Month: April 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended his first NATO foreign ministers’ meeting and was more concerned about European sensibilities than American interests. Unfortunately, Rubio embraced the past rather than promoted the future. It would be tragic if the MAGA revolution resulted in more of the same.

Rubio sought to reassure European officials who have begun to do more in their own defense because they have been discomfited by both Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Rather than intensify European fears that the Trump administration finally meant business, the secretary disclaimed any intention to leave the alliance: “The United States is as active in NATO as it has ever been,” he insisted. While speaking next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Rubio added: “Some of this hysteria and hyperbole that I see in the global media and some domestic media in the United States about NATO is unwarranted.” 

Indeed, Rubio suggested that Trump was apparently a secret alliance enthusiast: “We want NATO to be stronger, we want NATO to be more visible and the only way NATO can get stronger, more visible is if our partners, the nation states that comprise this important alliance, have more capability.” That doesn’t sound like the Trump that most of us know, but the new U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matt Whitaker, similarly opined that “under President Trump’s leadership, NATO will be stronger and more effective than ever before, and I believe that a robust NATO can continue to serve as a bedrock of peace and prosperity.”

In short, per the president’s aides, America plans on sticking around to protect the Europeans. Rubio insisted, “President Trump has made clear he supports NATO. We’re going to remain in NATO.” What the latter dislikes, Rubio explained, is states which lack the capabilities to fulfill their obligations. This is the same message that Joe Biden, both as vice president and president, routinely brought to the continent. Indeed, he spent years actively discouraging the Europeans from doing more on their own behalf.

In contrast, during his first term Trump reportedly told aides he wanted to withdraw from the alliance. His failure to act during the first few weeks of this presidency doesn’t mean he has grown to love what he once sought to delete. Of course, Rubio still echoes his boss in pushing other NATO member governments to do more. But without ill consequences for their failure to act, enthusiasm for reform is likely to quickly wane. After all, President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, excoriated the Europeans for their lackadaisical attitude, but his message was drowned out by Biden singing a European variant of Bobby McFerrin’s hit tune “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” 

Nevertheless, the secretary has a tough sales job. Reported Deutsche Welle, “Rubio’s task of putting fellow NATO members at ease was made even harder on Wednesday when Trump announced tariffs that many fear could kick off global trade war. A 10 percent levy now applies to virtually all goods imported into the U.S. Goods from the European Union, which includes 23 of the 31 NATO member states, face tariffs of 20 percent.” The U.S. and Europe are struggling to remain friends, but just as in any other busted romance, Uncle Sam obviously no longer respects his partner. An unnamed European diplomat told the Associated Press, “We need to preempt a rapid retreat, but we’ve had nothing precise from the U.S. yet.” 

Indeed, Rubio’s promise misses the most important objective of getting the Europeans to do more: allowing Americans to do less. He told his counterparts that he wanted to leave with their commitment to increase military outlays to five percent of GDP. Alas, no one is close to that level, other than Poland, and few are likely to reach it, other than possibly the small but exposed Baltic states. Fear of Russia falls dramatically as one moves west on the continent, so a major military buildup makes little sense for them.

Apparently to encourage their efforts, he said of the five percent goal, “That includes the United States.” But, in contrast to Europe, America has no reason to spend so much on the military. The U.S. is the most secure great power ever. With vast oceans east and west and weak, peaceful neighbors north and south, Americans face no ground and limited sea and air threats. Only foreign missiles pose a serious danger, and Washington possesses the capacity to retaliate with devastating effect. The U.S. could defend itself at a fraction of its current level of military outlays.

Today most of America’s “defense” budget goes to offense. Some of that is for utterly inane operations, such as invading Iraq, defeating the Taliban to turn Afghanistan into a modern parliamentary democracy, and battling Yemen’s Ansar Allah to keep the oceans free for Europe and China. Even more resources are devoted to protecting prosperous, populous allies—Europe, along with South Korea, Japan, and numerous others. Whatever would the Pentagon do with hundreds of billions of dollars more? If all these nations spent according to their ability and need, there would be no reason for Washington to keep them as defense dependents. What new wars does Rubio imagine fighting? It is time for the U.S. to embrace peace.

The European balance is particularly nonsensical. Some 600 million Europeans are expecting 347 million Americans to protect them from 144 million Russians. European Union members—excluding the United Kingdom—have about ten times the GDP of Russia. Yet since its invasion of Ukraine, Russian military outlays have outpaced those of Europe. While that reflects Moscow’s involvement in a bitter hot war, when it comes to arms, determination is as important as capability, something most European governments still lack. They could do so much more. Nevertheless, they continue to look to Washington to cover their military deficiencies.

There no longer should be any need for the U.S. to be involved. The transatlantic alliance was a Cold War creation, intended to provide a shield behind which war-ravaged Europe could recover. Even President Dwight Eisenhower expected America’s military garrison to be temporary. To be fully secure, the Europeans would have to consider developing nuclear weapons. Controversial though that would be, a continental nuke, or additional European nations possessing nuclear weapons, would be preferable to Washington continuing to extend a “nuclear umbrella,” which would result in the destruction of American cities to protect European interests if deterrence failed.

Instead of telling NATO’s European members what to do, Washington should tell NATO’s European members what it intends to do. That is, turn Europe’s defense over to them. Then they could respond as they wished. Their protection is their problem, and eight decades after the end of the Second World War they should be able to decide their own future. The issue for Washington is not whether continental governments spend as much as the U.S. believes they should. It is whether they are able to spend as much as necessary to defend themselves. Responsibility for their defense should be on them, irrespective of how little they end up doing. America has no duty to protect them against their will.

Then Washington should shrink the U.S. armed forces to a size sufficient to protect the U.S. Military spending is the price of one’s foreign policy. The more you want to do, the more force structure—manpower, weapons, equipment—you need. If you reduce your ambitions, you can reduce your costs. Turn over the defense of Europe, South Korea, Japan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to their governments, respectively, and Washington needn’t spend five percent of America’s GDP on the military. Or four percent, three percent, or even two percent. The U.S. would require a sufficient, effective nuclear deterrent and sizable, capable navy. A sophisticated, superior air force also would be important for forestalling more distant threats. 

America’s objective would be sufficiency to protect its interests, not superiority to impose its preferences. There would be no more proxy wars for distant European states, abundant aid for corrupt dictators, incompetent crusades for faux democracies, and murderous assistance for political favorites. No more promises to fight nuclear wars for countries of middling importance. No more endless wars or occupations. And no illusion that routinely bombing, invading, and occupying other nations is an effective, let alone the best, means of promoting America’s interests around the world. Ultimately, true internationalism requires military restraint.

The Europeans share a long and valuable history with America. Mutual cooperation benefits people on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet Washington should end its defense dole for allied states. Treating them seriously, leaving them to sort out their destiny, would better show the sincerest respect of others. So it should be with the Trump administration and Europe.

The post The United States Can and Should Reduce Its Defense Spending appeared first on The American Conservative.

President Donald Trump, in a significant and unexpected development,  announced on Tuesday “direct talks” with Iran scheduled for Saturday. Notably, he made the announcement sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. Netanyahu has long pushed for a U.S. war with Iran, Israel’s chief adversary in the region, and some observers discerned a look of dismay on the prime minister’s face as Trump spoke. 

In some ways, the announcement shouldn’t have come as a big surprise, to Netanyahu or to anyone else. The president has been signaling for months a strong desire to engage diplomatically with Iran about its nuclear program. In March he sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterating his interest in securing a nuclear deal. 

But Trump’s diplomatic overtures have been accompanied by harsh rhetoric, including threats of war. The likely goal is to pressure Tehran to make a deal, but some analysts worry the bellicose statements are unnecessary and could lead to a devastating conflict if Iran lashes out and Trump feels boxed in by his own bravado.

The news of diplomacy thus brings much relief, even as it has given rise to an odd ambiguity. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, confirmed that high-level talks with the U.S. will take place in Oman, but contrary to Trump’s statement, he said they would be “indirect.” Whether American and Iranian envoys meet face-to-face or communicate via mediators, what really matters is the start of dialogue between the Trump administration and Tehran. Considering the dangerous volatility of the status-quo, which Israel is exploiting to push the U.S. to strike Iranian nuclear sites, Trump’s announcement of negotiations is itself an important de-escalatory move, not least because it seemed intended, in part, as a power move vis-à-vis Netanyahu.

The substance of negotiations, however, introduces a much more tangled set of questions. What are the main parameters? Does the U.S. aim, as Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff have said, to put Iran’s nuclear program in a box with a verification regime that guarantees Tehran doesn’t weaponize? If so, then negotiations have a chance to succeed. Or does the White House seek the “full dismantlement” of Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program? That’s what National Security Advisor Michael Waltz recently seemed to say and what Netanyahu is calling for with his talk of a “Libya model” for Iran. If so, as the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute Trita Parsi warns, then diplomacy will be dead on arrival, since Tehran is not about to give up its entire program.

Even assuming the former scenario, negotiating a deal will be a Herculean task. The only realistic framework strongly resembles the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018. When that deal was implemented, Iran only had stocks of uranium enriched up to 3.67 percent. Now it possesses stocks of uranium enriched up to 60 percent, only a short leap away from weapons grade (90 percent). In the meantime, Iran has installed more advanced centrifuges and reduced its level of cooperation with the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog tasked with verification. 

An Iran deal redux would involve caps on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting of sanctions, but Tehran is less trusting of the U.S. than it was in the Obama years and less willing to walk back its nuclear advances, which it sees as important leverage to hold onto amid U.S. and Israeli threats. Tehran would not agree to reduce enrichment absent firm guarantees of both meaningful sanctions relief and Washington’s lasting compliance with a new agreement.

Optimally, if an agreement is reached, the U.S. Senate would ratify it, blocking a future president from tearing it up with a stroke of the pen. Getting the deal through a Republican-controlled Senate would make it much more credible, assuming Democrats in the future won’t seek to out-hawk the Republicans on Iran.

But given the diplomatic and technical complexities of the issues at hand, getting a comprehensive deal might take years even in the best-case scenario. There is a risk that Trump, who typically expects quick deals, becomes increasingly frustrated with the lack of a diplomatic breakthrough and reverts to threats and escalating pressure or simply loses interest. In either case, the neoconservatives in his administration, such as Waltz, might take the lead on Iran policy.

For now, Witkoff is the White House official poised to lead negotiations with Iran. A non-ideological dealmaker and longtime friend of the president, Witkoff is a flexible negotiator whom Trump can trust. The fact that Trump selected him to get the ball rolling, rather than hawks like Waltz or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, indicates that the president genuinely does want a deal.

However, Witkoff is also engaged on the Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine tracks, and he even met recently with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However talented Witkoff may be, the Ukraine and Gaza wars and the nuclear standoff with Iran are all hellishly complex dossiers. Negotiating effectively requires extensive diplomatic experience and specialized knowledge, both of which Witkoff lacks. As with Russia, he’ll be facing a seasoned diplomatic team in Tehran, led by Majid Takht-Ravanchi, one of Iran’s most capable diplomats. Takht-Ravanchi served as ambassador to the United Nations in New York, was involved in negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal, and knows the nuclear file like the back of his hand.

Then there is the spoiler potential of Israel. Netanyahu’s “Libya model” is obviously a poison pill designed to doom negotiations. The Israeli premier does not actually want Washington and Tehran to make a deal. A joint U.S.-Israeli war with Iran aligns with Netanyahu’s political calculus, as it would hobble an adversary and allow Bibi to cling to power at the helm of his extremist coalition. Fortunately, Trump’s decision to announce Iran diplomacy in Netanyahu’s presence suggests that he won’t go along with whatever Israel demands. Washington should warn Jerusalem that not only would it be on its own in a war with Iran, but that any attempts to drag the U.S. into that war would have profoundly negative, perhaps irreversible, consequences for U.S.-Israeli relations. By sidelining Netanyahu, Trump would be able to focus on negotiating with Iran—a big enough challenge on its own.

One way to bridge Trump’s expectation of a quick deal with the likely need for long, protracted negotiations would be to first agree on an interim deal. Such a deal wouldn’t solve the complicated technical issues pertaining to Iran’s nuclear program, but it would trade limited sanctions relief for some freeze on Iran’s escalating enrichment, thus boosting mutual goodwill and buying time for continued negotiations. Some Iran watchers have been suggesting this path for both Washington and Tehran since Trump’s election victory last year. This week, it seems, the time has come.

The post Trump Surprises the Hawks on Iran appeared first on The American Conservative.

A legislative battle has been taking place recently in Little Rock, Arkansas, between two organizations in the same industry over an issue that has ramifications for all of North America, and President Donald Trump’s commitment to Make America Great Again.

On one side are representatives of small- and medium-sized trucking companies and the drivers they employ, and on the other, a state-level affiliate of one of America’s most powerful lobbying organizations, whose name doesn’t really tell the full tale of whose interests they represent. Though the fight in Little Rock is over a piece of state legislation, the issue being fought over has international ramifications, and is likewise of extreme import to the safety of the motoring public everywhere, as well as the wages of one of America’s largest groups of workers.

A recent tragedy in Austin, Texas, has brought the debate over these competing pieces of legislation in Arkansas into sharp relief.

On the night of Thursday, March 13, 2025, along interstate 35 in Austin, Texas, five people were killed and 11 sent to hospital when Solomun Weldekeal-Araya crashed the tractor trailer unit he was driving into stopped traffic. Amongst the dead were the entire López family—mother Natalia, father Sergio, and the children Lylah and little Diego, an infant. Araya was working for a subcontractor to Amazon, and, according to eyewitnesses, he did not slow down at all, and it took him colliding with 17 vehicles before the semi he was driving came to a stop.

Investigations into Araya reveal some disturbing resonances with many other incidents that have been taking place all across American (and Canadian) roads. Araya is a recent migrant from Ethiopia, only had his license for four months, and in that time had racked up a serious speeding ticket and a number of Hours of Service Violations. A viral video of Araya exiting his rig immediately after the crash suggested intoxication; although he was later cleared of being drunk or on drugs, the HOS violations indicate he may have been delirious from fatigue.

Though investigations are ongoing, there’s enough evidence here to suggest yet another in a pattern of horrific crashes we have seen in America—a recent migrant or refugee, legal or illegal, is involved in a collision which kills one or many people. It is later found that they either didn’t speak English, were not trained properly, had no work authorization, were involved in some kind of indentured servitude arrangement, or had already been deported multiple times.

Take the case of Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza, who crashed his truck in Colorado and, in losing the load of steel tubing from the flatbed he was pulling, instantly killed Scott Miller, 64, who coincidentally enough was a truck driver on his way home from work. Cruz-Mendoza was in the country illegally from Mexico, and had already been deported 16 times.

He has since been taken into custody by ICE after release from a very short 364 day sentence for this incident.

In 2021, two people were killed in Fort Worth, Texas, when Jean Marie Saint-Lot, a recent migrant from Haiti, ploughed into stopped traffic during winter weather. An investigation found the program of the CDL school he attended was only three weeks in duration, and taught him nothing about driving in inclement weather.

In another incident in Kentucky, a tow-truck driver named Troy Caldwell was killed by an immigrant trucker who was watching YouTube videos while he was driving down the road. The driver of the semi who killed Caldwell, Shodmon Yuldashev, is thought to be from Uzbekistan.

It is these incidents which have animated Shannon Everett, a co-founder of American Truckers United, who are the driving force behind a piece of legislation meant to address the problem of poorly trained drivers insourced to America from the third world.

“No one out there is standing up for the victims of these incidents,” Everett told me in a podcast interview, “and no one is standing up for America’s truckers, their safety on the roads, or their wages.”

Everett and his team have been compiling statistics on the issue of Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDLs), and their research ought to raise some questions about actions taken during the Obama and Biden administrations to create loopholes which make it easier to insource this labor and likewise easily give out CDLs, thus expanding the pool of drivers and artificially suppressing American truckers wages. And this follows decades of lobby groups like the American Trucking Association (ATA) begging the taxpayer to finance their own driver training programs over a claimed shortage that is not and has never been real.

During the Covid trucking demand spike in 2021, instead of letting the market operate as it should, which would have seen rates increase in response to bidding up of wages, the White House put out a very curious document, “The Biden Harris Administration Trucking Action Plan to Strengthen America’s Trucking Workforce.”

In this plan, the White House let slip what was really going on:

At the same time, the industry reports historic demand for its services. Reflecting that demand, wages for employed drivers in all trucking segments have increased 7-12% in the last year alone, but employment in some segments is still below pre-pandemic levels.

It is hard to ignore the implication here: The Biden administration, and no doubt many donors to the Democratic (and Republican) Party, were not happy that truck driver pay had increased.

The corporate welfare driven training programs favored by the ATA were not producing drivers fast enough to get rates under control, and it appears the Biden administration undertook an insourcing operation instead.

And so the government moved to lower the requirements for a CDL—or, as the White House phrased it, to expand “more seamless paths for veterans and underrepresented communities, such as women, to access good driving jobs.”

An April 2022 Fact Sheet update that has since been scrubbed from the White House website included a stunning figure that ought to have raised some eyebrows. Thanks to “cutting red tape,” the DOT enabled states to “more than double new commercial driver’s license issuances in January and February 2022 compared to January and February 2021. States have issued more than 876,000 CDLs since January 2021.”

Everett of ATU, and anyone who knows the industry very well, will tell you that this number is astronomical, and was not possibly achieved via existing training programs and CDL schools.

In 2016, in the waning days of the Obama administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a memorandum that directed state DOT and other enforcement officials to not place “Out of Service” those drivers they found to be illiterate in English, despite the fact that this is a violation of federal language proficiency requirements to have a CDL and drive commercial trucks.

It is this curious chain of policy decisions that has lead Everett to take action in Arkansas by authoring House Bill 1569, which allows state enforcement of those waived English language proficiency requirements and does not allow for operation of a commercial vehicle with a license from any other country except Canada or Mexico, nor with a learner’s permit from any other country. You must have a proper CDL, with the training and skills testing inherent in getting one. ATU’s bill also prohibits commercial drivers from operating in the state on various visas, including B-1 and B-2, as those two types of visas have been found to be used by certain migrants when caught working for trucking companies who don’t want to employ locals, as seems to be the case with the company who employed Mr. Araya.

It is worth noting that Amazon, among others, seem to prefer these low cost and low quality carriers. In separate investigations by both CBS and the Wall Street Journal, it was found that these contractors, though low of cost to Amazon, impose high costs in ‘externalities’ on the motoring public, and these costs are often reckoned in lives—since 2015, such subcontractors have been involved in collisions that have killed 132 people.

Not long after Everett’s bill was filed in the State Capitol at Little Rock by Arkansas State Rep. Wayne Long, a separate, competing bill was filed by the Arkansas Trucking Association, HB1745, which uses some sneaky language, merely stating that a non-citizen driver must have some work authorization or EAD document, and a valid driver’s license from another country—on the assumption, no doubt, that whatever scribble that might be presented from Somalia or Ukraine is totally legitimate and that there are plenty of employees at the Arkansas DMV who can read those languages and contact those countries to confirm their legitimacy. There is also no control for English language proficiency contained in their bill.

In the many weeks since HB1569 was entered by Long, it has not yet got out of committee, but the ATA’s competing bill has already made it to the floor of the House for hearings. The vast majority of the testimony regarding the ATA’s HB1745 has been against the bill, and the single person to testify in favor of it was Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association. In this testimony, when questioned about problems with all of these foreign drivers and the issue with English proficiency requirements, Newton punted, stating that this is a federal problem and not for the state to take on enforcing itself.

Per an official statement from the ATA regards ATU’s HB1659 Bill given to local television station KATV on March 14, “The ATA has publicly opposed HB 1569, emphasizing a preference for “solutions that are meaningful, enforceable, and withstand legal scrutiny without jeopardizing significant federal funding of our state’s infrastructure.”

One might ask where the feds stand on this, given the recent change in administration. In a public appearance at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky on March 27, recently appointed Chief Counsel of the FMCSA, Jesse Elison, told an audience that English proficiency was being enforced, and that the FMCSA has no jurisdiction to tell states anything about CDL standards, both of which are false.

Is the safety of America’s highways going to be left to corporate lobby groups who are happy to allow the status quo to continue benefitting their members who perpetuate the regime of cheap freight? A look at the donors behind the Arkansas Trucking Association gives you a who’s who of trucking’s biggest names, including WalMart, JB Hunt, and FedEx.

And on the other hand, are clueless bureaucrats, in their, well, cluelessness, to be trusted to halt the steady increase in fatalities stemming from truck involved collisions?

Trump and Vice President Vance have indicated that they are very concerned with the fate of the American working class, and have made many moves to bring production back to America, and in the past week, have generated an incredible amount of debate due to President Trump’s program of laying tariffs against a number of countries.

Another move they could make to help American workers is to close all of the loopholes being used to insource foreign labor here in what is a blatant wage suppression effort against one of America’s archetypal occupations. This recent influx of ‘drivers’ downstream of Biden’s ‘Action Plan’ have only made an existing situation worse; American truckers’ wages, by 2016, had dropped to 50 percent of what they were in 1980 in inflation adjusted dollars. 
It is no wonder that trucking has a retention problem. The Biden administration believed, and the American Trucking Association believes, that instead of fixing trucking’s problems and paying drivers more for their efforts, the U.S. should insource illiterates onto our roads instead. This gambit is killing innocent American motorists at an atrocious clip so that Jeff Bezos and his shareholders can extract ever more value from the working class.

We can’t let buck-passing bureaucratic sclerosis between states and the feds be used as an excuse to let this go on, especially when thousands of small to medium sized trucking companies in America have closed their doors and thousands of drivers have been laid off from their jobs.

It is time for Trump to Make American Roads Safer Again by taking quick and decisive action to Make American Trucking Great Again. He must tell his recently appointed FMCSA head, Derek Barrs, that his first task is to overturn that memorandum waving English Proficiency Requirements for CDLs, and then have Barrs investigate what went on between Biden’s task force and those states who were debasing requirements to get a CDL. There are hundreds of thousands of dangerous foreign drivers on the road now, many brought here under dubious arrangements and often with the help of the same NGOs Trump has already gone to war against in his defunding spree with the DOGE. They should be identified; if they can’t be removed or deported, at the very least they ought to have their CDLs investigated and potentially cancelled.

Companies like Amazon have declared war on one of America’s most essential professions, the truck driver, and it behooves the Trump administration to close off one of those avenues by which America is bleeding itself to death with insourced labor.

The post Trucking Has an Immigrant Problem—and Trump Can Fix It appeared first on The American Conservative.

Failed Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz was booed by military veterans in Minnesota on Wednesday over his stolen valor.

Immediately after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was introduced as Kamala’s running mate, a video of him falsely claiming to be a combat veteran surfaced.

And the videos kept coming!

Walz never deployed. He abandoned his battalion after they were deployed to Iraq so he could run for Congress.

Tim Walz introduced himself at a 2006 veterans event as a “retired command sergeant major,” which is a lie.

WATCH:

Tim Walz introduced himself at a 2006 veterans event as a “retired command sergeant major,” which is a lie. pic.twitter.com/1R0oyhD3wW

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 8, 2024

Stolen valor Tim Walz lied about his rank in a 2009 farewell message to soldiers actually deploying to Iraq.

In the 2009 video, Walz falsely claims he is a “retired Command Sergeant Major” as he sends a farewell message to soldiers deploying.

Walz was a sitting Congressman in 2009 lying about his rank. He should be charged.

WATCH:

2009. Congressman Tim Walz sends a farewell message to some soldiers actually deploying to Iraq.

In the message, Walz claims that he is a “retired Command Sergeant Major.”

Lying about one’s rank in a farewell message to soldiers deploying is about as dishonorable as it gets. pic.twitter.com/f7AIqPK8ky

— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 8, 2024

Walz trashed Trump’s tariffs and commented on a veterans bill during remarks at the Minnesota Capitol.

Tim Walz got heckled by military veterans at the Minnesota Capitol: ‘Shut your f*cking mouth!’ someone shouted as Tim Walz delivered remarks.

WATCH:

Tim Walz was heckled and booed by military veterans in Minnesota today over his stolen valor. pic.twitter.com/It80ZIeZCC

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) April 10, 2025

The post “Shut Your F*cking Mouth!” – Tim Walz Heckled and Booed by Military Veterans in Minnesota Over His Stolen Valor (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa appeared on the FOX Business Network this week to talk about the work she is doing with DOGE.

In one segment that defies parody, Ernst said that some federal employees have showed up at the office to protest having to show up at the office. If federal workers are trying to get sympathy from the public over losing their jobs, this is not the way to do it.

Millions of Americans have not had the luxury of working from home over the last few years. They get up and travel to work every single day.

The Daily Wire reports:

‘You Can’t Make This Up’: Ernst Says Remote Workers Came Back Only To Protest Returning To Office

According to Iowa GOP senator Joni Ernst, some federal employees who were forced to go back to work rather than work from home showed up at work only to protest being there.

“We actually had workers that showed up at the office to protest having to come back to work at the office,” she told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “So we’re finding all kinds of things with the DOGE work, the SQUEAL work that I have done for ten years, and thank goodness we have President Trump and DOGE, the Office of Government Efficiency, that’s finally cracking down on these types of activities.”

Watch the video:

You can’t make this up…

Federal employees showed up to the office — not to work — but to protest returning to work.@DOGE and I are fighting to get Washington working for YOU! pic.twitter.com/qrriphp0Fn

— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) April 9, 2025

Trump ordered federal workers to return to the office in one of his very first directives:

Return to In-Person Work

Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, 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, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.

This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.

People in the federal government who don’t want to follow these orders should get new jobs. It’s as simple as that.

The post BEYOND PARODY: Senator Joni Ernst Says Federal Workers Showed up at the Office to PROTEST Having to Come to the Office (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Stand-up comedian Jeff Dye was a guest on the Gutfeld! show this week and he made an excellent point about the racism of the supposedly liberal left.

Greg played the clip of Rep. Jasmine Crockett talking about the picking of cotton, in which she seemed to be suggesting that illegal immigrants are needed to do this kind of work.

Jeff Dye suggested that this is just one example of the left being racist without even realizing how awful they sound. It’s an excellent point and Dye offered other examples.

Partial transcript via Eric Abbenante on Twitter/X:

Comedian Jeff Dye notices a trend about ‘progressives’ while commenting on Jasmine Crockett’s latest tirade:

Jasmine Crockett: “I have to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country: We done picking cotton.”

Gutfeld: “The face of that party. It is kind of funny the way she views illegal immigrants, It’s a few iterations from slavery.”

Jeff Dye: “As obsessed with race as the left is, they seem to not know what racism is because they do it all the time.

‘Mexicans are going to pick the cotton because we ain’t doing it’

They constantly do these things.’Black people don’t have IDs’”

Here’s the clip:

Comedian Jeff Dye notices a trend about ‘progressives’ while commenting on Jasmine Crockett’s latest tirade:
Jasmine Crockett: “I have to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country: We done picking cotton.”
Gutfeld: “The face of that party.… pic.twitter.com/OZTkp4sCcV

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) April 9, 2025

Here’s a bonus clip of Jeff Dye talking about the liberal double standard in comedy and how things are only considered political or controversial if they’re conservative or Republican ideas.

Why is it only considered pandering when you’re talking about conservative ideas? pic.twitter.com/LNqalQYT4q

— Jeff Dye (@JeffDye) April 8, 2025

This guy is going places.

(Image:Source)

The post Comedian on the Gutfeld! Show Makes Excellent Point About the Racism of the Left: ‘Wokeism is Racism’ (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Ken Paxton and John Cornyn

On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he will run against RINO Senator John Corbyn in 2026.

Paxton, a favorite among the MAGA grassroots, unveiled his campaign website on Tuesday afternoon before discussing his run with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

“It’s definitely time for a change in Texas,” Paxton said during the interview.

“We have another great U.S. Senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas and also support Donald Trump in the areas that he’s focused on in a very significant way,” he continued.

It’s official. I’m running for U.S. Senate to fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment.

Together, let’s send John Cornyn packing: https://t.co/rQl0P2UnWU pic.twitter.com/1KIajC0JhN

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) April 8, 2025

He later released a statement in which he said that he would prioritize the America First agenda.

“I’m running for U.S. Senate to fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment,” Paxton said in the statement.

“John Cornyn has been in Washington for over two decades, and he has turned his back on President Trump and the America First agenda time after time.”

“I’m a battle-tested Attorney General and conservative warrior who’s secured major victories against the establishment, the corrupt Biden Administration, and woke corporations,” he continued.

”Now, I’m ready to take that same toughness to the U.S. Senate.”

As attorney general, Paxton repeatedly sued the Biden administration and led the way in exposing Democratic voter fraud and the disastrous nature of the previous administration’s policy of allowing millions of illegal aliens to enter the country through Texas.

While Paxton was taking on the Deep State and securing elections in Texas, John Cornyn was lecturing Texans on how they did not need Trump’s border wall.

WOW! GOP Senator: Trump Supporters Did Not Really Want a Wall When They Voted for Trump to Build a Wall (VIDEO)

On Wednesday night, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Senator Tim Scott sent out a letter endorsing John Cornyn.

Here is the statement released by Tim Scott:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott released the following statement endorsing John Cornyn in the Texas U.S. Senate race:
“John Cornyn is a leader who delivers on President Trump’s agenda and for the people of Texas in the U.S. Senate. He’s a proven fighter, man of faith, and essential part of the Republican Senate Majority.”

Disgusting.

For the record, the NRSC is the same group that refused to fund Kari Lake, Ted Cruz, and Rick Scott in the last election.
‘
The NRSC does not share your values. That much is clear.

The post Like Clockwork: Tim Scott and the Turncoat National Republican Senatorial Campaign Endorse RINO John Cornyn Over Hero Ken Paxton appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Trust in media is at an all time low. No one disputes this, but people seem to have different ideas for how this happened.

Jim VandeHei, the founder of Axios, recently spoke to Bari Weiss of the Free Press and offered three reasons why he thinks this happened. He gets it partially right.

FOX News reports:

“What happened with Twitter is – people forget now [since] it’s a lot of conservative voices, a lot of independent voices – it was a hotbed of liberal groupthink for a long time,” VandeHei said. “And it was the first time since I’ve been in this business that I would get on a feed and I would see reporters who I had trusted, who I admired, making it crystal clear what side they were on. You could tell in what they were tweeting, and you could tell in who they were following and who was following them.”

He continued, “Then came along, kind of, the COVID, Defund the Police, word policing, where I think a lot of Americans were looking around going ‘that doesn’t sit right with me.’ And the way it’s being covered didn’t sit right with them.”

VandeHei called the media’s failure to properly cover Biden’s mental state the final straw for many.

“People were saying, ‘I can see with my own two eyes that the guy seems pretty old, probably doesn’t seem capable of being the president in the next term and yet there’s not a whole hell of a lot of coverage of it,’” VandeHei said.

Here’s the video:

Axios founder @JimVandeHei says trust in American media collapsed in three phases.

1. Twitter exposed the political bias of “objective” journalists.

2. Coverage of Covid, “defund the police,” and word policing didn’t sit right with Americans.

3. The lack of coverage around Joe… pic.twitter.com/aTpxAZQrYr

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) April 8, 2025

He is right about Twitter. It did expose the biases of many journalists, but it’s not as if people didn’t already know. On the second reason, the media did a lot more than a little speech policing. They canceled people and ruined their lives. They blocked the Hunter Biden laptop story from social media, and that was much bigger than speech policing. Finally, if you watched the video, you heard him say that there are only a few bad apples in the media. That’s completely wrong. The media is full of people acting in bad faith. Funny he never mentions the Russia collusion hoax.

If the media wants to start restoring trust, entire networks need to be overhauled and a lot of people need to be fired.

The post Axios Founder Thinks Trust in Media Collapsed for These Three Reasons – But He’s Only Partially Right (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A young woman named Danielle Carter-Walters who lives in Chicago and is part of a group called ‘Chicago Flips Red’ testified before the House this week and slammed Democrats over sanctuary city policies and the effect they have had on the people of her city.

Carter-Walters goes out of her way to thank President Trump, who she describes as the ‘People’s President.’

She offers specific examples of how Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has put illegal aliens ahead of American citizens, taxpayers, and small business owners. Her remarks are very eloquent.

KPVI News has details:

A grassroots organization called “Chicago Flips Red” has made its debut before Congress at a hearing about migrant sanctuary policies.

Chicago Flips Red Vice President Danielle Carter-Walters testified Wednesday before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

Carter-Walters expressed her support for President Donald Trump at a hearing titled, “Sanctuary Jurisdictions: Magnet for Migrants, Cover for Criminals.”

“We proudly stand with our president to bring his message to the Black American community and dispose the lies pushed by the Democrat Party and the fake news media,” Carter-Walters said in her opening statement.

“Sanctuary cities are anything but safe,” Carter-Walters testified, adding that Chicago is “drowning in the consequences” of its policies.

Carter-Walters called out former President Joe Biden and Chicago mayors Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson.

“Lifelong residents are pushed aside. Schools are overcrowded. Crime is out of control, and affordable housing is vanishing. This crisis exploded under Biden and was worsened by the reckless agenda-driven leadership of Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson. They didn’t just ignore the collapse. They fueled it,” Carter-Walters said.

Watch the clip below:

POWERFUL: Chicago resident Danielle Carter-Walters highlights how Democrat-run sanctuary cities FAIL to protect American citizens.

Their policies make our cities and streets less safe.

Watch her opening statement in today’s subcommittee hearing pic.twitter.com/LjrKczHt4r

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 9, 2025

Nothing she says here is wrong. Chicago is just one example of these problems. Democrats have promoted the same failed policies in cities across the country.

The post Chicago Resident Slams Democrats Over Sanctuary City Policies, Thanks ‘the People’s President’ Donald Trump (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

President Trump on Wednesday ordered the Justice Department to investigate Miles Taylor, the “Anonymous” author who leaked classified information and covertly tried to sabotage him during his first term.

In 2018 The New York Times ran an op-ed by an “Anonymous” author described as a senior member of the Trump Administration who was covertly working to sabotage the President.

The author of the NY Times ‘resistance’ op-ed also penned an anti-Trump tell all book titled, “A Warning.”

“An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation’s capital,” the description of the book states.

It turns out “Anonymous” was not a senior official, rather he was a lower level DHS official who donated to Barack Obama.

In 2020, Miles Taylor outed himself as “Anonymous” in a Medium post.

Miles Taylor

On Wednesday, President Trump revoked Miles Taylor’s security clearance and ordered the DOJ to investigate his activities related to leaking classified information.

Trump said he believes Miles Taylor is guilty of treason.

“The central memorandum we have for you relates to Miles Taylor. You may recall that Miles Taylor served in the Department of Homeland Security during your previous administration. In his capacity with the Department of Homeland Security, he leaked classified information,” Will Scharf said in the Oval Office.

“He wrote a book under the pseudonym “Anonymous,” making outrageous claims both about your administration and about others in it. What this presidential memorandum is going to do, one, it’s going to strip any act of clearance that he has in light of his past activities involving classified information, it’s also going to order the Department of Justice to investigate his activities to see what else might come up in that context, given his egregious behavior during your previous administration,” Will Scharf said.

WATCH:

“The next presidential memorandum we have for you relates to Miles Taylor, With this presidential memorandum it will strip any clearance he has, in light of his past activities involving classified information, it will also order the department of justice to investigate his… pic.twitter.com/SAy6e3GfMQ

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 9, 2025

President Trump said he had no idea who Miles Taylor was after the news broke about his identity in 2020.

“I didn’t know anything about him and he wrote a book, Anonymous, and I always thought it was terrible and now we have a chance to find out whether or not it was terrible. But it was a work of fiction, it got a lot of publicity, got himself a nice job with CNN or one of them,” Trump said.

“And I think we have to do something about it. You can’t have that happen. If that happens to other presidents, it wouldn’t be sustainable for other presidents. I seem to be able to sustain. But if that happened to other Presidents it’s just unfair and if it was a Democrat president, I’d say that’s a terrible thing. A thing like that can happen that’s a terrible thing. And it’s time to find out whether or not somebody can do that,” Trump added.

Trump continued, “Can they write a book about very confidential meetings? And, you know, because they happen to be one of a lot of people in a room, and they go out and write a book, and worse than that, call it Anonymous, like it’s a big deal, and everybody’s saying, who is it, who is it? Who is it then? Then it was found out who he was a long time later, and you got a lot publicity off that one. He’s like a promoter. But we’re going to find out whether or not somebody is allowed to do that. I think it’s a very important case, and I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we’ll find out and I assume we’ll recommend this to the Department of Justice.”

WATCH:

President Trump signs executive order directing the DOJ to investigate Miles Taylor, the man who wrote that he was part of the “Resistance” inside Trump’s first administration: “It’s time to find out whether or not somebody can do that. I think he’s guilty of treason.” pic.twitter.com/BmmaxniKQ3

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) April 9, 2025

The post “I Think He’s Guilty of Treason” – BREAKING: Trump Orders DOJ to Investigate “Anonymous” Author Who Leaked Classified Information, Covertly Worked to Sabotage Him (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.