A 25-year-old former member of the National Guard is accused of attempting to provide 3D-printed weapons to someone he believed was a member of al-Qaeda, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. 
While serving in the National Guard, Andrew Hastings of Tulsa, Oklahoma, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-arrested-and-charged-attempting-provide-al-qaida-weapons">allegedly</a> shipped more than one hundred parts for weapons to an undercover agent with the intent of assisting the radical Islamic terrorist group. He is charged with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization and illegal possession or transfer of a machine gun.
Hastings first came under FBI scrutiny in June 2024 after he was found to be “discussing committing acts of violence against U.S. civilians in furtherance of global jihad” on a social media app, according to the Justice Department. At the time, he worked as an aircraft powertrain repairer and held a national security clearance.
On social media, Hastings allegedly encouraged others in a group chat discussing acts of terrorism to develop cyberspace skills and start physical training. He allegedly offered to provide Army manuals related to tactics and the manufacture of weapons and expressed interest in creating a nuclear weapon. 
According to the complaint, Hastings then began conversing with an undercover agent who claimed to have ties to al-Qaeda. Surveillance footage cited in court documents reportedly shows Hastings dropping off boxes at a post office to ship 3D printed machine gun conversion switches, two 3D printed lower receivers for a handgun, a handgun slide, and other handgun parts for “al-Qaida for use in terrorist attacks.”
Investigators also stated that he took an overseas trip without reporting it to his superiors as required. Hastings voluntarily left the National Guard on June 6, 2025, as the investigation was ongoing. 
The FBI, the Army, the ATF, and the Tulsa Police Department investigated the case. 
“The successful arrest of this Soldier is a testament to the strong partnership between Army Counterintelligence Command and the FBI,” said Brig. Gen. Sean Stinchon, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command, adding that the Army remained committed to ensuring that “individuals who support terrorist organizations are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Trump Increases Federal Law Enforcement Presence, Deploys National Guard In Nation’s Capital

Former National Guardsman Accused Of 3D-Printing Weapons For Al-Qaeda

Al Qaeda

Crime

Department of Justice

National Guard

Oklahoma

Radical Islamic Terror

Terrorism

U.S.

U.S. Army

A coronavirus-era housing bailout program spent $10 billion paying Americans&#8217; mortgages and homeowner association dues. But explicit racial preferences steered nearly half of the funds to black Americans, who make up just 12% of the population, a Daily Wire analysis found.
The <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/homeowner-assistance-fund" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Homeowner Assistance Fund</a> is one of the largest race-based government wealth transfers in history. It has largely escaped scrutiny since it launched amid a global pandemic and a stream of other federal bailouts. But now, white residents in several states have filed lawsuits alleging that they were illegally discriminated against.
The lawsuits target Republican-led states that the plaintiffs say went along with the program in Joe Biden&#8217;s American Rescue Plan, even though it was up to each state to implement its own rules, and the Biden administration offered racial criteria only as non-binding suggestions.
In Georgia, for example, 82% of the funds — made up of payments for up to $50,000 — went to blacks. Only 13% went to whites, and 4% went to Hispanics. The lawsuit argues that this can&#8217;t be due to income disparities alone, given the high rate of poverty among white people in the state.
&#8220;This dramatic difference cannot be explained by income disparities or other race-independent reasons,&#8221; a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gasd.107818/gov.uscourts.gasd.107818.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> filed in January says. &#8220;For example, comparing census and poverty rate data, about 50.5% of Georgia citizens below the poverty line are black and 45.6% are white.&#8221;
The lawsuit is against the state&#8217;s Department of Community Affairs, whose leaders are appointed by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican who has led the state since 2019. It alleges that the $354 million plan submitted by Georgia, and approved in January 2022, to use the funds included plans for a public awareness campaign that would send text messages to residents in &#8220;30 out of Georgia’s 152 counties&#8221; that were selected based on, among other things, “minority population.”
The state also &#8220;approved applications from applicants of its preferred racial and ethnic groups at a higher rate than those from white applicants. Out of all non-white applicants, about 20.04% of applicants were approved while out of all white applicants, about 12.74% of applicants were approved,&#8221; the suit says.
The federal program <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/HAF-Guidance.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">required</a> that each state allocate at least 60% of the funds to homeowners with incomes below the median. People with higher-than-average incomes could get the remaining money, but that portion &#8220;must be prioritized for assistance to socially disadvantaged individuals, with funds remaining after such prioritization being made available for other eligible homeowners.&#8221;
In other words, poor people of all races could always qualify for the grant, but certain other groups could also get it because they&#8217;re &#8220;disadvantaged,&#8221; even though they actually had more money than most.
The lawsuit stated that Congress had not defined &#8220;socially disadvantaged individuals.&#8221; But in April 2021, the Biden administration &#8220;provided a recommended definition&#8221; that said &#8220;Socially disadvantaged individuals are those who have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias &#8230; There is a rebuttable presumption that the following individuals are socially disadvantaged: Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.&#8221;
Georgia, Missouri, and Oklahoma are being sued after the deep-red states chose to adopt that definition, even though it was optional, unlike other states. Deep-blue California, for example, administered the housing-cost bailout by <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/HAFP-0108-California-Salesforce-Submission.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">defining</a> socially disadvantaged as residents who live in Census tracts where the <a href="https://knowledge.luskin.ucla.edu/ca-covid-19-owner-vulnerability/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ratio</a> of housing costs to available income has historically made residents most vulnerable to foreclosure. <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/HAFP-0096-Texas-SalesforceSubmission.pdf">Texas</a> defined it as people who &#8220;reside in a Persistent Poverty County.&#8221;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-968057 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race.png" alt="" width="1113" height="1636" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race.png 1113w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race-204x300.png 204w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race-392x576.png 392w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race-768x1129.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/haf-race-1045x1536.png 1045w" sizes=" (max-width: 1113px) 100vw, 1113px" /></div>
Kemp spokesman Carter Chapman declined to discuss why Georgia adopted the race-based definition, instead saying he has a record of &#8220;fighting DEI in our state,&#8221; including signing bills restricting childhood gender transitions. The state&#8217;s Department of Community Affairs did not return a request for comment.
Georgia Attorney General Christopher M. Carr is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, filing a motion in June that stated the state&#8217;s use of race was &#8220;entirely consistent with the Treasury’s definitions.&#8221;
&#8220;The Treasury’s and DCA’s definition of socially disadvantaged individuals included, but was not limited to, people who had been subject to racial prejudice, and it also included those who have been subject to cultural bias, which is not a racial classification,&#8221; Carr says.
&#8220;The program allowed white applicants to be considered socially disadvantaged merely by submitting an affidavit stating that they &#8216;identify as a Socially Disadvantaged Individual,'&#8221; he wrote.
Carr is a Republican who has held his position since 2016 and has criticized DEI policies elsewhere, including at Costco and the American Bar Association. Carr spokeswoman Kara Murray told The Daily Wire that &#8220;Attorney General Carr had no involvement in the implementation of this program in Georgia. Once the lawsuit was filed, our office’s role was to defend the State in court, and that’s what we have done.&#8221;
In Missouri, the program was implemented by the Missouri Housing Development Commission, a <a href="https://mhdc.com/about-us/commissioners/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10-person board</a> that includes the state&#8217;s governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, and attorney general — all of whom are Republicans.
Yet when the federal government asked Missouri how it would define &#8220;socially disadvantaged individual,&#8221; it <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/HAFP-0080-Missouri-SalesforceSubmission.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it would adopt &#8220;Treasury’s definition of socially disadvantaged individuals,&#8221; and use software that would flag people as disadvantaged in part based on which box they checked when asked about race and ethnicity.
A lawsuit said that &#8220;In marketing and advertising its program to inform Missouri citizens about the availability of funds and how to apply, MHDC targeted outreach to racial minorities,&#8221; including partnering with the Black Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Forty-four percent of the loan money went to black residents, who make up less than 12% of the population.
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe was a member of the housing commission during the program&#8217;s inception, serving in his then-role as lieutenant governor. Kehoe spokeswoman Gabby Picard said &#8220;As this is pending litigation, we are not able to comment on the specifics of this case,&#8221; but that &#8220;Kehoe has been a strong advocate for removing DEI within state government,&#8221; signing an executive order &#8220;directing all Missouri state agencies to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and ensure compliance with the constitutional principle of equal protection under the law.&#8221;
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, was not a member of the housing commission when the state decided how to implement the federal program because he took office in 2023. But Bailey responded to the lawsuit in court papers in May, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.213696/gov.uscourts.moed.213696.64.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a> that &#8220;Defendants were merely administering a federal program in accordance with federal mandates, rules, guidelines, regulations, and/or applicable laws &#8230; The Defendants applied neutral criteria when administering the program. Defendants acted in good faith reliance on Treasury and federal guidance, and had no reason to believe the program would have a discriminatory impact.&#8221;
Bailey joined the Trump administration last month as co-deputy director of the FBI. A spokeswoman for his old office, Abigail Bergmann, told The Daily Wire that &#8220;the Biden Administration applied pressure to states to adopt these policies, and Missouri’s program was established before Attorney General Bailey was elected to office. As Attorney General, it is his statutory duty to represent MHDC in court. But thanks to his leadership, MHDC today has been stripped of the Biden-era racist policies that Missourians should never have been subjected to in the first place.”
In Oklahoma, five white residents who did not receive housing assistance, including a massage therapist who lost her job due to the pandemic and her disabled-veteran husband, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.okwd.129299/gov.uscourts.okwd.129299.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency. &#8220;On the front page of its Oklahoma Homeowner Assistance Fund program website, OHFA stated that a homeowner is a socially disadvantaged individual if the homeowner is a “[m]ember of a group that has been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American Society: African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, LGBTQ+,” the suit said.
That <a href="https://perma.cc/Y6VR-EQ4C" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> says residents of &#8220;minority-majority census tracts&#8221; are also among the &#8220;socially disadvantaged&#8221; who &#8220;are eligible to receive a one-time grant award up to a maximum of $35,000.&#8221; It states that applications were accepted until March 2024. The state allocated $87 million, and 26% of it went to black residents, despite their making up only 7% of the state&#8217;s population.
The lawsuit said &#8220;Because of this race-based classification, a white or Asian homeowner with household size of 3 in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, could not apply for relief in 2023 if the homeowner’s income was greater than $96,200 (100% AMI) unless he or she could otherwise qualify as socially disadvantaged, but a black or Latino homeowner with the same household size could apply with an income of up to $116,110 (150% AMI). This is just one of many ways in which OHFA’s race-based program discriminated against white and Asian homeowners.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_542577" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-542577" class="size-large wp-image-542577" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1242358048-864x576.jpg" alt="DALLAS, TEXAS, UNITED STATES - 2022/08/05: Governor of Oklahoma Kevin Stitt speaks during CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Texas 2022 conference at Hilton Anatole in Dallas." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1242358048-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1242358048-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1242358048-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/GettyImages-1242358048.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt speaks during CPAC (Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)</div>
It said OHFA worked with the African Methodist Episcopal Church to market the program.
&#8220;OHFA specifically informed socially disadvantaged individuals about the program and assisted those individuals through the application process but did not do the same for white or Asian homeowners. This made it more likely that individuals deemed socially disadvantaged based on race would receive funding at the expense of white and Asian homeowners who were eligible to receive funding but to whom OHFA did not provide the same information or assistance,&#8221; the suit said.
&#8220;OHFA could have administered its program in a race-neutral way. Instead, it discriminated against white and Asian homeowners in favor of homeowners from preferred racial groups. But COVID-19 did not discriminate. Oklahoma homeowners of all races needed assistance. OHFA’s racial discrimination is plainly unlawful,&#8221; it said.
All of Oklahoma&#8217;s top officials are Republican, and a board appointed by the governor runs the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency. The housing board&#8217;s chair, Michael Buehl, was appointed in 2019 to a five-year term by Governor Kevin Stitt. Stitt then re-appointed him in 2024, after Buehl oversaw the race-based program. Stitt did not return a request for comment.
The housing agency is currently vigorously defending the program, hiring private lawyers who <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.okwd.129299/gov.uscourts.okwd.129299.41.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">filed</a> a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March. The motion said that according to the Attorney General, OHFA is classified as a &#8220;state beneficiary public trust&#8221; that is &#8220;separate and distinct from&#8221; the state.
A spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who has publicly opposed DEI and stated in 2023 that one of his priorities was investigating the misuse of COVID funds, did not respond to questions.

Republican Candidate For Governor Brian Kemp Attends Election Night Event In Athens, Georgia

How A Biden Housing Bailout Steered Billions Based On Race — With Red State Help

Coronavirus

Georgia

Missouri

Red States

Oklahoma will require teachers relocating from California and New York to take a 50-question test aimed at assessing whether they hold leftist political views that might influence their teaching.
Developed by Prager University, the Oklahoma test, according to  Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, will have to be approved by the education board before it is administered. Walters <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/prageru-oklahoma-woke-teacher-test">said</a> if applicants do not pass the test, they will not receive a teaching certificate.
“Every teacher that teaches in the state of Oklahoma will have to have a certificate that goes through my office. It has my signature on it. So that those will not move forward until this is done,” he declared.
“One proposed question deals with gender – asking teachers to select from a series of multiple-choice answers which chromosome pairs determine biological sex,” KCCI reported.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" 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-9270">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
“We will not allow these leftists’ plans and schemes to take place here in Oklahoma,” Walters said, according to <a href="https://www.kcci.com/article/oklahoma-prageru-teacher-test-controversy/65789726?utm_source=chatgpt.com">KCCI</a>. “They are trying to warp the minds of our kids to turn them into social justice warriors, instead of kids that are getting the most of their God-given talents to go get a good job, to go live a fulfilling life.”
“We’re not bringing in woke indoctrinators into the classroom,” Walters told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/19/oklahoma-teachers-california-new-york-test/">The Washington Post</a>. “It’s a very America-first approach.”
“You’re gonna teach that there’s biological differences between males and females, period,” Walters told CNN. “You’re going to teach American history and use primary source documents, not pushing a left-wing agenda on to our kids.” He added that California and New York have required teachers to “do things that are antithetical to our standards and values as a state.”
“Oklahoma already requires new teachers to <a href="https://archive.is/o/wWfjk/https:/oklahoma.gov/education/services/teacher-certification.html">take a U.S. citizenship test</a>, which covers civics topics, to complete their certification,” the Post added.
Some other sample questions include:
<blockquote>
What are the first three words of the Constitution?
Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
How many U.S. Senators are there?
Why do some states have more Representatives than others?
</blockquote>

Holland, Goirle, woman weeding

Oklahoma To Require Ideology Test For Incoming Teachers From California And NY To Weed Out Wokeness

California

Education

New York

Wokeness

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt moved this week to stop abortion giant Planned Parenthood from receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars every year.
Stitt signed an <a href="https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/governor/documents/2025-07-16%20EO%20OHCA.pdf">executive order</a> on Thursday directing the state Medicaid program to not distribute funds to groups that promote abortion or are affiliated with abortion providers. Planned Parenthood of the Great Plains currently receives around $550,000 through SoonerCare every year, Stitt told The Daily Wire. 
“We don&#8217;t want to give to these organizations that are promoting values that are anti-family and anti-what Oklahoma values are,” the governor said. “And so we&#8217;re going to deploy our funds to the hospitals, the doctors, that are actually taking care of families and mothers here in the state of Oklahoma.”
The executive order cited South Carolina&#8217;s recent victory at the Supreme Court in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which cleared the way for other states to yank Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood. 
Stitt told The Daily Wire that he believed the healthcare money should be going toward doctors and hospitals, not “political organizations” like Planned Parenthood. 
While abortion is officially banned in Oklahoma, Planned Parenthood of the Great Plains still operates multiple facilities throughout the state. On its <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-great-plains/ppgp-health-centers/ppgp-in-oklahoma">website</a> for Oklahoma, it says that it offers “gender affirming care” and advertises that it still does surgical and chemical abortions in nearby Kansas. 
“If you&#8217;re a Medicaid patient, if you&#8217;re someone who needs care, those dollars are still going to be spent in the state,” Stitt said. “We&#8217;re going to take care of women, children, families, in the State of Oklahoma, and we&#8217;re not going to do it through a political organization like Planned Parenthood.”
The order directs all state agencies to cut funding through grants, contracts, state-administered federal funds, or any other way organizations that promote abortion receive taxpayer dollars. It also directs the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, which oversees the Medicaid program, to devise standards to exclude entities that promote abortion from being credentialed by SoonerCare. The guidance will stipulate that participants must be in line with the state&#8217;s public policy, including the protection of unborn life. 
“We want to make sure that these providers are following the laws and the will of the legislature, which is therefore the will of the people in the state of Oklahoma,” Stitt said. 
Congress recently passed legislation cutting off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, but a federal judge has put that law on hold for the moment.

Oklahoma Town Of Barnsdall Hit By Deadly Tornado

Red State Moves To Slash Medicaid Funding For Planned Parenthood

Abortion

Kevin Stitt

Planned Parenthood

A deadlocked Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a decision blocking an Oklahoma Catholic school from participating in the state&#8217;s charter school program.
The 4-4 decision upholds the Oklahoma Supreme Court&#8217;s decision to ban the Oklahoma City-based St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School from being eligible. It was unclear how the justices voted, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.
The case pitted the Catholic school against Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who sued the school after the state&#8217;s charter school board voted to approve St. Isidore&#8217;s participation. Drummond argued that allowing religious schools to take part in the program would force taxpayers to fund schools with religious beliefs they did not support.
&#8220;The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of my position that we should not allow taxpayer funding of radical Islamic schools here in Oklahoma. I am proud to have fought against this potential cancer in our state, and I will continue upholding the law, protecting our Christian values and defending religious liberty,&#8221; Drummond <a href="https://x.com/Okla_OAG/status/1925559733697540373">posted</a> on X after the decision from the court was released.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the school and charter board argued that Oklahoma discriminated based on religion.
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,&#8221; ADF chief legal counsel Jim Campbell <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/divided-us-supreme-court-leaves-oklahoma-families-with-fewer-educational-choices/?sourcecode=11036715_r200">said</a>. &#8220;While the Supreme Court’s order is disappointing for educational freedom, the 4-4 decision does not set precedent, allowing the court to revisit this issue in the future. The U.S. Supreme Court has been clear that when the government creates programs and invites groups to participate, it can’t single out religious groups for exclusion, and we will continue our work to protect this vital freedom for parents and students.&#8221;
A win for St. Isidore would have struck down a provision of the Oklahoma Charter School Act that expressly forbids religious charter schools and could open the door for more religious charter schools across the country.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Memorial Day Sale – Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
In previous decisions, such as Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court sided with religious organizations that had been locked out of state programs based on their religious nature. In Carson, the Supreme Court struck down a ban in Maine on vouchers from going toward religious schools.
During oral arguments, several justices on the court&#8217;s conservative wing appeared to side with St. Isidore while the liberal wing signaled strong opposition.
&#8220;You can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-conservatives-signal-support-for-public-religious-charter-schools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, adding that excluding religious schools “seems like rank discrimination.”

Supreme Court Takes On Religious Charter School Case

Split Supreme Court Blocks Christian School From Participating In Charter Program

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Courts

Politics

Religious Freedom

Religious Schools

Conservative Supreme Court justices suggested approval for the nation&#8217;s first taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school in a landmark case that could dramatically expand religious freedom in American education.
St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, proposed by two Oklahoma Catholic dioceses, would offer K-12 education with an explicitly religious curriculum as a state-funded charter school.
Hundreds of families have already signed up while the school awaits the resolution of legal challenges, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-mulls-legality-milestone-religious-charter-school-2025-04-30/">according</a> to Reuters.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh pushed back against the state&#8217;s exclusion of religion during arguments, stating: &#8220;&#8230; You can&#8217;t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States,&#8221; adding that excluding religious schools &#8220;seems like rank discrimination.&#8221;
Attorney James Campbell, a lawyer for the state&#8217;s charter school board that approved St. Isidore, told Justice Kavanaugh that Oklahoma already permits charter schools with specific themes, noting that only religion seemed to be off limits, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-religious-catholic-charter-school-oklahoma-983ed57aabeae53e4b58367c5021f5e1">reported</a>.
“They’re not asking for special treatment, not asking for favoritism,” Kavanaugh concurred. “They’re just saying, ’Don’t treat us worse because we’re religious.&#8217;”
Chief Justice John Roberts challenged both sides of the argument, and will likely be the swing vote after Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself without an explanation. She is a former Notre Dame Law School professor, a major supporter of publicly funded religious charter schools.
&#8220;This does strike me as a much more comprehensive involvement,&#8221; Roberts said, distinguishing it from earlier cases involving &#8220;limited state benefits, such as playground improvements, tuition and tax credits.&#8221;
The court’s three liberal justices were in uniform opposition to the charter school’s creation, with Justice Sotomayor <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2024/24-394_1b72.pdf">saying</a>, “What would you do with a charter school that doesn’t want to teach evolution? Or doesn’t want to teach history, including the history of slavery?”
In the event of a 4-4 tie, the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s 6-2 ruling blocking the creation of St. Isidore would be left in place, which deemed the charter school a &#8220;governmental entity&#8221; that would violate constitutional limits on government involvement in religion.
The case has divided Oklahoma Republicans, with Governor Kevin Stitt and the Trump administration backing the school, while Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond opposes it, per Reuters.
If approved, St. Isidore would represent a significant shift in American education by becoming the first publicly funded charter school with an explicitly religious curriculum.
The Supreme Court&#8217;s decision is expected by the end of June.

Supreme Court Conservatives Signal Support For Public Religious Charter Schools

Amy Coney Barrett

Brett Kavanaugh

Free Speech

Supreme Court

<div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in a case to decide whether an Oklahoma Catholic school can participate in the state&#8217;s charter school program, pitting the school against the state&#8217;s Republican attorney general.
The controversy arose after the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board approved a charter application from the Oklahoma City-based St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. After taking office, Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued to block the school from being eligible for the program, saying that Oklahoma law mandated charter schools be &#8220;nonsectarian.&#8221;
The Oklahoma Supreme Court <a href="https://dm1l19z832j5m.cloudfront.net/2024-06/Drummond-v-OK-SVCSB-2024-06-25-Majority-Decision.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> with Drummond and blocked St. Isidore from receiving more public funds for its school. Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the charter board argues that St. Isidore&#8217;s First Amendment rights are being discriminated against.
“Instead of embracing schools like St. Isidore who are stepping up to provide solutions are discriminating against them just because of their faith,&#8221; charter board chair Brian Shellum said in a press call attended by The Daily Wire. &#8220;That’s not just unfair, it&#8217;s unconstitutional. Parents understand what’s at stake in this case. They are seeking results not roadblocks.&#8221;
Oklahoma charter schools, which are free and open to all students, are privately run but publicly supported.
In January, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and will look at <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/24-00394qp.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two questions.</a> The first is &#8220;whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students.&#8221; The second is whether Oklahoma is violating the Free Exercise Clause by excluding St. Isidore.
A win for St. Isidore would strike down a provision of the Oklahoma Charter School Act that expressly forbids religious charter schools and could open the door for more religious charter schools across the country.
<div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="page" title="Page 34">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
&#8220;A ruling for Petitioners will promote parental choice, individual liberty, educational diversity, and student achievement. It will also improve the lives of economically disadvantaged families and children by creating high-quality educational opportunities that are currently out of their reach,&#8221; lawyers for Alliance Defending Freedom wrote in a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-394/356083/20250421111247727_24-394%20Reply%20Brief.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brief</a>. &#8220;Excluding religious groups from Oklahoma’s charter-school program denies these opportunities and causes real harm. The Court should uphold the First Amendment and end this discrimination.&#8221;
Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Jim Campbell pointed The Daily Wire to three recent Supreme Court cases — Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin — as examples of the high court siding with religious organizations that had been locked out of state programs. In Carson, the Supreme Court struck down a ban in Maine on vouchers from going toward religious schools.
Drummond also says that religious liberty is at stake, saying that it would be wrong to make the public fund religious schools that they are opposed to.
&#8220;As a committed Christian, the last thing I want is for my tax dollars to be used to fund the radical teachings of Sharia or the demonic worship of Satan. Thankfully, the Court agreed with my position and our religious liberty is protected — for now,&#8221; he said in July. &#8220;Let me be clear: Religious liberty means every citizen is free to worship as he or she believes. Religious liberty does not mean that the government should fund religious indoctrination with our tax dollars.&#8221;
He reiterated that argument in an <a href="https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/2025/04/27/ag-st-isidore-schools-ok-would-threaten-religious-liberty-opinion/83193358007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> published on Monday in The Oklahoman, where he said that he supported religious private schools, but did not want the government to fund them in any form.
&#8220;I swore an oath to uphold the United States Constitution, and I believe our Founding Fathers knew best how to protect religious liberty: by preventing the government from funding any religion at all. I do not want Oklahoma schoolchildren indoctrinated in public schools — I want them educated,&#8221; he wrote.
A spokesman for Drummond told The Daily Wire that the op-ed summarized the heart of his arguments and pointed to <a href="https://oklahoma.gov/oag/news/generally-speaking/2024/july-a-triumph-for-religious-liberty.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comments</a> he made after he won at the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Other top Oklahoma GOP officials, including Governor Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma State School Superintendent Ryan Walters, disagree with Drummond.
&#8220;Oklahomans know the Bible and Christian values shaped our nation — and they’re tired of seeing faith driven out of our schools,&#8221; Walters said. &#8220;AG Drummond is out of step with Oklahoma conservatives who know what made America great.&#8221;
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Block Order To Return Mistakenly Deported Man

Supreme Court To Hear Arguments In Landmark Case On School Choice And Religious Liberty

Catholic Church

Charter Schools

Religious Liberty

At least forty people were killed as fierce winds and tornadoes ripped across the country over the weekend, slamming the Midwest and the South. 
Twenty-four of the deaths were attributed to tornadoes, while wind-fueled dust storms and fires resulted in another 16 deaths. At least 12 people <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/tornado-outbreak-live-updates-18-dead-dozens-injured/?id=119832914" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were</a> killed in Missouri, three in Alabama, eight in Kansas, six in Mississippi, four in Texas, three in Arkansas, and four in Oklahoma. 
Tens of thousands of customers are still out of power after the storms raced across the country up into Pennsylvania and New York. More than 25,000 customers are without electricity in Missouri, 56,000 in Pennsylvania, and 23,000 in New York, <a href="https://poweroutage.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to PowerOutage.us. 
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he had activated the National Guard in response to the storms. 
“We are actively monitoring the severe tornadoes and storms that have impacted many States across the South and Midwest — 36 innocent lives have been lost, and many more devastated,” he <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114174243289152293">posted</a> on Truth Social on Sunday. “The National Guard have been deployed to Arkansas, and my Administration is ready to assist State and Local Officials, as they help their communities to try and recover from the damage. Please join Melania and me in praying for everyone impacted by these terrible storms!”
<div id="attachment_892677" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-892677" class="size-full wp-image-892677" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="1024" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2205026292-768x768.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Photo by Mehmet Yaren Bozgun/Anadolu via Getty Images.</div>
In Kansas, a wind-fueled dust storm <a href="https://www.ksn.com/news/state-regional/dust-settles-on-71-vehicle-pileup-8-fatalities-near-goodland/">caused</a> a 70-car pileup on Interstate 70 that killed eight people near Goodland on Friday. 
“I’ve seen it before, but this is probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Tod Hileman told KSNW. 
Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama were all slammed by tornadoes, as at least 56 developed across 10 different states, <a href="https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/severe-weather-tornadoes-dust-storm-blizzard-midwest-plains-southeast-east-coast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Fox Forecast Center. Southeast Missouri was hit particularly hard after storms ripped through Wayne, Ozark, Butler, and Jefferson counties. 
Videos posted online also showed widespread tornado damage in Mississippi.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
FOX Weather exclusive video shows the extensive damages in Tylertown, Mississippi after a tornado ripped through the area this weekend. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mississippi?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Mississippi</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tornado?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#tornado</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Farm?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Farm</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoxWeather?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FoxWeather</a> <a href="https://t.co/bwwXZqbCM9">pic.twitter.com/bwwXZqbCM9</a>
— FOX Weather (@foxweather) <a href="https://twitter.com/foxweather/status/1901393041736228951?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey said on Sunday that most of her state had been impacted by the storms. 
“We have reports of damage in 52 of our 67 counties. Our damage assessment continues. The sun has risen in Alabama, though. We pray for those lives we lost, as well as those who were injured. And we pray for our first responders, emergency management officials and linemen who are doing incredible work on the ground right now,” she said.

Tornadoes Rip Through Missouri

At Least 40 Dead After Tornadoes, Dust Storms Ravage Several States

Arkansas

Kansas

Mississippi

Severe Weather

Texas

Tornado

This week, the Oklahoma House passed a bill requiring registered child sex offenders to be “chemically castrated” in order to be released on parole.
<a href="https://www.oklegislature.gov/cf_pdf/2025-26%20ENGR/hB/HB2422%20ENGR.PDF" target="_blank" rel="noopener">House Bill 2422</a> states that a sex offender must be someone who is over the age of 21 and who has committed a crime involving physical touch against a child under the age of 13 that requires registration as a sex offender. If a mental health evaluation determines that the sex offender would commit a sex crime again, the offender is offered the possibility of hormonal treatment in order to gain parole, which must be accepted voluntarily.
“Reoffending, ending treatment or seeking reversal of the treatment, which &#8216;use chemicals or drugs to stop sex hormone production,&#8217; would result in returning to prison for life without the possibility of parole,” Oklahoma Voice <a href="https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/03/10/bill-seeking-to-chemically-castrate-child-sex-offenders-advances-to-oklahoma-senate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
“I mean, if I’m just brutally honest with you, this is the third freaking year I’ve run this bill in some form or fashion, trying to fix these problems, to keep our kids safe,” GOP Rep. Scott Fetgatter, who authored the bill, stated.
&#8220;For whatever reason, this legislative body in the Senate over here, they’ve killed the bill all three years. So I’m trying to get something with some traction going forward so that we can fix this issue and keep our kids safe. Because what happens daily all across the state is unacceptable. And if it were up to me, I’d take them down on the town square in Okmulgee, and you know what I might do with a pair of snips.”
“So to be clear, I’m not allowing anybody to go on parole. Okay?” Fetgatter said. “Because they currently could become eligible for parole as a part of their sentencing, what I’m saying is you can’t get out on parole unless you are mentally evaluated and chemically castrated. You’re not even eligible to be paroled.”
The bill now goes to the Oklahoma Senate for a vote.

Oklahoma State Capitol (Oklahoma City, Okalhoma)

Oklahoma House Passes Bill Requiring ‘Chemical Castration’ For Sex Offenders Who Want Parole

chemical castration

Sex Offender

The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/analyzing-trump-s-cabinet-with-senator-mullin-2-23-25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunday edition of Morning Wire</a>.
So far, President Trump is batting a thousand on confirmations for his cabinet secretary nominees. Just this week Kash Patel was confirmed as Director of the FBI while Labor Secretary Linda Chavez-DeRemer seems to have secured the support of the Senate. This is the fastest pace since 2001. Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin joined Morning Wire to discuss Trump&#8217;s cabinet nominees, the Senate’s strategic approach to the confirmation process, and the significance of the GOP’s &#8220;Big Tent&#8221; strategy in uniting diverse political factions within the Republican Party.
* * *
JOHN: Joining us to discuss the rapid fire series of confirmations and where the Trump cabinet and agenda stands now is Oklahoma’s Senator Markwayne Mullin. Senator, first of all thank you for joining us.
MULLIN: It&#8217;s my honor. Thanks for having me on.
JOHN: Let’s start with Kash Patel. You’ve been a strong advocate for Patel – why do you believe we need a “disruptor” like him to lead the FBI?
MULLIN: I wouldn&#8217;t describe him as a &#8220;disruptor.&#8221; I would say he&#8217;s someone who chases the facts. He exposed the wrongs, or the hypocrisy, or the cover-ups within FBI. He did this way before he was even being considered to be the director of the FBI. He was a whistleblower before people were even looking into it. You take somebody like him who understands the intel system, understands the mission of the FBI and has been concerned enough back years ago that he was willing to expose it. Why wouldn&#8217;t you want somebody like that? Because he&#8217;s not there to destroy the FBI. He&#8217;s there to get them back on mission focus. He&#8217;s there to support the field agents, to put them back on the mission focus of protecting the American people, not taking directive orders from a Democrat Party that&#8217;s wanting to investigate students for showing up to school board meetings, or classifying Catholics – and I&#8217;m not joking when I say this – as possible terrorists because they disagreed with the Democrat agenda, especially when it came to abortions. That was what that was all about. It&#8217;s concerning that the Democrat Party had weaponized the FBI for political gain and political purposes. What Kash is going to do is put them back on mission focus. That means he&#8217;s going to reform the 7th floor of the Hoover Building and take the politics out of it – and put the American people back in focus.
<div id="attachment_868749" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-868749" class="size-large wp-image-868749" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2196133096-864x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 30: Kash Patel, nominee to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC on January 30, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2196133096-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2196133096-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2196133096-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2196133096.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images</div>
JOHN: Thus far all of President Trump’s nominees have gotten through the confirmation process relatively smoothly. Is this simply due to GOP majorities – or do you believe that Democrat opposition has been weakened by Trump’s mandate?
MULLIN: I think you’ve got a little bit of both. I think the American people spoke very loud and on November 5th, when he won the popular vote and obviously electoral vote. I think the Democrat Party is trying to reorganize and find themselves, and they can&#8217;t. They keep reverting back to 2017 rhetoric and I hope they stay there — because if they stay there, we&#8217;re going to continue to win elections. But at the same time, what you&#8217;ve seen is a new leader in the Senate with Leader Thune. He is 100% grinding the Democrats down from the get go. He said, “We can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way. It&#8217;s up to you.” And so once the president got confirmed and sworn into office on the 20th, what we did is we immediately started the clock on these agents and on these nominees, and these nominees haven&#8217;t stopped. What I mean by the clock, just to explain to your listeners, after they get out of committee, which we already had people preset. So, first of all, Leader Thune directed the chairs of the committees to get started on the hearings early, even before Trump was sworn into office. That normally doesn&#8217;t take place. So he preset it. We came in on January 3rd. The president wasn&#8217;t going to get sworn in until January 20th, but we already started hearing so we could get them reported out of committee and onto the floor for the hearing. So starting on January 20th, he started the clock on these nominees. Once they get reported out of committee, it&#8217;s called a 24-hour soak. Then, if they&#8217;re a cabinet position, meaning a secretary, it is a 30-hour debate. So that&#8217;s when we say we&#8217;re invoking cloture. It&#8217;s a 20 or 30 hour debate. So it&#8217;s 54 hours on secretary levels. On directors, like Kash Patel, when you invoke culture on them, you have a two hour debate. So while you still have a 24-hour soak, you only have two hours of debate on that person. So you can move those faster. He has literally kept that clock running 24/7, 7 days a week even when we&#8217;re not here. The Democrats will negotiate and say, “Okay, what we will do is we&#8217;ll continue the clock if you don&#8217;t make us vote on Saturday and Sunday – well, not Sunday.” Like we did with Pete Hegseth on Saturday. They said, ”If you don&#8217;t make us stay over on the weekend, we will allow the clocks to run consecutively, even though we&#8217;re not here.” So, we&#8217;ll go ahead and invoke culture on the next person. When the 30 hours run out, say, it&#8217;s 6:00 in the morning on Saturday, the next 30 hours will start. So when we get back here on Monday, we can confirm two people at once. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re so far ahead, because Leader Thune has not let up the pressure at all, not one bit, on the Democrats.
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyzing-trumps-cabinet-with-senator-mullin-2-23-25/id1576594336?i=1000695241881" 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: Really not wasting a second there. Wednesday was the hearing for Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. She was somewhat controversial on the Right because of her past support of pro-union policies and her past work for Planned Parenthood. You were one of her key proponents, even suggesting her nomination to President Trump. How do you envision her impacting labor relations in the current political climate?
MULLIN: Well, you have to go back to the coalition that President Trump has built. So, President Trump has brought a unique coalition together, right? Let&#8217;s just look at Tulsi. That conversation started over two years ago between President Trump and I, when he asked how do I get Libertarian and Independents to vote for us? We don&#8217;t have to win their vote, but we need to increase their percentages. I said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s bring Tulsi in.&#8221; Immediately that relationship started. Tulsi&#8217;s relationship with Bobby is what brought Bobby onto the campaign and the President quickly embraced him when he asked us to go to for me to be a surrogate to Indian country for him — even though a Republican hadn&#8217;t won Indian country since Nixon — President Trump wanted to put a special interest towards them. And so he ended up winning 63% of the Native American vote. When he asked, “Do you think we can win it?” I said, “Sir, you won all 77 counties in Oklahoma. There&#8217;s no greater population of Native American tribes in one area other than Oklahoma.&#8221; And I said, “So if you can win it in Oklahoma, you can win it nationally.” When you start looking at the unions, he asked right after Sean O&#8217;Brien, who had him and I had obviously public, very public disagreements. He asked us just a couple of months later. “Hey, I need you guys to work together.” His phone call to me was his [saying?], “Listen, we need the union votes. I want you to make friends with Sean. I believe you guys will get along. I talked to him. You guys actually have a lot in common.” He asked Sean to do the same thing. We got in a room together, and we&#8217;ve been friends ever since that day. And so the coalition that the president&#8217;s brought together is unique. At the same time, we have to understand that we can&#8217;t always use this conservative purity test when the president has got a mandate from the American people that he&#8217;s working for everybody. And that means this new coalition, we have to stay true to our values, but understand we&#8217;re accepting individuals that we may not 100% agree to, but we’ve got to show them some love. And Lori represents that. We have our differences, obviously. We&#8217;re a Right-to-Work state, a very proud Right-to-Work state. That&#8217;s what started the whole confrontation, honestly, between Sean and I. But at the same time, the unions have a place in this country, and I recognize that. There&#8217;s not a successful business that doesn&#8217;t have successful business employees. And there&#8217;s not an employee that has a good job that doesn&#8217;t have a business to work for. So they take both of us. Lori was a great compromise. It was one of those areas that, yeah, we&#8217;re going to give the unions a nod. We won 59% of the union vote, which he&#8217;s the first Republican president to do that in decades. We&#8217;re going, we&#8217;re going to give you a little nod, agree that we disagree on some issues, but we&#8217;re going to find common ground to work for because they&#8217;re looking for a party right now. The Democrat woke agenda doesn&#8217;t fit the workforce that we have in America right now. And so Sean and I spoke, Sean actually brought Lori to me and said, &#8220;What do you think about Lori? I think this is someone that the unions can support.&#8221; And I said, &#8220;I think that&#8217;s a great idea. Let&#8217;s talk to the president about it.&#8221; So we both visit with the president at different times about it. The president loved the idea, and that&#8217;s how it happened. So, I get that some of my conservative friends out there had reservations about it, but if we want to continue to win elections for the Republican Party and not go down this socialist woke agenda road that the Biden administration was trying to move us towards, then we got to understand we&#8217;re gonna have to allow some people in our party that we can welcome in and start working on things we have in common, not just focused on the differences.
JOHN: Well, that Big Tent approach clearly paid dividends in this last election for Trump, winning percentages of demographics we haven’t seen Republicans win in decades, as you said.
MULLIN: That&#8217;s right.
JOHN: Now you&#8217;re a member of the Senate GOP Deputy Whip team, which allows you to influence the legislative agenda significantly. What are your top legislative priorities for the 119th Congress?
MULLIN: Well deregulation is my biggest focus, the deregulation of the business sector. You’ve got to start with certain focuses and my focus is on energy. By the way, President Trump is all on board on this too, not just because it&#8217;s my agenda. He sees it the same way, because we both come from a business perspective. I tell everybody, when you make decisions, it will be based on two things: the way you were raised and your life experience. My life experience is business.  And you understand when you&#8217;re in business that everything that you factor as a cost starts and begins with energy. You can&#8217;t build a product and you can&#8217;t deliver a product with that without factoring in the energy cost because it takes energy to build it and it takes energy to deliver it. So, it&#8217;s always a baseline add-on when you&#8217;re talking about cost. So if you&#8217;re going to bring down inflation, you’ve got to bring down energy. The only way we bring down energy prices is you’ve got to make it conducive that people can trust their long term investment and not just four years at a time. But most energy companies are investing 15 to 20 years at a time when they look at returns. So you’ve got to have stability in the energy market. And that means you’ve got to have deregulation that&#8217;s not just an executive order, but it&#8217;s legislation and made into law. So it can&#8217;t be overturned on day one, like Joe Biden did to the Trump administration. So, stability in the regulatory market is my number one goal.
<div id="attachment_880601" style="width: 873px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-880601" class="size-large wp-image-880601" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2200061297-863x576.jpg" alt="Elon Musk (L) holds a chainsaw with Argentine President Javier Milei during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort &amp; Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025." width="863" height="576" />SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images</div>
JOHN: Final question. Now the big bugaboo for Democrats is DOGE and its leader Elon Musk. How do you and your Republican colleagues in the Senate feel about how DOGE is going about its business?
MULLIN: I can&#8217;t speak for everybody in the Senate, especially my colleagues, but I&#8217;ll take it back to what I said earlier. We all make decisions based on how we were raised and our life experiences. So when you look from a business perspective, not a political perspective, you understand that every successful business out there, large or small, has hired a consultant at some point to come in and overlook their business operations. Not that they don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re doing, it&#8217;s just that a consultant comes in from an unbiased perspective and just simply looks at numbers. And as a business owner, sometimes you can have pet projects that you just continue to dump money into that doesn&#8217;t make any sense. And there&#8217;s no way for it to be successful, but you&#8217;re so invested in it, you just can&#8217;t find a way out. And when a consultant looks at it and goes, “Hey, this makes no sense,” it opens your eyes up. Well, take politics, for example, you&#8217;ve got someone that&#8217;s been in there for 40 years. They’ve got a project in their state that doesn&#8217;t make any sense to continue because it&#8217;s outdated, but they&#8217;re personally connected to it and they&#8217;re not going to let it pass. Well, you take Elon Musk, who&#8217;s the most successful entrepreneur we&#8217;ve had in our lifetime and he&#8217;s working for the federal government as a free consultant. Consultants are typically expensive — and he&#8217;s doing it for free and giving his resources for free, and he&#8217;s looking at these programs from an unbiased perspective. Just the numbers. Does it work for the taxpayers? Does it make sense? How much waste, fraud and abuse is in the taxpayer dollar right now? And he&#8217;s exposing it at alarming rates. The reason I say alarming is because you think, ”Why haven&#8217;t we seen this?” Just take Social Security alone.You see the amount of people who are over 150 that are still on Social Security. I&#8217;m thinking, “I don&#8217;t remember seeing that report.” We celebrate people when they turn 100, and you typically see those in the paper. 150? I think that&#8217;d be pretty much news. I haven&#8217;t seen any of these individuals, but they&#8217;re still on the books for Social Security. Just simply cleaning up things like that makes a huge difference. That&#8217;s what a consultant can do, and that&#8217;s the role that DOGE is playing with Elon Musk, and I look at it from that perspective. Like I said, I can talk to my other colleagues and see how they look at it. But that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been on all these media outlets saying — the same thing that I am saying to you: try and argue with that perspective. You can&#8217;t. Because it does make sense. That&#8217;s why, that&#8217;s why private companies do it.
JOHN: Yeah, it doesn&#8217;t. I think it&#8217;s making sense to a lot of Americans as they watch this, polling shows that Trump&#8217;s approval is higher than it&#8217;s ever been than at any point in his first term. So things are going pretty well. He&#8217;s got a lot of momentum right now.
MULLIN: He has highly favorable numbers in Oklahoma. Literally, the numbers just came out the other day. It just blows my mind that his numbers are that good, and I&#8217;m just speaking for Oklahoma. His numbers obviously are good across the country.
JOHN: Well, senator, thank you so much for taking the time.
MULLIN: Thank you. Appreciate it.
JOHN: That was Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma – and this has been a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/analyzing-trump-s-cabinet-with-senator-mullin-2-23-25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunday edition of Morning Wire</a>.
***

Senate HELP Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For Lori Chavez-DeRemer

‘Grinding The Democrats Down’: Sen. Markwayne Mullin On Trump’s Cabinet And The GOP Game Plan

'Grinding The Democrats Down': Sen. Markwayne Mullin On Trump’s Cabinet And The GOP Game Plan

Donald Trump

Elon Musk

Energy

Federal Government

John Thune

kash patel

Morning Wire

President Trump

Social Security

U.S. Senate

Senator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/james-lankford" target="_blank" rel="noopener">James Lankford</a> (R-OK) on Tuesday introduced a bill to mandate a full review of the federal government’s handling of natural disasters as agencies like FEMA face <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-rips-into-fema-says-it-is-getting-in-the-way-of-everything" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticism</a> over their response to recent hurricanes. 
Lankford <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/ALL250752.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">put forth</a> the ‘‘Natural Disaster Resilience and Recovery Accountability Act” to create a new commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the efficiency of the government&#8217;s natural disaster programs. The commission would examine how the government is using taxpayer dollars and devise policy recommendations to improve the federal response to natural disasters. 
“Oklahomans know the federal disaster system isn’t working,” Lankford told The Daily Wire. “President Trump is taking quick action to fix it, and my legislation builds on that by reviewing how federal tax dollars are spent on disasters and finding ways to make government more efficient.”
President Donald Trump has slammed FEMA over its sluggish response to aid flooded communities in North Carolina and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-fema-executive-order-takes-aim-at-supervisor-who-told-workers-to-skip-his-supporters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raised concerns</a> about political bias at the agency pointing to a Daily Wire report showing how one supervisor ordered relief workers to skip homes with Trump flags. 
The legislation from Lankford, first shared with The Daily Wire, would create a 15-member commission composed of federal and state officials, relief workers, and other experts to “examine and recommend administrative and legislative reforms to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and budget funding of programs and activities of Federal agencies supporting natural disaster resilience and recovery.”
Trump on Friday signed an executive order that would create a 20-person council to conduct a full review of FEMA. The commission created by Lankford’s bill would follow that proposal and look at the full federal handling of and spending on disasters. Each federal program related to natural disasters would be put under the microscope of the commission for evaluation. 
Once assembled, the commission would have two years to produce a report with recommendations to improve the efficiency of the government’s response by evaluating all related federally funded activities. The report would be sent to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the House Oversight Committee. 
The commission would work with a variety of departments, including the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The commission would consider “potential administrative changes to the roles and responsibilities of the various Federal agencies involved in natural disaster resilience and recovery.”
Trump has promised to fundamentally reform FEMA and has floated the idea of getting rid of the agency altogether. He suggested handing over the responsibility of emergency responses to the states with funding from the federal government.
“I love Oklahoma, but you know what? If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it,” Trump said last week. “And then the federal government can help them out with the money.”
Vice President JD Vance <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/vance-calls-out-bureaucracy-slowing-federal-emergency-response-in-visit-to-virginia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reiterated</a> the Trump administration&#8217;s approach on Monday during a visit to flood-ravaged Virginia, saying that they would work to slash the bureaucracy from multiple federal departments holding up emergency relief.

U.S. Senate Meets To Vote On Proposed Continuing Resolution

EXCLUSIVE: Lankford Pushes For Full Probe Into The Government’s Disaster Response

FEMA

James Lankford

Natural Disaster

Thanks to the overwhelming efforts of everyday American parents who have refused to bow to the radical Left, the war on Christmas seems to have gone cold.
In recent years, public fights and lawsuits over Christmas events and displays dominated the headlines every December. This season, however, they appear to have subsided.
Parents have bravely pushed back against woke propaganda in the schools, elected better leaders, and have fought for their children’s education over woke indoctrination.
Most teachers and administrators no longer want the hassle, the conflict, or the public attention and scrutiny that these disagreements bring. While in some aspects this is good news, the reality is the damage has already been done — the status quo implemented during the period of lawsuits and school board debates remains.
Students are treated to inoffensive and meaningless “holiday” and “winter” events that look more like low-octane paganism than anything actually believed by the critical mass of the student body.
Of course, this was the long-term goal all along. Even if the Left lost in the courts, in too many cases they won in the classrooms. Because most teachers and administrators don’t want the hassle, the end result has been the same as if they had actually won in the courts and the legislatures.
This is a tragedy for our children and for our culture. Instead, this should be an opportunity for educators and parents to share not only the tidings of the seasons, but also the importance of our country’s robust history of religious liberty.
Public schools, of course, are not meant to be a means of taxpayer-funded evangelization. At the same time, they should not be places where such voluntary discussions are stifled or drowned out by artificially inoffensive celebrations. They should not be an excuse for our educators to look away from the role that religious liberty played in our founding and what it means today. Many of our founders’ ancestors braved the difficult voyage across the Atlantic and carved out new lives in an uncertain and unforgiving wilderness, driven by the need to live out their beliefs in accordance with their consciences. There’s a reason the freedoms of conscience are the first to be included in our Bill of Rights, after all.
When we fail to teach children the foundational things, we do them a grave disservice. Children are going to take in values from whatever they are taught. They learn just as much from the absence of a thing as they do from the thing itself. Instead of learning that we live in a country where beliefs both matter and are respected, they learn to relegate them to the back of their minds and hearts as mere matters of taste and preference.
That’s no way to go through life, and it’s no way to form citizens who are ready to inherit the kind of republic our founders intended for them.
At the same time, America’s school children are still being instructed in values and beliefs from the front of the classroom, just not traditionally religious ones. For years, they’ve been instructed in Critical Race Theory and gender ideology, thanks to the dictates and incentives of the federal Department of Education. Now, that’s about to change.
<h3><a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift-guide/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE</a></h3>
With a new administration, we have an opportunity to push out all of the woke, anti-American bureaucratic rot at the top of the national education system. Really, we should not have a national education system. The best way to address the problems coming from Washington would be to get rid of them altogether and eliminate the Department of Education like President Trump has promised.
In addition to creating a bureaucratic nexus to indoctrinate our kids from Washington, it has done absolutely nothing to improve education outcomes since its inception. Since Jimmy Carter established this indoctrination machine in 1980, every academic statistic has only declined. We need to return control of education back to the states, where parents are in the driver’s seat, not some D.C. bureaucrat dictating decisions from their ivory tower.
People forget this country — the greatest country in the history of the world — was built without a federal Department of Education. The minds who built this country and sustained it through its most trying times were educated in one-room schoolhouses. The generations who defeated the 20th century axis powers and put a man on the moon for the first time in human history were the product of state-run education systems. We do not need federal bureaucrats to flourish — we need parents to be empowered to help their children prosper. After all, students are the next leaders of our great nation. This Christmas season, we can start preparing them for it.
* * *
Ryan Walters is Superintendent of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. You can follow him on X: <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanWaltersSupt">@RyanWaltersSupt</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Menu