Congressional-Executive Committee on China Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., plans to advocate for the release of American citizens and religious advocates detained in China in a call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio ahead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the committee held a hearing that included the testimony of Pastor Ezra Jin, who spent 200 days in a Chinese prison for running a non-state-sponsored church. Jin was released after President Donald Trump met with Xi in Beijing in May and raised the issue. But others, like Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt, remain imprisoned in China. Tuesday’s hearing included testimony from family members of Wells and Hunt

In an interview with the Daily Signal, Smith said that he’s optimistic about the call’s success, describing Rubio as a “humanitarian at heart” who will prioritize the issue of imprisoned worshippers when speaking with Trump ahead of Thursday’s summit.

“He’s very successful, he’s a humanitarian at heart, he’ll see why this is so important,” Smith stated.

Smith now sees this call as the best opportunity to alert Trump about the detention of other pastors and Americans imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party ahead of the president’s Thursday meeting with the Chinese leader.

Smith added that he will tell the secretary to prioritize “these issues” during the summit.

“How many times do you [the United States] get to talk to Xi Jinping like this?” Smith added.

Smith continued, adding that if the president were to raise the issue of those wrongfully detained by the Chinese government, Xi might actually follow through.

“He’s in charge of that country. He could do it tomorrow and tell the other Communist Party officials to get back in line,” the chairman continued. “He could make this happen, and Trump can help him to make an offer.”

The State Department did not respond to the Daily Signal’s inquiry on whether the call will occur.

Steve Yates, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal that Trump has proven successful in negotiating the release of Chinese prisoners and should continue to do so.

“I support the effort. President Trump has proven able to get tough cases released from other parts of the world, contrary to what most of his critics will grant, and far more effectively than most of his predecessors,” Yates told the Daily Signal.

“He also succeeded in getting Pastor Jin released after the May summit. So why not continue with this meaningful effort?” Yates added.

The senior research fellow continued, stating that if both leaders, especially Jinping, want to highlight strong diplomatic relations and their commitment to a humanitarian cause, they should proceed with the release of such prisoners.

“While not an American citizen, I think the Jimmy Lai case is the strongest prospect for a humanitarian release and would send the strongest signal that the personal relationship between the two leaders matters more than summitry and economic negotiations,” Yates concluded.

Andrew Harding, a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, added in a statement to the Daily Signal that by the president advocating for the release of the prisoners during his meeting with the Chinese leader, it could produce “tangible outcomes” and determine “whether China follows through on concrete actions.”

“Securing the release of wrongfully detained Americans, including cases such as Min Zin, or persecuted Christians, would be a low-cost step China could take to signal that it is serious about stabilizing the bilateral relationship,” Harding continued. “It would also serve as a test of whether Beijing is willing to back its calls for more stable U.S.-China relations with meaningful actions rather than rhetoric.”

Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has racked up a long list of wins it credits to faith-driven advocacy: a new White House Faith Office, a Religious Liberty Commission, conscience protections for health care workers who object to abortion or sex-rejecting procedures, an expansion of school choice that lets parents direct public dollars toward religious classrooms, a federal task force created specifically to investigate anti-Christian bias inside the government, and more.  

The newest entry, and a consequential one, came last week. President Donald Trump nominated Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of Billy Graham, to serve as ambassador at large for international religious freedom, and named Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson, and former Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Together, these appointments give USCIRF its full nine-member bipartisan complement. 

These appointments are in a category of their own. Domestic wins, however hard-fought, operate inside a system with backstops. Abroad, there is often no comparable guarantee. A Christian in Nigeria, a house-church pastor in China, a Catholic priest in Nicaragua—these people of faith do not get to appeal to courts that will hear their cases fairly, and the stakes are sometimes simply survival. The domestic list of achievements is long because our system mostly works, however imperfectly, the way it’s supposed to. But in many other countries, it has either stopped working or has never worked at all. 

That distinction is also why these appointments do not just concern people of faith. Protecting religious freedom, the capacity to hold and live out a conviction free of coercion, is a defense of what makes a person a person. 

The Commission on International Religious Freedom’s nine seats are split by law: three presidential appointees, three chosen by Senate leadership, three by House leadership. This division is a reminder that America’s first freedom must always be insulated from partisanship or power plays. A look at leadership in recent years confirms this. Sam Brownback, who served as ambassador during Trump’s first term, was a Catholic convert who championed Uyghur Muslims, Nigerian Christians, Baha’is in Iran, and persecuted believers of every faith. Rashad Hussain served as the first Muslim ambassador under President Joe Biden; David Saperstein, the first rabbi to hold the post, served under President Barack Obama. The latest nomination and appointments promise to continue this tradition. 

Graham Lynch is not simply from a famous family. She spent over a decade with Samaritan’s Purse. That work put her on the ground in disaster zones and conflict areas, giving her a practitioner’s sense of what persecution and deprivation actually look like.  

Brunson has also known captivity. He spent two years in a Turkish prison on fabricated charges.  

For his part, Barron has watched crises unfold in real time and used his media platform Word on Fire to advocate for the persecuted in Nigeria, where thousands of Christians have been murdered by jihadist militias, a toll severe enough that the administration designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern and ordered strikes against the IS-linked terrorists responsible. 

Since his release, Brunson has become a tireless advocate for other prisoners of conscience, partnering with groups like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs to minister to persecuted Christians across the Muslim world and recounting his ordeal in his book God’s Hostage.

Grogan offers a seasoned hand for turning the findings of a report into real policy action. 

As director of the Domestic Policy Council, he helped steer through the Office of Management and Budget’s review of the 2019 Department of Health and Human Services rule enforcing federal conscience-protection laws for health care workers, exactly the kind of follow-through the Commission on International Religious Freedom’s recommendations will need.

From Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua to Xi Jinping’s China, the states cracking down on churches are the same ones cracking down on the press, on assembly, on dissent of every kind.

Congress created the Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998 because it recognized that persecution of religion is often the leading indicator of what a regime will do to every other human right within its reach, and that American engagement on it has real stabilizing value in regions that would otherwise export instability, extremism, and refugees back toward us. 

The nation will publicly express its gratitude to the commission later this fall. On Nov. 19, the Religious Freedom Institute will honor two of the office’s founding architects, former Reps. Frank Wolf and Chris Smith, with its Defender of Religious Freedom Award at Washington National Cathedral.

Wolf wrote the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 that created both the ambassador’s post and the Commission on International Religious Freedom; Smith authored the 2016 amendments (named after Wolf) that strengthened it. That two of the men who built this apparatus are being celebrated says something about how far the country has come in institutionalizing the defense of religious freedom and the protection of the persecuted, and how much work remains to make sure that apparatus continues for generations to come. 

Filling these posts reaffirms American leadership on a question that is more urgent, not less, in an age when the tools for finding and punishing religious believers are powerful, and when the price of getting it wrong is measured in lives. That’s worth celebrating, whether or not you’ve ever set foot in a church. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

NEW YORK, NY — In a courageous act to promote racial equity in America, New York Times contributor Nikole Hannah-Jones abandoned her young daughter at well-known crack house.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post wants President Donald Trump to accept the "dignity" amnesty and poverty plan being pushed by a loose group of establishment Republicans. 

The post Murdoch’s New York Post Supports Maria Salazar’s Amnesty and Poverty Bill appeared first on Breitbart.

During remarks following discussions with Sergey Lavrov at the United Nations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that President Trump has extending the G20 invitation to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. The G20 in Miami is scheduled for December 14th and 15th, and while there is no official reason for Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ever attend […]

The post Rubio Announces Putin Invitation to Attend G20 in Miami appeared first on The Last Refuge.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival says a "segment of the judiciary" seeks to facilitate illegal immigration to the United States.

The post DHS Attorney: ‘Segment of the Judiciary’ Seeks to Facilitate Illegal Immigration to U.S. appeared first on Breitbart.

Not a single Democrat actively participated in Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting women’s sports. Democrats did not show up, did not fill their two witness seats, or question the witnesses who were impacted by males competing in women’s sports.

Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the committee, claimed that America does not care about men competing in women’s sports and diverted his opening statement to his own agenda, then left. The other nine Democrat members on the committee did not show up.

According to polling, over 70% of Americans disagree with biological men competing in women’s sports, and over 60% favor laws that would require transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their biological sex instead of their gender identity.

“Women should not again be asked to cede their opportunities just to make men comfortable,” Chairman Chuck Grassley said in his opening remarks.

Grassley continued, claiming it is not a coincidence that as soon as women’s sports started receiving the recognition they deserve, men attempted to come in and take away their opportunities.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., clarified that the issue of men competing in women’s sports is not about gender dysphoria, but about protecting women’s rights, and the witnesses agreed.

Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., pointed to the countless times Republicans have raised this issue in Congress while Democrats either do not show up or vote “no.” Federal lawmakers have voted to pass legislation three times this Congress. “Not one Democrat voted to protect women’s sports,” Moody said.

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 is one of nearly 700 pieces of House-passed legislation awaiting a vote in the Senate. It was introduced and passed in the House in January 2025, in the first 14 days of the session. Although final passage would require only a simple majority, the bill would first need to overcome the Senate filibuster, requiring some support from Democrats.

While American athletes await federal legislation, President Donald Trump and state legislatures have taken action.

In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order banning men from competing in women’s sports, using Title IX compliance to implement it. This June, the Supreme Court sided with states, ruling that it is within their authority to pass laws banning men from competing in women’s sports. Now, 27 states have laws that determine eligibility based on biological sex.

Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports and the mother of daughters who were forced to compete against male athletes, appeared as a witness.

At the hearing, Jones raised issues with some state laws and regulations that allow birth certificates to be used as proof of sex. She argued that birth certificates are easy to change and edits can be made within a day. She asked that new laws be written to require DNA testing, and specifically SRY gene testing, which detects the presence of the Y chromosome and can easily be used to verify biological sex.

President of Argentina Javier Milei excoriated the United Nations as a "useless" organization that only serves to feed a caste of "fatally arrogant parasites" during his Wednesday speech at the U.N. General Assembly.

The post Javier Milei Blasts U.N. as ‘Useless,’ ‘Arrogant Parasites’ at General Assembly appeared first on Breitbart.