As Congress works to reach a deal addressing the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies, President Donald Trump revealed abortion funding is a “factor” in the decision. The Daily Signal asked Trump Friday night if he would assure Republicans he won’t propose or accept a health care deal that continues to allow abortion funding under Obamacare. “We’re going to look into it,” he responded. “We’re going to look into a lot of things. That’s one of many factors.” “What we do wanna see is the money go to the people, not the insurance companies,” he added. I asked @POTUS if he will assure Republicans he won't propose or accept a healthcare deal that continues to allow abortion funding under Obamacare. "We're going to look into it. We're going to look into a lot of things. That's one of that's one of many factors," he told… pic.twitter.com/mjCNpCg8dD— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) December 12, 2025 Obamacare is currently exempted from the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding abortions. Republican senators have said they will not support a deal without the Hyde Amendment in place. “Our members are very concerned, obviously, and with good reason, to ensuring that the Hyde protections apply to Obamacare policies,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. House Republicans released their health care package on Friday. The bill includes Hyde protections to cost-sharing reduction funds that prohibit paying for abortions except to save the life of the mother or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The commitment of many Republicans to oppose a health care deal that funds abortion puts negotiations with Democrats in a precarious place, as Democrats are expected to oppose any deal that excludes abortion funding. “It’s a nonstarter,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told NBC News. The pro-life movement is throwing its weight behind ensuring the health care deal includes Hyde protections, with Kelsey Pritchard of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America telling The Daily Signal her organization “will continue to oppose any health care plan that does not include that safeguard.” She said that is where the majority of senators are going to land as well. “We’ve seen many pledges of the importance of pro-life policy in the health care space,” Pritchard said. The post Trump Weighs If Obamacare Deal Should Include Abortion Funding appeared first on The Daily Signal.

THE CENTER SQUARE—An estimated 2,000 Afghan nationals admitted to the United States following the deadly 2021 pullout of American forces from Afghanistan have ties to terrorism, according to the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard made the astonishing revelation during an interview on Fox News Friday morning, following a tense House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday, when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem highlighted national security risks to the homeland. The Center Square previously reported that the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General released a report in January 2022 that admitted thousands of Afghan evacuees who entered the U.S. following the American military evacuation in August 2021 were not properly vetted. “[The DoD] found that Afghan evacuees were not vetted by the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) using all DoD data prior to arriving in CONUS,” the report said. The report also noted, during an “analytic review, NGIC [National Ground Intelligence Center] personnel identified Afghans with derogatory information in the DoD ABIS database who were believed to be in the United States.” The 2022 report affirms Gabbard’s concerns that some individuals admitted to the U.S. under the Joe Biden administration may pose a national security risk. “The vast majority of them were not properly vetted. They certainly were not vetted at anywhere near the standard that we require under this administration of allowing people into our country. And of that number, we know that there are at least 2,000 who are here who have ties to or are known or suspected terrorists,” Gabbard told Fox News. During the Biden administration, nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals were admitted to the U.S., including Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who is accused of shooting two National Guard members, killing one just blocks from the White House on the eve of Thanksgiving. While there have been no formal terrorism charges brought against Lakanwal as of yet, the attack is being investigated for alleged terrorism. It has been described as a terror attack by high-ranking officials such as Gabbard and Noem. During the interview, Gabbard stated that, through the National Counterterrorism Center, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, the agencies will work together to re-vet “every single” Afghan individual admitted during the Biden administration, underscoring the threat to national security. “We’ve got to realize what’s happening here within the context of the greater threat that we face. We know that al Qaeda and ISIS continue to actively plot attacks against our homeland. And so when you look at the spread of the radical Islamist ideology and the propagation of it, you look at active plots, and they’re looking for people who can carry out those plots,” said Gabbard. In July, The Center Square asked border czar Tom Homan about the report and whether the Trump administration would investigate the individuals who had not been vetted. Homan vowed the Trump administration would thoroughly vet Afghan refugees and would be doing things the “right way” by revisiting the vetting process. “We’re going to re-vet them because we don’t think the last administration properly vetted them. …This administration will do things the right way, we’ll make sure everyone is vetted properly,” said Homan. After last month’s shooting in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump vowed to pause migration from certain countries, including Afghanistan. Originally published by The Center Square. The post Gabbard: 2,000 Afghan Refugees In U.S. Have Ties to Terrorism 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. Each administration, at some point in its first or second year, has a strategic assessment, a strategic strategy of what the United States’ economic, diplomatic, political, and military objectives will be in foreign affairs. Ours just came out. And one of the more controversial sections—which I think, otherwise, was a pretty sound strategy—was simply saying that our partners, the founders of Western civilization, the Europeans, are in dire trouble. And then the authors of the strategic assessment said they face “civilizational erasure.” Well, you can see what that did to the Europeans. Nothing is more humiliating or makes the Europeans angrier than we upstart Americans—who our founders came from Europe and many of us did as well—to be lecturing the Europeans on what they’re doing wrong. So, they’re very angry at us. But why are they angry at us? Because the assessment outlined why Europe’s in trouble. Its radical green proposals, their New Green Deal version is much more deleterious than ours. They have ample amounts of gas in the North Sea and oil. They have gas, natural gas, in France and other places. And yet, they’re hell-bent—if I could use that term—on wind and solar that’s costly and unreliable. The result is Europe is not competitive in the world economic market, and the EU has lost its place in world gross domestic product rankings. It’s gone way down. It used to be along with the United States, the two preeminent economic powers in the world. But it’s lost its share of world GDP by a substantial margin in just 20 years. Its fertility rate is not as—ours is 1.71, 1.75. That’s very worrisome. Theirs is 1.39. They are shrinking and aging. And more importantly, their borders are open. They have 45 million people coming in from the Middle East, predominantly. And unlike us, they don’t have a history with the melting pot. There’s no fluidity in classes, as we have. So, it’s very hard for them to acculturate, assimilate, and integrate immigrants, especially when they come in illegally and from—let’s be honest—mostly from the Middle East. So, you have the force multiplying of Islam. At least the people who come across the southern border legally and illegally have a shared Christian tradition. But Europe does not have that experience with illegal immigration. And they’re disarmed. They had not been spending 2% until President Donald Trump jawboned them. They say they’re gonna get to 5%, but if you look at their budgetary expenditures and incomes, it seems almost impossible. And now they’re facing a Russian juggernaut that is, you know, moving west, in Ukraine, toward them. And so, all of this was calibrated by the United States. But here’s what I think got them very angry. The United States’ attitude was not—in this report—you should have done this. You bad, you. We don’t like you. No. It was more, we should be brothers. We should be equal brothers. You, Europe, is the foundation of the West. Greece. Rome. The Pope. The Renaissance. The Enlightenment. All of this majestic culture came from you. And we are an offshoot, an offspring of it. And we wanna partner with you. And we wanna be equals with you. So, please can you just consider stopping the censorship, opening up discussion, and maybe reassessing your energy, your military, your immigration issues and policies. And get back in the game with us in a 50/50 fashion. They got very, very angry about this. But here’s what makes us angry about their anger. Europe is, sort of, the proverbial one-eyed Jack, the card that you only see one eye and you flip over and maybe there’s something quite different on the other side. What do I mean by that? There are 32 NATO nations in the alliance. Outside of the United States and Canada, 30 of them are in Europe. There are 27 European Union members. The European Union members and the European NATO members are like this. They’re almost the same nation, overwhelmingly. And 90% of the cases belong to the EU and NATO. But here’s the one-eyed Jack metaphor: NATO members say, yes, we want to prepare ourselves against Russia. Yes, we made the 2% investment of GDP and military expenditures. Yes, we want to go to 5%. Yes, we want the United States, by all costs, to be our leader. We used to pay 16%, 18% of our budget. We want to integrate more with you. And we’re so happy that you’re with us again. And Donald Trump is “daddy.” Flip the card over. Now we’re talking, these same people, now are not talking as NATO members in dire need of military assistance from the strongest military power in the history of civilization. They’re talking as EU globalists and utopians. Don’t lecture us. We can censor X. We can censor Facebook. We don’t have a First Amendment. We don’t allow unfettered speech, like you do. We don’t have a Second Amendment, like your rowdy cowboyism back there. Oh, by the way, we’re much stronger on DEI, even than you are. And, as Angela Merkel once said, chancellor of Germany, “Yes, we can. We can do it.” We can integrate millions of people who are from the Islamic world into our cultures. Don’t lecture us about that. And oh, yes, we will rearm in our own fashion. And as far as our foreign policy, we don’t understand you people. We feel that Israel is a settler colonial power. Which it isn’t. And we side with Hamas or Hezbollah. Or we have a very different attitude about Iran. We have peaceful solutions. We are not Neanderthals. So, how are we Americans supposed to deal with Europe when we see this morbidity? And we see it because it’s here in the United States. So, all this report was basically saying, if you look at the subtext, we have a problem with fertility. We have a problem with immigration. We have a problem with green tyranny. We have a problem with DEI. We have a problem with pacifism. But, unlike you—we didn’t say this—but we’re dealing with it. We have a counterrevolution. All we’re asking of you is to consider the voices of dissent in your own continent. Maybe they’re on the right track. Maybe, like us, they have discovered that this system is toxic that both us in America and you in Europe have experimented with. We’re both Westerners. And let’s stop this DEI, open borders, pacifism, green energy, and get back in the global game because we have China, we have Iran, North Korea, and Russia as enemies. And we wanna be partners. So, we’re just offering you advice. And please don’t play this double game where, in terms of military assistance, all of a sudden we’re saints here in America, you NATO face says, but in terms of culture and sociology and politics, we’re Satans. We’ve caught onto that a long time ago. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Trump Wants to Work With Europe to Stop ‘Civilization Erasure’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Conservative activists are preparing for the Indiana primaries following Thursday’s failed redistricting vote. In the Indiana Senate, 21 Republican state senators joined 10 Democrats in voting against a congressional map that would have potentially given the GOP two more seats in Congress. The GOP state lawmakers’ vote has supercharged conservative activists who spoke to The Daily Signal about what they would be doing to make sure those Republicans who voted against redistricting lost their seats in office. The Establishment GOP Problem Benny Johnson, a conservative activist and host of “The Benny Show,” called out the establishment GOP in an interview with The Daily Signal. Referring to Republicans who cave to pressure by the establishment, Johnson said noted that they end up serving “Democrats in our policymaking.” That point may go a long way to explaining why a state senate that had forty Republicans and only 10 Democrats still voting against giving the GOP more seats in Congress. Those types of Republicans “always want to be loved by the left,” Johnson added “You know, Indiana has been a red state for a very, very, very long time. People get very comfortable in that environment. They get squishy, get soft, and they get neutered,” the conservative commentator postulated. Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith told The Daily Signal that “This is the problem with Republicans in general: we are not engaged up front with the issues as much as the Democrats are.” Beckwith also addressed a structural problem in Indiana’s elections. “We have open primaries, which is the most foolish primary system you could have. There was a marketing campaign last primary season that said Democrats can vote in Republican primaries too,” Beckwith explained.  That issue was also raised by Johnson, who told The Daily Signal that “open primaries, ranked choice voting: these are kind of platforms that are driven by the left.” “They get passed in squishy places like Indiana, in order to rig elections like this,” Johnson continued, adding “Obviously, when you have a bunch of Democrats voting for a Republican, what do you think you’re going to get as the result there?”  I am very disappointed that a small group of misguided State Senators have partnered with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps and to reject the leadership of President Trump. Ultimately, decisions like this carry political consequences. I will…— Governor Mike Braun (@GovBraun) December 11, 2025 Johnson contrasted the Hoosier state with Florida where the activist noted “Republicans still know how to fight and understand what’s at stake and understand how quickly elections can get rigged and how bad things can go downhill.” Beckwith also suggested that some Republicans in the Indiana government have gone squishy. “There are Republicans in the senate right now that if you had to take a Republican litmus test right now: strengthen the border, anti-DEI, etc. There are Republicans who have consistently voted against those bills in the state senate,” Beckwith explained. ‘The Cavalry Is Coming’: Conservative Orgs Prepare for Indiana Primaries The failure to redistrict Indiana has galvanized national political organizations to spend in a state they had previously written off as thoroughly conservative.  “Turning Point Action is preparing to invest substantial resources into any primary race involving Republican senators who voted against the redistricting plan for Indiana,” Brett Galaszewski, the Enterprise Director Legacy Field Program at Turning Point Action told The Daily Signal. Galaszewski explained that those resources would be deployed to “significant field operations—including paid staff, ballot-chase infrastructure, and other grassroots assets.”  ”Heritage Action will be actively involved in holding accountable the senators who voted no, including supporting primary efforts against Republicans who ignored their voters,” Tiffany Justice, the executive vice president of Heritage Action, said in a statement. “My fellow Hoosiers and I are incredibly disappointed by the senators who voted against redistricting,” Monica Boyer, a Heritage Action Sentinel who is from Warsaw, Indiana, told The Daily Signal. “Conversations are beginning about efforts to primary the senators who let their constituents down. We need to give Indiana a voice. We will not be silenced by those hellbent to kneel to California liberals,” Boyer added. Johnson is optimistic about what the outcome will be from these efforts. “I mean, these are like races where five thousand people vote, and so these are easily flippable,” he told The Daily Signal. The lieutenant governor also expressed appreciation for the national help. “I feel like the cavalry is coming,” he told The Daily Signal. The post ‘The Cavalry Is Coming’: After Redistricting Failure, Conservatives Prepare for War in Indiana appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It has been almost one year since Joe Abraham learned an illegal alien was responsible for his daughter’s tragic death. The father says he is still waiting to hear from Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker.   “President [Donald] Trump shook my hand, looked me in the eye, said ‘it’s a mess, and we’re going to clean it up,’” the father said, referring to American’s border and immigration policies. “I’m still waiting for anything from Governor Pritzker,” Abraham added.   On Jan. 19 firemen arrived at the scene of the car crash in Illinois and “pried open like a tuna can” the Honda Civic Katie Abraham was riding in and pulled the 20-year-old’s dead body from the car.   Katie Abraham and four other women were traveling to visit friends at the University of Illinois and were waiting at a stoplight when “they were rammed from the back at 80 miles an hour by an illegal alien” who had previously been deported and was driving drunk, Joe Abraham explained.   The illegal alien fled the scene of the accident and “didn’t call 911, he didn’t stick around to tell the first responders what happened, to help out in any way,” the father told press at an event on Capitol Hill Friday honoring parents who have lost children due to open border policies and illegal immigration.   Abraham’s daughter was killed one day before Trump took the oath of office a second time to become the 47th U.S. president. Two days after Trump returned to office, authorities apprehended Julio Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national who was using a false Mexican identity. The illegal alien has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the death of Katie Abraham and Chloe Polzin, who was also in the vehicle.   Katie Abraham “made everyone feel welcome,” her father told The Daily Signal. “She was one of these kids that would sense someone is not fitting in as well and would draw them in and help them out,” he said.   Joe Abraham joked that he thinks his daughter, who was a swimmer and a water polo player, was “more comfortable in the water than she was outside of it.”   In addition to her parents, Katie Abraham left behind an older brother and sister.   Katie Abraham. (Courtesy of Joe Abraham) Joe Abraham blames the border and immigrations policies of the Biden administration and Illinois’ sanctuary state policies for his daughter’s death. “Sanctuary” states and cities restrict local or state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agencies, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Outside of the actual victim and the perpetrator, there are lives that are affected so severely for the rest of their lives, and I think [Pritzker] misses that,” the father said.   “Either [Pritzker] misses that or he is built that into his equation of his extreme sanctuary policies, where he realizes that part of that calculus is that people will die, and he’s OK with that because he needs warm bodies in the state, because we’re losing so many citizens leaving our mismanaged state,” Abraham added.   In March, the Illinois Policy Institute reported that the state “is pushing more of its own residents to other places in the country than virtually any other state, ranking 48th in losses because of moves to other states.” Meanwhile, the state has experienced a large influx of foreigners in recent years.   Despite his frustration with his governor, Abraham says he would still meet with Pritzker if he was given the opportunity.   Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks during an event in Chicago, Nov. 11. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria REFILE) “I would still sit down with him right now. I would want to hear why my daughter Katie had to die in the fashion she died. I just want to understand why that was exactly,” the father said. “And then, why so much of an indifference on his part? … Why is she considered a stat or collateral damage to his extreme policy?”   The governor’s office did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.   Joe Abraham relayed his story to the press on Capitol Hill Friday at an event announcing a new bill that, if passed, would authorize the creation of a privately funded national memorial in the District of Columbia honoring the lives of U.S. citizens and legal residents who lost their lives due to illegal aliens being present in the U.S., or the trafficking of fentanyl or other deadly drugs across the U.S. southern border.   About a dozen parents shared their stories of loss during the press conference held in support of the memorial.   Nicole Gray was only 19 when she died from fentanyl poisoning on April 23, 2024. Jane Gray, Nicole’s mother, says she is troubled by just how easy it was for her daughter to access the deadly drug.   “Nicole wasn’t a bad person,” Jane Gray told The Daily Signal. “She had a lot of pain that she was trying to run from. My last conversation with her when I saw her was, ‘mom, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to be a bad daughter,’ and I think that’s very true. But she got a hold of so much fentanyl, and it was so easy to access for her, and she lost her life.”  If passed, the American Border Story Memorial Act will establish a memorial that “gives the victim’s family, and especially the ‘Angels Family’ and ‘Angel Moms’ who have been ignored for years,’ the national recognition they deserve,” Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz., who introduced the bill, said.   The memorial, according to Hamadeh, “is going to stand as a lasting reminder of the human cost of failed border enforcement and the need for accountability at the highest levels of government.”  The post ‘Still Waiting’: Father Says Illinois Governor Never Contacted Him After an Illegal Alien Killed His Daughter appeared first on The Daily Signal.