Journalist and attorney Megyn Kellyfurther discussed her thoughts on the sexual assault accusation swirling around Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth on Friday, going through the police report line-by-line with her audience on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
Kelly said, in her opinion, it appears the accusation is “bulls***” and the woman was “not raped,” but panicked after her husband became suspicious that she cheated with Hegseth.
A police report concerning the allegation against Hegseth, a decorated combat veteran and former Fox News host, was released on Wednesday in response to a public records request. An unnamed woman claims Hegseth sexually assaulted her in a hotel room back in 2017. Hegseth said that the encounter was consensual and police decided against any further action.
Reading the police report, Kelly noted how the accuser stopped sending texts to someone who’s unnamed, but appears to be her husband, while she was in Hegseth’s hotel room. The woman later told him she had “fallen asleep” and that’s why she didn’t answer him. According to Hegseth, this was the same story the accuser told Hegseth she would tell her husband after expressing panic to Hegseth about how she cheated.
“That’s it right there, folks. That’s why they did not bring charges,” Kelly told her audience. “The cops are looking at these text messages.”
“The husband is saying to her, you’re never out this late, it’s 2 a.m. Then the text message cuts off. He says, ‘Where are you? Are you okay?’ [to] no response. And she was seen going to Pete Hegseth’s room at 1:30 a.m., so by 2, she’s there,” Kelly continued. “The communication with the husband ends while she’s in Pete’s room. She doesn’t respond to any of those texts, he gets up and looks for her, and within two hours she’s home.”
“At 1:30 a.m. on the tape, she doesn’t look intoxicated; in the bar, she doesn’t look intoxicated, and here we are at 4 a.m., and the husband is saying she doesn’t look intoxicated, [saying,] ‘she wasn’t having a hard time walking,’ ‘she was not slurring her words.'”
The accuser apologized, “and what was the story she told? That she must have fallen asleep — the very same story that she told Pete Hegseth that she would tell the husband,” Kelly said. “Pete and the husband are not talking, they are not coordinating stories.”
Hegseth told authorities that the encounter was consensual and the woman had panicked that she cheated on her husband and she was going to tell him this lie, Kelly emphasized, pointing out that the accuser told her husband “the very same lie that she told Pete she would.”
“This woman was not raped,” Kelly said. “This is a bullshit accusation.”
Kelly also noted how the accuser refused to participate in a pre-textual conversation with Hegseth after authorities asked her to do so. This could have been, Kelly explained, because the accuser knew Hegseth would come back with “facts” and not fool the police.
The police report also details how the accuser contracted BV, or bacterial vaginosis, after having relations with Hegseth. This caused contention with the accuser and her husband. At one point, the woman asks her husband “to use a condom” when they had sex, for example.
Hegseth has maintained that the encounter did take place, but was completely consensual.
“This police report confirms what I’ve said all along, that the incident was fully investigated, and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed,” Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, said on Wednesday.
Media outlets across the United States spent nearly all of the 2024 election cycle trying to ensure President-elect Donald Trump would lose. But this laser focus only resulted in further damage to their reputations, a Wall Street Journal editor says.
Gerard Baker, the Journal’s editor-at-large, spoke with Morning Wire about how the media’s failure to learn from Trump’s victory in 2016 caused them disaster in 2024.
“Well, if you recall, after the shock of the 2016 election, when Donald Trump won despite the media telling us that there was virtually no chance of that happening,” Baker told Morning Wire host and Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley.
“We had those famous probability indicators saying that Hillary Clinton had a 90 percent chance of winning. The shock that so many American media companies discovered that there were so many people in this country who wanted to vote for Donald Trump, even though they didn’t know it, the media companies didn’t know it.”
Baker noted that after Clinton’s loss in 2016, some media outlets vowed to learn more about the people of America – to essentially leave their echo chamber that was so vastly out of touch with American voters.
“The editor of the New York Times at the time said that was one of his priorities after 2016, [was] to know more about the country,” Baker explained. “They kind of went forth in the manner of 19th century anthropologists venturing into darkest Africa to discover who these people were who voted for Trump. And they presumably found them and then we didn’t really hear very much more from them except when we got to the election campaign of 2024 and we sort of were just told by so many of these media organizations that Trump supporters were a lot of fascists.”
Baker said this disconnect leads to the question of what these media companies had been doing for the previous eight years, if not learning about the American voter. Of course, he said, it is clear what they have been doing: they’ve learned nothing, changed nothing, and continued their “vilification of Donald Trump.”
Baker noted that not only did most journalists not vote for Trump, but they didn’t even know anyone who voted for Trump, because they live in such a tight political bubble. So, what was very interesting about the 2024 election is just how much of a shift toward Trump there was in Blue areas.
“[W]hat we saw in this election was actually really significant gains for Trump and for the Republicans in some of these places where these journalists are concentrated,” Baker said. “We have seen this remarkable phenomenon, big gains for Trump compared with 2020 in places like New York City and Chicago and San Francisco and L.A.”
As to whether this latest election loss will finally force a reckoning among mainstream media outlets, Baker isn’t so sure.
“I think they’ll go through a little bit of the soul searching they went through in 2016,” Baker said. “But I think that the die is cast…the staff of these news organizations is just so monolithically left of center, and not just left of center, but committed, as I say, in a kind of an activist way, that I don’t really see that unwinding.”
At the same time, though, Baker said competing news organizations – like The Daily Wire – could force these other networks to be less partisan.
“So, I think that the market will, actually, A, develop new platforms and new products, and B, in the process, might actually force these, the owners of these media properties that we’ve seen, again, like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post, to say, ‘you know, not only do I think it’s right that we should be more balanced and that we should appeal to more readers, but actually I think it’s in our business interest that we should [be] too.’”
You can listen to the full interview on Morning Wire.
Retired NFL Philadelphia Eagles star and podcast host Jason Kelce’s wife Kylie Kelce hilariously announced that the couple is expecting again, with a fourth daughter on the way.
In a post Friday on Instagram, the wife of the ESPN sportscaster shared a picture of their three girls — Wyatt, 4, Elliotte, 3, and Bennett, 15 months — all wearing cute, long-sleeve pink sweaters that read, “Big Sister.”
The funny part is only one of them was smiling — Ellie. Youngest daughter Bennett was in tears, and Wyatt was making a face with her hands over her ears.
“I feel like we captured a very accurate representation of how each of the girls feel about getting another sister,” Kylie’s post read. “At least Ellie, mom and dad are on the same page!”
Reading through the comments, everyone made it clear they couldn’t have been more excited for the couple’s news.
Kylie’s mother in law Donna Kelce wrote, “Love it.”
And the official account for the Philadelphia Eagles added, “Congratulations.”
At the time of this piece, Jason’s brother Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, has yet to publicly comment about the exciting news, nor has Travis’ famous pop star girlfriend Taylor Swift.
In July, Kylie hit back at tabloid rumors that she and Jason were expecting in a TikTok about nipping the rumors in the bud, saying she was not pregnant.
She said in the video that there have been numerous articles written about her for the last year “stating that I am pregnant” and added she couldn’t stand “people writing such insensitive articles about a sensitive topic.”
On Friday, Kelce made a new post on TikTok using her past video and joked about “famous last words.” She then played a clip of the three girls in their pink sweaters, which she posted to announce the pregnancy.
Jason previously opened up about the possibility of the two growing their family and told People “It’s not my decision.”
“We’ve talked about, before having kids, having certain numbers but I think whatever Kylie’s comfortable with,” Kelce said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Famed “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling said she has yet to find a better hill to die on than fighting for the “rights and safety of women and children” when it comes to the transgender athletes issue.
In a now-viral post on X, Rowling was told, “Love your work. But wonder why is this the hill you want to die on?” The author’s X account is filled with one attack after another from activists upset at her because she’s spoken out for the rights of women, especially when it comes to the issue of trans-identifying males going into women’s only spaces, like locker rooms and bathrooms, as well as playing in female only sports.
“If there’s a better hill to die on than the rights and safety of women and children, I’ve never found it,” the author responded.
If there’s a better hill to die on than the rights and safety of women and children, I’ve never found it. pic.twitter.com/qx2W3JdGSG
It came after a post on the same day in which Rowling responded to a story from Scott Osler regarding the universities who have refused to play against San Jose State University due to its star trans-identifying male on the women’s volleyball team who goes by the name of Blaire Fleming, and his headline that read, ”The Great Volleyball Trans Hysteria.”
“He’s just one more person working backwards from the slogan he’s got to embrace to stay in the gang: ‘trans women are women,’” Rowling wrote. “They’ll abandon everything – empirical evidence, self-respect, basic ethics – rather than face the consequences of repudiating that idiotic mantra.”
In a follow-up post, Rowling reposted a message with which she said she agreed from former tennis legend Martina Navratilova who wrote that, “And the irony of the headline- the word HYSTERIA has been always ascribed to women overreacting since we can’t handle our emotions. In any case- @scottostler – happy to talk to you about this, if you’re interested in finding out more. Also- the women’s net is 9 inches lower…why?”
The author also responded to the story about trans-identifying male Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr who claimed, “We’re every bit as ‘biologically female’ as cis women…”
“If a man is a woman, there’s no such thing as a woman,” Rowling wrote. “You’re desperate to be categorized as female, but by entering the category, you destroy it. You know that, which must suck for you, but not as much as it sucks for the women & girls fighting to retain their rights and spaces.”
Now that our government is being run by a faceless, unelected cabal of credentialed socialist elites who are so intellectually brilliant they have passed beyond the golden realm of genius into an ethereal dumpster of complete stupidity, there is not much left for our dementia-riddled president to do except lie in his lawn chair, eat Jello and start a nuclear war with Russia.
The end of the world began as national leaders gathered at the G-20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this week, where President Biden was disappointed to learn that Peking Lame Duck did not mean that dinner was Chinese take-out but just that he had to stand behind Xi Jinping in the group photo. So as important world leaders — like whoever the president of Indonesia is — rose to give speeches promoting world peace, the dejected Biden wandered off to finish coloring the Winnie-the-Pooh-Gets-Stuck-in-a-Knothole page of his briefing book, and then give Ukraine permission to fire American-made long range missiles into a country run by a power hungry lunatic with a nuclear arsenal large enough to reduce the ruins of Great Britain to the ruins of Great Britain.
In a speech delivered to a potted plant he mistook for a little girl with great-smelling hair, Biden explained why he changed his strategy from letting the war drag on forever through maundering incompetence to getting everyone on earth killed through maundering incompetence.
The president told the adorable little plant, “Given the inexcusable aggression of Vladimir Putin’s reckless attempt to rebuild the Russian empire by invading a perfectly innocent cesspit of corruption like Ukraine, I just wanted to see the pretty streaks of light that missiles make when you fire them across the night sky. And by the way, your hair smells terrific, but I don’t think you should have dyed it green like that.”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was ecstatic at being set free to recklessly provoke a nuclear power, and celebrated by adding yet another inexplicable ‘y’ to his last name, then goose-stepping back and forth through the rubble of a children’s hospital while spouting double-talk in a French accent in the hopes someone might mistake him for Napoleon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, responded to the attacks by lowering the Russian standard for nuclear retaliation. Whereas before, the Putin doctrine declared that a Russian nuclear attack could only be triggered as a self-defensive response to a ground invasion of the motherland, it now permits the launch of world-destroying total war as a gesture of annoyance at the crappy finale of Gilmore Girls or any other equivalently frothy-but-delightful streaming concoction. The doctrine is mitigated by the fact that nuclear launch cannot begin without the final approval of President Putin or anyone else wearing a spiked helmet and beating his bared chest while proclaiming his right to world domination.
Among political conservatives, the sudden launch of American-made missiles from Ukraine into Russia set off a round of wild speculation as to Biden’s motives. Some claimed that the president had set World War III in motion as a reaction to the recent election results, because he felt a series of bright explosions that turned the sky into a sparkling wonderland of irradiated human ash would be an appropriately spectacular way for him to celebrate the defeat of Kamala Harris after she humiliated him by forcing him to abandon a presidential campaign that he would absolutely have won had he still been alive in any meaningful sense of the word. Such theories were dismissed as implausible, however, because they depended on Biden thinking clearly enough to have a discernible motive.
As for President-elect Donald Trump, he spent the day at the Florida headquarters of Space X, where he watched Elon Musk launch a 400-foot-tall starship that would travel halfway around the globe, land gently on Vladimir Putin’s desk in his office at the Kremlin, and open to release a miniature robot Trump who would march out, slap Putin in the face, tell him to stop invading other people’s countries, then march back into the starship, which would return safely to Florida after stopping at McDonald’s to pick up a Happy Meal.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “A WOMAN UNDERGROUND,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly nominated Scott Bessent to be the next U.S. Treasury Secretary after Trump takes office in January.
“I am most pleased to nominate Scott Bessent to serve as the 79th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Scott is widely respected as one of World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,” Trump said in a statement.
🚨NEW: President Trump announces the nomination of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. pic.twitter.com/nFII1dRqd2
The 62-year-old billionaire hedge fund manager, who is the founder of Key Square Capital Management, advised Trump on economic policy during his most recent presidential campaign.
Bessent rose to prominence as the chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management, founded by Democrat megadonor George Soros.
Joy Behar said she doesn’t understand why bathrooms everywhere are not open to “all genders” amid a discussion about incoming trans-identifying male Congressmen Sarah McBride.
On “The View” on Friday, Behar and her cohosts were discussing Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) bill to keep McBride, who will represent Delaware in the House next year, from using the women’s bathrooms at the Capitol.
“We have bathrooms here in this building, it just says ‘all genders,’” Behar explained. “Why can’t they just do that everywhere?”
Her cohost Ana Navarro suggested McBride could use the bathroom of every person in Congress who is “not a bigot.”
The View calls fort ALL BATHROOMS EVERYWHERE to be open to “all genders.”
“We have bathrooms here in this building, it just says ‘all genders.’ Why can’t they just do that everywhere?” – Joy Behar.
Ana Navarro says you’re “a bigot” if you don’t want men in the women’s bathroom. pic.twitter.com/IbMGWI6aK3
The comments came after Mace provided details of what has since been labeled the “Protecting Women’s Private Spaces Act,” exclusively to The Daily Wire this week. She said it will ban “members, officers, and employees of the House from using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex, and for other purposes.” It also forbids anyone from accessing facilities on federal property that do not correspond with their biological sex, and it provides precise definitions of what it means to be female or male, as previously reported.
“I’m going to do everything I can to protect women and girls here on the hill, but also across the nation,” she said on “The Michael Knowles Show,” where she first unveiled the bill. “This is a question that needs to be answered. Do women have rights or not? Are we going to allow these men to bully us into submission? And I say, no, no more. I’m done with this.”
“There’s no amount of bullying and threats on my life that they’ve made this week that’s going to stop me from this,” she added, promising to “fight like hell” for the protection of women and girls.
Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled support for the act and said in a statement, “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”
“It is important to note that each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol,” he added. “Women deserve women’s only spaces.”
McBride later released a statement that he will abide by Johnson’s Wednesday directive that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”
President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly planning to fire everyone who worked with special counsel Jack Smith on criminal cases against him.
The Washington Post reported that multiple sources close to the Trump transition team indicated that those who will be fired also include career attorneys who are often not fired when a new administration takes over.
The report added that Trump wants to create investigative teams within the department to look for evidence of fraud from the 2020 election that may have happened in battleground states.
“President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system, and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise,” Trump Press Secretary-designate Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
“One of the many reasons that President Trump won the election in a landslide is Americans are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars spent on targeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s political enemies rather than going after real violent criminals in our streets,” she added.
Trump’s plans come after he announced on Thursday that he has selected former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to be the next U.S. Attorney General.
Bondi’s nomination came after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrew his name from consideration this week after meeting with several U.S. Senators about his chances of being confirmed.
Gaetz threw his support behind Bondi on Thursday night, saying that Trump made a “stellar selection” by choosing her.
“Pam and I worked closely together when she was Florida’s Attorney General and I chaired Criminal Justice in the state house,” he said. “She’s a proven litigator, an inspiring leader and a champion for all Americans. She will bring the needed reforms to DOJ.”
Far-Left MSNBC personality Joy Reid said this week that alleged “vulnerable” communities have a genuine fear of President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters and that people do not feel “safe” around them.
Reid made the remarks in a social media video that went viral this week in which she claimed that people were “rightfully alarmed” by Trump’s victory.
“They have a reason to be alarmed,” she said. “And if you would vote for that, people may not feel so confident that they are safe with you.”
“This is not crazy,” she continued. “This is legitimate feelings of fear of you. And a feeling that you might not be someone they can trust, if this thing goes way south. Autocracies go south real fast, and things get ugly and people get asked to do things and turn people in and point people out and turn on them.”
She said that Trump supporters would have to “live with” the people’s reactions to them having voted to support Trump.
“If you think you can vote for what people see as their destruction and then demand that they’re still cool with you and have Thanksgiving with you, you are kind of missing the point about what people are upset about,” she said. “They’re afraid. Autocracy and fascism are things that are legitimate to be afraid of. So you might want to step back.”
Earlier this month, Reid platformed Yale University chief psychiatry resident Dr. Amanda Calhoun on her MSNBC show “The Reidout” where she proceeded to call for people to cut off their Trump supporting family members for the holidays.
She said that the societal norm is that “if somebody is your family, that they are entitled to your time.”
“And I think the answer is absolutely not,” she said. “So if you are going to a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you, like what you said, against your livelihood, it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why, to say, ‘I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood, and I’m not going to be around you this holiday. I need to take some space for me.'”
She said that it “may be essential” for people’s mental health to “establish boundaries” with their family members over the results of the election.
“People are concerned about their human rights, their existence, their safety,” she claimed. “And I think you know when we’re talking about people who are worried about, you know, getting gender affirming care. We’re talking about people who are worried about being able to get access to women’s health care, to, you know, life saving procedures to abortions.”
“That has a very, very devastating downstream effect on one’s mental health,” she added. “And when, you know, as a psychiatrist, the child psychiatrist, but I also work with adults, we also see a lot of children who are born to parents who are struggling. They might have mental health issues, and those children sometimes develop very severe behavioral problems, suicidality, and I have a lot of concerns about the support that those kids are going to have going forward.”
After singer Katy Perry appeared to compare President-elect Donald Trump’s victory to the dystopian satirical “Idiocracy” movie, she got torched with comparisons of the film to President Joe Biden’s presidency.
“Just watch ‘Idiocracy’ the movie that’s all,” the 40-year-old pop star wrote in a post on X that’s since gone viral. While her post doesn’t name Trump or his possible incoming cabinet, followers on social media assumed the comment was an attack on the president-elect’s presidency.
“It reminds me of the last 4 years,” vocal Pennsylvania Trump supporter Scott Presler wrote in response. “I voted for Trump in Pennsylvania.”
Another person added, “Funny how you don’t realize this actually applies to your side of the aisle. Or how about watch ‘Don’t look up.’ Accurately describes the left to a tee.”
A third person wrote, “The fact you’re saying this and don’t get it, in fact think you’re proving a point that you actually aren’t but are reinforcing what those who live in reality know….sorry, let me dumb that down, yes, we’ve watched it, and the past 4 years of Biden and people like you defending him are a stark reminder of it.”
One person shared a past photo of Perry and her husband Orlando Bloom doing a selfie while rocking “Fauci Gang” sweatshirts in honor of former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Anthony Fauci, whose guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic and with the COVID vaccine has been widely criticized.
Others mentioned all the celebrity support Vice President Kamala Harris got during her failed presidential run.
“Cardi B’s speech at that Kamala rally really reminded me of that movie,” one person wrote, noting when the rapper’s teleprompter went down and she didn’t speak until someone handed her a phone with the speech on it.
Another person said, “It’s funny because I’ve actually referenced ‘Idiocracy’ so many times when talking about you people electing a senile guy with a cackling word salad VP who then somehow runs for POTUS with a man [Tim Walz] who stuffs tampons in boys’ restrooms lol. You wanna see ‘Idiocracy’? Look in the mirror.”
“Idiocracy” came out in 2006, and the imdb summary of the film reads: “Corporal Joe Bauers, a decidedly average American, is selected for a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive.”
The “Firework” hitmaker was a vocal supporter of Harris. Her Instagram has numerous posts showing her posing for pictures with the VP and others showing her support, even one voting for the VP.
Democrats still seem quite troubled about what went wrong in the 2024 election. They keep offering various reasons for the loss. Their reasons range from the failure of the meritocracy, according to David Brooks, to the utter disconnect of the American people involving racism, sexism, bigotry, and homophobia — all of it.
Well, the latest explanation comes courtesy of Kamala Harris’ advisers. According to The Washington Post:
Senior officials with Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign say her defeat stemmed primarily from dissatisfaction among voters about the overall direction of the country and discontent over inflation and the economy, arguing that those headwinds proved too strong for Harris to overcome in her sprint to Election Day.
This is a very convenient explanation for Democrats, because it means they don’t have to change anything. All of this feels like whistling past the political graveyard. It is a refusal to deal with the underlying factors that led to the Democrats getting shellacked across the country.
Well, now we’re getting this same sort of sense from the so-called “resistance.” There’s a lengthy article in The New York Times discussing Trump’s resistance encountering fatigue. It turns out that all of the ladies who protested during the first Trump administration are a little frustrated because they’re not quite sure what to do.
According to The New York Times:
The first Trump presidency spawned the largest protests the country had seen in half a century.
But not everyone wants to participate in another four years of mass movement work. When Women’s March shared information about an upcoming rally on Instagram, one person responded, “No im tired, yall have fun though.” (Women’s March later hid some of the pushback and limited who could respond to a handful of posts.)
On TikTok, plans for the march were met with memes of women saying, “Get somebody else to do it.” “This is an opportunity for a national brunch day for the 93 percent,” said one user, referring to the 93 percent of Black women who exit polls suggested had voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Others questioned whether the previous protests had resulted in substantial concessions.
So they’re realizing that their protest movements have accomplished nothing. But what they refuse to recognize is the reason why those protest movements are accomplishing nothing.
Maybe it’s because there was at least the patina of legitimacy to many of the causes people were protesting back in the 1960s and 1980s.
And now, as it turns out, the causes they’re backing are just bad.
Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) has now sponsored a resolution on the floor of the House that is going to be implemented. It suggests that women should be able to use their bathrooms without men with penises in those same bathrooms.
This seems perfectly legitimate. In fact, this is relatively non-controversial in the regular world. And these transgender bathroom rules are perfectly obvious. There’s nothing particularly shocking about them. A man should use the men’s bathroom and a woman should use the women’s bathroom. Apparently, according to the Left, this is very bad. How dare Nancy Mace. How dare she?
Mace appeared on Scripps News and during the interview the anchor kept insisting to Mace that she was barring a woman from using the bathrooms, to which Mace responded, “No.” Sarah McBride is a dude whose name was Tim McBride and still has all of the male appendages. In her interview with Scripps News Mace says a true thing, but an offensively true thing:
Scripps: I just want to add that the congresswoman-elect does identify as a woman. I will be…
Mace: She’s not a woman. It’s a man. She was born a man. She’s a man. She is biologically a male. That is science. You guys on the Left in the mainstream media want to say, “follow the science.” Let’s follow the science. Okay. He is a man. He can wear a dress. He can call himself, his pronouns can be she or her. But he doesn’t belong in a women’s restroom, period.
Again, according to the polling data, most Americans agree with this. This is not a controversial proposition, but the Left can’t let go of it.
For example, Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has suggested the real problem is Mace and company, of course:
This is what we’re doing. This is the lesson that you’ve drawn from the election in November. This is your priority. If you want to bully a member of Congress as opposed to welcoming her to join this body so that all of us can work together.
The priorities are truth and protection of women. One of the most annoying things about Democratic policy on this particular proposition is that they do something totally abnormal and out of the boundaries of decent human behavior — then, they question when people bring it up.
For his part, Speaker Johnson has put out a statement saying,
All single sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings such as restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.
It’s also important to note each member’s office has its own private restroom. Unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women’s only spaces. Again, perfectly reasonable. There are alternative solutions.
Despite many of his heterodox positions with his party, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is still a progressive. He tweeted out,
There’s no job I’m afraid to lose if it requires me to degrade anyone. If that’s a defining issue for a voter, there will be a different candidate. We have a bathroom in my office that anybody is welcome to use, including Representative-elect Sarah McBride.
I’m glad that you want Sarah McBride to use your bathroom. That’s your choice, senator. Also, you don’t get to decide whether women ought to have men in their bathroom.
Why does all this matter? Because the reason Democrats lost is the cultural disconnect that the people on the coasts and the Democratic elite have with the rest of America. These are noncontroversial propositions that are made controversial by the Democratic Party.
That is what is happening. And these are belief systems that are held so deeply that even the most elite people in the Democratic Party — people who face no discrimination in America — are now treating the election of Donald Trump and the restoration of some form of normality as a grave threat to them.
UFC CEO Dana White said in a new interview that was published this week that he is finished with politics for good after President-elect Donald Trump won re-election this month, saying he wants nothing to do with the political world.
“I’m never f***ing doing this again,” White said. “I want nothing to do with this s***. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. I want nothing to do with politics.”
White made the remarks during an interview with The New Yorker that profiled Trump’s relationship with the UFC and how showing up to fights helped him connect with young male voters — one of the key demographics that propelled him to victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Donald Trump is tougher and more badass than anybody,” White told the interviewer. “You can only pray that you’re a quarter of the man that Donald Trump was when a guy tried to take seven shots at his head with a high powered rifle with a f***ing scope on it.”
White not only provided a platform for Trump at UFC fights, he also made appearances at some of Trump’s most important events, like his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York and the Republican National Convention.
“As the U.F.C. has grown, there’s been a lot of people that have jumped on the bandwagon and became fans,” White said. “Trump was there from the beginning.”
Trump regularly attends UFC fights with his closest allies, which have recently included Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kid Rock, and more.
White noted that Trump attending fights and going on popular podcasts played a significant role in his victory over Harris.
“You’re getting conversations in these podcasts, and you yourself, as a young kid, get to really see who Donald Trump is,” White explained. “Not the bulls*** you hear from the far-left media.”
Usually when you don’t hear about a story, that’s because it’s not particularly relevant or important. But every now and then, there’s a story that’s such a dud — that no one remotely cares about — that it actually manages to circle back around and become relevant and important again. The very fact that no one cares about the story, in itself, is worth talking about.
Here’s one recent example of what I mean.
About a year ago, there was a massive strike in Canada’s federal public sector. It was one of the largest strikes in the country’s history. Roughly a third of Canada’s government bureaucracy — more than 150,000 employees — walked off the job, saying they deserved higher wages and the privilege of working from home.
The public-sector union in Canada expected that Trudeau’s government would immediately agree to their demands and end the strike. But that didn’t happen. For once in his political career, Trudeau hesitated before throwing taxpayers’ money away. And therefore, for nearly two weeks, Canada had to make-do without a huge portion of its federal workforce.
Keep in mind, Canada is our largest trading partner. Something like 40 million people live there. They allegedly have an army. And yet no one in Canada, much less the United States, felt any negative impacts whatsoever from this huge, unprecedented government strike. Everything functioned as smoothly as it did before. The economy was untouched. People went about their lives as they normally did. The strike of Canada’s government was neither relevant nor important to anyone.
Naturally, that led Canadians to ask some uncomfortable questions. They wondered, for example, whether they really needed to pay millions of dollars to the federal government, so that bureaucrats could write useless reports about, say, the precise size of all the hydrothermal vents that have been discovered in Canadian waters, or the specific number of non-binary vagrants in Vancouver who also identify as indigenous furries.
“Other than delayed passport applications, who has actually noticed the effects of 155,000 federal servants that haven’t been working for a week? If you haven’t, perhaps there’s no need for them.”
Reports from CBC News, which is Canada’s state broadcaster, focused on alleged “hardships” that the federal workers were enduring on strike. They didn’t even mention “hardships” suffered by the public, because there weren’t any hardships that anyone suffered.
Another Canadian outlet, CTV, tried its best to find a downside to what was happening. They ended up saying it was a terrible thing that Canada’s immigration system wasn’t able to allow as many foreign nationals into the country as they usually did. Watch:
It’s an amazing clip to watch, now that — just one year later — Canada’s government has implemented a moratorium on most new migration. They’re finally admitting that they shouldn’t have allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals into their country every year. Housing has become more expensive, crime has gotten worse and people can’t find jobs. Now even Canada’s liberals acknowledge this.
But really, if they had allowed the strike to continue, they wouldn’t have needed the migration moratorium. The strike was already accomplishing that, in a roundabout way. And as you heard, it was apparently accomplishing other things, too. People weren’t getting taxed, either. It was a win-win for everyone. But of course, eventually, Trudeau caved. He had to pay the federal workers because they’re his base. As a result, Canadians are still being forced to employ a vast bureaucracy that clearly and unquestionably makes their lives worse.
This is a burden that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are now promising to eliminate in this country. They’ve already published a roadmap explaining how exactly their Department of Government Efficiency plans to gut the United States federal bureaucracy. And it’s worth taking a look at it, in part because this roadmap helps explain exactly how our government got completely out of control in the first place. And also, the reactions from the Left are already hysterical. They are losing their mind at the thought of a smaller, more efficient government, and it’s amazing to watch.
As Musk and Ramaswamy outlined in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) has a very real chance of succeeding where other efforts to curb government expansion have failed. That’s because of two Supreme Court rulings that the conservative justices helped secure during Joe Biden’s presidency. One of those rulings overturned the so-called “Chevron doctrine.” That’s the doctrine that allowed unelected bureaucrats in government agencies to essentially make laws in certain areas, as long as Congress has given the agency some general authority to oversee those areas.
This is a principle that expanded the power of the federal government far beyond what anyone probably realizes. You might remember when the Biden administration came out and declared that 85 million private sector workers had to either get the COVID shot or wear a mask. There was no law authorizing that. There was no public referendum. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration — a federal agency staffed with unelected bureaucrats — just issued a rule one day. They said mask mandates and vaccine mandates fell under their mandate of a “workplace safety” agency, even though nothing like that had ever been tried before because it made no sense whatsoever. And incredibly, until the Supreme Court stepped in, some federal courts actually agreed with the Biden administration.
The Chevron Doctrine made unconstitutional mandates like that possible, along with tens of thousands of other irrational and onerous rules and regulations. Now the Chevron Doctrine is gone — but virtually all of those illegal administrative rules and regulations remain on the books. They’re not going to be removed unless the federal government (or a federal court) takes the initiative and strikes them down. And DOGE plans to strike them down.
Specifically, the DOGE plan involves placing “legal experts” inside government agencies, who are aided by “advanced technology” that will allow them to apply the Supreme Court’s rulings to federal regulations. DOGE will then turn over a list of regulations to Trump, who can cut them instantly with an executive order. There’s no need for Congress to get involved here. The administrative state has gained a lot of powers over the years. And now, DOGE is going to use those powers to destroy the administrative state.
That’s the first kind of reform that DOGE plans to put in place. It’s called “regulatory rescissions.” The second and third kinds of reform — the more prominent ones — are called “administrative reductions and cost savings.” This involves shutting down government agencies and firing government employees. As Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in their plan:
“The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited.”
In interviews, Ramaswamy has made it clear that eliminating entire government departments is on the table. Watch:
Both Musk and Ramaswamy have previously signaled their explicit support for abolishing the Department of Education in particular, which I obviously support as well. This is a Department that has just failed its third audit in a row. (Which is almost as bad as the Pentagon, which just failed its seventh consecutive audit, for its budget of nearly a trillion dollars.)
No one can point to anything the Department of Education has achieved. Americans have become dumber and less educated by every metric since the Department of Education was reintroduced in this country back in 1979.
Even the defenders of the Department of Education inevitably end up making it look terrible. This is one of the better tweets you’ll see on the subject, from someone on the Left who’s opposed to gutting the education bureaucracy in this country.
See if you can follow the logic here: “Oh btw middle schoolers can’t read, high schoolers can’t write a proper essay, college students can’t differentiate a scholarly based article vs propaganda, and adults can’t tell when a picture is AI…But sure, get rid of the Department of Education. LOL.”
That person eventually deleted that tweet, after about ten million people pointed out that all of those failures have occurred under the watch of the Department of Education.
This is an agency that is not fixing any problems. It’s taking in billions of dollars and wasting it on administrative costs. Now, obviously, we don’t know yet whether DOGE will actually be able to eliminate this agency, or any other agency. A change that significant would require an act of Congress.
But it’s clear that DOGE will clearly push us in that direction. And they’ll go after other useless government departments, too. Recently Elon Musk reposted this video of the economist Milton Friedman from about 15 years ago, outlining all of the government departments he’d cut. It’s a pretty big clue into the agencies that can expect significant downsizing under DOGE. Watch:
Whatever you think of Milton Friedman, it’s obviously true that if the U.S. government had listened to him a long time ago, we’d be better off than we are now. Friedman once stated that it’s impossible to have a welfare state and open borders at the same time. You can’t promise the entire world free stuff, and then allow them all to enter the country. But the government didn’t listen to him, and now we have states like California — which are completely out of money as they rush to pay the healthcare bills of millions of illegal aliens.
Later on in the video, Friedman outlined his guiding overall principle in determining whether an agency should be dismantled or retained. He explained why he thinks we still need a Defense Department, a Treasury Department, and a State Department, for example. And Freidman was using similar principles, we can assume, that Musk is going to adopt with DOGE.
Critics of DOGE point out that, even if you cut all of these departments, the government’s still going to be in the red. And that’s true. Two-thirds of our spending is on entitlements like Social Security, along with interest payments on the national debt. I’ve pointed out before that Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme that steals money from Americans. It would be far better to allow Americans to keep their paychecks, and invest their money however they want. But DOGE can’t get rid of Social Security without an act of Congress.
But even given that DOGE can’t get rid of all government spending, it can still reduce a huge amount. It can make people’s lives a lot less burdensome in the process. And on top of that, some of this spending is evil. So eliminating it is good for its own sake, even if the relative savings aren’t that big, in terms of the entire U.S. budget.
“DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.”
So we’re spending billions of dollars to fund propaganda on stations like NPR. And we’re also paying Planned Parenthood to murder of children. This is spending that has persisted for a lot of administrations — both Democrat and Republican — even though the vast majority of Republican voters don’t support it. It’s well past time to end it. And if DOGE can do that, just by itself, that would be a major victory.
You can tell the Left realizes that. They’re melting down over the new DOGE blueprint already. Here for example was the reaction from a guy named Brian Allen, who’s apparently been featured in MSN and Yahoo Finance:
“I’m not exaggerating when I say this could collapse the government within a year. Musk and Ramaswamy just dropped their first DOGE roadmap, and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Here’s how they plan to dismantle the federal government step by step: … Plant DOGE loyalists in every U.S. agency, then use ‘advanced technology’ (probably AI) to identify thousands of regulations to slash across the board. Hand Trump this hit list of regulations and let him rubber-stamp their elimination. Gut federal agencies by finding ‘the minimum number of employees’ needed to function after gutting regulations. Think Musk’s 80% staff cuts at X but scaled up to the entire government.”
Yes, he’s presenting the Twitter layoffs as a negative. Apparently this is something of a common perspective on the Left, even though it boggles the mind that anyone would think this. Elon Musk fired 80% of Twitter employees, and everyone on the Left said Twitter would collapse as a result. A lot of software engineers said the same thing on MSNBC. And none of it was true. Twitter is now a lot better than it used to be. By getting rid of all the bureaucrats and the censorship commissars at Twitter, it’s about a million times more functional and useful.
If a top Silicon Valley company has that much bloat, then you can imagine how much bloat the federal government has. It’s staggering. And it needs to be cut. Even a lot of critics of Donald Trump understand that.
Here for example is John Bolton praising the idea of DOGE — although he then says that we should spend all of the savings on bombing foreign countries. Watch:
John Bolton on @DOGE: "If we can save a couple hundred billion dollars, I'd be delighted. We can spend it on the defense budget, which desperately needs an increase." pic.twitter.com/C8rx3imWXH
So this is something we need to look out for, obviously. It’s not very productive if we save a ton of money, and then use that money to start World War III. The point is to cut the spending, and let Americans keep more of their own money. And along the way, we need to eliminate funding for merchants of death like Planned Parenthood.
In Argentina, they’ve implemented similar wide-scale cuts in government. As a result, their GDP is expected to grow by nearly 10% next year, according to JP Morgan. That’s one of the highest rates of growth in the world. This is the kind of growth you get when you destroy needless regulations and government agencies.
Like Argentina, we weren’t always this bloated and inefficient. As aerospace CEO Jared Isaacman put it recently:
“Take the Gerald Ford-class aircraft carriers. The first carrier was awarded in 2008, construction began in 2009, it was commissioned in 2017 and it didn’t deploy until 2022—at a cost of $18 billion (including R&D). The next carrier in the class, the JFK, will take at least 10 years from construction to commissioning and cost $12.5 billion. These timelines are staggering. During World War II, the USA built over 155 carriers in a handful of years. Or, for another perspective, these projects run longer than the time from Alan Shepard’s first suborbital flight to Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon.”
Getting us back to mid-20th century levels of government efficiency is a goal that Republicans have had for decades. And now there’s a very realistic chance it will finally happen. It’s only been two weeks since the election, and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have already gotten to work hiring employees for DOGE, and outlining their agenda in very clear and direct terms.
If and when they succeed, it’ll be a lot like the situation in Canada last year. Tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats will stop going to work, because they won’t have jobs anymore. And — other than saving a lot of money and having more freedom — Americans won’t notice a thing.
Federal prosecutors announced on Friday that they arrested and charged a 33-year-old Albanian national for allegedly attempting to provide support to ISIS and distributing instructions on how to build bombs.
Authorities said that Erald Alimehmeti, who has a U.S. citizenship and used to live in the Bronx, moved back to Albania in 2014 and did two stints in the prison there — from 2015-2019 and 2020-2022.
“Erald Alimehmeti not only allegedly attempted to provide material support to ISIS by trying to recruit and train who he believed to be like minded individuals online, but also repeatedly shared multiple instructions on how to make explosives for use in a terrorist attack,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy.
In between his prison terms, Alimehmeti allegedly created multiple online accounts on social media and encrypted messaging apps that he used to communicate with others about his desire to carry out terrorist attacks for ISIS. He expressed interest in attacks similar to what the D.C. sniper committed in 2002.
He regularly posted ISIS propaganda online that praised the terrorist group’s leaders.
He also allegedly posted videos showing ISIS terrorists killing American soldiers stationed in Africa and wrote: “The Islamic State in Africa killing crusaders, American and French special forces. Look at how the US special forces scream before they die!!! Hahaha!”
Alimehmeti allegedly worked to compile and distribute resources on how to produce explosives that would be used in terrorist attacks.
He was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and one count of distributing information about bomb making in furtherance of committing a violent federal crime.
If convicted, each count carries up to a 20-year prison sentence.
By a one-vote margin, the Texas State Board of Education approved optional biblical teachings in the state’s elementary public school curriculum.
The curriculum, Bluebonnet Learning, includes Christian teachings and biblical references, such as Jesus’ parable of “The Good Samaritan” and the “Golden Rule.” The Texas Tribune reported that school districts can choose whether to use the curriculum, but the state will offer districts $60 per student to implement the Christian-based lessons. All four Democrats on the board voted against approving the curriculum, along with three Republicans.
The curriculum was also supported by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who said the lessons would “allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution,” according to The New York Times.
Staci Childs, a Democrat and attorney who voted against the curriculum’s approval, said it will likely be challenged in court.
“So if those facts alone, if a parent or a teacher who didn’t feel comfortable teaching this were to bring this up to a court, I believe they would be successful,” she said, according to NBC News. “And in my good conscience, in protecting my bar license, I just do not feel that these materials are yet reflective of the experiences and the nuance of Texas students.”
Other Democrats on the board who voted against the curriculum’s approval expressed concern that it would force Christianity on public school children, according to The Texas Tribune. Republican Will Hickman, on the other hand, argued that it’s important for students to “be exposed to” the Bible’s teachings.
“In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy,” Hickman said. “And there’s religious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule and Moses that all students should be exposed to.”
Earlier this week, parents spoke at the State Board of Education with some arguing against the curriculum and others defending it, arguing that Christianity and the Bible are inseparable from American history. The New York Times reported that one mother, who is also a substitute teacher, told the board that Jesus’ incarnation “is and always will be the hinge of all of history.”
“How would the canceling of such fundamental facts serve the education of our children or contribute to shape them morally?” she asked.
The judge overseeing President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has postponed the sentencing in the case and is giving his lawyers the chance to argue now that the conviction should be thrown out because he won the election.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who Trump’s team tried to have removed form the case over allegations of bias, did not schedule a future sentencing date in Friday’s one-page order canceling next week’s sentencing hearing.
BREAKING: It’s official. Trump’s sentencing in New York is canceled indefinitely. pic.twitter.com/PL45QlCrGO
“In a decisive win for President Trump, the hoax Manhattan Case is now fully stayed and sentencing is adjourned,” said Steven Cheung, Trump’s Communications Director. “President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases.”
“All of the sham lawfare attacks against President Trump are now destroyed and we are focused on Making America Great Again,” he continued.
The Washington Post reported that Merchan is allowing Trump’s lawyers to make their case for why the conviction should be thrown out now in light of his re-election due to the interference that it would cause in his ability to execute his role as president.
“Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a letter filed this week.
The case, which was filed by George Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was always considered by far the weakest that Trump faced as many Democrats even voiced serious concerns about it, noting that it likely never would have been brought if Trump was not running for president.
The two federal cases that Trump faced from special counsel Jack Smith are rapidly coming to an end since the Department of Justice is not able to prosecute a case against a sitting president.
American consumer sentiment is on the rise, especially among Republicans, following Donald Trump’s landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month.
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 71.8 in November, which marks the highest point since April, Reuters reported. Consumer sentiment was rising before the election, but the latest report shows a massive spike among Republicans who are more optimistic about the economy following Trump’s win.
“Overall, the stability of national sentiment this month obscures discordant partisan patterns,” said Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu. “In a mirror image of November 2020, the expectations index surged for Republicans and fell for Democrats this month, a reflection of the two groups’ incongruous views of how Trump’s policies will influence the economy.”
“Ultimately, substantial uncertainty remains over the future implementation of Trump’s economic agenda, and consumers will continue to re-calibrate their views in the months ahead,” Hsu added.
Among Republicans, consumer sentiment shot up by 15.5 points, while it dropped among Democrats by 10.1 points. Consumer sentiment also slightly ticked down among independents. Future expectations also increased among Republicans by nearly 30 points while falling among Democrats by more than 18 points, the Washington Examiner reported.
The report comes as shoppers head to stores and look online for Black Friday and Christmas deals.
In the final weeks before the election, the consumer price index, which measures the general cost of goods and services across the country, increased 0.2% when seasonally adjusted. Eggs were 8.4% higher, nearly 40% more expensive than a year ago. Butter was 2.8% higher, almost 8% more expensive than a year ago.
Americans look forward to potentially lower inflation, with year-ahead inflation expectations falling to 2.6% this month. Inflation under President Joe Biden reached 9.1% in June of 2022 after Americans grew accustomed to an inflation rate of less than 2% when Trump was in office.
Trump made the economy and inflation major issues of his campaign, promising to address them mainly by lowering energy prices. In September, during a town hall meeting in Flint, Michigan, Trump was asked how he would “bring down the cost of food and groceries” as many families struggle to pay their bills.
“We have to start always with energy,” Trump replied. “I don’t want to be boring about it, but there’s no bigger subject that covers everything. If you make donuts, if you make cars, whatever you make, energy is a big deal.”
“And it’s my ambition to get your energy bill within 12 months down 50%,” he added. “If I can do that, we’ve done a hell of a job … [and] interest rates are going to follow.”
The House Homeland Security Committee plans to interview fired FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington about her instructions to relief workers in Florida to skip homes displaying Trump signs or flags, according to a letter first shared with The Daily Wire.
Committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN) requested Friday that Washington appear for a transcribed interview to discuss her recent claims that FEMA has a widespread policy of avoiding “politically hostile” homes. Washington made the comments after The Daily Wire reported that she instructed federal relief workers in Lake Placid, Florida, to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”
Green wrote that the interview was part of the committee’s investigation into “potential discrimination against disaster victims based on political affiliation” and wanted to schedule the interview by November 25. He said the interview would help lawmakers as they seek “to uncover the complete nature and extent of FEMA’s misconduct in withholding federal assistance from Americans based on political affiliation.”
The letter was also signed by Reps. Dan Bishop (R-NC) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY).
“Natural disasters don’t consider a person’s political beliefs when devastating homes, businesses, and livelihoods,” Green told The Daily Wire. “Alleged guidance within FEMA to discriminate against fellow Americans in their time of need represents an unacceptable failure to fulfill the agency’s vital mission and a betrayal of the public trust that deserves oversight.”
He added that the committee plans to uncover whether Washington’s instructions were isolated or “systemic practice” at the Department of Homeland Security. If systemic, Green said “it would mean an unknown number of vulnerable Americans have been passed over for necessary resources simply because of their protected speech.”
Whistleblowers assigned to Washington’s relief team told The Daily Wire that they skipped at least 20 homes in Lake Placid due to the guidance. FEMA fired Washington on November 9, calling the guidance an “isolated” incident that did not reflect the agency.
“Government discrimination against American citizens based on a political sign or flag promoting a particular candidate is not only an outrageous abuse of power and a serious betrayal of the public trust, but a direct violation of the First Amendment,” Green wrote. “This discrimination has no place in our government, and the Committee is determined to ensure that such actions do not occur again in any of FEMA’s operations.”
In an interview after she was fired, Washington told Roland Martin that FEMA’s suggestion that she made an independent decision to avoid certain homes is a mischaracterization, stating that it is agency policy and likely happening in the Carolinas.
Green referenced this interview in his letter to Washington on Friday and encouraged her to cooperate with their investigation.
“While FEMA may maintain that this was an isolated incident, you suggested in a recent interview that this practice of discrimination was widespread throughout FEMA, including in disaster response efforts in North Carolina,” he wrote.
The House Oversight Committee grilled FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell about the guidance on Tuesday.
Americans are expressing “warmer” feelings toward President-elect Donald Trump after his 2024 election victory than after the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to survey results published by Pew Research Center on Friday.
A majority of Americans (53%) said they approve of Trump’s plans for his second term, while 46% disapprove, according to Pew Research. The survey, which received responses from more than 9,500 adults from November 12 to 17, showed that Americans expressed the most confidence in Trump’s ability to handle economic policy (59%), law enforcement and criminal justice (54%), immigration (53%), and foreign policy (53%).
On the issues of abortion and unifying the country, however, fewer Americans expressed confidence in Trump’s plans — 45% are confident in Trump’s handling of abortion, while 41% are confident that he can unite the country.
Pew also asked respondents to indicate how they felt about Trump, ranging from “very warm” and “warm” to “cold” and “very cold.” Forty-three percent of respondents said they felt “warm” or “very warm” toward Trump, a significant increase from 34% after the 2020 election and 36% after the 2016 election.
The positive results for Trump from the Pew survey come just days after a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showing that 54% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as he prepares for another term, The Hill reported. According to the poll, 91% of Republicans, 49% of independents, and 22% of Democrats approve of how Trump is handling the transition period.
Americans have already received a glimpse into what Trump’s second term will look like as the president-elect quickly got to work naming people to fill important cabinet positions. Trump has also signaled that he will waste no time in implementing his campaign pledge for mass deportations, tapping former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan to serve as his “border czar.”
Trump’s approval is also spiking among young adults, according to a recent YouGov poll. The survey, conducted between November 17 and 19, showed Trump boasting a 57% approval rating among Americans aged 18 to 29 — a 19-point increase from a YouGov poll conducted earlier in the month, according to Newsweek.
Trump cruised to a landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris on November 5, taking 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226. Trump is also leading in the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes as ballots continue to be counted in some states.
In 2017, Trump entered office underwater by 2 points in his approval rating, according to Gallup. During his four years in office, Trump’s approval rating reached 49% in early 2020 before dipping to 34% by the end of his term.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, the stars of the new film “Wicked,” did an interview with journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist from Out magazine that’s been making the rounds on X. As of Friday morning, the clip has more than 22 million views.
In the clip, Gilchrist tells Erivo, “I’ve seen this week people are taking the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and really holding space with that, and feeling power in that.”
Despite the fact that the statement seems to make no sense, Eviro appears to be deeply moved and replies, “I didn’t know that was happening … that’s really powerful. That’s what I wanted.”
“I didn’t know that was happening,” Eviro repeats as Grande grabs her hand and strokes her fingers, making affirmative noises. “It’s really cool.”
“I’ve seen it on a couple posts, I don’t know how widespread,” Gilchrist clarifies. “But you know, I am in queer media, that’s my – you know.”
“If I was going to sound inauthentic as possible, this is what I’d sound like,” another reply said.
“Let’s be honest… this is insufferable,” a third agreed.
“Wicked” premieres nationwide on Friday and is doing well at the box office, with more than $19 million in previews. It’s expected to perform strongly through the weekend and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. The musical, which is being released in two parts, is based on the long-running Broadway musical of the same name.
There’s been a lot of time and money spent on advertising, but those efforts haven’t been without controversy. For one thing, fans have questioned why Grande and Erivo cry so often during joint interviews. “We can’t help it, we get very emotional about it,” Erivo said of their overly emotional responses.
Also, earlier this month, the toy company Mattel was forced to apologize when packaging for its “Wicked” themed toys directed customers to an explicit pornography site.
The doll collection was removed from the shelves at Target and other major retailers because the boxes were printed with the address of the website wicked.com, which features graphic adult content, instead of the correct address, wickedmovie.com.
Erivo also had a meltdown in October when a fan-edited movie poster made to more closely resemble the Broadway version started circulating online. The actress was upset that in the new version, her eyes were obscured by her witch hat.
“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen,” Erivo said in part. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
“The original poster is an Illustration,” she continued. “I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer …because, without words we communicate with our eyes. Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
The star later apologized for her reaction, saying it was a “human moment” and that she probably should have called her friends instead.
MSNBC was apparently shamed into editing a Thursday headline on a piece covering the trial of illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra, who was convicted earlier this week for the brutal murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
The piece was written by legal analyst Danny Cevallos and was initially headlined “Laken Riley’s Killer Never Stood a Chance.” It explored whether or not the conclusion of Ibarra’s trial — conviction on all counts followed by a sentence of life without parole — had been inevitable from the start.
While the overall analysis — from the reasons that the defense chose a bench trial over a jury trial to the ultimate outcome of the trial and sentencing — was straightforward, the headline quickly raised eyebrows across X.
“An actual headline from MSNBC: ‘Laken Riley’s killer never stood a chance,'” conservative communications strategist Steve Guest posted. “Ask yourself: Why is MSNBC writing sympathetic headlines for an illegal alien monster and killer? Why is MSNBC’s ‘legal analyst’ Danny Cevallos ok with this headline?”
An actual headline from MSNBC: “Laken Riley's killer never stood a chance”
Ask yourself: Why is MSNBC writing sympathetic headlines for an illegal alien monster and killer?
“Look at how @MSNBC framed the conviction and sentencing of Laken Riley’s killer. Jose Ibarra never stood a chance? No. Laken Riley never stood a chance against this monster. Absolutely sickening,” Adam Johnston said.
Look at how @MSNBC framed the conviction and sentencing of Laken Riley's killer.
Jose Ibarra never stood a chance?
No. Laken Riley never stood a chance against this monster.
“You literally can’t make up this level of depravity. These people are sick. The guy is a murderer. He’s an illegal alien that killed an innocent young woman but MSNBC would rather go to bat for him. However, much you hate MSNBC it’s not enough!” Donald Trump Jr. weighed in on the issue as well.
You literally can’t make up this level of depravity. These people are sick. The guy is a murderer. He’s an illegal alien that killed an innocent young woman but MSNBC would rather go to bat for him. However, much you hate MSNBC it’s not enough! pic.twitter.com/3YSVmbbVBD
Popular broadcast news journalist Katie Couric weighed in on the Capitol Hill bathroom controversy, stating that she found it “sh***y” that members of Congress are expected to use the bathroom that matches their biological sex.
Her statements come on the heels of Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introducing legislation that would require “members, officers, and employees of the House” to use bathrooms according to sex.
The bill was introduced this week as Democrats are preparing for their new member, Sarah McBride from Delaware, to become the first member of Congress to identify as transgender.
A reporter asked Mace, “Is this effort in response to Congresswoman McBride coming to Congress?”
“Yes and absolutely, and then some,” Mace replied. “I’m not going to stand for a man, you know, when someone with a penis is in the women’s locker room, that’s not okay.”
Couric, meanwhile, took issue with Mace’s tone.
“Hey everyone, I’m just so disappointed that this Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, is being so rude, and I don’t know, just bigoted against Sarah McBride, who is a new congressperson from the state of Delaware,” the 67-year-old TV personality said in a video posted on TikTok Thursday.
“I know Sarah. She is the first openly transgender member of Congress, and she’s an extraordinary human being, has done a great job representing the people of Delaware and is now going to be doing it in Washington, and it just seems nasty and mean, and cruel because she is the only member who is now forbidden to use the ladies’ room and it’s just sh***y, you know. Anyway, I just wanted to say that.”
Couric isn’t the only one upset over the bill. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was fuming over the idea of people sticking to the bathroom that matched their sex, saying, “It’s disgusting. And everybody, no matter how you feel on this issue, should reject it completely.”
“They’re doing this so that Nancy Mace can make a buck and send a text and fundraise off an email. They’re not doing this to protect people. They’re endangering women,” she continued. “They’re endangering girls of all kinds. And everybody should reject it. It’s gross.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) supported the move, noting that “each Member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol.”
McBride also weighed in, saying, “I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson even if I disagree with them. This effort to distract from the real issues facing this country hasn’t distracted me over the last several days, as I’ve remained hard at work preparing to represent the greatest state in the union come January.”
President Joe Biden’s administration is punishing Oklahoma for refusing to promote abortion, Oklahoma Senator James Lankford argued in an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court first obtained by The Daily Wire.
The statement of interest, which is signed by 19 members of Congress — including Senators Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Steve Daines of Montana, and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi — argues that the Biden administration suspended the $4.5 million Title X Family Planning grant formerly awarded to Oklahoma’s Department of Health as a way to punish the state for refusing to promote abortion.
In Oklahoma, abortions of unborn babies are only allowed if the health of the mother is in danger.
The Department of Health and Human Services had awarded the $4.5 million to the Oklahoma State Department of Health to spend on “family planning services” — then rescinded the sum effective May 24, 2023, after finding that Oklahoma would not spend the money on abortion. In September, the Supreme Court rejected Oklahoma’s request that the High Court restore the federal family planning grant that the Biden administration had removed.
Lankford filed the brief on Monday, in reference to Oklahoma v. Department of Health and Human Services. It argues that “the right of conscience is fundamental to our American freedoms” and that this freedom should be guaranteed by “protecting all health care providers from being forced to perform, refer, or pay for elective abortions.”
“President Biden is obsessed with elective abortion on demand,” Lankford told The Daily Wire. “Oklahomans should not have to miss out on funding for critical health services for women, AIDS testing, and cancer screenings because of the Administration’s extreme abortion agenda. I am proud to lead my colleagues on this brief that puts actual health care ahead of politics.”
The lawmakers describe themselves, in the statement of interest, as “pro-life elected representatives” who are committed to “protecting mothers, unborn children, and families from the harms of the abortion industry.”
These lawmakers have voted annually to adopt the Weldon Amendment, they wrote, which protects health care institutions from discrimination against those institutions’ right to “conscientiously object against ending unborn human life.”
Lankford has pushed back against the removal of the millions of dollars stripped from Oklahoma. He introduced a bill in July 2023 that would have clarified that the Department of Health and Human Services can’t discriminate against Title X grantees for their pro-life stances. The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
And in June 2023, Lankford led Oklahoma congressional delegation in sending a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, an outspoken pro-abortion Biden administration official. The letter argued that “HHS has chosen to prioritize abortion instead of prioritizing actual health care, by suspending Title X funding awarded to OSDH because of its obligation to abide by federal law and the state laws of Oklahoma.”
“It is absurd that HHS is suspending funds previously granted to OSDH for its refusal to refer for a procedure that the underlying federal statute explicitly forbids,” Lankford, and a number of his colleagues, wrote in the letter at the time.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on Friday that he will not rejoin Congress in January after withdrawing his name from consideration for attorney general.
Gaetz told conservative commentator Charlie Kirk during an interview, “I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” CNN reported.
The former Florida congressman resigned from the 118th Congress earlier this month after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him for attorney general. His withdrawal from AG consideration on Thursday prompted journalists to immediately begin exploring whether Gaetz could return to the House next year to serve since he won his November election.
Matt Gaetz tells Charlie Kirk he does not plan to return to Congress:
“I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress.” pic.twitter.com/VVOCoBfu5T
The nomination of Gaetz, a staunch Trump loyalist, was immediately criticized by Democrats and some Republicans, who expressed concern over the investigations into Gaetz over alleged sexual misconduct. Gaetz announced his decision to drop out of attorney general consideration on Thursday after meeting with senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. He said it was “clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.”
The House Ethics Committee has weighed releasing a report on Gaetz after looking into the sexual misconduct allegations against him. CNN reported on Thursday that the Ethics Committee was told of a second alleged sexual encounter between Gaetz and a 17-year-old girl in 2017. According to CNN, Gaetz announced that he was withdrawing his name 45 minutes after reporters had asked for comment from him on the second allegation.
Trump tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to replace Gaetz as the attorney general nominee on Thursday, a move praised by Gaetz.
“@PamBondi is a stellar selection by President Trump for Attorney General,” Gaetz posted on X. “Pam and I worked closely together when she was Florida’s Attorney General and I chaired Criminal Justice in the state house. She’s a proven litigator, an inspiring leader and a champion for all Americans. She will bring the needed reforms to DOJ.”
To fill Gaetz’s seat, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a special election, and Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said an election date would be announced as soon as possible. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, but the party isn’t concerned about losing Gaetz’s seat as Florida’s 1st district is deep red.
Gaetz told Kirk on Friday, “There are a number of fantastic Floridians who’ve stepped up to run for my seat, people who have inspired with their heroism, with their public service. And I’m actually excited to see Northwest Florida go to new heights and have great representation.”
“I’m going to be fighting for President Trump,” he added. “I’m going to be doing whatever he asks of me, as I always have. But I think that eight years is probably enough time in the United States Congress.”
Last week, a Minnesota hospital issued a profuse apology to staff after failing to abide by its “values of respect and justice” — by giving out free Chick-fil-A.
Staff at Essentia Health in Duluth complained about the free sandwiches available last Tuesday in the St. Mary’s Medical Center’s atrium, an email chain obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
“Please spread the word that Chick-fil-A will be handing out free sandwiches” from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. wrote Tammy Kritzer, senior vice president for regional operations at Essentia Health.
Several health care professionals responded indignantly.
🧵EXCLUSIVE: Read the emails from the "courageous" hospital staffers who complained about free Chick-fil-A
The Minnesota hospital later apologized profusely for allowing the free lunch pic.twitter.com/frs6ESESBN
“Chick-fil-A is an Anti-LGBTQ+ business and I would not recommend supporting them in any way. We need to protect vulnerable communities during this time and at all times,” one male licensed practical nurse wrote.
“I’m not sure Essentia realizes the message they are sending to their LGBTQ+ employees (or patients) with this affiliation. The sandwiches might be free, but the implicit endorsement certainly has a cost,” wrote a medical laboratory scientist whose email signature has “they/them” pronouns.
The emails critical of Chick-fil-A got dozens of thumbs up and heart emoji reactions, while another message suggesting the staffers calm down did not get such a warm response.
“It is just a Sandwich,” one employee responded. “Plenty of the items Essentia Health uses in the healthcare industry to include supplies and equipment were likely made in China. It doesn’t mean that Essentia supports communism or government oppression.”
Chick-fil-A has drawn the ire of LGBT activists over the years, who have boycotted and staged protests over the company donating to groups like the Salvation Army, which activists claim has “a record of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.” In fact, the company emphasizes that it “values diversity, equity and inclusion” and does not discriminate or tolerate harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Some cities have prevented Chick-fil-A from opening locations at their airports, including Buffalo, New York, and San Antonio, Texas. The chain famously does not open on Sundays to honor the Lord’s Day, Chick-fil-A’s founder explained, likely causing it to lose more than $1 billion a year.
Later in the day, Kritzer, the hospital administrator, who has “she/her” pronouns in her email signature, wrote to staff apologizing for the free lunch.
“We have received feedback from some colleagues who were concerned or offended by this occurrence, and we value colleagues feeling comfortable expressing their reservations,” Kritzer wrote.
“We would like to thank our colleagues who had the courage to speak up to widen our lens of inclusivity, and we appreciate all colleagues continuing to live our values of respect and justice,” she said.
The hospital distanced itself from Chick-fil-A in the email, writing that the free lunch was “not intended to endorse a business or business practices,” the email said.
“We respect all we are honored to serve and employ, and situations such as these are an important reminder to consider all viewpoints. As we strive to be thoughtful and inclusive as an organization, we will have learnings along the way,” the email read.
“In the words of Maya Angelou, when we know better, we do better,” the email concluded. “Thank you for giving us grace, as we work to be better, together.”
The hospital did not respond to a request for comment.
Essentia Health is a Catholic hospital system with a mission to “promote Christ’s ministry of holistic healing for all human life with special concern for the poor and powerless.”
However, Essentia provides cross-sex hormones and more to minors. According to the Stop The Harm database, Essentia has performed at least five sex change operations on minors.
The House Oversight Committee demanded Friday that FEMA respond to new allegations that it has discriminated against Trump supporters when distributing emergency relief.
In a letter first shared with The Daily Wire, Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) wrote to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell asking for her to provide more documentation on any “avoidance” policy the agency may have in place. The letter comes after Criswell testified for hours on Tuesday about guidance from FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington in Florida to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”
While Criswell has said Washington’s instructions were an “isolated” incident, Comer noted that another whistleblower had contacted his office telling them that a similar situation occurred in Georgia.
He wrote the whistleblower told the committee that “a FEMA contractor warned a disabled veteran’s family in Georgia to remove Trump campaign materials from their home because FEMA supervisors viewed Trump supporters as domestic terrorists.”
The letter also pointed to comments from Florida Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) who said on Tuesday hearing that over 35 of his constituents reached out to him with allegations that FEMA had discriminated against them.
“The Committee is in the process of investigating these claims. If they are true, they would corroborate concerns that political discrimination extends beyond Ms. Washington,” the letter said.” Furthermore, they suggest an apparent culture, whether sanctioned or not, within FEMA to politically discriminate against disaster survivors, specifically those who support President-elect Donald Trump.”
The letter was signed by all Republicans on the Oversight Committee, in addition to Steube and Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who sat in on Criswell’s testimony.
The committee asked Criswell to provide Disaster Survivor Assistance surveys with any reference to political affiliation, communications with references to politics among FEMA leadership in the region Washington was working, and any guidelines or policies the agency may have on “avoidance” or de-escalation practices.
The Republicans also asked for a briefing with Chad Hershey, Washington’s supervisor in Lake Placid, Florida, where at least 20 homes were skipped over because they had a Trump flag or sign. In addition to Hershey, the Oversight Committee said it wanted to set up a briefing with Washington’s task force.
The committee requested the names of three FEMA workers who spoke with Washington around October 30, three days after the guidance was issued. It is unclear what the workers spoke to her about, but it was after a whistleblower complaint had been filed with the Department of Homeland Security.
The committee asked Criswell to respond with the proper documents and information no later than December 6.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) introduced a bill on Thursday that would abolish the Department of Education, a move that has been pushed by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies.
The bill, titled “Returning Education to Our States Act,” would move the critical programs of the department to other federal government agencies, Fox News reported. Rounds argued that local officials should be given more control over education.
“The federal Department of Education has never educated a single student, and it’s long past time to end this bureaucratic Department that causes more harm than good,” Rounds said in a statement. “We all know local control is best when it comes to education. Everyone raised in South Dakota can think of a teacher who played a big part in their educational journey. Local school boards and state Departments of Education know best what their students need, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”
The Department of Education was created in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter signed legislation making it a cabinet-level agency. Rounds’ bill would return the U.S. to pre-1979 practices when other federal government agencies handled education issues.
If signed into law, the “Returning Education to Our States Act” would require the Department of Health and Human Services to take over disability programs, the Department of Labor would become responsible for career programs, the State Department would take over “research and training efforts overseas,” loan and grant programs would fall under the Department of Treasury, and American Indian education programs would become the responsibility of the Department of the Interior.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to “drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing.” The president-elect tapped Linda McMahon for Education Secretary earlier this week, saying she will “fight tirelessly” to expand school choice in every state and “empower parents to make the best education decisions for their families.”
“As a strong supporter of school choice and parental rights, there is no one better to expel the woke agenda in our education system and put our children first,” Trump said of McMahon.
Since President Ronald Reagan, Republicans have pledged to eliminate the Department of Education with no results. While Rounds’ bill likely won’t get anywhere under the current Democrat-controlled Senate, Republicans will have a chance to pass the legislation once the party takes over control of the Senate and the White House, along with keeping control of the House, in January.
“For years, I’ve worked toward removing the federal Department of Education. I’m pleased that President-elect Trump shares this vision, and I’m excited to work with him and Republican majorities in the Senate and House to make this a reality,” Rounds said. “This legislation is a roadmap to eliminating the federal Department of Education by practically rehoming these federal programs in the departments where they belong, which will be critical as we move into next year.”
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle urged leftists and Democrats this week not to abandon X following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.
Ruhle made the remarks during a Friday segment on Morning Joe.
“Elon Musk bought X and turned it into a, you know, the social media arm of the MAGA movement,” she said. “And we all sat there right in the middle of it during the campaign, possibly not realizing that we’re sitting there like fat chickens just getting attacked all day and just being part of this MAGA messaging.”
She then warned that people who are leaving the platform for a left-wing social media platform called Bluesky are siloing themselves from others.
“However, the election is over,” she said. “Everybody’s getting smarter and better. I’m not sure that the right idea is to leave Twitter and just go to Bluesky, a friendlier place, because then we remain in our echo chambers.”
“I don’t think that you should necessarily stay in Twitter every day and battle it out and let yourself doom scroll of all the hate coming at you, but I want to see it,” she continued. “I want to read what’s happening there, right? And so I think at least staying in those spaces is important, because I want to hear the other things.”
WATCH:
MELTDOWN FROM MSNBC’S STEPHANIE RUHLE:
“@elonmusk bought X and turned it into the social media arm of the MAGA movement. And we all sat there right in the middle of it during the campaign, possibly not realizing that we are sitting there like fat chickens just getting attacked… pic.twitter.com/yy9YQYCiCi
It’s the ultimate virtue signal, and that’s saying something by Hollywood standards.
If Donald Trump wins on Election Day I’m leaving the country! That was the 2016 rally cry echoed by stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Cher, Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham, Whoopi Goldberg, Miley Cyrus and Snoop Dogg just before Trump’s improbable first term.
Spoiler alert. They stayed put. Or, as Schumer inelegantly put it, “just kidding!”
It quickly became a way to mock Celebrity Nation. Oh, you’re leaving if your preferred candidate doesn’t win on Election Day? Don’t let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you!
Mockery aside, the notion of a second Trump term coaxed some stars to make very similar complaints. The stars apparently either didn’t hear the ribbing that ensued the first time around or they didn’t care. Emotions run hot in Hollywood, so the latest election cycle found more celebrities vowing to flee should Kamala Harris’ word salad campaign fail to launch.
Oscar-nominee Sharon Stone teased a hasty retreat prior to Election Day. She told The Daily Mail in July she was planning a possible exit in a worst-case scenario.
“I am certainly considering a house in Italy…I think that’s an intelligent construct at this time. This is one of the first times in my life that I’ve actually seen anyone running for office on a platform of hate and oppression.”
We haven’t heard an update on her plans as of yet.
VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images
Barbra Streisand hedged her bets when she shared her post-election plans with “The Late Show” on CBS. She told far-Left host Stephen Colbert that she couldn’t keep living in America under a second Trump term, eyeing England as a possible destination.
We’re waiting for the moving trucks to circle her palatial estate.
Last year, Cher said this time she was seriously about leaving the USA should Trump defeat then-candidate President Joe Biden.
“I almost got an ulcer the last time. If he gets in, who knows? This time I will leave [the country].”
He’s in. Again. We’ll have to wait and see if Cher’s word is her bond.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM
The second round of, “I’m leaving the country if Trump wins (again)” is less boisterous than the first. Plus, a tiny number of stars actually followed up on their pledge.
Sort of. To be fair, it’s … complicated.
Ellen DeGeneres, whose behind-the-scenes cruelty crushed her once-popular TV talk show, followed up on the generic, I’m gonna leave threat. She and her wife, “Arrested Development” alum Portia de Rossi, are moving to England.
They’ve sold their Montecito, California, home, a decision allegedly fueled by Trump’s victory. It’s ironic for a comedian to choose England, a nation where free speech has come under serious attack while President Elect-Trump vows to crush the Deep State’s censorship players.
Priorities.
Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for RH
The press insinuated “Desperate Housewives” alum Eva Longoria also pulled up her stakes and moved following Trump’s victory. She could have leaned into the false narrative, gaining hipster points within her Hollywood community.
Longoria, to her credit, shared the real story behind her move.
“I’ve been in Europe for almost three years… By the way, the article says that. People just grabbed some clickbait stuff to be divisive, which makes me so sad. Everything you say is just meant to be divisive when we can’t be that way right now.”
She also flew back to California in recent days for an industry party.
Ironically, Longoria blasted California’s homeless issues and high taxes as key reasons for her initial departure. Both fall heavily on the state’s one-party rule, not any Trump decisions.
Some stars are making good on their plans to leave, but it doesn’t mean their nation of origin. They’re fleeing X, the Elon Musk platform which embraced free speech in recent years. It’s far easier to switch to a competing, albeit infinitely smaller, platform than actually selling one’s home and giving up what America offers the very rich and famous.
That ex-X list includes Stephen King, Bette Midler, Rob Reiner, Jamie Lee Curtis, Matthew Lillard, Alyssa Milano, Mark Hamill and Gabrielle Union. More may follow, including far-Left journalists like Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post fame.
FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO
Most have settled into Bluesky, a newer platform that offers an X-like experience.
They, too, may eventually come back to the platform formally known as Twitter. Stars often threaten to leave or quit the social media giant before coming back sooner or later. Alec Baldwin is a classic example.
Newer platforms like Threads, dubbed the Twitter killer in its early days, haven’t caught up with Musk’s digital baby. That’s being kind.
Then again, leaving X wasn’t healing enough for actor/auteur Rob Reiner. The “Misery” director left X, joined Bluesky but says he’s still so crushed by Trump’s victory that he’s checked into a “facility” for his mental health.
The actor formerly known as Meathead may have found the smartest way to process Trump 2.0 for Hollywood progressives.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
A forensic pathologist testified on Thursday that Jordan Neely’s death was caused by the “combined effects” of the synthetic marijuana he was using, his schizophrenia, and other factors.
Dr. Satish Chundru reviewed Neely’s autopsy records and video evidence for Daniel Penny’s defense team, the New York Post reported, and determined that those records didn’t show the signs typically associated with chokehold deaths.
“In your opinion, did Mr. Penny choke Mr. Neely to death?” asked Steven Raiser, one of Penny’s defense attorneys.
“No,” Chundru replied, “The chokehold did not cause death.”
Chundru also testified that Neely’s death was the result of “the combined effects of sickle cell crisis, the schizophrenia, the struggle and restraint, and the synthetic marijuana,” Fox News reported. He said that someone high on synthetic marijuana with schizophrenia can die while involved in a struggle, even without a chokehold being used. Chundru went on to say that even if Neely hadn’t had those other health factors, he still would not have died from Penny’s chokehold.
Penny, 26, is on trial for allegedly killing Neely on a New York City subway car last year following alleged threats from Neely against the other passengers.
Chundru said he ruled the chokehold out as the cause of death because there were other factors, and he pointed out discrepancies in Neely’s records. He said that Neely’s medical records were inconsistent when it came to bruising on his neck and stated there were “almost negligible” tiny bleeding spots on his eyelids. Chundru said these discrepancies were not consistent with a fatal chokehold, the Post reported.
Under cross-examination, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Dafna Yoran was able to get Chundru to acknowledge that video of the chokehold showed Penny’s arm in a “blood choke” position, and that Neely did have matching bruises on his neck. Chundru argued, however, that “You can have a chokehold applied, leave with that kind of injury, and survive.”
“With the video, it gives us the evidence that a chokehold occurred but did not cause the death [of Neely],” Chundru testified after being asked to compare Neely’s death to one of his previous cases.
Chundru is expected to continue testifying on Friday. Numerous witnesses have so far testified that they feared Neely, with some even thanking Penny for stepping in to protect them.
Penny faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter or up to 4 years if he’s convicted on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide.
The holiday season is a perfect time to gather around your family and friends and turn on some quality entertainment, but with Hollywood constantly cramming leftist politics down viewers’ throats, it can be challenging to find a movie or series that will stick to what it’s supposed to do: enlighten and entertain.
Instead of endlessly scrolling through your streaming services before settling on a below-average movie, let us help you make a decision. This Thanksgiving week, DailyWire+ has you covered with a great collection of films and series for you and your family. And beginning today, you can subscribe to DailyWire+ to watch these titles for 50% off an annual subscription.
Start your holiday week off with the newest hit movie from Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire: “Am I Racist?” Follow along as Walsh goes undercover and talks to some of the leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) voices, hilariously skewering the absurdity of race hustlers.
“Am I Racist?” took the country by storm this fall after becoming The Daily Wire’s first theatrical release for an in-house production. The film quickly set records, grossing more than $12 million at the box office and debuting in the top five films in the country on its opening weekend. Walsh’s film then became the most successful release in DailyWire+ history.
After (or before) you watch Walsh’s latest hit, grab a bowl of popcorn for his 2022 documentary that shook the world, “What is a Woman?”
Released in the summer of 2022, “What is a Woman?” quickly became the most-talked-about film that year as Walsh — through simple questions about biology — dismantles leftist ideas about sex and gender. “What is a Woman?” quickly became the #1 most-watched movie at home in June of 2022. Despite many mainstream critics refusing to review “What is a Woman?,” the film was a massive hit with the audience and independent reviewers, and it still sits at an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
If you’re looking for something with more intense action, “Run Hide Fight” is for you. The first feature-length film co-produced and distributed by The Daily Wire follows Zoe Hull, a 17-year-old high school senior whose “Senior Day” at high school is interrupted by chaos when four of her classmates hold dozens of students hostage and seek to inflict mass carnage.
While Zoe finds herself with the option to run and hide, she soon faces the sobering realization that she is in a unique position to save lives — a decision that ends up requiring her to fight.
In this groundbreaking five-part series, Peterson reveals his revolutionary approach to conquering depression, anxiety, and resentment. See powerful psychotherapy techniques from his clinical work, uncover the roots of mental anguish, and arm yourself with tools to reclaim your life.
The episodes include “Defining Depression,” “The Trap of Catastrophizing,” “Exposure Therapy,” “A Roadmap to Treatment,” and “Reconstructing the Future You.”
The 2023 DailyWire+ comedy “Lady Ballers” perfectly encapsulates the ridiculousness of biological men playing in women’s sports in a movie that’s guaranteed to get the whole room laughing.
“Lady Ballers” tells the story of a down-on-his-luck former high school basketball coach named Rob, played by Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing, who will do anything to win — in this case, teaching his team of men radical modern gender theory and leading them to identify as women in order to brutally dominate multiple women’s sports.
After coming out on DailyWire+ last year, the movie quickly received rave reviews from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, where it still sits at an 88% rating.
Gina Carano stars in this gritty western and original feature film by The Daily Wire. “Terror on the Prairie” came out in June 2022, shortly after being canceled by Disney over her political views.
In the thriller, Carano plays a frontier woman on the Montana plains who must protect herself against a ruthless gang of outlaws hell-bent on revenge. The “quintessentially American” film also features the on-screen talents of UFC champion Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, Nick Searcy, and Tyler Fischer.
In this 17-episode series, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson gathers some of the brightest minds for an unprecedented, in-depth analysis of Exodus, an academic work to be taken seriously in the modern era.
Join Peterson, Dennis Prager, Dr. Larry Arnn, Dr. James Orr, Dr. Os Guinness, Dr. Stephen Blackwood, Gregg Hurwitz, Dr. Douglas Hedley, and Jonathan Pageau as they discuss this biblical text.
Stephanie Matto, 34, is a TV personality known for her appearance on the TLC reality show '90 Day Fiancé' in 2020. She wrote a tell-all memoir, 'Empty Blood', about her experiences.
Over six decades of stardom, Cher has won the hearts of fans around the globe for her songs, her movies and her outfits. But perhaps her most unforgettable creation is her public persona.
McGregor, 36, faced an accusation that he 'brutally raped and battered' Nikita Hand, 35, at a hotel in south Dublin in December 2018, yesterday he was found libellous in a civil court.
Ihsan Ali, 44, and his wife Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, were charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, and assault after the attack on October 18 in Lacey, Washington.
Not yet engaged and less than a year into their relationship, Meghan and Harry were set to enjoy Pippa Middleton's wedding reception in each other's company.
Kobe Bryant became a legend on the court, winning five NBA championships with the Lakers, but it appears his influence extended far beyond basketball, Harden revealed.
J.D. Vance, wife Usha and their three children are packing up to live in their new residence - a 9,000 square foot home on the 80-acre Naval Observatory with a tree swing and a swimming pool.
Sebastian Gorka will serve as Donald Trump's senior director for counterterrorism.
Gorka is a conservative commentator who spent less than a year in Trump's first White House term.
Taylor Swift has reacted after Jason Kelce and his wife Kylie, who have been married since 2018, announced that they are expecting their fourth child together in an adorable post Friday.
The activist and TV host, 70, said he initially ignored the call from the president-elect as he didn't recognize the number, and admitted he was surprised by what Trump told him after he got off the air.
Netflix fans have praised a biographical drama that featured an A-list star when he was just 16 years of age, noting that it made for a 'cracking' watch - in a post on the Facebook group Netflix Bangers.
MailOnline retraces Payne's final moments in unrivalled detail, capturing every moment from when the troubled star landed in Buenos Aires alongside Kate Cassidy until he fell 45ft from his hotel balcony.
Login
