A war on Venezuela would be a war on reality



The drums of war are echoing across the Caribbean. U.S. warships patrol the southern sea lanes, and squadrons of F-35s wait on standby in Puerto Rico. Strike lists are reportedly being drafted in Washington. The question is not whether the United States can act but whether it should. And more importantly: Who is the real enemy?

All signs point to Venezuela, long a fixation of neoconservatives who see regime change as a cure-all. For years, some in the Republican Party have argued that Venezuela sits at the center of Latin America’s drug trade and that military action is overdue.

A legitimate campaign to combat drug cartels must not morph into another regime-change crusade.

That narrative is convenient — but false. Venezuela is not a cartel state, and this is not a war on drugs.

A tale of two narco-states

In September, the Trump administration made two moves that reshaped the regional map. It added Venezuela to its annual list of major drug-transit and production countries and, for the first time since 1996, decertified Colombia as a U.S. partner in the war on drugs.

That decision was deliberate. It acknowledged what U.S. policymakers have long avoided saying: Colombia, not Venezuela, is the true narco-state.

Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of cocaine. From Pablo Escobar’s Medellín empire to the FARC’s narco-financing, traffickers and insurgents have repeatedly seized control of state institutions and vast territories. At their height, these groups ruled nearly half the country. Decades of U.S. intervention under “Plan Colombia” have failed to stem coca cultivation, which remains near record highs.

Venezuela, by contrast, has never been a major coca producer. Its role is mostly as a minor transit corridor for Colombian cocaine en route to global markets. Corruption is real — particularly within elements of the military, where networks of officers known as the “Cartel of the Suns” have profited from trafficking. But those are rogue actors, not the state itself.

Unlike Colombia, Venezuela has never seen cartels seize entire provinces or build autonomous zones. The country’s economic collapse has weakened state control, but it hasn’t transformed Venezuela into another Sinaloa or Medellín.

Regime-change fever returns

Despite this, Washington appears to be edging toward confrontation. Naval buildups and targeted strikes on Venezuelan vessels look increasingly like the opening moves of a regime-change operation.

The danger is familiar. Once again, the United States risks being drawn into a war that cannot be won — one that drains resources, destabilizes the region, and achieves nothing for the American people. The echoes of Iraq and Afghanistan are unmistakable. Those conflicts cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars, only to end in retreat and disillusionment.

Americans have every reason to demand a serious, coordinated strategy against the cartels that flood our communities with cocaine and fentanyl. But targeting Venezuela misreads the map. Only a fraction of the hemisphere’s narcotics pass through Venezuelan territory — and the country produces no fentanyl at all.

If Washington wants to dismantle the cartels, it must focus on the coca fields of Colombia and the trafficking corridors of Mexico, not Caracas.

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Photo by Hu Yousong/Xinhua via Getty Images

No exit

A U.S. invasion of Venezuela would be a disaster. The Maduro regime has already begun arming civilians. Guerrilla groups operate in both urban and jungle terrain. The population is hostile, the geography unforgiving, and the odds of a prolonged insurgency high.

The opposition, eager for power, would have every incentive to let American soldiers do its fighting — then disavow the costs.

A war would not remain confined to Venezuelan borders. It would destabilize Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, and unleash a wave of migrants heading north. The fall of Saddam Hussein set off migration patterns that reshaped Europe for a generation. A conflict in Venezuela could do the same to the United States.

Limited airstrikes would achieve little beyond satisfying the egos of Washington’s most hawkish voices. A full-scale invasion would create a power vacuum ripe for chaos.

The real test

President Trump faces a critical test of restraint. Interventionists inside his own administration will press for action. He must resist them. A legitimate campaign to combat drug cartels must not morph into another regime-change crusade.

America has paid dearly for those mistakes before. It should not make them again.

Hegseth restores warrior ethos after years of woke Pentagon rot



When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth first announced the unorthodox step that he would gather all generals and admirals at Marine Base Quantico on short notice, many speculated that this could be a sign that we might be heading toward another war. Hegseth did declare war, but not in the way many pundits expected. He’s going to war against declining standards in the military.

In every respect, this was a historic speech. The convening itself was historic, but more significantly, Hegseth’s speech carried the weight of history. Hegseth’s purpose was to align all of the flag officers around one mission, as he put it, "The only mission of the newly restored War Department is this: warfighting.”

For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions.

By contrast, Hegseth’s predecessor, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, oriented the military around climate change, social justice, and other side quests. For example, in 2021, Austin declared, “We face all kinds of threats, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does."

War on wokeness

The Pentagon’s mission under the Biden administration was to fight a war on the weather, even going so far as to prioritize climate plans over the duty to build warships. These side quests weakened our military and our nation.

Even worse, Austin’s leadership ushered in an era of politically motivated promotions that prioritized sex and skin color characteristics over merit. To this end, retired Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, who served as the 21st chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Biden administration’s final years, famously wrote a memo mandating racial and sex quotas. This firmly committed our military away from promotions based on wars won and lives saved toward a process infused with the radical agenda of the left.

Warrior ethos restored

This was the context of Hegseth’s speech. Within the Pentagon, competing priorities eclipsed the primal imperative of being prepared to kill the enemy before they kill us. The woke agenda pushed by the radical left caused a slow rot that shifted focus from warfighting to social engineering, greatly frustrating many senior military officials.

Hegseth vowed to excise this type of decay inflicted by “foolish and reckless politicians.” He outlined several concrete steps to do just that, including restored grooming standards, stricter enforcement of physical training requirements, leadership and accountability reforms, and changes to training to focus on core warfighting elements.

But if the meeting was only about outlining these seemingly mundane reforms, why gather these high-ranking generals and admirals in one place? Couldn’t the content of his speech have been sent in an email? No, it could not. This was far more important than updating senior leaders on reforms; this was a cultural moment for military leadership. The era of hiding behind systemic racism and sexism to undermine the mission of the military while projecting woke platitudes as a defense of those actions is officially over.

Hegseth understood the mission, which was tough talk to tough people to prepare them for tough times. Some will whine that it’s uncouth for a secretary of sar to say, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. ... We are done with that s**t.”

The whiners need to realize that many warfighters have prayed that someone would say this to their senior leaders. Hegseth did exactly that. This can’t be captured by a mere email.

Symbolically and practically, it’s meaningful that the secretary of war said this directly to their faces, immediately reinforced by a speech from the commander in chief. Saying this face-to-face is not hostile; it’s a sign of respect among tough people.

Hegseth’s admonitions, from calling out fat generals to reminding them that personnel is policy, are best summed up in this statement: “It's like the broken windows theory of policing. It's like when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff.” This principle should be understood by our military leadership, but it became a vestigial sentiment that was no longer actively practiced.

Aligned for lethality

For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions. Whether it was diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or the climate agenda, the leaders in the Quantico audience accomplished these side missions ruthlessly and effectively — to the detriment of their primary purpose.

RELATED: Pete Hegseth just ended the era of woke brass in the military

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Going forward, this speech empowered the military to fight against the entropy of distractions and declining standards. Whether they wear five stars or one, all of our star-ranked officers have been aligned to a new standard: lethality. This means effectively and ruthlessly accomplishing the only mission that matters: warfighting.

History, which favors winners, will view this as the moment the U.S. military was made great again. This will be remembered as the day the Trump administration aligned the stars, one in which our senior military officials were liberated to align their leadership with basic common sense.

Decorated Veteran Says Generals, Admirals Who Can’t Back Hegseth Should ‘Get The Hell Out’

'The value is people staying alive'

Congress must kill DEI before it kills our military readiness



In June, with four months left in fiscal year 2025, the Army announced that it had surpassed its goal of enlisting 61,000 recruits. Female recruitment surged in particular across every branch, a shift many credit to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s return to a “warfighter” ethos.

Yet Republicans in Congress still haven’t done their part to cement this new direction in law.

Congressional Republicans must seek a permanent end to the regime that has so disastrously compromised the military’s lethality.

The misguided and weak leadership of the previous administration allowed the ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion to run rampant at the Pentagon, strangling recruiting efforts and sidelining the military’s true mission.

Under Joe Biden, the Army fell nearly 30,000 recruits short. Misguided priorities drained confidence in the service and hollowed out the ranks. If the “Trump bump” holds, it could reverse those losses and begin restoring the military’s strength and credibility after years of neglect and ideological tinkering.

Lingering progressive activism

Racial and gender identity politics defined the Biden administration so deeply that simple executive orders cannot uproot them — especially in the military. Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s 2022-26 Strategic Management Plan spelled it out, imposing race-based quotas on every service member and civilian across the force.

The Trump administration must insist that Congress make it impossible to return to this decades-long embrace of race and gender essentialism. Such action is necessary for Secretary Hegseth to continue sharpening the edge of American military power with confidence.

Congress has started moving in the right direction. The Senate Armed Services Committee recently advanced the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act with two measures aimed at curbing DEI. Section 547 blocks race and identity from influencing service academy admissions. Section 920 repeals several provisions that embedded DEI in the Defense Department.

These changes, though welcome, fall short. Congress must go farther if it wants real impact. Identity politics must be banned not just in admissions, but throughout the military. And for Section 920 to matter, DEI cannot simply be buried — its presence should disqualify applicants from future government service.

Ending DEI-based admissions

Another urgent target for repeal is the 2021 DEI selection board mandate, which forces military boards to “represent the diverse population of the armed force concerned.” That order undermines their core mission: choosing the most capable leaders to win wars.

Early signals from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees show they recognize the problem, but they have yet to commit to locking in Trump-era reforms. America’s depleted readiness should be evidence enough. Lawmakers must act decisively — restore the military’s lethality and bury DEI for good.

RELATED: How DEI took a sledgehammer to the US military’s war ethos

Photo by Ivan Cholakov via Getty Images

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has pushed consistently to root DEI out of the military. But he works with razor-thin majorities in both chambers, where entrenched Armed Services Committee staff — Republicans in name only — resist meaningful reform.

Trump’s political resurgence leaves no excuse. Republicans in Congress must break this pattern and confront the bureaucrats blocking change.

Republicans have their chance

Lawmakers now face their moment. The current Senate and House drafts of the NDAA fall short. Republicans must seize this chance to codify President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s reforms and restore warfighting as the military’s sole organizing principle.

To end the tyranny of DEI and race quotas, Congress cannot stop at praising executive action. It must legislate a permanent end to the ideology that has gutted readiness and crippled lethality.

China’s back door into our military? US recruiters use CCP-controlled messaging app to target Chinese nationals



Several U.S. military recruiting offices are communicating through a Chinese Communist Party-monitored messaging application as they seek to target Chinese nationals interested in enlisting, fueling concerns about potential national security risks.

CCP's grip on recruiting

After looking into a Department of Justice affidavit filed in June, Blaze News has discovered that some recruiters have been using WeChat. The court document claimed that the U.S. Navy Recruiting Station Alhambra in San Gabriel, California, had a bulletin board displaying recent recruits, the majority of whom identified their "hometown" as "China."

'China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary.'

The DOJ's criminal complaint was filed against two Chinese nationals who have been accused of taking photographs of the bulletin board and sending them to an officer with the CCP's Ministry of State Security.

The foreign adversary hometown designations spark serious concerns that individuals with divided loyalties and even potential CCP operatives have infiltrated the U.S. military.

While U.S. citizenship is required for officer and security clearance positions, noncitizens who are lawful permanent residents can enlist in the military. LPRs are generally eligible to naturalize after five years of continuous U.S. residence, and service members may qualify for expedited naturalization.

As of February 2024, roughly 40,000 foreign nationals were serving in the U.S. military. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' reporting, China ranks among the top 10 countries of birth for U.S. service members who have become naturalized citizens through the military. Just over 2,000 Chinese nationals were approved for military naturalizations from fiscal years 2020 through 2024.

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Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

Experts sound alarm

Dr. Lawrence Sellin, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and biological and chemical warfare defense expert, told Blaze News, "Infiltration of the U.S. military is a major goal of the Chinese Communist Party."

"It is accomplished via Chinese immigrants to the United States who become permanent residents or U.S. citizens but remain loyal to the CCP, either directly by the Chinese immigrants themselves or their pro-CCP children," he explained. "In fact, pro-CCP Chinese-American organizations are promoting such recruitment, facilitating CCP infiltration of the U.S. military."

Gordon Chang, a Gatestone Institute senior fellow, similarly warned that China has "weaponized its nationals."

He said in a comment to Blaze News, "China's National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires Chinese nationals and entities to spy if relevant authorities make demands."

"Moreover, in the Communist Party's top-down system, no person can disobey an order from the Party. Additionally, the regime coerces all ethnic Chinese, regardless of nationality, to do its bidding by threatening harm to loved ones and relatives in China," Chang stated. "Therefore, ethnic Chinese pose a special risk of espionage and sabotage to the U.S. military. Except under special circumstances, the U.S. military should not accept recruits who are Chinese nationals."

Lily Tang Williams, a Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire and a survivor of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, also argued against allowing foreign nationals from adversarial countries, including China, to enlist in the U.S. military.

Tang Williams told Blaze News, "China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary. They have made it very clear that they are seeking to usurp the United States' position in the world by taking advantage of our open society and using their nationals and businesses to spread their influence, doing military and economic espionage. The 'China Dream' is Xi Jinping's 'Soft Power Invasion' slogan to enable China overtaking the U.S. as the dominant number one global power by 2049."

More evidence of CCP reach

The troubling information that emerged from the DOJ affidavit led to further concerning revelations.

Journalist Jennifer Zeng uncovered another alarming detail about the Navy recruiting office in San Gabriel. She discovered that a suspected Chinese influencer had filmed a tour of the facility, which was later posted online as an apparent advertisement aimed at Chinese nationals.

The original video, posted to YouTube with nearly 25,000 views, is entirely in Chinese. The video shooter, "Rocky," joins EN2 Qlang Wang on his commute to work. He then interviews several suspected Chinese nationals as they go through the recruiting process at the office.

One recruit tells Rocky that he is 37 years old, has been residing in the U.S. for six years, and that he wants to join the Navy because it is "a chance for new opportunities [and] life experience," according to Zeng's translation of the video. Two additional recruits similarly attribute their decision to join the U.S. military to its opportunities.

The recruitment video concludes by listing WeChat as the first way to contact Zhong Yang, a presumed recruiter at the office. Initially, the video's YouTube description also highlighted WeChat as the main contact option, but that information was later removed, according to Zeng.

A Navy spokesperson confirmed to Blaze News that Wang and Yang are in the Navy, though declined to comment further.

‘Given that the CCP views the US as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the US military, it's hard to believe that the US Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk.’

Zeng wrote in a post on X, "EVERY recruiter here is Chinese, as well as all the people coming to enlist. The working language here is also Chinese."

Following her discovery of the Chinese-language tour video, Zeng posted her own videos from outside the U.S. Navy Recruiting Alhambra office and the neighboring Marine Corps Recruiting Station that showed bulletins taped to the windows.

The flyers were written in Chinese, featuring the U.S. Marine Corps seal, contact information for "Sgt Liu," and a QR code linking to Liu's WeChat.

"Joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve does not force you to become a citizen; you can maintain your permanent green card status," one of the flyers read, according to Zeng's translation. "Fast track to citizenship is also an option."

Image Source: Jennifer Zeng

A spokesperson with the Marine Corps told Blaze News that the flyers had been removed.

"In December 2024, materials featuring a QR code linking to a personal WeChat account were displayed at a Marine Corps facility in San Gabriel, California. WeChat is not an authorized platform for official use, and the materials were promptly removed following review," the spokesperson stated.

When asked about the screening processes for U.S. citizens versus green card holders, particularly those from adversarial nations, the Marines said, "All applicants, whether naturalized or birthright U.S. citizens, undergo the same screening process. Additional vetting is conducted for individuals with ties to countries designated as potential security concerns."

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Photo by PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

Zeng told Blaze News that she was "truly shocked" that military recruiters were using WeChat for recruiting purposes.

"Virtually all Chinese dissidents — and many ordinary Chinese people — know that WeChat is 100% owned and monitored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are numerous documented cases of the CCP using WeChat to surveil and persecute Chinese citizens," Zeng said.

"Given that the CCP views the U.S. as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the U.S. military, it's hard to believe that the U.S. Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk," she continued. "I sincerely hope the growing number of cases involving CCP agents stealing U.S. military secrets will serve as a wake-up call — and that the U.S. military and Navy will address this issue urgently."

Zeng explained that after she posted her findings on social media, some of her followers informed her that another recruiting office in New York was similarly advertising with flyers written in Chinese.

Blaze News confirmed those claims.

A U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Flushing, New York, advertised reaching out via WeChat to contact the office's recruiter in two posts on Google Maps.

Additionally, another U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Rowland Heights, California, similarly posted on Google Maps in Chinese, listing the recruiter's contact information, including a WeChat account.

USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser told Blaze News, “USCIS’s first priority is rooting out malicious actors who seek to take advantage of our lawful immigration system, whether for their own enrichment or to attack and undermine our nation. Our agency was born out of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, and every American counts on us to detect and stop threats to our country. Individuals from high-risk countries, or countries with known anti-American governments, may face enhanced measures to protect American interests.”

“USCIS screens all applicants for immigration benefits — regardless of military status. USCIS maintains the integrity in the U.S. immigration system through enhanced screening and vetting to deter, detect, and disrupt immigration fraud and threats to our national security and public safety,” Tragesser added.

When reached for comment, the White House directed Blaze News to the Department of Defense, stating that the department was looking into the allegations regarding WeChat. The DOD, in turn, referred the matter to the individual branches involved. Neither the U.S. Army nor any of the recruiters listed in the advertisements responded to a request for comment.

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'Unintended consequences': Trump dispatches nuclear subs following radioactive engagement with Putin's right-hand man



President Donald Trump told reporters in Great Britain on Monday that he was "very disappointed" in Russian President Vladimir Putin over his failure to play ball on peace talks, noting that he would shorten a 50-day negotiating window and "make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days."

The president later added, "And then we're going to put on tariffs."

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Federation's security council and former Russian president, said in response, "Trump's playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10… He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn't Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!"

'Russia is right about everything and will continue to go its own way.'

The engagement between the two men online quickly devolved into talk of nuclear war and, on Friday afternoon, the dispatch of two nuclear submarines.

Grigorii Golosov, a political science professor at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, told the New York Times that Trump has targeted Medvedev rather than Putin online because he "wants to criticize someone in Russia" but is still hoping to make a deal with the current Russian president.

On Thursday, Trump suggested that Russia and the United States should continue to do "almost no business together" — total trade between the two nuclear powers amounted to $3.5 billion in 2024 — and said that Medvedev should "watch his words," adding, "He's entering very dangerous territory!"

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Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Getty Images

Medvedev issued a rejoinder hours later on Telegram, writing in Russian, "If certain words uttered by the former Russian president provoke such a nervous reaction from the formidable US president, then Russia is right about everything and will continue to go its own way."

Putin's right-hand man added, "Let him remember his favorite movies about 'The Walking Dead,' as well as how dangerous the non-existent in nature 'Dead Hand' can be."

"Dead Hand" is a reference to a nuclear weapon launch system that could apparently trigger nuclear attacks across the U.S. in the event that a nuclear strike on Moscow is detected or if communications with top Russian leaders drop off.

Russian Strategic Rocket Forces Col. Gen. Sergey Karakayev told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in a 2011 interview that the system was indeed "on combat duty."

President Trump was not at all amused by the allusion to an American nuclear holocaust.

On Friday afternoon, Trump noted that based on Medvedev's "highly provocative statements," he has "ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that."

"Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences," continued the president. "I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared Trump's statement online. Neither the president nor Hegseth indicated where the submarines were being deployed.

— (@)

In an earlier message on Friday, the president bemoaned the loss of life in Ukraine, noting:

Almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine. Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing.

This is a developing story.

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Mike Rowe warns of massive trade-job vacancies: 'AI is coming for the coders'



Blue-collar hero and former host of "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe says claims of a massive deficit of trades workers in the United States are not hyperbole.

Rowe spoke at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, where he sounded the alarm on a serious lack of young people going into the trades.

Providing stories from employers, politicians, and even the military, Rowe stressed the need to move away from computer programming and coding in favor of tougher, more traditional career paths.

'I know where they are. They're in the eighth grade.'

"We've been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code," Rowe told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He then delivered a stark warning to those who may have followed Joe Biden's infamous "learn to code" advice in 2019.

"Well, AI is coming for the coders," Rowe remarked.

From there, the 63-year-old dropped some industry knowledge, detailing that the demand for tradespeople was not going away anytime soon: "[AI is] not coming for the welders, the plumbers, the steamfitters, the pipe fitters, the HVAC. They're not coming for the electricians."

Adopting a more serious tone, Rowe leaned into the audience to deliver the jaw-dropping numbers of exactly how many trade jobs remain vacant in the United States.

RELATED: Mike Rowe raises important question about Ivy League schools as 'thugs and bullies' protest Israel: 'Truly lost its mind'

Recalling his time at the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June, Rowe said billionaire investor and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told him the U.S. needs "500,000 electricians in the next couple of years — not hyperbole."

"This is me being the alarmist again," Rowe continued, now tapping into America's military industrial needs.

"The BlueForge Alliance, who oversees our maritime industrial base — that's 15,000 individual companies who are collectively charged with building and delivering three nuclear-powered subs to the Navy every year for 10 years."

Rowe explained that the head of the alliance called him and said, "We're having a hell of a time finding tradespeople. Can you help?"

Rowe replied, "I don't know, man, it's pretty skinny out there. How many do you need?"

The man indicated to Rowe that the industry needed 140,000 people over the next seven years.

"They need 80 to 90 thousand right now," Rowe emphasized. "These are for our submarines, folks. [If] things go hypersonic — a little sideways with China, Taiwan — our aircraft carriers are no longer the point of the spear. They're vulnerable."

Rowe added, "Our submarines matter, and these guys have a pinch point because they can't find welders and electricians to get them built."

The Trump administration drastically increased naval production in April 2025 through an executive order that placed at least $40 billion per year into shipbuilding efforts for the next 30 years.

With fewer than 300 battle force ships in the U.S. Navy currently, according to Military Times, the president set a goal for a 381-ship fleet.

To that end, the Discovery Channel host said he is consistently getting calls from tradespeople, companies, and even governors, who ask him a simple question.

RELATED: Mike Rowe: Parents didn't get an 'honest chance' to consider college alternatives

Mike Rowe in 2014. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"Where are they?" they ask Rowe, referring to tradespeople. "They've said, 'We've looked everywhere.'"

Rowe revealed his response to industry leaders: "I know where they are. They're in the eighth grade."

The trades advocate stressed that a "clear and present freak-out" was happening under the surface in America in the automotive and energy industries, suggesting that children need to be encouraged to go into these fields.

"The automotive industry needs 80,000 collision repair and technicians," he explained. "Energy, I don't even know what the number is — I hear 300,000; I hear 500,000."

The latter is likely to do with not only nuclear-powered subs but also small modular reactors that are popping up across the United States to supply the growing power demand from data centers, new and old.

Several large companies like Amazon and Microsoft are building new, massive data centers and campuses to house data and AI machine-learning systems. These new locations require so much power that they have put stress on existing power grids, necessitating their own energy sources.

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Pentagon Pulls Promotion Of Admiral Who Allowed Drag Shows After Federalist Inquiry

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-6.00.35 PM-e1752184936354-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-6.00.35%5Cu202fPM-e1752184936354-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]The Defense Department is pulling the recommendation for Rear Admiral Michael Donnelly’s promotion, one week after the DoD refused to answer The Federalist’s inquiries, as the Daily Wire first reported. “Secretary Hegseth has chosen to withdraw Admiral Donnelly’s nomination to lead [the] 7th fleet. The Secretary is thankful for his continued service and wishes him luck […]

U.S. Navy Sails To 2025 Recruiting Target Three Months Ahead Of Schedule

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