Bill Maher is the perfect liberal, at least on paper—yet despite his talk shows being nominated for Emmy awards more than 40 times, it’s only in Donald Trump’s Washington that Maher finally gets the recognition he craves.

He’s now the 27th recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, an award first won by the late, legendary Richard Pryor in 1998 and last year given to Conan O’Brien.

Not every recipient has been politically left-wing, but Maher stands out as a rare left-leaning comic who dares criticize his own tribe, and he’s paid a price for it.

Liberals like Maher might not like Donald Trump or the stamp he’s placed on the Kennedy Center, which awards the Twain Prize.

But in Trump’s Washington, a rebel like Maher can be given his due—which can’t be said in precincts of cultural liberal control.

Maher certainly checks the boxes of a good left-liberal:

He’s a street-corner atheist; a male feminist who’s a 70-year-old bachelor with an endless succession of younger girlfriends; he’s a pothead—and pot dealer, the part-owner of a West Hollywood dispensary—who makes Snoop Dogg look like Nancy Reagan; and he’s an accurately self-described “libertine.”

He ought to be the ideal celebrity Democrat.

But the hypocrisy and ideological nuttiness of the party are too much for him.

So is the more-than-puritanical humorlessness of the left—and its holier-than-thou intolerance.

Maher is nobody’s idea of a conservative, yet he’s the closest thing many in the television industry today can imagine to a right-winger.

He kicks back against cancel culture, and if his shows aren’t altogether balanced, they’re nonetheless places where conservatives and contrarians get to have a say.

Amid the smarmy partisanship that smothered late-night TV in the era of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, “Real Time With Bill Maher” has often been an oasis.

He’s undeniably entertaining, hence his dozens of Emmy nominations.

But he’s entertaining for all the wrong reasons—hence the shutout from industry awards.

He’s won a single Emmy, but only for his role as executive producer on an HBO “Vice” documentary, not for any of his own shows.

The left just isn’t a very funny, fun or free place to be, a point Maher drove home in the title of the show that first made his name in TV, “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher.”

In the 30 years since that show debuted, political correctness has transitioned into “woke” and is worse than ever—except for the cultural space cleared by President Trump’s defiance.

A comedian like Maher needs Trump for more than just material to riff on.

There was plenty of that at Sunday’s Kennedy Center ceremony, including a very funny Trump impression by the 28-year-old comedian Matt Friend, who pretended to be the president crashing the stage to snatch the award from the “loser” Maher.

But it’s the very thing liberals hate about Trump, his willingness to mock and transgress their dearest pieties, that gives comedy room to breathe in what would otherwise be a suffocating woke environment.

If liberals can’t be expected to give Trump much credit for that, they should at least recognize that Maher is doing them a valuable service—and never more so than when he pricks their sanctimony.

Maher was an early warning to Democrats that if they didn’t realize how extreme they’d come to seem even to a liberal like him, they’d eventually have to contend with an opponent like Donald Trump, someone with a knack for making Americans laugh at political correctness.

Humor has always been Trump’s not-so-secret weapon.

But what normal people find humorous, the scolds of the modern left find blasphemous.

That ought to make an atheist like Maher rethink his horror of religion—narrow-mindedness isn’t a product of whether one believes in God or not, and dogmatic secularists are the biggest threat to free thought and speech today.

Europe showcases where political correctness leads—toward tolerance for intolerant Islamist minorities and suppression of politically incorrect speech from citizens who object to what mass migration is doing to their countries.

The American left has the same outlook as Europe’s, and in the clash between the left and the Trump-style right, a liberal like Bill Maher is going to find himself on the right, whether he likes it or not.

This is why the Trump coalition is going to win in the long run, and it’s why Trump remains such a commanding figure, even on a night honoring a comedian who’s so often been his critic.

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

The following is a lightly edited transcript of a speech delivered on Oct. 27, 2026, at Mount Vernon for an America’s 250th Leaders Reception and Dinner.

It is my great pleasure to introduce the Heritage Guide to Historic Sites, the 13 original colonies version.

Many of you have probably noticed that exhibits at our nation’s historic sites have changed in recent years. Some of you, like me, have had conversations with tour guides about those changes.

Sites regularly put forth the errant notion that the Constitution is a pro-slavery document, or they contend that the principle “all men are created equal” rather than being a truth applicable to all men and all times, included only white, property-owning men.

Apart from the more obvious distortions are the unknown unknowns. No one can be an expert in all eras and aspects of the American heritage, and many people go to historic sites in order to learn.

The battle over our historic sites is about America and America’s people, about the origin story that unites us, the principles that define us, and the heritage we steward. The American story was written in real places across this country and continues to be comprehended by the mind and carried forward on the hearts of the citizens who call this nation home.

Disagreement about our history and origin story is a disagreement about what it means to be human, about the truth of equal dignity enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, and about obedience to nature and nature’s God.

As President Coolidge said on the occasion of our 150th anniversary,

No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

These are some of the reasons we are releasing the Heritage Guide to Historic Sites for America’s 250th birthday. The Guide tells the American story—replete with that story’s principles—through place. The homepage pinpoints notable historic sites across the country, eventually to include sites in all 50 states.

Each receives an A, B, or C grade on its operations based on standards of accuracy and comprehension, proportionality, and ideological bias. Evaluations recommend educational resources, identify and explain inaccuracies, and offer tips for families with young children.

The authors of the evaluations are knowledgeable individuals whose backgrounds match the sites themselves. So, a poet reviewed Edgar Allan Poe’s house.

This both inserts third-party accountability into the historic-site space and furnishes the Guide with a valuable perspective, a perspective that helps readers rediscover the American heritage. For example, the evaluator of Noah Webster’s House, of Webster dictionary fame, emphasizes the importance of language for forming a common character and an exceptional nation.

It is quite fitting for us to introduce sites in the 13 colonies here today at Mount Vernon, as for Washington’s birthday in 2026, we will be revealing the complete map. That is, complete for now.

A form on the website allows people to indicate if a site has changed since it was last reviewed, voice disagreement with an evaluation, or recommend another site to evaluate, allowing us to crowdsource some of this work to the American public.

By introducing this project before the summer, families will be able to travel to these historic sites, equipped with their Heritage Guide, to celebrate America 250. As our lives are more disembodied, customizable, and populated with screens, real-world activities we share with friends, family members, and fellow citizens are increasingly precious. Since human beings are embodied, and that matters, going to the places where history really happened matters.

Visits to locations like Mount Vernon form lasting memories in the minds of America’s children, memories shared across generations and partisan lines, and the maintenance and stewardship of memory are necessary tasks of preserving a republic. Historic sites form the landscape of our public education.

It is the responsibility of America’s citizenry to educate ourselves about our heritage and rededicate ourselves to the principles that have guided and defined this nation for nearly 250 years.

In recent years, many have wondered if we are experiencing the last gasps of our great republic, if America is in the declining, rather than rising, phase of empire. Parents question whether America will become a mere territory devoid of a commanding ethos, or a promise that offers and means less for their children than it did for them.

At such moments of seemingly receding greatness, it is, as Coach Lombardi famously said, time to get back to fundamentals: “Gentlemen, this is a football.” It is within the providence of America’s 250th anniversary to remind ourselves who we are and what this nation stands for. “Fellow citizens, this is America.”

• It is a land that patriots, in more than one Pennsylvania field, consecrated far above our poor power to add or detract, ground that stretches from Gettysburg to Antietam, to the places we ourselves will rest next to our families and fellow citizens. This is America.

• Four score and seven years before that battle at Gettysburg, Monticello’s Jefferson gave expression to the American mind at Independence Hall. A single people risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor out of dedication to an unstoried experiment and a principle: All men are created equal. This is America.

• That spirited Revolutionary generation would recognize the character of two enterprising brothers who led America into flight from North Carolina and would find no shame in the company of the Challenger crew who honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives and waved goodbye as they “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” This is America.

The Heritage Guide to Historic Sites invites Americans on a lessoned journey through the basics. America is a place, a people, and a proposition proven through our continued dedication to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And she is ours to rediscover.

My fellow citizens, this is America.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Victor Davis Hanson:  So my point is this: If in 2024 the Democrats ran with a socialist and felt the socialist was too far left so they had to fake it into making her am old-time Democrat, well, why would they think a communist would have better luck as a moderate than a socialist in 2028? And for that matter, look at 2020. 

They had a lot of socialists up there. They had Bernie Sanders, they had Elizabeth Warren, they had Julián Castro, they had [Pete] Buttigieg. They were far left of the Democratic Party. And what did they do? They brought in old Joe Biden from Scranton, the working man’s man, the guy who said that he didn’t want his kids living in a racial jungle. 

The guy who said that Barack Obama, was the first clean, clean, articulate Black person to run for president. Just horrible stuff he said. Put you all in chains, all that stuff. So they nominated him for the explicit purpose that he would be a moderate veneer and hide their socialism, and he won. He won. 

And so they don’t have any record of winning with socialism anywhere outside a purple state. We’ll see in Texas. Maybe we’ll see in Michigan with those two Senate races, but I doubt it. I’m not sure either one of them is gonna win. But I know that you don’t solve the problem of being too left by nominating a communist in 2028. 

So [Zohran] Mamdani is talking really big, big, big, big, big, big, big, you know, where this is the way of the future, but he can’t point to any purple states or red states whether it’s taking hold, and it won’t take hold.  

We saw a version of it. The Tea Party was very different. It incorporated a lot of mainstream Republican [ideas]. But it was angry about two things, spending too much money and Obamacare and RINOs.

But nevertheless, in that following primary, they nominated a lot of poor candidates for Senate. They could have taken the Senate back. Yeah. But they were tagged as too extreme. But they were not too extreme in terms of these people relative to right and left. 

These people are really out there. And do they think that’s gonna help them? Should ask Eugene Debs how he did in five elections. Maybe they can ask George McGovern how he did.  

Jack Fowler: We are talking about Michigan. The Michigan Senate candidate is Abdul El-Sayed, and he’s leading in current polling.  

Victor Davis Hanson: We’ll see.  

Jack Fowler: There’s a webinar that’s come out of him appearing alongside a convicted murderer, I’m reading Washington Free Beacon piece now, and a registered sex offender in a webinar with a prison abolition group endorsed—he endorsed any and all efforts to get people out of jails and prisons, and said locking up criminals was akin to robbing them of their freedom. 

And he said— 

Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah. Mamdani said he’s been a big success. Everybody who’s got money will leave New York pretty soon. And he said he took credit for the crime. He’s only been in office, what? Six months? And not even that, and he’s already bragging that he—the crime didn’t go down for him. 

It went down because Trump deported 400,000 criminals nationwide and closed the borders and got tough on sentencing, and that was a great gift to New York that Trump gave to them.  

Jack Fowler: Yeah. By the way, on that front, two things, Victor. I was at last week, Friday, Saturday, Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, a Ralph Reed organization, and Tom Homan spoke, and he came out on the stage, and as soon as he came out, this guy is just a rock star. 

I mean, everyone who appeared there was. And Trump spoke too, but Homan, there’s something truly authentic about him. But he was talking about going after these … they found 147,000 children now. And to think that the United States of America, under [Joe] Biden would allow all these children here, many of them to become victims of perverts, it’s a true national sin. 

And what [FBI Director Kash] Patel and Holman’s doing, it’s just a tremendous work.  

Victor Davis Hanson: It is. And that’s an untold story. Nobody talks about it. Yeah. Because left-wing people have exemptions. They can do almost anything. It’s not good for the Democratic Party to control all these institutions and excuse everything because it just emboldens them to be even more radical. 

Jack Fowler: Yeah.  

Victor Davis Hanson: You know, I gave an interview today to Voice of America, and we were talking about the difference between immigrants today and in the past, both aside from the fact of illegality in many cases. But one of the things that’s not being talked about, and  I know I’ll get criticized for this, but here it is. 

If you look at the candidates, [Darializa Avila] Chevalier, Chevalier, Chevalier, I should say, and AOC, and Rashida Tlaib, and Mamdani, and to go on. But the kingpins, they’re mostly first or second generation …  

Jack Fowler: Mm-hmm.  

Victor Davis Hanson: … first or second generation immigrants. And they come from areas that, to be candid and a little blunt, are failed miserable places, such as Ghana or the Caribbean or many Latin American countries or Mexico. 

And I could very much expand that list to almost 50 to 60% of them are. So they come to this country either with their parents or their parents came and they were born. 

And then they sense, they put their feelers up, their little antennae, and they learn very early on that if you trash this country, the left will protect you and advance you, and no matter how much money you have … 

AOC’s parents were pretty affluent. Ilhan Omar claims she was worth 30 million. Mamdani. Mamdani’s a multimillionaire settler colonialist from Uganda. And, when you look at all of them, they have nothing but  contempt. This [Chevalier], she says she wipes her hands on the American flag and all of this stuff. 

Then don’t come. There’s no reason you have to come. You came here because it was prosperous and safe, and it, there was not inbred tribal racism as in all these countries. Apparently, the people came with Ilhan Omar because they were on the side of the genocidal [Mohamed] Siad Barre. 

They keep saying genocide, genocide. The only person that really is a genocidal maniac was Siad Barre, the head of the Somali government, of which a lot of these immigrants’ parents were part of, including Ilhan Omar. Nobody ever says to her when she walks down the street, “genocide, genocide, your dad has blood on his, had blood on his hands.” 

Oh, no, he was only a colonel. He was a school teacher. He was instruct … No, no, no. You have the same latitude as when you call other people genocide genocidal. So it’s something we don’t talk about, but you know what it’s done? It has soured so many people you talk to about legal immigration. That used to be our strength. 

Jack Fowler: Mm-hmm.  

Victor Davis Hanson: And we’ve had so many wonderful immigrants, from Europe, Australia, Canada, all over the world, Mexico. And yet they came legally, they came in manageable numbers, they were diverse, they didn’t come in big swarms, and they didn’t try to immediately say to the United States, “You’re this, you’re bad. I want stuff from you.” 

And then this big lie that immigrants commit are less likely to be on federal or local assistance. Oh my gosh. And that’s been blown up and out of the air. Oh. With all billions of dollars of fraud, 80% more likely to be on assistance. 

We’ve changed our attitude about immigrants, especially when you have 16% of the population and 53 million here, and they don’t like the way the United States is. 

It’s like you say I’m having a, open house and somebody comes over to your house uninvited, and he wasn’t invited, just walks into your house and says, “Oh, the food is terrible. This is an ugly house. You’re a sexist. I hate this place. Oh, by the way, I’m gonna sit down at your table, and I like that rib eye over there, and then I would like that fine Chardonnay. 

“And what is for dessert?” 

And then when you eat and feast, you say, “I gotta get out of here someday, but I want … You know what? I think I’ll just, if you don’t mind, I’ll move into the back bedroom.” 

That’s what the attitude is. And the host says, “I can’t believe this.” 

But how many hosts would put up with that? Almost none. And then when you factor in the Democratic Party is encouraging this because they have a bankrupt agenda that appeals to 30 or 40%, so they’re bringing in millions of constituents, and then the moment they do it, anybody complains and “You’re a racist. You believe in the great replacement theory.”  

No, you do, Democrats. 

You’re the one that says demography is destiny and the new Democratic majority. Yeah. And believe me, if all these people coming in from Haiti were right-wing Cubans, can you imagine right now when the — well, after the Supreme Court said they could be deported? You’d have all these anti-ICE protesters protesting to drive them out.

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

As America approaches her 250th birthday, we will look back to Philadelphia; to the signing of the Declaration of Independence; and to the courage of the men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty.

The declaration was not written merely in rejection of England’s rule. It was rooted in the belief that there are certain freedoms no government can take away.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” the declaration begins, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Those words changed the course of human history. They declared that rights do not come from kings, courts, legislatures, or presidents. They come from God.

From the beginning, America’s founding promise has meant that we are not subjects of a ruler. We are made in the image of God, entrusted with the responsibility of self-government, and protected by a system designed to secure the freedoms God has given.

Our Founders understood that a republic could not survive by structure alone. Our Constitution, laws, elections, and courts are essential, but they cannot preserve liberty if the people lose the moral foundation that freedom requires.

George Washington carried that belief into the life of the new republic. He led the Continental Army through the Revolutionary War, watched a fragile nation take shape, and later became our first president.

In his 1796 Farewell Address, Washington warned that “religion and morality” are “indispensable supports” of political prosperity. He understood that America’s future would depend on more than words on paper.

A republic can have the best Constitution in the world, but if its people lose the ability to tell right from wrong, liberty will not hold. Laws can order a nation, but only conscience and character sustain it.

That is why faith has been woven so deeply into the American story—and why it mattered most when America was tested.

When Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg in the midst of a Civil War that had torn the nation apart, he called Americans to the hope that this nation, “under God,” would have a new birth of freedom. Lincoln understood that America’s answer to its failures was not to turn away from the declaration, but to live more faithfully by it. 

That does not mean America has always measured up to that calling. We have not. No nation made up of imperfect people ever will. Our history includes sin and division, and every generation has had to decide whether we would live according to what we claim to believe. 

Across our country, many Americans feel the ground beneath them shifting. Parents are trying to raise their children in the Word of God in a culture that often pulls them in the other direction. Too many people are lonely, anxious, and searching for meaning in places that cannot satisfy. Churches that have long served as anchors in their communities are too often treated as afterthoughts, as though faith belongs on the sidelines of American life. 

At the same time, the government is increasingly asked to fill roles it was never designed to fill. But Washington cannot replace the family or the church. It cannot form the conscience of a child, heal a broken home, or teach people to love their neighbors. 

In this moment, America does not need less faith. We need a renewal of faith.

Before I ever came to Congress, God called me to be a pastor. That calling still shapes the way I see this country, this office, and the people I serve. My faith is not something I leave at the church door or outside the Capitol. It keeps me grounded, humble, and accountable in a place like Washington, where it is easy to lose sight of the people you came to serve.

It also reminds me that the strength of America is not found first in the halls of Congress. It is found in the homes where parents pray over their children, in the churches that serve their communities, in the farms and small businesses where people work hard without asking for much in return, and in the neighbors who show up when someone is in need. 

That is the America I know best. And that is the America we must preserve.

As we celebrate 250 years of American independence, we should give thanks for the Founders who risked everything, for the generations who defended liberty, and for the communities that carried faith from one generation to the next. 

But gratitude alone is not enough. America’s future will not be secured by mere memory. If America is to endure for another 250 years, we Americans must remain united around what made her worth founding. Our rights come from God, our Constitution protects them, and faith helps form the people who can keep a republic free. That is what makes us truly one nation under God. 

The Founders gave us a republic. Generations before us preserved it. Now it is our turn to pass it on.

May we be found faithful.

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

Critics of President Donald Trump’s recently signed memorandum with Iran worry about future Iranian cheating, particularly after Trump leaves office.  

As a hedge against cheating, the president has kept a formidable array of naval and air power nearby—a force clearly capable of retaliating against Iranian missile launches or other violations of current or future agreements. But there’s another, more preventative enforcement mechanism he might consider.  

As part of his Golden Dome initiative, President Trump should commission the rapid fielding of an innovative missile defense system—one using new technology that can prevent ballistic missiles from ever exiting Iranian airspace.  

To appreciate the significance of this capability, it’s important to understand the limits of current U.S. and allied missile defenses.  

U.S. and Israeli missile defenses rely exclusively on ground- or sea-launched interceptors. Consequently, they must rise to meet descending missiles when those missiles are moving extremely fast and are most difficult to hit. 

Although these surface-based systems have been effective against Iran’s relatively unsophisticated ballistic missiles—destroying roughly 90% of incoming missiles since February 28—some have slipped through even the multilayered Israeli ground-based missile shield.  

Moreover, the missiles that have evaded interception in attacks on Gulf states and Israel have typically been equipped with more advanced maneuverable re-entry vehicles. These missiles are programmed to make evasive and targeted maneuvers in the descending phases of flight. Consequently, they are much more difficult to intercept.

For example, in March a maneuverable Iranian missile avoided interception by a Patriot battery in Qatar, causing extensive damage to its Ras Laffan gas complex.  

While estimates vary about how much of Iran’s pre-war stockpile remains, all agree that Iran has hundreds of missiles still stored in underground “missile cities.” These stockpiles likely include a disproportionate number of Iran’s most advanced maneuverable Qiam and Fattah missiles.   

This suggests that reliance on surface-based missile defenses—or retaliation after the fact—will not suffice to protect U.S. bases and allies. 

Fortunately, the U.S. can now add another layer of missile defense to neutralize the Iranian missile threat. This concept of operation, known as “airborne” missile defense, was conceived by Dean Wilkening, Leonard Caveny, and Gregory Canavan, three leading Ph.D. missile scientists who worked on President Ronald Reagan’s original Strategic Defense Initiative. 

As a step toward developing a comprehensive space-based missile shield, they envisioned placing anti-missile interceptors on large high-flying drones or fighter aircraft.  

They realized that firing interceptors from such airborne “platforms” could have many advantages. Unlike interceptors fired from surface-based systems that must destroy enemy missiles as they are descending, intercepts launched from airborne platforms could in theory catch ballistic missiles as they are rising—when they are slowest, easiest to detect, and incapable of maneuvering. 

Recent advances in technology making possible much faster, longer-range anti-missile interceptors can now make this vision a reality.  

Indeed, the hypersonic velocities now possible in next generation interceptors would enable them to reach missiles rising from many locations before those missiles can escape to the upper atmosphere—ensuring that debris from a “kill” will land on the territory of the perpetrator. 

Consider what such a defensive layer could do to contain future Iranian missile launches.  

During the current conflict, the U.S. and Israel have flown over Iran with near impunity. Yet even without exercising overflight, hypersonic interceptors fired from U.S. drones loitering along the margin of Iranian airspace could reach any missile rising from a wide corridor of western and southern Iran.

Fighter aircraft using the same interceptors could—upon detection of a first missile launch—fly deep enough into Iranian territory to destroy any subsequent missiles launched from anywhere else in the country.  

A forward-deployed, airborne missile defense system would not only complement Israeli and U.S. surface-based defenses, it could also help enforce any future agreements limiting Iran’s use of ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons.

Indeed, airborne missile defense can enforce the crucial objective of the current negotiations, namely, preventing missiles—whether nuclear-tipped or otherwise—from leaving Iran. And it can do so without relying on either trust or verification.   

Airborne boost phase missile defense can also provide protection against North Korea’s growing arsenal of nuclear ICBMs, and a coastal shield against Russian submarine-launched cruise missiles. 

Since drones for hosting interceptors are already used for surveillance and reconnaissance, engineers familiar with the necessary technology estimate that an airborne system could be built for about $250 million and within 18 months—well before Trump leaves office and likely before Iran could reconstitute a robust nuclear enrichment program. As Dr. Caveny has recently emphasized, “the system is affordable, adaptable, and readily available.”  

President Trump has staked much of his legacy on a conflict with Iran that he initiated militarily but intends to end diplomatically. For this to work, he must maintain leverage over the Iranian regime to ensure compliance with any future agreements.  

An additional layer of missile defense will ensure that the president can maintain that leverage whether Iran decides to cheat or not. 

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

The skies as we celebrate America’s 250th birthday will be filled not only with fireworks, but song. Those great patriotic tunes we all know by heart, even when we can’t hit all the notes. Though the songs may be as familiar as the red, white, and blue, the stories behind them often are not.

In Part One, we saw how the song that became “This Land Is Your Land” was originally written in protest of “God Bless America.”

Today, three patriotic favorites we Americans … um … borrowed from the Brits.

Spoils of War or Just Borrowing From Our Relatives?

One classic patriotic song is so special it’s known by two names, played a part in two historic events at the Lincoln Memorial, and its key opening line found its way into a modern American anthem. (Can you name which one?)

The lyrics for “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”—otherwise known as simply “America”—were penned in 1831 by Samuel Francis Smith. You know the opening.

My country, ’tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing:
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims’ pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring!

The melody? A direct and deliberate rip-off of Britain’s “God Save the King/Queen,” the intent being to turn a song saluting the monarchy into a tribute to democracy.

Jump forward to the 20th century. In 1939, after being banned from performing at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington because of the color of her skin, opera singer Marian Anderson performed “America” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Props to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt for twisting arms to make that happen.

Twenty-four years later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on those same steps, and in his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech quoted “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” while adapting its “Let freedom ring” for his rousing conclusion.

In 1980, Neil Diamond would also dramatically utilize the opening line from “America” at the end of his own song “America.”

‘Yankee Doodle’: A Dig Turned Into a Dance

The origins of “Yankee Doodle” are murky. Did it come from a 16th-century Dutch harvest song? A 17th-century British jingle deriding Oliver Cromwell? Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that “doodle” at the time meant a “sorry, trifling fellow.”

The story is a British surgeon named Richard Shuckburgh wrote the earliest version of “Yankee Doodle” to mock the ragged American colonial soldiers he encountered during the French and Indian War.

The joke was on Doc Shuckburgh because only a few decades later, during the American Revolution, those pesky colonials flipped the song into a favorite patriotic tune, kind of like how Hillary Clinton’s “Deplorables” insult was embraced by Trump supporters in 2016.

While “Yankee Doodle’s” heritage may be murky, its progeny is clear.

The great songsmith George M. Cohan reworked the song for the classic 1942 musical “Yankee Doodle Dandy” about his life. As you can see in this clip, star James Cagney does a song-and-dance bit playing off “Yankee Doodle” before kicking into the original.

And yes, that is James Cagney. How appropriate for an actor better known for playing gangsters to sing a song “stolen” from the Brits.

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’: A Tale of 2 Wars … and a Drinking Song

September 1814, the War of 1812 rages on. Fresh off torching Washington, D.C., like a s’more, the British military moved on to Baltimore. Its navy relentlessly bombarded Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, but the folks of “Balmer” were made of tougher stuff than the forces who were supposed to have protected the nation’s capital. They refused to submit despite the barrage. Round after round after round came down on the fort.

A lawyer by the name of Francis Scott Key happened to be on a ship in the harbor watching the onslaught into the night, the “rocket’s red glare.” The bombs bursting in air.

Would the U.S. troops be holding the fort come sunrise? To his surprise, through the smoke and morning fog he could see “the flag was still there.”

He immediately set out to write a poem about seeing that “star-spangled banner.” Verses came pouring out of him.

But what he had was a poem, “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” not a song. When someone decided to put Key’s poem to music, they chose—of all the songs to choose from—a British drinking song known as “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

Let’s have a taste. Of the song, not alcohol.

“The myrtle of Venus, with bacchus’s vine”?

Sometimes it feels like you need to have some wine in you to hit the higher notes—or to not care.

Or you could have a great voice.

Which brings us to another U.S. war. This time with Britain as our dearest ally. The date is Jan. 27, 1991. Super Bowl XXV. Just 10 days before, the U.S. had launched the Gulf War against Iraq. Up to the microphone stepped superstar Whitney Houston to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” America’s official national anthem since 1931.

What happened next will not be forgotten by any of the hundreds of millions who witnessed it live.

If Francis Scott Key had been watching, he may well have found himself writing another poem.

One way our nation’s most “prestigious” newspapers show they’re Democratic Party propaganda sheets is when their fashion critics apply all of their tawdry partisan biases to their evaluations of the clothes of politicians (or their spouses).

Robin Givhan of The Washington Post was a transparent Democrat, and so is Vanessa Friedman of The New York Times. A white pantsuit worn by Hillary Clinton, as well as the feminist Democrats at the State of the Union, was very chic. But when Tulsi Gabbard wore one while she criticized Hillary at a Democrat debate in 2019, it suddenly carried “connotations of the fringe” and displayed “somewhat combative righteousness (also cult leaders).”

When Kamala Harris lost in 2024, Friedman invested great meaning in the cravat she wore to her concession speech, that it represented “the idea that some fights were long. That this one had been going on for decades (even centuries) and would continue afterward. It was, in that way, a symbol of both a promise and a lament.” Feminism lost. Women were shortchanged again.

But women who are Republicans? They’re a sorry breed—or just breeders. Pregnancy chic is just so gross, Friedman is now arguing. Her latest target is Usha Vance, the wife of the vice president who’s labored harder than Melania Trump to stay out of the limelight.

The headline was “The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image.” Pregnancy was being weaponized. MAGA women “have created a notably consistent, and somewhat paradigm-shifting, picture of the White House’s family and fertility platform.”

Friedman complained: “If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity, then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts.”

Like many on the left, she’s alarmed by “pro-natalist” sentiments: “Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement.”

Her supposed fashion experts were pro-abortion feminists — Helen Lewis and Jill Filipovic. “It’s really noticeable that the MAGA women are not hiding their pregnancy,” Lewis said. “There is pride in being pregnant and being fertile.” Aren’t most Americans happy and proud during pregnancy? Why on Earth should pregnant women hide?

Friedman quickly took after Mrs. Vance: “She is wearing a stretchy coral dress that hugs her stomach, making what she is talking about very clear.”

Like many on the left, she’s alarmed by “pro-natalist” sentiments: “Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement.”

Her supposed fashion experts were pro-abortion feminists — Helen Lewis and Jill Filipovic. “It’s really noticeable that the MAGA women are not hiding their pregnancy,” Lewis said. “There is pride in being pregnant and being fertile.” Aren’t most Americans happy and proud during pregnancy? Why on Earth should pregnant women hide?

Friedman quickly took after Mrs. Vance: “She is wearing a stretchy coral dress that hugs her stomach, making what she is talking about very clear.”

Usha Vance mocked the critique on X: “Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks!” She used a screenshot demonstrating she paid $8.75. The dress quickly sold out at Old Navy.

Friedman simply hates women who marry conservative men. It’s much like Jen Psaki, joking in a 2025 podcast about Mrs. Vance: “I always wonder what’s going on in the mind of his wife. Like, are you OK? Please blink four times. Come over here. We’ll save you.” Marry a conservative man, and you’re clearly a self-loathing doormat, quietly dying inside.

Six days before the Usha attack, Friedman was touting the fashion sense of Rama Duwaji, the spouse of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for an ugly New York Knicks getup after the NBA Finals. “She’s got game,” gushed Friedman. The headline said she “Won the Parade.” She was presented as unifying: “Basketball and realized dreams don’t just unite the city, but also designers and the political figures who wear them.”

The political bias is forever obvious.

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

The following is an excerpt of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s interview with Victor Davis Hanson for the “Signal Sitdown,” which premieres on the Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EDT on July 2.

Portions of this interview are featured in the Daily Signal’s new documentary “Sacred Honor: The Declaration That Defines a Nation,” premiering at 8:30 p.m. EDT on Daily Signal’s YouTube page.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Bradley Devlin: On July Fourth, they approved the Declaration of Independence, and that document is signed over the course of the next few months. But these men, by signing that document, 56 men mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in support of the Declaration and under the providence, the providential hand of God. 

When you think about that moment, how heavy that must have been. Tell us a little bit about the intensity that was probably in that room as they pick up that quill and sign the declaration. 

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, they were all there because their peers had selected them or the people had selected them. And so, they were men of education, they were men of stature, they were men of, many of them, of land and wealth. 

And so, when they signed that, and they didn’t really have an army, and they were taking on the most powerful military in the world that was reaching its apex, then what they were really saying is, “If this doesn’t work, all the generations following me are gonna be destitute because I’m gonna lose all the land, all their inheritance. 

“I’m gonna probably lose my life. I’m gonna be branded a traitor a rebel.”

And they knew that whether they succeeded would determine how they were seen. If they failed, they would be called traitors and rebels. If they were successful, they might be revolutionaries or idealists or founders. But at that point they signed, the odds, if we had to make a bet, I think most people would’ve bet on the Crown, given the comparative resources, even though it was a distant theater. 

So, they were undertaking a very improbable mission that might end in their disgrace, their bankruptcy, and their death. They would be hanged to set an example. And it was a very dangerous thing to do. 

Devlin: When you think about the Roman Republic 250 years into its history, it’s expanding, it’s very strong, it’s still on the rise. 

And here we sit today, 250 years into the American Republic, hoping to keep it alive for the next 250 years. That wasn’t the case for Rome. 500 years into its history, the Roman Republic is gone. It has turned into an empire.

If you would, compare and contrast the Roman Republic 250 years in versus the American Republic 250 years in, and perhaps how we preserve our republic for longer than Rome did. 

Hanson: Well, what destroyed the Republic, starting in the mid-second century BC, with, say, the destruction of Corinth and the accumulation of what is now most of Greece or all of North Africa with the destruction of Carthage in 146 or Caesar’s complete annexation of Gaul, a million slaves that they brought in, was that as they had.

Once they developed this system of stable government and they mastered the legions, and they were yeoman agriculturalists from Italy, and they were wonderful fighters, they found that they could expand exponentially both north, south, east, or west. 

But the problem was that this republican government was not set up for that. It wasn’t designed for that. It shouldn’t be designed for that. So once, when you sent someone out with an army supposedly to defend the borders of Rome, but really preemptively to expand them, once they went into places like modern-day France, or they went into Ionia, the rich parts of modern-day Turkey, or they went into the Nile area, they found that there was greater, far greater wealth outside of that than Italy. 

And these people then were governing as prefects or generals. They were governing areas with populations and money and territory that were far greater than what the Republic was, run by the Senate and the two consuls. 

So, this led to the Sulla and Marius rivalries. But their armies were … A man could come from the provinces with a richer army, a bigger army, and more importantly, a more battlefield army than the Senate could raise. 

And so, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon in the last gasp of the Republic, Pompey just fled because here was a guy who’d been battle-hardened for 10 years in Gaul. He had enormous amounts of money he expropriated, and the Senate was completely enfeebled. 

So the Founders knew that, but in the case of the United States, they were very worried that you might have. That’s one of the reasons Aaron Burr was so dangerous, or they thought he was. 

He was so notorious because somebody could go out to the West and carve out a territory, and that’s why they were later so paranoid about the Mormons in Utah, that there would be people that would go out and get territories and create fiefdoms that would be not just immune from the federal government but might be more powerful than the federal government, and a good story is when [Gen. William Tecumseh] Sherman went through the march to the sea from Atlanta to Savannah, then he went up from the Carolinas. 

He had an army of 65,000 people. And they were, these were not the army of the Potomac that were Irish and German immigrants that were being killed, wounded, and then right off the boat being replenished. These were hardcore farmers that had marched and lived off the country, and they were dressed in rags by the time they got to the military parade. 

And the first thing that the German military attaché is, “This man is more powerful than anybody in Washington, and that army could beat any army in Europe.” And they didn’t know what Sherman was gonna do with it. They thought, “Wow, he’s taken over the whole South. He’s marching up here. He’s very angry at the Secretary of War. What will he do?” 

And then he kind of played with that for about a day or two before he disbanded it. So the Republican governments are not equipped very well for overseas conquest. And that’s why in our history, every time that we tried to in the Spanish-American War, we tried to deal with the Philippines, there was a great outrage.

You don’t wanna annex Cuba. You don’t wanna annex the Philippines. You can be a caretaker. You can nurse them along, but it’s very against our creed because I think Pat Buchanan said, “A republic, not an empire.” And that was the idea that an imperial rule would distort republican government, and Rome was the best example. 

Nobody really mentioned that the principate and the empire lasted for five hundred years. And in Rome from, say, 31 BC to, I don’t know, 476, there were local councils that were democratic, not democratic, but constitutional. And they functioned as they always had. It was just the imperial government was autocratic, and the Senate was sort of a joke. 

But they were afraid of that. And especially when you had this large territory they kept absorbing, they didn’t have enough people to defend it. They knew it was very wealthy, and they really, they were worried about slavery, what would it would take off on the frontier. So that was a concern. 

Devlin: All these concerns and yet they’re able to prudently navigate these political circumstances, give rise to this great country you and I both call home. 

If we’re not going to go the way of Rome, even though our system is set up to hopefully avoid that, for us to avoid going the way of Rome, how do we recover the statesmanship and the politics of the higher nature of our founding and bring that into today and pass that down to posterity?

Hanson: Well, I think it was about 50 years ago that we stopped in our K through 12 schooling system teaching what we used to call ethics and civics. In other words, how to be moderate. I went to a rural school two miles away and we had those courses and they entailed everything about being a citizen.

“Mr. Victor, would you come to the front of the room? We’re going to shake hands with principal. Let’s see how you shake hands. No, you look him right in the eye. Don’t be too firm. Don’t be too weak.”

And then every morning, “Gracie Martinez, would you please choose your national anthem today? Is it going to be ‘God Bless America,’ ‘America the Beautiful, My Country ‘Tis of Thee,’ the American ‘Star-Spangled Banner’? Which is it, Gracie?” 

And she would pick and we’d all sing and she would go around the room. And in the classrooms, there were all the president silhouettes and then without the names. And we had tests as early as third grade to look at the silhouette and then identify the president. And they were not in the order of their presidencies. 

They were all mixed up. That was just commonplace at a very poor rural school that was 90% Hispanic. So, if you don’t have a civic education and you don’t have courses in classical ethics … It was always, “You don’t have any money, Victor. You’re going on the campus, you’re going on our little playground and you find a wallet and it has $10 and there’s no driver’s license. What do you do?”

“Well, you don’t have money. Why don’t you just take it? Nobody knows who it is.”

“No, you take it to Mr. Cagle, the principal, and you write out a report and this is why.”

We don’t do that at all. It’s situational now. And then the other thing is they were able to. They had an idea once the Anglo-Saxon British experiment was working and there started to become early immigrants from Germany especially, and Scandinavia, and then later from Eastern Europe, and then from Russia, and then from Southern Europe. 

They were able to incorporate them as citizens, and they had a guiding principle that they came to the United States. We didn’t invite them. They came here. And they, it’s the brutal bargain we call it now. They said to them, “You can have your flag on ceremonial days. You can have your food, your music, your literature, your everything that will enhance the American experience. 

“But do not tamper with the core. Whether you like it or not, we don’t have an official religion, but we are a Judeo-Christian country that imbues our values. Here’s the Constitution, here’s our judicial system. Don’t try to change that.” 

That’s a very different concept from the current one that “We’re lucky to have you. Thank you for coming, and we don’t want to judge you.”

And we have 53 million people that weren’t born in the United States, 16%, highest we’ve ever had, 27% here in California. And we don’t dare question your culture versus ours. And maybe as I think the late Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg said, “Maybe we have a lot to learn from the Constitution of South Africa,” she said. 

Or the president of the United States, Barack Obama, said, “Yeah, we’re exceptional in the sense only that Britain thinks they’re exceptional and the Greeks think they’re exceptional.” 

So, if you don’t have that inclusive citizenship that we’re all on the same page no matter what are we look like, what, no matter what race, but we’re all part of this melting pot and we’re a nation of ideas, and that’s the ultimate expression of the Declaration. 

If you say all men are created equal and you don’t specify a national religion, then everybody can come here regardless of their race, regardless of their origin, as long as they understand that there is a cultural ethos that came from the founders and there is a foundational document, the Constitution. 

And then federalism, constitutions of the various states.

But we don’t have that now. We have people coming all over and almost their first reaction is “Well, what is in it, what is in it for me? What do I get? And I’m a victim and you. I have claims against the majority.”

And I think that would be so foreign to what the country was. 

Even John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what you can, what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That was kind of the mantra of the 1960s. So that’s a very big worry today that… And that I think it, that people like Samuel Huntington or Arthur Schlesinger Jr. were not necessarily conservatives, but they, at the end of their lives, they wrote books like “Who Are We?” 

And they, they saw that this diversity was very dangerous to the country. And when you add the migrations to it, four to five million people leaving blue states to red states because of federalism, basically they’re saying that the federal, the blue state model is a failure and the red state model is preferable regardless of ideology. 

Then you’re adding a geographical force multiplier to ideology, and we hadn’t seen that in this country since 1850s and ’40s, where if you were in the South, you were for slavery. If you were in North, you weren’t. There was a kind of a border between.

But pretty much if you go to Tennessee, Texas Florida, Alabama Idaho, Montana, it’s a different country than California or New York or… it really is.

Not just in the way people think and act, but in the infrastructure and things working. The elections in California don’t work, and the budgets of California and New York don’t work, and the big cities of Chicago and LA are not working. And that’s something that’s gonna be more and more an issue as the country starts to self-select and divide. 

And I can envision a period, if it’s not dealt with, that in 30 or 40 or 50 years, you would create two distinct cultures. And there is a geographical component. Most of them are to the south, not all. There’s some up in the north but it’s going to be a very different country. It already is right now. 

I’m very worried about it. I drive three and a half hours to Palo Alto, and I can tell you the San Joaquin Valley, when I did that as a student at Stanford, there wasn’t much difference, and now they’re completely different.

I go to Stanford and I’m very careful what I say, very careful when I’m in a restaurant or something. 

And it’s just a different experience. And here, there’s a tolerance for any … there are all sorts of people who are politically different. And it’s just completely different.

And I don’t know how to express it, but when I get tense when I drive to the Bay Area now and park my car, and then I go on the campus, and even not even on the campus, downtown Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton. 

They have a very different idea of what America should be than people in the foothills of California or in red state America. And there’s not really anybody who’s trying to reconcile those differences.

I don’t know if they are reconcilable. One is a utopian view that human nature can be changed if you have enough power and leverage, and the other is tragic view that it’s not a therapeutic view, that we’re born imperfect and sinful, and we have to be very careful what we do, and we need custom, tradition, honor, religion, community, family to suppress our natural excesses. 

The Left doesn’t believe that. And so that’s something that I don’t know if the Founders. I think they, they thought federalism would cure that and the frontier and federalism would serve as sort of a pressure valve. Frederick Jackson Turner maybe with the frontier, and then more importantly, federalism would create different … 

And then they found out that federalism created the Civil War. And federalism cured the Civil War as well, but at the cost of seven hundred thousand lives. But when you see what people are saying and doing, it just it’s. We’re gonna have to have a… At some point, we’re gonna have to have, not a revolution, but a national come to Jesus moment. 

I don’t mean that in a religious sense, but just say these, this is not working. I think everybody agrees the open border was not working, and massive immigration without audit or health backgrounds or anything was not working. I think both parties agree that $31 trillion in debt is not working, and there’s precedence for that in the Roman Republic. 

You wouldn’t believe how many people in the Roman Republic, from what we can tell, thought that you could bring in Huns, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths across the Danube and Rhine, and they would be good Roman citizens without having to assimilate or interact.

And they turned out in very small numbers compared to the Roman population, but that was the end of the Western Empire. 

And the Byzantines didn’t do that and lasted for a thousand years. 

Devlin: Well, to avoid the fate of one Roman Republic we hope that our American Republic, structured, built on the foundation that was Rome and Greece and Jerusalem continues to survive for another 250 years and beyond. 

Hanson: I hope so. I’m confident it will. 

Churchill always was right. He said we always do the necessary thing last. 

The necessary thing last. 

Imagine debating whether the American Colonies should break free from England as the Founding Fathers did in the shadow of the actual Declaration of Independence.  

Some high schoolers didn’t have to imagine, thanks to a grant from The Heritage Foundation. The Harlan Institute was awarded an America’s 250th Innovation Prize, a program supporting creative projects that educate Americans about the nation’s founding principles, strengthen civic understanding, and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.   

The Harlan Institute was recognized for its project titled “Are These Truths Still Self-Evident? A High School Moot Court Competition Set in 1776.”   

This initiative brought a stylized legal and civic education experience to high school students by simulating a historic moot court. Participants argued both sides of the debate over American independence as if it were 1776, engaging deeply with the Declaration of Independence and foundational constitutional concepts 

Josh Blackman, co-founder and president of the Harlan Institute, highlighted the transformative nature of the program. “The Harlan Institute is dedicated to teaching America’s next generation about our foundational documents.”  

He told the Daily Signal this spring before the final rounds that the grant would help students have a rare, immersive, and fascinating educational experience at the home of the Declaration of Independence. “Thanks to The Heritage Foundation’s America’s 250th grant, our students will present arguments about the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives in the presence of the Declaration of Independence. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our students.”  

Indeed, the Harland Institute Championship Round took place on April 7, 2026. The case of Patriots v. Loyalists was presented before a distinguished four-judge panel. As the Harlan Institute described it, “This may have been the first time since 1776 where the pro-Loyalist argument was presented before the declaration.”  

When the arguments and counterarguments were over, the Patriots—Lauren Hohlt and Tzur Shalit from Creekview High School in Carrollton, Texas—were judged the winners.  

Furthering Appreciation for the Nation’s Founding 

The $50,000 award from Heritage helped the Harlan Institute expand this competition and further its mission of enhancing civic literacy and appreciation for the nation’s founding laws and documents among the next generation of leaders. 

Other winners from Round Two of the America’s 250th Innovation Prize included: Constituting America, Mountain States Policy Center, the Moving Picture Institute, and Wedgwood Circle. 

Round One winners of the America’s 250th Innovation Prize.

• Creative Studio to Release Video Series for America’s 250th Anniversary 
• Faith Group Wins Innovation Prize for America’s 250th Celebration
• ‘A First of Its Kind’: Bestselling Author Crafts American Fable Collection
• Catholic Nonprofit Develops Resources to Inspire Patriotism
• Virginia Nonprofit Wins Prize to Create US History Documentaries for Nation’s 250th Anniversary

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Matt Van Epps, R-Tenn., told the Daily Signal he will introduce a bill on the House floor Thursday to reaffirm the values of the Declaration of Independence in honor of its 250th anniversary and in response to the sweeping rise of socialism.

“Socialism is antithetical to the principles of the Declaration of Independence,” Van Epps told the Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “The idea of private property and entrepreneurship is intrinsic in the Founders’ idea of inalienable rights. In reality, a socialist regime would undermine—not protect—Americans’ rights to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”

The Declaration of Independence Reaffirmation Act seeks to “reaffirm and re-adopt the Declaration of Independence as an Organic Law of the United States.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., introduced the bill in the Senate chamber earlier this month, where it received unanimous approval.

Schmitt told the chamber that America is forgetting the values that bind Americans to the Founding: “America’s deepest crisis is a loss of memory.”

“Only 28% of Democrats say they’re proud of America’s 250-year history,” he said. “Only 11% say America is the greatest country in the world. Only 27% plan to display the American flag this 4th of July.”

 “That is a national forgetting made visible,” Schmitt warned.

Forgetting American values will result in the deterioration of the nation and the character of its leaders, Schmitt argued.

“A people that forgets its heroes will soon be ruled by men who despise them,” he told the Senate.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, who just won the Democrat primary for New York’s 13th Congressional District, calls herself a “democratic socialist” and co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an organization that pledged itself to the “total eradication of Western civilization.”

The organization also posted “Marg bar Amrika” after American airstrikes in February that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Translated from Persian, the statement reads: “Death to America.”

Chevalier is projected to win her election in November and become a New York member of Congress. Her campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Van Epps agreed with Schmitt’s warning: “I have been disheartened over the last several years, seeing the Left disrespect our Founding and now seeing the socialist takeover of New York.”

“I can’t express vehemently enough how antithetical socialism is to the entire American experiment,” Van Epps told the Daily Signal.

“Let Congress repass the Declaration of Independence. Let the American people hear it again. Let the children of this republic learn that they are heirs to heroes. Let the enemies of this republic learn that Americans still know who they are,” Schmitt told the Senate chamber. “And let this generation take its place in the long line of patriots who understood that freedom is inherited only when it’s fought for.”

If the bill passes the House, it will go to President Donald Trump’s desk for signing.

“I chose to introduce the Declaration of Independence Reaffirmation Act of 2026 because I believe America and our Founding are worth celebrating,” Van Epps told the Daily Signal. “The best way to raise a patriotic generation is to teach them to love our country. That’s what this bill is all about.”

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.  

We’re watching a modern-day French Revolutionary-like takeover of the Democratic Party. We could call it the Reign of Terror or the Democratic guillotine.  

What I mean by that, in 1793 and ’94, when the French Revolution was well on its way to fruition, a group of radicals called Jacobins, led by the Robespierre brothers, hijacked that revolution and decided that they were going to go far, far to the left of the effort to abolish the monarchy and rename the days of the week, the months, start with a year zero concept, go out and attack private property, and execute people.  

Now, I don’t think the democratic socialists are going to do that, but their takeover is similar to the Jacobin takeover. And what is their agenda? Their agenda is a radical Green New Deal, war on fossil fuels, open borders, no deportations, no deportations even for criminally convicted. 

In addition to that, cut the defense budget, defund the police, institutionalize diversity, equity, inclusion, chauvinism.  

We’re all going to go by our incidental affiliations.  

If you’re trans or gay or female or black or Asian, that’s going to be what you identify in as, a large group of the victimized with complaints against the white male, etc., victimizer class.  

If you look closely at how that agenda manifests itself in the real world, it is antisemitic, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti—I’ll be candid, it’s anti-white if you look at the word white privilege, white chauvinism, white hate, all of this stuff.  

So, how is it manifesting itself in real terms? Well, we recently had midterm elections, as you know, and most of the left-wing Democrats—and remember, this isn’t the Democratic Party of Hubert Humphrey or JFK or even Bill Clinton. It’s far to the left. But that wasn’t enough for the new Jacobins and their guillotine.  

So, I’ll give you a couple of examples. Dan Goldman was a left-wing New York congressman. He’s famous for being probably the most recognized Trump hater in the House of Representatives. He got completely wiped out by Brad Lander, who was a declared Democrat socialist, but his agenda was a complete divorce from Israel, basically pro-Hamas, and confiscations in cases of private property, wealth taxes on unearned income or unrealized profits.  

And this pattern keeps repeating itself. 

We’ve seen the candidacy of Graham Platner in Maine, the one of Mr. [James] Talarico in Texas, Mr. [Abdul] El-Sayed in Michigan. And the result is it’s got the original revolutionaries scared to death, and they are moving as fast as they can away from the people that they used to court.  

So, the Nancy Pelosi endorsement, the Chuck Schumer endorsement, even the Hakeem Jeffries endorsement is no longer coveted. In fact, they don’t want any part of it.  

Elissa Slotkin, the newly minted senator in Michigan who begged them all to come in—and she won a very close race against the Republican Mike Rogers last time around—she says we have to move on. She doesn’t want their endorsement anymore. No one wants their endorsement.  

Why does no one want their endorsement? Because they don’t have the House or the Senate or the White House, and they feel they’re yearning for power, and they want to get in there and institutionalize their power by insisting we never have voter ID, we go to completely mail-in balloting, we pack the court, we get rid of the filibuster if they don’t win the Senate, of course.  

We get rid of the Electoral College, we bring in new states and new Democrat senators, etc.  

So, this all presents a dilemma for a lot of these people. What do you do if you’re a Jewish American, Mr. Scott Wiener, and you want to take over Nancy Pelosi’s seat, and you are the most fanatical left-wing state legislator that we’ve ever had in California?  

And all of a sudden, this new Jacobin party says, Well, you’re for Israel. And then what do you do? You do what he does: No, no, no. Israel is genocidal. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.  

Dan Goldman thought that he didn’t have to give the mea culpa for his Israel support, but he did, and he lost. His opponent was Jewish, but unlike Mr. Goldman, he said that he had nothing to do with Israel. He didn’t like it. 

Got to remember that it’s emerging from these socialist Jacobins that their main interest, besides confiscation of property and redistribution of wealth, is a deep hatred of Israel.  

And so where did they all come from? Why now? Well, we have 53 million people that weren’t born in the United States, and this is a time when we don’t acculturate or assimilate anybody. And then we had DEI that separated us by race.  

We have a globalist economy that rewarded a particular group of people, and especially this movement is led by very wealthy people like [Zohran] Mamdani or George Soros or all of these candidates. Graham Platner is not poor. You look at them, they’re either affluent, upper-middle class, or very wealthy.  

And their constituency are illegal immigrants, immigrants in general, the poor who they promise lavish entitlements, and the disaffected middle-class kids that bought the line they had to go to college, ran up $1.8 trillion in debt, and can’t get a job, and they blame, blame, blame somebody other than their own poor choices.  

What else spiked them very quickly? Of course, they’re out of power. I mentioned that. And they’re angry they have no power except institutional. They control K-12, academia, corporations, and media, but that’s not enough for them.  

Number two, they hate Donald Trump. They despise Donald Trump. And most of these people get on television or media and think of ways they can, I don’t know, like celebrities, poison him, set him on fire, shoot him when he’s almost killed. That’s the way things go.  

They’re very, very radical in their hatred of Donald Trump. They hate everything he does.  

If he has the pool in Washington, the Reflecting Pool, then they would like to put on costumes and say, we’re for algae, not the pool. We want algae to take over Trump’s pool. 

And finally, on this 250th anniversary, they can’t say a good word about the United States. And remember, they don’t leave the United States. They’re like Joy Reid. You have a vacation home or, Sunny Hostin, you brag on TV about your son went to Harvard or how wealthy and refined you are.  

They like consumer capitalism, but they don’t want it for the middle class, just themselves.  

And then, like Trotskyites or Bolsheviks or any revolutionary period that we know of, the elite then carve out special exemptions for themselves, and they make everybody else, like lab rats, suffer from their experiment.  

What will happen very quickly? One of two things will happen. It will either be kind of a wave like the Obama 2008 win, when everybody said suddenly, I want nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. She’s an old fuddy-duddy. I have to have Barack Obama and hope and change.  

Well, you know how that went. As soon as he got elected, it was all race, race, race, divide, divide, divide, divide, apologize for America, but he won. 

Or it could be like 1972, George McGovern. He had the largest popular vote loss, I think, in the modern period in 150 years. He lost to Richard Nixon, who won 60.8%.  

Why? Because he hijacked the—he was a good man. He was a World War II veteran bomber pilot. He hijacked the Democratic Party and made them embrace a radical left agenda that, in the general election, turned off America.  

And they voted for someone who everybody thought would have no chance at one point in 1968. He had a close race, Richard Nixon, and Richard Nixon destroyed McGovern in that election. 

So, one of two things are going to happen. I think it’s the latter, that they’re going to get into a big national election in 2026 and maybe as early as the midterms, and they’re going to lose a lot.  

They’re going to lose big time in 2026 if they nominate these socialists. And if the Republican Party exposes who these socialists are in these House races in 2026, I think they have an even shot at even keeping the midterms for the Republicans. And that would be quite a feat, since 38 out of the last 41 midterms, the in-party has lost seats.  

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

A pro-life leader told the Daily Signal that returning the issue of abortion to the states was a strategic failure of the movement, adding that pro-life advocates must now turn to a federal strategy.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA Pro-Life America, said the movement is “not better off” following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to federal and state lawmakers. “The states-only experiment is a failure,” she said.

Dannenfelser pointed to the rising abortion rate as evidence of the failure. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports 1,126,000 abortions in the United States in 2025, a 21% increase from the pre-Dobbs era.

Even states with the strictest abortion laws are seeing abortion rates skyrocket. Texas, for example, banned nearly all abortion procedures in 2021, but saw a 40% increase in abortions from April 2022 to January 2025.

Declaring abortion a “states’ issue” has allowed the federal government to wipe its hands clean of abortion legislation, Dannenfelser argued. She called out policymakers for shifting responsibility, accusing them of using states’ rights as a “cop-out.”

Combating Abortion at the Federal Level

Dannenfelser walked the Daily Signal through the pro-life movement’s plan to return abortion policy to the executive and legislative branches, listing four of the movement’s priorities.

First, she said that the administration of President Donald Trump should enforce an in-person requirement for abortion pill prescriptions. In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration removed the in-person dispensing requirement, allowing for prescriptions via telehealth and for the pills to be shipped through the mail.

In 2025, Louisiana sued the FDA for removing the mandate, arguing that it allowed thousands of abortion drugs to be sent by mail to the state, which has a “near-total ban” on abortion. According to a May 2026 opinion by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “The policy now facilitates nearly 1000 illegal abortions in Louisiana per month.”

“The battle is at this abortion pill,” Dannenfelser said.

Second, Dannenfelser argued that the FDA needs to research the side effects of the abortion pill.

“The drug itself is horrible,” she stated. “The FDA should be thoroughly investigating the after-effects.”

Because of the FDA’s neglect to study the side effects and its insistence on making it widely available by mail, “there is no informed consent,” she said.

She argued the abortion pill is harming women, calling it a “human rights disaster.”

Third, she said the FDA needs to ease access to abortion pill reversal treatments. And fourth, she said pro-lifers need to fight at the polls to elect “bold and courageous leaders” to Congress and the White House in 2026 and 2028.

“Our goal this cycle is to defend and expand our pro-life majorities in Congress. That is what drives our voter contact program. We invest in races where our efforts can make a difference between victory and defeat,” she said.

SBA maintains a National Pro-Life Scorecard, which it says “assigns every member of Congress—House and Senate—with a pro-life ‘grade’ to better inform Americans about where their members of Congress stand on life.”

“We’re prioritizing bills that eliminate or continue prohibitions on federal taxpayer funding of abortion, as well as bills that protect the unborn and their moms from dangerous abortion drugs,” the organization’s press office told the Daily Signal.

The group noted a bill led by Sen. James Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind., the Forced Abortion Prevention and Accountability Act, which “establishes federal penalties for the intentional administration of abortion-inducing drugs without a woman’s informed consent,” according to a press release from Messmer’s office.

REUTERS—A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, finding that they violated a settlement with a leading civil rights group that required expedited mail-in ballot handling.

The decision by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan marked the second defeat in the courts in as many weeks for U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to severely restrict mail-in voting ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to maintain control of both houses of Congress. 

The Postal Service in May proposed a rule requiring states to provide lists of voters and adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would make deliveries. If states did not comply, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver the ballots. 

Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by Democrat President Bill Clinton, sided with the NAACP rights group, which argued that the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement that required USPS officials to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail through 2028. 

Neither the USPS nor the Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, immediately responded to requests for comment. 

Sullivan’s ruling prevented the Postal Service from implementing the proposed regulations, which stemmed from Trump’s March executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and requiring the USPS to only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. 

In a separate decision on June 25, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump from implementing the entire executive order ahead of the midterms.

The judge sided with a coalition of Democratic-led states in ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in trying to overhaul procedures for elections.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Cynthia Osterman)

The Environmental Protection Agency is on track to complete its draft risk assessment of glyphosate by the end of the year. Following the Supreme Court ruling that Monsanto/Bayer can be shielded from liability when users are harmed by their product, the EPA is working to determine if the pesticide is safe.

“The EPA is going through our development of a draft risk assessment,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the Daily Signal.

Monsanto produces Roundup, a grass and weed killer with glyphosate as the active ingredient.

The 25-year-old glyphosate study that once found the pesticide safe, despite a cancer link, was retracted in December 2025 after researchers discovered Monsanto played a significant role in writing it. The company went on to make billions from the pesticide they helped labeled “safe.”

Zeldin announced in 2025 the EPA would conduct a new study, ensuring there is “no bias.”

“I have had multiple meetings with the career staff involved in that process. I have very strongly emphasized both publicly and privately, directly to them in these meetings, that I do not want to bias their work. I do not want to prejudge their work,” Zeldin continued.

“I want to make sure that they are empowered with all the tools that they need to be able to complete a thorough scientific assessment of it,” he continued.

While the Make America Healthy Again movement is calling for the EPA to temporarily ban glyphosate until the study is complete, Zeldin said he is letting the study play out.

“Whatever they find, I’m looking forward to communicating that to the public.
I don’t know what the conclusion of that research is going to show. Whatever it is, I’m the one who’s in a position to explain their work,” the administrator continued.

He explained that he does not want the scientists involved to “cut corners” or to not review all the studies. He described the scientists working on this risk assessment, saying they are “dedicated career scientists who absolutely love their job, they love the mission, and they want to get it right.”

He confirmed he is confident that the review and research will be completed by the end of 2026. “That has been the marker that was set from the first conversation that has been any conversation with timeline, and no one has indicated to me otherwise that the development,” Zeldin concluded.

Members of the Sharia Free America Caucus gathered Wednesday to promote legislation that would prevent U.S. courts and other adjudicative bodies from recognizing or enforcing Islamic law, commonly known as Sharia law, when it conflicts with the Constitution.

The legislation, introduced by Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, was first reported by the Daily Signal. The bill would prohibit federal courts and related entities from adopting foreign or religious legal systems that conflict with constitutional protections.

During the press conference, Self and fellow caucus members were joined by supporters of the legislation, who said the measure is necessary to safeguard constitutional rights and protect vulnerable individuals from practices associated with Sharia law.

Brigitte Gabriel, a Middle Eastern immigrant and founder of ACT for America, said she helped draft the legislation in part to protect women from abuse.

“This bill is for the protection and preservation of the lives of the thousands of Middle Eastern women who are brought here by their Islamic husbands who want to practice Sharia Law and continue practicing domestic violence against women,” Gabriel said.

Gabriel pointed to efforts in several states to limit the use of foreign legal systems that conflict with constitutional protections. She said similar safeguards could now be pursued at the federal level.

“We have worked so hard in passing ALAC, American Laws for American Courts, in 13 states, Texas being the most recent,” Gabriel said. “People flock from all over the world to enjoy the protections offered by the United States Constitution. We come here to enjoy freedoms without being beaten, killed, or hijacked.”

Self previously told The Daily Signal that one of the caucus’ primary goals is to help states develop strategies to protect themselves from what members describe as the growing influence of Sharia law and the broader “Islamification” of the United States.

Currently, there is no federal law specifically prohibiting the application of foreign or religious laws that conflict with the Constitution.

Frank Gaffney, a longtime national security commentator who worked alongside Gabriel to advocate for the legislation, said public awareness of the issue has grown in recent years.

“I have been trying to raise awareness of this problem for decades,” Gaffney said. “I worked hard to make the American people understand the agenda of Sharia supremacists.”

“The American people must become acquainted with what the Sharia supremacist wants—his law instead of ours,” he continued. “The objective of the Sharia supremacist exercise is to submit the American people to follow their law instead of ours.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, also spoke at the event. Flynn argued that the legislation is important to preserving the nation’s founding principles.

“We’ve been working hard this last decade to bring this law to fruition,” Flynn said. “We are at our 250th year, and in order for us to preserve this country for another 250 years, we have to follow only one document, the U.S. Constitution.”

Flynn said passage of the legislation is necessary “to preserve that beautiful flag behind us, to save America, and save freedom for the rest of our Western civilized world.”

The bill is part of a broader effort by the Sharia Free America Caucus, co-founded by two Texas lawmakers, to advance constitutional safeguards against the application of foreign or religious legal systems in the United States.

California public schools are now required to provide students with access to at least one all-gender restroom under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023.

Senate Bill 760 took effect July 1, with Newsom stating that the addition of all-gender restrooms will “help protect vulnerable youth, promote acceptance, and create more supportive environments in our schools and communities.”

But as the law takes effect, one question isn’t clearly answered: What happens if a school refuses to comply?

SB 760 states that schools are subject to a state compliance review, but does not establish a specific fine or other penalty for districts that fail to meet the requirement. 

However, the bill states that if schools would like access to a school modernization fund—something schools could use to update facilities—they are required to use part of those funds to build an all-gender restroom if they don’t already have one. 

“They’re effectively withholding funding,” said Lance Christensen, vice president of government affairs and education policy at the California Policy Center. 

“School district trustees have sovereignty over their school districts. They’re not compelled to do everything you tell them to do. However, if they want the money that the state is offering, they then have to comply with state law.”

Schools also will have to cover the cost of complying with the new law up front.

Because SB 760 is a state-mandated local program, districts are responsible for implementation costs initially and may later seek reimbursement through the California Commission on State Mandates if those costs are determined to be reimbursable. 

The law also makes clear that traditional boys’ and girls’ restrooms will remain available, stating that “use of an all-gender restroom by a pupil shall be voluntary and pupils shall not be required to use an all-gender restroom.” 

Still, those provisions have done little to ease concerns among some parents and education advocates.

Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District board, posted to X about these concerns, saying that the “all gender restrooms” in Sacramento leave no room for privacy. 

A Texas congressman who co-founded the Sharia Free America Caucus is introducing legislation aimed at preventing foreign customs and religious laws from conflicting with the U.S. Constitution.

The Daily Signal has learned that Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, is introducing the Preserving Our Constitution Act to prohibit federal courts and adjudicative bodies from recognizing or enforcing foreign or religious laws, customs, or practices that conflict with the Constitution or federal law.

According to the bill text obtained by the Daily Signal, its purpose is to protect “the individual rights and liberties guaranteed and protected by the Constitution of the United States of America.”

A press release from Self’s office shared with the Daily Signal claims the legislation would reinforce constitutional liberties by identifying practices deemed incompatible with American legal principles. Those include forced or underage marriage, polygamy, female genital mutilation, restrictions on speech, religion, or religious conversion, discriminatory treatment based on sex, religion, ethnicity, or caste, and punishments prohibited under the Eighth Amendment.

Furthermore, the bill would also seek to protect constitutional rights in international litigation by preventing courts from dismissing cases in favor of foreign jurisdictions unless those jurisdictions provide adequate due process and equal protection safeguards.

Self argues that existing federal law lacks sufficient safeguards against the enforcement of foreign or religious legal systems that could interfere with constitutional protections.

“The Constitution is the supreme law of the land,” Self told the Daily Signal in a written statement. “Any legal or political doctrine that places itself above the Constitution threatens the stability and unity of the nation, and that’s exactly what Sharia Law does.”

“The rule of law requires one standard that applies to every person,” Self continued. “The Constitution provides that standard. Allowing any competing legal system would erode the authority of the courts, weaken the protection of individual rights, and fracture our country.”

Self’s bill adds that the legislation serves as a reminder of the responsibility elected officials have to preserve the constitutional freedoms handed down by the nation’s Founders. “The role of elected officials of the United States is to secure and protect for its citizens as well as subsequent generations the liberties provided to us by our Founders,” the bill reads.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Eli Crane, R-Ariz.; Clay Higgins, R-La.; Scott Perry, R-Pa., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.; Barry Moore, R-Ala.; and Pat Harrigan, R-N.C.

Recently, Self and his colleague Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, founded the Sharia Free America Caucus to make Americans aware of the rise of Islam and Sharia law in the United States.

“We are educating ourselves, and our constituents, and our wider audience,” Self previously told the Daily Signal. “Islam is going to go on the offensive, because they think they got the upper hand.”

The Justice Department has filed lawsuits against both California and Virginia over the states’ gun restrictions.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department sued to stop California’s newly enacted ban on Glocks, a popular handgun. The California law that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in June would ban the retail purchase of common handguns manufactured by Glock and other guns with similar firing mechanisms.

The federal lawsuit also seeks to stop enforcement of the state’s “Handgun Roster” of limited legal firearms available for purchase.

“The Second Amendment is a sacred right belonging to all Americans, even those in California,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “California cannot ban the most popular type of handgun in America. We will work to stop this blatant trampling of our rights by the California government to protect the rights of lawful gun owners.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who also served as the state’s U.S. senator and attorney general, said during her 2024 presidential campaign that she owned a Glock.

Newsom spokeswoman Diana Crofts-Pelayo said, “The Trump administration is once again trying to dismantle California’s commonsense gun safety laws.”

“These laws save lives. California has proven that strong, evidence-based gun safety measures can reduce gun violence while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners,” Crofts-Pelayo told the Daily Signal in an email statement. “That’s why we have one of the lowest gun death rates in America and historically low crime rates across the board. We won’t be intimidated by another politically motivated lawsuit. We’ll continue defending the laws that protect Californians and keep dangerous weapons off our streets.”

A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta told the Daily Signal, “Our office is committed to defending California’s effective and constitutional gun safety laws, including laws that protect the public from the proliferation of machine guns and from unsafe handguns that have not passed consumer safety and testing requirements.”

The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against Virginia and the Virginia State Police over the state’s ban on purchases of high-capacity semiautomatic weapons, such as the AR-15 rifle.

“On April 10, I promised Gov. Spanberger that we would sue Virginia if she signed this unconstitutional weapons ban into law. I keep my promises,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement.

“Law-abiding Americans should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction for simply exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms owned by millions of their fellow citizens,” Dhillon added.

The lawsuits follow a Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment and 14th Amendment protect the right to carry handguns in public accommodations, in a case that came out of Hawaii. The Supreme Court announced Tuesday it would be hearing a case in its next session about whether state or local governments can ban semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15s.

Spokespersons for neither Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger nor Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones responded to inquiries from the Daily Signal by publication time.

The story was updated to include a response from a spokesperson from the California Attorney General’s office.

Almost all of Virginia remains under a drought advisory ahead of the hot July Fourth holiday weekend.

Rainfall earlier this week provided some relief in central regions of the state, but it wasn’t enough to bring stream and groundwater levels back to anywhere near normal. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality warned that “precipitation is approximately 8.5 inches below normal on average throughout the state for the water year, which began on Oct. 1, 2025.”

In response to the dry weather, Richmond Mayor Danny Avula announced that the city will implement voluntary conservation measures.

“Everybody’s got to do their part to keep the water levels where we need them,” he said on WWBT. “If the James River flow drops below 750 cubic feet per second over 14 days, we’ll have to take the next step” to reduce water use. The river is currently running at about 1,200 cubic feet per second.

Henrico County officials said they are releasing 64 million gallons of water per day from the Cobbs Creek reservoir to maintain supplies. Other counties, including Louisa and Caroline, have already imposed mandatory water-use restrictions.

“As communities across the Commonwealth—particularly in Southside and Central Virginia—continue to be impacted by these conditions, it is important that we take commonsense steps to meet this challenge,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced in mid-June. “All Virginians can play a role in protecting our water supply during this historic dry period,” the worst since 1941.

In Northern Virginia, parts of Fairfax are in a severe drought, but county leaders urged Spanberger to exempt the Potomac River if she decides to declare a state of emergency. While the Potomac, like most streams in the region, remains near a record low. Still, “we support Fairfax Water’s request for the Potomac River to be excluded from any statewide drought declaration, as to avoid unnecessary hardship for millions of Northern Virginia residents and businesses,” the chair of the Board of Supervisors, Jeff McKay, wrote in a letter to the governor.

Amid the drought, forecasters warned that dangerous heat and humidity are expected in Virginia throughout the holiday weekend. Thursday and Friday are expected to set temperature records. In the longer-term forecast, a developing El Niño may bring slightly cooler temperatures in the months ahead and may also make for a less severe hurricane season this fall.

The Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force will meet again on July 7 to update its reports.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Ahead of midterm elections that will determine which party controls the Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is launching an ad series targeting Senate Democrats for choosing illegal immigrants over working American families.

The new ads will run across key battleground states, including Ohio, Michigan, Alaska, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Georgia.

The latest to drop targets Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for reelection in the U.S. Senate representing Georgia.

“Democrats wanted to tax Americans’ hard-earned tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits in order to protect taxpayer-funded benefits like free health care for illegal aliens,” Bernadette Breslin, NRSC national press secretary, told the Daily Signal.

“Under [President] Joe Biden, Democrats let in millions of illegal immigrants, straining resources, putting communities at risk, and [Georgia Sen.] Jon Ossoff chose them over you, voting to increase taxes on working-class families by $250 per month to give free health care to illegal immigrants,” a narrator says in a new ad.

The narrator concludes, “Dangerous criminals got the benefits you earned and now Jon Ossoff wants your vote again? No way.”

Last July, Ossoff voted against a Republican-crafted budget bill that prevented the expiration of tax cuts enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term. Ossoff is seeking reelection in a state Trump won in 2024.

The senator was first elected in 2020, unseating incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue by a one-point margin.

While Ossoff ran unopposed in the Democrat primary, Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., won the Republican nomination in June, with Trump’s endorsement. The two will go head-to-head in November in a race that could determine the upper chamber majority.

Ossoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.