Michele Tafoya, a longtime NFL sideline reporter turned political activist, is running for Senate in Minnesota, telling The Daily Wire her home state is at a &#8220;crisis moment.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve raised my family here and I love this place, and we are at a crisis moment in Minnesota, a crisis of leadership,&#8221; Tafoya said in an interview ahead of Wednesday&#8217;s launch. &#8220;These career politicians that have brought us to this place show no inclination of getting us out of it.&#8221;
Tafoya spent nearly four decades working in sports, most notably as the sideline reporter for Monday Night Football on ABC and Sunday Night Football on NBC. After she stepped away from NBC in 2022, Tafoya became a regular voice in the political sphere, launching a podcast where she discusses the issues of the day.
Now, Tafoya is stepping further into the political fray with a bid to replace retiring Democrat Senator Tina Smith. Minnesota, which has not had a Republican senator in 20 years, has become a political flashpoint following allegations of widespread fraud that occurred under Democrat Governor Tim Walz, and the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
Hours before Tafoya officially launched her campaign, Vice President JD Vance announced that he would travel to Minneapolis to hold a roundtable on the ongoing fallout from Good&#8217;s death. The tense political climate and prospect of a formidable Democrat opponent — Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan have both entered the race — pose a challenge for any Republican candidate. Tafoya says she&#8217;s ready.
&#8220;I have a willingness and a spine to do the hard work and really fight for all Minnesotans, and that&#8217;s what I will do in the Senate,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I bring new ideas to the mix and ask the tough questions, particularly about this fraud. We have to hold people accountable for this. This can&#8217;t just slip by anymore. This is right versus wrong, and we&#8217;re either going to choose the common sense that built this country or we&#8217;re going to choose corruption and craziness.&#8221;
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Tafoya has been critical of Walz amid the fraud scandal, and has also slammed Minnesota Democrats for adopting soft-on-crime policies.
&#8220;We have failed leadership that has led us to the chaos that we&#8217;re seeing. It has led us to the fraud and the circumstances in which we find ourselves,&#8221; Tafoya said. &#8220;We have a crisis of law enforcement. The local law enforcement here are not allowed to work with federal law enforcement, and that has resulted in some absolutely disastrous results.&#8221;
Tafoya told The Daily Wire she&#8217;s trading the gridiron for the GOP because she wants to see the Minnesota middle class thrive again.
&#8220;People are really struggling to make ends meet and we&#8217;ve had some good signs, like gasoline is at a five-year low and GDP is high, but 
healthcare is a mess and getting a college education costs a fortune,&#8221; Tafoya said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got rent and mortgage that is too high, and these things need to be corrected.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got fourth- and fifth-generation Minnesotans who love it here, who believe in this state,&#8221; she adds. &#8220;They don&#8217;t want to leave.&#8221;
Tafoya is proud of her political outsider status, but enters the race with a major ally in her corner: the National Republican Senatorial Committee for her campaign, led by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, has already endorsed her. That endorsement could help her emerge victorious from an already-crowded Republican field that includes former NBA player Royce White, former state Republican Party chair David Hann, and others.
Despite the challenges, Tafoya says she&#8217;s ready to fight — and win.
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to have to reach every single Republican in Minnesota,&#8221; Tafoya says. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to have to reach Democrats as well and find people who are willing to cross the aisle.&#8221;
&#8220;We have a lot of independents here in Minnesota. Right now it&#8217;s about reaching out for those votes and working really hard for those votes.&#8221;

Credit: Roy Rochlin/Ethan Miller via Getty Images

Former NFL Reporter Michele Tafoya Enters Minnesota Senate Race

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U.S. Senate

During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist refused to say that a man can&#8217;t get pregnant.
The <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/2011482034321920483">exchange</a> between Dr. Nisha Verma and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley took place during the &#8220;Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs&#8221; Senate Hearing. Dr. Verma was the witness Democrats brought in to represent their side of the hearing.
Senator Hawley repeatedly asked Dr. Verma throughout the exchange, &#8220;Can men get pregnant?&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m not really sure what the goal of the question is,&#8221; Dr. Verma said.
Senator Hawley&#8217;s question followed Senator Ashley Moody&#8217;s similar question to Dr. Verma. The reproductive doctor refused to answer Moody as well. Moody asked the question to point out that men were getting hold of the abortion pill.
Hawley reminded Dr. Verma that the goal of this point-blank question was to get to the truth.
&#8220;The goal is just to establish a biological reality,&#8221; Hawley said. &#8220;Can men get pregnant?&#8221;
The Emory physician again refused to answer the question. Instead, she told the senator she takes care of people with many &#8220;identities.&#8221;
&#8220;I do take care of people that don&#8217;t identify as women,&#8221; she said while still refusing to say if men get pregnant.
Dr. Verma, who was speaking in favor of mifepristone, the abortion drug up for debate, urged the committee to follow the science and evidence on the medication, but couldn&#8217;t speak to the science behind a man&#8217;s reproductive limitations.
&#8220;I think you&#8217;re trying to reduce the complexity of a lot of people&#8217;s lives,&#8221; Dr. Verma said to Sen. Hawley.
Neither side budged from their beliefs during the exchange. In an effort to ignore the science and Hawley&#8217;s question, Dr. Verma said the question of whether men can get pregnant was being asked as a &#8220;political tool.&#8221;
&#8220;Yes/no questions like this are a political tool.&#8221; Dr. Verma argued. &#8220;I would be more than happy to have a conversation with you that is not coming from a place of trying to be polarized.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not polarizing to say that women are a biological reality and should be treated and protected as such,&#8221; Hawley said. &#8220;That is not polarizing, that is [the] truth.&#8221;
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Hawley appeared alarmed by the doctor&#8217;s lack of reproductive knowledge.
&#8220;We are here in a hearing about science, and about women and, for the record, it&#8217;s women who get pregnant, not men,&#8221; Hawley told the doctor. &#8220;And yet you won&#8217;t even acknowledge the basic reality that biological men don&#8217;t get pregnant. There is a difference between biological men and biological women. I don&#8217;t know how we can take you seriously and your claims to be a person of science if you won&#8217;t level with us on this basic issue. I thought we were past all of this.&#8221;
Verma claimed to be a &#8220;person of science&#8221; and continued to argue that &#8220;polarized&#8221; language and questions &#8220;don&#8217;t serve the American people.&#8221;
Dr. Verma is not the first one in Washington, D.C. to challenge basic biology this week.
During a Supreme Court hearing on two cases involving men in women&#8217;s sports, the lawyer representing the trans-identifying athlete couldn&#8217;t define the word &#8220;sex&#8221; in regard to biology when Justice Samuel Alito asked her to.
“We do not have a definition for the court,&#8221; Kathleen Hartnett said.
By definition, an obstetrician-gynecologist specializes in women&#8217;s reproductive health.
&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t trust her to give me an aspirin,&#8221; Fugitive Mama said on <a href="https://x.com/fugitivemama/status/2011498692021534844?s=20">X</a>.
Hawley didn&#8217;t get his answer, but got the final word.
&#8220;I am glad we had this exchange because it&#8217;s exceptionally clarifying. It is also in many ways quite depressing,&#8221; Hawley said.

Sen. Josh Hawley

‘Can Men Get Pregnant?’: Reproductive Doctor Refuses To Answer Senator’s Simple Question

A Reproductive Doctor From Atlanta Apparently Thinks Men Can Get Pregnant

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Josh Hawley

Senate

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The Republican-led Senate confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump&#8217;s remaining nominees for below-cabinet-level federal positions, moving ahead with what&#8217;s called an &#8220;en bloc&#8221; nominee package after Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) invoked the nuclear option.
The bloc of 48 nominees confirmed on Thursday included a number of lower level War Department positions — and several ambassadorships including those held by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Callista Gingrich — and passed 51-47 along party lines.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
48 NOMINEES: CONFIRMED TODAY ✅<a href="https://twitter.com/SenateGOP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenateGOP</a> ended liberal obstruction and CHANGED the Senate rules to get <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>’ sub-cabinet noms in place (in groups) and speed up the process.
We just confirmed the first “en bloc” nominee package of 48.
More to come. 👇 <a href="https://t.co/Dg4oxsrHCl">pic.twitter.com/Dg4oxsrHCl</a>
— Markwayne Mullin (@SenMullin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenMullin/status/1968789762707218693?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Thune promised to move forward with the nuclear option a week earlier, saying that Democrats had stonewalled the process long enough.
Quoting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-republicans-implement-plan-to-push-through-federal-nominees-as-shutdown-looms">Thune</a> said that it was unacceptable for nominees to be blocked unless there was a legitimate reason or concern that made it necessary.
Thune also pointed out the fact that all of the 48 nominees in the first bloc had actually been approved out of committee — with bipartisan support — and were only being blocked in the full Senate.
The Senate Democrats, he said at the time, were intentionally stalling the process by refusing to allow the nominees to be confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, as is traditionally done with civilian nominees.
One major nominee who did not make it through on Thursday was former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), whose nomination to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations is still pending. Democrats succeeded in recent weeks in having Waltz’s nomination sent back to committee.

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48 Trump Nominees Confirmed In One Vote After Senate Goes To Nuclear Option

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Former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley <a href="https://apnews.com/article/derek-dooley-reepublican-senate-georgia-tennessee-ossoff-a1b7705b3b8d585ba3e5fd683f59f81c">threw his hat in the ring</a> as a Georgia GOP senatorial candidate for 2026 on Monday.
Dooley, 57, the son of famed University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, obtained his law degree from the University of Georgia and briefly practiced law before turning to football, where he became head coach at Louisiana Tech, then Tennessee before serving as an assistant coach with the Dallas Cowboys, the University of Missouri, the New York Giants and the University of Alabama.
Dooley is backed by Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who declined to run for the Senate seat to replace Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won his seat in 2020.
“The only thing that matters to me is that people of Georgia are proud of who’s representing them in Washington, D.C.,” Dooley said in his campaign launch video. “President Trump campaigned on things and he’s turned them into results; I haven’t known a president in my lifetime who’s been able to achieve these kind of results. That’s what the people want; they want somebody who means what they say, say what they mean, and then go deliver results.”
Turning to Ossoff, he declared, “Professional politicians like Jon Ossoff are the problem. Lawlessness, open season on the border, inflation everywhere, woke stuff, that’s what they represent. We need new leadership in Georgia. That’s why I’m running for Senate.”
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Dooley’s chief rival for the GOP senatorial nod is Congressman Mike Collins, who has gained endorsements from various Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
At the end of March, a non-partisan ethics watchdog, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), filed a complaint against Ossoff, accusing him of violating Senate ethics rules by directly linking official action to a request for campaign contributions.
FACT sent a<a href="https://65db7681-e755-4cff-abe7-1d9e373df4db.usrfiles.com/ugd/65db76_c14ec0e53bc2448e9a98a4a0e4c00122.pdf"> letter</a> to Ethics Committee Chairman Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Vice-Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) in which they stated:
<blockquote>
On March 14th, 2025, Senator Ossoff sent out an email that contained only two subjects: (1) that he planned to vote against a specific bill; and (2) a request for a campaign contribution. The email began with the statement, “I will vote ‘NO’ on the Trump/Musk/Johnson ‘CR.’” Following several statements about the bill, he then makes a direct request for a campaign contribution: “If you can afford it, please rush $5 to Jon Ossoff’s re-election campaign today. If you’ve stored your info with ActBlue, we’ll process your contribution instantly.” 
</blockquote>
“Senate Ethics Rules specifically prohibit Senators from soliciting campaign contributions based upon any action taken in their official capacity,” the letter continued. “By linking a promise of official action with campaign contributions, a Senator violates a ‘basic principle’ of Senate Ethics that guards against conflicts of interest.”
Additionally, Ossoff, who is Jewish, voted in favor of a resolution to block the sale of some weapons to Israel in November 2024, and last week voted against selling U.S. automatic assault rifles to Israel, and <a href="https://www.ossoff.senate.gov/press-releases/sen-ossoff-statement-on-jrd-votes/">joined other anti-Israel Democrats</a> in blaming the Israeli government &#8211; and not the terrorist group Hamas &#8211; for starving the people of Gaza. He said, “I do not believe the United States Senate should acquiesce without objection to the extreme mass deprivation of civilians in Gaza, including the intolerable starvation of children, that have resulted from the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.”

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Former Tennessee Football Coach Enters Georgia Senate Race As Republican

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Republicans in the Senate <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-border-budget-triumphs-after-all-night-session-while-trump-backed-house-bill-lags">passed a $340 billion budget resolution</a> in the early hours of Friday morning, a narrower resolution than the broad-based bill House Republicans are preparing, but still one that pleased President Donald Trump after an all-night session.
The bill, which passed 52-48, focuses on three issues: immigration and border security, defense, and shoring up development of fossil fuels. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only Republican to vote against the measure, joining all of the Senate Democrats in opposition. Other issues that the House wants to include, such as tax cuts, the Senate plans to add later, figuring that if the House — where the GOP holds a slim 218-215 majority — cannot agree on extending Trump’s tax cuts the three issues will be addressed immediately.
“This particular budget resolution… addresses the president’s priority, top priority, which is securing the border and implementing and putting in place his immigration policies, rebuilding our military, and creating energy dominance for this country,&#8221; Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said before the vote was taken.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/21/senate-passes-republican-border-security-bill/79409346007/">stated</a> after the bill passed, &#8220;As Senate Budget Committee Chairman, I’m incredibly pleased by the discipline shown by my Senate Republican colleagues to ensure that the most transformational border security bill in history can soon become a reality. I hope we can get one big, beautiful bill in the House, but we need to act on border security and national security now. We&#8217;re running out of time.”
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“Nothing would please me more than Speaker Johnson being able to put together the bill that President Trump wants,” Graham <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/senate-democrats-use-budget-vote-to-make-republicans-squirm-8937a656">added</a>. “But I cannot sit on the sidelines and not have a Plan B. This nation is under threat—the illegal immigrants who have come here by the millions need to be sent back by the millions.”
Trump had approved the House bill earlier this week, but he praised the Senate GOP, saying on Truth Social, “Thank you to Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Senate, for working so hard on funding the Trump Border Agenda. We are setting records, the likes of which have never been seen before, on stopping criminal illegal aliens from entering our Country. Put simply, we are delivering for the American People, far faster and, more successfully, than anyone thought possible. Your work on funding this effort is greatly appreciated!”
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/one-big-beautiful-bill-trump-endorses-house-budget-plan-over-the-lindsey-graham-version">&#8216;One Big Beautiful Bill&#8217;: Trump Endorses House Budget Plan Over &#8216;The Lindsey Graham Version&#8217;</a>

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Former NFL Reporter Michele Tafoya Enters Minnesota Senate Race

‘Can Men Get Pregnant?’: Reproductive Doctor Refuses To Answer Senator’s Simple Question

48 Trump Nominees Confirmed In One Vote After Senate Goes To Nuclear Option

Former Tennessee Football Coach Enters Georgia Senate Race As Republican

Senate Passes Late-Night Budget Bill Focused On Border, Defense Spending