The Heritage Foundation has announced that former Polish President Andrzej Duda has joined the organization as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

“I am honored to join The Heritage Foundation as a Visiting Fellow,” Duda said in a Monday press release from The Heritage Foundation.

“As President of Poland, I saw firsthand how deterrence, defense investment, strong democratic alliances, and national resolve preserve freedom,” Duda continued. “I look forward to contributing that experience to Heritage’s long-standing work advancing conservative policy solutions for Europe.”

Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, welcomed Duda to Heritage.

“President Duda governed with a clear-eyed understanding of what nations owe their people: secure borders, public safety, and the courage to stand up to self-appointed global elites,” Roberts said in a press release. “His experience defending Poland’s national sovereignty in Europe offers valuable lessons for Americans committed to restoring self-government at home.”

“We are pleased to welcome him to Heritage at a moment when the future of the West depends on nations that still remember who they serve,” Roberts added.

The Heritage Foundation said that Duda’s new position as a visiting fellow will include “work on transatlantic security, European defense readiness, democratic resilience, and policy recommendations for the future of Europe’s conservative leadership.”

Poland remains one of NATO’S most strategically important member countries. As president, Duda repeatedly challenged the European Union’s social policies while strengthening Poland’s defense posture. Like President Donald Trump, Duda has advocated for increased defense-spending commitments from NATO allies.

Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, praised Duda’s tenure as Poland’s president.

“Under President Duda’s leadership, Poland moved decisively to reinforce national defenses and improve military readiness while much of Europe hesitated,” Coates said. “His leadership is proof of the positive impact that dedicated conservatism has on our national security and global cooperation.”

In years past, The Heritage Foundation has partnered with European leaders to encourage conservative governance across the Atlantic, such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

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President Donald Trump said he will announce his appointee to chair the Federal Reserve Board of Governors next week.

“We’re going to be announcing the head of the Fed, who that will be, and it’ll be a person that will, I think, do a good job,” Trump said at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.

“We’re paying far too much interest in the Fed,” Trump said. “The Fed rates are too high, unacceptably high. We should have the lowest.”

Trump said with the Fed’s help, “we could hit numbers that have never been hit before.”

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates steady for the first time since July.

Trump is reportedly choosing between current Fed governor Chris Waller, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, BlackRock’s chief investment officer of global fixed income Rick Rieder, and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

Current Fed chair Jerome Powell is serving until May when his term expires. Powell is under investigation by Trump’s Justice Department for alleged false statements about renovations to the Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C. that have increased in cost to $2.5 billion.

The post Trump Reveals When He’ll Announce Next Fed Chair appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Fox News Channel continued its unprecedented dominance of cable news in January, marking 24 consecutive years as the top-rated network. 

The cable channel’s ratings rivaled those of broadcast TV networks and beat CBS, even though those channels are more widely available to a bigger audience. CBS suffered its worst ratings this century across multiple programs, according to Nielsen data released Tuesday. 

“This milestone reflects the dedication and hard work that has defined the network since its launch 30 years ago,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement. “We are not only leading cable, but rivaling the broadcast networks.” 

In January, Fox News averaged 2.4 million viewers in weekday primetime, topping CBS’ 2.2 million viewers. Against its cable-news competitors, Fox News commanded nearly 60% of total viewership across both total day and primetime. 

Top 5 Shows 

The five most popular shows on Fox News during the first month of the year included:  

1. “The Five,” the 5 p.m. roundtable-style discussion show which reached a total audience of 3.7 million people, and recorded an average audience of 2.765 million.  

2. “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the 8 p.m. show hosted by Jesse Watters which reached up to 3 million viewers and held an average audience of nearly 2.3 million. 

3. “Gutfeld!” which averaged an audience of 2.1 million while it reached up to 2.7 million people. 

4. “Special Report with Bret Baier,” the popular 6 p.m. nightly news show, which is in constant competition with its broadcast TV rivals. It averaged an audience of 2.024 million and reached up to 2.706 million. 

5. “The Ingraham Angle,” the 7 p.m. show with host Laura Ingraham, reaching an audience upward of 2.5 million in January.  

Beating the Competition 

Over the past several months, Fox News has challenged broadcast TV news for viewers. 

“Special Report with Bret Baier” beat CBS’ evening newscast in 15 major markets, including Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Tampa, while also topping ABC’s nightly news show in four markets. 

Fox News swept cable news’ top five programs in total viewers, led by “The Five” with 3.7 million viewers. Gutfeld’s late-night program outperformed all broadcast and cable competitors, drawing 2.8 million viewers compared to Stephen Colbert’s 2 million on CBS and Jimmy Fallon’s 1.1 million on ABC. 

Morning show “Fox & Friends” maintained its lead for the 59th consecutive month in the key 25-54 demographic, beating “CBS Mornings” in 21 major markets and topping ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 14 markets. 

Fox News also dominated weekend programming, with every hour winning in total viewers over CNN and MSNBC by double to triple digits. Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” remained the most-watched cable news show of the day, with 1.8 million viewers. The 11 a.m. show that follows, “The Sunday Briefing,” anchored by Peter Doocy and Jacqui Heinrich, earned the number two spot in cable news with an average of 1.7 million viewers. 

Fox’s viewership throughout Monday-Sunday prime time hours was up 11% from December, surpassing CNN by nearly 1.4 million viewers.  

The post Fox News Dominates Cable News for 24th Straight Year  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Marking one year since the devastating California Pacific Palisades fire, Congress is investigating the tragedy “thoroughly” as Gov. Gavin Newsom seeks $33 billion in federal funding to rebuild.

“This was not a failure of effort by firefighters,” Patrick Butler, California Fire Chief and Harbor Master testified, “It was a failure of leadership above them.” 

The Palisades fire burned in California for nearly all of January 2025. The fire reportedly burned over 23,000 acers and 7,000 structures, leading to the death of 12 people.  

Butler is not alone in his frustrations. For months, California residence have called on the state government to do more to allow rebuilding efforts.

Now, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., is looking into what has happened in the year after the fires.

“We’ve gotten, according to staff, 34,000 pages of documents,” Johnson said of the subcommittee’s efforts. “So we’ll start targeting our requests. And this is just to put everybody on notice.”

“We intend to investigate this thoroughly. We expect transparency, and if necessary, we will compel testimony, and compel document production,” said Johnson.  

“When the fire broke out, the fire hydrants were dry. How in God’s green earth could that happen,” asked Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.  

“It wasn’t firefighters who did that. The reservoirs were empty, the mayor was missing action,” said Scott, referring to LA mayor Karen Bass being on vacation in Ghana, Africa when the fires broke out.  

Newsom has demanded that DHS and FEMA grant California $33.9 billion in disaster recovery.

Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., echoed these demands during the hearing.  

“Despite numerous requests from California’s congressional delegation, the administration has yet to transmit to Congress the state request for $33 billion in a supplemental appropriation for wildlife recovery,” Blumenthal stated. 

“California is requesting $33 billion of after-action support is because of the utter incompetence and failure of LA and California elected officials,” responded Johnson, “$33 billion that should not be needed.”

“You can’t cure incompetence with money, unless you remove the incompetence,” declared Johnson, “unless you expose it, and make sure those individuals who weren’t qualified, who are incompetent are no longer serving those roles.” 

Johnson told the witnesses his main goal for this investigation is to expose what happened. He wants to “name names.”

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One week before the FBI raid of the Fulton County elections office to gather information on the 2020 election, members of the Georgia State Election Board questioned the county for alleged mismanagement of voter registration rolls. 

State officials have been demanding answers from Fulton County election staff about ongoing matters such as double voter registrants and voters registered at stores or other public locations.

The FBI is reportedly investigating the potential violation of two federal laws, one of which makes it illegal for election officials to either intimidate voters or submit fraudulent ballots or voter registration applications. The other law requires officials to keep federal election records for 22 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas signed the search warrant for the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. 

“The FBI is conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. No other information is available at this time,” the FBI National Press Office said in an email. 

Fulton County spokeswoman Regina Waller issued a statement Wednesday confirming the FBI raid. 

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. The warrant sought a number of records related to 2020 elections,” Waller said in an email to The Daily Signal Wednesday. “This operation is still actively underway. We cannot provide further information at this time.”

On Thursday, The Daily Signal contacted Waller as well as Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams, county elections board Chairwoman Sherri Allen, and three other members of the elections board. None immediately responded. 

A State Elections Board meeting in December found that 315,000 mail-in votes were improperly certified in Fulton County in 2020 because polling workers did not sign off on the tabulation. 

President Donald Trump, who lost the state of Georgia to former President Joe Biden in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, has claimed the election in Georgia and other closely-contested states was stolen. 

The Georgia State Election Board was already seeking answers from Fulton County Elections personnel. Several members expressed frustration at the Jan. 21 meeting that the county only sent one staffer who did not have answers to most of their questions. 

Among those with questions was the board’s vice chair, Janice Johnston. 

“It’s unclear what the county is doing to address the ineligible voter registrations,” Johnston told The Daily Signal before the FBI raid. “The latest information from the Election Assistance Commission survey last year [said] that the total number of registered voters is higher than the voting eligible population by 115%.”

The State Election Board is reviewing complaints that residents are registered more than once in the county, that more than 1,000 residents have non-residential addresses, and that at least three registered voters have birthdays listed on Jan. 1, 1900. 

“There was a complaint about a possible double voter. As part of that, the board is asking about the voter rolls,” Johnston said. 

The complaints were submitted by Jason Frazier, a Fulton County resident and chairman of the election integrity action group with the Georgia Republican Assembly, a conservative advocacy group. 

“There are people registered at UPS stores or FedEx stores. Some are registered at a MARTA station,” Frazier told The Daily Signal ahead of the FBI raid this week. 

In addition to the birthdays with the year 1900, he found about 500 registered voters that had no birthday. 

“It could be that Fulton County is incompetent rather than nefarious,” Frazier said. “Or the county could be nefarious, which is why it hired incompetent people.”

The post Before FBI Raid, Georgia Elections Board Questioned Fulton County Over Voter Rolls appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Eight Senate Republicans joined Democrats in blocking a six-bill funding package Thursday, greatly increasing the probability of a partial government shutdown.

The Senate failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to end debate on a package which would fund the State Department and financial regulators, as well as agencies overseeing homeland security, war, education, labor, health, and housing.

All Senate Democrats opposed ending debate on the bill, as leaders demanded restraints on federal immigration enforcement.

Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Mike Lee of Utah have criticized earmarks in the package. Scott called it a “horrible spending bill.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., voted no in order to make a motion to reconsider.

Passage would have approved the federal government’s discretionary funding for fiscal year 2026. The government’s spending authority for these areas expires at midnight on Jan. 30.

On Wednesday, Schumer and leading Democrats demanded a separate vote on the homeland security funding bill while pledging support for the remaining five bills funding other federal agencies.

Leading Democrats had previously granted their blessing to the homeland security bill, which was written by a bicameral, bipartisan group. However, they have rescinded their support since the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis during an interaction with federal officers.

Schumer also requested negotiations to insert new policies into the homeland security bill, such as requirements that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers obtain warrants for deportations and show their faces.

On Thursday morning, Politico and The Hill, citing anonymous sources, reported that Democrats were in negotiations with the White House about averting a shutdown.

Schumer’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for confirmation of the negotiations.

Thune said Wednesday morning that, instead of seeking amendments to the homeland security bill passed by the House, Democrats should negotiate with the White House.

“I think right now the conversation should be between the White House and Democrats,” Thune said.

“If there’s a way that the Democrats have things that they want, the White House could accommodate short of modifying the bill, that’s the best way to do what we need to do here, which is to make sure the government is funded.”

When asked to confirm or deny the reporting of negotiations, a White House official told The Daily Signal, “President Trump has been consistent – he wants the government to remain open, and the Administration has been working with both parties to ensure the American people don’t have to endure another shutdown. A shutdown would risk disaster response funding and more vital resources for the American people.”

After the vote, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., argued his decision to vote against cloture was consistent with his principle of never shutting down the government, saying Thursday’s defections were “part of a conversation.”

Fetterman said he believes “most people want to see” a deal involving a five-bill spending package and a funding extension for DHS.

Asked by The Daily Signal if he thought Congress could reach a deal in 24 hours, Fetterman replied, “Geez, I mean, this is the Senate. Are you crazy? I mean, I would love that, but that would be a new experience for my three years here when something normal could happen.”

The post BREAKING: Republicans Defect as Senate Funding Vote Fails, Making Shutdown Likely appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The “withdrawal” of some immigration agents from Minnesota is dependent upon state and local officials cooperating with federal law enforcement, according to Border czar Tom Homan.

If there is “common sense cooperation,” that will allow for the “draw down of the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it, draw down the number of people here,” Homan told reporters in Minneapolis Thursday.

Specifically, the border czar is asking state and local officials to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers and allow agents to arrest criminal illegal aliens in the controlled environment of a prison or jail, rather than releasing them from custody before federal agents can apprehend them.

These controlled arrests require fewer federal agents, which in turn can lead to a reduction in force in the city, Homan explained.

“One agent can arrest one bad guy in the safety and security of a jail,” Homan said, “but when you … release that public safety threat, illegal alien, back in the community, we have a job to do.”

“We’re going to arrest him, so we’re going to find him, and what happens is now we got to arrest somebody on his turf who has access to who knows what weapons. Now we got to send the whole team out.”

Homan thanked the Minnesota state prison system for honoring ICE detainers.

Since arriving in Minneapolis on Monday, Homan has met with state and local leaders, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, who, according to Homan, says county jails are allowed to “notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks, so ICE can take custody of them upon the release from the jail.”

Since his arrival, Homan says there has been “great progress” with Ellison and local sheriffs.

The Trump administration boosted the presence of federal immigration agents in Minnesota to about 3,000 over the past month. The expanded operation to arrest criminal illegal aliens has faced significant backlash from state and local leaders, as well as anti-immigration protesters.

Homan, at Trump’s request, is taking over the immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis from Customs and Border Protection commander Greg Bovino, following two fatal shootings by immigration enforcement agents in recent weeks there. Homan is reporting directly to Trump, according to the president.

A Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, on Jan. 24, and an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, on Jan. 7.

“I do not want to hear that everything that’s been done here has been perfect. Nothing’s ever perfect. Anything can be improved on, and what we’ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book,” Homan said.

Homan says operations in Minneapolis going forward will be “targeted” and will “prioritize public safety threats and national security threats.” If immigration officials come into contact with illegal aliens, they will be apprehended, Homan said, but the targeted operation will focus on illegal aliens with a criminal history.

Homan met with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Tuesday and says he will continue meeting with local leaders.

“President Trump wants this fixed,” Homan said, “and I’m going to fix it with your help.”

The post Border Czar Reveals What Must Happen in Minnesota Before ICE ‘Withdrawal’  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Parents didn’t ask for an education revolution. They were pushed into one.

When schools closed, lessons moved online, and basic expectations broke down, parents got a front-row seat to a system that too often puts bureaucracy ahead of kids. What they saw changed everything. Parents want control back, and most Americans agree.

A national poll conducted in November by the America First Policy Institute with Kellyanne Conway makes that clear. Fifty percent of voters now support eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and returning education authority to states.

Parents learned the hard way that decisions made far from the classroom don’t always serve students well. States and families are closer to kids. They see what works and what doesn’t. Returning authority doesn’t mean lowering standards. It means restoring accountability.

Just as important is how education is funded. Sixty-five percent of voters support letting education dollars follow the child. Seventy percent support universal Education Savings Accounts. Parents want flexibility, the ability to choose a school, tutoring, curriculum, or specialized services that actually fit their child.

This shift is already happening across the country. But some states are now facing a simple question: will families benefit, or will they miss out?

Take Kansas. Congress has created a federal education tax credit scholarship that states can choose to opt into. When a state opts in, private donations—supported by federal tax credits—can fund scholarships for students in that state.

Kansas hasn’t opted in yet. That doesn’t stop the program. It means those scholarship dollars are going to students in other states that have opted in, like Colorado. Twenty-six other states are already participating. There’s no good reason Kansas families should be left on the sidelines.

This isn’t about growing government. It doesn’t create a new bureaucracy. It doesn’t force anyone to do anything. Opting in simply allows Kansas students to benefit instead of watching opportunities go elsewhere. It’s about fairness and common sense.

Parents also want schools to get back to basics. Reading. Math. Science. History. Civics. They want schools that prepare kids for adulthood, not classrooms distracted by ideology. As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, teaching young people how our system works and why it matters isn’t optional. It’s mission critical.

Education reform is also part of a bigger picture. Eighty-three percent of voters support expanding tax credits and childcare supports that help families balance work and home. Strong schools depend on strong families, and families need policies that respect their time, values, and responsibilities.

School Choice Week isn’t about slogans. It’s about reality. Parents stepped up when the system failed them. They aren’t giving that responsibility back. The polling shows it. The states are acting on it. And the future of American education will be better because parents are finally being heard.

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

The post Parents Are Back in Charge, and Voters Are With Them appeared first on The Daily Signal.

State and federal authorities are investigating the shooting death of Alex Pretti, 37, at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents on Saturday, but newly released video confirms Pretti had a previous confrontation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement this month.

The video, captured by The News Movement, shows Pretti shouting at federal agents before kicking and damaging their vehicle, on Jan. 13 in Minneapolis. Agents then exited the vehicle, grabbed Pretti, and wrestled him to the ground.

The BBC’s facial recognition software confirmed Pretti’s identity within 97% accuracy, and a Pretti family representative confirmed to CBS News that the man in the video was indeed Pretti.

The representative said the family knew about the incident and that Pretti, an ICU nurse, sustained injuries but did not receive medical care for them.

In the video, Pretti shouts at agents, then proceeds to kick and damage the taillight of a government SUV before agents tackle him to the ground.

The footage also shows what appears to be a handgun in Pretti’s waistband. The video does not show whether agents detained Pretti after the incident.

A Department of Homeland Security official told CBS News that Homeland Security Investigations officials are analyzing the video.

Border Patrol agents shot and killed Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, the second fatal shooting by immigration enforcement agents in the area in less than three weeks.

The agents involved in the Saturday shooting of Pretti have been placed on leave pending an investigation.

The post VIDEO: Alex Pretti Attacked Federal Agents’ SUV 2 Weeks Before His Death appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“United in Faith and Community.”

That’s the theme of this year’s Catholic Schools week, which takes place between Jan. 25 and January 31. In 1974 the National Catholic Educational Association, or NCEA, established this tradition to typically fall during the last full week of January to coincide with the beginning of enrollment season.

NCEA states its mission on the front page of their website: “In service of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, NCEA strengthens Catholic school communities by convening all stakeholders and providing professional development, data, public policy, and resources to support faith and intellectual formation.”

Each day of the week, every Catholic elementary school across the country will join the same schedule of celebrating their Catholic identity. The schedule of themes for each day are:

Sunday: Celebrating Your Parish

Monday: Celebrating Your Community

Tuesday: Celebrating Your Students

Wednesday: Celebrating the Nation

Thursday: Celebrating Vocations

Friday: Celebrating Faculty, Staff, and Volunteers

Saturday: Celebrating Families

The breakdown of how schools will celebrate their identity highlights why Catholic schools are unique.

First, each Catholic school is tied to a parish, or collection of parishes. These are the heart of the school because the reason why Catholic schools exist is to offer a daily and organic way for students and staff to grow in their faith. Being a Christian means that one devotes his or her entire life to Christ. All aspects of their lives are his–including one’s intellectual life. The parish is the center of worship for the school. The heart of worship is sacrifice. So, all schools offer praise and worship to God by taking intentional time to be with Him in prayer each day.

Catholic schools are also unique because of the way they build community. There are events for parents to socialize as well as an ingrained manner for families to get to know each other because of how these schools are often smaller in size than the large public schools that surround them. Many families have several children so parents can meet other parents who have kids around the same age but also be around families that have older children so those kids can mentor them.

Summarizing the way that the rest of this Catholic Schools Week will be celebrated, you can see that the way they champion our country and the focus they place on finding one’s vocation as particularly important.

Catholic schools advocate that America is the most beautiful place to live. The United States protects our religious freedom. It was founded on the Judeo-Christian values that are taught inside their walls each day. Catholic schools seek to promote discipleship but also patriotism because it is through one’s relationship with God that one begins to see that we have an obligation to the common good.

Finally, Catholic schools will focus an entire day on vocations. This is critical for the life of every believer and every human person. The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare which means “to summon.” The Church believes, rooted in the way that Christ called his disciples and the way that God called people in the Old Testament, that every single person has a calling in their life that He is summoning them to. The large-scale vocation of a person is to either married life or religious life as a priest, brother, or nun. No matter which one a person is called to, every vocation, or calling from God, is identified with sacrifice.

Catholic schools advocate that if we can place students in a place to meet Christ, grow in the intellectual life, and be emboldened by a strong community they will discover their pathway to holiness–their vocation. This avenue for their own personal sanctification will be intrinsically tied to how God is asking them to sacrifice for the world and make it more whole.

All of the above is a great promotion for the power of a Catholic school education. For me, the words above are not merely descriptions. I experienced it firsthand. This came through my formation in Catholic schools from pre-k through college and graduate school and my current experience of teaching at a Catholic high school as well as having my children being enrolled in a school that transmits the faith in everything it does.

The power and impact of Catholic education comes from being surrounded by faith and being lifted up by the friendships forged in pursuit of the same goal: union with God and the salvation of the world.

What greater goal could a school possibly have?

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The post Celebrating Catholic Schools appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The unrest surrounding federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis did not arise by accident. It is the product of a combustible mix: deliberate obstruction by Democrat officials, wall-to-wall legacy media coverage and two tragic incidents that were mishandled by senior figures inside the Trump administration.

Together, these forces have produced exactly the chaos critics warned about—and have now forced the administration into a public course correction.

On Tuesday, the administration announced that Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief overseeing operations in Minnesota, has been removed from his post and is expected to return to El Centro, California.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is reportedly under intense scrutiny as well, following her department’s handling of two fatal encounters in which American citizens were shot by federal agents under disputed circumstances.

Those failures have placed the administration on the defensive and handed political momentum to its opponents.

But the story does not begin with those shootings. It begins with the systematic obstruction of federal law by Democrat leaders in blue states and cities.

For months, Democrat officials have sought to block cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while publicly pressuring the administration to scale back deportations altogether. This has collided with the political reality of immigration enforcement.

While “mass deportation” has long been a feature of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, public support has always been far more specific. Americans overwhelmingly favor removing illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes—rape, assault, arson and murder—not indiscriminate sweeps.

Early in the administration, enforcement largely reflected that reality. Criminal offenders were the priority. But as blue states increasingly refused to cooperate with ICE, that strategy became harder to sustain.

In jurisdictions that work with federal authorities, local police can flag immigration status after an arrest and transfer dangerous offenders to ICE custody safely inside jails. In sanctuary cities, that option disappears.

The result is predictable. Suspects may be released back into the community, and ICE agents are forced to pursue targets in public spaces—knocking on doors, making street arrests, and triggering confrontations. Those confrontations produce protests, viral videos and disturbing images that dominate television screens.

This is the paradox of law enforcement: Americans say they want law and order, but they recoil from seeing it enforced in real time. The work is messy, tense and often ugly.

That discomfort is not unique to immigration enforcement. Police officers face similar backlash every time videos circulate showing them intervening on what is often the worst day of someone’s life.

When those images include disputed deaths—particularly of American citizens—the effect is magnified. Media narratives quickly broaden from individual incidents to sweeping indictments of law enforcement itself.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel offered a vivid example this week, portraying federal agents as “mask-wearing goons” committing “one atrocity after another” in Minneapolis. His monologue described families being terrorized, “babies being tear-gassed,” and Americans being targeted for little more than “having an accent or whatever.”

It was a story designed to provoke outrage—and one that Democrats’ obstruction has helped make plausible.

Kimmel went further, misrepresenting key facts surrounding the shooting of Renee Good, weaving partial truths into a broader fiction that framed the incident as emblematic of lawless tyranny.

The Department of Homeland Security’s own missteps—prematurely labeling cases as acts of domestic terrorism—made that narrative easier to sell. But Kimmel’s conclusion was not limited to those failures. It amounted to a rejection of immigration enforcement itself.

Equally misleading was his suggestion that this chaos is unfolding everywhere. It is not. The disturbances are concentrated in blue cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE. In red cities, where cooperation exists, enforcement occurs quietly and without spectacle.

For voters trying to assess the situation honestly, the dynamic is deeply frustrating. State and local officials obstruct federal law, enforcement becomes riskier and more visible, and then federal agents are blamed when things go wrong.

Public opinion, however, does not pause for nuance. As CNN analyst Harry Enten recently noted, ICE’s approval ratings have sharply declined.

That political reality has now forced the administration to recalibrate. Border czar Tom Homan—long viewed as the most disciplined and clear-eyed voice on enforcement—has been put front and center. From the beginning, Homan has emphasized investigations, lawful process, and deescalation where possible. He has often appeared to be the adult in the room.

Whether that recalibration succeeds will depend in large part on Minnesota’s leaders and Minneapolis officials. Democrats clearly sense momentum. They believe obstruction is paying dividends. That belief should give pause.

History offers a warning. In 2020, police were vilified, departments were defunded, and law enforcement briefly became politically radioactive. Then crime surged, public opinion snapped back, and Democrats found themselves underwater on policing for years.

Minneapolis may follow the same trajectory. Democrats may win the immediate battle—turning ICE into a temporary villain and shifting attention away from illegal immigration. But in doing so, they risk losing the war. When consequences arrive, voters tend to remember who dismantled enforcement, not who defended it.

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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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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized Vice President JD Vance for his Holocaust Remembrance Day post on X, despite shocking similarities between the two men’s posts.

Vance took to X on Tuesday to memorialize Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we’re also capable of unspeakable brutality,” Vance wrote.

“And we promise never again to go down the darkest path.”

In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, however, Shapiro claimed that Vance’s post was insufficient.

“Remember that the reason why we memorialize the Holocaust on this day, really, essentially, is to never forget,” Shapiro claimed. “And the reason you want to never forget is so that we never live through that atrocity again.”

“Part of never forgetting is making sure that the facts of what happened are recited, are remembered. The fact that JD Vance couldn’t bring himself to acknowledging that 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler and by the Nazis speaks volumes,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro’s Holocaust Remembrance Day post, however, looked strikingly similar and also did not include the 6 million figure he referenced.

“This Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pause to reflect on a horrific chapter in human history — a period of incredible darkness for our world, consumed by hate and violence against millions of people on the basis of their faith, their background, and their beliefs,” Shapiro wrote.

“Today, perhaps more than ever before, we know how much work is still left to do. Amidst the rising antisemitism we’re seeing across this country, it’s on us to rededicate ourselves to combatting hate and violence wherever we see it — and to speak with moral clarity in its face,” Shapiro added.

Shapiro, a potential 2028 presidential contender, also claimed that Vance, “has offered comfort, really, to the antisemites on the right who are infecting the Republican Party.”

Vance, however, in a December 2025 interview told Sohrab Ahmari of UnHerd, “Antisemitism, and all forms of ethnic hatred have no place in the conservative movement.”

“Whether you’re attacking somebody because they’re white or because they’re black or because they’re Jewish, I think it’s disgusting,” the vice president added.

A Vance spokesperson shared the following statement with The Daily Signal:

After he faced criticism for not mentioning Jews in his post on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Josh Shapiro desperately tried to shift blame to the Vice President. This is next level hypocritical deflection from Shapiro, a misguided plea for attention from a political lightweight.

Nevertheless, Vance’s post has been the source of internet controversy because it does not explicitly mention Jewish people.

“Any Holocaust Remembrance Day post that doesn’t even mention Jews is simply unacceptable. It’s as simple as that,” writer Rachel Moiselle posted on X.

Alex Bruesewitz, a former Trump campaign official, shot back that “this is an insane standard and a BS attack.”

“The Vice President literally posted a photo of himself at the Second Lady at Dachau. He has been an incredible friend to both the Jewish community and Israel,” Bruesewitz added.

Others were quick to point out that Vance was not the only one who did not explicitly mention Jewish people in Holocaust Remembrance Day posts, though they have been spared the same backlash.

“Is anyone going to lose it at Wicker like they did at JD?” conservative activist Jack Posobiec said on X.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., posted on X that, “On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we honor the millions of people who lost their lives and the survivors who tell their stories. We will never forget.”

Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence posted, “Never Again Is Now. We Must Remember And Learn From The Past To Protect The Future,” without pushback.

The post Josh Shapiro Criticizes Vance Despite Similar Holocaust Remembrance Day Posts appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The town of Springfield, Ohio, unexpectedly found itself in the national spotlight in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. At question was the town’s sizable community of Haitian migrants, which had grown mightily during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

And Springfield might soon be in the national spotlight once again because Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the United States is set to end on Feb. 3.

Will these Haitians head home, or will it fall to the Trump administration to enforce the law and remove the migrants?

Springfield in the Spotlight

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” President Donald Trump, then the GOP presidential nominee, said at the Sept. 10, 2024, presidential debate. “They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Democrat nominee and former Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, chuckled.

The president’s comments on the debate stage perhaps marked the zenith in the contrast between Trump and Harris on the issue of immigration.

The day before the debate, then-Republican nominee for vice president JD Vance posted on X, “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”

While the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets and other animals remains controversial, what is not disputed is how the influx of Haitian migrants strained city resources.

Simon Hankinson, a senior fellow for the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, researched the issues in Springfield and went to see them with his own eyes.

Hankinson spoke to The Daily Signal about his findings.

While in Springfield, Hankinson visited a county services building. “There were a lot of people in line to sign on for welfare benefits. Every single one was Haitian,” he said.

This was unsurprising to Hankinson. Speaking in terms of “net fiscal effects,” Hankinson further explained that “if you look at unskilled workers who don’t speak English, who have dependents, they almost always are a net loss to the fisc. in the short term, [though] maybe their children or grandchildren will be contributors.”

“But in all the studies that I’ve seen show that, if you’re a 30-year-old rocket scientist with good health who speaks English, you’re going to be a net contributor of half a million dollars over your lifetime,” Hankinson added. “If you’re a 25-year-old or 50-year-old unskilled laborer, you don’t speak English, you have dependents, you’re going to be a net taker for probably the same amount of money.”

While Hankinson acknowledged that many Haitians may be employed and paying taxes, he also noted that “those taxes are in no way going to make up for the services, free medical care, housing, education, and on and on that they’re taking out of not only the Ohio budget, but also the government budget.”

“Now with refugees, that’s a price that the United States agrees to take,” Hankinson pointed out, also bringing up the Biden administration in how this amounted to bringing in 1.5 million people under a parole program, or TPS.

“None of those calculations are made,” Hankinson added, pointing out that “people… basically get a free ride.”

The Push to End TPS

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost was also among those sounding the alarm last year about immigration policies under Biden. In September 2024, Yost released a press release that his office was seeking legal avenues to stop the federal government, then under the Biden administration, “from sending an unlimited number of migrants to Ohio communities.”

“Springfield has swollen by more than a third due to migrants,” Yost said.

When reached for comment, Yost’s office directed The Daily Signal to a press release from last January, when the attorney general led 18 states in seeking a federal review of countries granted TPS status.

In his letter to then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security-Designee Kristi Noem, Yost emphasized the temporary nature of the TPS program: “Congress made these designations temporary for a reason – they were never supposed to last 20-plus years,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security also emphasized the temporary nature of TPS in a statement shared with The Daily Signal.

“Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “The Trump administration is restoring integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe.”

Last November, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced TPS would be coming to an end on Feb. 3.

“If you are an alien who is currently a beneficiary of TPS for Haiti, you should prepare to depart if you have no other lawful basis for remaining in the United States,” the release said.

Haitians were advised to use the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Home Mobile app to self-deport, which includes a $1,000 bonus, complimentary airfare, and “potential future opportunities for legal immigration to the United States.”

The deadline for Haitians comes after legal battles for Noem looking to end TPS for Haitians and other nationalities. Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court paused a lower court ruling, allowing the process of ending TPS to move forward. The Feb. 3 date was set by the courts.

Biden Created Big Problems

McLaughlin told The Daily Signal that the Biden administration policies had taken a bad problem and made it worse.

“For decades the TPS program has been abused, exploited, and politicized as a de facto amnesty program. Its use has been all the more dangerous given the millions of unvetted illegal aliens the Biden Administration let into this country,” McLaughlin claimed.

“Secretary Noem will use every legal option at the Department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans,” McLaughlin added.

Hankinson claimed that “Biden brought in 1.5 million people, completely illegally, in my mind,” adding it was “with absolutely no congressional justification,” through these kinds of programs.

The presence of these illegal migrants changed lives in Ohio communities forever.

Hermanio Joseph, an immigrant from Haiti who crossed over illegally under Biden’s term, was driving with an invalid license in Lawrenceville, Ohio, on Aug. 22, 2024, which resulted in tragedy. Joseph struck a school bus full of children, killing Aiden Clark, 11, and injuring many more.

Will They Stay or Will They Go?

There’s an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Haitians in Springfield, according to the Dayton Daily News, which also noted, “It’s unknown exactly how many people will be affected” by the TPS order.

With the TPS deadline nearing, however, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has raised concerns about how the Haitians’ departure could impact business.

“As I talk to employers, I know what’s going to happen on that Feb. 3 day,” the governor said, according to a Dayton Daily News report. “That is employers tell me on that date many of these—maybe most—of the Haitians who are working there will no longer be legal. Once they go from legal, which they are now, to not being legal, they cannot employ them.”

“You’re going to have a lot of unfilled jobs,” DeWine continued.

But DeWine could not say just how many Haitian migrants lived in his state for sure: “You’re going to have, whatever the consequences are of 10,000—or who knows how many, no one knows really—people who are no longer being able to be employed.”

“They want to work. Many of them are raising families. Some of them have children who are citizens. So, yeah, this is not a good situation,” DeWine added.

“When you talk to business men and women who are employing them, what they tell me has not changed. It continues to be, ‘we need them to work. They are reliable. Yes, there are language challenges. Yes, there are cultural challenges. But they show up,'” DeWine said, according to the Statehouse News Bureau.

When reached for comment by The Daily Signal, the governor’s office shared that it “does not have additional comments beyond the Governor’s previous statements.”

As for whether DHS and the governor have been in touch, McLaughlin communicated that “DHS responds to official correspondence through official channels.”

The Feb. 3 deadline is just days away. Will these estimated thousands of people leave, or stay put and remain in the country illegally in the shadows? What happens could be a test case for Ohio, and the country.

The post Ohio’s Haitians Made Headlines in 2024 Election, But Will They Head Home in 2026? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Every day, it seems anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement agitators perpetrate a new atrocity against innocent people, and Democrats demonizing ICE arguably bear some of the blame.

On Sunday, they effectively laid siege to the Home2 Suites by Hilton Hotel, smashing the windows and spraypainting anti-ICE slogans, leading both state police and federal agents to respond.

On Tuesday, Virginia Commonwealth University Health announced that it fired a nurse after she released social media videos urging medical providers to use a “sabotage tactic” against ICE, preparing syringes with saline or succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant that can cause temporary partial paralysis.

In arguably the most infuriating example, agitators invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, in the middle of a service, and effectively shut it down. They reportedly screamed in the faces of crying children, prevented parents from getting to their children, and stopped terrified parishioners from leaving. They justified this by noting that one of the pastors works for ICE.

The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, at the hands of immigration enforcement have contributed to the climate of hostility against ICE, but those incidents arguably do not explain this extreme hatred.

What leads people to think it’s acceptable to target ICE so much that they’re willing to harass innocents?

Seven extreme statements from Democrat officials might provide an answer.

1. Tim Walz

“[President] Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., said in a commencement ceremony at the University of Minnesota in May 2025. The Gestapo was the secret state police in Nazi Germany that helped carry out the Holocaust that killed an estimated 6 million Jews, and others.

Walz more recently threatened to deploy his state’s National Guard to oppose ICE, and suggested President Trump had launched a “war” against his state.

2. JB Pritzker

Gov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill., also suggested that federal agents enforcing immigration law was akin to the oppression of Nazi Germany.

“How do you prove to somebody that you’re a U.S. citizen? The color of your skin? That’s not the country we live in,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to walk around with papers, the way that they did in the early days of Nazi Germany, to prove that you belong.”

Pritzker stood by the comparison on Tuesday in an appearance on the “I’ve Had It” podcast.

“Maybe you heard about a year ago, I think it got a lot of national play when I talked about defending Illinois and the fact that we’re living in a world that looks a whole lot like the early 30s in Germany,” he said. “People on the Right attacked me and said, ‘How dare you!'”

Now, he said, “A lot more people … among Democrats are saying yeah this feels a lot like Germany in the 1930s.” He repeatedly compared Trump to Hitler throughout the podcast episode.

3. Ilhan Omar

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called ICE an “occupying force.”

When U.S. Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, Omar described the incident as “an execution by immigration enforcement.” She said ICE and Border Patrol are “terrorizing our communities, violating rights, and taking lives with zero accountability.” She accused Trump of turning the state into a “war zone where unchecked federal forces murder our neighbors.”

While Pretti’s death remains under investigation and the Border Patrol agents involved have been placed on leave, Omar’s rhetoric demonizes ICE beyond what the facts suggest.

4. Jason Crow

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., wouldn’t rebut Pritzker’s Trump-Hitler comparison.

When CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked Crow about Pritzker’s claim, he said, “This president is in chapter one of the autocrat‘s playbook. There‘s no doubt in my mind.”

5. Jim McGovern

“Trump is using ICE like a secret police force,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., wrote on X. “They’ve used Gestapo-like tactics to terrorize communities for nearly a year, and now they’re literally killing people.”

6. Gavin Newsom

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, compared America under Trump to foreign dictators before signing a law prohibiting ICE from wearing masks while carrying out raids in the Golden State. (ICE has started wearing masks in response to record threats and attacks against federal agents.)

“This is about the secret police,” Newsom said in a September press conference. “We’re not North Korea Mr. President, we’re not the Soviet Union, we’re the United States of America, and we’re pushing back against these authoritarian tendencies and actions of this administration.”

7. Mark Warner

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., compared ICE to the secret police of Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro.

“This relates to Venezuela in the sense that sort of authoritarian, fascist state is what was existing,” he said.

These Democrats haven’t attacked a hotel, urged nurses to paralyze ICE agents, or invaded a church, but their hyperbolic condemnations of immigration enforcement arguably contributed to the climate of hatred that gives agitators permission to harass innocents in the name of fighting Nazis.

If ICE is the modern-day Gestapo, their reasoning goes, that justifies an aggressive response—even if that means harassing innocent people.

The post 7 Extreme Democrat Attacks on ICE Help Explain Why Americans Are Losing Their Minds appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The current obstruction and violence against federal agents trying to expel illegal aliens—committed by far-left activists and encouraged by left-wing politicians—is unacceptable.

In June 2025, in Los Angeles, agents carrying out due process against illegal aliens were assaulted. Mayor Karen Bass blamed federal enforcement for her city’s lawless protests, only ordering a curfew when dozens of businesses were looted.

In September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, arresting many criminal illegal aliens in the face of violent protests with no support from Mayor Brandon Johnson or Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

Last October, a brawl occurred outside a Portland, Oregon, ICE facility between Antifa and conservative activists. In Portland, officers shot two alleged members of Venezuela’s deadly Tren de Aragua gang who had attempted to run them over.

And we all know what happened in Minneapolis between an ICE agent and slain activist Renee Good on Jan. 18. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz responded with a mix of falsehood and hyperbole. He ignored the fact that the ICE agents were there to arrest illegal immigrants—usually highly dangerous recidivist criminals—pursuant to U.S. law.

Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Frey dialed up the rhetoric, encouraged protests, and supplied no effective state and city law enforcement assistance to the Department of Homeland Security. The ingredients were there for another senseless death, and a week later, ICE agents shot Alex Pretti in another confused melee between protesters and federal agents.

President Donald Trump has options.

Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows him to deploy federal troops in instances of “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the U.S. government to protect federal agents and property.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows him to deploy troops to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in a state.

Immigration enforcement is a federal duty. The Constitution’s supremacy clause means that federal law overrides state law. No governor or mayor, no matter how left-wing their own policies, can refuse to allow federal agents to do their duty.

Private citizens who impede federal agents (or local police) from doing their jobs are committing a felony. Noncitizens who do so carry the risk not only of criminal charges, but also of deportation resulting from a conviction.

The Trump administration must show that they will not be intimidated by mobs, nor threatened by grandstanding local politicians.

But once that point is made, DHS and ICE need to change gears to avoid falling into the obvious PR trap that’s been set for them. For ICE, arresting dangerous felons in tough neighborhoods in cities run by left-wing mayors is a triple threat.

First, agents must worry about the aliens themselves, who may be armed and dangerous.

Second, they have to watch out for activist mobs impeding their vehicles, throwing things, assaulting officers and possibly worse.

Third, they must travel in large numbers, knowing that local police are forbidden from, unwilling, or incapable of protecting them or coming to their aid.

That means every operation is expensive, labor-intensive and high-risk. Everything is being filmed, from every angle. Every move by every officer is scrutinized by millions of armchair social-justice warriors, all now suddenly experts on forensics and tactics.

Trump’s base will support tough tactics, while the Left will oppose any enforcement. Moderate and swing voters will be turned off by the inevitable injuries and deaths.

If they watch or read legacy media, events will always be spun so that law enforcement looks bad, whatever the facts. And though his officials will rally round their agents, they will inevitably—and may already have—make mistakes in the heat of action.

So, what can ICE do differently in 2026?

More workplace enforcement and targeted arrests in unpredictable locations and times.

To help them, technology has advanced considerably since Trump’s first term, and AI is a force multiplier for routine investigations. ICE is spending “more than $300 million … for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work,” according to Politico.

In using identification and surveillance technology, DHS faces opposition from not only open-border activists, but also conservatives with privacy concerns. But it’s a fight worth having.

Facial recognition and social media-combing technology can be calibrated to tag only noncitizens in the DHS database.

ICE is also investing millions in so-called skip tracing technology, which can more easily identify illegal aliens while leaving American citizens alone.

U.S. consulates overseas are using AI to screen the social media of visa applicants, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced a “new vetting center [that] will focus on powerful screening resources.” ICE should be able to access all that information, as well as that of other federal agencies, like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Citizens’ data is protected by privacy laws, but noncitizens, particularly those here illegally, have no right to expect that one part of the government will keep information from another.

Trump needs to “go big” to show the likes of Walz and Frey how the Constitution works. Then DHS should go about the business of mass deportation with more deliberation and subtlety—for the long haul.

Americans need to see law enforcement normalized once again.

Originally published by Fox News

The post Go Big, Then Go Smart: Trump, ICE, and the Law. How to Skip the Left’s PR Trap. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

An Iranian-born pastor told The Daily Signal that four members of his family were shot in Iran during the recent protests against the regime, and that the death toll of protesters may exceed current estimates.

“Just imagine if four in one family can be shot, imagine the scale of the massacre,” said Ramin Parsa, an Iranian-born pastor currently living in Jerusalem.

Anti-regime protests began in Iran on Dec. 28. Initially, authorities were reported to be using pellet guns to disperse crowds, but then began using live ammunition.  

The number of protesters killed is unknown due to limited information coming out of Iran amid regime-imposed internet blackouts, but estimates of the death toll range from 6,000 to more than 30,000.

Some, including Parsa, argue the number killed could be even higher.  

Parsa, 40, was born in Iran but, fearing for his safety, fled in 2006 after converting to Christianity as a young man. Parsa now lives in Israel, but has received some information from his family in Iran over the past month.  

“I talked to my brother for two minutes,” Parsa said, adding the call had to be short because “if it’s longer, they can listen to the conversation,” referring to authorities loyal to the Iranian regime.  

All four of Parsa’s family members survived their wounds, but he said his older brother was arrested after being shot. The family does not know his condition.  

Parsa’s nephew, who he says is 12 or 13, was shot with a pellet gun. The family found a private doctor willing to remove the pellets since “people can’t go to hospitals, because they’re arresting the wounded people.” 

The protests are driven by dissatisfaction over Iran’s government, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and frustration over the nation’s struggling economy. 

The anti-regime protests are not as large as they were earlier in the month, according to Parsa, because there is an “unannounced curfew, meaning that they don’t tell you there’s a curfew, but if you come out, they can arrest you, or searching you, or they even shoot you.”

‘Begging’ for Help

Parsa says the Iranian citizens are “wishing that Israel and America would do something.”    

The “Iranian people are the only people I know that they’re begging a foreign government to come attack them, to free them,” he said.  

On Jan. 13, President Donald Trump encouraged Iranians to “keep protesting,” telling them, “Help is on its way.”   

On Wednesday morning, Trump issued a warning to the Iranian regime, telling it, “Time is running out” to make a deal over its nuclear program.  

The U.S. has moved a significant amount of military assets into the region, including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group.  

Growing Up in Iran

Since the end of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Iranian people have lived under a legal code based on Sharia law. Growing up in Iran, Parsa says he can remember shouting “Death to America, Death to Israel” with his classmates each morning.  

While Parsa says he grew up hearing that Islam was good, he questioned the faith as a teen.

‘OK, Jesus’

When he was 19, Parsa heard someone telling a story on the radio of being suicidal, and then crediting a Christian church with changing his whole life. A few weeks later, Parsa was watching television through satellite, explaining that despite being illegal, many people in Iran have satellites that give them access to information broadcast outside Iran.  

“I came across a channel, somebody was talking about Jesus, that He loves me,” Parsa recalled.  

“I said, ‘OK, Jesus, if it’s true that you are the Son of God, you died for me, you rose from the dead, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it’s true, okay, come into my life.’ … And the moment I say that, I felt a heat went through my left hand and it went through all my body, and I started shaking, and I started crying, and I felt this love I’d never felt before.” 

Parsa told his family members what had happened to him and they also chose to follow Christ. 

He discovered the Bible online and began to read the Gospel of Matthew. He discovered that Jesus was a Jew from Israel and “immediately” says he “began to have a love for Jews and for Christians.”  

Parsa began to write down portions of Scripture and hand them out on the streets, but after he was stabbed while doing so, he knew he needed to leave Iran for his safety.  

Pastor Parsa

Parsa was smuggled out of the country in 2006 and first traveled to Turkey before he was given the opportunity to move to America. He attended a Bible college for two years before moving to California and pastoring a church for the Iranian community there.  

In 2020, Parsa met his wife, an Israeli woman, through her artwork depicting unity between Iranians and Israelis. The two were married in America in December 2020.

Today, Parsa and his wife live in Jerusalem and he is doing humanitarian work in Israel. Parsa says he and the people if Iran “are still hoping” the U.S. will take action and the nation “will be free.” 

The post Pastor Tells of ‘Massacre’ Under Iranian Regime appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt is running for mayor of Los Angeles after losing his home last year in the devastating Palisades fire. 

In an interview Wednesday with “Fox & Friends,” Pratt said, “I was driving away from my home and watching on the security cameras … watching my son’s bed engulfed in flames.” 

This tragedy is what led Pratt to run for mayor. 

He’s facing off against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, who seeking a second term, and 20 other declared candidates. The election will take place June 2, with a runoff Nov. 3 if no candidate receives a majority. 

Why He’s Running for Mayor

Pratt’s home, his parents’ home, and the homes of his neighbors were all destroyed in the California wildfires—fires he believes were preventable and the result of poor city leadership. 

“Once people are burning alive, it’s a whole another tier in my mind. It’s not just negligence,” Pratt said. 

For Pratt, the devastation revealed what he views as a failure of leadership during a moment of crisis, one that left residents without protection or accountability. 

Pratt never sought elected office. He noticed a need in his community and, as a citizen, sought to fulfill his responsibility. 

“I was waiting for somebody to step up,” he said, “and nobody did.” 

Elaine Culotti, California columnist for The Daily Signal and a Palisades resident, said in a recent video that “We have been absolutely left to fend for ourselves, and what I would like to say on that is, well, if that is the case, then we should do that. We should fend for ourselves. And what does that mean? Should we take back our Pacific Palisades from Los Angeles and from the state?” 

Pratt said that absence of leadership during the fires reflects broader problems facing the city. 

Los Angeles is in one of its darkest times, Pratt believes. He points to an epidemic of homelessness, drug use, and animal abuse. 

Pratt’s Criticism of City Leadership

At the time of the fire, Bass was on a trip to Africa. Pratt criticized the mayor for warning the city of the possibility of wildfires and then leaving the country. He promised, “As mayor of L.A., I’m never going to leave the city. Period.” 

Another concern arose when it was discovered that Bass’s text messages from the emergency had been deleted. 

“She has some special auto-deleting texts that the [Los Angels] Times couldn’t even get. So, what are in those text messages that were deleted?” Pratt questioned. 

The Palisades fire destroyed 6,837 structures and damaged another 973, leaving entire neighborhoods leveled. According to CalFire, 12 civilians were killed after the fire started Jan. 7, 2025, and took nearly a month to contain. 

“There are only two houses” in the Palisades that have been cleared for residents to move back in, Pratt claimed, framing the stalled recovery as evidence of deep failures in city leadership. 

Pratt ended his interview by paying tribute to his Christian faith. “God, show me some signs here on what I’m supposed to do. And that’s again why I’m running for mayor.” 

The post Spencer Pratt: Fueled by Fire, Running for Mayor  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Protests over two immigration enforcement-involved shootings have highlighted the agitators organizing against federal agents on the ground in Minnesota, and the organization Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Accíon Latina, or COPAL Education Fund, is a major player.

COPAL describes itself as a group that works “to improve the quality of life of Latine families.” It also hosts a hotline for people to call when spotting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at work. The group also set up the Immigrant Defense Network, which trains “legal observers” to watch and report ICE.

The New York Times described COPAL as being “on the front lines of anti-ICE operations.” Francisco Segovia, COPAL’s executive director, described the confrontations with ICE as like “being, maybe, in the middle of a civil war.”

Protests of immigration enforcement have continued in the Twin Cities region following recent fatal shootings by federal agents of protesters. Anti-ICE agitators also invaded a church in St. Paul to stage a protest on Jan. 18.

An ICE agent recently shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, after her car appeared to make contact with the agent. In response, anti-ICE agitators, who chanted “Justice for Renee Good!” invaded Cities Church in St. Paul mid-service, allegedly separating parents from their children.

Then on Saturday, U.S. Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti, also 37, as he filmed officers with a cell phone and appeared to intervene with law enforcement officers.

COPAL coordinates anti-ICE actions, and it has received funding from various sources, including your tax dollars.

‘Legal Observers?’

A “handbook for constitutional observers,” co-branded with the Immigrant Defense Network and COPAL, instructs trainees on how to observe and document ICE agents at work.

The handbook specifically states, “Do NOT obstruct an arrest under ANY circumstances,” and instructs observers “Don’t run or resist” if stopped by law enforcement.

After the Department of Homeland Security surged immigration agents to the Twin Cities in December, various agitators have opposed ICE agents by disrupting their work with whistles, using their cars and bodies to prevent the arrest of illegal aliens, and more.

COPAL’s executive director Francisco Segovia told the New York Times that the group does not “urge” trainees to blow whistles when ICE agents are present, but also acknowledged that “we provide whistles.”

“We provide copies of those books, and that’s part of the training,” he said of the observer handbook. “The whistle is part of that.”

“For instance, if you, as a citizen, observe the presence of ICE in your neighborhood, you can call the help line and say: I have witnessed this. That information comes to us. We assess the facts, and then we activate constitutional observers,” he said.

The Left’s Dark Money Network

Some of the same “dark money” foundations that bankrolled the leftist groups that shaped policy in the administration of former President Joe Biden have also supported COPAL for causes including environmental and health care programs.

New Venture Fund, one of the leftist nonprofits that worked with Arabella Advisors and now works with Sunflower Services, gave COPAL $560,000 for “environmental programs” between 2019 and 2022.

Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit aligned with New Venture Fund, sent COPAL’s 501(c)(4) nonprofit $185,000 for “environmental programs” between 2021 and 2023.

The Tides Foundation, a left-leaning pass-through foundation, sent COPAL a combined $50,000 for “healthy individuals and communities” in 2020 and 2022.

New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, and the Tides Foundation have also contributed to the Center for American Progress, which shaped policy under Biden and called for the Department of Homeland Security to treat “immigration as an asset to be managed rather than a crime to be enforced against.”

“Each of these grants supported environmental and democracy-related work and are completely unrelated to ICE observations,” a Sixteen Thirty Fund representative told The Daily Signal. “That said, STF unequivocally supports the constitutional rights of people in this country to peacefully protest and observe the actions of law enforcement in their communities.”

The left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy gave COPAL’s 501(c)(3) $119,725 between 2023 and 2024. It gave COPAL’s 501(c)(4) $46,000 for “innovations (fight back),” “climate justice,” and “basebuilding-training,” between 2021 and 2023.

COPAL, Paid By Your Tax Dollars

Americans’ tax dollars have also supported COPAL.

The Department of Labor awarded COPAL a $1 million grant beginning in January 2023 to provide “job placement, workforce training and postsecondary access,” along with “advocacy and education of worker’s rights” to help “immigrants” and to address “glaring inequities” from the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant ended June 30, 2025, after the Department of Labor had given COPAL $994,983.

The program aimed to serve 400 people, prioritizing those who face barriers to employment and those who have authorization to work in the U.S., targeting low- to moderate-income first, second, and third generation immigrants “from the Latinx and African diasporas.”

A Labor Department spokesperson noted that the Biden administration approved the grant under its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion priorities, but the Trump administration is clawing back some of the funding.

“The money remaining is being de-obligated and returned to the Treasury,” the spokesperson told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Labor has made a concerted effort to end DEI grants and programs and instead return to a merit-based system.”

According to IRS filings for Alianza Americas, a left-leaning network of pro-immigrant groups, COPAL received $238,504 as a “subrecipient” of grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2022.

The National Foundation for the CDC gave COPAL $246,250 for “emergency response fund coronavirus” in the year ending June 2021, marked as funding from the government. The foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works with the CDC, gave COPAL another $89,733 for “CBO support to increase vaccination coverage” in the year ending June 2024, marked as funding from the nonprofit, not the government.

“Our mission is focused on improving health,” Amy Tolchinsky, associate vice president for communications at the CDC Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. She said all funding from the CDC Foundation to COPAL was “restricted to improving the health at the community level in Minnesota.”

“The Foundation did not provide support used for other non-health activities, and the organization could not legally use our funding for any other activities,” she added.

The philanthropic arm of UCare, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health group, gave COPAL $100,000 for a “holistic program for providing support to Latino families and workers’ access to stable housing, employment/benefits, and healthcare” in 2023.

Last year, UCare announced that it would be shutting down. An Inspector General report found that UCare had received $4.7 million in Medicare overpayments, in part because it reportedly billed for cancer, stroke and sepsis even though the diseases had not been diagnosed. UCare said the findings were “fundamentally flawed” and did not consider underpayments.

Environment and Health Care?

COPAL receives funding for environmental and health care work, but these initiatives arguably focus on politics and immigration.

COPAL claims “environmental justice” as one of its “focus areas,” and it presents three goals under this heading: “base building,” which means strengthening “the power and influence of [black, indigenous, and people of color] communities in Minnesota;” “structural change at the policy level;” and “shift the public narrative” by centering “impacted voices.” In other words, its environmental efforts appear more focused on activism and messaging than directly addressing the environment.

COPAL claims as a “core issue” “forced climate migration,” which attributes migration from Central and South America to an ostensibly manmade “climate crisis.”

COPAL presents “Health and Wellness” as another “focus area,” and presents a two-part strategy: “connecting individuals with essential resources” and “advocating for systemic changes to ensure health and wellness services are accessible to everyone.”

While the organization may have performed important health work during the COVID-19 pandemic, money is fungible, so grants and contributions for health issues may have enabled COPAL to pursue other projects, as well.

Grant Funding ICE ‘Reporting’

At least one grant speaks directly to COPAL’s organizing against ICE.

Last year, the Bush Foundation (set up by Archie and Edyth Bush, with no relation to the former presidents) awarded COPAL a $995,000 grant for a 24-month project to set up the Immigrant Defense Network, which organizes a hotline to monitor and report ICE activity.

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

The Daily Signal reached out to New Venture Fund, the Tides Foundation, the Center for Popular Democracy, the CDC, UCare, and the Bush Foundation for comment, but did not receive responses by publication time.

The Daily Signal asked each of COPAL’s funders whether they would condemn the church invasion, and none responded on that issue.

The post Who’s Funding COPAL, a Group on the ‘Front Lines of Anti-ICE Operations?’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Congress is likely about to trigger a shutdown as Democrat leaders, responding to pressure from their base, demand restraints on immigration law enforcement in exchange for funding the Department of Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., laid his demands out on the table.

The House has sent the Senate the final six bills to fully fund the government for fiscal year 2026 before a Jan. 30 cutoff. In order for Republicans to bring the funding bills to a final vote, they need the support of at least seven Democrats.

Top Democrats previously appeared to grant their blessing to a bicameral, bipartisan homeland security bill, but they have rescinded their support since the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis during an interaction with federal officers.

Schumer on Wednesday demanded a stand-alone vote on the bill to fund DHS, with the five other bills in the funding package to be considered separately. 

In exchange for Democrats’ support of the homeland security bill, Schumer asked for concessions, such as a tightening of the “rules governing the use of warrants,” as well as a prohibition on mask use among Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Splitting Up the Bills

Now Republicans must decide whether or not to yield to Democrat demands on funding.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday, shortly before Schumer announced his demands, that it might be necessary to separate the homeland security bill.

“My Democratic colleagues, led by Sen. Schumer, who are controlled by the Karen wing of their party, are not going to vote ‘yes’ right now on the homeland security bill,” Kennedy told reporters. 

“Rather than scuttling the whole package, I say let’s go ahead and pass what we can. I think all the bills will pass, except for homeland security, and then we can sit down and talk about homeland security,” Kennedy continued.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., was another Republican who expressed openness to accommodating Democrats if it proves politically impossible for them to back the homeland security bill.

“We have to have an open mind on the options,” he told reporters. “Obviously, one that we’re talking about is the five bills go and we do some work on DHS. But obviously, the White House has to decide, tell us what they want, [and] we have to work with the House. But we are having those discussions.”

The White House

In this shutdown showdown, the White House’s role is very different than during the last one, in which Republicans repeatedly argued funding disputes are Congress’ problem, not the president’s.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Wednesday morning that if Democrats have demands, they should talk them over with the White House.

“I think right now the conversation should be between the White House and Democrats,” Thune said Wednesday morning. “If there’s a way that the Democrats have things that they want, the White House could accommodate short of modifying the bill, that’s the best way to do what we need to do here, which is to make sure the government is funded.”

Hoeven similarly argued the White House could play a major role.

“That’s a very dominant aspect to the negotiation, and I think if the White House and the Democrats agree on something, then we can get agreement in our caucus,” said Hoeven. “And of course, then work with the House.”

However, Schumer, who sought executive branch buy-in for congressional negotiations during the last shutdown, brushed off the idea of negotiating with the White House, telling reporters, “The White House has had no specific, good, concrete ideas in terms of what we want.”

The White House did not immediately provide a comment to The Daily Signal on its discussions with Democrats.

The House

But even if Democrats seal a deal in the Senate that satisfies their homeland security demands, it could face resistance from conservatives in the House.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus, a fiscally hawkish, tough-on-the-border Republican faction, announced Tuesday it would not accept any bill that cuts funding to DHS.

“If they try to strip out the DHS funding, or they try to make a change, and they try to not fund DHS and demand the House make a change, I think that our letter speaks for itself that we think the president should continue to enforce federal law,” Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus member, told The Daily Signal.

Self added that he and his colleagues would also oppose attempts to require warrants for every deportation, arguing it would slow down ICE’s operations.

Fellow Freedom Caucus Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., similarly told The Daily Signal that the letter communicated “that we were not interested in allowing the Democrats to control this process.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., acknowledged the difficulty of getting the House to buy into a Senate-crafted deal, telling The Daily Signal, “Ideally, we’d like to get it done without having to take another dip in the House.”

Tillis continued, “I think … to me the wisest course, with the fewest gears, would be to keep the five appropriations bills together, divide the question on DHS, and move forward.”

Big, Beautiful Leverage

But Republicans are walking into this funding battle with substantial leverage in that deportation efforts already have funding from the party-line budget reconciliation bill passed in July.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., acknowledged this Wednesday, telling reporters, “Republicans already gave ICE an enormous slush fund, which every Democrat voted against.”

Some Republicans told The Daily Signal they feel that their work in the summer of 2025 is now paying off.

“Of course, that helps, absolutely,” Self told The Daily Signal. 

“If they choose to not pass this, they’re not going to do anything to ICE,” Harris told The Daily Signal.

“The unfortunate thing is that they hurt [the Transportation Security Administration] and they hurt [the Federal Emergency Management Agency],” he added, mentioning the possibility of a destructive storm hitting the southeastern coast this weekend.

The post Is the Government About to Shut Down Over ICE Funding? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s interview with Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, on “The Signal Sitdown.” The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. Eastern on Jan. 29.

For the first time in my lifetime, conservatives are dominating a battle in the culture war. 

And thank goodness they are, because defeat in this battle, the battle against transgenderism, could spell an end to western civilization as we know it.

Civilization begins with an understanding of man and his nature. When a society can no longer recognize the natural difference between men and women, it has abandoned civilization itself. 

When we deny the differences, collapse the distinctions, and confuse our definitions of man and woman, that is not a feature of civilization. It is the defining mark of barbarism, and transgenderism is its modern expression.

Poll after poll shows a growing majority of Americans are against transgender issues and policies, from men in women’s sports, to transgender procedures for minors, to men in women’s bathrooms. Some of these issues are now 80-20 issues.

It’s a remarkable feat, and it also makes one wonder how the conservative movement has had such resounding success against transgenderism when it resoundingly lost a very similar battle, the battle to defend traditional marriage.

Terry Schilling, the president of the American Principles Project, has been a driving force on combatting transgenderism all over the country. He’s one of the few people who really saw transgenderism coming, and he’s smart enough to have learned from the mistakes made in the fight to protect traditional marriage and apply those lessons to fighting transgenderism.

Schilling joined “The Signal Sitdown” this week to discuss.

Shilling unpacks how transgenderism emerged as a political issue and how the right has managed to make transgenderism so politically toxic that the most effective advertisement in the 2024 election cycle was “Kamala Harris is for they/them.”

Despite the successes of the Trump administration and recent votes in the House, however, there’s more work to be done to fully defeat transgenderism.

“I think it’s all federal at this point,” Schilling told The Daily Signal. “The states are good for temporary victories that can help build momentum, but we need to get federal victories.”

“Ban all sex change procedures and surgeries for minors and give liability protections for the adults,” which would allow them to sue if they later seek to detransition, Schilling continued, “pass a national women’s sports law,” and “protect private spaces.”

The post How Conservatives Are Winning the War on Transgenderism appeared first on The Daily Signal.