As the Right works to refine its stance on artificial intelligence, several coalitions are competing for the president’s attention, artificial intelligence experts tell The Daily Signal. 

“Right now, behind the scenes, this is by far the most brutal fight in Washington,” former Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon told The Daily Signal.

Because the stakes are high and AI regulation is a relatively new issue, the Right hasn’t determined what the unified conservative position should be. AI is “one of the most controversial issues right now in the Trump administration,” a source familiar with the administration’s thinking on AI said. 

“What that combination of those factors means is that it’s extremely controversial, and Big Tech interests are definitely extremely involved in this process and want to do anything to ensure that AI policies are created that help the bottom line,” the source said. 

An administration official familiar with the matter agreed AI is one of the most contentious issues facing the administration, saying the subject is “only controversial because of the way people are pushing for it and where those people come from.”

The lines were clearly drawn after Trump signed an executive order on Dec. 11, ordering the attorney general to establish an AI litigation task force that would challenge state efforts to regulate AI. 

The president directed White House AI czar David Sacks and Michael Kratsios, science and technology adviser to the president, to recommend federal AI legislation preempting any state laws in conflict with administration policy–drawing backlash from conservatives like Gov. Ron DeSantis and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

“Behind the scenes, this battle of AI regulation dwarfs everything else,” Bannon said.

Divisions in the Coalition over AI

The AI issue is bringing to the surface some of the wedge issues within the broader coalition that helped elect the president, said Tim Estes, founder of AngelQ, which seeks to use AI to make the internet safer for kids. 

“The real division is between the free-market extremists up against the new right part of the coalition, which is going after protecting blue-collar jobs and rebuilding the manufacturing base,” Estes told The Daily Signal, “and the pro-family side that views, essentially, human dignity as the primary principle all things are built on, including economic freedom.”

The pro-family side has made an alliance with the populist side and the national security side, which is concerned about Chinese influence in AI, according to Estes. 

“These are three parts of the Trump coalition that actually are not aligned with the tech accelerationist crowd, and it represents the vast majority of the base, 80% plus,” Estes said. “And then you’ve got a small contingent that really is libertarian, plus the opportunistic tech community.” 

“I’m not seeing a principled conservative leader get up and argue that acceleration is worth all these damages along the way,” he added. 

Tech Accelerationist Coalition

On paper, the accelerationist coalition is by far the strongest, Bannon said. 

“The accelerationists have deep roots into the White Office of Technology Policy—plus Elon and David Sacks, the crypto czar,” Bannon said.

Some tech experts believe Marc Andreessen of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is leading the accelerationist AI movement in the Republican Party. Andreessen, a former Democrat, flipped parties to donate millions to Trump’s 2024 campaign after former President Joe Biden’s efforts to regulate Big Tech. 

Now, conservative tech policy experts warn of potential risks posed by members of the White House’s AI policy shop having ties to Andreessen. 

“The White House Tech Policy shop is basically captive to the tech ‘Broligarchs,'” Bannon said.

Andreessen has praised Sacks as “a throwback to the era of American greatness.” Sriram Krishnan, senior policy advisor for AI at the White House under AI czar David Sacks, was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz before joining the administration. 

Andreessen was a major backer of Character.AI, which has been sued by multiple families who say the AI chatbot convinced their teenagers to commit suicide.  

Over the summer, Andreessen Horowitz backed a $100 million Super PAC, Leading The Future, which advocates against strict artificial intelligence safeguards. The PAC is running ads in Texas and New York, two states that have passed laws establishing safeguards on AI. 

Texas has passed one law protecting minors from online content that glorifies suicide and other forms of self-harm, and another preventing the development or distribution of AI systems that produce deepfake child or other pornographic content.

Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Populist Coalition

The populist coalition is focused on protecting jobs and rebuilding the manufacturing base, according to Estes. Steve Bannon, a leader in this movement, believes Trump’s AI policy is costing him with Gen Z Americans who are worried about job losses from AI.

“I believe a major reason you do see President Trump losing some momentum with Gen Z in approval ratings is they are worried about losing jobs to AI,” he said.

New polling shows Trump’s approval rating with Gen Z voters has dropped 42 points in the past year.

“Remember in your 20s is the most important decade for getting into a profession—and AI is blocking that in administrative, managerial, and lower level tech,” Bannon said.

AI doesn’t currently have the capability to take away American jobs, but this could change as technology continues to improve, said Joe Allen, author of “Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity.”

“Let’s just imagine for a moment, the capabilities continue to increase,” he told The Daily Signal. “They continue to reduce the tendency towards hallucination, companies do have prompt engineers who are able to tease out these things, then it would be a drastic job loss issue.”

States can “throw sand in the gears” of harmful AI to prevent that from happening, he said.

“I think the states should be used as much as possible to impede these companies’ advancement and to give avenues for redressing grievance and to as best as possible, preemptively shield the most vulnerable people from the worst parts of these systems, for instance, luring kids into suicide, or systems that are prone to sycophancy and drawing out a kind of AI psychosis from the user,” Allen said.

Still, he doesn’t think the problems with AI can be solved politically. The future of AI will be determined by the culture: what Americans are willing to accept in regard to AI’s presence in their lives.

“The real effect happening over the next 5-10 years, is going to be some combination of what the public’s willing to embrace, what they completely reject, and that’s going to be different from different types of people in America and across the world,” he said. “And then also what these companies are willing to do, how brash they’re willing to pursue their ambition.”

He said a left-right coalition could form to address bipartisan fears about AI. Hawley already partners with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on AI policy, and he sees such partnerships expanding.

“You could end up with someone like Bernie Sanders and Marsha Blackburn, or Bernie Sanders and Ron DeSantis stepping up to address the AI issue from the left and right,” he said.

A White House official told The Daily Signal AI will augment, not replace, workers.

“While AI will make our workers even more productive, it cannot replace most real-world jobs,” the official said.

“President Trump will always put the American worker first—the private-sector led job gains experienced so far in this Administration underscore the early signals of the success of the president’s worker-first agenda,” the official continued.

Pro-Family Coalition

While Big Tech views AI as fragile and in need of protection through deregulation, the pro-family coalition wants to widen the scope of voices that are allowed to speak into AI regulation, said Michael Toscano, director of the Institute for Family Studies’ technology initiative.

“The fragile thing, the thing that needs to be taken care of, in our view, are the goods of family and family life, the well being of children, the ability of human beings,” he said.

Toscano said the White House and Congressional Republicans need to give Americans a platform to speak into the AI debate. He suggested an interagency working group on technology and the family, and an AI council to put Kratisios in conversation with a representation of religious Americans. 

“Silicon Valley should not be charged with asking philosophical, religious, or moral questions,” Toscano told The Daily Signal, “and not that they should be excluded from it, but they certainly don’t have the wisdom that these communities that have been developed have been built up over the centuries, in some cases, to be able to ask the critical questions, the most important human questions, but also the most important questions of our time.”

The fundamental disagreement about AI isn’t one about technology, but about values, said Daniel Cochrane, tech policy expert at The Heritage Foundation. 

“It’s a disagreement over what it means to flourish as a human being and as a society of humans,” he told The Daily Signal. “If you assume human nature is completely material and ultimately programmable, your view of what it means to flourish is very different from someone who thinks that humans are both soul and body.”

A White House official said the administration has undertaken a variety of measures to teach children how to responsibly use AI, such as the Presidential AI Challenge.

National Security Coalition

The national security coalition, which shares some concerns about AI with the pro-family coalition, is concerned about Big Tech advancing Chinese interests.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has extensively warned about the dangers of China accessing American AI innovation. He introduced legislation that would prohibit the import from or export to China of artificial intelligence technology and prohibit U.S. companies from investing money in Chinese AI development.

The national security coalition clashed with the Trump administration over the sale of Nvidia chips to China.

Hawley said constraining Chinese access to American semiconductors should be the priority, rather than expanding it.

“If we want to beat China, I think we need to constrain their ability to leverage our own technology,” he said.

“The Broligarchs are trying to convince the White House and Capitol Hill that we can provide the [Chinese Communist Party] the entire ecosystem as far as AI is concerned, and there is no risk to that,” Bannon said.

The U.S. needs to strike a balance between holding Big Tech accountable and ensuring that the U.S. doesn’t lose the AI race to China, according to Yusuf Mahmood, AI policy director at America First Policy Institute, said

“There is this balance that we have to strike between ensuring that we have transparency and accountability, to ensure that we don’t have complete, fully unaccountable ring by big tech elites over this technology,” he told The Daily Signal “but we also have to ensure that we don’t over regulate the technology either, so that we don’t lose to China.”

The Trump administration is committed to maintaining U.S. dominance in AI, a White House official said.

“That is why President Trump signed during his first week in office an EO to develop an AI action plan and reverse the disastrous Biden-era EO that would have stifled American leadership in AI,” the official told The Daily Signal.

Marsha Blackburn’s Trump America AI Act 

But there’s one way to unite the branches of the Trump coalitions, according to Estes, and it’s already been introduced in the U.S. Senate. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Trump asked her to introduce her “Trump America AI Act,” which would create one federal rulebook for AI, including protections for “children, creators, conservatives, and communities.” Estes thinks the entire coalition, apart from Big Tech donors, could rally behind Blackburn’s bill. 

Blackburn told The Daily Signal that Big Tech contacts her to push back on her AI framework “every single day.” 

“I have met with many of them, but I think it’s important to understand every industrial sector has regulation, whether it is logistics or manufacturing or communications, every sector has regulation,” she said in a phone interview. “The only people that do not have this are people that are working in the virtual space. So it is imperative that we establish the guardrails.” 

Blackburn said the pro-Big Tech coalition is “generally not that interested in moving forward with any type of regulation.” 

But “people that are concerned about kids and our creative and innovative industries,” and “people that are patent holders and trademark copyright holders” want regulations that will ensure they will be able to continue working without getting replaced by AI, she said.

“There are tremendous benefits from AI,” Blackburn said. “We see it in logistics, we see it in healthcare, we see it in advanced manufacturing. We see it in education. There are concerns, and addressing the concerns at the same time we establish the guardrails is our intent.” 

The post Inside the ‘Most Controversial Issue’ in Trump Administration: AI Policy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For the first time in North Carolina’s history, registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democrats. It’s a milestone that should feel like a turning point—a validation of conservative momentum in a battleground state.

But let’s be honest: this shift is less about rising support for the GOP and more about voter disillusionment with the Democratic Party.

In our latest League of American Workers statewide poll, the Democratic Party’s approval rating sits at just 30%, with 54% disapproving—a staggering 24-point gap.

That kind of brand damage doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of years of policy overreach, cultural disconnect, and failure to address working people’s core concerns.

But here’s the uncomfortable part for Republicans: the voter frustration that’s driving Democrats down isn’t automatically lifting us up.

Trump’s Approval Numbers

President Donald Trump remains personally underwater in North Carolina. His job approval is 39% approve with 53% disapproving—including weak numbers among women, independents, Gen Z, and Hispanic voters.

Even among many who supported him in 2024, there’s growing concern about how the administration is handling the economy.

And make no mistake: the economy is the No. 1 issue in North Carolina—and right now, it’s the GOP’s biggest vulnerability.

•    Just 30% of voters approve of Trump’s handling of inflation
•    Only 35% approve of his handling of the overall economy
•    A full 76% of voters cite grocery prices as a top inflation concern—far surpassing rent, gas, or insurance
•    34% of voters give the economy an F grade

These are not numbers to ignore.

Voters are telling us—loudly—that they’re feeling the squeeze, and they don’t yet believe we have the answers.

There is a bright spot: immigration and border policy.

The poll shows that Trump’s highest approval ratings are on border control (50%) and immigration enforcement (44%)—suggesting that strong messaging and action on these issues continues to resonate across party lines.

But one or two issues aren’t enough to hold a coalition together, especially when kitchen-table economics are driving discontent.

Time to Deliver

So yes, we should acknowledge the historic significance of taking a registration lead in North Carolina. It’s a signal that the ground is shifting. But we can’t mistake a registration edge for a governing mandate—especially when the president and our party are still struggling to win trust on the issues that matter most.

If the Republican Party wants to hold that lead—and grow it—we need to deliver results, not just rhetoric. That starts with the economy.

Voters want to see action on inflation, cost of living, and long-term financial stability. They want leadership that’s practical, disciplined, and grounded in their daily reality.

Republicans have the opportunity. Now we have to prove we deserve it.

The post The GOP Just Took the Lead in North Carolina, but Don’t Celebrate Yet appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Stephen R. Lawhead’s retelling of the classic King Arthur story isn’t afraid to present the rise of Christianity in Britain, and the first two episodes of The Daily Wire’s new series, “Pendragon: Rise of the Merlin,” brings that story to life—and will leave audiences wanting more.

From majestic views of Britain, to arresting scenes of Merlin’s mother “dancing” with bulls in the mythical city of Atlantis, to spiritual battles surrounding Merlin’s father, the first two episodes present a fantasy world on par with “The Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones,” but more grounded in history.

Merlin’s father Taliesin, played brilliantly by James Arden, emerges as a spiritual warrior, rejecting Britain’s pagan past and accepting the gospel of Jesus. Merlin’s mother Charis, brought to life by Rose Reid, unites an English clan with the survivors of a lost Atlantis.

The Daily Wire brings out some of the best elements of Lawhead’s first book in “The Pendragon Cycle,” “Taliesin.”

The first two episodes left me wanting more, but not always in a good way.

World-Building

The singular key to fantasy as a genre is world-building, and presenting a fictional world to an audience is a delicate and daunting task.

A good storyteller has to trigger the audience’s emotion while slowly introducing new aspects of the mystical world. You can’t just give an “info dump” with ten minutes of boring exposition, but you also can’t present a battle or key defining struggle without sufficient context to explain why this matters.

Lawhead’s book introduces mystical events with enough backstory to fill them out. When the book begins with the “unlucky” Elfin (played by Duran Fulton Brown in the show) becoming lucky by discovering a frozen baby Taliesin on the river, the book explains why this matters, and it resonates with readers. The Daily Wire begins the story with the same discovery, but the characters’ dialogue about Elfin’s luck falls flat because the series doesn’t take the time to show what it means.

Similarly, the arresting scenes in Atlantis where Charis faces angry bulls in the arena lack the same emotional core that they have in the books, not because The Daily Wire failed to deliver a spectacle but because the show doesn’t give the audience a reason to get emotionally invested in the action.

Pacing Struggles

The show forces a lengthy book into two episodes, and the pacing suffers as a result.

I loved seeing this story brought to life, because I remember enough of the book to appreciate these moments. But The Daily Wire can’t count on audiences reading the book first—the show needs to connect the fantastic spectacle it delivers with the audience’s emotions.

The first two episodes come at a rapid-fire pace, and fail to give the great world of Stephen R. Lawhead time to breathe. The show tells us that Charis is the savior of her people without explaining why: her willingness to heed visions of impending doom led Atlantis to prepare for escape before their world sank. The show features a spiritual battle inside Taliesin between the powers of paganism and Christianity, but it doesn’t take the time to build up his pagan backstory, which makes the battle feel hollow.

Lawhead’s rich presentation of paganism—with good and bad elements but ultimately fulfilled by Christianity—doesn’t emerge from the brief scenes we get in the first two episodes.

While the actors gave solid performances and the cinematography rises to the challenge of high fantasy, the pacing undercut much of this excellent work. The first two episodes about Taliesin needed time to breathe, and would be far better as four episodes. I would love to see The Daily Wire re-release this part of the story, with new scenes revealing Taliesin’s past with paganism, showing what bull dancing means in Atlantis, and giving our characters a bit more time to resonate with audiences.

One Other Quibble

While the Daily Wire presents the show as family-friendly, some of the bull dancing scenes focus a bit pointedly on Rose Reid’s barely-covered posterior.

Reasons for Optimism

All that said, I remain excited and optimistic about the show.

When The Daily Wire chose to adapt “The Pendragon Cycle,” writers focused on the character of Merlin, rather than Taliesin, for a good reason. Americans are familiar with King Arthur and his sorcerer, Merlin, and most of us couldn’t name Merlin’s father or his mother.

The focus on Merlin (played by Tom Sharp) gives me reason to suspect that the show’s pacing will slow down in future episodes, and give the story of King Arthur’s future advisor more time to breathe.

The Stephen R. Lawhead version of Arthurian legend deserves to be told on screen, and I remain optimistic that The Daily Wire’s final product will rise to the challenge.

The post Daily Wire’s ‘Pendragon’ Series Brings Early Christian Britain to Life; Will Leave Audiences Wanting More appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—New polling from North Carolina reveals that while President Donald Trump scores his highest marks on border security and immigration enforcement, economic anxiety is threatening to undermine the GOP’s efforts to retain a U.S. Senate seat in the battleground state.

The survey of 1,512 registered voters, conducted Jan. 12-15 by the League of American Workers, shows Trump underwater on nearly every economic metric.

Trump’s approval rating on inflation sits at just 30%, with 59% disapproving. Overall economic performance fares only slightly better at 35% approval, while his handling of the budget and federal spending draws 34% approval against 53% disapproval.

For the first time in state history, there are more voters registered as Republicans (30.24%) compared to Democrats (30.21%). Most of North Carolina’s 7.7 million registered voters are unaffiliated (38.89%).

That might be an encouraging sign for Republican Michael Whatley, who is attempting to retain Sen. Thom Tillis’ seat for the GOP. But the polling tells a different story.

Cooper’s Commanding Lead

Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor, has a commanding 48% to 24% lead, with 27% still undecided.

Cooper remains popular with voters: 54% view him favorably compared to 31% unfavorably. A plurality has no opinion of Whatley: 43% said they weren’t sure, with 25% viewing him favorably and 32% unfavorably.

Voters ranked health care as the highest priority for North Carolina’s next senator. It topped the list at 50%, followed by inflation at 43%, and economic growth at 31%.

After serving two terms as North Carolina’s governor, Cooper entered the Senate race in July. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer considers him as a top-tier recruit as he attempts to win control of the upper chamber from Republicans in November.

Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chairman, received Trump’s endorsement. He previously led the state Republican Party.

Now, as he makes a statewide run, Whatley is facing an electorate deeply concerned about the economy. The gap between Republican strength on immigration and weakness on the economy couldn’t be starker.

Trump’s Strongest Marks

Trump received 50% approval on border control and 44% on immigration enforcement—his only policy areas in positive or near-positive territory. But those numbers are overshadowed by voters’ economic concerns, with 76% citing grocery prices as a top inflation worry.

The political environment remains challenging for both parties.

Nearly six in 10 voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction, and independents are particularly pessimistic—just 32% believe things are on the right track.

Trump’s overall approval in North Carolina stands at 39%, with 53% disapproving. In 2024, Trump won North Carolina by a margin of 51% to 47.8% for Democrat Kamala Harris.

Today, Democrats fare even worse at 30% approval and 54% disapproval.

Complex Terrain for GOP

Despite the high disapproval for his party, Democrat Gov. Josh Stein enjoys 48% approval against 22% disapproval, a 26-point net positive.

The poll also reveals a sharp generational split on national security. Half of voters support U.S. disengagement from Ukraine if no peace deal is reached, and the divide by age is striking: Gen Z supports withdrawal by a 42-point margin, while seniors oppose it by 11 points.

The survey, conducted with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, underscores the complex political terrain facing Republicans.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Economy Remains GOP’s Biggest Vulnerability in North Carolina, New Poll Shows appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new report has revealed that the persecution of Christians continues to expand worldwide, with countries like Syria, North Korea, and Nigeria driving the surge in oppression. Still, some bright spots of receding persecution have also emerged in south Asia.

This week, the religious freedom monitoring organization Open Doors released its annual World Watch List, which catalogues the countries in the world that commit the highest levels of oppression against Christians.

The report noted that over 388 million Christians currently “suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.”

It found that the total number of believers killed for their faith increased from 4,476 in 2025 to 4,849 in the 2026 reporting period, with 93% of the deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the killings are happening in Nigeria, which totaled 3,490 killings, up from 3,100 the previous year.

“There are now 14 sub-Saharan African countries on the World Watch List,” the report stated. “The combined population of these countries is more than 721 million people, nearly half of whom identify as Christian. Over the past decade, violence scores have more than doubled, with four of these countries now in the top 10.”

The report further found that 224,129 Christians were forced from their homes, up from 209,771 last year. The concentration of forced evacuations occurred in Nigeria, Syria, and Myanmar.

The Open Doors list also tallied 4,712 Christians who are currently detained for their faith, as well as 3,632 churches and other Christian properties that have been attacked.

In countries like Syria, the upheaval resulting from rapid regime change has created a dangerous environment for Christians, as Open Doors CEO Ryan Brown explained during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday.

“Syria [has] actually become our biggest one-year mover in recent history,” he noted. “[L]ast year, [Syria] was number 18 on the list. This year that moved up to number six. … [After] the fall of the previous Assad regime … there were a lot of questions. … [T]he new rulers were giving indications that they wanted to allow religious freedoms and religious liberties. What we have seen over the course of the last year is, well, the rise in persecution has not necessarily been at the direct hand of the new government. It has been … the new government’s lack of control, the lack of presence throughout the country [that] has given rise to extremist ideologies around the country. There have been all sorts of vacuums of power that have been created in these extremist Islamic ideologies have been more than happy to take advantage of that opportunity and step into those vacuums.”

Brown went on to highlight why North Korea has remained at the top of the World Watch List for the last several years as the country with the highest level of persecution against Christians in the world.

“Just to contextualize what life looks like for believers in North Korea, this is a country where individuals — simply for being found in possession of the Bible, being found in possession of the word of God — you and your entire family can be arrested and sent to hard work camps for the rest of your life,” he explained. “It’s the equivalent of a death sentence. Christianity is seen as … inherently seditious and is seen as a threat to power for the state there.”

At the same time, Brown further pointed out that some positive developments have occurred since Open Doors published its list last year, particularly in south Asia.

“Bangladesh would certainly be one,” he observed. “That is one where there was a transition … in power. [T]here were overtures that were made [by the government to expand] religious freedoms. By and large, there was a corresponding drop in violence and extremist activity that occurred. [T]hey have elections coming up, about a month from now in February. So we will see if those overtures that they have made and some of the progress that’s been made, whether that continues or whether others start to drive agendas to court political favor in different camps.”

In addition, Vietnam was ranked number 44 on last year’s list but was removed entirely from the top 50 in 2026. Open Doors stated that this is “due to a decrease in reported acts of violence, with no killings or church attacks reported.” Still, the communist government “continues to control all registered churches and religious activities through its Committee on Religious Affairs.”

Brown concluded by urging the public to use the World Watch List as a prayer guide for persecuted Christians around the globe.

“It’s an informational resource, but more than that, it’s a prayer resource because there are specific prayer points for each country there that have been provided by the believers in those countries.”

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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

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Global warming has gone cold as an issue. Despite decades of panicked predictions of doom, it’s never been a high priority for voters, and Preident Donald Trump’s bold expressions of “climate denial” went unpunished by voters.

The media still sound allied with the Green New Deal pushers, but the thrill is gone. Last November, leftists blasted ABC, CBS and NBC for barely touching the COP30 global climate summit in Brazil. (PBS gave it nearly 16 minutes, and 10 of it was a John Kerry softball interview.)

Now Axios.com posted an analysis by Amy Harder on this trend, titled “The world’s great climate collapse.” Greenpeace gang, beware: “The last year has seen an epic reversal that spread quickly from governments to boardrooms to pop culture.”

Not only has Trump dismissed climate panic, but Harder noted Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, “once one of the world’s most vocal climate advocates,” is now repealing some of his country’s climate policies. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also issued a memo questioning the wisdom of pursuing “net zero” emissions policies.

Then there’s billionaire Bill Gates, an unelected global leader. He circulated a memo criticizing the climate movement while shifting much of his money and focus back to public health—just four years after publishing the book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” a bestseller that drew gushy reviews from AP, CNN, USA Today and Oprah Daily magazine.

With Trump in office, Ford pulled back sharply from its electric-vehicle plans, shifting focus to more popular and profitable hybrids and gas vehicles due to slowing EV demand.

Europe scaled back its plan to ban gasoline-powered cars in the next decade and softened climate disclosure rules, which The New York Times captured with a dejected headline: “Europe Begins to Tiptoe Away From Key Climate Policies.”

The Axios analysis claimed even Hollywood is tiptoeing away, “swapping climate angst … for oil swagger, as seen in the current hit TV show ‘Landman.'”

That’s not entirely true. In December, the CBS drama “Fire Country” featured a firefighter lecturing like Al Gore: “We all know damn well there is no fire season anymore. Thanks to climate change, it’s all year round. Just keeps getting worse,” and concluding, “We’re at war.”

Also in December, “Daily Show” star Jon Stewart brought on New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert to uncork the usual panic. Manhattan used to be an ice sheet like Greenland, she said.

Stewart then quipped, “See, what I hear from that story is, if we keep this up, we could turn Greenland into Manhattan.” Kolbert jumped on the panic button: “That is absolutely true. Keep it up, but there’s 20 feet of sea level rising. So Manhattan will not be here.”

This is not a new shtick. In 2008, ABC News showed a picture of New York City vanishing underwater in its prediction of what will happen by 2015. Ooooops.

Never forget that in 1989, leftist scientist Paul Ehrlich narrated a segment on NBC’s “Today” show predicting that global warming would trigger a flood to completely cover Washington, D.C., which obviously never happened.

After eco-leftists predicted certain climate-change doom by 1995, or by 2000, or by 2015, and now we’re still doom-less in 2026, the public should be skeptical that they’re the most credible experts on predicting what the future holds.

If the perpetual climate panic machine has collapsed, it’s because the facts never lined up to prove any reason to panic. Their authoritarian “solutions”—banning everything from gas-powered cars to gas stoves and grills—needed the fuel of panic to be forced on the public. The bloom is off their poisoned rose.

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Republicans have a problem. With just two weeks before a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, how do they get Democrats to fund deportation efforts?

In the wake of Renee Good’s death in a shooting involving ICE officers in Minnesota, Democrats are slamming deportation efforts, possibly putting the annual homeland security bill in jeopardy.

How to Fund Homeland?

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, likened ICE agents to a “gestapo rounding up individuals,” in reference to Nazi Germany’s secret police force, on Jan. 13.

Aguilar explained Democrats are seeking policy riders on the homeland security bill in order to rein in ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

“We like passing appropriations bills, but the appropriations bills have to be fair,” he said of the DHS funding bill.

There are four bills left for the House of Representatives to pass: one funding labor, health and education; a second funding transportation, housing, and urban development; a third funding defense, and a fourth funding homeland security.

The homeland security bill was originally meant to be attached to a package funding national security and the state department, as well as financial regulatory institutions. The House subsequently excluded homeland from the package, which passed on Jan. 14.

“Democrats put additional language forward to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It’s not language that [Republicans] could support. And so ultimately, the homeland bill fell out of the package… House Democrats want accountability and oversight,” Aguilar said of the homeland security bill’s exclusion.

Aguilar added that DHS “should have to continue to testify to Congress as to what they are doing to look out for the American people.”

“It’s a politically very sensitive topic,” top House Republican Tom Cole, R-Okla., said of the DHS bill on Jan. 13. “That’s why we decided not to push ahead with a Homeland bill this week.” 

The exclusion of the homeland bill allowed the state department funding bill—legislation funding foreign aid and humanitarian projects, which are generally supported by Democrats—to pass without having to be attached to funding for deportation efforts.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Democrats’ leading appropriator in the House, praised the package, saying it “continues Democrats’ rejection of cuts proposed by the Trump White House and Republicans in Congress.”

Republicans could still bundle the homeland security bill together with the remaining bills in the House, although that carries the risk of jeopardizing other funding areas.

To be sure, House leadership has so far been successful at settling disagreements.

Just last week, Republicans were able to use a “bifurcated rule” to cobble together various House coalitions and pass a three-bill package, despite some conservatives’ opposition to the Commerce-Justice-Science bill.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., projected optimism on Tuesday about passing all the bills, telling reporters leadership is “very optimistic” about passing the final four appropriations bills.

The Senate

In the Senate, the partisan chasm is widening on homeland security.

On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., an appropriator, called for “no more money for DHS [Department of Homeland Security] without accountability.”

Fellow appropriator Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., similarly said, “I think it is reasonable for Democrats speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don’t approve of what ICE is doing to say, ‘If you want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, I want to fund a Department of Homeland Security that is operating in a safe and legal manner.’”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation at a Jan. 13 press conference, and floated the unorthodox idea of a clean continuing resolution to extend current funding levels for DHS.

“Homeland is obviously the hardest [bill to pass] and it’s possible that if we can’t get an agreement that there could be some sort of a CR that funds some of these bills into the next year,” said Thune, who added that he hoped there could be some deal to pass all the bills.

There is an unusual element of this year’s funding talks, however. 

The July budget reconciliation bill which Republicans passed without needing any Democrat votes provided $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement, relieving some of the stress for Republican appropriators.

Democrats “have never been supportive of” funding homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told reporters Monday. “We understood that very clearly, which is why we did so much being proactive with the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ with allowing the bill to have the funding to go enforce our laws.” 

The post Will Congress Find a Way to Fund ICE? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

There is nowhere to hide at the base of the Washington Monument.

And so, on the early-early morning of New Year’s Eve, a gregarious but bleary-eyed video producer from Florida named Kyle Barrett shifted side to side, bracing against a bitter wind while waiting on edits from senior administration officials. In less than 24 hours the obelisk would be bathed in moving light.

This was the only dress rehearsal for what organizers called the “Illumination of America,” a titanic spectacle of living images projected directly onto the monument above and the kickoff for the 250th anniversary of the United States. This made Barrett, at least in that moment, the man most responsible for the story Trump’s America tells about herself.

“In the middle of the night, 3:30 a.m. on the 30th, was when we finally, for the first time, saw any of our content up on the monument,” he told RealClearPolitics of the rush job that he had accepted only three weeks prior. It is the crowning achievement of his career. Five years earlier, he was making television commercials for Ashley Furniture.

Congress had only just passed a special authorization into law allowing the monument lightshow on Dec. 2. Barrett and his team got the call five days later, leaving them just under three weeks to develop a visual script and execute it. Christmas was postponed for their families. Long nights and work on the weekends, guaranteed. Up until that moment in the cold, no one had seen a preview of their work.

The digital files were so massive that they couldn’t even fit on a single server. The show could only be previewed directly onto the 555-foot marble canvas in the middle of D.C. A grid that had been projected onto the monument for digital mapping earlier in the week was immediately spotted and had sent the Internet aflutter. To avoid ruining the reveal, the first preview of the show had to be done in the middle of the night at the last possible moment.

They threw the switch. Light and sound exploded. The monument transformed into the open ocean, and Christopher Columbus discovers the New World. Next, hooves pound the marble pavement, and Paul Revere cries out that the British are coming.

Then George Washington crosses the Delaware, and afterward, the Declaration of Independence is written in real time by a glowing quill on the towering obelisk.

The subsequent American story plays out in four acts and runs less than 20 minutes from Discovery and Independence to Westward Expansion and from the Industrial Revolution to the Space Age. The White House wanted the monument lit up like “the world’s tallest birthday candle.”

It has to be seen to be understood.

In the early morning, Barrett and his team rushed to take notes from assembled leaders of Freedom 250, the organization responsible for pulling off the national semi-quincentennial. The sky needed to be two shades bluer. The water wasn’t crystal clear. The giant faces of the Founding Fathers chiseled into the monument seemed too faint.

“We rushed back to the office at about 4:30 a.m. and didn’t sleep again until after we uploaded the final piece of content into the servers on the 31st,” Barrett said. The final version was locked in with one hour to spare. While the technical aspects needed to be nailed down, the story was never in doubt. It was a patriotic celebration of America, not critical introspection.

“Some bipartisan entities want to apologize for American exceptionalism. We’re just not going to do that,” explained a source close to Freedom 250. “We took everything that is the best of the best of our nation, whether it was Columbus discovering the Americas, Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas, or the Apollo missions and the moon landing. We are unapologetic about it.”

The Saturn V rocket was projected onto the Washington Monument six years ago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. But it was only visible on one of the four faces. For America 250, they would use all four. “Trying to decide when and how to use the monument to tell a particular story,” Barrett explains, “that was challenge number one.”

And the images would not be static. They would be a mix of moving animations. A single image would be projected onto each of the four faces at one moment—for instance, when the astronaut boot of Neil Armstrong touched down on the moon.

During other points in the show, a moving canvas would wrap around the entire obelisk as when Sacagawea led Lewis and Clark into the West. All of it was narrated and accompanied by a completely original score.

Organizers positioned 40 different laser projectors around the monument, putting 10 on each side for redundancy. Three of the projectors had to be rushed in last minute from Belgium. They were Barco UDX-4K40s, capable of producing 37,000 lumens, enough light to turn night into day and make certain the Washington Monument was visible everywhere within a 25-square-mile radius.

The second challenge: finding and sourcing historical paintings. They scoured archives, poured through history textbooks, and reviewed the famous paintings that adorn the national capitol.

For the transition from the Wright Brothers to the Space Age, Barrett bounced ideas off his wife, Merlin, a fifth-grade science teacher. It had to be perfect. The display was the kickoff for an entire year of celebration.

“President Trump has spared no effort in ensuring that America gets the spectacular 250th birthday it deserves—and the New Year illumination of our Washington Monument is just the beginning,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “Between the Patriot Games, Great American State Fair, UFC 250 Fight, and other exciting events, 2026 will feature a renewal of patriotism and national pride under this president’s leadership.”

Barrett and his team raced back to the Washington Monument to feed a copy of the 19-minute show, about two terabytes of data, into four servers. They had kept an eye on social media, particularly Reddit, all day to see if images of their dress rehearsal that morning had leaked. They had not. Back on the National Mall, they confronted another final, frustrating challenge—high winds had shifted the projectors six inches off target.

“I was terrified when the project started,” Barrett admits. The show attracted an estimated audience of 299 million on television and brought in 7.4 billion online impressions. Beginning on New Year’s Eve, it reran for five days straight. According to a source with direct knowledge, when returning President Trump to the White House on the final night, Marine One circled the monument twice for a better view.

“I was filming sofa chairs and futons five years ago. That’s all I did was shoot broadcast spots for Ashley Furniture,” Barrett said. “The pivot from shooting furniture to counting myself as being seen by 400 million people, or whatever the most recent numbers are, is mind boggling.”

But Barrett admits he had an audience of one in mind on opening night.

His wife, Merlin, had helped him brainstorm ideas. She hadn’t seen the final draft and didn’t know her suggestions, particularly the transition from the rocket to information age, had made the final cut. Before the crescendo, he told her, “I want you to know that all of this is for you.”

“The insane no-sleep-in-two-and-a-half-weeks unimaginable timeline was worth it to be able to say that to her in that moment,” he recalled. “And then she got to watch the fireworks.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

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

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FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — California State Assemblyman David Tangipa has told The Daily Signal that he intends to bring his lawsuit against the Golden State’s new congressional map to the Supreme Court ahead of the midterm elections.

The plaintiffs are looking to bring the case to the Supreme Court so that it might overturn the U.S. District Court of Central California’s dismissal of the case, known as a ruling without prejudice, or not a final decision.

The plaintiffs argue that California’s new Congressional map violates the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution by drawing congressional districts based on race.

The lower court declined to review the case over the alleged constitutional violations of California’s new congressional map.

The Golden State’s new map was enabled by California voters’ approval of Proposition 50, a ballot measure that handed control of redistricting from the state’s independent commission to state elected officials.

Proposition 50 and the new map have been supported by major California Democrats, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

“Newsom is trying to take a victory lap right now over the Prop 50 lawsuit that we filed against him,” Tangipa said. “It is not over yet. And we just got information that the federal court denied us a review of the case again, which means we are going to the Supreme Court.”

Tangipa’s lawsuit is backed by the Department of Justice and the California Republican Party.

“We fully expect us to be in front of the court sometime by next week. We all need some clarity on this. We need to make sure that we are working through every single channel,” the California legislator added.

Tangipa also said that for the case to go to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs needed a verdict from the lower federal court in order for it to be challenged by the superior court.

“We need this ruling from the district court to come down first before we get in front of the Supreme Court, and we got exactly that. It’s time we hold these people accountable.”

District Court Ruling

The lawsuit was previously filed with the U.S. District Court of Central California in November. 

A three-judge panel ruled to dismiss the case 2-1, with Obama-appointed Judge Josephine Staton and Biden-appointed Judge Wesley Hsu declined to review the case further. Trump-appointed Judge Kenneth Lee dissented.

During the case, Paul Mitchell, the man who drew the state’s new congressional map, refused to appear before the court to explain how he drew it by invoking legislative privilege.

“We know race likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the SMOKING GUN is in the hands of Paul Mitchell, the mapmaker who drew the congressional redistricting map adopted by the California state legislature,” Tangipa wrote in an X post Friday night.

Tangipa claimed that before this lawsuit was filed, Mitchell “publicly boasted to his political allies that he drew the map to ‘ensure that the Latino districts are bolstered in order to make them most effective, particularly in the Central Valley.”

Balance of Power

If the Supreme Court refuses to strike down the new map, Democrats are expected to add five new congressional seats after this year’s midterm elections.

The new Democratic-held congressional seats could change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Impeachments?

Republicans are expecting House Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump if Democrats gain control of the House in the midterms.

“If we lose the House majority, the radical Left, as you’ve already heard, is going to impeach President Trump,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in December. “They’re going to create absolute chaos; we cannot let that happen, and I know you won’t, I know you won’t.”

Other Trump administration officials, such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, could also face impeachment proceedings if Democrats were to control the House.

On Jan. 14, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., filed three articles of impeachment against Noem for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“Secretary Noem, you have violated your oath of office, and there will be consequences,” Kelly said in a press conference.

After the naval strikes on narcotrafficking boats in the southern Caribbean Ocean in December, Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth.“We cannot allow his reprehensible conduct to continue, which is why I have filed these articles to impeach him,” Thanedar wrote in a news release.

The post EXCLUSIVE: CA Lawmaker Intends to Bring Lawsuit Against Prop 50 Map to Supreme Court appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Last year we went through the longest government shutdown in history.  

The point of contention was the extension of what were supposed to be temporary additional Obamacare subsidies enacted during COVID-19  

“Temporary” in Washington means forever. This is what must change. 

The “temporary” subsidies were supposed to expire last year. But Democrats could not resist the opportunity to push Republicans up against the wall and associate them with Obamacare premium increases.  

A deal was cut to address the subsidies after the first of the year and get the government funded and opened. Which is what happened. 

Now the House is dealing with the subsidies. The truth is no different now than it was last year. Obamacare is rife with inefficiencies and fraud, and the additional subsidies add hundreds of billions in red ink to a federal government already bleeding massive deficits.  

Now we have another issue. Democrats do not want the Hyde Amendment, which, for half a century, has prohibited use of federal funds for elective abortion, applicable to Obamacare.  

Where we wind up, if it’s up to Democrats, is more inefficient heath care expenditures, exacerbation of an already dire fiscal state of the nation, and now allowing taxpayer money to fund abortion through Obamacare plans.  

Democrats are looking at President Donald Trump’s current shaky polling numbers and believe that, plus more government spending and abortion, will win them back Congress in 2026. 

I say, “bring it on.”  

Republicans must brand the Democratic Party as what it has become — the vehicle leading our nation to fiscal and social bankruptcy. 

When Congress passed the Hyde Amendment in 1976, the vote was bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed that federal funds, our tax money, should not be used to fund abortion.  

The vote was 199 to 165. The 199 votes in support of Hyde consisted of 107 Democrats and 92 Republicans. 

Bipartisanship in support of life, bipartisanship opposed to using taxpayer dollars to fund the destruction of life, is, unfortunately, a relic of the past.  

Now we have one party, Republicans, that cares about life, family and children. And, another party, Democrats, is the opposite.  

In 1975, the year before the Hyde Amendment was passed, 18% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats, said, per Gallup, that abortion should be “legal under any circumstances.” 

In 2025, 10% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats say abortion should be “legal under any circumstances.”  

In 1979, per Gallup, 87% of Democrats ages 30-50 and 84% of Republicans ages 30-50 were married. That’s a difference of 4 points.  

In 2024, 49% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans ages 30-50 were married. That’s a difference of 18 points.  

The Institute for Family Studies reports that “Conservative women born between 1975-1979 — women who finished having children — have a completed family size of 2.1.” For liberal woman it’s 1.5. 

With a national fertility rate at 1.6 — 2.1 being the rate at which the population is not shrinking — we have a problem. 

As Trump makes more bold initiatives around the world — not to be the world’s policeman, but to protect our interests and take a stand in an increasingly dangerous world — it must be clear what principles America stands for. 

The movement of the country away from its core principles — the movement toward big government, toward collapse of family and marriage, and loss of reverence for the sanctity of life — is a direction that has been led by the Democratic Party.  

To lead abroad, to inspire direction at home, Republicans need to be rooted in our principles.  

A nation that taxes citizens’ hard-earned income and allows those taxes to fund abortion is not a nation that is strong at home and that can command respect abroad. 

The barn door may be open to extend the Obamacare subsidies a few years. 

But if Republicans care about 2026 and after, those subsidies must be covered by the Hyde Amendment. 

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM 

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

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After a four-year economic bacchanalia, America was left with a cost-of-living crisis. Runaway government spending and overregulation pushed up prices for many essentials at a breakneck pace, like the cost of homeownership doubling. Fortunately, the Trump administration has been undoing the damage and setting the stage for an American comeback this year.

It’s no exaggeration to say that President Joe Biden left behind an economic mess, including a genuine affordability crisis. Consider the following six data points showing what happened during his tenure in office:

• The monthly mortgage payment on a median price home more than doubled.
• The inflation-adjusted value of the average American’s weekly paycheck fell 4%.
• Native-born Americans were losing jobs while net job growth went to foreign-born workers.
• The cost of servicing the national debt exploded 117%.
• Bureaucratic government jobs exploded by more than 160,000 in two and a half years.
• Multitrillion-dollar annual deficits were enshrined into statute.

The runaway spending by Biden and a profligate Congress crushed the American dream with 40-year-high inflation, the fastest rise in interest rates in just as long, a frozen housing market and more. The irony is that all this government spending had the initial effect of making the economic numbers look better or making consumers feel better temporarily.

When the government under Biden repeatedly fired off the cash cannon via “stimulus” payments, people thought their personal financial situations had improved because they had more money to spend. But all that cash was chasing the same quantity of products and services in the economy, so everyone quickly bid up prices everywhere.

Similar, whenever the government spent a dollar, that was added to gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic activity. Runaway government spending, financed by borrowing printed money, sure made GDP look great, until the predictable inflation arrived and robbed wage earners of their savings and incomes.

The same happened with the job market. Every government bureaucrat hired under Biden boosted the monthly jobs report, but didn’t add any production to the real economy. Likewise, every illegal alien hired boosted payrolls without employing more Americans. It wasn’t economic health, but more like cancerous growth.

Last year, President Donald Trump’s economic agenda was like a shock treatment of chemotherapy to kill the cancer of Bidenomics. The Trump administration has slashed more than a quarter million government bureaucrats, cutting the federal workforce to its lowest level in more than a decade. The deficit is down 27% from this time in the previous fiscal year. And immigration law is actually being enforced.

Changes like these are obviously good in the long run, but can result in short-term pain, like how chemotherapy eliminates a tumor, but makes a patient feel worse initially. Slashing all those duplicative and counterproductive federal jobs pulls down the headline payroll number in the monthly jobs report. Similarly, the contraction of government expenditures in the first half of last year reduced the headline figure in the GDP reports.

It can be tempting for the government to just spend more money and hire more bureaucrats to make GDP and payroll numbers look better, but that’s not the path to long-term economic health. Fortunately, President Trump is resisting that temptation.

Equally fortunate, the pain is nearing an end. Reducing government spending has put downward pressure on inflation, helping earnings rise faster than prices. The average American’s weekly paycheck today can buy 1.6% more than when Biden left office.

And there’s more good news in the labor market for Americans. All the net job growth over the last 12 months has gone to native-born Americans, not foreign workers. Furthermore, all net job growth has come from the productive private sector, not government.

There’s even been some relief in the housing market, with the monthly mortgage payment on a median priced home falling almost 5%. Much like the increase in inflation-adjusted weekly earnings, this improvement in the housing market clearly hasn’t undone all the damage from Biden’s tenure. Homeownership affordability remains near a record low.

But things are moving in the right direction and are set to accelerate this year because of the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda. Tax reform, including no taxes on tips or overtime, as well as full business expensing, will incentivize working and investing. That’ll boost growth and wages for folks across all income groups.

The economic cancer created in the previous administration was certainly large and far-reaching, but chemotherapy is mercifully nearing an end. Once the old, failed public policies are out of the system, the productive private sector economy can start running at a healthy pace in 2026. Cheers to that in this New Year!

Originally published in Fox News

The post Will Trump Create an American Comeback After Biden’s Dismal Economy? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“Replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism!” says my new socialist mayor.

Sounds so nice …

No more greedy capitalists hoarding wealth. People share. It’s the socialist dream.

What will replace capitalism and individualism? One model is the commune—that socialist system where people share, rather than greedily chasing money.

In my new video, TikTokers claim capitalism is “ending.” They sing about the beauty of communes. One asks, desperately, “Where is my commune?!”

Good question. They’re hard to find because they keep failing.

One of the most famous was founded in 1825 In New Harmony, Indiana. Private property was banned and residents shared everything.

The result?

After just two years, most residents left.

Today, New Harmony is a tourist attraction, meant to “inspire progressive thought,” says the assistant director of the expensively renovated site. “It just has some magic here.”

But New Harmony’s magic only exists today because a nepo baby poured her rich father’s money into it. Robert Blaffer started Humble Oil, which became ExxonMobil. After his death, his daughter spent millions of her father’s dollars turning the failed commune into an expensive museum.

The “magic” tourists experience in New Harmony comes from capitalism, the only system that creates lasting wealth.

The “warmth of collectivism” fails again and again.

It’s failing now in Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

It was tried and abandoned in the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, the Congo, Somalia, Grenada and Cambodia.

Even China and Vietnam’s leaders, to allow their countries to prosper, felt they had to give up pure socialism and allow private property and capitalism.

But my new mayor still wants to give “the warm of collectivism” a shot.

If he were my age, he would have been a hippie. Hippie communes were popular then.

One in Tennessee called The Farm forbade members to have their own money or property. Everyone shared everything.

“Mothers would nurse each other’s babies—other parents would take care of you … ” said a former member.

“If you want to become a member of the community,” warned The Farm’s lawyer, “you got to put everything you have in the pot. We’re doing this for a lifetime!”

But they couldn’t do it for a lifetime. They couldn’t even keep it for a dozen years.

There just wasn’t enough money, says the commune’s bookkeeper: “Everybody was saying … there’s not enough food, not enough vegetables, not enough diapers, shoes. All things the children needed.”

Only when the commune allowed members to own things, and keep profit from their labor, was The Farm able to survive.

Residents now say, “We’re not socialists anymore. We have our own money.”

New York’s Oneida Community was founded as a free-love, socialist commune, where “every man in the community was essentially married to every woman and all the property was shared.”

But Oneida survives today only because they dropped socialism and became capitalists, selling expensive Oneida silverware.

Likewise, an Iowa commune, Amana Colonies, survives because they abandoned socialism to sell appliances.

Some Americans (falsely) think Israeli communes, Kibbutzim, succeeded. But they mostly failed, despite getting heavy taxpayer subsidies. Why?

Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute explains, “People envied one another … and treated one another really, really bad. It’s obvious why. Some people worked hard. Others didn’t. Yet they had exactly the same.”

The surviving few Kibbutzim are capitalist. Members own property and earn their own money.

The “warmth of collectivism” doesn’t last.

But socialists never admit that their communes fail.

“Because to them it’s a moral ideal!” says Brook. “Moral striving for the good, even though it’s a complete disaster and a complete failure everywhere and anywhere it is tried.”

No matter what my new mayor and other “progressives” say, the only thing that works—the only thing that really makes life better for people—is private ownership and capitalism.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

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

The post The Warmth of Collectivism appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A church in Washington, D.C. has gained the attention not only of hundreds of young Christians, but also the mainstream media.  

King’s Church has a size of about 600 congregants and is located in the basement of a bar one mile from the White House. With its growth taking off during the COVID-19 pandemic, that appeared unique enough to have earned the church a lengthy exposé in Vanity Fair labeling it a “MAGA” hot spot.  

Writing for the magazine, Tara Palmeri painted King’s Church as a “recruitment machine” and asserts that the congregation is a “long-term investment” for the Republican Party.  

“What makes King’s so startling—even unnerving—for the secular left is how effortlessly it fills a void progressives never cracked: blending identity, community, and political machinery,” Palmeri writes.  

Palmeri describes the church’s nondenominational contemporary worship service as “half revival, half silent disco.”  

However, Pastors Wesley Welch, 34, and Ben Palka, 35, say they have never worked in politics. Palka says they would “have no idea how to engineer a ‘recruitment machine,’” adding, “we’re going to be honest about the issues, but we’re not going to waive a particular political banner.”   

“What we’re doing is pretty typical church outreach,” Palka said. 

“If a church is in a neighborhood, they’ll reach out to their neighborhood, they’ll canvass the neighborhood, they’ll invite people to participate in church and to explore Christianity, and that’s all we’re doing.”  

Welch and Palka founded the church in 2018 with a mission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Washington, D.C. 

More specifically, Palka says King’s Church aims to “take a robust biblical … worldview and apply it to people’s lives in a way that the jobs, the lives that they’re living are Christ focused and Christ centered.”  

Pastors of King’s Church Wesley Welch and Ben Palka. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

The church’s growth did not begin until 2020, when Palka says he watched amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “young people that previously didn’t take their faith very seriously start taking it very seriously.” 

What Palka said surprised him most about the Vanity Fair piece was “how out of touch, the mainstream media is with just Christianity 101.”  

“They looked into a pretty normal, young Evangelical church and the only way that they could understand it was through the framework of politics in power, because … that must be how they view the world,” Palka said. 

The congregation of King’s Church meeting in the basement of Penn Social bar in Washington, D.C. (King’s Church)

Congregants of the church say they chose to join the community because of the positive experience they had after walking through the church, or bar, doors.  

“I think it’s evident that God is moving in King’s Church,” Avery Lance, 27, says.  

“By all reports and metrics, young people aren’t going to church,” Lance said, adding, “people in a city like D.C. are not going to church, but King’s Church kind of stands in defiance of all of that.”  

Lance and his wife Danielle lead one of the 25 small groups for King’s Church, providing a time to study scripture, pray, share a meal and “bear each other’s burdens and encourage each other,” Danielle Lance explained. “It’s my favorite night of the week,” she said.  

Avery and Danielle Lance, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

On a chilly Sunday morning in January, Welch preached from the book of Daniel in the Bible, using the story of Daniel living in captivity in Babylon as an exhortation to seek the Lord and represent Him regardless of the circumstance.  

The church is roughly half Gen Z, 30% millennials, and 20% in the 45 plus age demographic, according to Palka.  

“We didn’t seek out to be a church for young people. It’s like the Lord’s just done a revival there,” Welch said, adding, “it has been amazing to see the younger generation come hungry for truth and hungry for the Lord, and receiving it.”  

Washington, D.C. is young city with 34 being the median age, according to Census Reporter.  

Husband and wife Sandra, 45, and Kristopher Klaich, 48, have been attending the church for over four years. As an “older” couple in the community, they quickly became mentors to many of the younger congregants, joking they are shocked so many young people want to spend time with them.   

Kristopher and Sandra Klaich, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

One of those “young people” is Jack Renner who, now 32, has been attending the church since the first year it was founded and believes so many other young people have chosen to join the church because they are hungry for community.   

“When you enter King’s Church you can feel the welcoming hospitality there, the love for God and love for our fellow humans,” Renner told The Daily Signal.   

As King’s Church continues to minister to the people of D.C. who join them on a Sunday morning or during the week for a small group, Wesley says the vision for the church is not only to one day have their own building, but also to “create a long term ministry here in D.C.” 

The post DC Church Counters Left Wing Narrative appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The aspect of life that has the most potential to bring Americans together may be the one that is currently dividing them the most.

It is the relationship that people have with the traditional family—consisting of a mother and a father and children.

The Census Bureau recently released a report about the living arrangements American mothers have when they give birth to their first child. It did not paint a pretty picture.

“There have been sweeping changes to marriage and family structures in the United States over the last several decades,” said the report. “Fertility rates dropped to historically low levels. Marriage rates declined while cohabitation became more common. Childbirth increasingly occurred outside of marriage as legal and cultural norms shifted.”

The Census Bureau‘s analysis indicated that since the early 1990s there has been a fairly consistent percentage of mothers who were married when they gave birth to their first child. But this percentage was always above 60%, leaving nearly 40% of first-born children in a household that was not a traditional family.

In the period from 1990 through 1994, according to the Census Bureau, only 62.2% of first-born babies were born to a married couple. Another 20.4% of the babies born in that period were born to a mother who was neither married nor “cohabiting” with a partner. Then there were 17.4% who were born to a mother who was cohabiting with a partner with whom she was not married.

In the period from 1995 through 1999, the percentage of first-born babies who were born to mothers who were married increased modestly to 63.8%. In the period from 2000 through 2004, it increased again to 66.3%.

But then it declined again.

From 2005 through 2009, it was 62.9%. From 2010 through 2014, it was 60.0%; from 2015 through 2019, it was 60.7%; and from 2020 through 2024, it was 60.8%.

While the percentage of first-born babies born to married mothers declined between 1990-94 and 2020-24, the percentage born to unmarried but cohabiting mothers increased, climbing from 17.4% to 23.9%.

And there were still 15.3% of first-born babies in the 2020-2024 period who were born to mothers who were neither married nor cohabitating.

The Census Bureau’s report also noted a distinction in the trends among women who had a college education and those who did not.

“Marriage became a more common living arrangement among first-time mothers with at least a bachelor’s degree, increasing from 74.4 percent in 1990-1994 to 84.5 percent in 2020-2024,” said the bureau’s report.

“In contrast, the prevalence of marital first births among mothers with less than a bachelor’s degree declined from 58.6 percent in 1990-1994 to 40.6 percent in 2020-2024, and the share of women cohabiting at first birth rose from 19.2 percent to 34.8 percent,” it said.

In other words, in the period from 2020-24, a significant majority (59.4%) of the first-born babies born to mothers without a college degree were not born in a traditional married-couple household.

The Census Bureau’s report concedes that babies born outside a traditional family structure also tend to be born in a less prosperous environment. “Children born to married parents on average have access to more economic resources,” says its report.

The Census Bureau’s household income data for 2024 shows two factors that, as this column has noted before, clearly have an impact on that income: family structure and education.

Among family households, a home headed by a female householder with no spouse present had a median income of $60,440 in 2024. A home headed by a male householder with no spouse present had a median income of $83,260. But a family household headed by a married couple had a median income of $128,700.

That means the median income of a married couple family household was about 113% more than the median income of a family household led by a mother with no spouse.

Similarly, households headed by someone with a high school diploma but no college education had a median income of $58,410, while those headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher had a median income of $132,700.

The Census Bureau’s data shows that the traditional family and a good education help people lead more prosperous lives.

In the decades ahead, this nation’s leaders should work to defend the traditional values that support the traditional family and help our nation—and our children—grow and prosper.

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Award-winning filmmaker and president of Man of Steele Productions Eli Steele joins Jack Fowler to discuss the historical factors surrounding Michael Brown’s 2014 death at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri and how 1960s post-liberal policies were the catalyst that set off years of racial unrest in America beginning in the mid 2010s and lasting until the George Floyd riots in 2020 on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”

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There are no flotillas on the way to save Iran. No Soros-funded “democracy” groups pressuring Western governments to intervene on behalf of civilians who are being arrested and murdered. No astroturfing movement demanding economic boycotts.

When college students returned from winter break last week, they didn’t find a single encampment supporting the Iranian uprising against one of the world’s most brutal regimes.

Nor are there any emergency meetings or condemnations from the United Nations. Member states were busy denouncing the United States for removing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and Israel for its recognition of Somaliland. The more people might be free, the more the U.N. is distressed.

Outlets such as the BBC, which spread virtually every fictitious claim about the Gaza “genocide” and “famine” that was handed to them by Hamas propagandists, could barely spare a segment for the widespread protests in Iran.

A year ago, Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Guy Pearce and scores of other moral ignoramuses were seen wearing red and orange pins featuring a hand around a black heart symbol — referencing a Ramallah lynching of two Israeli reservists in 2000 who drove down the wrong street and were literally torn apart by a Palestinian mob. One of the murderers deliriously displayed his blood-soaked hands from the window to a cheering throng.

This year, the Golden Globes didn’t feature a single celebrity championing the Iranian people.

All the silence is revealing. Not because it’s hypocrisy. It isn’t. It expresses a consistent political position. The progressive Left and woke Right are on the side of the mullahs. There are many reasons for it.

The charge of “hypocrisy” against leftist defenders of the mullahs reminds me of the mockery we throw at members of groups such as “Queers for Palestine.” It misses a larger point. The red-green alliance between leftists and political Islamists is nothing new. They have all the same enemies.

The press? As Tahmineh Dehbozorgi recently noted, the Western media largely ignore the Iranian uprising “because explaining it would force an admission it is desperate to avoid: the Iranian people are rebelling against Islam itself, and that fact shatters the moral framework through which these institutions understand the world.”

Indeed, Western progressives in the media treat Islam with, at best, a self-destructive moral equivalence or, at worst, reverence. The same people who cover domestic immigration enforcement as a portend to the Fourth Reich treat the Iranian regime, which regularly executes women for crimes against Islam, with kid gloves.

This deceptive coverage of political Islam is reminiscent of the Left’s complicity in Stalin’s terror in the 1930s, whitewashed to shield the broader communist cause.

Like the Soviet Union, the modern Iranian state is a full-blown totalitarian system. Not merely because it functions under an array of fundamentally illiberal ideas but because it controls virtually every aspect of life, from the spiritual to economic. What’s worse is that the Iranian state is the biggest exporter of this brutal ideology, responsible for at least 1,000 American deaths over the years.

Let’s call the Iran-championing “intellectuals” in Washington who would like to see the mullahs obtain nuclear weapons as a bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony the Ben Rhodes faction. The brutality of the regime doesn’t concern them whatsoever.

And let’s call the Israel-obsessives on the right the Tucker Carlson faction, who find modern Western ideals, “neocons” and the AIPAC far more offensive and dangerous than the theological fascism of political Islam.

A successful revolution against the Shia radicals would almost surely benefit the region. The clerics’ fixation with Israel has little rational geopolitical reasoning. It is theologically motivated, while also useful in deflecting attention away from the regime’s domestic failures.

Of course, we don’t know whether this new uprising will succeed or what would happen if it did. This isn’t the first time Iranians have rebelled. Thousands have probably been murdered already. Tens of thousands are in prison.

It seems unlikely that an Iranian revolution would succeed without a political or military coup or some external force. The Twelver Shi’ism of the clerics makes them different from the shah or other secular dictators who might be concerned about the lives of their people or their own fortunes. Mullahs would likely rather see the entire country in flames than surrender. Just look at how much needless peril and pain they place themselves and their nation in chasing nuclear weapons.

The president is reportedly weighing military options to support the protesters’ efforts to dislodge these murderous fascists. You may support him in this effort or not. But any true champion of human rights is rooting against the mullahs.

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One of the most embarrassing moments of the extremely embarrassing Barack Obama presidency came in the context of the Syrian civil war.

In August 2012, Obama vowed that “a red line for us,” which would thereby necessitate some sort of American intervention, “is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” The 44th president continued: “That would change my calculus.”

Except it didn’t.

A year later, former Iran- and Russia-backed Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s “red line,” launching a lethal sarin gas on his own people. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed, including many children.

In response, the Obama administration initially uttered a few tough words before quickly reaching a deal with Assad patron Russia, under which the Kremlin would be responsible for overseeing the surrender and eventual destruction of Assad’s chemical weapon stockpile.

The result was a “red line” flagrantly crossed and a tremendous blow to American credibility on the world stage. Obama’s presidency never recovered.

Now, over a decade later, President Donald Trump risks repeating Obama’s mistake. The stakes are high.

On Jan. 2, Trump wrote on his own platform, Truth Social: “If Iran shots (sic) and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

He has followed up on that threat multiple times, including a post earlier this week that read: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

It’s impossible to avoid the obvious implication of these statements: If the Islamist regime’s slaughter of its own citizens continues, the U.S. will take some unspecified — but clearly major — action to stanch the bloodshed. Trump encouraged the protesters to keep on risking their lives for freedom, in the face of wanton Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps repression, because help is coming soon from Uncle Sam.

What’s more, the regime’s massacres have dramatically escalated since Trump’s initial warning. There are no reliable numbers, but rough estimates suggest the number of Iranians killed by the regime has risen from 500-600 two weeks ago to potentially as many as 20,000-plus today.

To be sure, I am not a big proponent of drawing “red lines” in foreign policy. I subscribe to the notion, advanced by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 70, that the advantage of executive “unity” is that “decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.”

The key word here is “secrecy”: Statesmanship on the world stage and the conduct of foreign affairs is a core executive function, and it should generally be done after privately and “secretly” weighing various courses of action. “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt put it. He was right.

But that simply isn’t relevant anymore. Trump issued his red line. He doubled down on that red line. And the Iranian regime, which chants “death to America” on a daily basis and has even attempted to assassinate Trump, crossed that red line. Indeed, Trump’s red line hasn’t just been violated—it’s been eviscerated.

Now, Trump seems to be wavering. On Wednesday, Trump commented from the Oval Office, “We have been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, has stopped. … I’ve been told that on good authority.” The same day, French media reported that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman persuaded Trump to “give Iran a chance” because any American strike on Iran would lead to “serious consequences.” Perhaps even more peculiarly, The New York Times reported on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Trump postpone any planned attack on Iran.

None of this makes much sense. Trump certainly didn’t fear any repercussions when he ordered American B-2 bombers to strike key Iranian nuclear facilities last June, following a series of initial Israeli salvos. And after following through so dramatically on his recent threats to both Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and the Islamists slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, why would Trump now so publicly equivocate—especially when the target is a country he’s already bombed within the past year?

This seems to be coordinated kayfabe—a deliberate head fake of sorts to throw off the Iranian regime. I would wager that some sort of American action—perhaps cyber, perhaps kinetic, perhaps both—is still coming.

I would not have personally advised Trump to issue such a clarion red line threat against the mullahs. But now that he has done so, it is imperative that Trump live up to his word. His continued credibility and America’s deterrent posture both depend on it.

Don’t replicate Obama’s mistake, Mr. President. Instead, you can become even more of a man of history than you already are.

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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. 

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Moments of true clarity are all too rare in our pampered, distracted lives.

We seek endless entertainment, filling our days with buzz, gossip, sports, and movies to avoid the inevitable truth: we are all going to die.

Unlike our ancestors, we don’t witness death constantly. We don’t even consider how lucky we are to have escaped what they faced—infant mortality, death in childbirth, more frequent wars, and ever-present disease and poverty.

So, when someone like former Republican Senator Ben Sasse announces that he’s been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, it puts us face to face with our own mortality.

Sasse, at 53, had to tell his parents that they’ll probably be burying their son. He had to tell his daughters that he won’t be there to walk them down the aisle. Then, he gave the world this news—and he also gave the reason for a hope that is in him.

We All Have a Death Sentence

“Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence,” he wrote. “But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”

Even insulated from the constant experience of death as we are, we know that death is coming. It’s nearly impossible to watch the news without hearing of death: the death of Renee Nicole Good, the death of Scott Adams, the death of 31-year-old Charlie Kirk—who left a wife and two very young children.

Each death is a tragedy, but each death also presents an opportunity for us to learn.

When my time comes, I pray I have the courage and faith to face death like Ben Sasse.

Ben Sasse’s Courage and Hope

Sasse announced his “death sentence” two days before Christmas, and he said the season of Advent was a fitting time to do so.

Why? Because Advent isn’t just the four weeks leading up to Christmas, it’s also a time for Christians to look forward with anticipation to the Second Coming of Jesus. It’s a time to “orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.”

For those who don’t know, Jesus promised that he would return to earth from heaven, that the dead would be raised, and that those who accept his gospel would enjoy a new kind of life, where every tear will be wiped away. Christians don’t earn this eternal salvation—it’s only available for us because Jesus himself paid the penalty for our sins, and God calls us to follow him, to love others and die to ourselves.

Sasse rightly noted that this isn’t some “abstract hope in fanciful human goodness,” or a “Hallmark-sappy spirituality,” or even a reliance on our own strength.

It’s a “stiffer” hope, the hope of those walking in darkness who have seen a light off in the distance. It’s the hope of God telling Abraham that he will give his descendants the land of Israel—after they spend 400 years in Egypt. It’s the hope of God telling the Israelites in Babylon that they’ll be able to return home—after 70 years in exile. It’s the masculine hope that gives us strength to hold out amid tribulation, because the destination is worth the journey.

Sasse said it’s the kind of hope you shout “often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.”

This hope “doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings,” but it does put them in a new perspective.

None of this means Sasse—who attended Harvard as a wrestling recruit—is just going to throw in the towel.

“I’m not going down without a fight,” the former senator writes. “One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years … Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived.”

Sasse viscerally feels the pain of losing the muscle he was so proud to have put on as a youth. His body is breaking down, but he isn’t giving up his fighting spirit.

Most importantly, he’s using the last few public messages of his life to share something important with the world. His hope isn’t found on earth, but in the promises of Jesus. Ben Sasse may not be able to stop the decay of his body, but he can encourage us to take hold of the thing that gives him the most important hope.

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but I tell you a mystery: this mortal body will put on immortality. Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

We work hard to distract ourselves, but the truth of our mortality will break through, sooner or later. Is there a reason for this kind of hope within you? I pray that there is.

The post Ben Sasse’s Powerful Deathbed Testimony appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration has filed two dozen lawsuits to ensure states are complying with voter list maintenance laws, including against Republican-led states and states Trump won in the 2024 election. 

The Trump administration’s Justice Department has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia, alleging they did not provide voter registration data to ensure compliance with federal law.

The lawsuits included four states with Republican governors–two of which also have a Republican secretary of state running elections, Georgia and New Hampshire. 

Also, in 2024, President Donald Trump won five of the states his Justice Department is now suing: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Georgia contends it provided the necessary voter information to the Justice Department on Dec. 8, but redacted sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers to ensure it did not fall into the wrong hands.

“Georgia is the gold standard in voter list maintenance at the state level,” said the letter to the Justice Department from Charlene McGowan, General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State.

McGowan’s letter said that in 2025, Georgia cancelled the registration of 477,883 names who were listed as “inactive” for the past two general elections. 

Georgia ties for fifth place on The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office deferred comment to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. 

Nevertheless, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Georgia on Dec. 18 to obtain the voter information. 

“Our office has complied with the Department of Justice’s request to the fullest extent of state law,” Michon Lindstrom, a spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal. 

“Hardworking Georgians can rest easy knowing their Social Security numbers and other personal information are being protected from being shared with an outside, unknown party that has no clear limits or supervision,” Lindstrom added. 

The Justice Department has sought to ensure states are complying with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which both require states to update their voter registration lists and ensure they are free of names of dead people or people listed as voters in jurisdictions where they no longer live. 

“Enforcing the nation’s elections laws is a priority in this administration and in the civil rights division,” a Justice Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal. 

“Congress gave the Justice Department authority under the NVRA, HAVA, the Civil Rights Act, and other statutes to ensure that states have proper voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls containing only eligible voters in federal elections,” the DOJ spokesperson continued.

“The recent request by the Civil Rights Division for state voter rolls is pursuant to that statutory authority, and the responsive data is being screened for ineligible voter entries.”

Several other states won by Trump in 2024 rank significantly lower than Georgia on the Heritage Election Integrity Scorecard.

Arizona and Pennsylvania are tied for a ranking of 24, Michigan ranks 31, and Nevada ranks 39. 

Of the two New England states that have Republican governors but didn’t give electoral votes to Trump in 2024, New Hampshire ranks 20 on the score card, while Vermont is tied for 48th place. 

Vermont is a very blue state where Republican Gov. Phil Scott, first elected in 2016, has been a consistent Trump critic and endorsed Trump primary opponents.

Vermont statute makes it illegal to share voter registration data with commercial entities, foreign entities, or the federal government, said Vermont Secretary Sarah Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat first elected in 2022. 

“We don’t believe the DOJ has made the case that we are in violation of election law or voter list maintenance requirements,” Copeland Hanzas told The Daily Signal. “If the lawsuit is to ensure our compliance with the law, they should have asked for access to how we ensure voting access and list maintenance.”

She said Scott stands with her against the Trump administration. 

“The governor does not have a role to play in maintenance of voter registration, but he has stood in support of our legal position,” she said. 

Last month, Scott told reporters: “I’m supportive of the secretary of state and this is down in her bailiwick, so to speak. We’ll see where it goes from here.”

Neither the offices of New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte, nor New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlon, both Republicans, responded to requests for comment for this story. 

Neither the offices of Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, nor Nevada Democrat Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar responded to inquiries for this story. 

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