White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned the nation about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda on Thursday at a press briefing. But there’s another name she could have added.   Meet Omar Fateh, a Muslim democratic socialist running for Minneapolis mayor.   National attention has recently turned toward this 35-year-old native of the District of Columbia, after a video resurfaced online in which Fateh dismissed concerns about immigrant terrorism and called white people the “greatest domestic threat.”  The son of Somalian immigrants, Fateh grew up outside the Washington, D.C., suburbs, graduating from George Mason University and afterward moving to the greener pastures of Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota around 2015.   Though a native of the United States, Fateh frequently refers to Somalia as “home.”   A video on X during a senate campaign speech shows him saying, “I understand that our Somali communities are all connected to each other, here in Minnesota and back home, and I ask for your support.”  Fateh was elected to the Minnesota state Senate in 2020. That’s the same year as the Black Lives Matter riots in Minneapolis, which cost the city around $55 million in damages, according to a New York Post report. Fateh served two terms in the Senate, where he proposed providing free college tuition for families earning under $80,000 a year.  Fateh, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, will face incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey in the November election.  Fateh’s mayoral platform looks very similar to another member of the Democratic Socialists of America—Mamdani.  Besides promising government-paid college education, Fateh is looking to freeze rent prices, raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and “end the cycle of the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) violence and brutality that has held our city captive for so many years,” as he says on his website.  According to the Citizen Watch Report, Fateh “pledges to prohibit the Minneapolis Police Department from interacting with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] under any circumstance.”  Fateh is far to the left on social issues, too. His vision includes supporting illegal aliens in public education, ensuring that Minneapolis remains a “safe haven” for abortion and “gender-affirming health care,” and providing funding for employee resource groups to build and sustain a “diverse workforce.”  But Fateh’s most controversial take yet resurfaced recently on X, where a video from a 2023 Senate floor speech showed him suggesting that his white, Republican colleagues sitting next to him looked like terrorists.  Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh: "The real domestic threat is…. Whites" pic.twitter.com/ECM0hCivJx— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2025 Speaking of illegal aliens, Fateh said, “We’ve heard them being called terrorists. … We’ve heard that they’re a threat to our national security, and that’s a flat out lie.”  “You want to know who the real threat is?” Fateh continued. “They look like many of the members that sit in the front.”   The socialist then cited the Department of Homeland Security, saying, “The greatest domestic threat facing the United States comes from ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.’”  The post There’s Another Democratic Socialist Running for Mayor appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. President Donald Trump is negotiating with the college presidents and elite universities in general, places like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UC Berkeley. And he apparently wants them to make concessions in order for them to receive federal funds. They are resisting him, at least initially, they were. But as this duel enters the public domain, I think the university presidents are kind of worried because they know what they’ve been doing. We’ve discussed that. They were overcharging the government—maybe up to 50% surcharges, overhead—on federal grants. They had violated the Supreme Court’s 2023 civil rights rulings. They had racial preferences in hiring, promotion, admissions. Separate graduations, separate dorms, predicated on one’s race. There was an epidemic of antisemitism. They were bringing in 300,000 students, most of whom were from illiberal regimes in China and the Middle East. Etc., etc. They don’t want that to be known. And yet, if you look at the protest on campus, the students and what the faculty are saying, they don’t wanna back down. So, these presidents are saying, “Listen, we have limited funds. If we lose billions of dollars from the federal government, that’s one thing. If they tax our endowment income, that’s another. If we can only charge 15% surcharges on federal grants, that’s a third. And we’re gonna lose $400 or $500, $600 million a year. We’ve gotta cut a deal.” So, how do these presidents do it? They’re afraid of their students. They’re afraid of their Marxist faculty. So what they’re doing is, essentially, they’re talking to the Trump administration. And they’re going to go right back and they’re going to say, “You know, I did not want to do this. I really did not want to cut a deal. I want to keep going with DEI. I think we have a right to. But I can’t. Donald Trump’s a tough customer. If I don’t cut a deal with him, we’re gonna go broke. We’ll get no federal funds. We’ll get no federal grants. We’ll get an even bigger tax on our endowment. So, I’ve got to cut a deal. He made me do it.” In other words, Donald Trump will prove, if these presidents are smart, to be a useful vehicle. They will use him as the greater threat, so they can tell their own faculty and students—who would destroy the university, had their way—that the president has no choice but now to make moderate reforms on the prompt of Donald Trump or face the consequences later, which would be veritable bankruptcy. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post This Is How Elite University Presidents Will Cave to President Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“We are in the second American Revolution,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts declared Friday.  “I don’t mean that there needs to be bloodshed,” Roberts said at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 52nd Annual Meeting. “Although [on] The Left, if you spend some time in Washington, D.C. around Capitol Hill and outside of the Heritage Foundation every Monday, you know that these people are getting more and more violent.” Roberts talked about what issues need to be addressed to promote human flourishing for the American people. Roberts said that through leadership such as that of Heritage and Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana, the country is “renewing sovereignty and self-governance and faith and fellow man.”  Over the next twelve months as the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, Roberts said that we must not lose sight of the founding principles our country was built upon and remember them.  The most important institution in society in the family, Roberts said, and noted that the “health of the family determines the health of the republic,”  “We’ve been trying to figure out what’s the appropriate role of public policy, whether at the federal level or state level or local level, to arrest declining birth rates, to arrest declining marriage rates,” the Heritage president said. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, is not the answer to these declining rates, he went on.  Roberts applauded Braun for his “common sense smart conservationist” approach to environmental policy, citing the Green New Deal as one of the leading factors of overpriced housing, acting as a “barrier” to the American Dream.  Roberts also praised the Trump administration for its handling of the immigration crisis and added that Heritage would recommend that at the state level only citizens are counted in consensus. He said that “sanctuary cities and runaway municipalities” are unfortunately standing in the way of the federal government doing its job to remove illegal aliens. Another “America first” policy Roberts recommended was to replace the standard ACT and SAT test requirements for students applying to college with the Classical Learning Test.  Roberts said that he believes quality education is essential. Looking to the future, Roberts said that over the next year, Heritage will be publishing an “index of cultural flourishing” to give information on “everything we’re doing in public policy, at the state level, at the federal level, at the local level.” “If we start thinking about all of our policy decisions through that lens, then I can tell you that America’s 250th birthday next year will actually be the beginning of another, a second 250th period in which we continue to be the last best hope in the world,” Roberts said. The post Heritage President Says America’s Second Revolution Must Aim at Cultural Flourishing appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday a reduction in force that will save taxpayers nearly $750 million. The workforce reorganization is part of the agency’s “comprehensive restructuring efforts,” and will affect the Office of Research and Development, the EPA’s scientific research arm. After the latest reduction, the EPA will have cut its workforce from 16,155 employees in January to 12,448 employees today. That includes 3,201 individuals who voluntarily separated from the agency this year. In response to the reductions, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin pointed to President Donald Trump’s leadership and cost-cutting agenda as the impetus for the decision. “Under President Trump’s leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback,” Zeldin said. He added, “This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars.” The EPA announced it was refocusing employees on its most important obligations and necessary functions. Amid news of the agency’s reduction, the EPA announced it is in the process of creating a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions. It will focus on research and science, supporting rulemaking and technical assistance for states. The reduction in force comes after the EPA announced in March the termination of Biden-era Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice programs. The post EPA Saves Taxpayers $750 Million With Workforce Reductions appeared first on The Daily Signal.

After weeks of right-wing infighting, President Donald Trump on Thursday evening ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case in which the deceased mysterious billionaire was accused of sexually abusing scores of underage girls. The president’s post on Truth Social carried a begrudging tone:  Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now! Minutes later, Bondi took to X and said, “we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.” However, a judge will determine what is ultimately unsealed, and the review process might take some time. Those on the Right pushing for more transparency regarding the Epstein case cheered the move as a step in the right direction, but it’s unlikely to end the Epstein saga because the grand jury testimony makes up only a fraction of what the government currently has on Epstein and some questions remain about the case, warranting further investigation. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., has been pushing for radical transparency regarding the Epstein case. As a member of the House Oversight Committee, he could be one of the major players if Congress decides to conduct its own fact-finding missions into the Epstein case. He joined “The Signal Sitdown” for a special episode about the lingering questions regarding the Epstein case and what the Trump administration and Congress can do to give the American people answers. Before Trump issued his directive to Bondi on Thursday night, the president had thrown water on the idea of releasing the files. “For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” he asked in a lengthy July 12 Truth Social post. “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands.” However, Bondi and other members of the Trump administration for months had been signaling that they would be releasing more information about the Epstein case. That changed when a DOJ and FBI joint memo released on July 7 claimed there was no Epstein “client list,” that Epstein died of a suicide, and that there would be no further disclosures.  “They thought that they finally had the goods and it turns out, you know, it’s like Lucy, with the football, getting the football yanked away just as you get there,” Burlison said of the DOJ and FBI’s actions. Burlison was shocked. “I actually thought that this was going to happen,” he told The Daily Signal. Not only was releasing the Epstein files a campaign promise, but, over the years, the Epstein case became an encapsulation of the forces that propelled Trump and Republicans to victory in 2024. “This goes to the core of ‘Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Who owns this government really?’ And, I mean, that’s why I think people feel so black-pilled about this because they got very close to getting information about a deep state conspiracy and then were told you’re not going to get it.” “This issue, I don’t think, is going to go away,” Burlison added. As midterms approach, “this is a huge Achilles heel for us,” he told The Daily Signal. “Look, the Democrats know that this is an open wound and they’re gonna scratch this as much as possible. They are trying to do discharge petitions, they’re trying to throw amendments, use Epstein amendments, and get a vote. And it’s going to keep happening. And honestly, I have a feeling that the Democrats are gonna do this every day or every chance they can get until the election.” All that might force Republicans in Congress to take matters into their own hands. “I think it’s only going to build and I think that, eventually, they’ll figure out a way to release these files, and if not, Congress needs to step up and enforce it,” Burlison said. “At the end of the day, more needs to be done,” he told The Daily Signal. “I would love to have hearings.” Burlison also pointed out that Congress has not had an Epstein-focused hearing yet. “I told Representative [Anna Paulina] Luna, ‘You know, we may not be able to get a discharge petition on a bill, or we may not be able to pass a bill, but at least can’t we just have a hearing, at least give the victims a platform?’” Burlison recalled. On the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, “Chairman [James] Comer has tremendous power,” Burlison continued. “I mean, he has the power to subpoena people, to bring people in. I think if the chairman wanted to, he would, we would, be able to get quite a bit done through the oversight committee.” “They’re investigating, right now, the Joe Biden auto-pen scandal, right?” he asked rhetorically. “I would like for the oversight committee to address Epstein in the same manner.” The post Why Won’t Congress Investigate the Epstein Case? appeared first on The Daily Signal.