According to polls, the increased amount of support for New York Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is coming from people under the age of 35. 
Mamdani has never held a real job in his entire life. If you were looking for the definition of a career useless person, this would be the guy. 
You might say to yourself: How does a person with effectively no résumé, who worked for his mommy and was a rapper, wind up as the Democratic nominee in New York City?
But to misunderstand that is to misunderstand everything about Gen Z.
I&#8217;m not a politician, so I don&#8217;t have to pretend that the concerns of Gen Z are legitimate. I understand that if you&#8217;re a politician, then you have to placate people when they emotionally explain to you why their life is so difficult. Sometimes people do have difficult lives with real challenges in the world.
But when I hear from Gen Z that the American dream is dead to them, all I can think of is this: You have got to be kidding me.
I&#8217;ve read many pieces over the last couple of years now that Gen Z has it tougher than any generation in modern history. I thought to myself, “I&#8217;m going to vomit.”
How many serious wars have they had to live through? Zero. Zero serious terrorist attacks. They have lived in the most prosperous time in human history and the healthiest time in human history.
But because their rent is too high in New York City, while they concomitantly hold some sort of nonprofit jobs, they whine.
I don&#8217;t mean everyone in Gen Z complains without reason — there are many people who are suffering, who have a disease, who have health problems, who have been dealt a rough hand by life.
Those are not the people I&#8217;m talking about.
The generational complaint that somehow Gen Z has it worse than the millennials or Gen X or the boomers, or the Greatest Generation, ignores literally all of American history, all of it.
But if you&#8217;re a politician, you can make bank by pretending that these people have legitimate concerns and they&#8217;re not just being ungrateful and bratty. For these folks, Mamdani is an avatar.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2259-nyc-s-whiny-brats-pick-a-mayor?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
He has no resume. He grew up absolutely loaded with wealth, and currently is taking advantage of a rent-controlled apartment in New York City. He is currently living in a rent-stabilized apartment where the rent is $2,500 a month. The market rate would be $8,000 per month. He earns $147,000 a year and is campaigning on housing affordability in New York City.
You might think to yourself, “That&#8217;s crazy. How are all of these socialists in New York City supporting somebody who&#8217;s so clearly a hypocrite?”
But that misses the point: So many folks in America look to their politicians as aspirational figures. I think a lot of people who love President Trump view him as an aspirational figure, somebody who&#8217;s very wealthy and very powerful, somebody who&#8217;s made more of himself than otherwise he might have had at the beginning. Yes, he grew up rich, but he made himself into a brand name available all across the world for literally decades, and then became President of the United States twice.
It&#8217;s an aspirational thing.
But what if the Gen Z aspiration is to be a career loser who lives off of their parents’ income until they get some sort of cush government job living in a rent-stabilized apartment? What if that is the actual aspiration? What if people look up to Zohran Mamdani not in spite of the fact that he is a loser, but because he is a loser?
A lot of New Yorkers now have jobs and backgrounds very similar to Mamdani’s.
And this is the central point. 
Armin Rosen noted in <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/zohran-mamdanis-fantasy-island">Tablet Magazine</a>:
<blockquote>New York is thought of as the sink-or-swim epicenter of American capitalism, but that’s not true anymore. The city is home to more than 600,000 jobs in <a href="https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/critical-role-of-nonprofits-in-new-york.pdf">the nonprofit sector </a>and a roughly equal number of <a href="https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2025/08/new-york-city.pdf">jobs in government</a>. Nonprofits now employ nearly 17 percent of the city’s total private-sector workforce, compared to 10 percent nationally. Wage growth in the nonprofit sector healthily outpaced the rest of the private sector statewide in New York between 2017 and 2022, 29.3 to 25.3 percent.</blockquote>
Wage growth in New York City is healthy because it&#8217;s all done off of government grants.
All of those nonprofits are not independently raising their money. They&#8217;re getting money from the government. Thus, they&#8217;re effectively second-order government employees.
When you look at the stats in New York, you understand just why Mamdani is so successful. You have well over 50% of the population that is working for some sort of government-orchestrated, government-organized, or government-funded segment of the economy.
In other words, the people who are getting money from the government are not the people who are paying for the government. They&#8217;re all Zohran Mamdani types. They&#8217;re living off the largesse of government.
Meanwhile, all of the rent across New York City has been rent-stabilized. 50% of all of the units across New York City have been rent-stabilized. One million units have been rent-stabilized, which means that there&#8217;s an artificially low supply of new construction in New York City. That means the prices go up. 
Mamdani is complaining about “affordability.” It should be pointed out that it&#8217;s all left-wing policies that made things unaffordable. Additionally, of the people who are in New York City trying to afford those rent-controlled, rent-stabilized apartments, a huge number of them are on the government dole, so they are earning from both ends. The government is stabilizing their rent, and at the same time, the government is likely subsidizing their salary.
This is why I&#8217;m irritated when I hear from Gen Z about how tough things are in places like New York.
We should point out that there has been this mindset that has settled in among the American population that you are supposed to die where you were born. 
This is not a typically American idea. There are people on the Right who believe this. There are people on the Left who believe this. But it is not a traditional American idea. The traditional American idea, if you go back to the very beginning, was to cross an ocean with nothing to guarantee what was going to happen. People went into the wilderness, built a crappy house, and tried to start a business. And if that didn&#8217;t work, they would abandon that place and move further to the west, across mountain ranges, across rivers.
That was the original American idea.
Traditionally, when it was too expensive to live in a place, Americans went somewhere else.
But Americans are not doing that anymore. Instead, the reason so many New Yorkers seem warm on socialism is that many New Yorkers are already living a form of socialism. They are living the Zohran Mamdani lifestyle, where they are being supported by the government in a wide variety of ways, ranging from the regulatory to the actual subsidy.
So when they say things are so hard in New York City, and the answer is more redistribution from the people who are earning all of the income and paying all the taxes, the answer should be NO.
At some point, there&#8217;s going to have to be a call for some level of responsibility on the part of young people.
I grew up in a 1,100 square-foot house with one bathroom and shared a bedroom with my three sisters until I was eleven. I did have the ultimate privilege: a solid two-parent household.
And you know what? It was a fine life. I&#8217;m grateful for that life.
I&#8217;m telling this story because there is this dumb assumption that if you talk about mobility in America and the capacity of people to make smart decisions and to make the kinds of moves that will be necessary to achieve success, the immediate accusation is that it was only true for you, it&#8217;s not true for anybody else.
But it&#8217;s not only true for me. It is true for a huge majority of Americans. If you make smart decisions in America, and if you stop whining for five seconds, and if you go out and make better decisions for yourself, you can make a better life for yourself.
So many politicians make bank off this idea that America is dying, that the American dream is dying. Who does better because of that?
Politicians.
This is how they gain power, because every time they fail, they turn around and they say, “The system has failed. Give me more power.”
This is how you end up with Zohran Mamdani or Bernie Sanders.
It&#8217;s not going to work out for anyone who believes this garbage. It&#8217;s not going to work out for the city of New York. It&#8217;s not going to work out for the country.
The only person who can make your life better in the end is you. You are the person who makes your life better, not Mamdani, not Bernie Sanders.
Most Americans are not dreaming of a government job, making a decent salary, and living in a rent-stabilized apartment.
That is not the American dream.
It never was.

NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Holds Press Conf. On Political Opponents

NYC’s Whiny Brats Pick A Mayor

Ben Shapiro

Democratic Socialism

Democrats

Federal Government

Gen Z

Leftists

New York City

Opinion

Renters

Zohran Mamdani

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt provided an update on Thursday morning regarding President Donald Trump&#8217;s federal operation to combat violent crime in Washington, D.C., saying that 45 more people were arrested on Wednesday night.
In addition to the 45 arrests made by federal authorities in collaboration with D.C. police, federal agents also detained 29 suspected illegal immigrants, Leavitt said. The charges against those arrested overnight on Wednesday included second- and first-degree assault and distribution of illegal drugs and narcotics. Authorities also seized three illegal firearms while making some of those arrests.
&#8220;In addition to that, there were 29 illegal aliens who were removed off of Washington, D.C., streets last night, many of whom had final orders of removal,&#8221; the White House press secretary told &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends.&#8221; &#8220;So these results are happening night after night because of the efforts of this federal task force that [is] working alongside the Metropolitan Police Department, who agree with this effort.&#8221;
&#8220;While Democrats want to rant and rave and coddle criminals, President Trump wants to put them behind bars, and that&#8217;s what this task force is focused on doing for the next 28 days,&#8221; Leavitt added.
Leavitt also argued that the &#8220;huge law enforcement presence&#8221; in the streets of the nation&#8217;s capital is deterring more violent crime.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PressSec</a> on Making D.C. Safe Again: &#8220;Overnight, there were 45 criminal arrests made&#8230; In addition to that, there were 29 illegal aliens who were removed&#8230; If the Democrats had their way, there would be hundreds more criminals roaming free.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/rT8FREVSdg">pic.twitter.com/rT8FREVSdg</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1955977575651492304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
&nbsp;
Leavitt&#8217;s latest update adds to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/d-c-will-be-safe-again-feds-kick-off-trumps-violent-crime-crackdown-with-over-100-arrests?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=D.C.+%E2%80%98WILL+Be+Safe+Again%E2%80%99%3A%C2%A0Feds+Kick+Off+Trump%E2%80%99s+Violent+Crime+Crackdown+With+Over+100+Arrests">total arrest</a> number revealed on Wednesday, when Fox News reported that federal authorities made over 100 arrests between August 7-12. Following Trump&#8217;s order to federalize D.C. police, agents with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Capitol Police, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives descended upon the nation’s capital. Trump also deployed around 800 National Guard troops to assist with federal efforts to crack down on crime in D.C.
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-3900">End of Summer Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday that his agents assisted in the arrest of at least 10 people, including one arrest &#8220;on a search warrant for a prior murder charge.&#8221; Democratic Congressional and city leaders continue to push back on Trump&#8217;s plan to address D.C.&#8217;s violent crime. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser argues that crime in the capital &#8220;is at its lowest level in 30 years.&#8221;
&#8220;We had an unacceptable spike in 2023, so we changed our laws and strategies. Now, crime levels are not only down from 2023, but from before the pandemic,&#8221; Bowser <a href="https://x.com/MayorBowser/status/1955408828964671749">said</a> earlier this week. &#8220;Our tactics are working, and we aren’t taking our foot off the gas.&#8221;
The president disagreed, and he took to Truth Social on Wednesday evening to cast doubt on the city&#8217;s official crime data.
&#8220;The Violent Crime Rate in D.C. has worsened, and the Murder Rate has essentially DOUBLED in just over a decade — But these are only the &#8216;official&#8217; statistics released by corrupt City Officials. The REAL numbers are many times worse,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115024069066734919">wrote</a>. &#8220;In fact, a Precinct Commander was just suspended for allegedly manipulating the Violent Crime Statistics, and the D.C. Police Union, likewise, says the real numbers are much higher.&#8221;
The president notched another major victory on Thursday when Washington, D.C., Police Chief Pamela A. Smith announced that the city would break from its &#8220;sanctuary city&#8221; policies, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-effect-d-c-police-break-from-sanctuary-city-policies-will-cooperate-with-ice?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Trump+Effect%3A+D.C.+Police+Break+From+Sanctuary+City+Policies%2C+Will+Cooperate+With+ICE">reported</a>.
“Effective immediately, members may assist federal immigration enforcement agencies with the following: Sharing information about persons not in MPD custody (e.g., during traffic stops). Providing transportation for federal immigration agency employees and detained subjects,” a press release signed by Chief Smith stated.

Federal agents in Washington, D.C.

D.C. Crime Crackdown Update: Authorities Arrest Dozens More, Including Suspected Illegal Immigrants

Donald Trump

Karoline Leavitt

Police

Trump Administration

Violent Crime

Washington D.C.

Trump Announces Deployment Of National Guard In Washington D.C.

Trump Moves To End D.C.’s Third-World Lawlessness. Democrats Lose It.

Crime

Matt Walsh

National Guard

President Donald Trump said on Thursday morning that illegal immigrants will not be included in the next census, adding that he has ordered the Commerce Department to begin working on a &#8220;new and highly accurate census that is based on results from the 2024 presidential election.&#8221;
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which falls under the Commerce Department, the first major <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2024/2030-census-planning-what-2024-brings.html">field test</a> for the 2030 census is set to take place in 2026, with another coming in 2028.
&#8220;I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114987220997209419">wrote</a> on Truth Social. &#8220;People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS.&#8221;
The Census Bureau also <a href="https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born/about/faq.html">says</a> that illegal immigrants, whom it refers to as &#8220;unauthorized migrants,&#8221; are included in censuses and surveys and added into &#8220;the total foreign-born population.&#8221;
&#8220;The U.S. Census Bureau uses the term foreign born to refer to anyone who is not a U.S. citizen at birth. This includes naturalized U.S. citizens, non-citizen U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as foreign students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees and asylees), and unauthorized migrants,&#8221; the bureau says.
Trump&#8217;s directive to remove illegal immigrants from the census could run into legal challenges. Section 2 of the 14th Amendment <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S2-1-1/ALDE_00000847/">states</a>, &#8220;Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.&#8221;
Trump is placing his focus on the census as Republicans and Democrats fight over redistricting in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Republicans are also seeking to prevent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blue-states-benefited-from-2020-census-mistakes-as-red-states-suffered-losses">census errors</a> from benefiting Democrat-led states in future elections, an issue from the 2020 census that the Census Bureau acknowledged in 2022.
Following the 2020 census, the government said that multiple red states, including Florida and Texas, were incorrectly undercounted, which led to them not receiving as many seats in Congress — which also determines electoral college votes — as they should have. Most of the overcounted states in the census were Democrat-led, including New York, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.
If the federal government follows through on Trump&#8217;s pledge to stop counting illegal immigrants in the census, a handful of states — both red and blue — could see their population numbers fall in 2030. According to a Pew Research <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/">survey</a> from last year, three states have illegal immigrant populations of more than one million: California (1.8 million), Texas (1.6 million), and Florida (1.2 million). As of 2024, New York had an illegal immigrant population of 650,000, New Jersey had 475,000, and Illinois had 400,000.

Trump Says Illegal Immigrants ‘Will Not Be Counted’ In The Next Census

2026 Midterms

Census Bureau

Election

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he is considering taking complete control of Washington, D.C., to fight the violent crime that &#8220;is totally out of control&#8221; and often committed by teenagers.
Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114977985620971126">wrote</a> on Truth Social that violent crime in the city is being committed by teenagers who are then getting &#8220;immediately released&#8221; if arrested. In his post, Trump shared a photo of a bloodied young man whom he said was &#8220;beaten mercilessly by local thugs.&#8221;
&#8220;They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!&#8221; the president said of the teenage criminals. &#8220;The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these &#8216;minors&#8217; as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.&#8221;
&#8220;Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see. If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,&#8221; Trump added.
The president also threatened to take control of the nation&#8217;s capital in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/law-and-order-trump-says-feds-should-take-over-washington-d-c">February</a>, blasting D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser&#8217;s leadership.
&#8220;I think that we should govern the District of Columbia. It&#8217;s so important,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1892419597141262429">said</a> aboard Air Force One on February 19. &#8220;I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawlessly beautiful.&#8221;
D.C. leaders recently created a new police unit to focus on juvenile crime as the city faces an increase in teenagers fighting at school and breaking the law outside of school, NBC 4 Washington <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-police-unit-to-focus-on-stopping-juvenile-crimes-before-they-happen/3883054/">reported</a>. Each year since 2020, the number of juveniles arrested in the nation&#8217;s capital has increased. In 2024, the majority of all robbery arrests involved juveniles, and around 60% of carjacking arrests through the first three months of 2025 involved minors.
Republicans in Congress <a href="https://statehood.dc.gov/page/why-statehood-dc">introduced</a> legislation earlier this year to end &#8220;home rule&#8221; in D.C., which allows residents to control their local affairs, and give Congress more control over the city. Under &#8220;home rule,&#8221; D.C. residents can elect their mayor and city council while Congress maintains some oversight. The city council is made up of 11 Democrats and two independents.
The bill, spearheaded by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), specifically called out &#8220;the mayor and city council’s failure to prevent violent crime, corruption, and voting by non-citizens.&#8221;

President Trump Returns To The White House From Scotland

Trump Threatens To Take Federal Control Of D.C. To Fight Violent Crime Committed By ‘Youths’

Congress

A decades-old court order that blocked the federal government from using tests to measure job applicants&#8217; skills was terminated by a D.C. judge on Friday, setting the stage for an overhaul of the federal workforce that could be one of President Donald Trump&#8217;s most lasting achievements.
In 1981, Angel Luevano sued the federal government over the Professional and Administrative Career Examination, a test that helped identify the best and brightest out of the tens of thousands who apply for government jobs each year. Luevano argued that the test kept too many blacks and Hispanics out of government, and, in the waning days of President Jimmy Carter&#8217;s administration, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) agreed to pause the test for five years.
Forty-four years later, the &#8220;Luevano Consent Decree&#8221; was somehow still intact. In January, the Trump administration filed a brief <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-cant-hire-for-competence-because-jimmy-carter-said-it-was-racist-trump-wants-to-fix-that">challenging the agreement</a> — a feat which required reopening a decades-closed court case in which the original judge had died. The administration argued that it was doubtful the decree was ever appropriate, and that, with Supreme Court case law outlawing affirmative action, it was certainly not now.
Angel Luevano is still alive, and agreed to terminate the consent decree, <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69731384/luevano-v-director-office-of-personnel-management/">court papers</a> show. Luevano was represented by lawyers from Hispanic and black civil rights groups, two of whom did not return a request for comment.
For almost half a century, the federal government has operated like a college that didn&#8217;t look at SAT scores when admitting students. Rescinding the Luevano Consent Decree could take the government from safety-school status to Ivy League.
&#8220;We&#8217;re making civil service great again,&#8221; OPM Director Scott Kupor told The Daily Wire Friday.
The move opens the door to technocratic hiring assessments that allow the government to hire applicants who objectively demonstrate the most aptitude. Kupor told The Daily Wire in an interview that the move means Americans may start getting better service at government agencies, with government being more helpful and responsive.
&#8220;The lasting opportunity here is: can we change the culture of the workforce in the federal government? Can we make it a high-performance culture? That will definitely be the president&#8217;s legacy, if we can make that successful,&#8221; he said.
After the demise of the Professional and Administrative Career Examination and similar tests, the government began relying on &#8220;self-assessments&#8221; to sift through job applicants, as it was the only measure that saw a sufficient number of minorities enter government. Applicants simply declared how good they were at a task, with no attempt to verify it or compare them to other applicants. That led to a hiring process that rewarded boasting and fabrications as much as merit.
Kupor said the de facto prohibition on government checking people&#8217;s competency before hiring them had become crippling in the modern age, with people using artificial intelligence or simply copy-and-paste to take a job advertisement&#8217;s requirements and send an application asserting that they had all those skills.
The inability to use objective measures to sort the most qualified applicants from a large pool — as virtually all other large employers do — has profoundly impacted the caliber of government employees. The Luevano Consent Decree was perhaps one of the largest applications ever of the philosophy known as &#8220;disparate impact,&#8221; which holds that anything that produces racially unbalanced outcomes must inherently be racist. But the fallout went beyond just minorities, leaving little way to differentiate a brilliant white job applicant from an incompetent white applicant.
The government was represented by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Department of Justice&#8217;s Civil Rights Division.
OPM General Counsel Andrew Kloster told The Daily Wire in an interview that the government did not make any concessions to reach the agreement. &#8220;They just flat out agreed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It would not have happened without the original named plaintiff agreeing to it and the judge agreeing to accept it.&#8221;
&#8220;This is really kind of an understanding that disparate impact as a way to measure things is not the law of the land anymore. You have to actually show real discrimination. The explicit argument was that the objective tests themselves were racially biased, and obviously that&#8217;s bogus.&#8221;
It is yet to be decided whether OPM will institute a general aptitude test across agencies. But many specific job categories are likely to have their own tests. If the government is hiring, say, computer programmers, it won&#8217;t simply ask them how good they are at a programming language. Instead, it will administer a coding test to rank applicants on a uniform scale.
The hiring process used by government agencies for decades resulted in hiring that was, at best, random, and at worst, allowed the sort of cronyism and favoritism that the consent decree was supposed to avoid, Kupor said.
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to be able to attract really, really good people, because they&#8217;re going to be fairly tested for their merit,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It also really does eliminate a lot of potential for a bias in the hiring process if you actually use objective standards.&#8221;
&#8220;This is a win for fairness, as well as a win for getting American people the ability to get people with the appropriate skills into the right jobs.&#8221;

Scott Kupor And Eric Matthew Ueland Testify In Their Senate Nomination Hearing

For The First Time In 40 Years, The Federal Government Can Judge Applicants By Merit

federal workforce

Jimmy Carter

Office of Personnel Management

Racial Bias

Racism

After decades of investing in life science breakthroughs, from biotech platforms to diagnostic innovations, I’ve seen what’s possible when bold ideas meet real backing. I’ve also seen what happens when bureaucracy gets in the way. Nearly $52 billion flows through the National Institutes of Health each year — taxpayer money entrusted to one of the world’s most important engines of biomedical progress. It begs a tough question: Is the NIH delivering what it promises? In my opinion, not yet.
Discovery today moves faster than ever, but the NIH struggles to keep pace — not from lack of talent or mission, but because of outdated systems, fragmented structure, and a risk-averse culture. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s not about dismantling anything. It’s about upgrading an essential institution to work the way science works: fast, open, collaborative, and accountable. Under Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s leadership, with his courage and clear-eyed vision, we’re closer than ever to meaningful reform.
The NIH’s 27 institutes and centers often function in isolation, duplicating work and missing chances to collaborate. In 2024, $9 billion went to indirect costs like admin overhead — paperwork, not pipettes or Petri dishes. Rep. Cathy McMorris proposed streamlining to 15 centers, a plan that ought to be seriously considered. Merging overlapping fields, say, translational medicine and biomedical imaging, would sharpen focus and accelerate progress. It would help the NIH act like a modern, integrated organization, not a loose confederation of silos. Let scientists spend their time in the lab, not in grant-cycle purgatory.
<div id="attachment_946227" style="width: 879px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-946227" class="size-large wp-image-946227" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2214721636-869x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 12: National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya speaks alongside President Donald Trump during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on May 12, 2025, in Washington, DC. During the event, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals by 30% to 80%. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)" width="869" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2214721636-869x576.jpg 869w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2214721636-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2214721636-768x509.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2214721636.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 869px) 100vw, 869px" />Andrew Harnik/Getty Images</div>
Public funding comes with public accountability, and the NIH has work to do. Concerns over inadequate responses to research misconduct, opaque grant reviews, and questionable international ties — like those linked to risky pathogen studies — damage credibility and slow progress. What’s needed isn’t punishment but clarity. Reforms to tighten oversight, simplify peer review, and flag repeat issues will protect the science and the people behind it. The American public is generous in funding medical research. It’s time to be just as generous with the truth.
In my years as a venture capitalist, I’ve learned that real innovation comes from unexpected places — outsiders, first-time founders, scientists chasing questions no one else asks. But the NIH’s grant system favors the safe route, funding incremental research while visionary proposals, like a novel approach to Alzheimer’s, get passed over. Put more generalists and cross-disciplinary thinkers on peer review panels. Train reviewers to recognize high-risk/high-reward ideas. Carve out funding for newcomers applying for the first time. We can’t solve 21st-century problems if we’re afraid to back 21st-century thinkers.
The scientific landscape has changed — AI decodes protein structures, organ-on-chip tech replaces animal testing, wearables guide patient care. Yet the NIH uses tools and timelines built for another era. The new public access policy, requiring funded studies to be shared freely, is a good start. But modernizing how we evaluate, fund, and share research is overdue. AI-driven grant reviews and real-time data platforms could match the global pace of discovery. If we want to compete with China and Europe, we need to move faster.
Despite its massive budget, the NIH sends disproportionate funding to elite institutions. In 2023, half of all grants went to just 10 states. Great science can come from a fresh PhD in Idaho or a tenured lab in Iowa, but without grant caps, geographic diversity, and fair review standards, those ideas never get a shot. America doesn’t have a monopoly on good ideas. Let’s stop acting like it does.
Are all reform proposals perfect? No. They’ll need input from scientists, policymakers, and patients who count on the results. Ignoring the problem, though, is reckless. This isn’t about tearing down the NIH; it’s about retooling it for today’s challenges. I came to this country believing in what it stood for. I’ve backed companies that pushed the limits of healthcare. I believe American science is the best in the world, but it needs a system that doesn’t hold it back. Let’s build an NIH that earns trust, funds bold ideas, and turns the best thinking into real-world cures. It’s time we let science lead. 
* * *
Guy Paul Nohra is co-founder of Alta Partners, a leading Venture Capital firm in life sciences, funding over 150 companies in the healthcare/life sciences sector since 1996 through eight Venture Capital funds.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

HHS Secretary Kennedy Holds News Conference On Synthetic Dyes In Food Supply

Paperwork And Petri Dishes: It’s Time To Reform The NIH And Let Science Lead

Paperwork And Petri Dishes: It's Time To Reform The NIH And Let Science Lead

Health

Health Care

Jay Bhattacharya

Medical

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for President Donald Trump to resume his plans to cut the federal workforce and restructure agencies, a key promise he made on the campaign trail to hack away at the size of the federal government.
The justices lifted San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston&#8217;s May 22 order that had blocked large-scale federal layoffs called &#8220;reductions in force&#8221; affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, while litigation in the case proceeds.
Trump in February announced &#8220;a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy&#8221; in an executive order directing agencies to prepare for a government overhaul aimed at significantly reducing the federal workforce and gutting offices and programs opposed by the administration.
Workforce reductions were planned at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and more than a dozen other agencies.
The Supreme Court, in a brief unsigned order, said Trump&#8217;s administration was &#8220;likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order&#8221; and a memorandum implementing his order were lawful. The court said it was not assessing the legality of any specific plans for layoffs at federal agencies.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from the decision. Jackson wrote that Illston&#8217;s &#8220;temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this court&#8217;s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.&#8221;
Illston wrote in her ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing, siding with a group of unions, non-profits, and local governments that challenged the administration.
&#8220;As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,&#8221; Illston wrote.
The judge blocked the agencies from carrying out mass layoffs and limited their ability to cut or overhaul federal programs. Illston also ordered the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs, though she delayed implementing this portion of her ruling while the appeals process plays out.
Illston&#8217;s ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul being pursued by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in the Republican president&#8217;s drive to slash the federal workforce.
Formerly spearheaded by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, DOGE has sought to eliminate federal jobs, shrink and reshape the U.S. government, and root out wasteful spending and fraud. Musk formally ended his government work on May 30 and subsequently had a public falling out with Trump.
The Left-leaning San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling on May 30, denied the administration&#8217;s request to halt the judge&#8217;s ruling.
The 9th Circuit said the administration had not shown that it would suffer an irreparable injury if the judge&#8217;s order remained in place and that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their lawsuit.
&#8220;The executive order at issue here far exceeds the president&#8217;s supervisory powers under the Constitution,&#8221; the 9th Circuit wrote, calling the administration&#8217;s actions &#8220;an unprecedented attempted restructuring of the federal government and its operations.&#8221;
The 9th Circuit&#8217;s ruling prompted the Justice Department&#8217;s June 2 emergency request to the Supreme Court to halt Illston&#8217;s order.
Controlling the personnel of federal agencies &#8220;lies at the heartland&#8221; of the president&#8217;s executive branch authority, the Justice Department said in its filing to the Supreme Court.
&#8220;The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers,&#8221; the filing said, referring to the constitution&#8217;s section delineating presidential authority.
The plaintiffs urged the Supreme Court to deny the Justice Department&#8217;s request. Allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its &#8220;breakneck reorganization,&#8221; they wrote, would mean that &#8220;programs, offices and functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs.&#8221;
The Supreme Court in recent months has sided with Trump in some major cases that were acted upon on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January.
It cleared the way for Trump&#8217;s administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own. In two cases, it let the administration end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants.
It also allowed Trump to implement his ban on trans-identifying people in the U.S. military, blocked a judge&#8217;s order for the administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, and twice sided with his Department of Government Efficiency.
In addition, the court curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump Wins At SCOTUS Again: Court Says Admin Can Resume Mass Layoffs Of Federal Workers

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Supreme Court

The IRS made clear its stance on churches endorsing political candidates in front of their congregations, saying in a court filing on Monday that houses of worship are free to push political candidates from the pulpit without fear of losing their tax-exempt status.
The IRS clarification came in a lawsuit court filing after two Texas churches and an association of Christian broadcasters sued, seeking an exemption from the ban on churches endorsing political candidates, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/us/politics/irs-churches-politics-endorse-candidates.html">reported</a>. While the plaintiffs sought a carve-out for all nonprofits, the IRS agreed in a court filing to allow churches to endorse candidates without penalty.
According to the IRS, the Johnson Amendment — which has been part of the U.S. tax code since 1954 — does not prohibit a church from communicating with its congregants about its preferred political candidates, comparing such endorsements to “a family discussion concerning candidates.”
“Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,” the agency wrote in the <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.232590/gov.uscourts.txed.232590.35.0.pdf">court filing</a>.
The IRS added that it has long refrained from enforcing the Johnson Amendment against churches &#8220;for speech concerning electoral politics in the context of worship services.&#8221; For several years, pastors from around the country organized to test the tax code during &#8220;Pulpit Freedom Sunday,&#8221; The Washington Post reported. The IRS only launched one investigation stemming from &#8220;Pulpit Freedom Sunday,&#8221; and the agency did not punish any churches.
The IRS statement will be celebrated by many conservative Christians who have long viewed the prohibition on political endorsements as infringing upon their free speech.
During his first term, President Donald Trump stated that he wanted to &#8220;totally destroy&#8221; the Johnson Amendment, which was introduced by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) in 1954.
“I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution,” Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vows-to-totally-destroy-restrictions-on-churches-support-of-candidates/2017/02/02/fed9bad2-e981-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html">told</a> Christians at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2017. “I will do that, remember.”
For the Johnson Amendment to be repealed, Congress would have to take action.
Proponents of the Johnson Amendment argue that the tax code is essential for guarding campaign finance laws. If the Johnson Amendment were repealed, some worry that political contributions could be funneled through tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations, and the contributions could remain undisclosed and tax-deductible.

Church

Trump’s IRS Says Churches Can Endorse Political Candidates Without Losing Tax Status

Christianity

Churches

Executive

Religion

Taxes

U.S.

We are not solving our deficit problem.
You can see what&#8217;s going to happen to the United States down the line, because no one takes this problem seriously. Most Republicans don&#8217;t. Most Democrats don&#8217;t. The American people certainly do not. 
All you have to do is take a look across the ocean at Great Britain. On Wednesday, there was a shocking and fraught moment that happened there. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britains-chancellor-in-tears-as-investors-turn-on-government-22aee17f?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAjZpkxEZH_qTxXcl-zvbi7np_J3qYRtV5gD99cAFFKx9W04z7JDoMWZ-xkzK3w%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6866caec&amp;gaa_sig=0k3E5u5VSkXj7mYSs0Q3EQLJqtEknleCqra4ptlRa79N59RLrBTHOVLmsAPH4A3zsL6rpF65FSo9B8cDPH9nDA%3D%3D">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Investors sold off British government bonds and the pound fell sharply on Wednesday after the Labour government abandoned plans to cut ballooning welfare costs and the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was seen crying in parliament. The selloff came hours after the government of Prime Minister <a href="https://www.wsj.com/topics/person/keir-starmer">Keir Starmer</a> shelved a plan to cut disability payments following a rebellion by Labour’s own lawmakers. 
The U-turn raised the prospect of the government hiking taxes or issuing more debt to fund its welfare system. It also casts doubt over the future of Rachel Reeves, the U.K. chancellor, who took the job just over a year ago promising a return to economic stability in Britain by<a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-01-23-2025/card/u-k-will-stick-to-fiscal-rules-reeves-tells-wsj-lyApDGigeve1oDWxyzwP?mod=article_inline"> sticking to strict spending rules. </a> The pound sank in value, losing more than 1% to trade at $1.36. U.K. government bonds, too, tumbled in price, sending the yield on 10-year gilts up 0.12 percentage point to 4.581%. That far outpaced the more muted gains for yields in the U.S. and in other major markets. 
“Markets have latched onto the idea that Reeves’s departure might be much more imminent,” said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer for fixed income at RBC BlueBay Asset Management. “That is unsettling investors in terms of what that means of the Labour government’s commitment to the fiscal framework.” </blockquote>
Of course, the Labour Party didn&#8217;t have any commitment to the fiscal framework; they are a far-Left party. They were never going to be fiscally responsible.  
This is demonstrative of a crisis that is eventually going to face every Western government, including the government of the United States. “The government’s climbdown points to a broader truth for governments across Western Europe, where weak economic growth means countries are struggling to raise enough revenue to pay for rising costs from an aging population, the Journal stated “With voters largely wary of spending cuts, that leaves higher taxes, which could hurt growth further, as the most likely outcome.”
“Britain is already on course to register the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britains-labour-party-bets-on-big-taxes-borrowing-to-boost-economy-5d3eba82?mod=article_inline">highest tax burden</a> since World War II thanks to big spending during the pandemic and paying out for energy subsidies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile its growth prospects remain meager,” the Journal noted.
If you look into the future for the United States, this sort of thing could happen here, too. The United States is demographically growing only because of immigration.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2231?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The reality is that the fertility rate in the United States is actually below replacement levels, at 1.66 births per woman. The United States is not replacing its own population. The only way we are able to do that is through large-scale immigration, which we have stopped, which means we have a shrinking tax base, an aging population, just like Western Europe, slower but similar.
We also have the possibility of serious economic stagnation, absent a massive breakthrough in AI that suddenly translates into higher productivity.
If all of that materializes and we don&#8217;t cut any of the massive welfare state that we have built, we are going to end up inflating our way out of this. That&#8217;s the reality. As I&#8217;ve said myriad times, there are only three solutions to massive debt: inflation, massive tax increases, or austerity. Our population is so used to its benefits that they do not want austerity.
But eventually, the West is going to have to grow up and recognize that the welfare state has costs attendant upon it. And those costs are going to have to be paid for by someone; they can&#8217;t be kicked down the road indefinitely. You can&#8217;t just magically manufacture money and hope the economy is going to continue to sail forward.
So, what does the United States need? It needs massive economic growth, and eventually it&#8217;s going to need some real cuts to the size and scope of government.
The kind of cuts in the Big, Beautiful Bill are not going to do it. They need to be a lot larger than that.
I know that&#8217;s an unpopular view. It also happens to be an economically sane view that very few people in politics are willing to take because most people don&#8217;t want to hear it.
But we must be willing to listen to reality, even if it’s painful, for one reason, and one reason alone: In the end, reality always wins.

NATO Leaders Attend 2025 Summit In The Hague

Reality And The Fiscal Wake-Up Call From Britain

England

Entitlement Reform

Europe

Great Britain

Keir Starmer

London

National Debt

Parliament

Welfare

Elon Musk and President Trump are at it again.
A rift has emerged in the Republican caucus between some of the tech bros and populist economists in the Trump coalition.
The Senate passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but you have the economic populists who&#8217;d like lower taxes and big spending, and then you have the tech guys, and what they&#8217;re mostly concerned about is deregulation; they would like some subsidies aimed at things like AI and green energy.
Thus, we are seeing that all break out into the open with regard to Elon Musk.
“Critics say that President Trump&#8217;s mega bill amounts to an abject surrender in the battle for the future of energy,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">Axios reported</a>. “The consequences for U.S. jobs, electricity prices and the arms race could reverberate for decades.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1939390933205991585">tweeted</a>, “A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery. That will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future.”
Jason Bordoff, who leads the Columbia University energy think tank, said the bill could <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">hinder the United States</a> in the AI race with China. He said, “Winning that race is going to require we increase electricity generation capacity in the US really fast by a lot. That soaring demand is creating tailwinds for natural gas and nuclear. But even those great sources cannot ramp up fast enough to meet the urgent near-term needs of data centers and AI infrastructure.&#8221;
He&#8217;s saying you need to throw everything at energy, including so-called renewable energy.
So this is a major battle that&#8217;s broken out again inside the tech-centric part of the Republican Party.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2230-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Beyond that, there was supposed to be an amendment to the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; in the Senate that was going to protect the development of AI in the United States by creating a federal moratorium to bar state-level experimentation with regulation on AI. Florida couldn&#8217;t have its own AI rules; California its own AI rules.
The idea was that there would be a federal ban on state-level legislation. The federal government could still legislate and regulate with regard to AI, but you don&#8217;t want AI companies having to navigate the thickets of 50 different state regulatory structures in order to develop, because we are in a national competition with China on the development of AI.
But the Senate voted 99-1 to strip a provision that would have blocked states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next ten years.
This is definitely going to hold up the development of AI on a national level.
All of this led to the massive clash now occurring between President Trump and Elon Musk. What exactly happened?
Musk decided that he was going to go to war with the bill again. He threatened to primary senators and congresspeople who voted for the bill. He also vowed to help Thomas Massie — the Republican congressperson who truly gets on President Trump&#8217;s nerves by voting against everything Trump wants — saying he&#8217;s going to help him in a primary.
President Trump then hit back with a long social media post of his own, seeking to frame Musk&#8217;s opposition as a bid to cling to his electric vehicle subsidies. <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114776149269773065">He wrote</a>:
<blockquote>Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!</blockquote>
He went right at Elon&#8217;s jugular, basically saying, “Listen, you started DOGE. Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on the Tesla EVs? Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on SpaceX and all the rest?”
This followed Musk pledging he would form a new party he calls the America Party. He wrote, “Nearly the entire House and Senate GOP will lose their primary next year if it&#8217;s the last thing I do on this earth.” He went out of his way to call out House Republicans who call themselves budget hawks, such as Andy Harris of Maryland, and Chip Roy of Texas, as well as Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Trump is saying, “Listen, buddy, you know, we are friends. We&#8217;re on the same side of this. But if you keep going after this bill and you&#8217;re doing so because you want a subsidy, we could just remove all of those subsidies.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1940025317701148864">responded</a> on X/Twitter, “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.” 
 
There are a few different factors clashing here, as I’ve said before. On an ideologically and politically pure level, Elon complaining about the “Big Beautiful Bill” is not wrong. It spends far too much money.
But that&#8217;s true for virtually every bill passed at the federal level. That&#8217;s just the reality.
I wish the American people approved of Elon&#8217;s spending plans. I do. I wish we were restructuring our entitlements in a serious way. I wish we weren&#8217;t going to sleepwalk our way like Thelma and Louise right over the cliff, that fiscal cliff that is going to come sometime in the next few years.
I wish we did all these things, but the American public simply is not prepared to do any of those things. And that&#8217;s where you enter the realm of the pragmatic, where President Trump lives.
Is this fight really about EV subsidies? Is this fight truly about political purism, or is it something more personal?
As I&#8217;ve suggested before, the fact that the Trump administration decided they were going to get rid of Elon&#8217;s hand-picked head for NASA — which Sergio Gore was apparently behind — is what ticked Elon off. He hasn&#8217;t let go of it. He&#8217;s still going after the bill. Because of that incident, as well as Elon&#8217;s idealistic view of how politics should work, it should not be a shock that Elon is now attempting to wield his power in a kind of blunderbuss fashion.
It&#8217;s also not a shock that President Trump is slapping back, essentially saying, “Listen, I&#8217;m the president of the United States. Thank you for your help. But I&#8217;m the president. I&#8217;m the one who has to do all this stuff. I&#8217;m the one who has to cut the deals, and I&#8217;m the one who has to live with it if we don’t make the tax cuts permanent.”
This bill indeed has a lot of pork, but so does every single government funding bill of my lifetime. There has yet to be a major government bill that is not a big-spending government bill because the American people lie to themselves all the time. We say we want lower spending, but when asked what we would cut, we start scratching our heads and looking around.
That is the problem if you wish to build a cohesive movement for serious cuts to the government.
That was never the MAGA movement. It wasn&#8217;t. I’ve been speaking publicly about not loving that about MAGA since 2016. President Trump was the one candidate declaring back in 2015 and 2016 that he was not going to touch entitlements. Although I am indeed a big fan of Trump, I’ve criticized him for that position for a decade, because I would love to touch the entitlements.
I think entitlements are a disaster area. They are bankrupting the country. They&#8217;re wildly ineffective as they currently stand. I think there are fixes that could be made to them. I think many of them can be delegated back to the state or local level. And I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the proper function of the federal government to be involved in three-quarters of this stuff.
But my opinion is not the MAGA opinion. If you&#8217;re going to be politically pragmatic about this, you have to recognize that what this bill effectively is about, more than anything else, is making sure the tax cuts don&#8217;t go away, making sure defense is paid for, and making sure immigration is paid for, among other things.
Is Elon going to force Trump to fight again? I want to know what the endgame is. What is it that Elon is really looking for here?
If he wants to build a popular movement outside the government in favor of slashing and burning large swaths of the federal government, sign me up today. But if we are talking about the idea that someone like Chip Roy is unsuitable for big government, or if we&#8217;re saying the choices here are letting the tax cuts expire and taxes radically increase, and you still don&#8217;t get lower spending, I think most Americans will choose the bill.
That doesn&#8217;t mean that the bill polls particularly well, because the bill&#8217;s been criticized every which way.
But I guarantee you: If Republicans don&#8217;t get this done and the taxes do increase, that&#8217;s going to be even more unpopular.

President Trump Attends NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship In Philadelphia

Elon Musk, Trump, And The Future Of The GOP

Debt Ceiling

Elon Musk

President Trump

Corporations that receive billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal contracts have a duty to be ideologically neutral, transparent, and accountable to the American people.
This shouldn’t need to be said. But 1792 Exchange’s <a href="https://1792exchange.com/contractors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new database</a> of top government contractors shows that it does.
One of the report’s most striking revelations is the fact that some government contractors most aggressively aligned with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are not even American. These include the United Kingdom-based BAE Systems, BP, Deloitte, and Rolls-Royce, and Ireland-based Accenture.
Many American contractors blatantly promote radical agendas — at this point, LGBT might as well stand for “Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, Textron” — but allowing foreign firms to act as ideological agents within the American system is beyond the pale.
These firms exert extensive influence on federal agencies and provide essential services such as defense technology, energy logistics, financial auditing, and consulting, while actively promoting a worldview that the American electorate and our current administration reject.
As President Donald Trump made clear in executive orders rescinding federal DEI mandates, the “government should be focused on mission readiness, not ideological indoctrination.” This principle must encompass foreign contractors and consultants.
To grasp the scale of ideological encroachment, consider <a href="https://1792exchange.com/spotlight-reports/corporate-bias-ratings/?c_id=1073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BAE Systems</a>, the British defense and aerospace giant, which received $7.7 billion in government contracts in 2023.
Despite serving as a primary contractor for the Department of Defense, BAE has <a href="https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/article/bae-systems-inc-releases-third-annual-dei-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adopted comprehensive DEI goals</a>, including race- and gender-based recruitment benchmarks and board composition — a commitment they called “<a href="https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/b/LSE_BA_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Change the Race Ratio</a>” in their 2023 annual report — and ethnicity-based mentorship programs, such as RISE, implemented by KPMG.
In the United Kingdom, where BAE is allowed to take “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/positive-action-in-the-workplace-guidance-for-employers/positive-action-in-the-workplace#:~:text=communicate%20with%20staff.-,2.,is%20relevant%20to%20a%20case." target="_blank" rel="noopener">positive action</a>,” it must adhere to national expectations of not engaging in “positive discrimination.” Yet on American soil, with American funds, they behave as if potential violations of civil rights law are both normative and commendable.
Similarly, <a href="https://1792exchange.com/company/bp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BP</a> — the British energy conglomerate that obtained over a billion dollars in federal contracts from the United States government — publicly supports a vast range of DEI policies, <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/sustainability/bp-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-report-2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including racial equity audits</a>, <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/investors/bp-directors-remuneration-report-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DEI-linked executive compensation schemes,</a> and <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/careers/life-at-bp/our-stories/bp-recognized-by-stonewall.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gender identity training</a> protocols.
American citizens, through federal procurement budgets, are effectively subsidizing an imported ideology that increasingly lacks democratic legitimacy at home.
<a href="https://1792exchange.com/company/accenture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Accenture</a> ($3 billion) and <a href="https://1792exchange.com/company/deloitte/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Deloitte</a> ($3.7 billion), incorporated in Ireland and the United Kingdom, respectively, have become deeply embedded in federal operations, making their cultural influence within agencies indistinguishable from that of internal leadership. These firms frequently promoted their DEI credentials in competitive bids, and until now, federal officials have often highlighted these characteristics as value-added features instead of liabilities.
It’s commendable that Accenture <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/accenture-dropping-corporate-dei-policies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced it would end its DEI initiatives</a>. However, given its history of establishing headquarters in foreign countries — first in Bermuda, then moving to Dublin in 2009 to avoid paying American taxes — it’s concerning that the company promoted this agenda at any point without being fully invested in the outcome of our nation.
Given that $3 billion of its $64.9 billion in revenue comes directly from American taxpayers, and its global CEO operates from an office in the Washington, D.C., area, one should question how Accenture can claim to be Irish. Notably, the company is aware of this line of inquiry, listing its Irish domicile as a risk factor in its <a href="https://www.accenture.com/content/dam/accenture/final/accenture-com/a-com-custom-component/iconic/document/Accenture-2024-10-K.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 10-K filing</a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Likewise, <a href="https://1792exchange.com/company/rolls-royce-holdings-plc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rolls-Royce</a> ($1.1 billion), the British aerospace firm, completes the list of foreign-headquartered contractors that combine technological excellence with radical ideological activism. Although it <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/rolls-royce-dei-us-diversity-backlash-9hcs2zdrm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> rolled back funding for its identity-based employee resource groups in the United States, Rolls-Royce previously enacted internal policies that reflect the most radical tenets of the DEI framework, including <a href="https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/annual-report/2021/ar2021-strategic-report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“anti-racism” events</a> and <a href="https://www.rolls-royce.com/country-sites/sea/our-stories/2019/women-in-stem.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unconscious bias training</a>.
The central paradox is this: as the United States reorients its federal policy around merit, neutrality, and excellence, some of the largest beneficiaries of government contracts are foreign actors advancing the very ideologies that Americans just voted to reject.
Congress and the Trump administration must act swiftly to align federal contracting policy with the new executive directives. A contractor’s country of incorporation must not allow it to launder political agendas through backdoor bureaucratic channels.
Ultimately, federal contracting is more than an economic matter; it is a matter of sovereignty. American taxpayers should not be subsidizing foreign entities that undermine American values. 1792 Exchange’s report has exposed this vulnerability. Now, it falls to policymakers to close the gap between the will of the people and the behavior of those paid to serve them.
Daniel Cameron is the CEO of the 1792 Exchange and the former attorney general of Kentucky.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Davos become a showcase for global companies

Foreign Companies Use Taxpayer Dollars To Push DEI. That Needs To Stop.

Lockheed Martin

United Kingdom

Menu