'Exactly what he wanted': Charlie Kirk's widow is taking over as CEO of Turning Point USA



Erika Kirk, the widow of assassinated Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, stated shortly after her husband's death, "They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love. But they should all know this: If you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before, you have no idea — you have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country."

'We will not surrender or kneel before evil. We will carry on.'

"You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife," continued Mrs. Kirk. "The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry. To everyone listening tonight across America: The movement my husband built will not die. It won't. I refuse to let that happen."

Megyn Kelly, one of the fallen patriot's friends to guest-host "The Charlie Kirk Show" in Phoenix this week, revealed on Thursday with the show's executive producer, Andrew Kolvet, that Kirk's widow will take a leading role in fulfilling Charlie's mission — as CEO and board chair of Turning Point USA.

"This is exactly what he wanted," said Kolvet.

"It had to be, right?" said Kelly. "I don't think anybody would accept a leader of the organization who they didn't feel completely understood Charlie and would be 100% dedicated to fulfilling his vision for where this group is going."

Kirk's chief of staff, Michael McCoy, said, "She's our retribution."

RELATED: Tears and tributes: Glenn Beck hosts 'The Charlie Kirk Show' with Rush Limbaugh’s golden microphone

Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

Erika Kirk, the founder of the nonprofit Everyday Heroes Like You and the mother of the late CEO's two children, will helm an organization that has a presence at over 3,500 American schools, over 2,000 TPUSA student groups, and over 800 TPUSA faith groups. Kolvet recently indicated that TPUSA has been inundated with well over 37,000 new chapter requests.

According to its tax filings, TPUSA's revenue for the fiscal year ending June 2024 was $85 million.

The TPUSA board indicated that Erika Kirk's election was unanimous.

"All of us at Turning Point USA have a special role in carrying Charlie Kirk's mantle and completing his vision of bringing us all closer to our Lord and fostering a prosperous country for generations to come," the board said in a statement.

"As Charlie always said, 'We have a country to save.' We will not surrender or kneel before evil. We will carry on," continued the board. "The attempt to destroy Charlie's work will become our chance to make it more powerful and enduring than ever before."

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'Hybrid era is over': Trump's effort to force federal workers back into the office is a giant success



President Donald Trump returned to the office on Jan. 20 and made immediately clear that he expected federal bureaucrats to follow suit.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office indicated in a recent study that as of June 2024, over 200,000 federal employees — 9% of the federal workforce — worked remotely. Gallup survey data indicates that in the fourth quarter of last year, 61% of federal employees were working in a flexible hybrid work model.

'That's what we've been looking to do for many, many decades, frankly.'

Trump noted in a day-one memo to the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch that "as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis."

"We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient," the president later told reporters. "And that's what we've been looking to do for many, many decades, frankly."

Despite naysaying by academics, bureaucrats, and the liberal media, Trump's effort to get workers back has yielded serious results besides the voluntary exit of tens of thousands of bureaucrats.

RELATED: Buc-ee’s gets rich by doing everything Wall Street hates

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

According to a new Gallup survey of 542 federal employees in "remote-capable" jobs, 46% of federal employees are now working in the office — up from 17% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and double the national average.

The percentage of federal employees engaged in hybrid work arrangements is now 28%, down 33 points since Q4 2024. Twenty-six percent of federal employees are reportedly engaged in fully remote capacities, said the survey published on Tuesday.

"In Washington, the hybrid era is over," said Gallup's Ryan Pendell.

Blaze News has reached out to the Office of Personnel Management for comment.

The survey further indicated that unlike the federal government sector, across the board, on-site work has not rebounded among full-time, remote-capable American employees. In 2019, over 60% of workers were in the office full-time. Now, 21% of employees are working on-site full-time. Fifty-one percent are engaged in hybrid work.

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Trump vows to give Chicago the DC treatment unless Democrat Gov. Pritzker gets his act together: 'We're coming!'



President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that he was federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., and deploying the National Guard there in order to "re-establish law, order, and public safety."

While Democrats and other liberal pundits reflexively denounced Trump's intervention, their critiques were premature. Since Trump took action, violent crime in D.C. reportedly is down 45%, and carjackings are down 87%.

'He is CRAZY!'

Having demonstrated just how quickly order can be restored with will and determination, Trump now is looking to help other crime-ridden cities across the country.

But during a press conference last week, Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker criticized the president's efforts to make cities safer, claiming what Trump is doing "is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is un-American."

"Mr. President, do not come to Chicago," added Pritzker. "You are neither wanted here nor needed here."

But Trump noted in a Saturday evening Truth Social post, "Six people were killed, and 24 people were shot, in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn't need help in preventing CRIME."

The president added, "He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!"

RELATED: DC Dems are furious at Mayor Bowser for admitting Trump's troops are lowering crime

Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Underscoring Trump's concerns, Chicago kicked off the Labor Day weekend with — you guessed it — another spate of shootings.

Police indicated that as of Sunday morning, at least 32 people had been shot in the city — three fatally — WLS-TV reported. Among the victims was a 43-year-old woman who was approached then reportedly riddled with bullets at the hands of five male suspects.

The Windy City is no stranger to bloody weekends — or weekdays, for that matter.

Chicago Police Department statistics indicate that so far this year there have been at least 266 murders, 1,141 reported sexual assaults, 4,003 robberies, 10,774 motor vehicle thefts, 11,488 felony thefts, and 3,971 burglaries.

Chicago — which has secured the top spot on Orkin's list of America's rattiest cities for the last 10 years — has a 5-rating on Neighborhood Scout's crime index in which 100 is safest.

Yet while Pritzker has criticized the idea of Trump deploying the National Guard to assist Chicago, the city's Mayor Brandon Johnson — who has an approval rating of 26% according to a recent poll by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and the National Opinion Research Center, both at the University of Chicago — is especially opposed.

RELATED: 'Stop talking and get to work': Trump blasts Democrat Gov. Wes Moore over Maryland crime

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Johnson signed an executive order Saturday "denouncing any attempts to deploy the United States Armed Forces and/or the National Guard and/or militarized civil immigration enforcement in Chicago."

In the order, the unpopular mayor demanded that Trump and agents under his authority "stand down from any attempts" to deploy troops in the city and vowed to ensure the Chicago Police Department remains a locally controlled law enforcement agency under mayoral authority.

'Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue.'

Additionally, Johnson said federal agents and troops cannot wear masks while performing their duties.

"We have received credible reports that we have days, not weeks before our city sees some type of militarized activity by the federal government," said Johnson. "We must take immediate, drastic action to protect our people from federal overreach."

The White House reportedly has written off Johnson's executive order signing as a "publicity stunt."

— (@)

"If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to the Independent. "Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from [Trump Derangement Syndrome] are trying to make it one."

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It's been a year since Kennedy and Trump joined forces. Here are MAHA's top 3 wins.



Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted in August 2024 that a major factor behind his decision to endorse President Donald Trump was the opportunity to help "Make America Healthy Again" in a future Trump administration.

"Don't you want healthy children?" Kennedy said in a speech. "And don't you want the chemicals out of our food? And don't you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that's what President Trump told me that he wanted."

Since his hotly contested confirmation as Trump's Health and Human Services secretary in February, Kennedy has worked ardently to deliver on the promise of MAHA.

Already, HHS under his tutelage has secured numerous victories on the health front, including the:

  • cancellation of mRNA vaccine development contracts;
  • elimination of the Biden-era vaccine-reporting requirement and corresponding incentive system for hospitals;
  • termination of thousands of bureaucrats along with senior establishmentarians such as Christine Grady, the wife of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci;
  • removal of retarding fluoride drug products for children from the market;
  • requirement that Pfizer and Moderna add new safety warnings to their COVID-19 vaccines; and
  • removal of the COVID vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended vaccine schedule for healthy pregnant women and children.

Although the Trump administration has delivered many MAHA wins, three in particular stand out as particularly consequential.

Fresh start at the ACIP

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director — a position which, at the time of writing, was vacant thanks to Susan Monarez's firing on Wednesday.

RELATED: Big shake-up at CDC: Director gets the boot; gay vax chief resigns, attacks RFK Jr. on way out

Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP in June.

While every member of the ACIP was a Biden administration appointee, the health secretary's principle concern was not the panelists' politics but rather their cozy relationships with some of the organizations they were tasked with scrutinizing.

For instance, data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov, a site managed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, indicated that Edwin Jose Asturias, one of the ACIP members whom Kennedy fired, collected around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees.

Blaze News previously reported that among the companies that paid Asturias what appear to have been consulting fees were Pfizer and Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC, a bio-pharmaceutical subsidiary of the company whose pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive the committee voted to recommend in October. Asturias also apparently netted millions in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC.

Like Asturias, Kennedy noted "most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines."

Kennedy indicated that the individuals he appointed to the newly cleared panel were "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense" and had "each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations."

Nuking gender ideology

Pursuant to President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14168, the HHS has taken a wrecking ball to gender ideology.

For starters, the department released guidance to the U.S. government, to the public, and to external partners that sex is an immutable biological classification and that there are only two sexes, male and female.

The department has applied this standard to civil rights enforcement, health care policy, and sports eligibility; launched federal civil rights investigations into whether various states violated Title IX by allowing men in women's sports; canceled funding for related programs and activities; and scrubbed its websites of messaging, guidance, and language that advanced gender ideology.

The HHS has also conditioned federal funding for states' Personal Responsibility Education Program grants on the removal of all references to gender ideology.

California learned the hard way and had its PREP grant terminated on Aug. 21. The HHS' Administration for Children and Families noted in a release that the agency would not tolerate funding "curricula that could encourage kids to contemplate mutilating their genitals, 'altering their body ... through hormone therapy,' 'adding or removing breast tissue,' and 'changing their name.'"

Axing artificial food coloring

The HHS outlined a plan in April to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America's food supply.

Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, told Blaze News in November that the brighter artificial colors, which are helpful with sales and attractive to children, are harmful to their health.

"The science shows that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children, can disrupt the immune system, and are contaminated with carcinogens," said Hari.

Red dye 40, for instance, has been linked in some studies to hyperactivity disorders in children, and, according to the Cleveland Clinic, has various potential side effects, including depression, irritability, and migraines.

A 2021 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Nutrition noted that blue dye 1 has been found to cause chromosomal aberrations and "was found to inhibit neurite growth and act synergistically with L-glutamic acid in vitro, suggesting the potential for neurotoxicity."

In short order, the U.S Food and Drug Administration kicked off the process of revoking authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B in the short term and to eliminate another six synthetic dyes — FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2 — by the end of next year.

RELATED: RFK Jr. torches vaccine panel to make consequences count again

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The FDA also requested that companies move up their timelines for the removal of FD&C Red No. 3.

"These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development," Kennedy said in a statement. "That era is coming to an end. We're restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public's trust."

Numerous food manufacturers and fast-food chains have fallen in line or taken big steps in the right direction, including General Mills; Kraft Heinz; Starbucks; PepsiCo; Danone North America; TreeHouse Foods; Tyson Foods; and In-N-Out Burger.

In addition to tackling synthetic dyes, the HHS has paved the way for the use of food coloring from natural sources. In May, the FDA granted new color additive petitions for galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract, and calcium phosphate.

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Trump fires Biden Fed governor for possible 'criminal conduct' — but Lisa Cook is desperate to cling to power



President Donald Trump informed Lisa Cook on Monday that her time on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has come to an end.

The Biden-nominated governor did not handle the news well, indicating that she will challenge the president's authority to remove executive branch employees, setting the stage for a legal battle that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The president's recent successes in similar battles over removals of high-level bureaucrats and his ability to fire Federal Reserve board members "for cause" bodes poorly for Cook, who may soon also face criminal charges.

Quick background

Former President Joe Biden nominated Cook, a race-obsessed economist who served on Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, to join the Federal Reserve's board of governors in January 2021.

Critics largely opposed her nomination because of her leftist worldview and her relative lack of experience.

"There's very little on Dr. Cook’s CV to suggest she knows the ins and outs of monetary policy," economics professor Alexander William Salter noted ahead of Cook's confirmation in May 2022. "During her nomination hearing on February 3, she listed one promising qualification: election to the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. But this happened less than a month prior, on January 13 (effective January 1)! Nobody is this quick a study."

RELATED: Supreme Court sides with Trump on firing of officials from independent federal agencies

Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"Professor Cook has no proven expertise in monetary economics at all, much less fighting inflation," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said prior to Cook's confirmation vote. "Professor Cook is a proven partisan who has promoted left-wing conspiracy theories and called for a fellow academic to be fired because that person did not support defunding the police."

Cook ultimately squeaked through the confirmation process with the help of a tie-breaking vote from then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Housing crisis

Earlier this month, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte sent a criminal referral for Cook to the Justice Department.

Pulte told Attorney General Pam Bondi in an Aug. 15 letter that mortgage documents appear to indicate that Cook "has falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute."

'The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve.'

"This has included falsifying residence statuses for an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based residence and an Atlanta, Georgia-based property in order to potentially secure lower interest rates and more favorable loan terms," continued Pulte.

Two weeks after taking out a 15-year mortgage agreement for $203,000 on the Michigan property, Cook purchased a condominium in Atlanta and entered into a 30-year mortgage agreement for $540,000. According to Pulte, Biden's Fed governor allegedly listed both residences as her primary.

A CNN review of the mortgage documents found that both properties were indeed listed as Cook's principal residence.

Eviction

President Trump evidently took the allegations very seriously, noting in an Aug. 25 letter to Cook that he shared on Truth Social that "it is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second. It is impossible that you intended to honor both."

"The Federal Reserve has tremendous responsibility for setting interest rates and regulating reserve and member banks," wrote Trump. "The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve."

The president suggested that neither he nor the American people have confidence in Cook's integrity in light of her alleged "deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter."

RELATED: Sean Spicer tells Glenn Beck how Biden unwittingly helped Trump fire 'anyone he wants'

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump stated, "Pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1912, as amended, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of the Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately."

In response to the firing — reportedly the first time a president has canned or attempted to can a sitting Federal Reserve governor — Pulte thanked Trump for his "commitment to stopping mortgage fraud and following the law."

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

The Federal Reserve declined to comment on the development.

Clinging to power

Echoing other presidential appointees who are now out of work, Cook suggested President Trump lacked the authority to give her the boot.

"President Trump purported to fire me 'for cause' when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022," said Cook in a statement obtained by Politico.

The fired Fed governor's attorney Abbe Lowell — who has also served as an attorney for pardoned felon Hunter Biden and New York Attorney General Letitia James — stated, "President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet’ and once again his reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority," adding that "we will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action."

The law firm Lex Politica indicated days ahead of Trump's announcement that "President Trump clearly has authority to remove Governor Cook 'for cause,' assuming the allegations of mortgage fraud or lying on federal ethics forms are confirmed."

The Federal Reserve Act states that each member of the Fed's Board of Governors "shall hold office for a term of fourteen years from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the President."

The firm noted further that while the DOJ's investigation of Cook's alleged conduct and any charges it might bring against her "further support removal for cause ... we do not believe that an indictment is necessary before the President may remove Governor Cook 'for cause' under the Federal Reserve Act."

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Court teaches Letitia James big lesson about lawfare, hands Trump a HUGE victory



A Democrat New York judge ordered President Donald Trump and his sons in February to pay hundreds of millions of dollars over a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The civil lawsuit claimed that the president defrauded banks and other organizations by overestimating the value of his properties in order to secure favorable bank loans and other benefits. The bank denied any wrongdoing, and critics attacked the case for comically devaluing the president's iconic and profitable properties.

A New York state appeals court delivered to Trump a major boon on Thursday, noting that while the injunctive relief ordered by New York Judge Arthur Engoron "is well crafted to curb defendants' business culture, the court's disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

Appellate Division Judge Peter Moulton called out Letitia James in his concurring opinion, writing that the "Attorney General did not carry her initial burden" of establishing an approximate total of the profits directly linked to Trumps' supposed violations.

Moulton added, "Indeed, the calculation of the disgorgement in this case was far from a reasonable approximation."

The president celebrated the ruling, writing on Truth Social:

TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case! I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State. Others were afraid to do business there. The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before.

Trump further characterized this instance of lawfare as a case of election interference and emphasized that Engoron was a "Political Hack" and that James is a "Corrupt and Incompetent Attorney General who only brought this Case in order to hurt me politically."

'NO MORE LAWFARE!'

The president thanked the court, especially David Friedman, associate justice of the New York Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Judicial Department.

Eric Trump, who operates the Trump Organization with his brother Donald Trump Jr., said of the ruling, "Total victory in the sham NY Attorney General case!!! After 5 years of hell, justice prevailed!"

Donald Trump Jr. wrote, "It was always a witch hunt, election interference, and a total miscarriage of justice[,] and even a left leaning NY appeals court agrees! NO MORE LAWFARE!"

Trump ally and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk noted, "They tried to impeach him, bankrupt him, imprison him, and assassinate him. They failed."

This is a developing story.

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Brian Stelter melts down as Trump makes the Smithsonian great again



The left's "long march through the institutions" was a great success. Since the time that slogan was coined in the late 1960s, numerous businesses, churches, law enforcement agencies, schools, and other organizations have been transformed into incubators for radical activists and amplifiers for anti-Western campaigns.

The marchers have, however, been stopped in their tracks by President Donald Trump, who has supercharged conservatives' reconquest of American institutions and normalcy advocates' corresponding war on DEI, critical race theory, gender ideology, and anti-Semitism.

Liberals — including CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter — appear concerned that the president might successfully liberate the Smithsonian in time for America's 250th birthday as part of this broader campaign.

How it started

The president issued an executive order on March 27 titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

"Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth," Trump wrote.

'Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination.'

"This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light," continued the president. "Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed."

RELATED: Telling America’s story is too important to leave to radicals

Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Trump blasted his predecessor's administration for advancing "this corrosive ideology" and identified several examples of the Smithsonian-housed anti-American propaganda at issue, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture's assertions that the nuclear family, rugged individualism, self-reliance, prioritization of work over play, emphasis on rational, linear thinking, punctuality, decisiveness, and a future-oriented outlook are "aspects and assumptions of whiteness and white culture in the United States."

"Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history," wrote Trump.

The president directed Vice President JD Vance, a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work with Lindsey Halligan, special assistant to the president, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought to see to the removal of "improper ideology" from the Smithsonian Institution, its 21 museums and 14 education and research centers, and the National Zoo.

How it's going

The White House is presently whipping the Smithsonian into shape.

Halligan, Vought, and Vince Haley, director of the Domestic Policy Council, sent a letter to Smithsonian Institution secretary Lonnie Bunch III on Tuesday, noting that they will "be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions."

'It really is a colonoscopy of the Smithsonian.'

The first phase of this review concerns eight museums, including the National Museums of American History, Natural History, African American History and Culture, and the American Indian. Other Smithsonian museums will be assessed in the second phase of the review.

In their review, Trump's team will:

  • "assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals" when it comes to public-facing content;
  • interview curators and senior staff to "better understand the selection process, exhibition approval workflows, and any frameworks currently guiding exhibition content";
  • review current and future exhibitions, especially those planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; and
  • look to the development of consistent curatorial guidelines.

Halligan, Haley, and Vought also requested that the Smithsonian cough up an index of all permanent holdings as well as documents relevant to its 250th anniversary programming, current exhibition content, internal guidelines, governance, educational materials, external partnerships, grant data, and digital presence.

While the reviewers want some of these documents submitted within the next 30 days, the remainder need to be turned in by the end of October.

RELATED: Democrats suffer ugly meltdown over promise of safety in DC — but city dwellers are optimistic

Maansi Srivastava/Washington Post/Getty Images

By Dec. 10, the White House team wants the museums to begin "implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials."

The letter indicated that the purpose of this review is to "ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions."

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News that "it really is a colonoscopy of the Smithsonian."

Gonzalez noted that in addition to glossing over or ignoring key aspects of what makes America exceptional, such as its recognition of natural rights, the Smithsonian continues to push leftist propaganda, engage in lies of omission, and glorify radicals such as Angela Davis.

Davis is a former Black Panther and recipient of the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize who was once accused of supplying weapons to a black supremacist who went on to murder Superior Court Judge Harold Haley and two inmates.

"She's an awful person, but she gets four exhibits and Justice [Clarence] Thomas gets nothing," said Gonzalez.

PEN America, a liberal organization that has fought parents' efforts to keep LGBT propaganda out of the classroom, condemned the White House initiative.

"Telling the story of the United States must extend to the full and complex history of its past and present, including an honest assessment of wrongs and injustices, and a recognition of the never-ending project of creating a more perfect union," stated Hadar Harris, managing director of PEN America's office in Washington, D.C. "The administration’s efforts to rewrite history are a betrayal of our democratic traditions and a deeply concerning effort to strip truth from the institutions that tell our national story, from the Smithsonian to our national parks."

Brian Stelter asked CNN's remaining viewers this week, "Do you want Trump White House political appointees, political aides vetting the tone and the content and the framing of museum exhibits? That is the question on the table here."

Stelter suggested that some say the White House's initiative "sounds like a Stalinist purge — sounds like something out of history books about regimes trying to control information."

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller stated on Thursday, "The Trump Administration will proudly and diligently restore the patriotic glory of America and ensure the Smithsonian is a place that once more inspires love and devotion to this nation, especially among our youngest citizens."

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The Trump effect: Americans — not foreigners — continue to gain jobs



Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data accessed through the Federal Reserve Economic Data system, Snopes indicated that under former President Joe Biden, native-born Americans' share of job gains from January 2024 to June 2024 was 51.7%. While native-born Americans picked up roughly 1.09 million jobs, foreign-born individuals grabbed 1.02 million jobs.

Under President Donald Trump a year later, native-born Americans accounted for 100% of non-seasonally adjusted job gains from January to June.

The U.S. Department of Labor revealed on Friday that this trend continued into last month, stating, "Wages are up, investments are pouring into our nation, and native-born workers have accounted for ALL job gains since January!

'That's a result of our strong immigration policy.'

According to the latest jobs numbers from the BLS, the employment of American-born workers was up roughly 383,000 last month. Meanwhile, foreign-born worker numbers plunged by 467,000.

Bloomberg noted that the imported workforce — a mix of legal and illegal migrants — is down roughly 1.7 million jobs since March.

RELATED: Blaze Media's Julio Rosas embeds with Noem's DHS as it slams shut South America's illegal migration pipeline

Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation's Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, noted that "despite [a] disappointing headline, this jobs report was best [July] ever for employment among native-born Americans, up 2 million Y/Y and annual growth 2.2 million faster than among foreign-born workers; native-born American employment is now 1.8 million above pre-pandemic level."

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN that "since the president took office, he [has] created about 2.5 million jobs for Americans, whereas we've eliminated about a million jobs for foreign-born workers. That's a result of our strong immigration policy, of our strong border policy keeping America safe."

"Eventually the outflow of foreign workers in these data were bound to show up in the establishment surveys, as they finally did this morning," added Miran.

The jobs report indicated further that in July, 73,000 new jobs were added; the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2%; the labor force participation rate was 62.2%; and the "federal government continued to lose jobs."

Following the release of the latest jobs report, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) stated, "Unlike during the Biden administration, when taxpayers were forced to pay for millions of new bureaucrats while watching their grocery and gas bills skyrocket, President Trump’s economy is freeing the private sector to create new jobs with more financial security for American families.

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Democrats tried to get NJ prosecutor Alina Habba out — but Trump threw them a curve ball



President Donald Trump named Alina Habba as the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey on March 24. She was sworn in four days later. The White House announced on July 1 that the president was nominating Habba for a full four-year term.

The prospect of Trump's presidential counselor laying down the law in a state with a Democratic trifecta and triplex enraged Democrats, especially New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, who campaigned against her Senate confirmation, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), who wanted Habba gone after her indictment of New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver (D).

It looked like Democrats were going to get their way this week — until the president and his administration threw them a major league curve ball.

How it started

Interim U.S. attorneys are allowed to serve for only 120 days if not confirmed by the Senate or extended indefinitely by the district court for the district concerned. This meant that Habba needed winning votes both in the Senate Judiciary Committee, then on the Senate floor before the expiry of her term on Friday.

Those votes failed to materialize.

On Tuesday, with time yet left on the clock, federal judges in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey — 15 out of the 17 of whom are Obama and Biden appointees — declined to appoint Habba without offering any explanation.

RELATED: Democrats crown judges while crying about kings

Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

A panel of the blue state's judges issued an order — signed by George W. Bush appointee Renée Marie Bumb, the chief judge for the district — appointing one of Habba's subordinates, Desiree Leigh Grace, as the U.S. attorney for the district until the vacancy is filled.

Grace posted a long-winded message on LinkedIn detailing her professional journey to the role, concluding, "It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I'm prepared to follow that order and begin to serve in accordance with the law."

Within hours of Grace posting her message, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Tuesday that Habba's replacement had been removed.

'There has been enough noise the past four months.'

"The first assistant United States attorney in New Jersey has just been removed," wrote Bondi. "This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the president's core Article II powers."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized that "Alina is President Trump’s choice to lead — and no partisan bench can override that."

Blanche later confirmed that "pursuant to the president’s authority, we have removed that deputy, effective immediately. This backroom vote will not override the authority of the chief executive."

The Trump administration evidently had someone in mind to replace Grace as first assistant U.S. attorney: Alina Habba.

A Justice Department official told Axios that Trump withdrew Habba's nomination to be New Jersey's prosecutor following her reported resignation on Thursday. Bondi then reportedly appointed Habba the first assistant U.S. attorney. Since the top seat was vacant and Habba was next in line, she became acting U.S. attorney.

This play appears to enable Habba to run the New Jersey office for at least the next 210 days.

"Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey," Habba wrote Thursday evening. "I don't cower to pressure. I don't answer to politics."

Habba added, "This is a fight for justice. And I'm all in."

Habba sent a letter to prosecutors in the New Jersey office roughly a half-hour after making this post, stating, "There has been enough noise the past four months," reported the New York Times.

"Let's keep our focus and get back to the important work ahead for the District of New Jersey," she added, signing the letter as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, suggested on the liberal X knockoff Bluesky that "this will be challenged," citing a legal requirement that an individual made acting officer must have served in the position of first assistant to the office of such an officer for more than 90 days.

When pressed for comment about possible challenges to Habba's title change and to Vladeck's critique about its legitimacy, White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement to Blaze News, "President Trump continues to have full confidence in Alina Habba and her commitment to serve the people of New Jersey."

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Trump claims another scalp in war on gender ideology: Children's Hospital LA to shutter child sex-change center



Children's Hospital Los Angeles is shuttering its child sex-change center, which reportedly mutilated the genitals of multitudes of minors and provided confused children with sterilizing puberty blockers.

The hospital claimed in a statement that despite its "deeply held commitment to supporting L.A.'s gender-diverse community," it has been "left with no viable path forward except to close the Center for Transyouth Health and Development, effective July 22, 2025."

Breen was allegedly 'fast-tracked onto the conveyor belt of irreversibly damaging puberty blockers (age 12), cross-sex hormones (age 13), and "gender-affirming" surgery (age 14).'

According to the Stop the Harm Database, which was launched last year by the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, the center boasted patients as old as 25 and as young as 3.

Claims data showed that the center billed millions of dollars for hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sex-change mutilations for minors. The Los Angeles Times indicated that the center currently has over 3,000 patients.

The center's medical director is Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a gender ideologue who:

  • publicly argued against the need for psychological assessments for sex-change mutilations;
  • compared teen girls cutting off their healthy breasts to taking the SATs;
  • allegedly provided sex-change hormones to kids as young as 12 and referred little girls as young as 13 for double mastectomies; and
  • admitted last year to hiding the results of a years-long study concerning the efficacy of puberty blockers for fear they would be "weaponized" by critics. The results, which were finally released last month, found that kids' depression symptoms and emotional health “did not change significantly over 24 months” of being on puberty blockers.

One of the center's former patients, Clementine Breen, filed a medical negligence lawsuit in December against the hospital, Olson-Kennedy, and others involved with her "gender-affirming" mutilation, noting that their actions have left her with deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system.

The lawsuit claimed that Olson-Kennedy and her team — who allegedly separated Breen from her parents at the first opportunity — "immediately and unquestioningly 'affirmed' Clementine as transgender, and at her very first visit, after mere minutes, Dr. Olson-Kennedy diagnosed Clementine with gender dysphoria and recommended surgical implantation of puberty blockers."

RELATED: Sacrificing body parts and informed consent to the sex-change regime

Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images

According to the complaint, Olson-Kennedy made the gender-dysphoria diagnosis without a mental health assessment, without asking Breen relevant questions about her mental health struggles or diagnoses, and without involving other health care professionals.

Breen was allegedly "fast-tracked onto the conveyor belt of irreversibly damaging puberty blockers (age 12), cross-sex hormones (age 13), and 'gender-affirming' surgery (age 14)."

The decision to close the mutilation center apparently "followed a thorough legal and financial assessment of the increasingly severe impacts of recent administrative actions and proposed policies," said the CHLA, referencing actions taken by the Trump administration.

'These threats are no longer theoretical.'

President Donald Trump went to war with gender ideology upon retaking office, seeking not only to protect women's sports and sex-segregated spaces but to shield minors from the kind of unnecessary medicalization that Breen was subjected to at the hands of gender ideologues.

Trump issued an executive order titled "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation" on Jan. 28, directing federal agencies to rescind or amend all policies that rely on guidance from the radical World Professional Association for Transgender Health and to ensure that medical institutions receiving federal funding "end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children."

RELATED: Transhumanism is coming to destroy the human soul

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The president also directed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take all appropriate and lawful action to bring about an end to the child sex-change regime.

Hospital executives noted in a Thursday letter to staff obtained by the Los Angeles Times, "There is no doubt that this is a painful and significant change to our organization and a challenge to CHLA’s mission, vision, and values."

The executives also suggested that the Trump administration means business regarding clamping down on child sex-change mutilations.

"These threats are no longer theoretical," said the letter. "Taken together, the Attorney General memo, HHS review, and the recent solicitation of tips from the FBI to report hospitals and providers of GAC strongly signal this administration's intent to take swift and decisive action, both criminal and civil, against any entity it views as being in violation of the executive order."

Blaze News reached out to the White House and the HHS for comment but did not immediately receive responses.

Jeff Younger, a Texas father who spent years trying to stop his ex-wife from subjecting his son to sex-change procedures, noted in February that his boy was "currently on chemical castration drugs at LA Children's Hospital."

Younger responded to news of the center's closure, noting, "The California judge that allowed my ex-wife to chemically castrate my son is Mark Juhas. [When] I told him in court that I would shut down the LA Children's Hospital gender clinic, he laughed. So did opposing counsel and my ex-wife. Who's laughing now, b***h?"

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