Enough Epstein. We’re finally living through the conservative revolution we’ve always needed.



If you spend an inordinate amount of time online — doomscrolling, podcast-hopping, and trading theories with your pals on Signal — you might be fixated on every twist in the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Or maybe you’ve convinced yourself that the transgender sports fight doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of American politics.

That would be a serious mistake.

Conservatives are finally acting like revolutionaries, while prominent Democrat mayors are screeching and sobbing in the streets.

You’d be missing the most significant conservative revolution Washington has seen in decades — maybe ever.

Start with sports. The right’s victory in pushing back transgender ideology on this front marks a turning point. Not just because it helps women’s athletics. Not even because it polls well.

It matters because it's the first real cultural win for truth over lies I've seen in my adult life. And without that kind of victory — without truth — nothing else can be fixed.

It might feel strange or even deflating to call broad public agreement on something so obvious a "major victory." But consider what has happened.

Picture a living Joseph Stalin stepping to a podium and admitting: Yes, the mass graves are real. The people already knew — they had lived it. But for years, they were forced to lie or risk losing their livelihoods.

That’s what Americans experienced just last year. We lived under a giant, state-sanctioned falsehood.

This country has a habit of moving on too quickly from moral failure. But conservatives shouldn’t forget what it felt like to endure the Democrats’ four-year crusade.

Welfare rolls soared. Government job numbers got a boost — from foreign workers. White men ages 50 to 65 could not get hired. The border stood wide open. And crime? It was tolerated, even sanctified, as if letting it happen was an act of charity.

In the six months since his inauguration, Donald Trump has sealed the border. On a shoestring budget, his administration launched raids up and down the country, striking fear into the hearts of illegal immigrants nationwide to the point that we’re seeing serious self-deportations.

The White House fired or bought out more than 100,000 federal bureaucrats, made the largest tax cut in U.S. history permanent — even with a geriatric Senate that still leans on liberal Republicans — and proved that America can hit its enemies hard without getting dragged into nation-building.

That same tax cut included $75 billion for interior immigration enforcement. Just two weeks ago!

Think about this: The Republican Party has held the White House and both chambers of Congress three times since before 9/11, an atrocity committed by illegal aliens. This is the first time the GOP has used that power to deliver real results.

During the previous two trifectas, Republican leaders pursued amnesty.

Amnesty!

Over the past six months, this administration has forced NATO to bow, won case after case at the Supreme Court against activist judges who imagine themselves kings, and finally pulled the plug on PBS and NPR.

That last one? A Republican campaign promise for decades. No one ever meant it — until now.

The White House just passed a tax law that allows companies to put $10,000 or $10 billion into building industrial infrastructure — and write 100% of it off on their taxes.

The administration made colleges rescind fake records set unfairly by men competing in women’s sports — and offer apologies to those women who were wronged.

It froze tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds headed to liberal universities and sued them for racial discrimination.

Former CIA director and Russiagate hoax ringleader John Brennan is fuming on TV. Top staff for Joe Biden are on video pleading the Fifth Amendment to hide potentially criminal activity in the last administration.

The White House has completely redrawn America’s trade regime. There are tariffs across the board, with harsher penalties for countries flooding cheap garbage manufactured by near-slave labor into U.S. markets. So far, few countries have risked any sort of retaliation, and our country’s economy has yet to suffer any serious consequences.

Birthright citizenship — long treated as sacrosanct in political debate — is finally on the chopping block. And few Americans are remotely bothered about it.

This administration has also taken on the vaccine-industrial complex. For the first time ever, the Department of Health and Human Services is investigating the explosion in autism rates.

When Big Pharma corporatists in white coats pushed back, the administration didn’t flinch. It fired them from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Fired.

President Trump also did what no Western leader would: He called out the South African government’s campaign of land seizures and government-incited murder. While Pretoria wraps itself in the legacy of Nelson Mandela, it has driven a once-prosperous nation to ruin. Trump opened the door to the Boers without apology.

Meanwhile, polls are up among Hispanics and black men. Up! While the internet-obsessed kvetch endlessly that the president didn’t break court orders to unseal names of the accused on Epstein Island, a CNN poll this week found Republican approval for him rose two points to 88%. At the same time, a Quinnipiac Poll found that the number had risen three points to 90%. Ninety percent!

In the culture, conservatives have the top comedians and some of the coolest actors. Conservatives have finally realized they don’t need to defend the American institutions that loathe the right — they need to train their fire on those institutions.

Conservatives are finally acting like revolutionaries, prominent Democrat mayors are screeching and sobbing in the streets, and when violent left-wing mobs try to barricade police stations, the police open the doors and charge out — then mock them. When 11 kitted-up, armed, and masked Antifa members launched a terror attack on a Texas detention center for illegal aliens, they were routed, hunted down, and arrested by police. Not special forces — frontline cops and agents.

Democrats and their allies are scattered, demoralized, and afraid. The influence of Hollywood and the corporate media is at an all-time low. They are cringey.

So set aside the Signal chat and step away from social media. This is the moment so many have been waiting for — we’re living in it. And we’re not tired of winning.

Blaze News: 'Democrats clearly weren't prepared': Blaze News contributor schools libs on border crisis in fiery hearing

JD Vance: Rekindling statesmanship to secure America’s golden future

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Neocons are back — and they’re botching Trump’s Latin America policy



A quiet but dangerous conflict is brewing within President Trump’s foreign policy team — a battle between the true red America First voices who made his first term successful and the same old neoconservative ideologues who have derailed U.S. diplomacy for decades.

Heightened by the bombing of Iran, this clash made headlines again earlier this month. This time, it was over botched negotiations over the return of Americans currently held by the socialist Venezuelan government.

Marco Rubio’s hatred of Latin American socialism is clear, but that shouldn’t come at a strategic cost to our country.

Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell, a realist to his core, was on the verge of brokering a deal that would have secured the release of imprisoned Americans in exchange for Chevron’s continued operations in Venezuela. It was classic Trump diplomacy: bold, transactional, results-oriented.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio intervened. The State Department made a much less attractive and watered-down proposal to repatriate 250 Venezuelan aliens in exchange for the American prisoners. The interests of the U.S. oil industry were completely ignored.

Wires were crossed, and the talks collapsed.

Two critical lessons

Two lessons are evident: The first and most obvious is that Grenell is responsible for talks with Venezuela and that he is the only U.S. figure Venezuela trusts — a point that shouldn’t be undermined.

The second is that Trump’s transactional diplomacy, represented by Grenell, works — when it’s allowed to. We’ve seen this with Steve Witkoff’s trips to the Middle East and the president’s own handling of NATO.

The Venezuelan government wants to negotiate with Grenell and Grenell alone — and for good reason. He speaks the language of leverage, not lectures. As special envoy, he has built a diplomatic channel that has delivered in the past. In January, for example, Grenell secured the release of six Americans, a great achievement.

RELATED: Biden did that? No, it’s Marco Rubio making gas prices skyrocket this time

  Photo by PEDRO MATTEY/AFP via Getty Images

In contrast, Venezuela all but refuses to communicate with Rubio. They see him as persona non grata. His methods, based on intervention and blunt force, are bound to fail.

This is particularly true now that we live in a world where U.S. dominance is not guaranteed. And as the United States has isolated Venezuela, the Latin American nation has been pushed deeper into Beijing’s orbit.

Oil exports to China, for example, have surged since Chevron’s license to operate was canceled in May. In turn, Venezuelan exports to the U.S. and its capitalist allies have cratered.

The strategic cost

Rubio’s hatred of Latin American socialism is clear, but that shouldn’t come at a strategic cost to our country. This isn’t a diplomatic blunder. It’s a threat to U.S. energy security and a betrayal of Trump’s promise to bring down prices at the pump.

We want Venezuelan oil and gas to head to the U.S. Gulf Coast, not Beijing. We need to protect the Monroe Doctrine, which says that no outside power should have a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

The importance of energy security cannot be overstated. For an administration elected in large part on its promise to cut gas prices, it is a big mistake to turn our backs on Venezuela’s hydrocarbon reserves, the largest on earth.

Doing so increases American dependence on Canadian oil — not a smart move as we fight a trade war with Prime Minister Mark Carney — and on suppliers in a volatile Middle East, where Iran still looms large.

This is not to mention that the policy of isolation is damaging to Chevron, a champion of the American oil industry.

Under its former special license, Chevron was pumping out nearly a quarter of a million barrels of oil per day. This went straight to thirsty refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which depend on Venezuela’s unique heavy crude oil. That lifeline has been cut, and it’s American consumers who will pay the price.

Grenell understood this and so wrapped Chevron’s status into his negotiations, a deal that put American interests first. Rubio, on the other hand, prioritized an ideological pursuit of regime change over American energy security.

President Trump should intervene.

He praised Grenell’s successful negotiations in January and should make clear that Venezuela policy is not for Rubio to decide. The goal is clear: Bring our citizens home, restart Chevron’s work, and reassert U.S. influence in our own hemisphere.

Renew Grenell’s leverage

Grenell, with renewed powers, should return the United States to a policy of strategic engagement. That’s what America First really looks like. That’s the approach to foreign policy promised to us in 2024. That’s the MAGA way.

It’s time to put the neocons back in the box and go back to the bold, pragmatic diplomacy that made Trump’s first term — and will make his second — a victory for everyday Americans and a triumphant return to common sense.

Jerome Powell’s luxury Fed is failing the American people



Rumors have picked up in recent weeks about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s future. Some expect President Trump to fire him. Others think Powell may step down on his own. Either way, the speculation points to a larger problem: Powell and the Fed have lost touch with the realities facing ordinary Americans.

Powell’s refusal to lower interest rates, despite direct pressure from the White House, is just the start. The deeper issue is the Fed’s glaring hypocrisy. It preaches fiscal restraint while spending lavishly — most notably on a $2.5 billion office renovation.

The Fed has become increasingly disconnected from the needs of the American people.

This kind of waste raises serious questions about the Fed’s credibility. How can the central bank warn the public about debt and overspending while burning billions on luxury upgrades?

The Federal Reserve has spent years warning about the dangers of excessive government debt. It insists higher interest rates are necessary to curb inflation and keep the economy from overheating. The message is simple: Control spending or risk a financial crisis.

But the Fed doesn’t follow its own advice.

While millions of Americans struggle with high prices, ballooning mortgages, and record credit card debt, the Fed overspent $700 million on a top-to-bottom renovation of its D.C. headquarters. The upgrades include a rooftop garden and decorative water features.

Yes, water features.

The hypocrisy is hard to ignore. The same institution that lectures the public on fiscal discipline is more than happy to greenlight luxury amenities for itself. If the Fed believed a word of its own rhetoric, it would lead by example.

Instead, it spends like a bloated federal agency while scolding taxpayers for doing the same. Its calls for restraint ring hollow — and Americans know it.

Failure to lead

The Fed’s primary role is to ensure the stability of the financial system and provide guidance to the U.S. economy. Yet, it has shown no willingness to practice the same fiscal restraint it urges on the rest of us.

If the Fed were truly concerned about the nation’s financial health, it would have used this money for something more productive — like investing in programs to reduce debt, support economic growth, or ease the burden on taxpayers.

RELATED: Vought slams Fed Chair Powell over 'grossly mismanaged' luxury renovations

  Vought slams Fed Chair Powell over 'grossly mismanaged' luxury renovations. Anna Moneymaker / Staff via Getty Images

Time for accountability

Instead, the Federal Reserve has chosen to prioritize its own image and comfort. The $2.5 billion renovation comes at a time when the economy is struggling to recover from the pandemic's effects, high inflation, and rising debt. While the Fed continues to push for higher interest rates, making borrowing more expensive for businesses and consumers, it’s simultaneously indulging in luxuries that most Americans would never dream of.

Jerome Powell’s refusal to lower interest rates is just one symptom of a larger issue within the Fed. The institution has become increasingly disconnected from the needs of the American people. The American people need a Federal Reserve that leads by example — one that practices the fiscal responsibility it preaches to others.

If the Fed cannot demonstrate fiscal discipline, it must be held accountable. That starts at the top. Powell needs to go.

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Is the FDA swapping ‘right to try’ with ‘let them die’?



The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently dealt a crushing blow to families affected by deadly childhood diseases by denying promising treatments. All caring Americans should greet this decision with disgust. Not only is the decision disgraceful, but it’s also politically hypocritical.

Bureaucrats should not let political agendas or indecision get in the way of potentially lifesaving decisions when parents of terminally ill children are more than willing to take the risk.

Earlier this month, Democrats claimed that forcing able-bodied people to work and shortening enrollment periods for the “Un-Affordable” Care Act would kill people — a prime example of “Chicken Little” hyperbole without facts.

Politically driven agendas

What is factual, however, is that one of their own could actually be responsible for real deaths. The FDA, under the leadership of Dr. Vinay Prasad — a Bernie Sanders supporter — just denied two lifesaving treatments for children with rare diseases, despite these treatments having passed through the Trump administration's approval process.

Dr. Prasad, a self-identified "lifelong progressive Democrat," is the FDA’s chief medical and scientific officer and the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. With an extensive research background, particularly in oncology, he is clearly qualified for his position. He has even rejected efforts from pharmaceutical companies to push COVID-19 vaccines for anyone over the age of 12, citing sound "patient freedom" science.

But he needs to go — and not just because socialists shouldn’t be in the Trump administration (or any U.S. government position). His ideology denies kids who are on the verge of dying the opportunity to live.

Children don’t have time to wait

Earlier this month, Prasad rejected two potential treatments for devastating childhood diseases: Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Sanfilippo syndrome.

The life expectancy for a Duchenne patient is 22 years. In the process, it destroys a child’s muscles and causes neurological deficiencies.

Sanfilippo syndrome, often called “childhood Alzheimer’s," is fatal. Few children live beyond their early teens, accompanied with cognitive, functional, and muscle decline.

Take Sadie, for example, a little girl who is currently battling Sanfilippo syndrome. Her website, "Saving Sadie Rae," tells her story. She is an adorable, perky little fairy princess, adored by her family (and her Instagram fans) and is in the process of dying from Sanfilippo.

Her parents are loving, dedicated caregivers, and her mother is on a mission to encourage the FDA to reverse its decision that, to parents like Sadie’s, is a blinking red light that says, “We don’t care about your kid.”

Although the FDA has delayed its final decision until at least next year, Sadie’s parents, along with others, are painfully aware: Their kids don’t have time to wait.

Duchenne and Sanfilippo parents are just regular people. They aren’t doctors or lobbyists. They're ordinary people facing an unimaginable situation, and they’re desperate for hope. They want the FDA to move forward with promising treatments.

Bureaucratic backlog kills

In a recent conversation I had with former FDA Associate Commissioner Peter Pitts, who works closely with the Duchenne muscular dystrophy community, he expressed frustration with the agency.

In recent years, the FDA has thankfully begun to listen more carefully to the parents of children with orphan diseases, meaning that they are rare but devastating. This does not throw regulatory science out the window, but gives a voice to parents willing to accept higher risks for what the FDA might view as tertiary benefits of new therapeutics — because the alternative and end point is early death.

Pitts continued:

The question of "what is the risk tolerance" of this community has been made abundantly clear by the community itself — parents are willing to accept higher risks to potentially provide less suffering and longer life for their children. That begs the question whether Dr. Prasad’s well-known dislike of the pharmaceutical industry — often in lockstep with Democrat talking points — has trumped the wishes of the disease community — and with callous disregard for the quality of life for children suffering with Duchenne or Sanfilippo syndrome. That’s almost too awful to comprehend.

Although the developer of the Sanfilippo treatment claims it has “robust” confirmation of efficacy, FDA bureaucrats fussed about its manufacturing procedures, which the company says are unrelated to the quality of the gene therapy.

Is this genuine concern or just an excuse?

RELATED: HHS surmounts obstacles set by Democrat-appointed judges, gives thousands of bureaucrats the boot

  Photo by Trigga via iStock/Getty Images

Similarly, when rejecting the Duchenne cell therapy, the FDA insisted that the biotech company provide more "substantial evidence of effectiveness." But the real evidence that matters is that children and young adults are suffering and dying without treatment.

Technology, bioengineering, and gene therapy are blessings of hope for every family and patient suffering from orphan diseases.

Give kids their one chance

Bureaucrats should not let political agendas or indecision get in the way of potentially lifesaving decisions when parents of terminally ill children are more than willing to accept the high risk under President Trump’s “right to try” initiative or any other FDA-approved protocols. They pray these treatments will help their children, but they fully understand that they might also only benefit future children with these diseases.

That level of selflessness should be considered by the FDA when making these decisions.

Parents of children with fatal orphan diseases have written the FDA an unequivocal permission slip. Perhaps under new leadership at the Medical and Scientific Office, it will finally take this hall pass and run with it — on behalf of children who can’t.

Disabled vets denied dignity as VA claim backlog becomes unbearable



My husband and I visited our families for Independence Day. For millions of Americans, that's a typical summer tradition. For us, it was an extraordinary day. Kyle is an active-duty naval officer who has spent several years of our marriage deployed overseas and across the United States.

Kyle and I expected the challenges of military life: the deployments, the stresses on mental health, even the risk of homelessness or divorce that looms over many military families. Yet the one issue we weren’t prepared for — one we are keenly aware of as Kyle approaches retirement — is the shock of seeing firsthand the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly fail those who have served.

The VA made all veterans a promise: dedicated care after service. Today, that promise is broken daily.

From December 2023 until June of this year, I served as the ombudsman for my husband's ship, the USS Harry S. Truman. My role was to bridge the gap between command and families, ensuring that they had access to critical resources and could reach command in case of emergency. In that position, I watched closely as families ahead of ours navigated life after active service, applying for the VA benefits they had been promised.

What I’ve observed is nothing short of betrayal.

A broken promise

Veterans aren't just denied their hard-earned benefits by bureaucratic red tape. Their entire lives are often put on hold, causing untold mental health, family, and professional suffering in addition to what is endured during deployments.

One of the most common struggles veterans and their families face is the historic backlog of claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs. While the number has improved in recent months, nearly 185,000 backlogged disability claims remained unprocessed as of June.

RELATED: Anti-American ideology still festers at West Point

  DepthofField via iStock/Getty Images

Veterans regularly spend months — or even years — in limbo, trying to secure the benefits they’ve earned while dealing with disabilities incurred while serving.

Partially disabled veterans with treatable conditions like tinnitus or various levels of post-traumatic stress disorder want to work in the private sector, but they need specialized care to do so. Getting approval for that care is a nightmare, with many giving up altogether or resorting to expensive — or sometimes shady — advocates for assistance.

Lawmakers must step in

That's why states and Congress must intervene where the VA has failed. In Rhode Island — my home state and possibly our future home — the legislature introduced the Save Act, a state-level version of the federal Choice Act. Both bills aim to expedite the benefits process by allowing veterans to hire certified consultants. Importantly, these measures would safeguard veterans from exploitation by setting payment caps, ensuring that providers have VA approval, and mandating that consultants only receive payment after veterans do.

Unfortunately, Rhode Island's legislature rejected the Save Act, instead passing a more restrictive bill that prohibits veterans from consulting experts during their initial claims for benefits. Despite this setback, momentum in several states and Congress to support veterans is encouraging.

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins says he’s made progress on the backlog, but decades of mismanagement and corruption can’t be unwound in a matter of months. Moreover, a supposed 25% reduction in claims backlog raises troubling questions: How many veterans were hastily denied to meet bureaucratic quotas?

I’ll be old and gray before this bureaucratic nightmare is fixed — if ever.

Our veterans deserve better

When Kyle first raised his right hand, America made him — and all veterans — a promise: dedicated care after service. It’s the same promise that has been made to veterans for decades in return for enduring stressful deployments, risking both their lives and family bonds. Today, that promise is broken daily. Families are subjected to unbearable delays and bureaucratic hurdles, often forced to fight for benefits they've already earned or tragically never receive.

I’ll always cherish Independence Day 2025, which took us up and down much of the East Coast — together, for once, as an entire family. It offered a glimpse into the life we dream of when Kyle retires — a life we earned together through sacrifice. The VA should help us realize that dream, not obstruct it.

It's past time for lawmakers and VA leadership to fulfill their obligations and put veterans first.

JD Vance: Rekindling statesmanship to secure America’s golden future



California generally and the Claremont Institute in particular have produced some of the most profound and revolutionary conservative thinkers of the last half-century.

And for a great many of them, it’s because they understood what’s at stake if we abandon our American identity.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless, extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty. But more importantly, it’s home.

And we’re lucky enough to have a few of them, like Michael Anton, now working in the administration with us.

Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams asked me to speak a little bit about statesmanship and, more to the point, about how to respond to some of the challenges our movement will need to confront in the years to come.

It’s an interesting question. And I think it’s useful to reflect on the state of the left in 2025 America.

Mamdani: A harrowing zeitgeist

On July 1, a 33-year-old communist running an insurgent campaign beat a multimillion-dollar establishment machine in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.

I don’t want to harp on a municipal election, but there were two interesting threads that I wanted to highlight. The first is that it drives home how much the voters in each party have changed.

If our victory in 2024 was rooted in a broad, working- and middle-class coalition, Zohran Mamdani’s coalition is the inverse.

Look at his electoral performance, which the left is already talking about as a blueprint for future electoral success. The guy won high-income and college-educated New Yorkers — and especially both young and highly educated voters — but was weakest among black voters and those without a college degree. He did better in Bangladeshi areas of New York and worse in Chinese areas.

Mamdani’s strongest vote share was in New York’s gentrifying neighborhoods, like Ridgewood and Bushwick.

His victory was the product of a lot of young people who live reasonably comfortable lives but see that their elite degrees aren’t really delivering what they expected. And so their own prospects, with all the college debt, may not in fact be greater than those of their parents.

And I think in the results, we can start to see the future of the Democrats: as the party not of dispossession, but of elite disaffection.

RELATED: Exclusive: Vance on Mamdani: ‘Who the hell does he think that he is?’

  Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The party of highly educated but downwardly mobile elites who compose a highly energetic activist base — one, critically, supplemented by carefully selected ethnic blocs carved out of the electorate, using identity politics as the knife.

That, by the way, explains all of Mamdani’s bizarre appeals to foreign politics intended to signal to one diaspora community or another in New York.

Why is a mayoral candidate in our nation’s biggest city whining about banning Bibi Netanyahu from visiting and threatening to arrest him if he tries? Or attacking Narendra Modi as a “war criminal”? Why is he talking about “globalizing the intifada”? What the hell does that even mean in Manhattan?

But what might seem like a contradiction makes sense if you peel back the onion a bit. Consider: a movement that rails against the billionaire class despite the fact that the billionaire class remains firmly in its corner. It idolizes foreign religions even as it rejects the teachings of those faiths. It rails against white people even as many of its funders and grassroots activists are privileged whites.

America in 2025 is more diverse than it has ever been. And yet the institutions that form culture are also weaker.

I was once comforted by these contradictions. How could privileged whites march around decrying white privilege? How could progressives pretend to love Muslims despite their cultural views on gender and sexuality?

But the answer is obvious, isn’t it? The radicals of the far left don’t need a unifying ideology of what they’re for, because they know very well what they’re against.

What unites Islamists, gender studies majors, socially liberal white urbanites, and Big Pharma lobbyists? It isn’t the ideas of Thomas Jefferson or even Karl Marx. It’s hatred. They hate the people in this room, they hate the president of the United States, and most of all, they hate the people who voted for him.

This is the animating principle of the American far left. It isn’t true of most of the people who vote for Democrats, of course. Most of them are good people, even if they’re misguided in their politics. But pay attention to what their leadership says outside glossy campaign ads or general election-tested messaging, and it’s obvious that this is what animates the modern Democratic Party.

  FilippoBacci via iStock/Getty Images

Defining the modern left

The far left doesn’t care that Black Lives Matter led to a spike in violent crime in urban black neighborhoods, because it also led to anarchy in middle-class white neighborhoods.

The leftists don’t care that Islamism hates gays and subjugates women, because for now, it is a useful tool of death against Americans.

They don’t care that too many pharmaceutical companies are getting rich from experimental hormonal therapies, because it destroys the “gender binary” that has structured social relations between the genders for the whole of Western civilization.

They don’t care that deporting low-wage immigrants will raise the wages of the native-born, because they don’t mean to create higher living standards for those born and raised here — black, white, or any other skin color. They mean to replace them with people who will listen to their increasingly bizarre ethnic and religious appeals.

They are arsonists, and they will make common cause with anyone else willing to light the match. It’s why Mamdani himself is such an appealing instrument to the left. He captures so many of the movement’s apparent contradictions in a single human being: a guy who describes the Palestinian cause as “central” to his identity, yet holds views — abortion on demand and using taxpayer money to fund transgender surgeries for minors, for example — that would be incomprehensible on the streets of Gaza.

This politics doesn’t make sense as a positive political program. But it’s very effective at tearing down the things the left hates.

The right’s answer: Create

One task of statesmanship is to recognize what the left wishes to do to American society. But the most important thing is to be for something. And that’s the second thread I want to touch on today: If the left wishes to destroy, we must create.

The most obvious way to do that is to ensure that the people we serve have a better life in the country their grandparents built. This is why the president cares so much about tariffs — in a globalized economy, we must be willing to penalize those who would build outside our own nation.

And it’s why he worked so hard to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — if tariffs are the stick, then lower taxes and regulations are the carrots. We want to make it easy to save and invest in America, to build a business in America, and most of all to work a dignified job and earn the kind of wage that can support a family in comfort.

But this is not a purely material question, because we are not just producers and consumers. We are human beings, made in the image of God, who love our home not just because we earn a living here but because we discover our purpose and meaning here.

Every Western society has demographic problems. There is something about Western liberalism that is socially suicidal or parasitic — that tends to feed off a healthy host until there’s nothing left.

The radicals of the far left don’t need a unifying ideology of what they’re for, because they know very well what they’re against.

America in 2025 is more diverse than it has ever been. And yet the institutions that form culture are also weaker. We are confronted with a society that has less in common than ever and whose cultural leaders seem totally uninterested in fixing that.

Just four years ago, we had people promoting alternative national anthems at one of the few remaining national pastimes that transcend ethnic and cultural differences. Too many of our current crop of statesmen remain unable to break out of that moment, destined to erode the very thing that makes Americans put on a uniform and sacrifice their lives for something.

Part of the solution — the most important part of the solution — is to stop the bleeding. This is why President Trump’s immigration policies are so important. Social bonds form among people who have something in common. If you stop importing millions of foreigners, you allow social cohesion to form naturally.

But even so: If you were to ask yourself in 2025 what an American is, very few of our leaders would have a good answer. Is it purely agreement with the creedal principles of America?

That definition is overinclusive and underinclusive. It would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of foreigners. Must we admit them tomorrow? But at the same time, that answer would also reject a lot of people the Anti-Defamation League would label domestic extremists, even though their own ancestors were here at the time of the Revolutionary War.

  welcomia via iStock/Getty Images

What American citizenship means

So perhaps the most pressing thing to build now is the meaning of American citizenship in the 21st century.

The right needs to do a better job of articulating what that means. And while I don’t have a comprehensive answer for you, there are a few things I’d suggest off the top of my head.

For one, it means sovereignty. More precisely, American citizenship must mean belonging to a nation that guards the sovereignty of its people, especially from a modern world that’s hell-bent on dissolving borders and differences in national character.

That means having a government that vigorously defends the basic qualities of sovereignty — that secures the border from foreign invasion; that protects its citizens and their enterprises against unfair foreign tax schemes; that erects tariff walls and similar barriers to protect its people’s industry; that avoids needlessly entangling them in prolonged, distant wars.

It also means preserving the basic legal privileges of citizenship — things like voting, including in state and local elections, or access to public benefits like certain state-run health care programs — for citizens. When states start handing these out to illegal aliens, they cheapen the very meaning of citizenship. And a nation that refuses to make that distinction won’t stay a nation for very long.

I’d also say that citizenship in the 21st century necessarily means building.

America is not just an idea. We’re a particular place, with a particular people and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.

Our ancestors realized that to carve a successful nation from a new land meant creating new, tangible things. New homes, new towns, new infrastructure to tame a wild continent. That attitude enabled us to build the world’s greatest cities, its tallest skyscrapers, the most impressive dams and canals.

Over time, it expanded the horizons of what we even thought possible as human beings, with Americans taking our species into the air and, just a generation later, into Earth’s orbit. Our innovations revolutionized communications, medicine, and agriculture, extending human life spans decades at a time.

None of that would be possible if our citizens believed we lived in a postindustrial era. Or an era when our finest minds just went to what are essentially speculative trades or to writing software that makes us more efficient consumers.

We need to build. We need to make great things here, for the betterment of our fellow Americans but also for our posterity. We need to continue to invent groundbreaking innovations and to leave homes and libraries and factories that our descendants will look at someday and feel awe.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty.

And we need to build together. Getting to the moon required a lot of brilliant scientists working on what were effectively pocket calculators. But it also required a national system of education that produced that level of genius and inspired young graduates to want to design new rockets on behalf of their nation. And it required a ton of phenomenally talented engineers and welders and custodians to manufacture cutting-edge engines and keep the facilities that housed them spotless. It was a national project in the truest sense of the phrase.

To be a citizen in the 21st century, I think, should mean seeking out similar projects. Citizenship should mean feeling pride in our heritage, of course. But it should also mean understanding milestones like the moon landings not only as the product of past national greatness but as an achievement we should surpass by aligning the goals and ambitions of Americans at all levels of society.

Lastly, I’d say citizenship must mean recognizing the unique relationship, and especially the unique obligations, you share with your fellow Americans.

You cannot swap 10 million people from anywhere else in the world and expect America to remain unchanged. In the same way, you can’t export our Constitution to a random country and expect it to take hold.

That’s not something to lament but to take pride in. The founders understood that our shared qualities — our heritage, our values, our manners and customs — confer a special and indispensable advantage. A decisive one, even, in rebellion against the world’s greatest military power at the time.

That means something today. Citizenship — true citizenship — is not just about rights. In a world of globalized commerce and communication, it’s also about obligations, including to your countrymen. It’s about recognizing that your fellow citizens are not interchangeable cogs in the global economy, nor, in law or commerce, should they be treated that way.

And I think it’s impossible to feel a sense of obligation to something without having gratitude for it. We should demand that our people, whether first- or 10th-generation Americans, have gratitude for this country. We should be skeptical of anyone who lacks it, especially if they purport to lead it.

And that brings me back to the likely next mayor of New York. Today is July 5, 2025, which means that yesterday we celebrated the 249th anniversary of the birth of our nation.

The person who wishes to lead our largest city had, according to media reports, never once publicly mentioned America’s Independence Day in earnest. But when he did so this year, this is what he said.

America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished. I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better.

There is no gratitude here. No sense of owing something to this land and the people who turned its wilderness into the most powerful nation in the world.

Zohran Mamdani’s father fled Uganda when the tyrant Idi Amin decided to ethnically cleanse his nation’s Indian population. Mamdani’s family fled violent racial hatred only for him to come to this country — a country built by people he never knew, overflowing with generosity to his family, offering a haven from the kind of violent ethnic conflict that is commonplace in world history.

And he dares, on its 249th birthday, to congratulate it by paying homage to its incompleteness and to its, as he calls it, “contradiction.” Has he ever read the letters from boy soldiers in the Union Army to parents and sweethearts they’d never see again? Has he ever visited a gravesite of a loved one who gave his life to build the kind of society where his family could escape theft and violence? Has he ever looked in the mirror and recognized that he might not be alive were it not for the generosity of a country he dares to insult on its most sacred day?

Who the hell do these people think they are?

  Photo by Unsplash

Make America Great Again

Yesterday, I visited the construction site for the Teddy Roosevelt presidential library. We went hiking in the badlands of North Dakota. My 5-year-old so desperately wanted to see a buffalo, and he saw a dozen of them. My 8-year-old spotted a bald eagle perched on a low cliff. And my 3-year-old brought me a dandelion.

Her little lungs weren’t strong enough to send the dandelion seeds over the hillside, so she asked me to do it. Watching her face light up as she watched those seeds blow over the hills, I felt a profound sense of gratitude for this country. For its natural beauty, the settlers who carved a civilization out of the wilderness. For making the love story of that little girl’s mother and father possible. For the common yet profound joy of watching a 3-year-old’s beautiful eyes light up as she watches a dandelion’s seeds dance in the wind against an ancient rock formation.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty. But more importantly, it’s home. For the vast bulk of Americans, it’s where we’re born, it’s where we will raise our children and grandchildren, and it’s where we ourselves will one day be buried. And when that day comes, I hope my kids can take solace in knowing that their inheritance as Americans is not some unfinished or contradictory project, but a home that provided their parents shelter, and sustenance, and endless amounts of love.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Editor’s note: This article was adapted from JD Vance’s address to the Claremont Institute on July 5, 2025, and published originally at the American Mind.

The next Christian revolution won’t be livestreamed on TikTok



Ronald Reagan famously cited the Roman maxim, “If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.” That wisdom rings hollow when you’re on the mistake-making side.

Generation Z hasn’t exactly earned a reputation for excellence. As we wrote this, professional activist Greta Thunberg was in Paris, pausing her carbon-shaming campaign to weigh in on the war against Hamas. Here at home, Gen Z Democratic influencer Olivia Julianna is trying to rebrand her party’s image among young men by championing abortion access and highlighting its supposedly deep, hidden love for groups like Black Lives Matter.

Being ‘Christian first, conservative second’ isn’t political surrender. It’s the basis for cultural authority.

That barely scratches the surface.

A quick scroll through X reveals countless under-30 users with enormous followings and the “influencer” label — despite having little real influence. Their mistakes aren’t just frequent. They’re embarrassing.

So what’s a Christian Zoomer supposed to do?

The extreme of ‘influencerdom’

At a high level, the answer is simple: Build systems that reflect Christian values, and challenge the ones that don’t. But real influence won’t come by copying the warped incentives pushed by our generation’s loudest voices.

The skills needed to go viral online rarely match the skills needed to drive real-world change. In fact, they often clash. Posting about the dangers of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion is one thing; using influence to force lasting change in corporate policy is something else entirely. Both matter — but they aren’t the same.

The other extreme: Apathy

But political “influencerdom” isn’t the only problem. Gen Z also suffers from a serious apathy problem. Between the aftershocks of the COVID economy and apocalyptic climate narratives — why bother thinking seriously about policy if the sun’s going to explode in 10 years? — Zoomers have earned a reputation as, in the Wall Street Journal’s words, “America’s Most Disillusioned Voters.”

We’ll show up to vote — maybe. But posting on Instagram takes less effort, so we’ll do that instead. One analysis summarized the challenge this way: “Campaigns must focus on converting robust online advocacy into real-world voter turnout.” That’s the kind of strategy you get when no one really cares.

RELATED: Church is cool again — and Gen Z men are leading the way

  Shuang Paul Wang via iStock/Getty Images

A Christian Zoomer response

As Christians, our duty is the opposite of apathy. We’re called to care. Rejecting our generation’s default indifference is just the beginning. “Christ is King” isn’t a license to coast — it’s the foundation for action.

Here are some practical ways Christian Zoomers can avoid the traps of both performative activism and total disengagement.

Seek wisdom from the right sources. Don’t look to influencers for answers. The people most worth learning from probably don’t have a million followers on X. Avoid the echo chamber of “onlineness.” Instead, find expertise from unglamorous sources: people with “lived experience,” technical know-how, and hard-earned wisdom.

Join a local church. Every Christian needs the weekly rhythm of worship, sound teaching, and community. But for young believers navigating a secular world, the church is especially vital. Find a congregation that preaches the gospel clearly and offers intergenerational support. This isn’t about socializing — it’s about growing in conviction and courage through regular contact with people who live by “Christ first, culture second.”

Vote locally. You don’t have to be a political junkie, but you should know what’s happening in your county. Local and state policies affect your daily life far more than most federal debates. National politics is often a circus; local politics is where things actually get done. Caring about what happens five miles from home is a Christian habit worth cultivating.

Think before you post. Virtue-signaling comes in all forms — left, right, and “based.” Whether it’s a black square or the latest meme, pause before jumping in. Ask: “Am I actually doing something about this issue in my community?” If the answer is yes, then post away. If not, maybe start with action before broadcasting your opinion.

Keep a few friends who disagree with you. Yes, surround yourself with faithful Christians — but don’t retreat into an ideological bunker. Having friends with different views helps you resist tribalism. You may not see eye to eye on politics, but they probably aren’t your enemies. Humanizing your opponents is a discipline, one that fights against the hyperfixation and outrage that dominate our age.

Serve somewhere. Whether you care about the unborn, the incarcerated, or victims of trafficking, find a local organization doing the work — and show up. It’s easy to have strong opinions about cultural decay. It’s much harder to give your time. But service grounds us. It reminds us of God’s blessings and our call to be His hands and feet.

Our generation veers between two extremes: obsessive political engagement and total apathy. Both reflect a flawed attempt to wring meaning from a system designed only to support human flourishing — not define it. And both fail.

The politically apathetic pride themselves on floating above the fray, looking down on those who care enough to engage. The hyper-engaged believe their passion sets them apart — morally superior to the so-called “normies” who sleepwalk through civic life.

Both attitudes are wrong.

If we, the rising generation of Christians, want to engage the culture meaningfully, we must refuse to measure our success — or define our mission — by worldly standards.

Being “Christian first, conservative second” isn’t political surrender. It’s the basis for cultural authority. It doesn’t excuse disengagement. It demands engagement.

We act because we believe every person bears the image of God. That truth drives our pursuit of justice, mercy, and truth. Our theology shapes our politics, not the other way around.

And if pagan, anti-Christian values fall in the process? So much the better!

John MacArthur was a bold voice for Christ in an age gone soft



Los Angeles megachurches often resemble their Hollywood neighbors — grand stage sets with top-tier lighting and sound, carefully produced services complete with scripts, soundtracks, and a live audience. They usually plant themselves in the “nice parts of town” — Hollywood Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena. Perfect if you’re after a Sunday pep talk and a little feel-good music to carry you through the week.

But that was never Grace Community Church with John MacArthur at the pulpit.

MacArthur never chased applause or tailored sermons to flatter the mood of the age.

Unlike many pastors leading congregations of similar size, MacArthur, who died Monday at the age of 86, didn’t preach to people hoping to make them “feel better” about themselves. He preached to dying souls, convinced he held the only message that could save them: the gospel — the real, unvarnished gospel of Scripture.

An unapologetic truth-teller

“Being a pastor means you’re a truth-teller,” MacArthur once said. And the truths proclaimed from his pulpit often rubbed people the wrong way, both inside and outside evangelical circles. Statements like, “The whole purpose of the Christian message is to confront the sinner’s sin so you can call the sinner to repentance and forgiveness,” or, “The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment,” clash with a world that prizes non-judgment, self-indulgence, and endless comfort.

But for those who’ve discovered how hollow those things truly are, MacArthur’s words struck hard — painfully, yet like cool water on the cracked lips of a wanderer lost too long in the desert.

He stood nearly alone in the upper echelon of church notoriety, refusing to bend on the bedrock truths of the Christian faith for the sake of publicity, celebrity congregants, TV slots, or social praise.

MacArthur cared about one thing: reaching lost souls with the only message that could rescue them. It either turned you away like an offensive painting or drew you in, like peering into a dense, bristling forest from the window of a climate-controlled, sterile cell.

My family was among those drawn in.

It took us years to find a church home after moving from rural Virginia to Southern California. Until we settled into a small local congregation in northwest L.A., we often trekked to Sun Valley for one reason: the teaching at Grace Community Church. My parents had listened to MacArthur’s sermons for years back east. Amid the chaos of starting over out west, they knew they could rely on him for a feast of biblical preaching — the kind that made the gospel, not man, the focus.

Ministering in their neighborhood

As a kid, I never noticed much about Grace’s neighborhood. My 10-year-old eyes skipped past the barred windows, the tiny houses jammed with large families, the rows of homeless encampments along Wilshire Boulevard. Only when I returned as an adult did I grasp just how far Grace was from Beverly Hills. This was the hood. And Grace Community Church didn’t just happen to be there — they chose it.

Across the street stood Wat Thai, a historic Buddhist temple serving Sun Valley’s Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian communities. Just down the road, the Hilal Islamic Center ministered to the area’s Muslim residents.

The church building itself preached its own sermon. Unlike so many of L.A.’s glittering megachurches, Grace displayed a simple cross, adorned only with a wreath at Christmas. No fog machines, no laser shows — just a traditional choir and orchestra. Even after we found our local church more than an hour away, we never missed Grace’s Christmas concert. Just Google it, and you will get a glimpse into how special the church’s worship is.

Grace’s surroundings and the sanctuary delivered the same message: The gospel doesn’t belong to a single ethnicity, culture, or political camp. It doesn’t need to be repackaged or softened to reach the world. It simply needs to be proclaimed, boldly and without apology.

And that’s exactly what John MacArthur devoted his life to doing.

The gospel for all audiences

He never ducked controversy when conviction demanded courage. During the COVID lockdowns, when Los Angeles banned in-person worship, MacArthur stood behind his pulpit and delivered his landmark sermon “Christ, Not Caesar, Is Head of the Church,” in which he boldly declared, “We cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings. Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord’s clear commands.”

That Sunday, I sat in the congregation. For the first time in more than a year, after countless Zoom services, I worshiped shoulder to shoulder with fellow believers as the choir and orchestra swelled. Tears filled nearly every eye in the room. It was a moment I’ll carry forever — the last time I heard, and now will ever hear, John MacArthur preach in person.

RELATED: John MacArthur refused to compromise. Gavin Newsom learned the hard way.

  iStock/Getty Images

MacArthur’s ministry outlasted the snares that took down so many other pastors with similar reach. He never chased applause or tailored sermons to flatter the mood of the age. Yet he could speak just as powerfully on Ben Shapiro’s stage as he did on Larry King’s. That’s because he never shifted his conviction. The gospel he preached to a conservative Orthodox Jew was the same gospel he preached to liberal Hollywood skeptics and suburban churchgoers.

Long after the lights fade on L.A.’s big productions, the legacy of that quiet, sturdy pulpit in Sun Valley will endure. It reached me. It reached countless others. It stands as proof that when you preach Christ — not entertainment, not cultural trends, not political hobbyhorses — the gospel still does exactly what God promises it will do: save sinners and transform lives.

Big shoes to fill

We lost a giant of the faith this week. Just as we’ve grieved R.C. Sproul, Tim Keller, and other pillars over the past decade, the church will deeply miss John MacArthur’s steady, trustworthy voice. Being an uncompromising Christian is only growing more difficult in today’s climate, even in the so-called Christianized West. MacArthur’s passing widens the void left by those who went before him, and younger voices who might fill it seem few and far between.

I hope I’m proven wrong. I hope many pastors rise with the same fearless conviction. If they do, they likely owe that spirit in part to the influence MacArthur had on believers across decades of faithful service to the Lord and his church.

Thank you, Pastor MacArthur, for ministering to the hearts, minds, and souls of countless people — including my family. Thank you for urging us to cultivate awe for the beauty of Scripture, reverence for the holiness of God, and a deep love for our Savior, Jesus Christ. May you rejoice now in His presence, after a life faithfully stewarded for His glory.

How the Supreme Court can shut off the left’s migrant-to-school pipeline



The National Education Association, America’s largest teachers' union, held its annual convention earlier this month. The union’s resolutions — leaked to me by a union member — had nothing to do with improving education. Instead, the NEA declared war on the Trump administration.

One resolution committed the union to “defend birthright citizenship,” and another one to “support students’ right to organize against ICE raids and deportations.” Yet another declared support for “the mass democratic movement against Trump’s authoritarianism” and “the Los Angeles-based movement to defeat Trump’s attempt to use federal forces against the state of California and other states and communities.”

Forcing taxpayers to fund education for illegal immigrants undermines the rule of law and creates perverse incentives for further illegal immigration.

These resolutions confirm yet again that teachers’ unions are more invested in political activism than in prioritizing education.

In fact, NEA President Becky Pringle is an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee. Such actions expose teachers’ unions for what they really are: little more than an arm of the Democratic Party, pushing a radical agenda that puts taxpayers on the hook for funding the K-12 education of illegal immigrants.

With a conservative-leaning Supreme Court and growing public support for immigration enforcement, the time has come to revisit Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 ruling that forced states to provide free public education to children regardless of their immigration status. Reversing that decision would restore basic fairness for taxpayers and bring education policy back in line with the will of the American people.

The post-Plyler disaster

The court decided Plyler v. Doe on a narrow 5-4 vote, reflecting deep division even at the time. Today’s court, reshaped by President Trump’s appointments, has a stronger constitutional foundation to strike it down. The legal terrain has shifted. The original ruling was shaky then and looks even weaker now.

Legally, the case for overturning Plyler is strong. Conservative scholars argue that the 43-year-old ruling overstepped federal authority by compelling states to allocate resources for individuals who are not lawfully present. States have a sovereign right to prioritize their citizens and legal residents when allocating finite resources.

Meanwhile, conservative legal scholars argue that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment — used to justify the decision — does not require states to educate those in the country unlawfully. That clause was written to protect citizens and lawful residents, not to extend taxpayer-funded benefits to those who violate immigration law.

RELATED: School censorship backfires in costly free speech beatdown

  z_wei via iStock/Getty Images

Forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for illegal immigrants’ education undermines the rule of law and encourages more unlawful entry. Public sentiment aligns with this view. A June CBS News/YouGov survey found that 54% of Americans support President Trump’s deportation efforts, a stance that helped propel him back to the White House last year. A June InsiderAdvantage poll found that 59% of Americans — including 89% of Republicans — support Trump’s decision “to deploy National Guard and federal military in downtown Los Angeles.”

A 2013 Phi Delta Kappa International/Gallup poll revealed that 55% of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund education for children of illegal immigrants, with a staggering 81% of Republican voters in agreement. (Perhaps that’s why Gallup hasn’t asked the question again.)

Taxpayers bear the cost, but teachers’ unions reap the rewards.

Public school funding is tied to enrollment. More students — regardless of legal status — mean more money for school districts. Illegal immigrant students often qualify as English language learners, which brings in even more per-pupil funding through federal and state grants.

The surge in English learners creates a demand for specialized teachers. Hiring more staff means more union members — and more dues. The unions grow stronger and richer with every new student who requires extra services.

So when teachers’ unions protest immigration enforcement or attack Trump administration policies, they aren’t defending children. They’re protecting their bottom line. It’s all about the cash, not compassion. They’ve prioritized financial and political power over the interests of American citizens and legal residents, and they expect you to keep paying for it.

Two ways forward

Two strategies could pave the way to overturn Plyler v. Doe.

First, states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee are expanding school choice programs that exclude illegal immigrants from taxpayer-funded benefits such as private school scholarships and education savings accounts. These programs give parents greater control over their children’s education, but unions have launched aggressive campaigns to block them.

If unions sue to stop these programs on the grounds that they violate Plyler, they’ll likely lose. The ruling required states to provide free public education to illegal immigrants. It said nothing about private scholarships or alternative funding streams.

That legal distinction matters. The court’s conservative majority could uphold these state programs and clarify that Plyler doesn’t apply outside the public school system. Such a decision wouldn’t just protect school choice — it could also erode the Plyler precedent and clear a path to overturn it entirely.

That would return power to the states and allow elected leaders — not unelected judges — to decide how taxpayer dollars are spent.

The second way involves red-state lawmakers taking direct aim at Plyler.

Republican legislators in states like Tennessee have introduced bills to block taxpayer funding for the K-12 education of illegal immigrants. Tennessee recently put its bill on hold while seeking federal guidance on whether the move would jeopardize broader education funding.

If teachers’ unions sue to stop these laws, they risk a high-stakes loss.

A legal defeat could weaken Plyler and give states new authority to draw clear lines around who qualifies for taxpayer-funded education. One ruling could reshape national policy — and force a long-overdue debate about who pays, who benefits, and who decides.

The National Education Association’s unhinged resolutions reflect a desperate push to preserve a broken status quo. Its opposition to border enforcement isn’t about students — it’s about protecting funding, growing membership, and consolidating power. The Supreme Court should revisit Plyler v. Doe and reaffirm a basic principle: Taxpayer resources must serve those who respect the rule of law.

The White House will need to do plenty more to get past Epstein



Prominent conservatives and Republicans alike are far from satisfied with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House’s answers about the Jeffrey Epstein case. This despite President Trump’s growing frustration that the story is distracting from his administration’s victories and legislative accomplishments.

Democrats spent years dismissing the Epstein scandal as a baseless right-wing obsession — but they’re not satisfied now, either. They see an opening to divide the GOP. While the Democrats' efforts could backfire and lead Republicans to pull themselves together, it’s still likely that the administration will need to do more than it initially could have gotten away with to make the issue go away.

This might seem like a good opportunity for Democrats to let Republicans fight it out among themselves, but since the debacle began, they’ve merrily inserted themselves into the intraparty struggle session.

Rank-and-file Republican congressmen and senators have remained mostly quiet on the subject. But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson on Tuesday that he’d like to see Epstein’s imprisoned co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, testify before Congress — and wants to see the administration release the documents it has.

Federalist publisher Sean Davis summed up the anger well. “The Epstein case isn’t just another random story people are focused on,” he wrote. “It is a proxy for whether the Trump DOJ has what it takes to hold the Deep State accountable across the board. And people are rightfully concerned about DOJ’s competence given how it has handled the Epstein mess this year.”

Others with direct access to the president also disagree with his wishes to stop talking about it, including MAGA internet provocateur Laura Loomer. “There should be a special counsel appointed to do an independent investigation of the handling of the Epstein files so that people can feel like this issue is being investigated,” she told the Playbook newsletter Sunday night, “and perhaps take it out of [Attorney General Pam Bondi’s] hands, because I don’t think that she has been transparent or done a good job handling this issue.”

Special counsels almost never unfold the way administrations hope — and they often spiral out of control. Loomer’s latest suggestion could hand a powerful excuse to White House officials already uneasy with her influence. Many inside the West Wing don’t share the president’s enthusiasm for her chaotic opinions and influence.

Trump himself is clearly furious about the situation. He scolded New York Post reporter Steven Nelson for raising the topic during a Cabinet meeting. He appeared frustrated when Pam Bondi stepped in to answer. Over the weekend, he posted in all caps, comparing the controversy to the Russiagate hoax that dogged his first term. On the South Lawn, he blamed Democrats for stoking the flames.

Democrats could have stepped back and let Republicans tear each other apart. Instead, they jumped headfirst into the fight.

Last Thursday, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MS-13) introduced an amendment requiring the Justice Department to “retain, preserve, and compile” all Epstein-related records and report back to Congress within 60 days. The amendment passed out of committee unanimously.

Other Democrats haven’t fared as well.

On Monday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) proposed a similar amendment in the House, with a tighter 30-day reporting window. Republicans shot it down in committee. Only one crossed the aisle to support it: Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina — a Trump ally who also happened to be Nikki Haley’s lone congressional backer in the 2024 primary.

“It was a procedural vote,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told Benny Johnson. “We voted against Democrats having House floor control,” not against transparency itself.

And then there’s Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) — the man who once, in all earnestness, asked Navy Admiral Robert Willard in 2010 if adding additional personnel to a military base on Guam might cause the island to “tip over and capsize.” Other greatest hits include the long and convoluted House floor speech he gave apologizing for repeatedly using “the M-word” — midget — in a similarly strange floor speech.

This time, Johnson released a solo guitar-and-vocal act remaking Jason Isbell’s "Dreamsicle” to somehow be about releasing the Epstein files. It is deeply cringe-inspiring and very much worth a watch.

The partisan sniping could give Republicans reason to shut it all down, but internet anger that seemed ready to ebb on Monday came roaring back Tuesday, with MAGA influencers like Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk disavowing the news that he was “done talking about Epstein for the time being.”

“I like Pam,” the speaker told Benny Johnson on Tuesday. “I think she’s done a good job. We need the DOJ focusing on the major priorities. ... I’m anxious to get this behind us.”

That may be exactly what the administration needs: Do more, and do it fast.

Before last week’s botched rollout, the Justice Department might have avoided this mess by releasing what it could — files that fell short of confirming an intelligence-backed blackmail ring but at least signaled transparency. That window has closed. A limited release won’t cut it any more.

Now the stakes are higher.

Testimony may be required. Non-explicit video evidence might need to be made public. A full data dump could be on the table. In a Monday interview with Benny Johnson, Lara Trump teased as much: “He is going to want to set things right as well. I believe that there will probably be more coming on this, and I believe anything that they are able to release ... I believe they’ll probably try to get out, sooner rather than later. They hear it and understand it.”

But will that be enough?

Every day the White House waits, the harder this story becomes to contain.

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