News on the economy is all over the place, but a solid thread runs through it: many recent American college graduates can’t find jobs. Not only are employers not hiring, they’re laying off left and right. Amazon and United Parcel Service are each cutting more than 14,000 jobs, and the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/white-collar-jobs-ai-324b749c?st=BLfhsb&amp;reflink=article_email_share">says</a> tens of thousands of white-collar jobs are being cut at other companies.
Yet at the same time, the U.S. immigration system permits thousands of foreign college graduates to enter the job market in direct competition with Americans. Companies employing them don’t have to pay the same payroll taxes as they do when hiring American citizens and permanent residents. This gives foreign students an unfair advantage over American graduates.
The program allowing foreign graduates to work is called Optional Practical Training (OPT). It was <a href="https://cis.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/miano-OPT.pdf">started</a> decades ago by the administrative state through regulation, without any express congressional authorization. Over time, and through collusion between Washington and large employers, OPT was expanded into a pathway for foreign students who completed their studies to remain working for years, or indefinitely, in the U.S. while seeking permanent residence.
Given the brutal job market, the underlying premise for OPT no longer applies. Why allow masses of temporary foreign students to remain in the U.S. and enter the work force right out of college when your own graduates can’t get jobs? The argument for eliminating this program has never been stronger. As Lora Ries <a href="https://wng.org/roundups/weighing-the-price-of-100-000-worker-visas-1759852411#:~:text=Ries%20from%20the%20Heritage%20Foundation,preferred%20hiring%20for%20American%20workers.">argues</a>, we need to “allow American students and American workers a fair shake at applying for jobs, being interviewed for jobs, being hired for jobs, and being retained at their jobs.”
<a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/aug/recent-college-grads-bear-brunt-labor-market-shifts">Unemployment</a> of college graduates aged 23-27 is a few percentage points higher than the national average of 4%. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/business/long-term-unemployment-college-grads.html">long-term unemployment</a> rate (more than 6 months out of work) in the country for that age group is 26%, the highest in three years. And of those college graduates who are employed, over half are working in jobs that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/college-degree-jobs-unused-440b2abd">don’t require a degree</a>.
It’s fair to argue that many recent graduates got degrees that are patently useless in a tight market. Anything ending in “studies” comes to mind, or mass-produced degrees from diploma mills whose quality is not respected by employers. But graduates with the vaunted Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math degrees are faring badly, too. Graduate <a href="https://money.com/college-grads-stem-degrees-unemployed/">unemployment</a> for computer engineering graduates was 7.5%, and for physics it was 7.8%.
The reasons for the sudden drop in demand for educated workers are unclear. One cause is that companies are searching for efficiencies and cutting costs in a competitive market. Another major factor is the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Companies are using AI to streamline their business models from top to bottom, which means they are replacing humans with bots.
Labor-saving robots, now supercharged with AI, are a threat to traditional pathways into the labor market for people. <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazon-robotics-robots-fulfillment-center">Amazon</a> has over a million of them doing warehouse and shipping work formerly done by people.
We don’t know how the deployment of AI is going to play out. Maybe it will exponentially increase productivity, and we’ll end up in a cashless, Star Trek world where no one works unless they want to. Maybe the machines will take over and wipe us out, as in the Terminator movies. Or maybe AI will be just one more leap forward, like the printing press, electricity, or the internet, that requires a massive adjustment of our labor force and economy.
Whatever the future holds, it is the primary responsibility of the generations who hold the money and power – that’s mostly Baby Boomers and Generation X – to take care that a pathway still exists for coming generations to get jobs and houses, start families, and have a chance to prosper. Student visas for foreign nationals, the OPT program, and work visas are not set in stone. They can be adjusted or even eliminated when the domestic conditions make them unjustifiable.
Congress should end the OPT program while we figure out how to employ, or retrain, the rising graduate workforce of American citizens. Joseph Edlow, head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/05/22/snubbing-trump-immigration-nominee-will-end-student-practical-training/">said</a> he wants to “remove the ability for employment authorizations for F-1 students beyond the time that they are in school.” That’s a good start.
* * *
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Woke-Commandments-Must-Obey/dp/1680533614">&#8220;The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey)&#8221;</a> from Academica Books.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Trump Says Harvard Should Cap Foreign Students At 15%

The College Lie: How Washington’s Visa Loopholes Hand Good Jobs To Foreign Workers

American Universities

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

Corporations

Federal Government

foreign students

Opinion

Students

Technology

Visas

Firestorm Over Food Stamps Erupts With Funds Set to Expire

The EBT Scam Just Went From Bad To Worse

Amazon

Democrats

Food Stamps

Matt Walsh

Walmart

Welfare

The EBT Program Is A Massive Scam, And The Government Shutdown Just Proved It

Amy Klobuchar

Food

Government Shutdown

Schumer Shutdown

Taxes

WASHINGTON—The largest union of federal employees is pushing for an end to the government shutdown, dealing a major blow to Democrats as the funding fight drags on.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal workers, on Monday <a href="https://www.afge.org/article/its-past-time-to-end-this-shutdown/">urged</a> the Senate to approve a “clean” continuing resolution to end the stalemate. The union, usually a dependable Democratic <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-aligned-union-breaks-ranks-demands-end-to-govt-shutdown?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Dem-Aligned+Union+Breaks+Ranks%2C+Demands+End+To+Govt+Shutdown">stalwart,</a> all but endorsed Republicans&#8217; plans to end the shutdown in a statement.
“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said, calling the shutdown “an avoidable crisis that is harming families, communities, and the very institutions that hold our country together.”
Kelley did not lay blame with either party, but did call for the Senate to pass a &#8220;clean&#8221; continuing resolution — which Republicans have called for from the beginning of the shutdown fight.
About 1.4 million federal workers missed a paycheck last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference Monday morning, urging Senate Democrats to approve the House-passed continuing resolution.
Johnson added that the House had “done its work” by passing the measure a month ago.
“The Army nurse in San Antonio, the TSA officer in Atlanta, the USDA food safety inspector in Iowa, and hundreds of thousands more like them are being asked to keep our country running without the paychecks that keep their own households afloat,&#8221; Kelley said.
Kelley said the workers are &#8220;patriotic Americans – parents, caregivers, and veterans – forced to work without pay while struggling to cover rent, groceries, gas and medicine because of political disagreements in Washington. That is unacceptable.&#8221;
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said AFGE calling for an end to the shutdown “has a lot of impact,&#8221; Semafor&#8217;s Burgess Everett <a href="https://x.com/burgessev/status/1982902515013186033">reported</a> on X.
“It’s something we will be discussing this week,&#8221; Durbin told the outlet. &#8220;I’m not announcing any change in my position at this time. They&#8217;re our friends. We take them seriously.”
Bloomberg News reporter Erik Wasson <a href="https://x.com/elwasson/status/1982857696937496756">reportedly</a> asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about the union’s statement, but Schumer declined to comment.
The House Freedom Caucus weighed in Monday on X, responding to an NBC report on the union’s stance.
“It’s a bad day for Chuck Schumer when even the AFGE…a union that routinely endorses and supports Democrats…sees how bizarre the Democrats’ position is,” the caucus <a href="https://x.com/freedomcaucus/status/1982858175117484057">wrote on X.</a>
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told The Daily Wire that AFGE is “rightly calling Democrats out on their political games, and hopefully Senate Democrats will listen.”
“Lawmakers are sent to Washington to govern, but Democrats seem to think their job is to obstruct the agenda of the President of the United States and to jeopardize the livelihoods of the American people,” Emmer said.
Emmer said Americans on “both sides of the aisle are seeing right through the Democrats’ lies and they will be held accountable for their hostage tactics.”
Democrat Sen. John Fetterman (PA) said <a href="https://x.com/SenFettermanPA/status/1982809715831628084">on X</a> that AFGE is “firmly on the right side of this and we should absolutely listen.”
“Our servicemembers, federal workers, and Capitol Police are hurting. It’s one of many reasons why I’ve continuously voted to open our government. We need to end this chaos,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman sided with Republicans on the House-passed continuing resolution to reopen the government, as did Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Angus King (I-ME).
This week, many politicians have highlighted the looming November 1 expiration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which will affect more than 42 million people.
The SNAP <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program">website</a> currently cites Democrats for failing to reopen the government, stating, “Bottom line, the well has run dry.”
There are currently discussions of a potential bill to pay “certain” federal workers between Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), as reported by <a href="https://x.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1982861472968376606">Punchbowl News</a>.
As of Monday evening, a spokesman for Johnson’s office confirmed talks are “ongoing.”
On the Senate floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer <a href="https://x.com/AmberJoCooper/status/1982908995909382282">claimed</a> the Trump administration is “making an intentional choice not to fund SNAP this weekend.”
“The emergency funding is there — the administration is just choosing not to use it. And for those who say the money can’t be moved around so easily, that’s a load of bunk. If the administration can cough up $40 billion for Argentina, they can find money for SNAP by this Saturday,” Schumer said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) <a href="https://x.com/LeaderJohnThune/status/1982893996847555019">maintained</a> that the Senate can reopen the government this week if five “courageous” Democrats vote with them, adding there will be another opportunity to vote to reopen in the coming days.

Federal Employees Hold Rally Calling For End Of Government Shutdown

‘It’s A Bad Day For Chuck Schumer’: Dems Waver As Fed Union Calls For End To Shutdown

Chuck Schumer

John Thune

Labor Unions

Ever since Donald Trump took office, federal judges have undertaken a concerted effort to suspend the power of the Executive Branch, unlike anything else that&#8217;s ever happened in this country. The words &#8220;judicial coup&#8221; do not begin to describe what&#8217;s been going on. In every case — whether they&#8217;re blocking the Trump administration from deleting trans propaganda on federal websites, or from terminating federal employees, or from deploying the National Guard — these individual, unelected federal judges have determined that the president of the United States had somehow overstepped his authority under the Constitution. 
This is obviously an unsustainable situation. If judges are going to overturn every single significant decision the president makes, then the judges have effectively become president. Eventually, something has to give. That&#8217;s why a lot of commentators, myself included, have called on the White House to simply ignore these rulings. Other than impeaching and removing judges — which is impossible, given that Democrats have too many votes in the Senate — ignoring courts that go rogue seems like the only real option. Andrew Jackson did it before, and Donald Trump (who happens to be a big fan of Andrew Jackson) can do it again.
But there is actually one additional approach that the Trump administration could take, before we decide to simply do away with the court system altogether. And based on recent reports, it looks like the White House is seriously considering this particular route. I&#8217;m talking about invoking the Insurrection Act, the federal law that permits the president to federalize the National Guard and deploy U.S. troops for law enforcement purposes in U.S. cities.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1671-it-s-time-to-crush-the-leftist-insurrection-once-and-for-all?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-976065 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
When the Insurrection Act is discussed in the press, of course, it&#8217;s described as the mother of all power grabs. Democrats pretend it hasn&#8217;t been invoked more than two dozen times in this country&#8217;s history, most recently to suppress the L.A. riots. They don&#8217;t want to talk about the fact that several presidents — including some of their heroes, like JFK and FDR — all invoked the law, mainly to enforce racial integration.
On the other side of the political spectrum, Republicans point out, correctly, that the Insurrection Act is necessary to put down lawlessness in cities like Portland and Chicago — lawlessness that&#8217;s reached almost comical levels of absurdity, as police supervisors have made it clear that their officers should not assist federal agents who are being actively attacked. 
Here&#8217;s audio from the Chicago police scanner, to give just one example. 
Dispatchers told officers not to assist federal agents who were being surrounded by a mob. Listen:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
PLAY THE TAPE.
STOP protecting criminals:
“They were requesting the police—we’re not sending.”
Not only did Chicago’s leaders refuse to send support to federal law enforcement officers in danger, now they’re lying about it.
Disgusting. <a href="https://t.co/7hz1dZOv1B">pic.twitter.com/7hz1dZOv1B</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1975623141725474964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @DHSgov/X.com
“They were requesting the police—we’re not sending.” That&#8217;s the decision that&#8217;s been made by local law enforcement in Chicago (or, more accurately, by the Democrats who run the city). It is an admission — which they also put in writing, by the way — that local police are unable or unwilling to maintain law and order. That is, and has always been, a valid justification for invoking the Insurrection Act and sending in the U.S. military. I don&#8217;t need to recount all of the scenes of violence and anarchy because you&#8217;ve probably seen hours of it at this point.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 JUST IN: COUNTLESS anti-ICE “protestors” have now taken over the streets of Chicago
Maybe CHICAGO should be the next city I visit to expose 🤔 <a href="https://t.co/ucucexyOSq">pic.twitter.com/ucucexyOSq</a>
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1976095784169836607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @nicksortor/X.com
ICE officers are being shot at. They&#8217;re being ambushed on the streets, run off the road, boxed in, pelted with objects, and so on. Rioters are blocking federal vehicles on the roadways. Mobs are parading through the streets, preventing people from going where they need to be. The mayor of Chicago, meanwhile, is establishing &#8220;ICE-free-zones,&#8221; in a clear effort to interfere with federal law enforcement:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson just announced he signed an executive order creating &#8220;ICE Free Zones&#8221; to ban ICE agents from city property.
This is SICK. He is aiding and abetting criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, traffickers, and gang bangers. <a href="https://t.co/LaMbxaqePP">pic.twitter.com/LaMbxaqePP</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1975210976728518974?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @RapidResponse47/X.com
The red line has always been: state and local governments can decide not to actively assist federal officials, but they can&#8217;t decide to actively interfere with federal officials, either. That&#8217;s how federalism works. It&#8217;s how our whole constitutional system works. But the city of Chicago, and many other cities, have decided to break this covenant. They aren&#8217;t hiding their intentions. As a result, no reasonable person can deny what&#8217;s happening or that the Insurrection Act is the only available remedy to stop the mayhem, as many conservatives have said.
But there is one other major benefit of invoking the Insurrection Act, which a lot of people aren&#8217;t talking about. It would finally force federal judges to openly declare their rebellion against the Executive Branch. The Chicago Police Department has just explicitly declared its own rebellion, as you just heard. And if a single federal judge tries to stand in the way of Donald Trump&#8217;s invocation of the Insurrection Act, then the judiciary would be doing the exact same thing. The judges couldn&#8217;t hide behind legalese or strained interpretations of the law in order to justify their fraudulent decisions. If they attempt to overturn Donald Trump&#8217;s use of the Insurrection Act, the only way they can do it is by admitting that they&#8217;re waging open warfare on a duly elected branch of government.
Here&#8217;s why. The Insurrection Act, by design, leaves no room for judges or lawmakers to intervene. The law is based on the president&#8217;s constitutional authority to act as commander-in-chief of the military, as well as his responsibility to ensure domestic security. 
Article 1, <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C15-1/ALDE_00001077/">Section 8</a> of the Constitution states, &#8220;[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.&#8221; 
And with the Insurrection Act, Congress awarded the president the unilateral authority to decide when an insurrection exists, and how to deal with it. 
You can <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/subtitle-A/part-I/chapter-13">pull up the law</a> and read it for yourself. Here&#8217;s the relevant portion.
<blockquote>Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.</blockquote>
That&#8217;s it. There are no qualifiers. There&#8217;s no provision that the president&#8217;s declaration of insurrection has to be &#8220;reasonable&#8221; in the eyes of Congress, or anyone else. There&#8217;s no provision that puts a time limit on the president&#8217;s authority. There isn&#8217;t even a definition of the word &#8220;insurrection.&#8221; It&#8217;s completely up to the president.
If you&#8217;re a blue-haired professor at Berkeley Law School, you might hyperventilate about this. Surely, you might say, there have to be &#8220;checks and balances&#8221; somewhere. But actually, no, there don&#8217;t have to be checks and balances. At some point, one branch of government has to be supreme over the others. There&#8217;s no way to avoid that. It&#8217;s as inevitable as the laws of physics. And the Founders understood that. Yes, they created an intricate system of government, in which the three branches of government serve as a &#8220;check&#8221; on each other&#8217;s power. That&#8217;s the ideal situation. That&#8217;s how things should work. But the Founders also understood that, if things break down, and one branch of government decides to &#8220;check&#8221; another branch into oblivion in an attempt to destroy the entire country and our democratic system of government, then there has to be a failsafe. There has to be a &#8220;break glass in case of emergency&#8221; type of safeguard. And the Insurrection Act — which again, is based very closely on the Constitutional text — is that safeguard. The Insurrection Act says, if things get really, really bad, then the elected president of the United States — who has more of a democratic mandate than any court, or any lawmaker in Congress — can use the military to restore order.
To be clear, undoubtedly, Left-wing judges would try to issue injunctions anyway. I&#8217;m not denying that. But the point is that, like the Chicago police department, they&#8217;d have to be very, very transparent about what they were doing. The Insurrection Act doesn&#8217;t give them any room to weasel out of it. They&#8217;d have to state, essentially, that they don&#8217;t care about the Constitution, or laws passed by Congress, and that they&#8217;re declaring open warfare against the Executive Branch.
Additionally, many of these judges — and all of the Left — are on the record already stating that January 6 was an &#8220;insurrection.&#8221; Several courts, including the Supreme Court of the state of Colorado, attempted to kick Trump off the ballot in the last election, on the theory that he had committed an &#8220;insurrection.&#8221; So they&#8217;ve already gone out of their way to declare, in no uncertain terms, that a group of old ladies wandering around the Capitol for a few hours constitutes an &#8220;insurrection.&#8221; Their standard is that, if a few windows are broken, and someone sits on Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s desk and steals her lectern, then an &#8220;insurrection&#8221; has taken place.
If that&#8217;s the standard, then there is no conceivable way, morally or logically, to argue that cities like Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles aren&#8217;t in a state of open insurrection against the United States. If a mob loitering inside the Capitol for a few hours counts as an &#8220;insurrection,&#8221; then coordinated and violent attacks on law enforcement, endorsed by state and local officials, certainly qualify as well. They have boxed themselves into this corner. There&#8217;s no way around it. 
That&#8217;s why the arguments from the Left are growing increasingly frantic and incoherent. On social media at the moment, various left-wing figures are doing their best to stoke outrage because they suspect a declaration of insurrection is coming. 
Here&#8217;s Robert Reich, for example. Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Trump wants to invoke the Insurrection Act to punish anyone who opposes him, and he’s following a four point plan to do it.
Here’s what you need to know about it — and some thoughts on how to respond. <a href="https://t.co/QZZOSM4aON">pic.twitter.com/QZZOSM4aON</a>
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) <a href="https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1976053389143179695?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @RBReich/X.com
This is what their argument is going to be. They&#8217;re claiming that Trump wants to round up his political opponents and anyone else he doesn&#8217;t like. Of course, that&#8217;s precisely what Joe Biden&#8217;s administration did. They jailed every Trump aide — and ultimately Trump himself — in order to prevent a democratic election from taking place. And Joe Biden didn&#8217;t need the Insurrection Act to do any of that.
What people like Robert Reich won&#8217;t do, even though it would solve the whole problem, is admit what they&#8217;re really interested in. In the first Trump administration, the argument from the Left was that he &#8220;put kids in cages&#8221; and &#8220;separated families&#8221; or whatever. That argument never made any sense — families are separated all the time when the parents commit crimes — but it&#8217;s what they went with. This time around, their argument is even more tenuous. They&#8217;re saying that ICE agents are the modern-day Gestapo because they&#8217;re rounding up illegal aliens while wearing masks and making lawful arrests in public places. They say ICE is arresting &#8220;American citizens,&#8221; even though there isn&#8217;t a single case of ICE deporting an actual American citizen, anywhere. (There is a case of an illegal alien taking her children with her, as she was deported, which is obviously a completely different scenario.)
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What&#8217;s really going on here, although no one on the Left wants to say it, is that the Democrat Party demands open borders. They do not want any federal immigration enforcement of any kind. That is their platform. But they never say it out loud, explicitly, because they understand how unconvincing and unpopular it is. So Leftist judges hide behind various legalese, while Democrat activists make outlandish claims with no basis in fact. That&#8217;s what they&#8217;re forced to do. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s been happening for the last 10 months.
As a result, we have arrived at the absolute limit of &#8220;checks and balances&#8221; in our system of government. And if the courts and local governments want to keep pushing things, they will rapidly find out that, under our Constitution, they will lose any one-on-one battle with the Executive Branch. That is how our Constitution was structured. It&#8217;s how the Insurrection Act was structured. In an ideal situation, of course, this failsafe wouldn&#8217;t be necessary. We shouldn&#8217;t have to rely on a final line of defense like this. But at the moment, we do. Democrats are daring the administration to invoke the constitutional response to their lawlessness and depravity. In response, the administration has no other choice but to follow the guidance of the Founders and send in the military to quell an insurrection that has rapidly spiraled out of control.

National Guard To Be Deployed In Portland, Oregon

It’s Time To Crush The Leftist Insurrection Once And For All

Chicago

Deportations

Donald Trump

illegal immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

insurrection

Judges

Portland

Along with Tulsi Gabbard, who now serves as Director of National Intelligence, three Republican members of Congress were surveilled by the now-defunct TSA “Quiet Skies” program, independent journalist Matt Taibbi <a href="https://www.racket.news/p/not-only-tulsi-three-members-of-congress">reported</a> on Tuesday.
According to documents handed over to the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, two of the three Republican representatives were placed on a surveillance list before they were elected, but remained there after joining Congress. According to the Senate committee’s notes, “a cursory review would have revealed them to be a member of Congress, or a decorated U.S. veteran or service member,” Taibbi reported.
The names of the members of Congress and the states they represent were redacted in the government documents.
The TSA’s “Quiet Skies” program, which began in 2010, came under intense scrutiny last year after whistleblowers revealed that Gabbard — then a former Democratic congresswoman who was highly critical of the Democratic Party — was followed by Air Marshals and bomb-sniffing dogs under the TSA program. “Quiet Skies” was ended by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in June. Noem <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/06/05/secretary-noem-ends-politicized-tsa-watchlist-program-has-failed-prevent-single">said</a>, “It is clear that the Quiet Skies program was used as a political rolodex of the Biden Administration — weaponized against its political foes and exploited to benefit their well-heeled friends.”
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The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee also revealed that TSA approved a watchlist, or “enhanced screening,” for people “suspected of traveling to the National Capital Region” in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The watchlist was deemed appropriate for people “believed to pose an elevated risk” but for whom “there is a current lack of specific information relating to unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol.”
Gabbard was surveilled on at least eight flights during the summer of 2024, according to documents handed over to the committee. The former Democratic lawmaker was listed as a “possible affiliate” of a member of the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). According to The New York Times, Gabbard landed on the list after she attended an event “at the Vatican that was organized by a European businessman who appeared on an F.B.I. watch list.”
A text exchange between Marshals assigned to follow Gabbard from July 22, 2024, also pointed to the TSDB as the reason that Gabbard was placed on the list.
“So Gabbard is an affiliate with a TSDB, and since she’s no longer in Congress that’s probably why she hit for the rule,” one Marshal wrote.
“Yeah I talked with [redacted] about it and that’s the conclusion we came to as well,” a second Marshal replied.
“Cool cool.”
One former Marshal, however, told Taibbi that the decision to place Gabbard on the list wasn’t necessarily made by an automated database.
“Obviously, there is a way for human beings to influence the decision tree above our level,” the former Marshal said.
Taibbi testified before the Senate committee on Tuesday and ripped the federal government’s “Quiet Skies” surveillance program.
“Before Quiet Skies was discontinued by this administration, it was a symbol of the steep decline of federal enforcement since 9/11. The government spent $200 million a year following up to 50 people a day for a program that in its history never once led to an arrest, or thwarted a single criminal act,” Taibbi told the committee. “Despite its demonstrated inutility and grave civil liberties concerns it was re-funded year after year because this is what our government does now: it gathers information on its own citizens as an end in itself.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
The full opening statement of <a href="https://twitter.com/mtaibbi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mtaibbi</a> <a href="https://t.co/NJ2fRqNeWX">https://t.co/NJ2fRqNeWX</a> <a href="https://t.co/TaGBhBfYY1">pic.twitter.com/TaGBhBfYY1</a>
— Emily Chapple (@blonde4thewin) <a href="https://twitter.com/blonde4thewin/status/1973065367527260667?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

TSA, Tulsi Gabbard

Three GOP Congress Members Were Placed Under TSA Surveillance Program That Targeted Tulsi Gabbard

Congress

Politics

Republicans

Surveillance

Tulsi Gabbard

As conditions in northern Nigeria continue to deteriorate, the U.S. State Department inexplicably approved a potential sale of <a href="https://www.dsca.mil/Press-Media/Major-Arms-Sales/Article-Display/Article/4273754/nigeria-munitions-precision-bombs-and-precision-rockets">$346 million</a> in arms to the Nigerian military. The multimillion-dollar deal comes as northern Nigeria further descends into violent turmoil as killings, kidnappings, and raids continue to destabilize communities throughout the region.
After years of <a href="https://www.acrossnigeria.org/">working in the region</a>, I&#8217;ve seen arms deals like this before. They rarely, if ever, work. In fact, they often make things worse. The U.S. has a terrible habit of assuming money or weapons can resolve every conflict, while ignoring the unique cultural and historical factors that created the problem in the first place.
The Nigerian government indeed needs assistance in providing and maintaining security. Terrorist groups like Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), Boko Haram, and a host of factional bandit groups have successfully destabilized nearly the entire northern territory of the country. The Nigerian military is ill-equipped to deal with these challenges.
The International Society for Civil Liberties has calculated that more than <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/christians-killed-nigeria-religion-2116416">7,000 Christians were killed</a> during the first 220 days of 2025. Although the violence is predominantly focused on the Christian community, Muslims are suffering at the hands of these extremist groups, too. Just this month, armed extremists entered a mosque in northern Nigeria and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/bandits-kill-least-27-northern-nigeria-mosque-attack-officials-say-2025-08-19/">killed 27 worshippers</a>. This year is already the deadliest in recent memory, and by year&#8217;s end, it will very likely be the deadliest ever in Nigeria’s history.
In the face of rising violence and extremism, from 2000 to 2021, the U.S. State Department dumped $232 million in “<a href="https://watson.brown.edu/chrhs/files/chrhs/imce/partnerships/Civ-Mil/Nigeria-May-2022-Factsheet.pdf">security sector assistance</a>,” $593 million in foreign military sales, and $305 million in “direct commercial sales” from private companies into Nigeria. All in an effort to stop the rise of terrorism and suppress newly formed terrorist groups, including Boko Haram.
Did it work? Absolutely not.
Since Boko Haram’s formation in 2002, they have only grown in strength and numbers. What started as a handful of extremists with Jihadi ideals to rid northern Nigeria of anything western has grown into an army of thousands. And while the U.S. was still throwing money and weapons at the problem, another, more menacing group was forming. In 2015, ISWAP was born when a group within Boko Haram defected and pledged its allegiance to ISIS. This group has grown into an army of 20,000.
While both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses tried to solve the problem with money and arms, the problem only grew. 
By the end of 2020, an estimated <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/nigeria-s-silent-slaughter-62-000-christians-murdered-since-2000">60,000 people were directly killed</a> by the violence of these two groups alone. And according to a 2021 report by the United Nations Development Programme, the insurgency had <a href="https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/migration/ng/Assessing-the-Impact-of-Conflict-on-Development-in-NE-Nigeria---The-Report.pdf">caused the death of 350,000 people</a> from the conflict’s indirect consequences (like lack of food, healthcare, etc).
Anyone looking at the policy of selling arms to Nigeria would be hard pressed to say, “Job well done.”
Arms sales to Nigeria are a debacle for two reasons. First, Nigeria is notorious for its corruption. Corruption is woven into the very fabric of Nigeria’s culture. As quickly as the U.S. sends money and arms, the resources are often diverted from their intended destination.
In 2016, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nigerian-military-some-officers-selling-arms-to-boko-haram/3493038.html">Nigeria’s military was forced to admit</a> that many of its officers were selling arms and ammunition to Boko Haram and fraudulently diverting hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted to help suppress the insurgency. One four-star general was even accused of <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nigerian-military-some-officers-selling-arms-to-boko-haram/3493038.html">skimming $24 million</a> to build a shopping center in Abuja. He was relieved of his command but never convicted.
For a State Department that seems set on getting rid of fraud, waste, and abuse, I don’t think sending unsupervised money and weapons to Nigeria is a wise step in the right direction.
Secondly, the Nigerian military has been known to make serious mistakes that cost innocent lives. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0y30766kjo">latest example</a> happened in May, when the Nigerian Air Force bombed a local self-defense group, mistaking them for insurgents. Ironically, the <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/nigeria/">State Department&#8217;s Annual Human Rights Report</a> warning that Nigerian air strikes kill civilians was released the same week the department approved the latest weapons sale.
The reality is this: Nigeria needs help to suppress the growth of terrorist groups in the north and they cannot fight stone-cold killers with peace signs and flowers.
However, this is an extremely complex problem, and the solution is not unilateral. It will take a multi-layered approach to see any degree of success. Any funding and weapons should never be approved without a plan for oversight and strict accountability – something that has never been part of our weapons aid in the past.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I know <a href="https://www.acrossnigeria.org/">northern Nigeria</a>. I know the language, the culture, and the people. And one thing I am sure of is that if all the U.S. is prepared to do is throw guns, ammunition, and money at the problem, we will only get more of the same.
* * *
<a href="https://www.acrossnigeria.org/ourfounder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brad Brandon</a> is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.acrossnigeria.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Across Nigeria</a>. Since 2018, he has been actively serving in predominantly high-risk, highly persecuted areas like Northern Nigeria and other parts of West Africa.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

military equipment ammunition and camouflage uniform

Why The Latest U.S. Arms Deal With Nigeria Will Only Fuel More Violence

Africa

Military Weapons

Nigeria

State Department

A week ago, President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2025/08/11/trump-says-marijuana-rescheduling-will-be-decided-within-weeks/">said</a> that he would soon decide whether to move cannabis from Schedule I to III for purposes of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), which would take marijuana out of the category of drugs that cannot be used for any purpose. Doing so would be a huge mistake. Huge.
Congress placed cannabis in Schedule I — the category for drugs that have no legitimate medical use, that are potentially addictive, and have no safe use even under a physician’s supervision — when it passed the CSA 55 years ago. While Congress empowered the U.S. Attorney General, after consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to reschedule cannabis, in the ensuing half-century, no Republican or Democratic attorney general has done so, and no court has ruled that they must do so.
In 2023, however, cannabis advocates finally found a friend. Admiral Rachel L. Levine, HHS Assistant Secretary for Health under President Biden, <a href="http://www.jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2834954">recommended</a> that Attorney General Merrick Garland transfer cannabis into Schedule III. To justify that conclusion, Levine invented a newfangled test that relied heavily on the fact that multiple states have adopted medical cannabis programs. As a matter of law, that rationale is wrong for multiple reasons.
First, Congress could not have been clearer that it is the exclusive responsibility of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not the states, to decide whether a drug is safe, effective, and uniform. Levine’s rationale effectively and unlawfully transfers decision-making authority from the FDA to the states.
Second, the FDA has never approved the botanical form of cannabis as a safe, effective, and uniformly made drug. The FDA has approved the synthesis of compounds found in the plant by legitimate pharmaceutical companies, but has not approved the interstate distribution of the cannabis plant enjoyed by Cheech and Chong and Harold and Kumar fans.
Third, the FDA could not find that the cannabis plant is safe, effective, and uniformly made.
Start with its safety. The cannabis sold today is <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">far more powerful</a> than the version smoked at Woodstock. At that time, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — was 3-6%. Now, some concentrated cannabis products can have a 90% THC content. That difference is like comparing near beer to grain alcohol.
Growing evidence also links cannabis use to a host of <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">adverse physical outcomes</a>, such as oral, head, and neck cancers; cardiovascular disorders; pulmonary disease; and numerous adverse psychological effects, such earlier onset of psychosis; reduced IQ; childhood poisonings; amotivational syndrome; increased school absenteeism; and a reduced likelihood of graduating high school, enrolling in a university, or completing higher degree requirements. Heavy cannabis users and people who begin its use as minors and continue into adulthood are particularly <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110381/witnesses/HHRG-116-IF14-Wstate-VolkowN-20200115.pdf">susceptible</a> to these harms.
Plus, botanical cannabis can be adulterated with a host of dangerous, unhealthy, or downright disgusting contaminants. Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Congress in 2020 that “individuals across the country are using cannabis strains and extracts that have not undergone the rigorous clinical trials required to show that they are safe and effective for medical use, and are not regulated for consistency or quality.”
As I explained in an <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">earlier article</a>, among the “hodgepodge” of dangerous contaminants found in the cannabis sold today are E. coli, fungi, mold, toxins, hazardous chemical solvents such as butane and propane, pesticides, heavy metals (such as arsenic, lead, and mercury), and other harmful and disgusting substances such as formaldehyde and insects. The FDA would never allow such contaminants to be present in any drug sold to the public.
Cannabis can also lead to physical dependence in users. Heavy or long-term use can lead a person to develop a tolerance to THC, requiring ever greater quantities of the chemical to experience the same euphoria. As drug policy experts Wayne Hall and Rosalie Pacula have explained, there is a 10% risk of addiction for people who have ever used cannabis, a 20-33% for people who use it more frequently, and a 50% risk — &#8220;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">a coin flip</a>” — for people who use it daily. Driving while stoned can, of course, lead to motor vehicle accidents that maim or kill pedestrians or other drivers and their passengers.
Keep in mind that the FDA has <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">never</a> given approval for a drug to be smoked. Why? There is no uniform depth or length of any one inhalation, and no uniform number of inhalations that users follow. Moreover, the nation concluded over 60 years ago that smoking burnt carbon products damages a smoker’s health, which explains why major medical institutions such as the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Royal College of Physicians have <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">not</a> recommended smoking as a legitimate drug delivery system.
The raw cannabis plant also is not “effective” for purposes of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Only a handful of controlled studies have examined whether pot can be used as a legitimate treatment for disease or injury; the results are <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/09/17-2-Larkin-Madras.pdf">inadequate</a> to draw any scientific conclusion.
The most common justification offered is that its psychoactive calming effect makes it a legitimate analgesic alternative for pain. But that argument is medically <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2019/09/17-2-Larkin-Madras.pdf">unsound</a>. Cannabis is too weak to substitute for opioids as a treatment for severe pain — indeed, it hinders cessation of opioid use by anyone trying to kick an opioid <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4127123/pdf/nihms609765.pdf">dependency</a> — and scientific proof that THC is a valid treatment for lower levels of pain is also lacking.
To be sure, smoking a joint can get you “high,” but that is not the test for a medicine’s effectiveness. As Dr. Peter Bach, Director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-weed-is-medicine-so-is-budweiser-11547770981?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAh7LaDEYv_vcqs-izvRtTLHvE4_TMMU_qu3NyDxy9OXughPlX3zaBL-&amp;gaa_ts=689c8e99&amp;gaa_sig=tzI2Ti78lH5zRhqIjd3w0ZVcT308pAa8r1GA3Re1URauoN8dYXnoBs5EqZYAmoitDwKaFsuYPpeZooGzKZ9AwA%3D%3D">explained</a>, “[E]very intoxicant would pass that sort of test because you don’t experience pain as acutely when you are high. If weed is a pain reliever, so is Budweiser.”
Finally, the cannabis plant is not a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">uniformly made product</a>. As Brian Thomas and Mahmoud ElSohly <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">explained</a> in their book The Analytical Chemistry of Cannabis, “The number of parameters on which cannabis can vary is enormous,” and differs according to “strain, growing conditions, harvesting methods and handling,” to “storage and processing of the raw material to combining them with a wide variety of foods and other excipients in manufacturing, and to “methods of administration (eating, smoking, ‘vaping,’ applying to mucous membranes)” and so forth.
Botanical cannabis also varies according to potency and the presence of cannabinoids (i.e., biochemically active compounds), which tends to <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/SR275.pdf">offset or moderate</a> the potential adverse effects of high THC consumption, such as anxiety, cognitive impairment, amotivational syndrome, dependence or addiction, and psychosis.
In sum, the Levine recommendation from 2023 is wrong as a matter of law and medically unsound, indeed dangerous. If the President truly wants to Make America Healthy Again, he should reject that recommendation.
* * *
Paul J. Larkin is the John, Barbara &amp; Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Trump Administration Considers Reclassifying Marijuana As A Less Dangerous Drug

Dude, Rescheduling Cannabis Downwards Would Be A Huge Mistake. Huge.

addiction

Drugs

Marijuana

This week, President Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115092130707196133">sent a letter</a> to Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, informing her of her immediate removal from her position of service, citing allegations of mortgage fraud.
In a time when buying a home is out of reach for millions of Americans, in part due to the high interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, it is obvious that someone who allegedly committed mortgage fraud by claiming two different homes as their main residence to get better loan terms would be unfit to serve. While the President provided documentation alleging fraud, time will tell whether Ms. Cook indeed committed fraud. Innocent until proven guilty.
Aside from this point, however, there is a much larger problem at play.
The Constitution is clear: All members of the Executive Branch report to the President of the United States. This is a basic chain-of-command that is not difficult to understand.
Yet time and time again, we see political appointees cling for dear life to their appointed, and temporary, positions of service, exhibiting unmatched levels of arrogance and entitlement.
Take Lisa Cook, for example.
A decorated former professor of economics who has conducted plenty of research and advised the Obama administration, her resume passes muster. Still, are there not thousands of other economic experts who might serve the American people in this position?
Not according to Ms. Cook, who remains defiant.
“I will not resign,” she <a href="https://x.com/bencasselman/status/1960175891658498543">pouted</a> through her attorney like a petulant child, adding that the President of the United States has no authority to fire her.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Just received this statement from Lisa Cook, via her attorney: 
&#8220;President Trump purported to fire me &#8216;for cause&#8217; when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have… <a href="https://t.co/57C6p0cwMI">https://t.co/57C6p0cwMI</a>
— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) <a href="https://twitter.com/bencasselman/status/1960175891658498543?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @bencasselman/X
Of course, that is not true.
As every middle school civics student knows, and as President Trump spelled out quite clearly in his letter, his authority comes from Article II of the Constitution of the United States: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
Lawyers are scrambling in Washington and across the nation to come up with legal arguments for both sides. But it doesn’t take a Juris Doctorate, just a basic reading comprehension level, to understand that the President oversees the Executive Branch. Ultimately, all members of the Executive Branch report to him.
If that were not the case, then who is in charge? 
Who has the authority to appoint and fire within the Executive? Lisa Cook?
Let’s take it a step further to examine the practicality of the matter: Why on earth would Ms. Cook wish to continue her service when her boss, the President, has fired her? She is no longer wanted in the Trump administration. This was not a lifetime appointment. She was always going to have to return back to the real world and her real job.
Cue the arrogance to center stage.
Ms. Cook apparently believes she alone is capable of serving as on the Board of Governors at the Fed, and that her politically-appointed position holds more power in it than the President of the United States holds via Article II of the Constitution.
She will use the mainstream media and the fury of liberal Democrats who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome (looking at you, Gavin Newsom) for as many news cycles as she can to stir up trouble and get her 15 minutes of fame.
Meantime, those Americans trying to afford a home will just have to wait.
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Lisa Cook is not the first, nor will she be the last, to throw a temper tantrum when asked to leave. She is just one of thousands of bureaucrats in Washington who mistakenly believe they are independent from and just as important as the sitting President of the United States.
Woe to anyone, including the president, who challenges that notion!
But perhaps the American people can use this moment to see just how difficult it is for the president to exert his authority over the very government he has been elected to lead. Millions of Americans voted for President Donald Trump. Nobody voted for Lisa Cook.
They voted for his vision, his leadership, and his discretion. They voted for his judgment. Politically-appointed bureaucrats may not like it, but that is how democracy works.
Time to pack your things, Ms. Cook.
* * *
Carly Bird is a Republican strategist and founder and president of Bird’s Eye Consulting. She previously served as the national spokeswoman for Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

President Trump Meets With His Cabinet At The White House

Yes, The President Can Fire Politically-Appointed Bureaucrats

Federal Reserve

President Trump

The following is a portion of an edited transcript from a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-250824-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Weekend Edition of Morning Wire</a> where Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley sat down with Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.
* * *
JOHN: Joining us now is Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget. Maya, thanks so much for coming on. First, tell us, what exactly is the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/">Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget</a>?
MAYA: Thanks for having me. Other than a mouthful of a name, it&#8217;s a bipartisan nonprofit watchdog group. Basically, we&#8217;re very concerned about fiscal policy, meaning how big our debt and deficits are and we don&#8217;t have a political agenda at all. I&#8217;m a political independent. Our board and our staff are from across the political spectrum. But we are deeply concerned that our political environment now focuses on borrowing when we shouldn&#8217;t be because of the political benefits of not actually dealing with trade-offs. And that concern has been growing over time.
JOHN: I wanted to ask you exactly about that. You&#8217;ve been warning about borrowing. Why is the growing debt so dangerous for the U.S. economy? What specific ways will it actually impact Americans?
MAYA: I think that&#8217;s one of the biggest challenges about this whole issue. It&#8217;s really not something that feels directly related to us as individuals, but it&#8217;s directly related to everything we care about. The fiscal health of the country is really the underpinning of both our economic and our national security strength. So, if your debt is too high — and ours without question is — every warning sign that there is is blinking bright, bright red right now. But if your debt is too high, it actually means that the government borrows so much money, it squeezes out the investment possibility and the private sector. It slows growth and slows productivity, it pushes up inflation, pushes up interest rates, all sorts of things that slow economic growth, which translates into lower wages, lower standard of living, and less job security. Nothing good on the economic front. That&#8217;s one. 
Two, it means that our budget has huge pressure because interest payments start to absorb more and more of our resources. Whether you want huge tax cuts or huge growth in spending, we can fight about those things, but interest payments get the first claim on the dollar in the budget. Right now it&#8217;s our second largest item in the budget and the single fastest growing item. It also means that when we have national emergencies where you should be borrowing, it&#8217;s more difficult to do so. And it means that, if you&#8217;re trying to fight a recession or a pandemic or a national emergency, you may have high pressure on upward interest rates when you&#8217;re trying to borrow. Whereas, if your debt&#8217;s lower, that doesn&#8217;t happen. 
But it&#8217;s also expanded now where it&#8217;s not just an economic issue, it is a national security issue. We are borrowing from countries with whom we are not aligned. We are not able to make our own national security decisions just from a strategic and security perspective, we have to think about budget resources and you don&#8217;t want to be in that position. So it weakens our ability to respond to emergencies, take advantage of opportunities. But bottom line, we can do fewer things and we become poor as a nation.
And finally, for those people who worry about the next generation, it&#8217;s really, really [hosing] a generation that&#8217;s already facing so many challenges. They are facing a much more difficult, fast-paced, changing world and we have tied up their budget with interest payments and promises to seniors. They don&#8217;t have the fiscal flexibility to respond and they owe a whole lot of debt because of the borrowing we took on.
&nbsp;
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012" 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>
JOHN: Like you said, it&#8217;s insidious because you don&#8217;t feel a lot of the effects. There are a lot of things that we can&#8217;t do now, things that we could have done if we had more money available. And then, kicking the can down the road. We&#8217;re not feeling it now – but our kids will feel it, and their kids will feel it. Is there any progress on this in Washington? Anyone paying attention to this?
MAYA: Yes, it&#8217;s so discouraging, honestly, because the situation is getting worse. Our debt to GDP is getting worse. Our annual deficits are getting worse, and this is outside of emergencies. And, frankly, our political environment and willingness to talk about this is much, much worse. We&#8217;re so polarized. You have both parties basically fighting with each other by giving away more things. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give you tax cuts, no taxes on this.&#8221; &#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll give you bigger tax cuts, and I&#8217;ll increase the spending.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ll also increase the spending.&#8221; It used to be that you thought of Republicans as wanting tax cuts and Democrats as wanting spending increases. It&#8217;s literally both now. So, they fight for these huge giveaways. 
So, no, the situation is frankly very troubling both from an economic, national security, but also a political perspective. And internally, because it&#8217;s frustrating to work on an issue where you know we&#8217;re not going to have the big debt deal that we really need to have this year, for instance, a lot of times the best we can do and sort of why we&#8217;re able to pat ourselves on the back for some work is when things would have been worse without the kind of fiscal pressure we put on. But it&#8217;s really frustrating to say, &#8220;Well, we borrowed a trillion dollars, but we might have borrowed a trillion and a half if it weren&#8217;t for our pushing against this issue.&#8221; We&#8217;ve got to do better than that. We&#8217;ve got to start actually turning the ship around and bringing the debt as a share of GDP trajectory down instead of continuing to grow it&#8230;
* * *
<h3><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012">Catch the full interview with Maya MacGuineas on Morning Wire.</a></h3>

National Debt

‘Blinking Bright, Bright Red’: Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

'Blinking Bright, Bright Red': Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

Budget

finance

Morning Wire

Spending Bill

U.S. House of Representatives

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

Gen Z

Leftists

New York City

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.
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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

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