Virginia Senator Says He Can Relate To Rural Americans Because He Watched ‘The Dukes Of Hazzard’
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3 must-watch highlights from Allie Beth Stuckey’s David French debate
Yesterday, BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey debated New York Times columnist David French, who has long identified as an evangelical Christian and a conservative.
Despite their shared theological and political identities, Stuckey and French clash on a number of issues, including transgender pronouns and gender ideology, abortion, and Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, among others.
In their 95-minute debate, the duo respectfully went head-to-head on topics that have drawn strong criticism of French from many on the conservative right.
Here are three highlights from the debate:
Talarico dispute
Allie brought up French’s recent article in which he praised Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico as a Christian who sets a positive example of the faith in politics compared to “MAGA Christianity.”
In contrast, Allie has sharply criticized Talarico’s progressive theological views, accusing him of twisting Scripture to support abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and left-wing policies
But French doubled down: “I’m just really not willing to say James Talarico is not a Christian.”
He continued, “When I look at our political discourse around Christianity in this country and political Christianity, it’s so broken. ... We’re writing people out of Christianity based on policy positions.”
Allie pushed back, arguing that Talarico is pushing far more than policy positions.
“They’re not policy positions to say God is non-binary ... or to say our trans neighbors need abortion care too, or to say that, ‘I think all religions share the same central truth,’” she countered, insisting that these are primarily “theological” issues.
Given that Talarico refuses to “affirm Genesis 1,” Allie made it clear that it’s “going to be tough” to agree that he’s the Christian he identifies as.
The Harris vote
In another part of the debate, Allie brought up French’s 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris.
“I don’t understand voting for someone like Kamala Harris,” she said, referencing the Biden DOJ’s removal of SNAP benefits for public schools that refused to allow biological males to use girls’ facilities or compete on girls’ teams.
She also pointed to Harris’ pledge to restore the Roe v. Wade framework and her opposition to bills banning late-term abortions.
“I agree with you on so many of these issues. ... I just don’t think I could ever vote for Kamala Harris,” she reiterated.
French countered by arguing that for him, the Russia-Ukraine War took precedence over gender and abortion issues.
“I would place a war in which a million people are being killed and injured, which could potentially lead to a World War III that we may not survive as a species ... way above things like pronouns,” he said.
But Allie pushed back on what she saw as “diminishment” of her original argument.
“You know I’m not just talking about pronouns,” she resisted.
“I’m talking about medical guidance for hospitals to chemically castrate kids. I’m talking about in Democrat states ... taking kids out of the custody of their parents because the parents won’t affirm this newfound gender of the child,” she continued.
Pronoun clash
Allie also called out what she perceived to be conflicting statements regarding French’s position on “pronoun politeness.”
Last year during a podcast, French referred to his male colleague (Brian Riedl) who identifies as a woman using female pronouns — an act many, including Allie, perceived as a contradiction to his 2018 article, in which he wrote, “The use of a pronoun isn’t a matter of mere manners. It’s a declaration of a fact. I won’t call Chelsea Manning ‘she’ for a very simple reason. He’s a man.”
“Is your stance one of pronoun politeness that you believe that a man who identifies as a woman should be referred to as ‘she/her’?” Allie inquired.
French claimed he “didn’t remember” using female pronouns to refer to Riedl and partially reaffirmed his 2018 statement.
After praising Riedl as a “brilliant analyst,” French stated, “I’m going to be kind to [trans people], but I also don’t want to say things that I don’t believe are true, and so the way I deal with that is, I use people’s names.”
He caveated, however, by declaring that he’s “definitely not going to go out of [his] way” to call trans-identifying people by the pronouns matching their biological sex.
Allie replied, “I don’t see it as unkind calling someone, whether it’s to their face or not to their face, the gender that God made them.”
But French dissented. “Oh, I think if somebody is dealing with gender dysphoria, ... I don’t see the value in me saying something to them that I know and they know is going to be hurtful to them.”
“It’s just normal, complete politeness and manners,” he continued.
“I’m just not going to go out of my way to say something that I know is going to be hurtful just because I can justify it as being true. All true words are not kind by virtue of just simply being true.”
Allie conceded, “I agree that you don’t have to be rude to someone and say, ‘That shirt looks bad on you.’”
“But when it comes to [gender], when we know it’s a lie that damages someone, that hurts them spiritually and physically and emotionally, hurts their family, I just can’t get on board with assenting to the idea that 2+2=5.”
Overall, the debate offered a revealing look at the growing divide within evangelical Christianity over truth, compassion, and cultural engagement. Watch the full hour-and-a-half exchange below.
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Republicans Debate The Way Democrats Want Them To
Should we use a scalpel to turn boys into girls? That's not a value judgment or a debate, because it's just a clinical decision to be made by trained experts.Republicans are leading the field in the California governor race
Steve Hilton, the leading candidate for governor of California despite his status as an unapologetic Republican, called it a perfect metaphor for the state’s spate of recent failures.
After the University of Southern California abruptly canceled its televised gubernatorial debate less than 24 hours before it was set to take place, Democrats scrambled to come up with an alternative forum. Despite the frantic reaction, the crowded field of Democratic candidates couldn’t agree to the proposed ground rules.
As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.
The debate implosion and the subsequent failure to quickly reorganize played right into the leading GOP contender’s hands.
“This is just so symptomatic of everything that's wrong with California,” Hilton told RealClearPolitics on Tuesday in the aftermath of the debate’s cancellation. “Everything is broken, from the high-speed rail, where they haven't laid any tracks. Then last week we saw that $100 million butterfly bridge to nowhere. Nothing works. Everything’s broken. It’s all a shambles. They can’t even organize a debate.”
Decades ago, USC was considered a conservative alternative to public academic institutions across the state. More recently, the private university has become indistinguishable from the rest — at least when it comes to cancel culture.
All of the candidates the university had decided to invite to participate in the planned debate, hosted by Univision and KABC, are white. All of the candidates left out are minorities who also happened to be polling in the single digits: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D), former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), and former California State Controller Betty Yee (D) were not invited after the university said they had not met their debate criteria.
Those invited included former Fox News host Steve Hilton (R), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), former Rep. Katie Porter (D), businessman Tom Steyer (D), and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D).
“We recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters,” the university said in a statement. “Unfortunately, USC and [debate co-sponsor] KABC have not been able to reach an agreement on expanding the number of candidates. ... As a result, USC has made the difficult decision to cancel tomorrow’s debate and will look for other opportunities to educate voters on the candidates and issues.”
The university would not commit to a new date for the debate.
Hilton and Bianco have been leading the crowded pack of candidates for months, stirring up panic amid veteran Democratic Party operatives that they could both emerge from the June 2 primary to run against one another and shut out Democrats entirely. Swalwell and Porter have been polling around 10%, with Steyer, despite spending tens of millions of dollars, a few points behind.
Under California’s “top-two” primary system, only the two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. Democrats are concerned that Hilton and Bianco are poised to do so if the field of Democratic candidates doesn’t narrow down quickly.
It was Mahan’s invitation, however, that really stung among those sidelined from the stage. A white Democratic centrist candidate, Mahan had only recently entered the race and was polling in the single digits along with those excluded from the debate.
Still USC explained his inclusion by citing a new debate-inclusion criteria that valued intensive fundraising. The Democrats complaining about being left out didn’t buy the rationale and instead cited Mahan’s USC ties as evidence of special treatment.
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Mike Murphy, co-director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, which was hosting the debate, had been, on a voluntary basis, advising an independent expenditure committee supporting Mahan. Yet Murphy claimed to have nothing to do with organizing the debate and pledged to temporarily step down from his university role if he decided to accept a paid position from any entity backing Mahan.
Over the weekend when Xavier Becerra (D), Thurmond, and others started complaining about Mahan’s inclusion, top Democratic legislators decided to weigh in.
The speaker of California’s Assembly, Robert Rivas, and the leader of the state Senate, Monique Limon, joined the leaders of the legislative Latino, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, LGBTQ, Jewish, and women’s caucuses in writing a letter to USC President Beong-Soo Kim demanding that they change their “biased criteria.”
“The outcry over this debate is deafening and includes legal demands from the excluded candidates’ attorneys, public calls by elected leaders across the state, concerns from the included candidates’ own campaigns, and growing alarm from California voters,” the legislators wrote. “Instead of responding to these valid concerns by expanding the debate, USC has doubled down.”
The debate was supposed to take place at a critical time — with two Republican candidates consistently running ahead of their Democratic counterparts, none of whom has broken out of a crowded field. It also was set to occur less than two months before the state planned to send ballots to every registered voter.
In early March, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks published an open letter urging Democratic contenders to consider dropping out if they didn’t see a realistic path to a primary victory.
“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote just days before the March 6 filing deadline. But no candidate decided to heed Hicks’ call, and the letter drew a scathing response from Thurmond, who asserted that it was aimed at pressuring “candidates of color” to end their gubernatorial bids.
“Our political system is rigged,” Thurmond said. “The California Democratic Party is essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”
Hicks rejected that criticism, noting the letter did not name any specific candidate.
As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.
Part of the group wanted all parties to abide by a pledge to participate in future debates only if all Democratic candidates are invited. But that idea fell apart when they couldn’t get a commitment from fellow Democratic candidates.
Still Becerra, one of the candidates who was not invited to the USC debate, celebrated the decision to quash it entirely in a post on X:
We fought. We won! We stood up against an unfair candidate debate set-up that prematurely chose winners and losers. Tonight USC made the right decision to cancel their March 24 gubernatorial forum ... so hopefully next time it’s done right. Thank you to everyone who stood up, raised hell and demanded justice. Never give up when you’re fighting for fairness!
The Democratic disarray on rescheduling handed an opportunity to Hilton and Bianco. Instead of taking the night off, Hilton held an X.com space with more than 300 people participating. Meanwhile Bianco spoke to supporters at an event in Los Angeles.
A Bianco campaign social media post crossed out the words “debate watch party” and blamed Democrats for the abrupt change.
“The Ds got the debate canceled, but we’re showing up anyway!” the post said. “See you tonight @sheriffbianco will be there.”
Hilton, who has been campaigning for roughly a year and has led in the polls for months, shared an X space forum with Elaine Culotti, an independent candidate for governor who is running under “NPP” — no party preference.
Culotti, a California real estate developer and interior designer who starred in the Discovery+ reality series “Undercover Billionaire,” appears poised to throw her support to Hilton if he wins the primary, even though she argues that her current participation in the race takes votes away from Swalwell.
The two more ideologically aligned candidates continued to criticize Democrats for blowing up the debate while laying out their own visions for reforming California, by not only stopping the U-Haul exodus of those moving out to find more affordable places to live but attracting more businesses to the state. Culotti said she would do so by reducing taxes to attract more than 100,000 businesses, leading to more jobs and more tax revenue.
Hilton said he would address affordability and businesses’ exodus from the state by opening up more oil and gas exploration, something he said could be done by executive order and by “kicking out all the climate fanatics” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) placed in key positions in the government.
“Right now, they are denying the industry permits for every aspect of [oil and gas] operating in California, whether that’s maintaining existing wells or expanding them, or drilling new ones — all of that,” Hilton said.
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Hilton and Culotti also discussed the positive aspects of having a governor in Sacramento who could work with the Trump administration to implement a forest management plan that would help prevent devastating wildfires while providing billions more in federal funds to help the Palisades and Eaton wildfire victims rebuild.
“Whatever happens in the 2028 presidential election, we know we’re going to have two years where the next governor will overlap with the Trump administration,” Hilton said. “And that’s one of the things I'm most excited about. I’ve got good, good relationships with, you know, half the Cabinet.”
No one asked Hilton how he will contend with deep animosity toward Trump in a state where the number of registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly two to one.
Instead Hilton said he would prefer that Bianco drop out so he could consolidate the Republican support while working to turn out independents and Republicans in November in an election that includes ballot initiatives to institute voter ID and to maintain Proposition 13, a state constitutional amendment that imposes strict limits on property tax increases.
"You’ve got people in charge now who just don't think like this, and as we saw with the debate nonsense and raising the race card ... they’re just on a different planet," Hilton said. "But the underlying answer to how you deliver all of these things is just to take a sledgehammer to the massive, bloated nanny-state bureaucracy that is making everything so expensive and so difficult."
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
To Save The SAVE America Act, GOP Senators ‘Need To Make This A Fistfight’
Former Senate staffer Rachel Bovard says the Senate is at least talking, and that’s a March Madness miracle in and of itself.‘Is our spirit gendered?’ Allie Beth Stuckey shuts down pro-trans ‘Christian’
When Allie Beth Stuckey took on 20 liberal Christians for a recent Jubilee debate, one question stuck with the BlazeTV host of “Relatable.”
“This might seem a little silly, but a lot of people actually have this question: Is our spirit gendered?” Stuckey says.
“No. Nothing in Scripture points to this idea of our soul and spirit possibly having a separate gender from our biological sex,” she explains, recalling her response in the debate.
“I said, ‘Oh I don’t think that we see that in Scripture at all. That’s not a Christian belief.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’m a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.’ And so, I don’t know if this is a tenet of Mormonism,” she says.
“There is definitely a different belief about the spirit and what it is. Different belief about eternity, different belief about Jesus, different belief about time past, different belief about heaven, all different kinds of things that are so far out of the orthodoxy of any denomination of Christianity,” she continues.
“I thought that that was an interesting assertion that I have not heard other Mormons, by the way, believe,” she adds, noting that those who have New Age beliefs or secular people often make points like this to justify transgenderism.
“We see in Genesis 1 that God made us male and female. Sex is a biological reality,” Stuckey responds.
Stuckey explains that in a book titled “Love Thy Body,” author Nancy Pearcey homes in on the philosophy of dualism and how it’s led many people astray in order to separate the spirit from the body and to say the spirit has authority over the body.
“That’s not true. God cares about the body. It’s a temple of the Holy Spirit,” Stuckey adds.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Debate is always welcome, but violence is never acceptable
After weeks of hysteria in Minneapolis, with politicians and paid agitators alike calling for resistance, we saw a church targeted by those opposed to ICE. We have gone off the deep end. I penned an op-ed calling for what I thought was common sense and titled it “Turn Down the Rhetoric.”
The Columbus Dispatch printed the column after the shooting of Alex Pretti, but changed the title to read, “Renee Good wasn’t an ‘innocent.’” That’s the opposite of calming down the rhetoric. It was purposely inflammatory. Any wonder why people don’t trust the legacy media any more?
Compare Minnesota’s unrest with states like Florida and Texas, which have had far greater ICE activity and deportations.
Good’s life ended in tragedy. So did Pretti’s. That’s true whether you support President Trump or oppose ICE. Each incident affects families and communities and undermines trust in the system. My point in the op-ed was that rhetoric motivates action. Speech is free, but actions have consequences and — as we have seen — those consequences can be horrific.
There can be no mistake: Infringe on others’ rights or obstruct law enforcement, and you’re breaking the law.
When public officials encourage such “resistance,” they are only making a bad situation worse. But some, like my Democrat opponent for attorney general, Elliot Forhan, are still using vile rhetoric. He recently posted a video explaining how he will “kill Donald Trump.” That is the type of comment we should all oppose.
We need to turn down the temperature.
We should defend anyone’s right to express his or her views peacefully. Are you for open borders? Against ICE? You get to say so. You can even buy signs and shout it from a megaphone in the town square in a peaceful assembly. But those with the opposite opinions get to exercise the same right.
Violence is unacceptable. Let me restate that, because these days it seems like people read that as “violence is unacceptable unless I think it’s justified.”
Any violence, under any circumstance, is unacceptable.
Obstructing law enforcement personnel when they’re doing their job isn’t “peacefully protesting” or exercising your right to free speech. It is not OK to justify your actions because you believe someone else is violating the law.
Public officials should not incite violence or lawlessness. That is one of the reasons Minnesota’s sanctuary policies are so dangerous. Many of the arrests of violent illegal aliens could be made in the safety of the local jail or with the help of local law enforcement without street-level activity.
Compare Minnesota’s unrest with states like Florida and Texas, which have had far greater ICE activity and more deportations. The biggest difference is that those states cooperate, don’t have officials inciting lawlessness, and don’t accept protests that descend into mayhem.
That brings me to a simple point I taught my children when they started to drive. When interacting with law enforcement, be polite and cooperate. Say “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” and follow instructions. If police make a mistake, we can sort it out later — as the law requires. But don’t try to block the road with your car, refuse their instructions, or physically impede their activities.
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Police can mess up. When they do, they should be held accountable in court, under the law, with a presumption of innocence, just like everyone else. Police misconduct should be investigated and addressed. Ohio rigorously reviews use-of-force incidents, many of which are handled by the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the attorney general’s office. Wrongdoing will be punished, and it will continue to be punished when I’m attorney general.
Alex Pretti’s shooting was a tragic situation, and I want truth and justice as much as anyone. The investigation is ongoing, and as a strong Second Amendment supporter, I believe having a gun doesn’t make you inherently dangerous. Your actions while carrying a gun might, however.
Highly contentious protests can spiral out of control quickly, and actions and reactions can be deadly, particularly when human beings make decisions without the luxury of hours of analysis or instant video replays.
That’s why, as I made clear in my Columbus Dispatch op-ed, common sense means we need to turn down the rhetoric.
Americans aren’t arguing any more — we’re speaking different languages
A few days ago, I found myself in a text exchange about two women killed by agents of the state.
One was Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old activist mother shot last week by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. The other was Ashli Babbitt, a 36-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran shot by a Capitol Police lieutenant inside the Speaker’s Lobby on January 6, 2021.
Are words being used to think — or to show whose side someone is on?
I asked what I thought was a simple moral question: Does the state ever have the moral right to kill an unarmed person who poses no immediate lethal threat?
I did not try to provoke. I did not claim the cases were the same. I said plainly that the facts, motives, and political contexts differed. My own answer was no. The purpose was not to merge the stories, but to test whether the same moral rule applied in both cases.
I was asking my friend to reason with me.
The response was not an argument. It came as a rush of narrative detail, moral verdicts, and firm insistence that the question itself was illegitimate. “Not comparable.” “Straw man.” The stories did not clarify the rule. They aimed to shut down the conversation.
But what struck me most was not the emotion. It was the disconnect.
I asked about a principle. I received a story. I tested a rule. I got a verdict. We used the same words — justice, murder, authority — but those words did very different work.
The exchange failed not because of tone or ideology. It failed because we spoke different civic languages. More troubling, we no longer agree on what civic language is for.
More than a failure of civility
For years, we have blamed polarization and tribalism. We shout past one another. We retreat into bubbles. All of that is true. But the deeper problem runs deeper than disagreement.
We no longer share a civic vocabulary shaped by common expectations about clarity, restraint, and universality.
We still speak words that are recognizably English. But we use the same words to reach very different ends.
One civic language treats words as tools for reasoning. Call it “principled” or “rule-based.” Questions test limits and consistency. Moral claims aim at rules that apply beyond one case. Disagreement is normal. When someone asks, “What rule applies here?” the question is not an attack. It is the point.
This language shapes law, constitutional argument, philosophy, and journalism at its best. Words like “justified” or “legitimate” refer to standards that others can test and challenge. If a claim fails under scrutiny, it loses force.
The other civic language works differently. Call it “narrative” or “moral-emergency” language. Here, words signal alignment more than reasoning. Stories carry moral weight on their own. Urgency overrides abstraction. Questions feel like invalidation. Consistency tests sound like hostility.
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In this mode, terms drift. “Murder” no longer means unlawful killing. It means moral outrage. “Straw man” stops meaning logical distortion and starts meaning emotional offense. “Not comparable” does not mean analytically distinct. It means do not apply your framework here.
Neither language is dishonest. That is the danger. Each serves a different purpose. The breakdown comes when speakers assume they are having the same kind of conversation.
The principled speaker hears evasion: “You didn’t answer my question.” The moral-emergency speaker hears bad faith: “You don’t care.”
Both walk away convinced the other is unreasonable.
Moral certainty over moral reasoning
Social media did not create this divide, but it rewards one language and punishes the other. Platforms favor speed over reflection, story over rule, accusation over inquiry. Moral certainty spreads faster than moral reasoning. Over time, abstraction starts to feel cruel and questions feel aggressive.
That is why so many political arguments stall at the same point. Facts do not resolve them because facts are not the dispute. The real question is whether rule-testing is even allowed. Once someone frames an issue as a moral emergency, universality itself looks suspect.
A simple test helps. Is this person using words to reason toward a general rule, or to signal moral alignment in a crisis?
Put more simply: Are words being used to think — or to show whose side someone is on?
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Once you see this, many conversations make sense. You understand why certain questions trigger anger. You see why consistency tests go unanswered. You recognize when dialogue cannot move forward, no matter how careful you sound.
This does not mean outrage is always wrong. It does not mean people should stop caring. It does mean we need better civic literacy about how language works. Sometimes restraint is a virtue. Walking away is not cowardice. Declining to argue is not surrender.
What cannot work is trying to make a principled argument within a moral-emergency frame.
America’s founders understood this. They designed institutions to slow decisions, force deliberation, and channel arguments into forms governed by rules rather than passion.
If we fail to see that we now speak different civic languages, we will lose the ability to talk calmly about the ideas and ideals that should bind us together. The alternative is full adoption of moral-emergency language — where persuasion gives way to force.
Too many Americans have already chosen that path.
Stop asking questions shaped by someone else’s script
The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.
Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.
Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.
The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.
Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.
Truth-seeking is real work
Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.
If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.
But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.
This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.
Bad-faith questions
This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?
FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.
Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.
If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.
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If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?
The real target
These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.
If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.
That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.
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