Category: Trump
Leftist Group Gets Millions of Taxpayer Dollars to Help Illegal Aliens After Trump Order Bans It
The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is promoting his investigation of a leftist group that received massive amounts of taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration to help illegal immigrants while omitting that the Trump administration kept the cash flowing. In fact, a $200 million program that gives illegal alien minors free lawyers was […]
The post Leftist Group Gets Millions of Taxpayer Dollars to Help Illegal Aliens After Trump Order Bans It appeared first on Judicial Watch.
Memo to Trump: Stop negotiating and ramp up deportations
The America First movement and its realignment of the Republican Party around common-sense governance hangs in the balance. The organized left — politicians, media, and militia-style street actors — has now gone public with an alliance with lukewarm, establishment Republicans, especially in the U.S. Senate.
Their goal is obvious: Preserve the gains of mass illegal and legal immigration by shutting down deportations at any meaningful scale.
This coordinated campaign has now expanded into a political operation designed to force Donald Trump and his team into a public humiliation ritual.
The left wants that outcome because its political future depends on it. Establishment Republicans want it to protect their corporate donors’ access to cheap labor and, to some extent, to keep their standing with the New York Times cocktail-party set and similar elite networks.
To advance those aims, this alliance has seized on the shooting of Alex Pretti by United States Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis. Reports describe Pretti as part of an online group involved in doxxing, harassment, and physical obstruction of immigration enforcement operations. Officers shot him after he interfered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations while armed and carrying two extra 21-round extended magazines.
News reports also indicate Pretti physically engaged federal law enforcement in a separate incident a week before his fatal encounter. If those reports hold — the FBI is investigating — they reinforce the threat posed by anti-ICE activists willing to escalate from propaganda to physical obstruction and violence.
The left’s framing collapses under the publicly available evidence. Our team of seasoned, independent law enforcement experts at the Oversight Project released an analysis clearing Border Patrol in the shooting based on that record. We expect the announced federal investigation to reach the same conclusion and to focus on the illegal conduct that led to Pretti’s death.
Our team also uncovered Signal chat messages that shed light on the riots in Minneapolis and appear to include Pretti.
First, those chats bolster federal warnings that violence against immigration enforcement has taken on the characteristics of domestic terrorism. One agitator urged fellow rioters to don “suicide vests.” That language speaks for itself.
Second, we located what may be Pretti’s final Signal messages. They show an active participant in a militarized, organized group engaged in unlawful activity, including doxxing and obstruction. That record shreds the propaganda portraying Pretti as a peaceful observer rather than someone who joined a broader effort to disrupt federal law enforcement and died as a result.
This coordinated campaign has now expanded into a political operation designed to force Donald Trump and his team into a public humiliation ritual.
At first, the president offered token separation from the actions of his own officials — either as a cautious gesture or a fig leaf meant to highlight the opposition’s radicalism. He pulled back some federal presence in Minneapolis, and some reports indicate officials were told to narrow operations temporarily to a limited subset of illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes in addition to immigration violations.
Establishment Republicans have moved in parallel. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) has launched a major amnesty push, announced — predictably — in the New York Times. Senate Democrats caused a partial government shutdown over ICE funding and say they won’t relent unless Republicans accept permanent de facto amnesty by crippling enforcement. They want new barriers, including judicial warrants for each operation, even for millions who have already exhausted years of due process they did not deserve in the first place.
That plan relies on narrative, not facts.
ICE received a considerable funding boost in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The funding bill headed for passage this week funds the rest of the DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responding to a major storm affecting large swaths of the country. Democrats and some Senate Republicans won’t let facts interfere with a useful storyline, and the corporate left-wing media will amplify it.
RELATED: The left is at war in Minnesota. America is watching football.
Blaze Media Illustration
The squeeze continues. They want Trump trapped in a corner. Under pressure in the streets and in the press — and on Capitol Hill — Trump sent border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to negotiate some sort of settlement with local and state authorities.
The response came fast. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) and Gov. Tim Walz (D) made clear they would not change anything material about how their governments shield illegal aliens. They won’t even allow ICE into jails to pick up criminal illegal aliens. They understand their leverage against this White House: friendly media and weak Republicans. They plan to keep playing that hand instead of bargaining with Homan.
That leaves one prudent course for the president: Deport more illegal aliens.
The country decided this question through law when it barred illegal entry and unlawful presence in the first place. Voters decided it again in 2024 when Trump campaigned on the largest deportation operation in American history. That mandate matters more than any cable-news frenzy.
This fight won’t stay confined to Minneapolis. It forms part of a coordinated attempt by people who never supported Trump to cut his knees out from under him — through intimidation, propaganda, and political sabotage. He should treat them as adversaries, not good-faith partners. He can break out of this trap by enforcing the mandate.
Master of the medium: The key to Trump’s success
When Donald Trump addressed the World Economic Forum last week, he was draped in the tricolor semiotics of American mythology: a bright red tie blazing against a navy suit and a brilliant white shirt, the azure backdrop proclaiming “World Economic Forum” in relentless repetition.
“We are the hottest country in the world,” he declared, as actual temperatures prepared to plummet to record lows. Yet this apparent contradiction reveals not cynicism but rather a profound understanding of politics and human nature. Trump operates in the order of symbolic truth, where the sign serves not to deceive but to reveal deeper patterns of meaning.
Trump represents the possibility of postmodern politics with a human face. He understands that all communication is mediated by signs, but refuses to let that understanding descend into cynicism or nihilism.
His appearance in Switzerland, swimming in the red, white, and blue of the American flag while surrounded by the gray neutrality of European technocracy, was no accident. It was a deliberate act of semiotic resistance, a refusal to surrender national identity to the homogenizing forces of globalist abstraction. Trump understands intuitively what others labor to learn: In an age of mass communication, the skillful deployment of signs can restore meaning to a world threatened by semantic collapse. His color palette functioned as a vital reminder that symbols still possess power, that representation can serve truth rather than obscure it.
Trump’s brilliance lies in his mastery of semiotic confrontation, the ability to use signs to liberate rather than manipulate consciousness. Consider his campaign trail theatrics. At McDonald’s, adorned with the golden arches apron, Trump still wore a shirt and tie beneath. Sitting in the cab of a garbage truck, Trump sported the municipal worker’s vest over his customary business attire. These are not cynical photo opportunities but rather sophisticated acts of cultural translation that bridge the seemingly unbridgeable divide between elite and populist semiotics.
What emerges is an authentic synthesis of noblesse oblige fused with genuine populist connection, a reconciliation of contradictory class signifiers that reflects the complexity of American identity itself. The suit signals achievement, ambition, the American dream realized; the apron and vest signal respect for work, acknowledgment of service, solidarity with labor.
Worn simultaneously, they create something genuinely new: the sign of a leader who refuses the false choice between solidarity and excellence, who demonstrates that one can honor both hierarchy and equality, and who proves that American success need not require abandoning American roots.
Trump’s authenticity derives from his refusal of pretense. He does not condescend to workers by pretending to be one; instead, he honors them by acknowledging both his difference in standing and his connection. This is transparency in the service of truth, semiotics deployed not to obscure reality but to illuminate it.
Consider the counterexample. Tim Walz, who appeared before cameras in a hoodie and camouflage hat to play video games during the run-up to the 2024 election, reveals the peril of semiotic incoherence. The hoodie is part of the trappings of urban youth culture; the camo hat invokes rural sporting traditions.
These signs do not synthesize but clash. Walz’s campaign costume changes — T-shirts, flannel, the performative hunting expedition where he fumbled with his shotgun — revealed a man attempting to mirror his audience rather than lead it, to reflect rather than project, to follow the focus groups rather than trust his own symbolic integrity.
Trump, conversely, evokes what I have elsewhere argued is the archetypal American cowboy: the figure who mediates between civilization and wilderness, between order and freedom, and who brings justice through strength tempered by wisdom. Like the heroes of John Ford’s Westerns, Trump embodies the necessary tension between competing American values.
While he channels the gangster’s aesthetic — the gilded maximalism reproduced in the Oval Office itself, all gold and grandeur — he transforms this signifier. Whereas Tony Montana’s opulence signified corruption and moral decay, Trump’s aesthetic announces the democratic right to success, the vindication of ambition, and the refusal of WASP austerity that once policed the boundaries of acceptable aspiration.
RELATED: Trump’s space order shows why the Outer Space Treaty must go
Photo by Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Here we approach the crucial innovation. Unlike the gangster narrative’s tragic arc, Trump has demonstrated that the American story need not end in inevitable decline. He exists not in perpetual limbo but in perpetual possibility, proving that narrative structure itself can be transcended through will and symbolic mastery.
This may be his most profound contribution: the demonstration that we need not accept predetermined endings, that the script can be rewritten, that American optimism can triumph over European fatalism.
We may inhabit a world where most signs are detached from their referents. But Trump demonstrates something more hopeful — that skilled semioticians can reattach meaning to symbols and make signs serve human purposes once again. He produces images that acknowledge their constructed nature while simultaneously insisting on their genuine significance.
Trump’s is not the demagogue’s manipulation — the false sign pretending to be spontaneous truth — but rather the showman’s honest performance that announces its own artistry while delivering authentic emotion and connection.
In this sense, Trump represents the possibility of postmodern politics with a human face. He understands that all communication is mediated by signs, but refuses to let that understanding descend into cynicism or nihilism. Trump is a symbol that remains tethered to the symbolized, a map that guides us toward the territory rather than replacing it, a simulation that points beyond itself toward genuine experience and real accomplishment.
We can celebrate this achievement and recognize that Trump has made explicit what democratic leadership has always required: that political power in the age of mass media must work skillfully with signs precisely to preserve authentic human connection, and that acknowledged performance can be more honest than claimed spontaneity.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.
Time May No Longer Be on Putin’s Side
With two-thirds of Ukraine’s power grid destroyed by months of Russian missile barrages, which have left much of the population…
Appropriations talk, executive orders walk: The great MAGA budget betrayal
Money talks. Everything else is just BS. That is true in all areas of life, but it’s especially true in politics.
Trump is now repeating the modus operandi of his first term, in which he proclaims bold cuts, reforms, and changes to federal policies, programs, and agency spending levels in the form of executive orders. He summarily ignores his own policies by lobbying Republicans in Congress to pass annual appropriations bills that fund pretty much every spending level and most policies of his predecessor — so much so that most of these bills garner support from all but the most radical Democrats in Congress.
This bill is the crown jewel budget bill of the GOP trifecta at the peak of Trump’s power, and yet Democrats have no concerns voting for it.
Unfortunately, it is the government funding that matters when attempting to secure permanent change to federal agencies, not ephemeral executive orders or press releases.
On Friday, House Republicans passed a minibus bill with all but the 64 most progressive of the 213 Democrats voting yes. The fact that the 24 most conservative Republicans opposed it despite pressure from the administration should tell you that it does not reflect Trump’s campaign promises.
This minibus included Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Trump has proposed hundreds of policies throughout those departments that are extremely offensive to Democrats, yet they had no problem supporting the budget bill. Why?
They feel they dodged a bullet in this funding bill, especially while being out of power. The statement from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says it all:
These bills invest in working people across the country and utterly reject President Trump’s plan to defund our kids’ education, evict millions of families, and slash lifesaving medical research nearly in half. The message to President Trump is: America will continue to fund cancer research, we are going to keep investing in affordable housing and tackling homelessness, Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.
…
While there’s a whole lot more I wish these bills would have addressed, these compromise bills protect critical investments in the American people, reject truly heartless cuts that would have undone decades of progress — and they are a significantly better outcome than another yearlong CR. I look forward to ensuring they get signed into law.
This bill is the crown jewel budget bill of the GOP trifecta at the peak of Trump’s power, and yet Democrats not only have no concerns voting for it but enthusiastically support it. What gives?
The DOGE appears to be a fossil from a hundred years ago. The $1.25 trillion “minibus” bill reversed all the DOGE cuts to agencies like the NIH and CDC. Overall, spending will increase slightly over Biden’s final year — a year that was notorious for biblical levels of spending.
Here are some of the top concerns with the FY 2026 budget bill.
- It fully funds the Department of Education. Even as Trump “abolished” the entire department, this bill funds the department at Biden’s level of $78.7 billion. Worse, Democrats secured a provision prohibiting the administration from transferring Education Department funds to other agencies, which had been a point of contention in negotiations. Once again, appropriations talk, executive orders walk.
- According to a Democrat summary of the bill, the total funding for the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill is $224 billion, a slight increase in current levels. This is simply astounding given that Republicans never believed in even having these departments at the federal level. If we can’t cut from these agencies, then where will we cut?
- Section 8 galore! Well, what’s worse than locking in Biden’s education and health spending? Increasing Biden’s HUD spending by nearly $8 billion! If there was ever a department conservatives wanted to abolish, it was always HUD. This is something that should be determined at the local level. Once again, Trump promised to cut the department in half, yet increased spending for every program he planned to trim or eliminate.
The bill provides $38.4 billion in tenant-based Section 8 vouchers and a $2.4 billion increase from fiscal 2025. It also provides $18.5 billion for project-based rental assistance, a $1.7 billion increase from last year.
The bill also provides $1.25 billion for HUD’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program, after the Trump administration budget request and the original Republican House Transportation-HUD appropriations bill promised to eliminate the program. These programs provide grants to state and local governments and local NGOs to essentially seed red states with liberal voters and ruin the character of rural communities.
RELATED: Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The bill also provides nearly $7 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Program and the Economic Development Initiatives for housing-related activities and $86 million for fair housing programs. Trump promised for years to eliminate the program altogether.
The only point of contention in the bill is the DHS portion, which Democrats are now threatening to oppose. But let’s be clear: Before the fatal shooting in Minneapolis, they were even willing to pass Trump’s DHS bill and did not perceive it as much of a threat.
At the time the bill was released, Senator Murray boasted that Democrats “defeated Republicans’ hard-fought push to give ICE an even bigger annual budget, successfully cut ICE’s detention budget and capacity, cut CBP’s budget by over $1 billion, and secured important, although still insufficient, new constraints on DHS.” She also lauded the rejection of “all Republican poison pill riders,” such as defunding sanctuary cities.
Democrats are, of course, forced to play to their base. However, on the specifics, this bill contains some horrendous provisions.
- Cheap foreign labor: It allows the secretary to double H-2B visas, going from 66,000 to 130,000 H-2B visas.
- Prohibits ICE from deporting illegal aliens who sponsor unaccompanied minors based on any information provided by HHS. So HHS is supposed to vet the sponsors, but if it determines they are here illegally and tells ICE that, ICE is prohibited from deporting them.
Why would we double foreign worker visas and make it harder to remove those literally engaged in trafficking children over the border by hiring cartel smugglers?
Well, despite all the rhetoric, press releases, tweets, and executive orders, good ol’ Joe Biden had it right when he proclaimed, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” Evidently, we are now valuing almost everything all that he funded in his budget when he made that comment.
Empowering Patients in a Broken System
President Trump reentered the healthcare debate with The Great Healthcare Plan (GHP), as families confront another year of rising insurance costs. After…
‘F**k off’ and ‘Get ICE the hell out of Minnesota’: Democrats rattle sabers after Bondi demands voter rolls
Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded that Minnesota leaders share detailed records on the state’s federally funded welfare programs, repeal its sanctuary policies, and grant access to voter rolls. The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party responded with a sharp, dismissive rejection.
On Saturday, Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) describing how the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce immigration laws have been hindered by local leaders. She noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents are facing a 1,300% increase in violence, including a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks.
‘Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are demanding access to Minnesotans’ voter rolls in exchange for relieving us from the federal siege we are under.’
“The lawlessness in the streets is matched by the unprecedented financial fraud occurring on your watch,” Bondi told Walz. “And the out of control fraud in your state also implicates election security.”
Bondi made three requests.
First she demanded that Walz provide the federal government with all of the state’s records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs to allow for an investigation.
She pressed Walz to repeal Minnesota’s sanctuary policies, blaming them for an increase in crime and violence by preventing the state’s detention facilities from cooperating with ICE.
“I urge you to reach an agreement with ICE that allows them to remove illegal aliens in custody of Minnesota’s prisons and jails and avoids pushing these interactions into your streets,” Bondi wrote.
RELATED: Rioter bit off part of federal agent’s finger amid Minneapolis ‘rampant assault,’ DHS says
Photographer: Jack Califano/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Lastly she demanded that Walz allow the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to access the state’s voter rolls to confirm they comply with federal law.
“Do not obstruct federal immigration enforcement; do not allow rioters to take over the streets and houses of worship; do not hinder federal officials from investigating financial fraud and violations of election laws,” Bondi stated. “Whether state and local politicians stand in the way or not, we will work every day to protect Americans and make Minnesota Safe Again. I request that you join us in that effort.”
The DFL Party issued a statement on Sunday responding to Bondi, accusing the attorney general and President Donald Trump of attempting to “extort our state voter rolls.”
“Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are demanding access to Minnesotans’ voter rolls in exchange for relieving us from the federal siege we are under,” DFL Party Chair Richard Carlbom said.
“Let us be direct: F**k off,” Carlbom remarked.
RELATED: Democrats threaten to shut down government over ICE funding: ‘We are not powerless’
Ken Martin. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
In a separate statement, the DFL Party accused Trump and Bondi of trying to “threaten and intimidate us with violence,” following a deadly shooting involving federal immigration agents and Illinois native Alex Pretti, 37.
The DFL Party shared a statement from Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin.
“Last night, following the heinous murder of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti at the hands of a federal immigration agent, Pam Bondi drafted and sent a threatening letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz attempting to extort the state into handing over its voter rolls as part of an ongoing campaign to undermine local elections and build a national database for Trump’s political revenge and retribution,” Martin stated.
He vowed that the DNC would “stand with local elected officials and fight like hell, including in the courts.”
“For Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and Greg Bovino, we have one message for you: Get ICE the hell out of Minnesota. Now,” Martin concluded.
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Liberal reporter frustrates American tennis stars by asking the same tired question
The Australian Open has become about politics instead of tennis, thanks to one reporter’s questions.
As men and women have won matches at the tournament in Melbourne, Australia, a male reporter has consistently popped up to ask players about their feelings about current U.S. politics.
‘We are very diverse, we are a home of immigrants.’
“I’ve been asking a lot of the American players just how it feels to play under the American flag right now. And I’m curious how you feel,” the man asked No.4-ranked Amanda Anisimova on Wednesday, with noted vocal fry.
Anisimova was praised for shutting the questions down, but it turns out the same reporter has asked the same divisive question to at least four other American tennis players.
The Women’s Tennis Association’s No.6-ranked Jessica Pegula faced almost the same question on Wednesday, though more specifically about living in Florida.
Pegula’s answer likely won’t please nationalists as much as Anisimova’s did.
“Personally Florida’s been, I think, OK. I think Florida, there’s a big melting pot of different people from all over, in Florida,” the 31-year-old went on. “So I feel like especially me being in South Florida, near Miami, I mean, there’s people of all over the country that come to move to Florida, and there’s a lot of international people that are there. I don’t know if that’s maybe why you kind of get a lot of different cultural differences in a good way honestly.”
The reporter, who is alleged by several outlets such as Breitbart and Yahoo to likely be the Athletic’s Owen Lewis, has not publicly confirmed he has asked the questions despite sharing that he has been in Australia covering the event.
Next up was men’s No.9-ranked Taylor Fritz from California, who on Thursday had just completed a second-round win. Fritz buried his head in his hands as he answered the question, albeit reluctantly.
“Not sure what we’re, like, specifically talking about, but there is a lot going on in the U.S., and I don’t know, I feel like whatever I say here is going to get put in a headline, and it’s going to get taken out of context,” he groaned. “So I’d really rather not do something that’s going to cause a big distraction for me in the middle of the tournament.”
On Thursday, No.9-ranked female Madison Keys from Illinois faced the reporter. Her reaction was much more progressive than her compatriots, saying, “I’m not a fan of divisiveness, and I think the beauty of the U.S. is we are a mixing pot.”
“We are very diverse, we are a home of immigrants. And I hope that we can get back to those values,” she added.
No.3-ranked woman and Florida native Coco Gauff took it a step further by bringing race politics into the mix with her response.
Gauff initially said she feels “a bit fatigued talking about it.”
She then claimed, “It is hard, also I think, being a black woman in this country and having to experience things, even online.”
She argued that “marginalized communities” are being affected, and the only thing she can do is “donate and speak out.”
Gauff then cited the fact that she posted a Martin Luther King Jr. video online recently and said, “We must keep moving forward,” as an example of her activism.
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Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda
Imagine what the Republican Party would have looked like had President Trump been endorsing conservative reformers down-ballot rather than milquetoast RINOs backed by special interests for five consecutive cycles.
In 2016, President Trump stormed the corporatist castle of the country-club GOP. But over the next five election cycles, he pulled up the rope ladder behind him. He left the reinforcements outside the gates, which crushed his ability to deliver on his promises in his first term. It also allowed generic Republicans to ride his brand while drifting away from his original America First message.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. When Trump protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
Now he is making the same mistake in his second term by backing status-quo, corporatist Republicans in key races.
2026 is do or die
The opening months of 2026 should be the Super Bowl of primaries for the right. Vulnerable establishment Republicans and open seats sit on the board across solid red states — for Senate and governor.
Even if Republicans struggle in swing states, Trump could still lock in a generation of red-state power by backing grassroots conservatives in open seats and insurgents challenging weak incumbents.
Instead, he keeps yanking the rug out from under his own base.
Louisiana bait and switch
Over the weekend, the president endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) for U.S. Senate in Louisiana. Until now, Trump has refused to back conservatives against incumbents — except when he endorsed against Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Bob Good of Virginia in 2024.
So yes, Trump finally moved against Sen. Bill Cassidy, a pro-COVID-vaccine liberal wasting a conservative seat. But he waited until more conservative candidates — state Treasurer John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, and state Rep. Julie Emerson — softened Cassidy up. Then Trump picked a challenger who matches Cassidy’s worldview in a prettier package.
Letlow sides with Cassidy on government-run health care and the COVID vaccines. She also voted against penalizing FDA officials for unlawfully expanding access to mifepristone. Trump carried Louisiana by 22 points and won 57 of 64 parishes. He could have used his clout to elect a conservative stalwart like Miguez. Instead, he chose another version of the same problem.
RELATED: Voters won’t buy ‘freedom in Iran’ while Minneapolis goes lawless
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Governors matter now
If Democrats regain Washington, governors become the last real barrier against federal abuse. Red-state governors will matter more than ever, especially if Democrats install a weaponized Gavin Newsom-style agenda at the national level.
After Ron DeSantis turned Florida from swing state into the red-state model, Republicans should be building an entire bench of governors who make even DeSantis look tame. But Trump’s endorsement habits keep locking in mediocrity. In Florida, he is backing Byron Donalds — a favorite of the legislative RINOs who fought DeSantis for years.
Fourteen governorships are up in states Republicans should win even in a rough year: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. Trump hasn’t made one bold, movement-building endorsement as he did with DeSantis in 2018. Instead, he has already pre-emptively endorsed Idaho Gov. Brad Little for a third term and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for a fourth.
Texas betrayal rewarded
Trump has started interfering even in state legislative races. In Texas, Republicans cut a deal with Democrats and installed Dustin Burrows as speaker against the will of most of the party. Burrows rewarded them by handing committees to Democrats and killing conservative priorities.
When conservatives moved to defeat the traitors, Trump carpet-bombed the effort by endorsing Burrows and his lieutenants for re-election.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. Trump keeps canceling that competition. When he protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
’I don’t think that’s relevant’: American tennis star shuts down reporters fishing for anti-Trump answers
A 24-year-old professional tennis player reminded reporters that politics has nothing to do with her sport.
Amanda Anisimova, born in New Jersey to Russian immigrants, is the No.4-ranked player in the Women’s Tennis Association, just behind fellow American Coco Gauff.
‘I don’t think that’s relevant.’
After a straight-set victory in the second round of the Australian Open, the American spoke to members of the media in Melbourne, Australia.
Lodged between questions regarding her recent performance was an oddly political query about how it feels to be representing America.
“I’ve been asking a lot of the American players just how it feels to play under the American flag right now. And I’m curious how you feel,” a male reporter asked, using significant vocal fry.
Anisimova did not take the bait, replying, “I was born in America, so I’m always proud to represent my country. And yeah, a lot of us are doing really well, and it’s great to see a lot of, you know, great athletes on the women’s side, on the men’s side.”
Anisimova was likely referring to the current success her compatriots are having on the tour. Americans hold three of the top six positions in the women’s tennis rankings currently, with several more in the top 30.
“I feel like we’re all doing a great job representing ourselves,” Anisimova added.
However the reporter wasn’t ready to let the topic die just yet.
“Sorry. Um, just to clarify a little,” the man continued. “I mean, sort of in the context of the last year of everything that’s been happening in the U.S., does that complicate that feeling at all?”
Anisimova seemed to think the follow-up question was unworthy of an answer.
“I don’t think that’s relevant,” she said with a smirk.
Fans who watched the press conference on YouTube sided unanimously with the young star and pointed out that the press conference culminated with yet another political question. In fact, it was nearly identical to the first.
“America is a, you know, divided place at the moment, euphemistically,” another male reporter prefaced. “Do you ever find it difficult or distracting to play under the American flag at the moment?”
Anisimova again brushed the question off.
RELATED: Tennis player labeled ‘racist’ for scolding black opponent after match: ‘I was NEVER racist‘
Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images
“I mean, I’m not planning to, you know, switch my nationality or represent a different country. I was born there, so it’s not something that comes to my mind.”
Women’s tennis can be strangely political at times.
In fact, the WTA does not showcase the flag of its ranked players if they are from Russia. This includes world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 7 Mirra Andreeva. Three more Russians in the top 50 do not have Russian flags on their official WTA profiles either.
The same does not apply to Ukrainian athletes, as No. 20 Marta Kostyuk and No. 28 Dayana Yastremska have their flag proudly next to their names.
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