Jack Fowler: All right, here’s the headline, Victor. Kamala Harris torched for progressive wish list.

Here’s the first few paragraphs of this article: Harris said during a Wednesday night livestream on the “Win With Black Women” podcast that Democrats need, quote, “an expanded playbook and need to consider radical positions ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, including abolishing the electoral college, packing the Supreme Court. 

“Look,” she says, “this is a moment where there are no bad ideas. A no bad idea brainstorm is what I’d like to call it,” Harris said in the video, which quickly went viral on social media.  

I know Kamala Harris and the word brain in the same sentence are – 

Victor Davis Hanson: It’s an oxymoron.  

Fowler: Yeah, yeah. So, Puerto Rico statehood, neutralizing red states. She says they’re cheating on the maps, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  

Victor, your take.  

Hanson: Yeah, I mean, she goes through these metamorphoses depending … she has no real ideology. I know she’s a black woman, half Asian black, and she uses that, but she has no deep-seated beliefs. 

In the ’80s and ’90s and at the millennium and after, there was this sort of Bill Clinton democratism, and so she tried to distinguish herself as a tough prosecutor. She would prosecute parents whose kids were tardy to class or truant. She would go after marijuana possessors. She was the consort of Willie Brown, and she was trying to be the moderate voice. 

And then when the Obama years came, she radicalized, and then her bathos point was when we had that five months of 2020 looting, killing, arson, and she got on CBS News and she said it’s not going to end. It shouldn’t end. I think it was with [Stephen] Colbert. It’s gonna go on, and it’s gonna go on to the election. 

And then it was very funny because all the Left was trying to get Trump, Jack Smith, on insurrection because he had, you know, supposedly egged on the crowd, but he did say assemble peacefully and patriotically. She didn’t even have that out. And yet they all said, “Well, she wasn’t mentioning…” And that day in Washington, of course, they had tried to storm the White House, and Trump went into his bunker, and The New York Times said he was kind of a coward for doing that. 

I suppose they wanted him to go out and fight with the protesters. But the point I’m making is they all said it was just nothing.  

And then she reincarnated herself again under Biden as vice president as open borders, borders are all this left-wing. And then she ran and remember she said that she didn’t really know whether she was for deportations or not. 

She had that clip came out where she was going, No deportation, no deportation. And so she tried to tack to the center. She wasn’t even… 

Remember, she had said she’d eliminate fracking, but now she wasn’t sure. Pennsylvania was important. So now she’s going to go hard left because that’s where the Jacobin Party is. 

And then if she gets the nomination, which I pray that she does, then she will go back to left-of-center. She doesn’t believe in anything.  

As I said, I didn’t want to be cruel, but it is true that when she starts talking and the word feelings, empathy, any metaphysical term, time, being, come up, her eyes start to go like this, you know, like “Twilight Zone” music. 

And then she starts to babble. And then when she sees that nobody is, everybody’s going, “Is this person sane?” Then she starts cackling. And that’s, she knows she can’t do that and yet she can’t resist or maybe it’s some affectation, but it’s sad. It really is.  

Fowler: Well, she knew enough as a candidate, a forced-on America candidate, to not talk to the press for, what was it, like 35 days or something? 

She didn’t answer a question.  

Hanson: Yeah, she didn’t do it the first … I want to ask the Democrats, you had power for eight years with Bill Clinton. You had power with eight years with Barack Obama, and you had the Congress at the beginning. Why didn’t you get rid of the Electoral College then? Why didn’t you bring in two states then? 

Why didn’t you pack the court and get your, I don’t know, your six liberal judges then? Why didn’t you end the Senate filibuster? Barack Obama tried to filibuster Sam Alito.  

And the answer is that as long as they have power, they put those things off. Then, when they get out of power, the system’s not fair. 

The system’s fair that got them power. Right. And then when they’re enjoying … They’re like little adolescents, you know what I mean? 13-year-olds. If everything is my way, then the whole world is wonderful. And when I don’t get my way, I throw a tantrum and are mad at my parents. And the parents in this case are the Constitution and 250 years of tradition. 

Yeah. You didn’t get me my power. You didn’t get me elected, so I’m mad at you. I’m gonna get in two states. I’m gonna get rid of the filibuster. I’m gonna get rid of the Electoral College. That’s what I’m gonna do, and I’m gonna … It’s like, well, look … it’s childlike.  

Fowler: Yeah, along those lines, Victor, we didn’t talk about it, the Virginia Supreme Court ruling and rollout, but between the rejection from the state Supreme Court and then the bungled application to the U.S. 

Supreme Court that had misspelled Virginia—even misspelled the word Senate and other things, misspelled Virginia, there was talk of an effort to remove all the Supreme Court justices from the Virginia court. I saw that. By the age of 53. Yeah. So right. Yeah. They don’t get their, “Well, we’re gonna do whatever we can to, to shoehorn in” —  

Hanson: And I think a lot of this is when you’re looking at even the left-wing analysis, you know, Nate Silver or Cook or whatever report.  

Fowler: Yeah, that’s Charles Cook, yeah.  

Hanson: You start to look at it, and they’re gonna pick up about 10 to 14 seats probably, the Republicans are, in this redistricting war, and they’re gonna pick up maybe four or five in the racial gerrymandering wars, and that’s not counting this, as I said earlier, this census. 

It’ll be long term. But when you look at the actual seats that are up that are contested, there’s only about 25, if you don’t count leaning left or leaning right, and it’s about 50/50 in those 25, 11. So I would say that the Republicans have, right now, a 30% to 45% chance of holding the House. 

And it’s gonna be contingent on … There’s such little adolescents on the left. They really do believe that the war is lost. In fact, the president of Iran came out today, Jack, and he said, “It doesn’t do any good, essentially, for us to lie to the Iranians,” said, “We haven’t hurt … We’re not hurting. We’ve suffered a lot of damage.” 

He is more accurate than the Left is. They’ve said that, you know, Iran is winning. And my point is whether it’s, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I have an instinctual gut feeling that sometime Tuesday night to Friday, we’re going to go back into kinetic operations and it’s going to be quick and there’s going to be a, you know, a tumult and prices will up, but I don’t think it’s going to last. 

I think it’s going to solve the problem. They’re going to open the Gulf and there’s going to be a lot of speculators with high priced oil that want to unload it.  

We said last time there’s 250 freighters out in the seas full anywhere from a half a million to 2 million barrels, and they’re going to be unloading it. 

And if Trump can by June or July get back on the economy, the indicators are all strong. And I think the Left knows that. And then when they look at the redistricting, it’s not, it’s not a done deal for them. And they like, also like little kids, they just get in these temper tantrums or wild enthusiasm. 

Here in California, when they redistrict, they were just wild. Like, “Well, we did. It’s gonna be … ” And then when Virginia did, “Oh, that’s the icing on the … Oh, and then we’re gonna impeach these people.” They go from like this, this, this. And I don’t, I don’t know. Yeah. This is not a democratic party. 

It isn’t. These people are really weird. They’re full of anger and hate. And I don’t, I don’t know. It’s a weird mixture of Islamicism and socialism, communism, and then DEI. It’s got all of these in, these clouds that make a perfect storm.  

Fowler: And grifting. Yes. Stalin and the boys all needed their dachas, and these people—  

Hanson: Well, there’s a good article today in The Wall Street Journal about champagne socialist and about all, like Bernie Sanders’ lifestyle that he leads and a lot of these billionaires, the Soros people, and all the nice things that accrue to all. 

Hasan Piker and his $200,000 Porsche. Yeah. They surely don’t live the life they advocate for others. 

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

The House Judiciary Committee invited me to speak on the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Democrats on the committee didn’t exactly like that. The Democrats spent their time defending the poor, sweet, little innocent SPLC from that big, mean Trump administration.

Most of the Democrats didn’t even try to address the thorny issue of who belongs on the SPLC’s “hate map.” Obviously, it’s slander for the SPLC to put mainstream conservative and Christian groups like the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA on a map with Klan chapters—a map the SPLC says exposes “the infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”

The Democrat witness, Maya Wiley, refused to even address the truth or falsehood of the SPLC’s attacks against my co-witnesses, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and civil rights expert Carol Swain.

Crockett deigned to actually discuss specific groups on the “hate map,” but her questions left much to be desired.

Crockett and the Proud Boys

She began her allotted five minutes by asking each of us whether we considered the Proud Boys to be “white supremacist.” I’m not particularly a fan of the Proud Boys—they’re a bit aggressive for my taste. They define themselves as opposing Antifa, and they got into many clashes with Antifa. It’s quite revealing that the SPLC condemns the Proud Boys but doesn’t condemn Antifa.

I don’t know if the Proud Boys belong on the “hate map.” What I do know, for certain, is that they’re not “white supremacist.”

How do I know this? Because the Proud Boys sued the SPLC for defamation, and I read the lawsuit. The Proud Boys made some very excellent arguments against the claim that they’re “white supremacist,” among them noting the fact that the Proud Boys’ leader—Enrique Tarrio—is of Afro-Cuban descent. The bylaws also explicitly bar white supremacists from joining.

I don’t support the Proud Boys, but I took an oath to tell the truth, and when Crockett asked me a question I knew the answer to, I wasn’t about to lie.

Crockett, however, blew up.

Crockett’s Outburst

“Oh my gosh, let me be clear: Proud Boys are freaking white supremacists,” the honorable Democrat gentlelady from Texas began lecturing me.

You can’t quite tell from the video, but Crockett was looking directly at me for the next three minutes of her tirade.

I won’t go into the nuts and bolts of her tirade—you can watch it for yourself.

I do, however, wish to respond to some of the disgusting insinuations she made about me and my fellow witnesses.

Crockett said, “I’m sure some of y’all would struggle with whether or not the enslavement of black people was good or bad—I’m not even going to go there and ask you the question.” For the record, as if it even needed to be said, I oppose race-based chattel slavery. My opinions about the Civil War are hardly a secret.

She also claimed that recent mass shootings involved “white supremacists who were empowered by the Republican Party’s racist rhetoric and policies,” and said the GOP “wants to drag us back to the Jim Crow era.”

Such a claim is absurd, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, demonstrated as much brilliantly when he contrasted photos of actual Jim Crow with photos of Americans today presenting ID to vote.

History Books

Perhaps the most disgusting part of her rant came toward the end of the hearing.

“Some of y’all need to read up on your history books, the very same ones that the Republicans have decided that people should not hear about because you don’t want real history taught in our schools because you’re afraid that it’s going to hurt people’s feelings to know that their ancestors were so savage that they would enslave black folk,” Crockett said. “You want them to be ignorant so that they can sit up here and be your token for your mission.”

That “token” line appeared to be a reference to Carol Swain, who is a serious scholar and expert on civil rights matters.

As for me, I do want kids to read history books, but I want them to present the facts fairly and to be tailored to specific grade levels. I don’t want a third grader reading books tainted by critical race theory—the notion that America is systemically racist, such that blacks are inherently oppressed and whites are inherently oppressors. I want kids to learn about slavery, but I also want them to learn why America’s values led to its eventual abolition.

Of course, Crockett’s whole point wasn’t to “educate” me or to get me to change my mind. She likely knows that I don’t support slavery and that Republicans aren’t really trying to bring back Jim Crow.

The whole event felt more like a therapy session, where a good therapist just sits back as the patient vents her feelings.

As a witness, it wasn’t my job to educate her. It was my job to listen and to weigh in with my expertise when I had the opportunity.

I understand Crockett must be going through a lot right now. Perhaps she’ll let me explain why things aren’t quite so bad as she thinks they are—but that will have to wait for our next session.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Bradley Devlin: Why did you write this book?

Matthew Mehan: So, I am a weird—I’m an odd duck in that I have both a lot of political training—political, philosophical, history, and civics training—but I also have literary training, and the two of those things kind of bounce back and forth, and so, you start to think about what is the role of a man of letters in a republic.

And it turns out that it’s a very sort of under-practiced art to give the right kinds of images that bring the right sort of ideas, habits, customs, principles, ways of being, and memory. That’s a major task that today’s poets don’t really do. And if they do it, they’re usually doing something wrong, or in error, or deliberately subversive, which we can talk about later, I guess.

But that just basically—I kind of wanted to come to the defense. Blood rushes to a wound, and this is something that needed doing, and so, I did it. That’s the simple answer. And then A250, the semiquincentennial—go big or go home for America’s 250th.

I wanted to basically, you know, drop a major heirloom, a kind of celebratory monster coffee-table epic, on the American family.

Devlin: Why fables? What’s important about a fable?

Mehan: So, one of the things I did to prep for this is I actually did study fables. I went to conferences like a good little nerd and read—you know, read up on—they have conferences—

Devlin: On fables?

Mehan: Very rarely. And sometimes you have to organize them yourself. But yes, I did. And then also I wrote for The Heritage Foundation, actually. I did a white paper on the founding imagination. What does the founding generation—what was in their imagination?

And it turns out what’s in your imagination is very much the ingredients for whatever stew of a decision—i.e., your prudence. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna found a new nation? Are you going to have a revolution? What are you gonna do?

And it turns out that what is in your imagination is a lot of what is the constituent parts of those acts.

So, if you have a poor imagination, you have an empty pantry, you will not cook a good dish, as Seneca says.

So, it turns out the Founders and the founding generation—they had these incredible Caxton’s fables, Avianus’ fables, “L’Estrange.” These were on the shelves. They would greedily buy copies of them. They read them and studied them. Why? Fables are not just—we think of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” right?

Simple, straightforward—”The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” It’s basically, if you lie, people don’t believe you, and then you get eaten by the wolf. Great, right? That’s a very good fable. But that is, in a certain sense, the exception to the rule.

It’s known because it’s the most simple today, and we tend to be morally a little too simple.

Most fables have a moral that’s basic, but then inside it, you feel that there is a lot more to think about—about how to be a good person and how to identify a bad person and how to react to evil so that you don’t become evil.

There’s actually the moral technology of fable. It’s a very witty, wise genre that is meant for a free people.

And so, that’s why I really focused on fable. And why, even though there’s nursery rhymes and there’s short stories and there’s primary sources, there’s a lot going on here. The central core is this beat of American fables—retold, adapted, and told wholly new.

Devlin: What’s the difference between mythology and fable? How does fable play into mythology and the relationship between those two things?

Mehan: Fable starts with the ridiculous—talking animals. It doesn’t give you any kind of easy ramp to slowly agree that, yes, the trees should talk. And it’s a kind of just instant absurdity, and that gives you a sort of distance from it to think about it as a fun kind of a game, a moral play.

Whereas myth is weaving history, the cosmos, angels and devils, gods and goddesses, naiads and dryads.

You’re making a full cosmic claim for your country, your nation, your republic inside of a wider providence of Jupiter or of God himself. You know—like it’s a much sort of bolder statement.

And myths can be true and myths can be false, right? They can be misleading and need purification. I mean, I think that’s Homer’s job—there are all these wacky myths in Greece at the time, and he’s like, “OK, I’m gonna—all the crazy ones, I’m gonna have this guy who’s crazy save them, and then we’re gonna put him in his place and tell a new one,” right?

So, he was trying to purify the myths of Greece to make the godhead of Olympus more reasonable. Now, as a Christian, we might go, “Yeah, that’s also bad,” but it was certainly philosophically better.

So, myth, to my mind, when you get to that level of complexity, it presents real dangers. But it’s fundamentally—every city, every founding, every country needs one, and so it better be really good and really true.

Devlin: America 250—you could have written a political book.

Why not a political book? Why not a philosophical treatise? Why not another deep dive into the history of the declaration?

Mehan: For a number of reasons. One very practical. First, not everyone is very patriotic. And if you actually want the entire country to be formed with a common memory of the principles and goodness of Judeo-Christian, Western, Greco-Roman—you can pick your hyphenated way of talking about what we have as a culture and as a people, right?

You need to find a way to attract them that isn’t only for those who are already kind of inclined in your direction, which is why there’s all these beautiful discourses on nature and the national parks and the ecology. Because even people who aren’t very patriotic still love the national park system.

They like backpacking. They like the buffalo. They want to protect nature.

So, in one sense, we have to always be struggling for a national book, right? For a national dialogue, a national memory—or we’re gonna tear apart, right? That’s gonna happen.

And this is part of what I’m trying to do: give the country a shared memory again.

And then, through that, they come to know some of the things that we sort of—more patriotic, more kind of conservative, whatever term you want—that care about these things: the morals of fables, right, the moralists, which I’m all about.

One thing I learned is the Founding Fathers were so—and the founding generation—their moral imagination was so much more intense than ours.

Everything was moralized. But it was actually joyful. It wasn’t this sort of frowning misery of, like, lectures. It was this hilarious wit and wisdom that was downright funny. But they could judge very carefully …

…

The American founding is different. It’s all written down. Like, we have the letters. We know what the—Numa, the king of Rome, wasn’t, like, magically talking with a nymph, and we don’t really know what happened there, right?

Like, these are letters between Abigail Adams and John Adams, and then between Jefferson and Washington and Adams. Like, we know what happened in a funny way, and we’re also from the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the droit écrit, the written law.

So, we actually like to write things down. We like things to be clear, which presents a challenge for myth, because we’re not going to accept some fake godhead.

I think we love “The Song of Hiawatha,” and I have a kind of nod to it. But we rejected a lot of what Longfellow was doing with this strange sort of foreign gods, new mythology for America—Hiawatha on the mountain with these … No, we’re Christian, right? We’re Western. We’re sort of rational.

And so, humanity winds up having a lot of primary sources in history, and the mythos winds up being a kind of true mythos of the moral wit and wisdom of the people. And the mystery of the myth actually is the numinous reason of the American people.

Like, we are a mysterious thing, right? And it’s amazing that we produced what we produced, yes, through our representatives.

But I try to get past—yes, the Founding Fathers. I focus on them. I raise them up as heroes and show some of their strengths and even some of their weaknesses, such that we can even learn from their mistakes. But also, I try to get past that to the American people and the settlement of the country, which is why the book doesn’t just do the founding and the Revolution.

It does that, interspersed with an account of the settlement and all these other sort of very moving lesser biographies and stories of the settling of the country.

“Oops,” the North Carolina Republican said during a hearing Wednesday of the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections.

“What’s the deal going on with Maryland?” Murphy asked Don Palmer, a former chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

“It’s a very, it’s a huge mistake. Obviously, you can point at the vendor and say, well, the vendor made this mistake, but the buck stops with the election officials,” Palmer, now a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told the House panel.

The Maryland State Board of Elections announced Friday that a portion of mail ballots for the June 23 party primaries went to voters of the wrong party. The board said it would be resending all 565,000 mail ballots, which should arrive at voters’ addresses by May 29.

Palmer, a former Florida elections director, said he has sympathy for election officials and their responsibility, but said, “It’s that type of thing that hurts confidence.”

On Monday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “In Maryland, they sent out 500,000 illegal mail-in ballots, and they got caught!”

The Maryland State Board of Elections did not respond to inquiries from the Daily Signal on Tuesday or Wednesday about the ballots.

State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis posted on X that “no fake OR illegal mail-in ballots were distributed.” He added, “The wording in President Trump’s continued posts about Maryland’s elections creates an environment of misinformation on a voting right. Mail-in voting is not a partisan issue. Mail-in voting is legal.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, Palmer noted bipartisan concern from members of Congress and outside groups about the security of voter registration systems.

“Even more so, there have been documented instances of vulnerabilities being identified and those vulnerabilities being exploited,” Palmer said. “Most of the breaches of a voter registration system don’t necessarily mean results are going to be changed. But the impact on the public confidence could be very negative.”

Murphy later asked current Election Assistance Commission Chairman Thomas Hicks during the hearing how much the federal government should pay to cover the cost of elections.

“Elections overall cost $6 billion. I think two years ago for Congress to appropriate $15 million is not enough,” Hicks said. “So, if I had my druthers, I’d say the federal government should pay 100% of federal elections. But that’s not for me to decide.”

Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., asked Hicks what the Election Assistance Commission is doing to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting.

“States run the elections and it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote. We don’t play an active role in who can and can’t vote,” Hicks said. “EAC does not run elections. We cannot do anything to stop that. That’s a state issue.”

Miller responded, “If you want the federal government to pick up the tab for elections, then maybe the federal government could say you have to have a photo ID and you have to be a U.S. citizen [to vote].”

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., recently convened a special session of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China and solicited stunning testimony from experts and eyewitnesses on the horrific practice of live organ harvesting—hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys, corneas—in Communist China. The unlucky cohort of living “donors”—men and women murdered for their body parts—is comprised of various dissidents as well as politically persecuted ethnic and religious minorities.

This latest congressional inquiry follows in the wake of The Heritage Foundation’s public conference on the topic, which featured Jan Jekielek, author of the New York Times bestseller “Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary.” Jekielek also appeared as a witness before the commission’s panel.

In his opening remarks, Smith noted a hot mic exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, where the two autocrats were casually discussing the potential of organ donation contributing to greater longevity, with Xi speculating that humans this century could possibly live as long as 150 years.

Ethical organ transplantation, Smith emphasized, is “noble and lifesaving … But forced organ harvesting is not healing. It is murder masquerading as medicine.”

This horrific practice, notes Smith, is a logical consequence of the Orwellian assumptions underlying communism: “a system where human beings are reduced to commodities, and the state controls the body as well as the mind.”

Ethan Gutmann, a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told the commission that, as early as 2013, government agents started to come into people’s homes and draw blood from those deemed to be at odds with China’s Communist regime. Those found guilty of practicing an “unsanctioned faith” were arrested, imprisoned, often tortured, kept in harsh conditions in cells and internment camps.

Based on camp medical files in 2017, Gutmann said, a red check mark next to a blood sample meant that the person had been “pre-selected” for harvesting. Gutmann says that when youths ripen to an average age of 28, prison guards drag them—whether kicking and screaming or resigned and hopeless—to a transplant hospital where, under anesthesia, organ removal occurs. They start removing different organs, one after another, until they excise the heart.

Religious Persecution

The target populations for this practice have been expanding.

Originally, the victims were death row prisoners. Today, the enlarged “donor” class includes the practitioners of Falun Gong—mostly virtuous contemplatives—but also Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Christians.

Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., observed that the “targeting of Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs reflects … a broader campaign of religious persecution that includes Christians in China, ethnic repression, and dehumanization carried out by the PRC (People’s Republic of China).”

Jekielek told the commission that the communist regime has launched an aggressive propaganda campaign against certain minorities, painting them as “black classes.” Jekielek said that this enables the regime to designate them as subhuman so that the Chinese people, assuming they become aware of it, are “psychologically prepared for the atrocities against the target group.”

Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback reminded the commission that China’s totalitarian regime, regardless of any of its protestations to the contrary, cannot and will not tolerate genuine religious liberty. For the communist regime, religious liberty is the equivalent of “kryptonite,” and they fear such liberty more than they fear our aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons.”

A Global Problem

There is a growing global demand for organs, especially among wealthy Middle Eastern patients. China’s communist regime can profit from such a lucrative international market.

The policy question for the U.S. and its allies is how to ensure that medical researchers, practitioners, and medical institutions in the West are not complicit in this unethical practice. During his testimony before the commission, Gutmann specifically called for an investigation of Thermo Fisher Scientific, a company that supplied DNA testing used on millions of Uyghurs and Kazakhs. Likewise, Jekielek called for oversight over American institutions training practitioners as transplant surgeons who return to Communist China.

There is bipartisan interest in tackling the problem. Rep. Smith’s bill, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025 (HR 1503), would criminalize trafficking in forcibly donated organs and impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines for knowing complicity with this unethical practice.

“Tyrants will continue to seek immortality,” said Smith, “but not with our expertise or money. Not with a dollar of American complicity.”

The House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 406 to 1. The Senate has yet to act.

Curiously, the Chinese Communist Party’s organ harvesting program is another case of life imitating art. In 1978, Michael Crichton directed “Coma,” a high-class horror film starring a young Michael Douglas and the beautiful Geneviève Bujold. Bujold’s character, a young surgeon, discovers that hospital patients are being induced into a coma and their bodies are being transported to a remote location for live organ harvesting. Initially, her colleagues are skeptical.

In the movie, the culprit is a sophisticated transnational criminal organization. In real life, it still is.

The hardest hit may have been delivered on Tuesday when Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed the Marijuana Marketplace bills (House Bill 642 and Senate Bill 542). Most figured this was a “slam dunk.” “C’mon!”

You might hear them shout, “It’s an all-Democrat government and we DON’T have legal weed sales?”

Understandable, but we should consider the governor’s reasoning. No, not her future presidential bids. The statement she issued along with the veto stated: “It is critical that we incorporate lessons learned by other states and ensure that our regulatory framework is fully prepared to provide strong oversight from day one.”

Lessons learned in other states? Let’s dig into that.

Colorado is more than 12 years into recreational cannabis sales, the longest run in the country, and issues keep cropping up, involving everything from public consumption to tax policies. In 2012 and 2013, before they underlined the “high” in “Rocky Mountain High,” Coloradans were promised windfall tax revenue ($70 million) from marijuana sales taxes. Those numbers were never achieved. In the first year, they collected $44 million.

Since legalization in 2014, Colorado’s marijuana tax revenue has been tracked monthly by the Colorado Department of Revenue. While early years saw strong collections—peaking in 2021 at about $423 million—totals have declined sharply. By 2025, annual collections were about $236 million, and in early 2026, they were roughly $38 million, according to the Department of Revenue.

However, that’s just part of the issues that states allowing open sales of what is still listed as a Schedule I narcotic by the federal government have found.

Crash rates spiked with the legalization of recreational marijuana use and retail sales in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, studies by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the affiliated Highway Loss Data Institute show.

Another unforeseen consequence Spanberger might be referring to is that illicit marketplaces don’t go away when weed is legalized. From The Denver Gazette just last month: “A top regulator for Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division acknowledged in a private meeting with industry representatives that the amount of chemically converted hemp being illegally sold as marijuana is far greater than the agency has publicly disclosed.”

Law enforcement points to lower costs and limited access to “the legal stuff.” Take New York state, for example, which has only 180 licensed dispensaries for 20 million people. They say you can have it, but now you can’t get it. Who ya’ gonna call?

This governor said in her statement, “It is my responsibility as Governor to make sure all new laws can be successfully implemented.” There seems to be mounting evidence that, given the stated goals of “decriminalization,” that doesn’t look possible.

At least the owner of the Cannabis Outlet in Portsmouth (state Sen. Louise Lucas) can focus on her legal issues and not on how to roll out a whole new line of products.

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

On Tuesday, it was revealed that a Florida grand jury has indicted Castro and five others in connection with the fatal downing of two American planes in 1996 that resulted in the deaths of three Americans delivering aid to Cuba. The charges come amid a U.S. blockade of shipments to the island.

Castro, whose brother Fidel led the nation from 1959 to 2008, has been charged with murder.

Although Raúl Castro, 94, left the government in 2021, he and his family members continue to be influential in Cuba.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said of the steps to make Castro face justice, “This isn’t a show indictment. … There was a warrant issued for his arrest, so we expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way.”

For Florida Republicans who represent anti-Castro Cuban Americans, the charges and their implications for the regime’s survival are cause for celebration.

“Today is a glorious day. After six decades of tragedy, of misery, of distress, Cubans will be free soon,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., said Tuesday morning. “There are no words to describe the joy they feel—not only the Cubans on the island, but the Cubans that we represent in South Florida.”

Salazar, who represents a Miami district, was joined by fellow Florida Republican Reps. Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart.

Comparing Castro to the toppled leaders of Venezuela and Iran, Salazar spoke of a new future for the island.

“A friendly Cuba, a prosperous Cuba, will help with the United States economy, with politics, with immigration. And that is what this country needs—friends in this Western Hemisphere,” she said. “Today marks the moment when 60 years of destruction will come to an end.”

The prosecution of Castro is reminiscent of the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on drug trafficking charges, which the administration used as justification for the capture of the head of state.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told the Daily Signal he’d like to see regime change in Cuba, but that this would not necessarily have to involve military action, as scarcity induced by a blockade could trigger an uprising. He did not, however, rule out force.

“Castro controls all the money. … Now the money’s drying up because of what [President Donald] Trump has done,” he said. “But if you look at the people of Cuba, they’re willing to fight for their freedom. … Hopefully now they’re seeing that America will stand up for them, they’ll do it on their own.” 

But Scott added, “We should not take anything off the table. I mean, the same thing that happened to Maduro should happen to Raúl Castro. But I’m not going to get ahead of whatever the Trump administration wants to do.”

Moreover, Florida Republicans view ending the Cuban dictatorship as a good start at bringing freedom to the Western Hemisphere. Both Salazar and Gimenez mentioned Nicaragua as another nation in need of liberation from dictatorship.

But some in Congress outside of the South Florida Cuban milieu are not so eager to aggravate another regime as the United States continues to navigate a difficult economic and strategic situation after conflict with Iran.

“We can’t have another war there,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told the Daily Signal of Cuba. Khanna has spearheaded multiple efforts to restrain Trump’s war powers.

“You’ve had a war in Venezuela, a war in Iran. Let’s focus on jobs here.” He added that he supports efforts from “a number of leaders” in Congress ready to counter a potential military operation against Cuba.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, urged the administration to cool its jets on the Cuba issue.

“We got our hands in enough areas that we ought to be very cautious about overextending ourselves,” he told the Daily Signal. 

“I’m a little weary about anything we’re doing in Cuba right now, even though Cuba’s a bad country. But after Venezuela [and] Iran, I just think let’s have a little bit of self-control,” said Bacon, who confessed he had not studied up on the latest Cuba developments and would have to “chew on it.”

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed his support for an economic approach to inducing regime change in Cuba, rather than a military one.

“Fidel was a murderer, and they tried to make him some folk hero, and his little brother ain’t no better,” Burchett told the Daily Signal.  “One thing we can do is economics and quit worrying about bringing in our military. … But that doesn’t seem to have worked for the last few years—for them anyway. I think it’s an option. I think we put international pressure on them.”

Democrats in the Senate could set up a political battle over a potential use of force against Cuba, as Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Ruben Gallego of Illinois, and Adam Schiff of California have introduced a war powers resolution to prevent military action.

Scott reacted with rancor when asked about the resolution.

“I’m disgusted by what the Democrats have done,” he said. “I don’t get the Democrats. Don’t they want to live in freedom and democracy? Don’t they want people in Cuba and Iran … to have the same opportunities you and I have?”

The White House told the Daily Signal to direct a request for comment to the Department of Justice, which referred to Blanche’s remarks.

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On Monday, MS NOW host Katy Tur moderated a panel in which she discussed recent, supposedly controversial comments by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La.

“What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government, they come from you, our Creator and heavenly father. Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?” she asked incredulously.

I’m just going to pause here and quote from this obscure line in the Declaration of Independence. And by obscure, I mean one of the most famous lines in the English language.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal… ” maybe Tur never got past that part, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So, the concept that God is “above” the Declaration of Independence is… in the Declaration of Independence. God’s law supersedes man’s law. Governments that deprive citizens of rights endowed by their creator without due process are bad governments and are possibly illegitimate. That’s the whole point of the thing, right?

One of Tur’s guests, Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, actually managed to answer her question with a straight face but with an acknowledgement that her audience may remarkably not be familiar with the concept of God-given rights.

“You know, I think that idea is not wholly uncommon, the idea that we sort of have unalienable rights that come from God can be read in a fairly benign way,” Coppins responded. “Which is basically that we have innate human rights, that our constitution and our government, our democratic government, are meant to codify. Right. That idea is not totally abnormal.”

You don’t say.

Somehow this isn’t even the first time an MS NOW host or guest has expressed shock at the concept of rights being endowed by a creator.

In 2024, the now former Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla went on the network and said that the only people who believe in “God-given rights” that don’t come from the government are “Christian Nationalists,” whom she distinguished from other “Christians.”

At least Przybyla later sort of apologized for these remarks, calling them “clumsy.”

Saying that rights come from our creator should be one of the most noncontroversial statements an American could make, a concept universally understood by anyone with a basic understanding of our history.

Unfortunately, it’s not as universal as it once was.

Johnson weighed in on Tur’s comments, saying in an interview with Townhall Editor Larry O’Connor that it was “stunning” she didn’t know the concept of God-given rights was in the declaration.

The speaker of the House said that it was incredible that “someone who is in the mainstream media, on TV every night espousing her views … does not understand the birth document of the country.”

It is stunning, but it is not surprising in my mind.

There is now a significant bubble of America’s college-educated elites who’ve somehow spent decades speaking in the public arena who’ve never come across an idea that was once wholly elementary.

They’ve absorbed completely the idea that rights surely come from government to the point that they don’t even know how wildly out of step that notion is with the entire American political project.

It’s not hard to see why there is such a wide philosophical chasm in this country, why politics now seem so existential.

We aren’t just battling over a few strongly held ideas. At this point, we aren’t even speaking the same political language.

Of course, the concept of God-given rights was essential to the Founders’ justification for the American Revolution. The Framers designed our government not so that it would give rights, but so that it could protect them as best as could be done in the imperfect world we live in.

Members of our most prestigious media institutions apparently don’t even know that their constitutionally protected right to free speech comes from the idea that it is inalienable, endowed by our Creator.

But if the standard for free speech is simply a matter of who has the most governmental or institutional power then I find it doubtful that anyone will have freedom of any kind at the end of our country’s next 250 years of existence, or that we’ll even have a country.

The folks at MS NOW don’t seem to grasp this, and it’s not looking promising that they ever will.

Trump is slated to sign an executive order in the near future giving the Office of the National Cyber Director 60 days to develop a framework on cybersecurity, sources say. 

The order will lay out a plan for the government to perform voluntary vetting of AI labs’ pre-deployment models, but it will postpone answering the question of what to do if the vetting process deems the model dangerous, sources say. 

There are many differences of opinion within the administration about the proper level of cybersecurity protections, and the substance and timing of the order are subject to change. 

A White House official told the Daily Signal that any policy announcement on the subject will come directly from the president.

“Discussion about potential executive orders is speculation. The White House continues to proactively engage across government and industry to protect our country and the American people,” the official said.

Previously, members of the administration considered a draft executive order requiring government officials to have early access to new AI models before their release, sources say. This approach was popular with 82% of American voters, a YouGov/Institute for Family Studies poll found. Some officials wanted an order that would have required labs to submit AI models for review pre-deployment as a condition for government contracts. 

However, at this time, the draft of the executive order only outlines a plan for voluntary government vetting, sources say. 

The order will direct agencies to hire more people to help the critical infrastructure sector with cyber preparedness.

Currently, CAISI, or the Center for AI Safety and Innovation, within the Commerce Department, offers voluntary vetting of pre-deployment models. On May 5, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and xAI agreed to work with the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, but the Commerce Department has since deleted the details of the arrangement from its webpage. 

The order will likely involve in the vetting process the Office of the National Cyber Director, who will be tasked with writing a framework, as well as others in the intelligence community.

This comes amid concerns that National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross lacks the technical skills for the role, Politico reported. Cairncross is an experienced political operative whose past roles include chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee in 2016 and 2024. 

“Sean Cairncross is doing excellent work to protect the American people and our nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats, working closely with senior administration officials and American companies to advance shared objectives and priorities—including addressing cybersecurity challenges posed by the rapid scaling of artificial intelligence—while continuing President Trump’s commitment to ensuring American technological dominance,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said.

Huston also cited statements from Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer of OpenAI, and Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, praising Cairncross’ work.

She said the Office of the National Cyber Director has been in “constant communication with frontier labs, and any solution will be a compilation of their collaboration.”

“While the White House is the primary convening entity for these conversations, this work would not be possible without the expertise and guidance of industry leaders and their teams,” she said.

Until recently, the Trump administration has taken a light approach to AI regulation, with officials like former AI czar David Sacks criticizing AI “doomers” who fear severe negative outcomes from the rapidly advancing technology. 

In fact, the Trump administration reduced funding for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agency’s workforce has been cut by about one-third since Trump’s second term began, Axios first reported. 

But White House officials were motivated to implement a more heavy-handed approach to regulation due to increased awareness of the national security risks posed by new models like Anthropic’s Mythos, as well as concerns about possible AI-enabled cyberattacks before the midterms, sources say. 

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles posted on X on May 6 that the Trump administration is not “in the business of picking winners and losers” on AI and cybersecurity.

“This administration has one goal; ensure the best and safest tech is deployed rapidly to defeat any and all threats,” she said.

These whistleblowers told me providers were being pressured to rubber-stamp home health care paperwork, and for people who actually didn’t medically need it. They said individuals would come into their office and ask for home health care services. Some appeared to be actually coached on what to say to get those services, with somebody, many times, who didn’t even speak English, so you had a translator in the office, and they were pushing aggressively for paperwork to be approved.

But these providers did the right thing. They conducted physical exams, they evaluated the person who was pushing for home health care services, and when the person didn’t qualify, they flat-out denied them. They refused to rubber-stamp Medicaid paperwork, which was the right thing to do.

The whistleblowers told me much of the pressure that they were seeing was actually coming through individuals and businesses operating within the Somali, Bhutanese, and Nepalese communities here in Ohio.

And they said that some of the health care agencies were even going so far as to suggest, and I quote, “I will make this worth your while if you approve the paperwork.”

Again, these providers flat-out said no. This is not about health care anymore. This is an alleged fraud operation that we uncovered back in December. These whistleblowers actually tried to sound the alarm long before the public even knew anything about this. These whistleblowers went to legislators in the state of Ohio, state officeholders.

They even went to the attorney general’s office. They repeatedly were ignored at the highest levels in Ohio. And when they went to the AG’s office, they asked a very serious question, “Can you protect us? And can you protect our confidentiality?” Because they specifically said that if they said anything about this home health care fraud, they would literally be stoned to death for speaking the truth.

They didn’t feel that their concerns were being taken seriously. So, in December, when they came to me about the potential home health care fraud, I reviewed the information, I investigated it, and I discussed these allegations. I shared the list of potential fraudsters right here in central Ohio with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the Ohio Department of Medicaid, and even the Auditor’s Office.

And here’s why this matters. Ohio’s own Medicaid reimbursement rates show exactly how home health care fraud can actually open and explode in terms of fraud operations. One elderly or older recipient can actually gain $75,000 to $90,000 a year of personal care billing through high daily hours that are authorized.

So, a family member can come in and take care of a parent. Two parents, you can push that number to $180,000, and then you add your in-laws. In one household, you can start making $250,000-plus for Medicaid billing. This is the financial incentive, this is the vulnerability, and this is what the whistleblowers were trying to warn the state about months and months ago.

This could have been stopped a year ago.

After I brought this information forward to the Attorney General’s Office, initially, it asked me for the names of my whistleblowers. Now, as an attorney, I said, “No. Attorney-client privilege.” But I did ask them one simple question, “Can you protect these whistleblowers? Because then, 100%, I’ll give you the names.”

They told me no, so I refused.

The Attorney General’s Office then called me back, and it said it had orders from higher up, we know who that is, that it could subpoena me before a grand jury and that I would be protected, but it needed the names of the whistleblowers.

So, I asked again, “You subpoena me, you put me in front of a grand jury, great, you’re gonna protect my confidentiality, but what about the whistleblowers, the ones that are actually fearing for their lives? Can you protect them?” The office said, “No.”

It continued to press me. It actually went so far as to threaten subpoenas, and at one point, it even floated the idea of reading off names of everybody who’s been a confidential informant that has come forward to its office.

And all I had to do was confirm or deny if that was the individual who was my whistleblower. And again, I said, “Absolutely not. That’s unethical.” That would actually violate the attorney-client privilege, and they should know better as attorneys.

I was never going to help the state intimidate the very people who actually had the courage to speak up after the state actually failed to listen, especially when these allegations were in the official hands for months.

So, I told it directly, “You have the information, you failed to take it seriously, and now I’m not going to allow your office to threaten me or betray these whistleblowers who came forward because they believed Ohio was looking the other way.”

So, I kept investigating. I actually personally went to buildings in Columbus, Ohio, that house dozens of home health care companies.

In one building after another, what I saw was empty offices. In fact, one building had 34 to 36 home health care companies, one to two people present, letters sitting under doors from the attorney general’s office unopened. People could not explain how health care operations work.

Now federal oversight is confirming just how serious these red flags are.

On May 12, the House Oversight Committee actually sent a letter to the Ohio Department of Medicaid announcing an investigation into the widespread waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid personal care services authorized through Ohio’s home and community-based waiver programs. So, this is a home health care program we’ve been flagging for almost a year now.

The letter cites reports of providers billing for services never performed, relatives billing Medicaid to care for families, abandoned office buildings packed with Medicaid companies, and estimates that Ohio’s fraud waiver program could exceed $1.2 billion.

The committee also noticed one Columbus office reportedly alone housed 288 providers that collectively billed $250 million to Medicaid between 2018 and 2024.

And you just have to look at the timeline. Look at what happened in Ohio. You had whistleblowers come forward, then I came forward with allegations to Ohio officials in December. The state failed to act with urgency, and it’s only now that Congress is demanding answers and documentation. There’s no leadership, there’s no accountability until there’s actually a scandal brewing, and it was impossible to ignore, and that’s why the state of Ohio is stepping up.

So, yes, now the governor has decided he’s announcing a new fraud prevention program, and steps include a proposed moratorium on new home health care, hospice providers, payment suspensions for providers, fraud red flags, and more frequent revalidation of higher-risk providers, tighter electronic visit verification controls.

But all of that’s fine. Here’s the big problem. This is not enough. A moratorium on new providers doesn’t actually do anything to expose the fraud that’s already happening within the system, that was already reported. GPS tracking does nothing if the person should have never been approved for home health care in the first place.

Remember, people have been rubber-stamping this. This is why the fraud is occurring. Electronic visit verification also does not do anything if providers were allegedly being pressured to approve services that were never really medically necessary.

Ohio needs to go further. The governor’s office and the Department of Medicaid should immediately require full audits and reverification of any high dollar home health care provider and recipient.

There’s tons of them. This is an automatic red flag. Conduct unannounced site visits of providers that are clustered at suspicious addresses. That’s something that I can give you and so many others can.

Cross check companies for shared office space, related ownership, duplicate billing, shell company patterns, and abnormal billing spikes.

Again, these are also red flags that should be immediately accounted for. Review every provider flagged for billing large amounts through family care arrangements. Again, if you have a home health care provider in your home that’s a family member, that’s an issue. Also, we have to strengthen our clinical verification. It should only be for documented, real medical need.

And most importantly, Ohio must protect whistleblowers instead of making them feel like they’re the ones that are under investigation, because the scandal here is not just the alleged fraud of billions, it’s the people who tried to warn the state of Ohio, and they were ignored.

They were terrified for their lives, that they would allegedly be stoned to death. And when they finally found someone willing to fight for them, the state’s first instinct wasn’t to protect the whistleblowers, it was to get their names.

And here’s what makes this even more maddening. This is the same DeWine administration whose office, when it was pressed earlier about these fraud allegations, said, “It’s the cost of doing business.”

And it has said that Ohio has a robust anti-fraud measure. That’s unfortunate, and that’s not true, and it didn’t take these allegations seriously.

Fraud is not the cost of doing business. Fraud is the cost of government failure. I reached out to Gov. Mike DeWine’s office repeatedly to share the patterns of alleged fraud that were brought to me by the whistleblowers that I have witnessed.

To date, nobody from his office has called me back.

I even called the governor personally to explain to him how the fraud is actually occurring. I haven’t heard back.

Ohio taxpayers really deserve answers. Vulnerable citizens, disabled Ohioans, they deserve a system that protects them and not scammers. And every official who dismissed these warnings should be asking one simple question, how much taxpayer money was lost because you refused to listen?

Congress is now investigating, and I have full faith in the team. The receipts are going to be coming out, and this story is far from over. So, stay tuned. There’s much more to come on Ohio fraud.

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

At an annual charity luncheon Wednesday afternoon, Trump urged Senate members and their spouses to consider it their “moral obligation” to support foster care in their communities.

“It is especially fitting that we are together today, because your spouses—America’s senators—now have the opportunity to turn this momentum into permanent legislation to protect our foster care community. Inspire them!” the first lady said of the Fostering the Future Act.

Trump announced the news of the act’s passage at the Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday night.

The Fostering the Future Act

The Fostering the Future Act is comprised of several bills introduced with bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

The legislation aims to amend the Social Security Act by strengthening federal housing programs and expanding both access to legal services and education vouchers for short-term workforce training. The bill updates the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood for the first time since its creation in 1999.

“We’re very thankful for House leadership and the House Ways and Means Committee for working bipartisanly to pass this,” a spokesperson for the first lady’s office told the Daily Signal.

“The first lady strongly supports new foster care legislation to protect and support foster youth. So, we’re very happy with the House bill, but we look forward to seeing what the Senate works on, whether it’s the same bill or a different bill.”

Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary Alex Adams also praised the bill’s approval and Trump’s advocacy.

“First lady Melania Trump has been an incredible champion for new foster care legislation through her Fostering the Future initiative, and ACF is ready to quickly implement this important work should the Fostering the Future Act be signed into law by President Donald Trump,” Adams told the Daily Signal. “We are confident this will make a major difference for youth transitioning from foster care.”

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., previously introduced one of the bipartisan bills whose text was included.

“One of the greatest gifts that we can give our children is the opportunity to succeed, and this bill will help set our foster youth up for success by increasing access to education and workforce training needed to build a career,” Daines told the Daily Signal.

The first lady made a rare trip to Capitol Hill in April, where she addressed members of the House Ways and Means Committee and urged Congress to put her foster care initiatives into law. After hearing testimony from children in the foster care system, lawmakers followed through.

“As chairman of the Ways and Means Work and Welfare Subcommittee, I have been proud to work alongside the first lady and my colleagues over the last year to develop and introduce the first comprehensive reforms to the Chafee program since 1999,” Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., said in a press release.

Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said, “This legislation will help ensure young people in the foster care program are given a fair shot on their path to self-sufficiency and work to achieve a brighter, more independent future.”

In his May 14 revised budget for fiscal year 2026-27, California’s governor stood tall and declared victory: no deficit this year, no deficit next year, and the dreaded structural deficit magically erased through July 2028.

With general fund spending at $246.6 billion and a total state budget of $349.4 billion, Newsom insists he’s protecting health care, education, and all the vital services while somehow blending progressive dreams with rock-solid fiscal discipline.

Such bold claims deserve a proper reality check.

In January, the administration was staring at a $2.9 billion deficit for 2026-27. Then—presto!—the May revision waved a wand and added $16.5 billion in new general fund revenue projections over three years. Personal income taxes delivered $13.6 billion of that windfall, thanks mostly to a juicy 2025 capital gains spike that poured an extra $11.9 billion into the coffers through April. Spending got trimmed by $1.8 billion from the original plan, and reserves are swelling to nearly $30 billion, including $15.1 billion tucked away in the rainy-day fund.

On paper, it looks downright impressive. But here’s the catch: Newsom’s triumphant declaration that the structural deficit is “solved” relies completely on the bet that this flood of volatile revenue—mostly from high-earner capital gains and tech billionaires’ stock options—will keep gushing forever. That’s not reform. That’s optimistic crystal-ball gazing.

Imagine your neighbor gets one fat bonus check and immediately declares the family finances fixed for the next decade. They buy the shiny new truck, book the Disney cruise, and start eating out every night. When that bonus doesn’t show up again, reality hits like a ton of bricks. California is running the exact same playbook. Capital gains can make up 25% of personal income tax revenue in boom years and only half that in lean ones. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warns that a market dip or tech slowdown could wipe out tens of billions—possibly $100 billion—in revenue.

Even with all the rosy assumptions, the office still sees ongoing deficits averaging about $10 billion a year after 2028—$10.3 billion in 2028-29, and $9.6 billion in 2029-30. Reserves will get drained, and debt will climb toward $30 billion. The real problem—spending that races ahead of reliable revenue—was never fixed. It was covered up with this year’s lucky money.

Newsom’s magic act relies on three favorite tricks.

The first is aggressive revenue optimism. The budget assumes capital gains will stay red-hot with no real backup plan for a downturn. It’s like planning your entire household budget around your teenager’s summer job paying big bucks every month forever, then signing a fat mortgage on that hope.

The second is raiding reserves, deferrals, and borrowing. The plan pulls roughly $20 billion from reserves and suspended deposits, adds $4 billion in new borrowing, and creates a $9.7 billion surplus holding account. Picture raiding your 401(k) and the kids’ college fund, delaying the mortgage, and shuffling credit cards just to look solvent. It balances today but piles up expensive IOUs for tomorrow.

The third is modest spending “restraint” that’s mostly theater. The $1.8 billion cut includes some Medi-Cal tweaks, but overall spending stays huge with record school funding and about $300 million to backfill Obamacare. It’s like canceling Netflix while still hitting restaurants five nights a week, buying the new truck, and maxing out the credit cards—then bragging about your ironclad budget discipline.

Crime policies pile on even more budgetary headaches. Proposition 47 turned theft under $950 and many drug cases into misdemeanors, creating a classic catch-and-release revolving door. Arrest them in the morning, release them by afternoon, and repeat tomorrow. 

That drives up spending on police overtime, court backlogs, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, and local jails—tens to hundreds of millions extra every year. Stores get hammered by theft, raise prices, and sometimes cut hours or close, shrinking sales tax revenue. 

Voters tried to fix some of it with Proposition 36 in 2024, but the changes are still rolling out unevenly across counties. Many catch-and-release habits linger, so the budget stays stuck with unpredictable, expensive chaos.

In both cases—a catch-and-release revolving door and re-criminalizing of theft—the budget is strained. Taxpayers pay the price for soft-on-crime policies and hard-on-crime policies that lead to incarceration. 

Homelessness efforts tell the same sad story. California poured more than $24 billion into one-time programs, yet street encampments grew by tens of thousands. Now that money is sunsetting without solid replacements, meaning future budgets will have to cough up fresh cash for the same stubborn problem—robbing Peter to pay Paul while taxpayers foot the bill again.

Add in businesses fleeing to Texas and Florida, the nation’s highest gas prices, electricity rates nearly double the national average (California sits at around 33-34 cents per kilowatt-hour), and summer blackouts tied to green energy mandates, and you see why the tax base keeps shrinking while costs keep climbing. 

In the end, this isn’t a structurally balanced budget; it’s a “balanced on my watch, suckers” budget built on hopeful projections and clever accounting. Newsom gets the victory lap and a shiny legacy as he heads for the exit. Future governors and everyday Californians get the hangover: drained reserves, rising debt, and tough choices between higher taxes or slashed services.

When the next downturn hits, that beautiful fiscal illusion will vanish faster than one of Houdini’s rabbits. Real responsibility means matching real spending to real, dependable revenue, not praying the stock market stays drunk forever, or that more billion-dollar businesses won’t flee the state.

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

Several reports indicate that the administration is considering safety testing for federal contractors to address the threats AI systems pose to national security and the financial sector.

New polling from the Institute for Family Studies should encourage the White House to take even stronger measures. The survey found that 82% of Americans support mandatory AI safety testing, and Trump voters polled even higher, with 90% of them in favor.

The same poll found that 88% of Americans believe AI systems should be tested for national security risks, and 87% favor safety testing against broader risks for children and families.

This is a mandate. To deliver on it, President Donald Trump should leverage the federal government’s purchasing power and consumer protection capabilities to secure AI safety standards that put American children, parents, workers, and communities first.

American families and communities need a voice in AI governance.

Large data center projects are jacking up electricity bills and generating an enormous grassroots backlash. AI “companions” and chatbots are inducing kids to suicide, helping to plan mass shootings, and fracturing American family life.

Big Tech CEOs like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman prophesy of a dystopian future where AI replaces all human jobs, “knows” you better than you know yourself, and runs everything from your household to the government. 

Unsurprisingly, Americans are concerned about the messaging from Big Tech, and they strongly favor AI safety standards with teeth.

Beyond national security and finance, the Institute for Family Studies polling identified eight additional risks that overwhelming majorities of both Trump and Harris voters want. Key areas of concern include AI’s risks to mental health, kids’ safety, job security, human privacy, and basic decision-making.

While the Center for AI Standards and Innovation within the U.S. Commerce Department already vets some AI models for security-related issues, its current mandate does not prioritize family and community concerns.

A Presidential Commission on AI and the American family would remedy that by empowering community and family voices to surface legitimate issues and channel them into actionable guidance for AI safety standards.

Trump should direct the Center for AI Standards and Innovation to develop standards and protocols for AI safety testing based on guidance from the presidential AI commission.

Safety measures should evaluate whether frontier AI models display sycophantic or manipulative tendencies that disproportionately harm vulnerable populations like kids, the mentally disabled, and the elderly. Such standards should also test the implementation and effectiveness of AI safeguards in mitigating harmful outcomes.

The president should also direct other agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission and the departments of Labor, Energy, and Education, to develop a broader suite of best practices, audits, and reporting standards for high-impact AI developers.

These measures would draw on the AI commission’s guidance to help identify and address other AI risks in job security, human decision-making, and privacy. For example, testing standards could focus on the effects of AI educational technology on student privacy and learning outcomes.

To ensure AI evaluation and safety standards keep pace with rapid technological change, relevant federal departments, in consultation with the AI commission, could designate and resource private independent verification organizations.

Independent verification organizations would help translate positive and negative outcomes identified by community stakeholders into safety standards. These new entities would perform ongoing evaluations before and after deployment to ensure that tech companies remain accountable to the American people.

But creating standards and verifying implementation by frontier AI firms is not enough.

AI companies only provide transparency on a limited and voluntary basis. Real accountability will require leveraging federal AI procurement policy, consumer protection authority, and other tools to ensure AI systems are made to put families and communities first.

On the procurement side, Trump should direct the Office of Management and Budget to require AI companies to participate in ongoing safety testing and reporting as a condition of receiving government contracts.

Although federal agencies are barred by executive order from procuring ideologically biased AI systems, the president should go further by requiring Big Tech companies to cooperate with independent verification organization safety testing and evaluations for public-facing AI systems.

At the same time, Trump should direct the FTC to review its regulatory rulemaking and guidance on unfair and deceptive trade practices to address risks surfaced by the AI commission. Revised guidance from the FTC could provide strong incentives for AI developers and deployers to comply with AI safety protocols.

Finally, the president should order a comprehensive review of all federal government benefits and subsidies provided to Big Tech companies. AI companies that benefit from expedited permitting, federal land use, tax abatements, or loan guarantees should be required to operate in the public interest.

Trump has a golden opportunity to fulfill the wishes of his supporters and deliver trustworthy AI for American families and communities.

He must act decisively to ensure that AI development prioritizes the common good over Silicon Valley elites.

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

As Rosiak recapped, Ohio has home health centers, a program allowing people to get paid for offering “companionship,” with the Medicaid beneficiaries often being their own relatives.

“The issue is that if that many people were really sick, Columbus, Ohio, would have the least healthy population in the entire world. The companies are farming elderly poor people for cash. You research the owners and you find absurd red flags. They’re working other full-time jobs while billing the government $10 million a year. They’re not paying their own taxes,” Rosiak revealed.

He also illustrated how such examples of fraud “happened 10 miles from the [Ohio] Department of Medicaid building,” as he called for “competence” and a particular need for GPS tracking.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced last week a series of fraud prevention initiatives, including requiring GPS tracking.

Calling out the Ohio Department of Medicaid, especially former Director Maureen Corcoran, was a common theme for speakers in attendance, including Ohio Auditor Keith Faber and Ohio Speaker Matt Huffman.

“When you have a director who simply isn’t going to follow the law, you have the kinds of catastrophes that we have right now,” Huffman said.

When it was his turn, Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor, made clear the target is not the law-abiding people on Medicaid, but criminals who abuse the system, which “diverts money away from those for whom these programs were intended.”

Fixing the problem is where Ramaswamy touted his role as a businessman and a political outsider, noting that “it’s going to take somebody from the outside, a different set of experience, with a different set of perspectives, different skills,” and “the right relationships to navigate this problem.” He also referenced his relationship with the Trump administration, including Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Director Mehmet Oz.

Ramaswamy explained that states, including Ohio, do “not yet have the fully aligned incentive to make the prosecution of Medicaid fraud a top priority, as it will be for my administration. Why is that? It has to do with the way the federal government deals with state governments.”

He mentioned that for every dollar of savings from combating Medicaid fraud, Ohio keeps 35 cents. One of his “first solutions” he’d implement as governor would be making a deal with the federal government to keep at least 65 or 66 cents on the dollar, creating “skin in the game.”

There’s also a plan “to simplify the bureaucracy that administers Medicaid,” as 10 different government agencies currently administer payments.

That simplification, Ramaswamy added, will increase transparency and opportunities for him to work with Faber, who, though his term as auditor is coming to a close, is the Republican nominee for attorney general.

Ramaswamy noted the two of them are “aligned on this to make the prosecution of Medicaid fraud a top law enforcement priority in the state of Ohio in the first six months of 2027.”

Ramaswamy still wants action in the next six months under the current administration. “So, nothing that I’m saying is a substitute for taking action starting this month, starting this year in 2026,” Ramaswamy made clear.

He argued that the “struggle” of health care for families “ends with the easiest solution that a governor and a state government can deliver: Prosecute the fraud committed by criminals. Take that money and put it in the pockets of law-abiding Ohioans. It’s not complicated. Crush fraud, bring down costs.”

Arguing that such a pitch “isn’t controversial,” he also made clear it’s not merely for his voters or for Republicans, but that he is bringing down the health care costs for all law-abiding citizens in Ohio, tying in the American dream, as he’s done before.

As for what’s next, Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley, Ramaswamy’s pick for lieutenant governor, spoke of pending legislation.

Huffman pushed for passing reform legislation by June 10. “We’re going to pass a strong Medicaid reform bill,” he said, which will include initiatives mentioned by DeWine last week.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated during a press conference in Miami on Wednesday that a federal grand jury charged Castro and five co-defendants with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder, in connection with a 1996 incident where Cuban jets shot down humanitarian flights of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.

Elected officials in Florida’s Cuban American communities on Wednesday praised the Justice department and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Raúl Castro may be 94 years old, but justice has no expiration date,” Florida state Rep. Juan Porras told the Daily Signal. “The United States is moving to indict him for crimes that tore families apart, just like mine.”

Porras added that the current administration “is doing what no administration before had the courage to do,” calling the indictment “the first step toward a free Cuba.”

Cuban American and Vice-Mayor of West Miami Ivan Chavez Jr. added that the charges carry deep significance for Cuban Americans.

“As vice mayor of the City of West Miami and as a proud Cuban American, this indictment carries tremendous significance for our community,” he told the Daily Signal. “It sends a clear message that America, under President Donald Trump and West Miami’s own hometown hero, Secretary Marco Rubio, will no longer tolerate or appease the brutal communist Castro regime.”

He said the case is personal for many Cuban exiles.

“For many in Miami’s Cuban exile community, this is deeply personal,” he said. “It is a reminder of the countless lives destroyed by the dictatorship and of the innocent heroes of Brothers to the Rescue who were murdered for standing up for freedom and human dignity.”

He added that the volunteers’ sacrifice “will never be forgotten” and described the indictment as a “long-overdue step toward justice, accountability, and ultimately a free Cuba.”

Orlando Cicilia, a Cuban American community advocate and president of National Victory Strategies, echoed those remarks.

“This indictment brings renewed attention to the many atrocities committed by the Castro regime over the past 67 years,” Cicilia told the Daily Signal. “It marks another step toward justice for the families whose loved ones were murdered 30 years ago.”

Cicilia said the charges highlight the broader legacy of repression under the Cuban government, pointing to decades of political imprisonment, censorship, and economic hardship.

“For many Cuban families, both on the island and in exile, this is about more than the past,” he said. “It is about truth, justice, and the hope that the Cuban people may one day live in freedom.”

Miguel Granda, president of the Miami Young Republicans and a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, called the indictment a “long-overdue moment of accountability.”

“For decades, his regime has inflicted profound suffering on the Cuban people and spread authoritarian governance across Latin America,” Granda told the Daily Signal. “This is a historic milestone for Cubans, Cuban Americans, and all who believe in freedom in the region.”

Granda added that the United States “must remain steadfast in holding such regimes to account.”

The indictment follows earlier federal charges brought by a New York grand jury against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for narcotrafficking.

“It’s a step in the right direction and helps expose the Cuban regime,” Cicilia said.

Reuters reported Wednesday morning that Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that “despite the (U.S.) embargo, sanctions, and threats of the use of force, Cuba continues on a path of sovereignty toward its socialist development.”

The Justice Department announced the unsealed charges on May 20, formerly Cuban Independence Day, as part of a ceremony at Miami’s Freedom Tower, a symbol for Cuban Americans who left the communist country. The tower is referred to as “the Ellis Island of the South.”

This story is developing and may be updated.

Terror always works. Stalin died of natural causes, as did Mao. It took an invading army made up of some 50 countries, led by the U.S. and Britain, to dislodge Adolf Hitler. There’s not much an unarmed population can do when those with a monopoly on violence are sufficiently unfeeling to repress their compatriots.

But now there is a glimmer of hope. For the past several months, and thanks to the actions of the Trump administration, Cubans, in the seventh decade of their misery, do seem to be getting closer and closer to enjoying the rights that God endowed them with (or, if you prefer, nature). The planets do seem to be aligning such that enough of the regime’s enforcers will start refusing to repress their own people.

Today, on the 124th anniversary of Cuba’s independence, huge steps were taken. The first was that the U.S. Justice Department unveiled criminal charges against Raúl Castro, the reigning 94-year-old patriarch of the family that has called the shots (and that is the precise term) in Cuba since the victory of the Revolution in 1959.

Castro was indicted for his involvement in the 1996 downing of two Cessna planes being flown outside of Cuba’s territorial waters by American pilots working for the U.S.-based charity group Brothers to the Rescue, which used to fly search-and-rescue missions to spot Cubans fleeing the island on rafts who found themselves in distress in the Florida Straits.

Four men aboard the two Cessnas were burned to death when their planes erupted into fireballs after being shot at by Cuban pilots aboard Soviet-made MiG fighter planes. One of the Cuban fighter pilots was recorded boasting after firing his guns, “We blew his [testicles] off. He won’t give us any more [expletive] trouble.”

Castro was the defense minister at the time for his brother, Fidel Castro, the leader of the 1959 Revolution and the dictator who single-handedly ran Cuba for many decades. In an audio recording that emerged in 2006, Raúl Castro is heard saying: “I told them [the Cuban pilots] to try to knock them down over [Cuban] territory, but they [the pilots aboard the two Cessnas] would enter Havana and go away. Of course, with one of those missiles, air-to-air, what comes down is a ball of fire that will fall on the city … Well, knock them down into the sea when they reappear.”

In February, four U.S. lawmakers asked President Donald Trump to indict Castro in connection with these events.

Many other things have happened recently to lead even the most skeptical observer to have hope that change may come to Cuba yet. Earlier this month, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, visited Havana to deliver a message from Trump to the ruling regime.

Axios reports that an official has told it that Cuba has bought 300 drones from Russia for use against the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, in eastern Cuba, and possibly U.S. ships.

In another key move today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent Cubans a video message explaining to Cubans on the island how their suffering is the result of the regime’s cruel repression and offering U.S. support.

Speaking in Spanish, Rubio, the proud son of Cuban exiles, told Cubans, “The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.”

“Cuba is not controlled by any ‘revolution,’” explained Rubio. “Cuba is controlled by GAESA,” the conglomerate that controls 70% of the Cuban economy. GAESA was founded by Castro, who still wields great power over it today.

“President Trump is offering a new relationship between the U.S. and Cuba,” Rubio said in the video. “But it must be directly with you, the Cuban people, not with GAESA.”

Trump’s vision for Cuba, Rubio explained, was for it to be a normal country, a place “where you can complain about a failing system without fear of going to jail or being forced to leave your island.”

“This is not impossible. All of this exists in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and even just 90 miles away in Florida. If owning your own business and having the right to vote is possible around Cuba, why is it not possible for you in Cuba?”

Cubans can get back to this life. They used to have it.

Today’s U.S. actions against Cuba might convince the Castros’ goons that the jig is up. They might realize that it’s not worth it to continue repressing a population exploding into protests. After the regime finally falls, the long-suffering Cubans may begin the long and arduous process of reconstruction.  

Cuba was so good at growing sugarcane that it produced about one-third of world sugar exports before the 1959 Revolution. Then, when Marxism’s central planning destroyed the economy, the Revolution began producing internal repression and exporting violent mayhem to the world.

Today, hopefully, that starts to change.

The Department of Justice announced April 21 that a federal grand jury charged the SPLC with wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

O’Neil’s Press Conference

In a press conference ahead of the hearing, including speakers and organizations who have spearheaded an investigative campaign against the SPLC’s alleged fraudulent network, O’Neil disputed the organization’s stated mission of combating hate.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil criticized the SPLC’s “hate map,” which identifies groups it labels as extremist, arguing it places mainstream conservative organizations alongside groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

O’Neill then argued that there are legitimately problematic groups on the hate map, but many of the groups do not belong there.

He also rejected the idea that criticism of the SPLC is unwarranted, asserting that scrutiny of the organization is necessary given the allegations and its influence.

O’Neil concluded that, based on the charges and the organization’s history, neither corporate America nor the federal government should rely on the SPLC.

During the Biden administration, federal officials repeatedly met with the SPLC on policy and enforcement issues, underscoring the group’s role in advising the government.

Lawmakers Clash

“They are too valuable politically—you have to use them to your advantage,” Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in the hearing, referencing what he described as the Biden administration’s approach to the SPLC. “Turns out creating hate was more profitable than fighting it.”

Jordan alleged the SPLC highlighted far-right extremists to solicit donations, telling donors their contributions would be used to fight extremism, while also compensating some of those same individuals.

“But guess what—[former President Donald] Trump became president, Todd Blanche became attorney general, Kash Patel became FBI director, and now they’re prosecuting these guys for running a scam,” Jordan said.

Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., pushed back, questioning the strength of the case and the evidence supporting the charges.

“Where are the donors complaining about having been defrauded?” Raskin said, arguing that donors would likely pursue legal action if widespread fraud had occurred.

Raskin also criticized the prosecution more broadly, calling it politically motivated.

“False, malicious prosecutions are how Donald Trump and his administration operate,” he said.

During his testimony, O’Neil directed Raskin to Page 10 of the indictment, which shows “direct quotes from the SPLC that appear to demonstrate bank fraud.

“I believe we could very easily be around $10 gas. … It’s about to get worse if we don’t do anything about it,” Assemblyman David Tangipa, R-Fresno, said in an interview with the Daily Signal. 

“We have become extremely reliant on foreign imports. The last tanker from the Middle East that left the Strait of Hormuz arrived about 10 days ago. Now we aren’t getting anything from some of these foreign markets.”

Critics of the war with Iran argue that the GOP did not take gas prices into consideration when assessing the conflict. California Gov. Gavin Newsom referred to it as “Trump’s Iran war” and blamed President Donald Trump for higher prices.

“Trump’s Iran war is costing Americans $1.5 billion more at the pump this week alone, and what are Americans getting in return? Not better roads. Not cleaner air. Just higher prices as corporations pocket the higher prices and cash in on Trump’s chaos,” he said.

“‘Drill, baby, drill’ was always a lie to enrich Trump’s Big Oil donors—not a strategy to keep prices low, because oil is a global good with a global price,” Newsom added.

Tangipa, however, said shutting down two major oil refineries in California, Valero Benicia and Phillips 66, is also to blame, and that the way to mitigate extreme price increases is to bring oil production back to California. 

“California has some of the largest reserves in the entire world—it has some of the cleanest oil,” he said. “… Instead of using California resources, we are depending on foreign nations to not have any conflict.”

“What we really need to do is reactivate a lot of the oil wells that are here, and we need to work with a lot of our partners to make sure that we’re stabilizing our own supply,” he added.

According to the Western States Petroleum Association, California imports 70% of crude oil to meet its energy needs, despite once leading the nation in production.

According to the State of California Capitol Museum website, “Between 1903 and 1936, the Golden State was the country’s leading oil producer, with many California companies dominating the market.”

Tangipa warned that gas price increases are not the only thing Californians have to worry about; the cost of flights also will be affected.

“We import a lot of aviation fuel. I’ve met with the airlines, and they are telling me that because it’s getting scarce, your cost for flights is about to go up significantly,” he said.

“Especially with people going on vacations and starting to drive around, if our reserves start to shrink exponentially faster, there may be a gas crisis and an extreme shortage like they saw in the 1970s.”

The Instagram account of Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist heading into the Democrat runoff primary in the redrawn 35th Congressional District, said in a post last week that “She’ll turn Karnes ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists).” 

Zionism is an ideology centered on the belief that the Jewish people have a right to a homeland in Israel.

The account also said Galindo’s Democrat opponent, Johnny Garcia, is “IS BEING PAID TO PUT JEWS AND MEXICANS IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS VIA ZIONIST TRAFFICKING NETWORKS.”

Asked by the Daily Signal for a response to this claim, Garcia’s campaign responded with the statement, “He’s not.”

Galindo won the first round of the primary with over 29% of the vote. Having failed to receive a majority of the vote, however, she is advancing to the runoff against Garcia.

Democrats moved to distance themselves from Galindo in reaction to the post.

“This is absolutely disgusting. This bigoted garbage and antisemitism should be nowhere near our politics,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted Tuesday on X, before endorsing Garcia. 

Ocasio-Cortez additionally alleged Republicans were helping fund Galindo.

Texas state Rep. James Talarico, the Democrat nominee in the Lone Star State’s Senate race, also denounced Galindo.

“This antisemitic rhetoric has no place in our politics. We need leadership in both parties willing to stand up and call out hate wherever it rears its ugly head,” Talarico told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

On Texas Public Radio, Galindo denied the charges of antisemitism, claiming she only opposes Jews who are Zionist.

“I’m against Zionist Jews,” she said. “When I said that the Jews who own Hollywood are doing this, do all Jews own Hollywood? No. The Zionist Jews do. The Zionist Jews own our media, our banks, and all of our politicians.”

Galindo’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

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“There’s no question in recent weeks, prices have bumped up because of rising gas prices due to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz now,” Loeffler told the Daily Signal in an exclusive interview. “Obviously, with gas prices bumping up, that does ripple through the supply chain.”

But Loeffler said the administration is doing “everything we can in the meantime until the conclusion of this war, which we do believe is short-term, to continue to alleviate the pressures of the Biden administration.”

Loeffler called this a “short-term impact to what is a longer-term path,” adding that inflation will soon return to where it was before the war at 2.4%. 

“When we get through the other side of this war, we are going to get back to a more stable price environment than we have ever had,” she said, “and lower energy prices for longer than they’ve ever been.”

When asked if the Small Business Administration would give aid to small businesses harmed by rising prices, Loeffler said she was doing that by cutting Biden-era regulations. 

“The Biden administration applied $5 trillion of regulations during their four years, both through the Biden executive orders, massively expanded Green New Deal mandates through the regulatory agencies, we’re rolling those back,” she said. 

“Regulation and taxes are two of small businesses’ biggest threats, and those were two promises that the Biden administration would have carried on had President Trump not been elected,” she continued. “They wanted higher taxes. They wanted more regulation.”

Rolling back regulation has spurred record small business formation, a sign of small business optimism, Loeffler said. Small business optimism dipped below the 52-year average of 98 for two consecutive months, according to the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index. 

“It’s one of the most underreported pieces of news, right at about 550,000 entities formed in the last month, building on about a 400-to-500,000 average during President Trump’s term,” Loeffler said. “Nothing says optimism and confidence in the future like starting a small business or hiring employees, and we’ve seen those both really trend upwards.”

President Donald Trump has asked Congress to cut the national gas tax to alleviate gas prices for consumers. Loeffler said the president is looking “at a portfolio of additional options, other regulatory relief.”

“You contrast that with the state, like California, with massive regulations where their gas prices are persistently high because of onerous regulations,” she said. 

“I think the president is going to be very mindful of what levers really would work to have relief,” she added, “and I think he’s fully committed to the mission of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.”

The vast majority of Americans support the mission in Iran, Loeffler said. 

“You think about a nuclear-empowered Iran and what they could do with their thumb on the price of the world’s energy supplies, like oil, and they just show how they would use that threat,” she said. “This president has taken quick action to do what presidents for the last four decades had hoped or wished they had done, and he’s going to continue to end this threat once and for all.”