The California Franchise Tax Board announced that it will refuse to treat newly created Trump Accounts as tax-deferred accounts for state tax purposes. In doing so, California is purposefully making it difficult for families to fully utilize Trump Accounts. As the San Francisco Chronicle notes, this is a major break from the state’s normal practice regarding retirement accounts: “[California] does automatically conform to most laws relating to retirement accounts such as IRAs, 401(k) plans and pensions. However, the Franchise Tax board has determined that even though the Trump Accounts are defined as a new type of IRA, the state does not conform to the section of the federal tax code that created them.” This means earnings from Trump Accounts will be taxed by California in the year they are realized, not deferred until distributed as intended. Savings accounts intended to help children save and invests for their future will now be taxed to fund California’s spending. When asked, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office refused to answer if Newsom would support a law overriding the Franchise Tax Board’s decision and conform with federal tax law. If Newsom and the Franchise Tax Board refuse to conform to the new federal tax rules, California families will now pay taxes on their children’s investment earnings. Months after Congress created federally tax-advantaged Trump Accounts to help young Americans start building wealth, California is positioning itself to turn a relatively simple pro-growth reform into a compliance nightmare. How Trump Accounts Work Trump Accounts are a new type of child-focused retirement investment vehicle created as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. Parents can open a Trump Account for any child under the age of 18. Additionally, every American child born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028 is eligible to receive a one-time $1,000 contribution from the Treasury Department that will be immediately invested in an index fund. Parents are authorized to manage the accounts until the child reaches age 18, at which point the account converts into a traditional IRA. Employers, nonprofits, and family members can contribute up to $5,000 to each Trump Account each year, with the employer contribution portion capped at $2,500. There is no cap on contributions from nonprofits. There is also no cap on contributions from state, local or tribal governments. Americans for Tax Reform is tracking the announcements of companies providing contributions to children’s Trump Accounts. You can find the full list here. Trump Accounts allow savings for children to grow tax deferred. Unless they live in California. California Taxes Trump Accounts California’s Franchise Tax Board has determined that Trump Accounts will not be tax-deferred accounts for state tax purposes. This means that California would tax earnings every single year as they are realized. Worse, employer contributions to Trump Accounts would also be taxed as income to the employee for state taxes purposes. This means parents will be stuck paying taxes on their employer’s contributions, as if it were income, even though they are not the ultimate beneficiary of the Trump Account. As Sandy Weiner, California editor for the tax information publisher Spidell Publishing, warns in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Because these accounts belong to the child and not the parent, Weiner said that “kiddie tax” rules would apply for California taxes—but not federal. The kiddie tax applies to income from a minor’s investment account. A certain amount of investment earnings each year is tax free, an additional amount is taxed at the child’s rate and anything over that is taxed at the parent’s rate.” Increased Paperwork Burden for California Families Because California refuses to comply with the federal treatment of Trump Accounts, families will have to deal with the headache of maintaining two separate tax records for the same account. One set would track contributions, earnings, and basis under federal law; the other would track California’s annual state taxes so they can avoid double taxation when these funds are inevitably withdrawn. As San Francisco certified public accountant Richard Pon explains: “The child will technically owe state income tax on their account earnings each year. Younger children probably won’t have enough income to have to pay tax or file a tax return. But they should record the taxable contributions and income earned each year that added to their California basis in the account, which will reduce their state taxes when they withdraw the money, but only if they track it.” California should conform state tax law to federal treatment. Anything less is a penalty on newborn savers; a toddler tax that punishes working families for participating in Trump Accounts. California’s families and their children deserve better. The post Gavin Newsom’s Toddler Tax Will Raid Kids’ Trump Accounts appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As President Donald Trump delivered a record-breaking 1 hour and 47 minute State of the Union address Tuesday night, political commentators were quick to dissect every line. Cable news panels lit up. News outlets published instant analysis. Lawmakers took to social media with quick takes. But a more fundamental question has emerged in the days since the speech: Who was watching? Fox News scored the highest ratings on TV, accounting for 67% of total cable viewers during the State of the Union, and securing the most viewers for Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s Democrat response. According to the final numbers from Neilsen, Fox’s TV channels had over 11.9 million viewers on cable and 1.9 million in 25-54 age demographic. Overall, however, viewership was down for Trump’s speech. Nielsen reported that 32.6 million people watched the State of the Union address across 15 TV networks, down from 36 million last year. By comparison, Trump’s 2017 speech had nearly 48 million viewers. President Bill Clinton holds the modern-day record with nearly 67 million viewers in 1993. Veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen, founder of the Napolitan Institute, said the State of the Union speech simply doesn’t attract as much attention—or have as much impact—as it once did. “In terms of its impact on public opinion and the midterm elections,” Rasmussen said, “I can say with a high degree of confidence, there won’t be any.” A Vanishing National Audience The numbers underscore a dramatic shift in how Americans consume political events. In the 1970s, when a president addressed the nation, regular programming was suspended across the three major broadcast networks. If you were watching TV that night, then you’d be watching the president’s address. The rise of cable television in the 1980s fractured that audience, but major presidential addresses still garnered widespread attention. Today, the media environment is completely different. Even though Trump’s address amassed fewer viewers this year, it’s still an notable turnout for a weeknight, nevertheless a drastic decline from Clinton’s numbers in the 1990s.  Streaming platforms, social media feeds, and on-demand programming have replaced the once-shared national moment. The internet offers constant options—and constant opinions from everyday Americans. The Daily Signal is among the news outlets that streamed the speech live to its audience on “The Tony Kinnett Cast.” More than 100,000 viewers tuned in for Kinnett’s coverage, which featured four members of Congress, Daily Signal journalists, and other commentators. When looking at the viewers, those who do tune in for the president’s speech tend to be highly engaged in politics: supporters eager to cheer, critics ready to rebut, and journalists searching for headlines. For many voters in the middle, according to Rasmussen, the speech simply does not register. Policy in a Fragmented Age That disengagement may carry broader political consequences—particularly on issues such as tariffs, where public opinion appears fluid. Recent polling shows 38% of voters believe tariffs benefit the economy, while 50% say they are harmful—a sharp shift in sentiment over the past several months. The issue has exposed fault lines within the Republican coalition, where traditional free-market conservatives have expressed skepticism even as Trump’s core supporters remain energized. Rasmussen argued that tariffs function more as political symbolism than as a detailed policy debate for most Americans. “The issue of tariffs is really a political symbol more than substance,” he said. “People don’t sit around talking about the impact of tariff policy. In fact, most voters don’t see tariffs as a contradiction to free markets in any way, shape, or form. They just view it as a sales tax.” The Electoral Equation This dynamic presents a challenge for Republicans. Trump’s most loyal supporters are motivated and highly participatory, which rivals Democrat voters. More traditional Republican voters—many of whom are less enthusiastic about tariffs—are also the ones historically less inclined to turn out in midterm elections. If major addresses like the State of the Union no longer reach beyond entrenched political camps, the president’s ability to reshape opinion on complex economic issues may be limited. In a media landscape defined by factions, even a lengthy speech from the president of the United States may struggle to break through—leaving the political war over policy issues to play out among voters who may not even have been watching in the first place. The post Trump Spoke for Nearly 2 Hours, but Who Was Really Watching? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The woman who helped organize the invasion of a St. Paul, Minnesota, church in the middle of service last month now faces an ethics complaint that may cost her the ability to practice law in the state. Nekima Levy Armstrong, a former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, has admitted to leading the agitators who invaded Cities Church on Sunday, Jan. 18. Agitators said they targeted the church because one of its pastors also works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Armstrong faces federal charges for interfering with the First Amendment rights of Christians, and she has pleaded not guilty. In order to practice law in Minnesota, attorneys must maintain an active license with the Minnesota Lawyer Registration Office and abide by professional standards. The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility in Minnesota investigates and prosecutes complaints of unethical conduct by lawyers, and the Center to Advance Security in America filed a complaint against Armstrong last month. “Nekima Levy Armstrong’s outrageous behavior in leading aggressive activists into a church during worship and potentially committing a federal crime is unacceptable conduct for an attorney,” James Fitzpatrick, the center’s director, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “We are hopeful the Minnesota Bar will initiate an investigation based on our complaint and are encouraged to see the Department of Justice investigating the matter.” ?HORRIFYING NEW DETAILSThe invasion of Cities Church was even worse than we thought. Agitators blocked stairs so "parents were unable to get to their children" at Sunday School.?One told a kid, "Do you know your parents are Nazis, they're going to burn in hell?"?1/7 pic.twitter.com/DUNPRdECGa— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 25, 2026 The Church Invasion A federal grand jury indicted 39 people, including Armstrong, on two charges: violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which also protects access to churches; and violating the Ku Klux Klan Act, which criminalizes efforts to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights—in this case, the right to the free exercise of religion. According to the indictment, between 20 and 40 agitators, who claimed to be opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement because one of the church’s pastors worked for ICE, refused to leave when asked and shouted, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!” The indictment also mentions that agitators screamed at crying children, blocked parents from getting to their children in Sunday School, and that one agitator told a child his parents were Nazis and going to hell. Armstrong organized the church invasion, and began the incident by interrupting service with “loud declarations about the church harboring a ‘director of ICE’ and indicating that the time for judgment had come,” according to the indictment. At her apparent direction, “other co-conspirators immediately joined in by yelling and blowing whistles in a takeover attack on the church, all of which quickly caused the situation in the church to become chaotic, menacing, and traumatizing to church members.” Violating Professional Ethics? The Center to Advance Security in America complaint, filed on Jan. 22, accuses Armstrong of violating the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct in at least two ways. The complaint notes that the rules forbid a lawyer from committing “a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.” They also forbid harassment “on the basis of … religion.” The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The office typically does not announce investigations, and its investigations can last as long as a year. Fitzpatrick told The Daily Signal that he has not heard from the office since filing the complaint. Nekima Levy Armstrong Bar ComplaintDownload The post Minnesota Church Invasion Leader Slapped With Ethics Complaint appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, following reports of his killing in a joint military operation conducted by the United States and Israel. “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon.  “This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS,” Trump said. A senior Israeli official told Reuters earlier in the day that Khamenei’s body was found, and Iranian media reported that his son-in-law and daughter-in-law were also killed in the joint operation against Iran that began early Saturday morning. In a post-Khamenei Iran, the future of the country would be in the hands of its citizens, according to Victoria Coates, the former deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, who spoke with The Daily Signal on Saturday before reports of Khamenei’s death. It is “not America’s mission to go and create democracy in Iran. That’s for the people of Iran if they wish to do it, or whatever other form of government they might want,” Coates told The Daily Signal. She currently serves as vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. In a video message announcing the operation early Saturday morning, Trump told the Iranian people that their freedom was “at hand.” “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” Trump said. Timing Operation Epic Fury, the joint operation, targeted key regime assets, military installations, and Khamenei’s compound. Neither Coates nor Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, believe the U.S. operation will last for an extended period of time. Both spoke with The Daily Signal before reports of Khamenei’s death. “What we’ve seen so far is something much closer to Venezuela than to Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, right in terms of administration signaling,” Berman said, referring to the U.S. capture of Venezuelan totalitarian leader Nicolás Maduro in January. “The optimal scenario for the president is for the supreme leader [of Iran] to go and for a new crop of leaders that are more amenable to compromise with the United States to come about,” Berman said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, [Trump] wants to take out the entire regime, and he wants to pull it out, root and branch.” In Venezuela, members of Maduro’s regime remain in power, but have proven to be amenable to cooperating with the U.S. now that Maduro is sitting in prison in New York. Trump said in a video announcing the U.S. strikes in Iran that the operation is being conducted “for the future.” “We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran,” Trump said. US Targets The U.S. sought a diplomatic solution with Iran during three rounds of recent negotiations, but Iran refused to agree to stop enriching stockpiles of uranium. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, one of the diplomats involved in recent talks between the U.S. and Iran, told CBS News that the Iranians were willing to minimize enrichment, forgo stockpiling nuclear material, and allow IAEA inspections. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said in his video message Saturday, adding, “We’re going to annihilate their navy.” Coates says she believes there are “off ramps” built into Trump’s planned operation in Iran, “so if we get farther faster than we anticipated, the president can cut things off.”   Khamenei’s death could be one of the “off ramps” for U.S. deescalation in the region.   The U.S. is targeting Iran’s ships and naval capacities “because the president understands that the first natural Iranian reaction would be to do maneuvers to close or narrow the Strait of Hormuz,” Berman said. The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and is a key oil shipping lane. Global oil markets would be affected if Iran successfully closed the Strait of Hormuz, Berman explained, adding global pressure on the U.S. to halt its operation against Iran. Most of the U.S. strikes so far have focused on Iranian military targets, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a national security research organization based in D.C. The Israel Defense Forces say they have carried out strikes against Iran’s missile launchers and aerial defense systems. Iranian Response The Iranian regime responded by launching missiles at Israeli and U.S. military assets in the Middle East. Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday it “is dealing with damage in three buildings” in the capital city of Manama and nearby Muharraq caused by “drone attacks and falling debris from an intercepted missile.” Smoke rises after Iran carried out a missile strike on the main headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, Feb. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images) Iran has also targeted countries that host U.S. military bases, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait. A concern, according to Coates, is that Iran will activate terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. “We don’t know what crossed over our southern border or any of our other borders during the Biden administration, and we but we do know there were a number of folks on the terrorist watch list who got in,” Coates said. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that she is in “direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.” Middle East ‘Anti-Iran’ Sentiment The United Arab Emirates “condemned and denounced” the Iranian missile attacks in a statement Saturday, calling the targeting of “the UAE and several brotherly nations in the region” a “flagrant violation of national sovereignty and a clear breach of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.” There is now an “anti-Iran regime” coalition forming in the Middle East, according to Berman. “The Iranians have done themselves no favors, because they’ve hardened Arab attitudes about the need for regime change in Iran,” he said. It is possible, according to Jacob Olidort, chief research officer and director of American security at the America First Policy Institute, that nations such as Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia will also take action against Iran, especially if their civilians are killed as Iran targets U.S. military infrastructure in the region. The operation’s “consequences,” Olidort says, “will be global in scale, and they will dramatically transform the global landscape.” Olidort explains the operation against Iran provides “a great deal more opportunities for the United States and its partners to expand opportunities for peace and prosperity.” The post BREAKING: Trump Says Khamenei Is Dead. What Happens Now in Iran?  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Two Jews, three opinions. That sounds like a bad Mel Brooks joke, but it is exactly what the bipartisan Commission on Civil Rights testimony on campus antisemitism sounded like this month. The Jewish world appears genuinely divided on whether the federal government should take real, muscular action to protect Jewish students. I find that strange, bordering on surreal. The United States has been the greatest protector of the Jewish people in all recorded history. America welcomed refugees after pogroms and the Holocaust, stood with Israel when much of the world wouldn’t, and built the freest, safest diaspora community Jews have ever known. Yet a vocal segment of the community is seized by the fear that if President Donald Trump does anything in the name of stopping antisemitism (defunding universities that tolerate harassment, enforcing Title VI the way we enforce it for every other protected class), that will produce more antisemites. I’m sympathetic to Jewish nail-biting. I also have “chai” anxiety about politicos turning Jews into partisan footballs. But here, that fear is dangerously misplaced. The “not in our name” movement rests on two flawed assumptions. The first is that antisemitism is something we can manage or de-escalate through our own behavior. The second is that the hatred is ultimately about something we did. Neither is true. Antisemitism is an ancient, irrational hatred. It has survived every attempt at assimilation, every political realignment, every change in Jewish behavior. Jew hatred has been dressed up as religious duty, economic resentment, racial pseudoscience, and now as anti-Zionism. At bottom it is about who we are. We are a people who introduced monotheism to a pagan world, who gave the West its moral grammar, and who somehow produced outsized contributions in every field despite millennia of exile and massacre. Jew hatred isn’t a rational response to Israeli policy or campus activism or Jewish privilege. It’s a nasty virus that mutates but never dies. Jew hatred won’t disappear no matter what we do or who is in the White House. But university administrators who turned blind eyes toward anti-Jewish crimes respond to enforcement and career-ending consequences. Pretending Jews can stop antisemitism by rejecting help from the wrong president is pure mishegas. Think of the guy in the classic Jewish flood parable who waves off every rescuer, yelling, “Hashem will save me!” only to drown, wondering why no miracle showed up. (In Heaven, G-d shrugs, “I sent you three boats!”) The data from the antisemitism hearing in Congress itself proved the point. The surge in incidents didn’t begin with Trump’s second term. It exploded after Oct. 7, 2023, under the previous administration, while many universities and federal offices dithered, or worse. The students who testified are sincere and brave for speaking up. Their concern that aggressive federal action will politicize Jewish suffering and turn it into a pretext for other agendas is understandable. But I’m twice their age and that’s old enough to know, as the kids say, haters gonna hate. Worse, when even basic enforcement of existing civil-rights law is framed as a partisan assault, the antisemites win twice: once by attacking Jews, and again by making Jews afraid to accept defense. So where do we go from here? Stop treating protection as a partisan luxury. Equal enforcement of the law isn’t a favor to Jews or to Trump. It’s the bare minimum America owes every citizen. Demand civil rights for everyone, including ourselves.  The encampments are largely gone, and administrators are suddenly paying attention because universal rules are finally being applied without apology. Yes, we should watch for overreach and defend free speech. But the solution isn’t paralysis or waiting for the right president. It’s consistent, principle-driven action no matter who sits in the White House. In the end, Jews don’t get to pick and choose which forms of bigotry deserve zero tolerance. We don’t tell the fire department “not if that guy is driving the truck.” History has been brutally clear on what happens when we wave off the lifeboats. Clarity about who we are is what has always saved the Jewish people.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post 2 Jews, 3 Opinions on Campus Antisemitism appeared first on The Daily Signal.