I’ve been fortunate to build a career as a working musician in the music industry for more than thirty years now.
Over the course of my career, I’ve experienced the music business from the inside on every level. I&#8217;ve written, produced, and performed chart-topping songs not only for myself, but many other platinum artists.
What I’ve seen is simple: the system isn’t working the way it should for the people who actually perform the music.
Because of a loophole in the law, terrestrial radio has managed to avoid paying artists for the use of their music for more than a century. Today, American performers are being asked to give their work away under outdated rules, while everyone else in the chain gets paid. That imbalance doesn’t just hurt artists — it devalues the very creativity that sustains our culture. When music plays on the radio, songwriters and publishers are paid, but performers receive absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, Big Radio corporations like iHeart, Cumulus, and others pull in nearly $14 billion each year, selling advertising wrapped around the performer&#8217;s talent and work. They’ve built their entire business on the backs of American artists, yet still tell us we should be grateful for the “exposure” that comes from being played on the radio. &#8220;Shut up and be happy that we&#8217;re playing your music! You have no right to the income stream.&#8221; This is their mantra.
Don’t get me wrong: radio has played an important role in my career as a country artist, and I appreciate the foundational place it holds in American music. There’s no better feeling than hearing your song on the radio for the first time. But gratitude for the radio’s role doesn’t mean we should accept a system that only lets one side of the table participate in the success.
As of today, the United States is the only major democracy that does not pay artists when their music is played on terrestrial radio — putting us in league with countries like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. So would it be fair to say we have a &#8220;Communist business model when it comes to terrestrial radio in America?&#8221;
This question answers itself.
What’s more, many nations that do pay artists are now withholding hundreds of millions of dollars owed to American performers because our own system refuses to recognize their rights. Money that should be coming home to American artists is instead being held overseas.
To me, this issue is just common sense: If you use the music and leverage it to make money for your company, you should pay the artist. That’s how things work in this country. If you work hard, your work deserves to be honored with fair pay. That’s a core American value — AM/FM radio knows this, but they have the benefit of antiquated rules allowing them to take a free ride. 
So they do.
They’ve protected that free ride for decades with armies of lobbyists and political contributions designed to keep the system just the way it has always been. But now, we have a President who understands this fight.
President Trump knows the entertainment business because he’s worked in it, and he has been a true friend to American artists. In 2018, he signed the Music Modernization Act to improve compensation and copyright laws for the digital era. Now, he’s supporting the next step: a bill that will finally ensure artists are paid fairly when their music is played on terrestrial radio.
The American Music Fairness Act, introduced by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in the Senate and Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) in the House, would require AM/FM radio corporations to start paying performers, just as digital radio already does. Royalties would go directly to artists.
What about the mom and pop stations? Well, small, independent broadcasters would pay only a few hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to music, and Big Radio would finally pay its fair share.
It’s no surprise this bill is already supported by conservative policy groups, more than 300 major recording artists, and community broadcasters alike. In December, Gene Simmons of Kiss testified before the Senate on behalf of the American Music Fairness Act, telling lawmakers, “If you are against this bill, you are un-American.” I believe he’s right.
All of us deserve an America where hard work still matters, and fair pay still means something. Passing the American Music Fairness Act would send that message clearly. It would tell the world that we stand with artists — not with the Big Radio companies that continue to profit by exploiting them.
It’s time for Congress to take action and finally right this ship. No more delays. Send the American Music Fairness Act to President Trump’s desk and deliver a victory for every American who believes that hard work and fair pay go hand in hand.
* * *
John Rich is an American country music songwriter, artist, and producer, best known as one half of the duo Big &amp; Rich.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Volunteer Jam: A Musical Salute To Charlie Daniels

Save A Horse? Pay The Cowboy! The Billion-Dollar Radio Free Ride Faces A Reckoning

Congress

Economics

Entertainment

John Rich

Marsha Blackburn

Money

Radio

U.S. Senate

As Michigan Democrats enter the thick of a competitive Senate primary campaign, one candidate is trying to position himself as an outsider who wants to fix a broken system and take on the oligarchy.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a Bernie Sanders-endorsed former public health director who has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/13/abdul-el-sayed-democrat-senate-candidate-michigan">compared</a> to New York City’s recently elected democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He wants Medicare for all, believes big corporations are to blame for the problems in government and the economy, and insists that Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be abolished. 
But El-Sayed doesn’t want to be labeled a leftist or a democratic socialist. 
“I’m a scientist. I’m not a socialist,” El-Sayed told The Daily Wire during a 20-minute phone interview last week. “As a scientist, I&#8217;m interested in answering empirical problems. I&#8217;m interested in what works to solve a big problem.” 
“I don&#8217;t know what far-Left means, but I am the change agent, and I think the better way to analyze our politics right now is not Left and Right,” El-Sayed said. “I think those monikers are ill-suited for this time and, frankly, they&#8217;re a bit of a callback to a bygone era.”
El-Sayed is a Muslim running to represent a state with one of the highest Muslim populations in the United States. He is also running to represent a purple state that has voted to elect President Donald Trump twice. 
Asked how he felt about the increased scrutiny of Muslim immigrants in places like Michigan and Minnesota and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, El-Sayed told The Daily Wire that he believes ICE should be abolished. He also argued that conservatives should support calls for ICE to be abolished. 
“It&#8217;s interesting that again we&#8217;ve allowed one narcissistic man to completely twist the idea of what being a conservative was supposed to be about,” he said. “Because when I talked to folks across the state — whether they&#8217;re self-described Democrats or Republicans or independents or none of the above — they&#8217;re always saying, ‘I just want our government to operate in a way that respects and empowers the Constitution.’&#8221; 
“Conservatives talk about small government, conservatives talk about protecting folks from tyranny. This is literally big government in support of tyranny,” El-Sayed said of Trump’s ICE deployment. “So I just think abolishing is a conservative position, don&#8217;t you?”
El-Sayed is clearly no fan of President Trump, and he told The Daily Wire that he believes Trump is the “worst symptom” of a broader “disease.” 
“The disease is the system that allows big corporations, billionaires, oligarchs to buy and sell access to politicians that lets them rig the system against us,” he added. “It&#8217;s the reason we get paid less for the work we do, and we have to pay more for the things we have to buy.” 
If that messaging sounds familiar, it’s because it echoes the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheTNHoller/videos/zohran-we-are-an-existential-threat-to-billionaires-who-think-their-money-can-bu/1898412347696567/">rhetoric</a> of far-Left politicians, including New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OcasioCortez/posts/there-is-an-extreme-concentration-of-power-greed-and-corruption-is-taking-over-t/1234154698067114/">said</a> last year, &#8220;The oligarchs who installed Donald Trump in power have one mission: to make billionaires richer at the expense of the United States of America. It is their agenda to keep wages low and loot our public goods.&#8221;
Mamdani also used similar language on his way to winning New York City’s mayoral election last year. Speaking at a rally last October, Mamdani said that the leftist movement propelling his campaign is an “existential threat to billionaires who think their money can buy our democracy.” 
“We are an existential threat to a broken status quo that buries the voices of working people beneath corporations,” Mamdani added at the time. 
It also aligns with the messaging that democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has used for decades. In his endorsement of El-Sayed last year, Sanders <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOBjGD2AKE9/">said</a> that Congress “desperately needs right now … members with the guts to stand up to the oligarchs.” 
“Abdul certainly would be doing that, so I’m delighted to be supporting him,” Sanders added. 
While Mamdani, Sanders, and AOC fully adopted the democratic socialist moniker, El-Sayed told The Daily Wire that he’s a capitalist who believes the “biggest danger to capitalism is monopoly,” not “government regulation.” 
“We&#8217;re living in an era right now where monopolies and oligopolies are destroying the idea of a market itself,” El-Sayed said. “And so if we want capitalism to work, you actually have to have meaningful government involvement to protect markets from monopoly and oligopoly too big to fail.”
The democratic socialism of Mamdani, Sanders, and AOC propelled them into power in the liberal enclaves of New York and Vermont, but it likely won&#8217;t play well in Michigan, a blue-collar manufacturing hub that helped elect Trump in both 2016 and 2024. El-Sayed seems to be putting himself in a position to garner some of the momentum of the far-Left without explicitly identifying with the far-Left&#8217;s newfound fascination with socialism.
The Bernie Sanders-endorsed candidate is in a tightly contested race for the seat left open by retiring Sen. Gary Peters. The former health director faces state Senator Mallory McMorrow and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, with recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/michigan-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html">polling</a> showing El-Sayed sitting in third place, but not by much. The Daily Wire reached out to the campaigns for McMorrow and Stevens, requesting interviews, but they have not responded. 
El-Sayed has sought to separate himself from the other Democrats in the race by highlighting his refusal to accept campaign donations from corporations. He is also the candidate who has been the most critical of U.S. support for Israel, telling The Daily Wire, “Our tax dollars are being used to continue genocide.” 
His anti-Israel stance <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-senate-candidate-accuses-israel-of-invading-gaza-in-oct-7-fundraising-email">sparked controversy</a> last October when El-Sayed&#8217;s campaign sent a fundraising email on the anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel that made no mention of Hamas’ atrocities and blamed Israel for launching “a ground invasion of Gaza.” After the email was sent on October 7, 2025, El-Sayed’s campaign said it went out by mistake. 
Asked by The Daily Wire this week how such a mistake could happen, El-Sayed said the email had been approved to go out, but was supposed to be sent on a different day. 
“It went out, and I very quickly reached out to leaders in the Jewish community to apologize for having stepped on their grief,” he said, adding, “The message in the email is something I stand by.” 
When asked about his faith, El-Sayed told The Daily Wire that he’s “proud” to be Muslim and also “really proud” of the U.S. Constitution. 
“One of the things I love about my constitution is that it protects my right to practice as I choose to practice or not practice at all,” he said. “The idea that anybody should be pointing at one religious group in the name of the Constitution and saying that those people are not fit to be here or not fit to serve seems to me to be inconsistent with what the Constitution actually guarantees.” 
El-Sayed condemned conservatives who he said attempt to “twist conservatism to be about a very particular kind of fascism.” 
“When people come at me because I&#8217;m Muslim, I always laugh,” he added. “I&#8217;m like, man, you think you know something about America and you know nothing at all.”

Abdul El-Sayed

‘I’m Not A Socialist’: Michigan’s Mamdani Leans On The Left’s New Playbook But Rejects The Label

'I'm Not A Socialist': Michigan's Mamdani Has The Left's New Playbook But Doesn't Want The New Label

2026 Midterms

Michigan

President Donald Trump called for Republicans to get a national voter ID law passed ahead of the midterm elections, saying that he would take executive action if Congress could not get it done.
Trump’s call comes after the SAVE America Act requiring photo identification and proof of citizenship to vote in elections <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-revamped-bill-to-prevent-illegal-immigrants-from-voting-senate-battle-looms">passed</a> the House on Wednesday and headed to the Senate.
“We cannot let the Democrats get away with NO VOTER I.D. any longer. These are horrible, disingenuous CHEATERS. They have all sorts of reasons why it shouldn’t be passed, and then boldly laugh in the backrooms after their ridiculous presentations,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday. “If it weren’t such a serious matter, it would be considered a TOTAL JOKE! No Voter I.D. is even crazier, and more ridiculous, than Men playing in Women’s Sports, Open Borders, or Transgender for Everyone.”
Trump said Republicans should be talking about the issue in every speech, pointing to polling that most Americans support voter ID laws.
“This is an issue that must be fought, and must be fought, NOW!” Trump said. “If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order.”
Trump said that if Democrats took back power, they would move to make Washington, D.C.,  and Puerto Rico states, pack the Supreme Court, and remove the filibuster in the Senate.
“Our Country will never be the same if they allow these demented and evil people to knowingly, and happily, destroy it,” Trump said.
According to the <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id">National Conference of State Legislatures</a>, &#8220;Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. The remaining 14 states and Washington, D.C., use other methods to verify the identity of voters. Most frequently, other identifying information provided at the polling place, such as a signature, is checked against information on file.&#8221;
After the House passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has been pushing for it to move forward in the Senate. He has already picked up 49 Republican co-sponsors of the legislation and got commitment to support the bill from Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).
In a <a href="https://x.com/BasedMikeLee/status/2022447031386804662">video</a> posted to social media, Lee said that Republicans in the Senate should now move forward to debate and force Democrats to use the “talking filibuster” instead of the “zombie filibuster.”
Polling <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/poll-undercuts-democrat-voter-suppression-claims">released</a> by Cygnal this week found that 72% of white voters, 69% of Hispanic voters, and 56% of black voters support requiring identification at the polls.

President Trump And EPA Administrator Zeldin Make An Announcement From The White House

Trump Floats Executive Action On Voter ID If Congress Doesn’t Act

Donald Trump

Election Laws

Elections

Mike Lee

Politics

Voter ID

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told senators on Tuesday that he visited Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s Little Saint James Island with his wife and children in 2012, four years after Epstein pled guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution.
During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/2021249984729927980">hearing</a>, Lutnick was asked by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) to confirm whether he visited Epstein&#8217;s island as was suggested in email correspondence that was recently made public in the Justice Department&#8217;s trove of Epstein files. Lutnick, who previously said that he cut off contact with Epstein after a troubling first encounter in 2005, confirmed on Monday that he had lunch on Epstein&#8217;s island in late 2012, alongside his wife and four children and another couple and their children.
&#8220;Secretary Lutnick, I think you understand the root of concern here. It&#8217;s the way you described, very emphatically, your first encounter with him &#8230; [and] said you were disgusted and would never have any contact with him again,&#8221; Van Hollen said. &#8220;Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s private island?&#8221;
Lutnick replied, &#8220;I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across, I was on a family vacation. My wife was with me as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple — they were there as well with their children — and we had lunch on the island. That is true, for an hour, and then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together.&#8221;
Lutnick added that he doesn&#8217;t remember &#8220;why we did it,&#8221; referring to the lunch with Epstein on his island, but said it was false &#8220;to suggest there was anything untoward about that.&#8221; The Trump official also said that he did not witness anything inappropriate when he was on the island with Epstein.
Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein&#8217;s crimes. Lutnick said he conducted his own search of Epstein files and found that his name appears in about 10 emails among the millions of pages of documents released by the Justice Department. He added that he would be willing to talk more about sharing his records related to Epstein with Congress.
Epstein-related <a href="https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00664162.pdf">documents</a> recently made public also appear to show Lutnick&#8217;s Wall Street firm emailing Epstein in 2011 in hopes of setting up a meeting. It&#8217;s unclear if that meeting took place. Lutnick told senators that he &#8220;did not have any relationship with&#8221; Epstein, adding, &#8220;I barely had anything to do with that person.&#8221;
In an interview with the New York Post&#8217;s Miranda Devine last year, Lutnick said that after he and his wife first met Epstein in 2005, he vowed to never be in the same room as him. Lutnick told Devine that after he moved into a house next door to Epstein in New York, Epstein took Lutnick and his wife on a tour of his home. During the tour, Epstein pointed out the massage table &#8220;in the middle&#8221; of his home and made remarks about getting the &#8220;right kind of massage,&#8221; prompting Lutnick and his wife to leave, according to Lutnick.
&#8220;In the six or eight steps that it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again,&#8221; the Commerce secretary added. &#8220;So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn&#8217;t going because he&#8217;s gross.&#8221;
After more came to light on Lutnick&#8217;s 2012 visit with Epstein, Democratic lawmakers, along with staunch Trump critic Thomas Massie (R-KY), criticized the Commerce secretary for appearing to change his story.
“It’s now clear that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been lying about his relationship with Epstein. He said he had no interactions with Epstein after 2005, yet we now know they were in business together. Lutnick must resign or be fired. And he must answer our questions,” <a href="https://x.com/RepRobertGarcia/status/2020622223925792934">said</a> Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein&#8217;s crimes and alleged ties to powerful people.
Over the weekend, Massie called on Lutnick to &#8220;make life easier on the president &#8230; and just resign.&#8221;
The White House told The Daily Wire on Tuesday that President Donald Trump remains confident in Lutnick&#8217;s ability to lead the Commerce Department.
&#8220;President Trump has assembled the best and most transformative cabinet in modern history. The entire Trump administration, including Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce, remains focused on delivering for the American people,&#8221; White House Spokesman Kush Desai said.
A Commerce Department spokesman told The Daily Wire, &#8220;This is nothing more than a failing attempt by the legacy media to distract from the administration’s accomplishments, including securing Trillions of dollars in investment, delivering historic trade deals and fighting for the American worker. Mr. and Mrs. Lutnick met Jeffrey Epstein in 2005 and had very limited interactions with him over the next 14 years.&#8221;

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

Trump Cabinet Secretary Confirms He Visited Epstein’s Island With Wife And Children In 2012

Epstein Files

Howard Lutnick

Jeffrey Epstein

A new poll shows that Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) could be Texas’ Democratic Senate nominee, as all eyes have been on the messy primaries in the Lone Star State ahead of the March 3 Election Day.
The University of Houston <a href="https://www.uh.edu/hobby/primary2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poll</a> of 550 likely voters showed Crockett up by eight points over state Rep. James Talarico, with 47% compared with his 39%.
“Congresswoman Crockett is in the best position to reassemble a winning Texas democratic coalition in November. That coalition requires exciting the base to turn out, while bringing working people, Latinos, and young voters back into the fold. The poll demonstrates that independents and disillusioned Republicans favor Crockett as opposed to the other candidates,” her campaign said in a press release on Monday regarding the survey conducted from Jan. 20-31.
Other polls have shown Crockett leading, but some, like a recent Emerson College survey, have shown Talarico ahead by as much as nine percentage points. The race turned ugly after former Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Colin Allred strongly criticized Talarico over an allegation that the state representative referred to the former congressman as a “mediocre Black man,” according to the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/02/texas-us-senate-democratic-primary-colin-allred-james-talarico-mediocre-black-man-tiktok/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas Tribune</a>.
The National Republican Campaign Committee said that Crockett&#8217;s lead in the poll is a sign that the Democratic Party is moving further to the Left, even in the traditionally conservative Lone Star State.
&#8220;Today&#8217;s Democrat Party is getting more progressive and extreme by the second, but one thing remains true: Jasmine Crockett&#8217;s radical anti-Trump agenda is wrong for Texas,&#8221; NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell said in a statement to The Daily Wire. The group is backing incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the competitive Republican primary.
On the Republican side, President Donald Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the race, and it’s unclear if he will with less than a month to go. Cornyn is up against Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt for the seat, and the same University of Houston poll showed Paxton leading with 38%, compared with 31% for the incumbent senator and 17% for Hunt.
Hunt&#8217;s campaign spokesperson, James Kyrkanides, said in a statement that the poll is an “interesting snapshot” into the general electorate. In head-to-head matchups, each of the Republican candidates would defeat either Crockett or Talarico by a thin margin. Paxton would defeat either Democrat by two points, Cornyn would beat Crockett by two and Talarico by one, and Hunt would beat Crockett by three and Talarico by four.
Kyrkanides said other polls have indicated that the “campaign has surged into second place&#8221; and that “John Cornyn’s campaign has collapsed.”
Texas primaries require a candidate to break 50% of the vote to become the nominee.
“While the primary results in the [university] poll are being debated, one fact is undeniable: Among general election voters, Wesley Hunt once again outperforms both John Cornyn and Ken Paxton,” the statement continued. “This has been consistent since the day Hunt entered the race in October. The data keeps saying the same thing. Anyone making ‘electability’ arguments while excluding Wesley Hunt isn’t serious about winning. They’re serious about protecting the status quo. Texas voters are moving on.&#8221;
Paxton said that the poll, which also indicates he would defeat Cornyn in a runoff, is a good sign that he will be the Republican nominee.
&#8220;Ensuring that low-propensity America First voters are motivated to show up in November is critical to Republicans&#8217; success in 2026, and John Cornyn is the single worst person in Texas to accomplish that. Luckily, he won&#8217;t be on the ballot because Texans are ready to fire him this spring. In 2022, I faced tens of millions in negative attacks and then proceeded to overwhelmingly defeat my primary opponents and win the general by nearly ten points. I&#8217;m ready and in a strong position to do the same in 2026.&#8221;
As for Cornyn, he&#8217;s pulled no punches against his opponents on both sides of the aisle, as he came out with an ad on Sunday taking aim at both Democrats, and recently saying that he is the &#8220;only electable Republican in this primary, a proven conservative with real experience and results who votes with President Trump more than 99% of the time.&#8221;
The Cook Political Report currently ranks the general election race as “Likely Republican.”

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, Texas’ 30th District: An Intimate Brunch

Crockett Could Become Texas Senate Democratic Nominee As Primaries Heat Up: Poll

Democratic Party

Jasmine Crockett

John Cornyn

Ken Paxton

Texas

Wesley Hunt

Negotiations on potential restrictions for federal immigration enforcement are already off to a rocky start in Congress, as they face a Feb. 13 deadline or a lapse in funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
On Wednesday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) released their list of ten requests: “targeted enforcement,&#8221; ending of masking for officers, more public identification of authorities, “body cameras for accountability,” use of force restrictions, and greater “state and local coordination and oversight” are among the asks. Much of the funding for the administration&#8217;s goals on immigration was already approved in the &#8220;One Big Beautiful Bill Act&#8221; last year, but Democrats are hoping to use the recent tensions as leverage to shift policy – as DHS also holds other key agencies that are not immigration-related, including FEMA and TSA.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), who’s considered a key negotiator in the Senate, slammed some of the suggestions as outlandish.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NEWS — Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries release 10 policy demands in ICE funding fight, in letter to GOP leaders: <a href="https://t.co/M3cInciKYT">pic.twitter.com/M3cInciKYT</a>
— Stephen Neukam (@stephen_neukam) <a href="https://twitter.com/stephen_neukam/status/2019236836636500411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
“Democrats’ newest proposal is a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press. This is NOT negotiating in good faith, and it’s NOT what the American people want,” Britt posted to X on Wednesday.
“They continue to play politics to their radical base at the expense of the safety of Americans,” she added. “DHS, FEMA, Secret Service, and the Coast Guard run out of money in 9 days. Democrats don’t seem to care one bit.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also brushed off the demands made by Democratic leadership.
“It’s totally unrealistic, their demand list went from 3 items to 10 items,” Thune told <a href="https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/2019431486307406008?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a>. “It just shows you they’re not serious. There’s a bunch of stuff in there that’s a non-starter, and they know it. Maybe they had to put it in there to satisfy MoveOn or some of their left-wing special interest groups.”
The original requests included a move away from administrative warrants to judicial warrants for arrests, no more roving patrols, an end to masking for officers, and more rules as it pertains to how force is used. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-how-democrats-could-cripple-ice-without-defunding-dhs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a> reported that a change in the type of warrants used could make some immigration arrests exceedingly difficult.
The government dealt with a brief shutdown that ended Tuesday, as the House had to go back and pass amended appropriations bills after the White House and Senate Democrats agreed to split DHS funding from the rest of the federal government’s funding.
The push for the funding split came after the Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis, which resulted in numerous other changes made in how the Trump administration approached the end of Operation Metro Surge in the region, leading to the arrests of thousands of people in the country illegally. White House Border Czar Tom Homan announced on Wednesday that 700 agents are headed out as part of a “drawdown” effort.
“We currently have an unprecedented number of counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets, unprecedented cooperation. And I’ll say it again, this is efficient, it requires only one or two officers to assume custody of a criminal alien target rather than eight or ten officers going into the community and arresting that public safety threat,” Homan said, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/homan-strikes-deal-in-minnesota-yanks-hundreds-of-immigration-officers?author=Jennie+Taer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Homan+Strikes+Deal+In+Minnesota%2C+Yanks+Hundreds+Of+Immigration+Officers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a> reported.
“More officers taking custody of criminal aliens directly from the jails means less officers on the street doing criminal operations. This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement. This is safer for the community, safer for the officers, and safer for the alien,” he said.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-mass-deportation-campaign-could-use-softer-touch-after-minneapolis-shootings?author=Jennie+Taer&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Says+Mass+Deportation+Campaign+Could+Use+%E2%80%98Softer+Touch%E2%80%99+After+Minneapolis+Shootings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Donald Trump</a> told NBC News on Wednesday night that he “learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch” after the sky-high tensions in Minneapolis amid anti-ICE protests.
“But you still have to be tough. These are criminals. We’re dealing with really hard criminals,” he added.

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL)

Homeland Security Negotiations Off To Rocky Start In Congress: ‘Ridiculous Christmas List’

Department of Homeland Security

Immigration

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), who is retiring from the Senate, has formally backed Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) over Representative Angie Craig (D-MN), placing herself firmly alongside the hardline wing of the Democratic Party ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The endorsement comes as Democrats head into precinct caucuses, the first formal step in the Minnesota elections, and amid heightened national attention on federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. Smith announced her decision in a video released ahead of the caucuses, accusing the Trump administration of “terrorizing” local communities and citing Flanagan as the candidate best positioned to confront the White House.
The announcement is an about-face by Smith, who previously said she’d not endorse a candidate to replace her. “It is not my job to pick my successor,“ Smith said in an interview last February after she announced her plans to retire. “That’s up to the voters of Minnesota to do.”
Flanagan, who currently serves as Tim Walz’s lieutenant governor, welcomed Smith’s support. She described herself as a “progressive fighter” and pledged to carry Smith’s agenda back to Washington as she promised to “continue in her footsteps.”
Smith’s backing places Flanagan within a growing coalition of left-wing lawmakers. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), along with former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, have already endorsed her. With Smith’s support, Flanagan now has endorsements from eight sitting senators, consolidating establishment support on the party’s left flank.
Craig, a four-term House member, has taken a different path. Long viewed as a more pragmatic Democrat, she has at times broken with party leadership, particularly on immigration. However, she has assembled her own slate of prominent supporters — Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have all endorsed Craig.
Immigration enforcement has emerged as the central fault line in the primary. Flanagan has sought to tie Craig to Republican-backed enforcement measures, arguing that her voting record undermines Democratic resistance to the Trump administration. In a January interview, Flanagan singled out Craig’s support for the Laken Riley Act, calling it legislation “which strips immigrants of due process,” and noting that “my opponent, Angie Craig, voted for it.”
Craig has pushed back forcefully, accusing Flanagan of mischaracterizing her record for political gain. “I would love for the lieutenant governor to join me in standing up to the Trump administration and to [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem,” Craig said in a separate interview, pointing to her introduction of articles of impeachment against Noem over federal enforcement actions in Minnesota.
While public polling remains limited, fundraising figures suggest diverging paths forward. Craig significantly outraised Flanagan at the end of 2025, posting roughly $2 million in fourth-quarter receipts and entering the new year with nearly $3.7 million on hand. Flanagan raised about half that amount over the same period and reported just over $800,000 in cash.
As the primary takes shape, Smith’s endorsement demonstrates the broader tension within many state Democratic parties, between a leftist bloc closely aligned with national party leadership and a more moderate wing warning that ideological purity could jeopardize what has long been considered a safe Senate seat.

MixCollage-09-Jan-2026-11-29-AM-5834

Retiring Minnesota Senator Endorses Radical Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan Over Moderate Angie Craig

Minnesota

Some stupid people in the Senate decided to make a spectacle of themselves yesterday when they hosted Secretary of State Marco Rubio to give testimony about Venezuela before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Secretary Rubio is very, very good at his job. And so many of these senators are not.
One of the amazing things about American politics is how many Americans believe there are true conspiracies operating at a high level in American politics. All you have to do is meet our senators and members of Congress in order to know how dumb this is.
Politics is significantly more like “Veep” than it is like “House of Cards.”
Illinois Democrat senator Tammy Duckworth — not one of the sharper tools in the drawer — had a spat with Rubio on whether war needed to be declared in order to perform strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean.
“These non-state actors, who possess state-like capabilities in terms of their weaponry, pose a grave danger to the United States,” Rubio stated. “I don’t think any American would dispute that we have cartels that pose a threat to the United States.”
“You&#8217;re saying that he (President Trump) can invoke this wartime power?” she queried, adding that the wartime power had only been invoked three times: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
“I&#8217;m here to discuss foreign policy and what&#8217;s in the realm of the Department of State,” Rubio replied. “I think your question would be better directed at the Department of Justice. &#8230; You&#8217;re asking me a question about the domestic application of a law that&#8217;s best directed to the Department of Justice.”
“It’s not a complication,” she said, somehow confusing words.
“I can tell you that the United States is most certainly confronting terrorist and criminal organizations operating in our hemisphere that pose a grave danger to the United States. Anyone who believes that gangs that flood our country with fentanyl or cocaine are not threats to the United States, is not living in reality, and certainly does not reflect the opinion of most Americans,” he fired back.
Owned.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2357-new-tape-pretti-s-not-so-nonviolent-ice-protest-past?elementPosition=2&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Then there was Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is just a mockery. Every time you see him, you think to yourself,  “It&#8217;s not possible for him to become more of a cucumber with eyeballs.” And yet there he is, becoming more of a cucumber with eyeballs, straight from the garden.
Van Hollen suggested it was oil executives pushing the change in Venezuela, saying, “ Mr. Secretary, simple yes or no question: Were you with President Trump during any of those conversations he had with people with oil interests in Venezuela about the possibility of deposing Maduro?”
“That&#8217;s not a simple yes or no question, but I can answer quickly,” Rubio responded. “And that is the president always elicits opinions from all sorts of people, including, for example, Chevron has an active license in Venezuela. They operate in Venezuela. They&#8217;ve been doing so even when the sanctions were in place. So of course you would ask Chevron, “What is your opinion of Delcey Rodriguez?” “What is your opinion of their economy and of their prospects?” But the notion that somehow the president authorized this challenge at the urging of oil executives is absurd. That never happened.”
“Mr. Secretary, I&#8217;m asking whether you were with the president?” Van Hollen persisted.
“That never happened. I couldn&#8217;t be with him because it never happened,” Rubio fired back. “The oil executives were not involved whatsoever in any of the planning on this matter.”
Owned.
By the way, Senator Chris Van Hollen, if you&#8217;re going to ask a question you don&#8217;t already know the answer to, you&#8217;re doing it wrong. (That is the first rule of lawyering: Don&#8217;t ask questions for which you don&#8217;t already know the answer.)
Rubio went on to make clear that criminal organizations are endemic to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, saying:
<blockquote>We have a real reality in our region of these trans-national criminal terrorist organizations — that in many cases possess weapons that you ascribe to a nation state, not to a gang — who pose a grave threat to the national security of the United States, but also to the stability of the region. If you walk through the region, what is the primary threat in Colombia? Transnational criminal organizations. What is the threat to Mexico? What is the threat to the Caribbean basin? 
These groups have to be confronted. They have to be confronted forcefully. What&#8217;s the threat in Haiti? The systemic collapse. And that is these criminal gangs that basically control territory and threaten the ability to even form a government there in that regard. So it&#8217;s endemic throughout the region, and it ultimately impacts the United States through mass migration, through drug trafficking and other related criminal organizations. And so we need to have a force posture that can confront that.  </blockquote>
Senator Rand Paul, on the Republican side of the aisle, targeted Rubio over the Venezuela operation, calling it unconstitutional. “If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?” he asked. 
“I will acknowledge you&#8217;ve been very consistent on all these points the entire career, no matter who&#8217;s in charge. I will point to two things. The first is it&#8217;s hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about 4.5 hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don&#8217;t recognize as a head of state, indicted in the United States, or wanted with a $50 million bounty —” Rubio began.  
“If it only took four hours to take our president, very short, nobody dies on the other side. Nobody dies on our side. It&#8217;s perfect. Would it be an act of war?” Paul asked. 
“We just don&#8217;t believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of a war,” Rubio asserted. 
“But would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies. Few casualties. They&#8217;re in and out. Boom. It&#8217;s a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war? Of course, it would be an act of war. I&#8217;m probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president. So I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument, one-way arguments that don&#8217;t rebound, that you can&#8217;t apply to yourselves, that cannot be universally applicable, are bad arguments,” Paul contended. 
Here’s why Senator Paul’s argument is bad: Who cares whether Venezuela considers it an act of war? The question is whether, constitutionally, you require a declaration of war in order to do this thing. Is it a war for the United States to perform a law enforcement grab-and-snatch of a person we do not recognize as the legitimate, rightful leader of a country? Do we need to declare war in America?  
Who cares what Venezuelans think about it? I don&#8217;t care what Nigerians think about. I don&#8217;t care what Israelis think about it. I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. We&#8217;re Americans; the American Constitution applies.  
The question that ought to be asked is not whether we would consider it an act of war if somebody did it to us; if we did, we would then have to wait and go through the constitutional mechanisms of declaring war. That&#8217;s what the question is about. It is not whether what we just did to Venezuela is an adversarial action. Of course it&#8217;s an adversarial action. The question is, constitutionally speaking, do you have to declare war in order to do this thing? Not whether in some random Platonic universe this is considered a definitional “act of war.”
That&#8217;s the point Rubio was making: Make the case that the operation constitutes a war under the definition of war in the Constitution, as opposed to a policing action or a law enforcement action.
It&#8217;s a cheap rhetorical trick that Senator Paul used there.
Rubio was asked about Cuba and said the Trump administration would not involve itself in an active regime change in Cuba. They would, of course, love to see the regime fall.
Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz asked, “Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba?”
“Regime change?” Rubio answered. “Oh, no. I think we would love to see the regime change. That doesn&#8217;t mean that we&#8217;re going to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There&#8217;s no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime.” 
“But you know what we mean by regime change,” Schatz persisted.  “We don&#8217;t mean I wish someone else were in charge. When we talk about regime change, we&#8217;re talking about using the power of the United States, usually kinetic power, but often other kinds of coercion. I&#8217;m not even saying that that&#8217;s always not in our interests; I&#8217;m just saying, I&#8217;m not asking you whether we would prefer a different kind of government. I&#8217;m asking whether you are trying to precipitate the fall of the current regime.”
“Yeah, but that&#8217;s statutory. The Helms-Burton Act, the U.S. embargo on Cuba, is codified. It was codified in law, and it requires regime change in order for us to lift the embargo,” Rubio pointed out.
Owned.
Senator Tim Kaine, the long-forgotten vice presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton, went after Rubio because Donald Trump supposedly said Iceland and not Greenland in his Davos speech. “We&#8217;re not mad at Iceland. They haven&#8217;t cost us any money. The president just mistook the two countries for each other, correct?” Kaine said.
Rubio then gave a deathless, hilarious reply, with a wink at the recent past: “Yeah, he meant to say Greenland. But I think we&#8217;re all familiar with the presidents who have verbal stumbles. We&#8217;ve had presidents like that before, some made a lot more than this one.”
Owned.
Rubio was also asked about Iran and again pointed out that the people of Iran deserve better than the current leadership:
<blockquote>And the core problem they face, unlike the protests you saw in the past on some other topics, is that they don&#8217;t have a way to address the core complaints of the protesters, which is that their economy’s in collapse. And the reason why there&#8217;s economies and collapse is because they spend all their money and all their resources building weapons and sponsoring terrorist groups around the world, instead of reinvesting it back into their society and as a result, have taken on massive global sanctions, which has isolated their economy and their country.
And so that&#8217;s what the Iranian people are demanding, is that they stop doing that and start caring about them and get these sanctions off of them, and this regime is unwilling to do it. So the core challenges, the protests may have ebbed, but they will spark up again in the future because this regime, unless they are willing to change and or leave, has no way of addressing the legitimate and consistent complaints of the people of Iran who deserve better. </blockquote>
Has there ever been a better Secretary of State?

US-VENEZUELA-CONFLICT-POLITICS-CONGRESS-RUBIO

The Adult In The Room: Rubio Owns The Senate

Ben Shapiro

Chris Van Hollen

Marco Rubio

Oil and Gas

Opinion

Rand Paul

Venezuela

Senate Republicans seem unlikely to budge on funding for the Department of Homeland Security as a partial government shutdown approaches on Friday.
Democrats have called for DHS funding to be held up unless there are serious strings attached related to immigration enforcement amid tensions in Minnesota rising higher after the shooting of Alex Pretti. The House already approved spending bills, but they are not in Washington this week, so changes that would be made would need to be sent to them – likely triggering a shutdown in the interim.
“Democrats want to shut down the government—again—unless ICE is defunded. Not a chance,” the Senate Republicans account posted on Monday morning. “There can be no mob veto on enforcing the law.”
However, much of the funding for the president’s immigration goals was already approved in the One Big Beautiful Bill in July, including more funding for the border and hiring more ICE personnel. Still, many Democrats believe that scrutinizing DHS funding would be necessary to reforming federal immigration operations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has indicated that he will be leading the charge in &#8220;rejecting this DHS spending bill,&#8221; according to a recent social media post, and he&#8217;s called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) – a key Democrat who helped end the government shutdown in the fall over the Affordable Care Act subsidies – wants the DHS funding to be &#8220;separate&#8221; from the five other spending bills to avert another closure and for the House to come back in session as &#8220;reforms&#8221; to the department are debated, according to <a href="https://x.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/2015849148444996060?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Punchbowl News</a>.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) posted to X an unofficial list of demands if the DHS bill returns to the House, including ICE and CBP exiting Minneapolis, &#8220;full, independent investigation into the killings,&#8221; &#8220;no more detaining and deporting U.S. Citizens&#8221; and no masks for immigration authorities and &#8220;mass arrest quotas and warrantless arrests end.&#8221;
On Sunday, a White House official told The Daily Wire on background that “Democrats were equal partners in negotiating these bills, which are the product of a bipartisan, collaborative process.”
“Now, after a week spent celebrating their successes in the process, and in the midst of a winter storm, they’re holding emergency response funding hostage to score political points. We hope cooler heads prevail, and the country does not have to endure another damaging shutdown,” the official added.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security told The Daily Wire that a holdup on the department’s funding would create hurdles with emergency management and TSA.
“While politicians in the Senate play games with Americans’ safety, they are blocking vital DHS funding that keeps our country secure and its people safe—from TSA and FEMA to the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “This funding supports national security and critical national emergency operations, including FEMA responses to a historic snowstorm that is affecting 250 million Americans. Washington may stall, but the safety of the American people will not wait.”
The Daily Wire reached out to several GOP lawmakers who have called for an investigation into Pretti’s death, and asked if that has influenced their stance on DHS funding. Sen. Pete Ricketts&#8217; (R-NE) office pointed to his post on X, stating that his “support for funding ICE remains the same” while calling for “prioritized, transparent investigation.”

Longest Shutdown Tests Air Travel, Federal Workers And Patience

‘No Mob Veto’: Partial Shutdown Increasingly Likely As GOP Slams DHS Funding Criticism

Government Shutdown

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;
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;"><iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/02meCc00NNDMOBNl2fyvEbhQCnOJsMXfq01?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=eb58017e-7763-47e5-ab10-a94a092d25a2&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=1-20-2025%20Michele%20Tafoya%20&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F9b7b0bba-35b8-4b7f-a86d-46520d6c7cd0.jpg&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
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

Michele Tafoya

News

Senate GOP

The following is an edited transcript from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1891-the-real-reason-trump-plans-to-conquer-greenland?elementPosition=10&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
The Left can’t let the transgender issue go away.
They were clobbered on it last November. They’ve been losing on it for years. Conservatives won the argument, decisively — and yet the Left keeps dragging it back into the spotlight. Now they’re pushing cases all the way to the Supreme Court under the guise of “defending girls’ sports,” even as the Court is actively weighing a major transgender-related case.
That context matters, because it’s why a recent Senate hearing landed the way it did.
During a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) hearing focused on abortion drugs, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of the best to ever do it, grilled Democrat witness Dr. Nisha Verma, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, on the question that has dominated American politics for the past five years.
The exchange, which quickly went viral, revolved around a simple inquiry: “Can men get pregnant?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
SPOILER ALERT: Men cannot get pregnant <a href="https://t.co/08JwHUlxIj">pic.twitter.com/08JwHUlxIj</a>
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/2011480384467349892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hawley is so good at this.
This question is just another version of “What is a Woman?” It’s another way of asking whether men can become women. It should be a layup for the Left. All they have to say is: “No, men cannot become pregnant.”
They could even try to weasel out of it. They could say something about “trans men” or redefine terms in the usual bureaucratic way. Any halfway competent liberal operative would recognize that this issue is pure political poison and dodge it immediately. 
But they can’t.
The transgender issue may be the single biggest loser for the Left in my lifetime — possibly even more damaging than their insistence on flooding the country with foreign criminals. And yet they refuse to abandon it. Not because it’s culturally edgy or titillating, but because it represents the inescapable conclusion of their entire political project.
Conservatives sometimes understate what’s actually going on here. We describe transgenderism as a natural outgrowth of gay marriage, gay rights, or feminism — movements that insist men and women are fundamentally the same. That’s part of the story, but it doesn’t go deep enough.
The reason Republicans and conservatives keep hammering this issue — and the reason the Left cannot give it up — is because it strikes at the core of liberalism itself.
At its heart, liberalism is about maximizing individual autonomy. That idea goes back centuries. The seed of liberalism says: I am primarily an individual, and I will control everything. I will control my destiny, my traditions, my morality, my religion, my history, and even my country. And eventually, I will liberate myself from my own body.
That is the culmination.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1891-the-real-reason-trump-plans-to-conquer-greenland?elementPosition=10&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
It took centuries to get here. First, we had to liberate ourselves from the king. Then from the Church. Then from the family, through the liberalization of divorce. Then from history, through radical revisionism. Then from the nation, through the collapse of patriotism. Then from the moral order, especially in matters of sex.
And finally, liberation from biological reality itself.
Liberalism is not complete until the body is treated as irrelevant.
Which brings us, inevitably, to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas identified the idea underlying transgenderism — that the body has nothing to do with who we really are — as one of the oldest and most dangerous heresies. The belief that I am born male but am really female, and therefore my body is wrong or bad, is not new. It appears in ancient heresies like Gnosticism and Docetism, which treated matter as corrupt and the physical world as a mistake.
Aquinas argued that these were the worst heresies of all, because they directly deny the central truth of Christianity: the Incarnation — that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
So it should not surprise us that modern liberalism, which often functions as an inversion of Christianity, would culminate in precisely this heresy. A political philosophy built on autonomy over reality eventually arrives at the rejection of the body itself.
That’s why the Left can’t walk away from this issue, no matter how badly it hurts them politically.
It isn’t just another policy debate.
It’s the logical endpoint of their worldview.

Senator Josh Hawley

Why The Left Can’t Let The Transgender Debate Go

Catholicism

Democrats

gender ideology

Josh Hawley

Leftists

Michael Knowles

Republicans

Transgender

What Is A Woman

Two Senate Republicans are standing in the way of efforts to eliminate a major DEI program that gives no-bid federal contracts to &#8220;socially disadvantaged&#8221; groups, a letter obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan wrote to agencies saying that a race-based program that removes competition for federal contracts for racial minorities &#8220;has reflected conservative, market-based principles by empowering small businesses to compete, grow, and succeed.&#8221; They said a Republican request that agencies review past contracts for &#8220;potential fraud&#8221; was &#8220;premature&#8221; and &#8220;unsupported by established facts.&#8221;
The Trump administration&#8217;s Small Business Administration moved to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-crack-down-on-minority-contracting-schemes-d-c-s-worst-kept-secret" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rein in</a> the federal minority contracting program, known as 8(a), after a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">black businessman bribed</a> a USAID official for half a billion dollars in contracts — a bribe the official could make good on only because contracts to minorities can be handed out at will instead of based on a showing of best value.
In October, James O&#8217;Keefe&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1981042870460252398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Citizen Journalism Foundation</a> captured officials from a white-led, but ostensibly Native American contractor, bragging about how they got a $100 million contract using minority preference and simply found someone else to do the actual work for a small portion of that. Follow-up reporting featured members of the Native American tribe bemoaning that outsiders were abusing the tribe&#8217;s name to <a href="https://x.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1988770902243176767?s=42" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enrich</a> themselves, while tribe members lived in poverty.
Alaska Natives get even more preferential treatment than black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans, allowing them to run multibillion-dollar defense contractor companies while getting benefits initially designed for small, disadvantaged firms.
In December, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, which has jurisdiction over the program, wrote to agencies <a href="https://www.ernst.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12082025sba8aprogramfinalletters.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asking them</a> to &#8220;immediately pause all 8(a) sole-source contracting&#8221; and &#8220;examine all 8(a) set-aside contracts awarded by your agency since FY 20 for any violation of laws and regulations,&#8221; noting that the Biden administration raised the goal for minority contracts to 15%.
For years, inquiries have flagged fraud and abuse in such arrangements, but Alaska Republicans have used their disproportionate power in the Senate to make the topic off-limits. The now-deceased Ted Stevens was an Alaska Republican who chaired the Senate&#8217;s Appropriations Committee for years, and Murkowski now sits on the committee.
Before the DEI craze captured Democrats, it wasn&#8217;t partisan to point out waste and abuse. In 2010, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) found abuse similar to what was highlighted by O&#8217;Keefe. But Murkowski &#8220;immediately sprung into action, lodging objections&#8221; to McCaskill&#8217;s effort to reform the program. McCaskill <a href="https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/press/article/mccaskill-retreats-attack-on-tribal-contracting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">folded</a>, but said, “Reform in this area is going to happen. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when.&#8221;
In the time since, little has changed. In 2011, The Washington Post reported that a D.C. lawyer named Paralee White had used the Alaska program to land more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dc-insiders-can-reap-fortunes-from-federal-programs-for-small-businesses/2011/02/09/AB1NRJS_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$500 million</a> in military contracts and pay her family members lavish salaries. The Post noted, &#8220;Significantly for White, the subsidiaries set up by the corporations to receive contracts did not have to operate in Alaska or even be run by natives. They just had to be 51 percent owned by Alaska Natives, and they could hire nonnative subcontractors to do much of the work.&#8221;
In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2010/09/30/bethesda-consultant-made-millions-with-alaska-firm/e9187e20-cc34-11df-8eee-2e1a26a3708e/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another case</a>, a Bethesda, Maryland, man was paid $15 million to run an Alaskan government contractor for three years, while Alaska Natives received a total of $682,000 in dividends in 2009, or $305 each. The company won a contract to make military uniforms, which it manufactured in Puerto Rico instead of Alaska.
Sullivan and Murkowski did not publicize their letters to federal agencies, which goes against Republican orthodoxy when it comes to DEI and fraud and waste. A spokesman for Murkowski, Joseph Plesha, did not respond when The Daily Wire asked about the letter.
The inquiry asked: &#8220;Do you think the SBA and agencies have done a sufficient job rooting out abuse? If not, what are some examples that you&#8217;ve uncovered through your oversight? Do you support 8(a) for all minorities or only Alaskan natives?&#8221;
It also asked whether the type of Alaska Native Corporation that Murkowski holds up as a success includes Bowhead, virtually all of whose <a href="https://www.bowhead.com/executive-team/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executives are white men</a>. Bowhead is technically an arm of an Alaskan tribe, but it is headquartered in the D.C. suburbs, and its family of high-tech defense contractors looks and operates like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin — but without having to compete with them on price.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1026861" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1535" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-300x180.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-961x576.jpg 961w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-768x460.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-1536x921.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-2048x1228.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></div>
A spokeswoman for Sen. Sullivan, Amanda Coyne, also did not respond to a Daily Wire inquiry requesting data showing that such firms were actually staffed by Alaska Natives.
The letter said the 8(a) program &#8220;reduces administrative burden, shortens acquisition timelines, and avoids the delays and litigation risks that often accompany large-scale procurements. Further, as two Senators who care about the readiness of our military, we consistently hear from top Pentagon officials that the 8(a) Program provides flexibility and timeliness in procuring weapons systems that strengthen our country.&#8221;
The reason that some government officials like using 8(a) contracting is that they do not have to bother with competing for the work, a process designed to get the highest quality and lowest cost. Instead, they can simply choose who they want to give it to. At times, that includes the implicit understanding that the supposedly disadvantaged firm will subcontract much of the work to a traditional firm.
The 8(a) program is also facing court challenges, particularly after recent Supreme Court decisions made it likely that elements of it are unconstitutional. Multiple injunctions have been put in place by judges, and a lawsuit by lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has recently been filed on behalf of white people who were left out in the cold.
Dan Lennington, the director of the Wisconsin group&#8217;s Equality Under the Law Project, told The Daily Wire, &#8220;There is simply no question that the 8(a) program has been the source of significant waste, fraud, and abuse. The program was designed for &#8216;economically disadvantaged&#8217; small business owners, yet our clients have reported that these limits are not enforced and easily evaded, meaning that high net-worth individuals often scoop up preferences and sole-source contracts.&#8221;
&#8220;Moreover, the Section 8(a) program has been tainted with unconstitutional racial preferences, including racial preferences for &#8216;Alaska Natives,&#8217; which Senators Murkowski and Sullivan undoubtedly support. Federal law defines this category based on &#8216;blood,&#8217; &#8216;bloodlines,&#8217; and &#8216;minimum blood quantum,&#8217; all of which constitute unconstitutional racial categorizations. SBA should vigorously enforce the President&#8217;s Executive Orders, which require all agencies to eliminate racial preferences, including those remaining in Section 8(a),&#8221; he continued.
Murkowski and Sullivan&#8217;s letter read:
<blockquote>Fraud, waste, and abuse have no place in federal programs, and any participant who violates the law should be held fully accountable. However, we write to express serious concern with recent, unsubstantiated attacks on the Small Business Administration&#8217;s (SBA) 8(a) Business Development Program and the request that federal agencies halt all 8(a) sole-source awards absent verified findings of wrongdoing.
On December 8, 2025, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship sent letters to 22 federal agencies urging a pause on future 8(a) sole-source awards and a review of prior awards based on allegations of &#8220;potential fraud.&#8221; These requests are premature, unsupported by established facts, and risk significant harm to federal missions and thousands of compliant small businesses that lawfully participate in this program. Broad, sensationalized allegations leveled before the completion of any investigation amount to a presumption of guilt and undermine fundamental principles of due process.
For more than 40 years, the 8(a) Program, authorized under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act, has been one of the federal government&#8217;s most effective tools for promoting entrepreneurship and economic mobility for disadvantaged communities. Participating firms routinely deliver high-quality, specialized services, achieve strong Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) performance ratings, and provide agencies with cost-effective, timely procurement options. The program reduces administrative burden, shortens acquisition timelines, and avoids the delays and litigation risks that often accompany large-scale procurements. Further, as two Senators who care about the readiness of our military, we consistently hear from top Pentagon officials that the 8(a) Program provides flexibility and timeliness in procuring weapons systems that strengthen our country.
We fully support targeted, evidence-based oversight that identifies and removes bad actors. We cannot support sweeping actions that jeopardize thousands of legitimate businesses, many of which perform mission-critical work for your agency and others across the federal government.
Accordingly, we urge you to continue utilizing the 8(a) Program consistent with existing law and regulation, while allowing any appropriate reviews to proceed in an orderly and fact-driven manner. For decades, this program has reflected conservative, market-based principles by empowering small businesses to compete, grow, and succeed, rather than expanding government dependence on bureaucracy.</blockquote>
Editor&#8217;s note: Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/luke-rosiak-testifies-at-us-senate-hearing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> to the Senate Committee on Small Business about 8(a) contract abuse.

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