The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s “Signal Sitdown” interview with Mollie Hemingway. The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EST on April 30.This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity. Bradley Devlin: You start at the end of the [Brett] Kavanaugh saga to talk about Justice [Samuel] Alito. Why do you do that?  Molly Hemingway: Well, partly it just worked as a scene to open, because Justice Alito was moving into former Justice Anthony Kennedy’s chambers at the front of the court as the Kavanaugh confirmation had been finalized.  When that was finalized, you had braying protesters, some of whom were arrested inside the Capitol building, some who went over to the Supreme Court to try to tear down these very large doors that they had no ability to tear down, climbing the statues. And they were saying from their improvised audio systems that they hoped people could hear them inside the court—and they could.  It was very weird because we have branches of government that are subjected to political pressure, namely the executive branch and the legislative branch. The judicial branch is not supposed to be that way. They have lifetime appointments. Their pay is protected so that if congressmen get mad about how a decision has gone, they can’t cut their pay and try to force them out that way.  And yet the Left, through these massive networks, has figured out that precisely because they aren’t political animals, that’s an opportunity to exploit for political machines.  Devlin: This was incredibly radicalizing for a whole bunch of people in the conservative movement—younger people in the conservative movement.  But was it radicalizing for Alito, sitting there and hearing this stuff?   Hemingway: Oh, there recently was a story about Justice Sonia Sotomayor being very vicious and personal against Justice Kavanaugh, and one thing I thought spoke well of everybody involved was that it was Kavanaugh’s colleagues who were more upset by that than Kavanaugh.  I do think that Kavanaugh might have a thick skin at this point. He does, and he’s very forgiving, but his colleagues were appalled. This is not done.  And I mean, I get into a lot of these types of stories—what’s happening behind the scenes at the court. Traditionally speaking, it is totally fine to disagree vehemently with your colleagues on the court, and you’re supposed to put that in your written opinion and your written dissent.  Then apart from that, you get along and you speak well of each other in public. You always uphold the integrity of the court. What we’ve seen recently is, as the three liberal justices have struggled with lack of control over the court, they’ve started publicly going after their colleagues, publicly undermining the integrity of the court.   Devlin: I think I first became Alito-pilled when I read his dissent from Bostock. That was the first time where I had really gotten turned on to Alito’s jurisprudence and started doing a little bit more research.  And who is this Samuel Alito guy? Because I like a lot of what [Antonin] Scalia had to say. I like a lot of what Clarence Thomas has to say—both of them legends. But this Alito guy has something else to him that I’ve really enjoyed in reading his court opinions.  And also, it isn’t so much about the textualism and the originalism. He’s really about being prudent, yes, and connecting Supreme Court jurisprudence to an enduring moral order that I think really comes from the Declaration of Independence.  And I think that’s what kind of separates his jurisprudence apart from Thomas and Scalia. And, you know, you walk around this conservative movement, and the divide amongst the normies is, are you Scalia-pilled or are you Thomas-pilled?  Some people are both. That’s totally fine. There’s a large overlap in the middle for the Venn diagram. But Alito—was he underrated before Dobbs? His star is rising right now, it feels like.  You mentioned the public polling that suggests Alito is one of the lesser-known Supreme Court justices. What is happening with the Alito pill?  Hemingway: I love everything you said. I feel like I’m gonna steal some of this when I’m talking about him. This is kind of how I came to write it.  And if I can just say, personally—forgive me—from a libertarian background, so I am so used to— Devlin: we all were— Hemingway: I was just obsessed with Scalia. I was obsessed with Thomas.  I’m still obsessed with Thomas.  Devlin: Me too.  Hemingway: They are liberty-minded in a way, libertarian-minded in a way, that Alito is really the conservative on the court. He is the conservative.  So you have five people with originalist—they self-identify as originalists—and that just means you believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning, not whatever you’re feeling like on a given day.  But within those five, you have big variations. I think it’s fun to explore those variations.  You mentioned Bostock, which was—I think [Neil] Gorsuch is a fantastic justice. That was a horrible decision that he did, and I have no problem saying that as much as I can.  I mean, it was—he said that when the Civil Rights Act was passed, that the people who passed that intended it for—or, you know, he says it also includes trans people.  You can’t have different standards for men who identify as women and women—actual women. And it’s ludicrous. It’s preposterous. I hope he knows that by this point.  Alito calls him out—and quite beautifully. I mean, they’re friends, but he does not respect that opinion. He said it, you know, in his dissent.   The Alito book comes about in part because when I was working on that Kavanaugh book with Carrie Severino, even Alito’s colleagues were thinking it was weird that nobody talks about Alito.  You know, they’re like, he’s the giant on this court. He’s brilliant. He does things that nobody else can do. He’s amazing in oral argument. He writes these masterpieces, and yet nobody talks about him.  It’s because he’s the opposite of a celebrity justice. He’s not appearing on Broadway or going to the Grammys or giving flowery speeches.  He just does his work humbly, keeps his head down, and moves on.  But to me, a man like that is worthy of knowing more about, honoring for whatever good traits you can see there, and emulating in whatever way is possible.  But I just have to say, Bradley, that there is a certain type of conservative attorney in town who has been saying to me for years, it’s Alito.  Everybody talks about Scalia and Thomas, but it’s Alito. And I think they’re all great.  And I think they all—and in fact, they also think they all worked together well, and that Thomas and Alito continue to work together well precisely because they have some differences that play off each other nicely. 

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.   We’re in the eighth week of the Iran war, and things are starting to heat up even though there’s not kinetic action. What do I mean by heating up? The Iranian government has ceased to exist. We don’t know, and the Iranians don’t know who holds power.  There is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. There is the theocracy, there is the elected people in Parliament, and there is a regular military. And those four groups operate in schizophrenic fashion. Sometimes they freelance and appear very hard line and give press releases that they’re not going to negotiate and anybody who negotiates is a sellout and blah, blah, blah, because they are afraid each faction of being called by the other too pro-Western or not hard enough on the United States.  By the same token, sometimes they give off signals that they would like to negotiate because that is predicated on popular resistance. When you get rumors, which are increasing, that the people are getting more and more restive, some of them are being armed, then people think, well, given the crimes that we have committed, should this revolution next time around succeed, we’re all going to have a collective noose around our neck.  So the bottom line, we can’t figure out who’s saying what. We were supposed to negotiate this weekend, and Donald Trump was going to send Mr. [Jared] Kushner and [Steve] Witkoff over all the way to Pakistan. I think all of us are a little bit dubious, given Pakistan’s long history that’s checkered with the United States, and it’s an Islamic country, a very impoverished country.  But Donald Trump has very good relations with the foreign minister, the head of defense and the president. But nonetheless, he canceled that because he couldn’t get any negotiation that offered any chance of success from this motley group.  So what are we gonna do now in week eight? We’ve got a little over six months from the midterms. The war, even though it’s been spectacularly successful militarily, people want it over, even though Wall Street has adjusted.  And we’re at record highs now with stocks, which suggests a lot of brilliant people think not only is the war gonna be over very soon, but it’s gonna be especially beneficial to the West in general and to the United States in particular, and especially since we’re making enormous profit selling oil to anybody who can get ahold of it.  That said, what do we do at this point? There is a blockade. Time is on our side. The Iranian’s strategy has been delay, negotiate, delay, lie, backpedal, go forward, confuse, delay, delay, delay. Why are they trying to do it? They’re hoping that public opinion in the United States on the side of the Left, as we’ve said before, when you have Sen. [Chris] Murphy saying it’s awesome when he digests propaganda from the Iranian Ministry of Information and says that boats have broken the blockade, he likes that.  They pick up on that, they absorb it, and that gives them confidence to keep delaying. They feel that they can last for six months. They cannot last for six months. The blockade is working, the de-banking is working. Their oil wells are reaching a critical point in a week or so, where they either have to shut down with irreparable damage or they have to find some cast-off tankers or somebody to store this oil that’s coming out of the ground, or maybe just to dig holes and pump it in.  But they are desperate. They’re losing $400 million to $500 million in economic input, and it’s starting to hurt all four of these cliques that claim they represent the government. So what are we supposed to do about it? I would suggest that Donald Trump does not differentiate these PT boats, whether they’re laying mines or boarding ships.  Whatever they are doing, they should not be in the Straits of Hormuz. We should have an ultimatum that says any boat, for any reason, that’s a military craft that leaves an Iranian port should be considered an enemy engaged in hostile action. Whether it’s boarding tankers or it’s laying mines, and they will be destroyed.  That’s all they have. That’s the only military arm that matters now. We’re not gonna go in there on the ground and fight their army. Their air defenses are shot. Their navy otherwise is destroyed, as is their Air Force. Just finish the job and say nobody gets in any ship that’s a military craft and gets into the Gulf.  And then at some point, in two weeks, I would give a week or two, and if these demands are not made—that they surrender their enriched uranium, they surrender their ballistic missile fleet, and they cut off the subsidies to their terrorist proxies—then the United States says these are the targets that are going to be hit.  And then we’re gonna go home. We don’t have to say we’re gonna go home, but we should just go home. And those targets would be a series of bridges, transportation hubs, media and television stations. And if you want bridges that have dual use for the military. They don’t have to be done all at once.  They just say, if you’re not gonna negotiate and you insist on retaining the possibility or the chance or the real viability of a nuclear weapons program, and you’re still going to build drones and ballistic missiles and attack your neighbors and disrupt the oil supply of the Gulf and attack Israel and kill Americans, then this is what’s going to happen.  We are going to systematically start to hit things to accelerate the economic blockade, and I think very quickly they will concede. If they do not concede, we should systematically go down the list of targets. And then when we reach a point in which our military feels that we’ve so crippled the military-industrial complex and the nuclear complex of Iran, that we can go home, we can leave a carrier on rotating duty near the Gulf—the Persian Gulf—and go home and concentrate on the economy. And I think Iran will look at themselves and they’ll see that we have no economy, we’re flat broke, we’ve lost 50-year investments, probably a half a trillion dollars of military infrastructure and weapons of arsenal. And the people will take care of the rest—the Iranian people.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The Artemis II crew met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office today, celebrating their successful mission around the moon. While the country has its eyes set on space, Trump hinted at releasing government records related to unidentified flying objects. “I think we’re going to be releasing as much as we can in the near future,” Trump told The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell when she asked him about the UFO reports from the Pentagon. “We’re going to be releasing a lot of things from that, and I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people,” he said. @POTUS tells @DailySignal he will release "as much as we can in the near future" of the UFO files."I think some of it's going to be very interesting to people.""I've interviewed people my first term, primarily, but I interviewed some pilots, very solid people, and they… pic.twitter.com/9SXgceQN7b— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) April 29, 2026 “It’s been in the minds of people for a long time, and that is they want to find out about the UFOs and anything having to do with UFO or related material,” Trump continued. The president shared that he has interviewed many people on unidentified flying objects, including pilots and some “very solid people.” “They said they saw things that you wouldn’t believe. So, you’re going to be reading about it,” Trump said. Trump recently announced that a Pentagon study has “found many interesting documents.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has confirmed that the Department of Defense is working with the president to release these studies. Successful Artemis II Launch Sends Astronauts Into Deep Spacehttps://t.co/2zTn1u5NXQ— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) April 2, 2026 Trump also confirmed that the Artemis program is “ahead of schedule.” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman shared with the press that the Artemis program is on track to complete its next mission. “We have an achievable plan,” Isaacman said when asked about landing on the moon. Artemis III is set to launch in 2027 in partnership with SpaceX and Blue Origin, which will leave NASA with two opportunities to launch moon-landing missions in 2028. Trump has prioritized space exploration and has vowed to ensure human spaceflight has investment beyond his presidency. The Artemis program is leading the United States to build a permanent, sustained human presence on the moon by 2030. Celebrating America 250-America Is Going to The Moon NASA is sending four astronauts on a historic mission to the moon. This 10 day long mission will help America establish larger space exploration. Follow The Daily Signal to get updates on the mission!@virginiagmck pic.twitter.com/4Pfa1IGe9T— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) April 1, 2026

On Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign trail, Abigail Spanberger showed real acting chops. The former CIA spook and congresswoman made a great show of how moderate she was in the face of withering attacks from Republican Winsome Earle-Sears. Spanberger trotted out her cop dad to tout her law-and-order credentials, claimed she would be a bipartisan governor for all Virginians, and (mostly) avoided stepping into electoral landmines like transgenderism and illegal immigration. But the second Governor Spanberger took office, the mask fell off. The true extent of her liberal views immediately became clear. One of Spanberger’s first official acts as governor was to enmesh the state in a blatantly unconstitutional Electoral College runaround. By joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Gov. Spanberger proved immediately her disdain for the Founding Fathers and the electoral system that has helped keep this country together for two and a half centuries. Not content to simply trample the Constitution, Spanberger then attempted to end political representation for her rural residents by endorsing a gerrymandered congressional map that would remove all but one of the state’s Republican national representatives. Despite explicitly stating on the campaign trail she had “no plans” to redistrict Virginia were she to become governor, she was quick to approve and then campaign for a hyper-partisan map. Spanberger isn’t much better when it comes to domestic affairs, deciding that authoritarian gun control bills from the Virginia House of Delegates weren’t tyrannical enough. The bills contained the normal Democratic priorities: “assault weapons” bans, magazine limits, raising the age to buy a handgun from 18 to 21. But those weren’t enough for Gov. Spanberger, who sent the bills back to the House with several stricter amendments. How about Spanberger’s decision to cut state ties with federal immigration enforcement? Was that the action of a moderate? But then again, Gov. Spanberger has always been a radical. During her three terms in Congress, she consistently aligned with the most far-left elements of the Democratic Party. Heritage Action for America consistently placed her with progressives on their annual Congressional Scorecard. She’s against any limits on abortion; called climate change “one of the greatest and most imminent threats to our economy, our national security, and our way of life”; and supports men in women’s locker rooms and sports. Yet, she was able to coast to victory in the gubernatorial election by hiding her radical views behind a smokescreen of centrist language. In Gov. Spanberger, Democrats see a clear strategy going forward: play moderate, rule progressive. Americans hate the leftist policies popular with Democratic activists. Indeed, following the litany of radical policies enacted by Gov. Spanberger, her popularity with Virginia voters tanked. She currently sits at a measly +1 approval rating, making her the Old Dominion’s least popular governor in nearly three decades. 45% of voters think her views are too liberal. But it doesn’t really matter; Spanberger already has what she wants. She’s in the governor’s mansion until 2030, giving her plenty of time to shove through radical legislation. It will be difficult to decouple Virginia from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, rescind the draconian gun control laws, and un-gerrymander the congressional map. The new Democratic strategy is to pretend to be a moderate, then make as many radical changes as possible before the pendulum swings back to give Republicans power. They’re not particularly subtle about this plan, either. Infamous Democratic consultant James Carville said as much on his podcast earlier this month, arguing that if Democrats take power in 2028, they should make Puerto Rico and D.C. states as well as pack the court. But rather than openly campaign on that plan, Carville advised, “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.” The American public cannot trust the Democratic Party when its members claim to be moderates. They have proven time and again that regardless of the promises made on the campaign trail, it is radical activists who dictate the policy when they take power. Unconstitutional power grabs, trampling civil rights, wildly degenerate social policy. These are the fruits of Democratic governance. Virginia was the testing ground. Now the strategy goes national. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The Supreme Court’s conservative-leaning majority seemed favorable to the Trump administration during Wednesday’s arguments about terminating Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Syrian and Haitian immigrants. After President Donald Trump’s second term began, the Department of Homeland Security ended the status for 13 countries. The high court is weighing whether Trump can legally end the temporary protections, opening them up to deportation proceedings. Advocates for the Syrian and Haitian immigrants say they were fleeing war, rampant crime, and natural disasters and could face those problems if they return. Justices on Wednesday questioned whether the lower court erred in even taking up the case. At one point, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson became fiery as she brought up Trump’s past comments that she said could suggest a race-based attitude toward the termination policy. “What about bad genes and poisoning the blood of Americans,” Jackson asked Solicitor General John Sauer, quoting Trump. “If you look at those statements in context again, they’re clearly talking about problems,” Sauer replied. “You look at each one of those statements. problems in crime, poverty, welfare, dependency, again, problems that have been emphasized again and again by not just President Trump, not just the secretary, but many others who favor a tough immigration policy.” Jackson followed, “the president’s insistence that immigrants from certain countries—largely, if not almost exclusively, countries with African immigrants, black African immigrants—are not allowed, and calling these sorts of names. types of things he said about Haiti.” During his arguments, Geoffrey Pipoly, lawyer for the Haitian plaintiffs, brought up Trump’s past rhetoric about “s—hole countries.” Justice Elena Kagan pressed Sauer about whether the Department of Homeland Security adequately consulted with the State Department before terminating the status. The law requires consultation between the two departments, which occurred in this case. But plaintiffs contend it was not specific enough. However, Justice Samuel Alito was skeptical about allowing courts to review the level of consultation. “Some consultation, all right, it was very brief, and maybe it’s not what one would hope for,” Alito said. “But still, once you say, well, it’s permissible to review the adequacy of the consultation, it’s always going to be possible to pick, to raise objections about the adequacy of the consultation and the words that the State Department comes back with,” Alito said. Ahilan Arulanantham, representing the Syrian plaintiffs, responded, “Our consultation claim in this sense is extremely narrow.” “We don’t argue about the levels. We don’t argue about the amount,” Arulanantham said. “All we say is it has to be about a subject. Deliberation about a subject, so they have to talk about country conditions.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett later asked, “Is this going to get you very much? If it’s just a box-checking exercise, why would Congress permit review of the procedural aspect when really what everybody cares about much more is the substance?” Arulanantham replied that procedures are important for the public and lawmakers. “Congress, and us too, and the millions of people who live with TPS holders have some faith in government.”