday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum met with Trump officials to discuss her plans to improve border security, clearly hoping to ease looming tariffs on her country. The president has fielded calls from the prime ministers of Canada and Great Britain — both men reportedly made their last-minute pitches seeking to dodge tariffs. In the last 72 hours, lawmakers in both parties have also been calling the White House to lobby for exemptions for particular industries in their states, and a flood of business leaders have made their case to the president, some vowing to bring manufacturing stateside and pour money into investments and jobs in exchange for lower tariffs.
While that shifting picture might benefit Trump from a negotiating standpoint, it has spooked markets. Wall Street saw its second worst day of the year on Friday and continued to see-saw Monday:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The DOW Jones was <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/djia">up 1%</a> at market close after a tumultuous day of trading</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The NASDAQ was down <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/">0.14%</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/spx">S&amp;P 500</a> was up by 0.55%</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Japan’s <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/nik?countrycode=jp">NIKKEI 225 index</a> was down by more than 4%</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Various <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/data-news/european-stocks-weaken-for-fourth-day-7859828b-bf1ee26684a5?mod=mw_quote_news">European stock exchanges</a> have been trending down for days</li>
</ul>
Amid the market swings and concerns over potential price increases from these tariffs, there’s no doubt that more voters have soured on President Trump’s handling of the economy — the issue he’s typically been the most popular on. Numerous polls show his approval rating on the economy lower now than at any point in his first or second term. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-poll-immigration-tariffs-trade-b7a430909606d6b8b27cfbc5049a32b4">The Associated Press</a>, for example, had him at 40%. If Liberation Day results in considerable price increases, there’s a real risk those numbers could fall even further.
<h2>French Opposition Leader Banned</h2>
<div id="attachment_900815" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900815" class="size-large wp-image-900815" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Le-What-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Tom Nicholson/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Marine Le Pen, the populist frontrunner for France’s 2027 presidential race, has been convicted of embezzlement and banned from seeking office for five years.
Marine Le Pen is the leader of the National Rally, a right-wing political party in France. She has generally been characterized by the leaders of France’s establishment parties as an extremist but has proved to be very popular. She came in first place in the first round of the last French presidential election, and <a href="https://www.ifop.com/publication/les-intentions-de-vote-a-lelection-presidentielle-5/">polling</a> continues to show that more than 1 in 3 French voters back her and her party, more than any of the other prospective candidates. National Rally also holds a plurality of seats in France’s national assembly, 126/577, although they have been consistently kept out of government by coalitions of other parties.
Le Pen was found guilty of misappropriating several million euros in European Union funds. Her party was entitled to a certain amount of EU funding to pay staff to work for general European political operations, but the court determined she used that money to the benefit of her party rather than restricting it to EU-related expenses.
However: Ellen Fantini, managing editor of The European Conservative, told Morning Wire that virtually every major party in Europe uses these funds similarly. She says the way the conviction is being carried out makes it very clear that this is about sidelining Le Pen as a candidate.
“Under French law, of course, she can appeal the conviction, like in the United States,” Fantini said. “But the prohibition on running for office is in execution as of basically today, even though she has the right to appeal. So it&#8217;s obvious that that&#8217;s the real thing they wanted.”
Critics of the case against Le Pen have condemned it as a blatant weaponization of the justice system against a political opponent and compared the legal battle to the various efforts to convict Donald Trump on state and federal charges in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Leaders of right-wing parties across Europe have spoken up in support of Le Pen:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">On Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted, “Je suis Marine!” [I am Marine].</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing populist League party, called the ruling a “declaration of war by Brussels.”</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“I am shocked by the incredibly tough verdict against Marine Le Pen,” Geert Wilders of the Netherlands’ right-wing Party for Freedom, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/le-pen-fall-far-right-france-3650ad8276aaee462c8e92f2904f400f">said</a>. “I support and believe in her 100% and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France.”</li>
</ul>
Le Pen has already indicated that she will appeal the case, although her chances of overturning the ban before the 2027 election deadline are slim.
“This evening, millions of French people are indignant, indignant to an unimaginable extent seeing that France, the country of human rights, judges have implemented practices that were thought to be the reserve of authoritarian regimes,” Le Pen said in an interview on Monday.
<h2>Non-Citizen Social Security</h2>
<div id="attachment_900819" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900819" class="wp-image-900819 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Social-Security-Stock-Photo-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Douglas Sacha via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Elon Musk and venture capitalist Antonio Gracias have alleged widespread fraud in the Social Security system.
Senior figures within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project claimed to have uncovered millions of non-citizens who were collecting Social Security benefits and potentially voting in American elections. Musk and Gracias said on Sunday that 2.1 million non-citizens received Social Security Numbers last year alone, and 4.8 million received SSNs over the last four years. That alone isn’t necessarily evidence of fraud – non-citizens in the country under certain rules are eligible for Social Security Numbers – but the number of non-citizens receiving them surged under the Biden administration.
“The defaults in the system from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people, and minimum collection,” Gracias <a href="https://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1906675223304228870">sai</a>d on Sunday. “We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example.”
Social Security is currently deep in the red – the trust fund that handles retirement benefits, for instance, is expected to run out of money in 2033.
Musk claimed that the surge in illegal immigration and increased access to government benefits during the Biden years were intentional government policy. “They weren&#8217;t asleep at the switch. It was a massive, large-scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent deep blue one party state.”
Gracias says that some of these non-citizens who received Social Security numbers showed up to vote. “We actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records and we found people here registered to vote,” Gracias said. “We found some by sampling that actually did vote, and we have referred them to prosecution.”

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