After President Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term in January, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten asserted she was “really sad” about the inaugural speech.  “Rather than unifying people and building on America’s best qualities, Trump delivered a speech that was laden with divisiveness, showing that he is the president of only some Americans,” Weingarten said in an inauguration day statement. “Those of us in the labor movement and in public education are fighting for opportunity and dignity for all Americans.”  Perhaps not surprisingly, the AFT—one of America’s largest public school teachers unions—has participated in a deluge of lawsuits against the Trump administration policies. What’s more interesting is that several of the legal actions are seemingly at most education-adjacent, and in other cases have little or nothing to do with K-12 public education.  The AFT has sued regarding federal employees, immigration, and student loans for college students.  The AFT began as exclusively a teachers union, but has six separate divisions that also represents other public school employees such as teacher aides, custodians, and bus drivers, as well as health care workers and higher education faculty. The union’s website says it also represents public employees that includes federal and state employees.  “The AFT’s lawsuit spree against the Trump administration reveals what we’ve long known: these organizations have strayed far from their mission of representing teachers,” Aaron Withe, president of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a conservative education group, told The Daily Signal. “This is exactly why so many teachers are choosing to opt out—they want representation focused on their profession, not a political action committee.” The litigation that is unrelated or only loosely connected to education includes:  In October, the AFT joined other labor unions in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s plans for mass firing of federal employees during the government shutdown. The lawsuit alleged it was illegal to fire furloughed government workers. Weingarten asserted in October that Trump wanted to “illegally fire tens of thousands of federal employees in a callous act of political retribution.” In October, the AFT joined a legal action opposing a Department of Transportation rule that prevented certain immigrants from getting a commercial driver’s license, in some cases even if the individuals have authorization to work in the United States. Weingarten asserted, “For the Trump administration, the cruelty is the point.” Though she did note the relevance for the union, asserting, “Many AFT members require a CDL to work as school bus drivers—and right now we are seeing people turned away from training for these positions.” In the case of American Federation of Teachers et al v. Bessent, in Scott Bessent’s role as treasury secretary, the union sued the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management, as well as the Department of Education to stop the White House Department of Government Efficiency from accessing data on federal employees. A district judge imposed an injunction on the administration from collecting the data, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the injunction in August. While the AFT opposes DOGE on policy—and the Education Department was one of the defendants—public school teachers are not federal employees.    Another case—American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO v. Goldstein—also revolved around the federal workforce. It challenged a Trump executive order to reduce the federal bureaucracy. Specifically, the plaintiffs sued over the provision of the order that called for the gradual elimination of the the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The defendants in the case were the FMCS, and the Office of Management and Budget. Gregory Goldstein was named the lead defendant in his role as acting director of the FMCS. The case is still pending. The cases of AFT v. Department of Education is about student loans, which is for higher education. The union sued to protect student loan borrowers in an income-driven repayment plan, which has more to do with higher education than k-12.  The nation’s other large teachers union–the National Education Association–has not shied away from challenging the Trump administration in court either. But the litigation seems to go in fewer direction. The NEA is the lead plaintiff in one case against the Trump administration, this one regarding race-based admissions in higher education. It was also part of a coalition that sued to stop the dismantling of the Education Department, which at least could be related to k-12. As The Daily Signal previously reported, both the NEA and AFT participated in “No Kings” protests opposed to Trump administration policies.  The AFT did not respond to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal for comment. Withe, of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, said such litigation should give AFT members pause.  “The question every AFT member should be asking is: how does suing over federal employment commission matters or treasury regulations help me as a teacher?” Withe added. “The answer is it doesn’t. It serves the union’s leftist political agenda while diverting resources away from actual teachers.” The post How AFT Anti-Trump Lawfare Has Little to Do With K-12 Public School Teachers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As pregnancy centers have increasingly come under attack from Democrat lawmakers in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next week that could protect pregnancy centers from lawfare. Ahead of the court’s scheduled oral arguments in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin on Dec. 2, women who have been involved with or helped by pregnancy centers are speaking out. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers believes subpoenas issued by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin for donor and other information violated its First and 14th Amendment rights. The nonprofit asked the court in February of last year to intervene and the justices agreed to hear the case in June. How Did the Case Get Here? In November 2023, Platkin sent subpoenas to the center, which pro-life advocates call “unlawful” and “improper.” As Alliance Defending Freedom explained, the subpoena demanded 10 years’ of documents, “including its statements on abortion pill reversal, information it provided to clients and donors, documents identifying personnel, copies of every First Choice solicitation and advertisement, and information related to outside organizations that First Choice works with.” Attorneys with ADF filed a lawsuit the following month. Aimee Huber, the executive director at First Choice, recently told reporters that “there were no allegations of wrongdoing, it was simply a fishing expedition.” She also shared how “completely daunting” it was for her “small nonprofit” to comply. Lincoln Wilson, an attorney with ADF, explained that “the issue the court is going to consider is whether First Choice is allowed to bring its constitutional challenge to the attorney general’s subpoena in federal court.” He added that “the heart of First Choice’s First Amendment challenge is its association rights,” which, of the many claims, is “the biggest one” First Choice has. The Supreme Court has taken up similar cases in the past, and ruled in favor of plaintiffs who brought similar claims as First Choice. Wilson brought up the 1958 case of NAACP v. Alabama, a landmark case in which the court unanimously protected the right of association and made clear that the organization did not have to release its donor information, as it’s protected by the First Amendment. These rights were affirmed in 2021 with Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. “We think the same thing is going on here with the attorney general’s subpoena and his attempt to get that information from First Choice,” Wilson shared. “And we have a right to address those claims in federal court.” Abortion and the Need for Pregnancy Resource Centers in New Jersey New Jersey is friendly to abortion, with no gestational limits on the procedure. Huber pointed out that the state has the fifth-highest rate of abortion in the country, adding that the state “has done everything they could to make New Jersey a sanctuary state for abortion.” “Since pregnancy centers like ours do not perform or refer for abortion, we are targets for a government that disagrees with our views. If our attorney general can bully us, it can happen in other states that promote abortion,” Huber warned. “It is our hope that our efforts will result in protection for other pregnancy centers across the nation.” Donors are particularly important to pregnancy resource centers because, as Odalys Banks, the direct of centers at First Choice explained, their services are made possible thanks to private donors and volunteers. Many of them do so anonymously over privacy concerns and could pull back or even withdraw if they could no longer do so privately. It’s Not Just New Jersey While First Choice Women’s Resource Centers operate in New Jersey, pregnancy resource centers operate throughout the country. The Daily Signal spoke with Rebekah Cohen Morris, the executive director of Aim Women’s Center in Steubenville, Ohio. Her center provides a range of services free of charge, from housing to ultrasounds to parenting classes. Women can earn points at such classes to shop for baby essentials at their boutique. Above all, Cohen Morris emphasized her center aims to give women sense of “dignity” and how she’s “always thinking holistically” about them. While Cohen Morris spoke to how the “current climate is very favorable to pregnancy resource centers in Ohio,” she pointed out that she is “definitely aware” of the potential threats to centers in the Buckeye State like those occurring in New Jersey. This is especially if a governor who is not pro-life comes into office. With the wide range of services that PRCs, including Aim Women’s Center provides, staff like Cohen Morris are constantly busy assisting women. Should a center be hit with “frivolous requests,” as is the case in New Jersey, that takes away time from helping women who may be in crisis. “It really interferes with the amount of women that we can see and the quality of services that we could give,” Cohen Morris warned about the threat of being such a target. If donor information is made public, Cohen Morris added, “you are putting the entire operation at risk potentially.” The Daily Signal also spoke with Aisha Taylor, an Ohio-based mom who received support from a PRC in Michigan when she was pregnant with twins. The center she received help from offered a similar “Baby Bucks” program for women to earn a way to acquire baby essentials by attending parenting classes. Tayor emphasized that parenting was her choice, which the resource center helped her with. She referred to the “huge community support” and said the emotional support that she received from “an important village for [her] during a very difficult time,” was essential. Without such assistance, Taylor revealed to The Daily Signal that she might not have been able to continue her pregnancy, which would have resulted in her being pressured by her twins’ father into having an abortion. “And in that moment, my choice was trying to be taken from me to make a decision that I did not want to make,” Taylor said about the pressure. Some studies show that a majority of women are pressured into abortions. Beyond that sense of support for women who want to be parents, to resist that pressure, Taylor wondered who would fill the void in providing such resources. Where the Case Is Expected to Go Wilson told reporters that this case “matters not just to First Choice, [but] it matters to pregnancy centers around the country,” which “are all subject to the same kind of harassment.” The attorney pointed out that “especially after the Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] decision,” which sent the abortion issue back to the states, “many of [these centers] have suffered violence and vandalism.” “And if the government can just go ahead on a pre-textual theory and demand that you turn over the names of your donors, then everyone in this country is less free,” Wilson said. Should the court rule in favor of First Choice, Wilson believes the likely path will involve remanding the case to the district court to act on the constitutional claims “that it’s so far refused to decide.” The post The High-Stakes SCOTUS Case Targeting Pregnancy Centers, Explained appeared first on The Daily Signal.

REUTERS—U.S. authorities believe the Afghan immigrant accused of ambushing National Guard members in Washington, D.C., was not radicalized until after he came to the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Sunday. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week,” Noem said authorities think alleged shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal was already living in Washington state when he became radicalized. Investigators are seeking more information from family members and others, Noem said. .@Sec_Noem on the National Guards attacker: "We believe he was radicalized since he has been here in this country. We do believe that it was through connections in his home community and state… Unvetted by Joe Biden, allowed to run free." pic.twitter.com/6X2YtMMmTl— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 30, 2025 Authorities identified Lakanwal, 29, as the suspect in a Wednesday shooting that took place just blocks away from the White House and which killed one National Guard member and critically wounded another. After the shooting, President Donald Trump’s administration pointed to a lack of vetting of Afghans and other foreign nationals during the term of former President Joe Biden, although Lakanwal was granted asylum under Trump. Trump told reporters on Sunday his administration could pause asylum admissions into the United States for an extended period. “No time limit, but it could be a long time,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “We have enough problems. We don’t want those people.” .@POTUS on reverse migration: "It means get people OUT that in are in our country — get them out of here. I want to get them out. We got a lot of people in our country that shouldn't be here and they came in through Biden… We're paying a big price for it." pic.twitter.com/a7fMfjOugP— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 30, 2025 Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 as part of the Biden administration’s mass evacuation of Afghans who aided U.S. forces during the two-decade war in Afghanistan as the Taliban took power. He was granted asylum in April by Trump’s administration, a government file reviewed by Reuters showed. Noem’s comments suggest Lakanwal, who was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, may have embraced extremism after arriving in the United States. “We believe he was radicalized since he’s been here in this country,” Noem told NBC News. “We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members.” Noem said U.S. officials have received “some participation” so far from people who knew Lakanwal and warned the U.S. would pursue anyone connected to the shooting. “Anyone who has the information on this needs to know that we will be coming after you, and we will bring you to justice,” Noem said. After Wednesday’s attack, the Trump administration took steps to clamp down on some legal immigration, including a freeze on processing of all asylum applications. "Will you deport people with pending asylum claims?"@Sec_Noem: "We will if they should be, absolutely. Yes. We are going to go through every single person that has a pending asylum claim." pic.twitter.com/3puyEdIopl— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 30, 2025 Noem said on Sunday immigration officials would consider deporting people with active asylum cases if it was warranted. “We are going to go through every single person that has a pending asylum claim,” she said. (Reporting by Ted Hesson and Jasper Ward; additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Sergio Non, Chizu Nomiyama and Chris Reese) The post National Guard Shooting Suspect Radicalized in US, Homeland Secretary Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Minnesota’s largest teachers union is under fire this week over its “professional development” courses on topics such as “Interrupting Whiteness” and “LGBTQ+ Training.” The “racial equity trainings” can be brought “to your building” when requested by Education Minnesota members, the union website explains, and offer instruction on topics like “Culturally Responsive Teaching With a Racial Justice Lens” and “Cultural Competency.” Educators in the state are required to fulfill a “cultural competency” training in order to renew their teaching licenses, which can include topics such as “Systemic Racism,” “Gender Identity, Including Transgender Students,” “Language Diversity,” and more, according to the state government page. The union website features similar content across the board, offering materials on “Anti-immigrant rhetoric & deportation,”  various “anti-racism” resources,  and a “racial and social justice” page claiming “certain politicians” are using police officers against minority students. “Most of us believe that every child, no matter what they look like or where they come from, deserves a safe and welcoming school where they can thrive,” it says. “But certain politicians try to divide us by sending police to monitor and punish Black and brown students in schools that have been denied funding to even cover the basics, while ensuring well-resourced schools with mostly white students have enrichment activities, teacher training, and parent engagement.” The website also names “the murder of George Floyd” and “attacks on honesty in education” as hardships the group is fighting against. Education Minnesota’s programs are part of the “Facing Inequities and Racism in Education” (FIRE) series, designed to “disrupt systemic racism and racial inequities in Minnesota’s education system.” The union operates a “Racial Equity Advocate network” and offers “Equity EdCamps.” Education Minnesota did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Meanwhile, more than half of 4th-grade students in Minnesota tested below the national proficiency standard in 2024. About 66% of 8th-grade students tested below proficient in math in the same year, and 72% tested below proficient in reading. Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, former vice presidential nominee, signed a law in 2024 that funded race-based teacher trainings and aimed to increase the number of “diverse” teachers in schools. In 2023, Walz signed a law requiring schools to offer “ethnic studies” courses, introducing children to racially divisive topics beginning in kindergarten. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Union Gives Teachers ‘Interrupting Whiteness’ Classes and More in Radical Left Training Series appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As we enter the final month of 2025, there’s no better time to start thinking about the year ahead and how we as conservatives can find unity in our purpose to save this great nation we call home. It’s our duty as Americans to make sure future generations enjoy the same promise of those who came before us. At Heritage, we’ve started this conversation, centered around four questions plain enough to ask around the dinner table with your family and significant enough to guide a movement and save a republic: What does it mean to be a flourishing American family? What does it mean to honor the dignity of work and secure the future of?free enterprise? What does it mean to have true national security? What does it mean to be an American citizen? As readers of The Daily Signal, with its roots stemming from Heritage, you already know we have a point of view based a core set of conservative principles. We’re confident in our thinking and our institution’s 52 years of robust intellectual history to dedicate ourselves to answering these questions. Taking Back Washington to Save America We believe that united, good-faith conservatives will engage in this discussion. We are also certain we know what a restored America looks like: Marriage and family celebrated, not ignored or mocked. Work dignified, wages rising, and two incomes a family choice, not a necessity. Borders secure, military strong, enemies deterred. Children learning truth—not ideology—in educational institutions that parents control. Faith respected, civic virtue restored, patriotism the norm. Government limited, debt shrinking, freedom expanding. We call this Heritage 2.0 inside our organization, where every colleague contributed to its creation. We present it to you as our battle plan to save America. Let there be no mistake; we are taking back Washington to save America. That puts a target on us—from the uniparty, the entrenched bureaucracy, and the deep state. Now may be a suitable time to reiterate with clarity our message to the purveyors of the status quo: Bring it on. We sweat not for the elites, but for everyday Americans. We toil not to be keyboard warriors but to chart a course of national renewal. The future of conservatism—a fusion of old and new right—will succeed when we return power to the people. The Beauty of Our American System Today’s populism didn’t emerge in a vacuum. It arose from failed leadership, calcified institutions, and elites who prioritized bureaucracy over everyday Americans. The people aren’t seeking minor fixes; they’re challenging the very credibility of the system, and often, they’re spot on. This ought to inspire our movement! The clearest path to returning power to the people is through a wholehearted rejuvenation of federalism. We will never lose sight of the many millions who feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. More than any organization across the country, Heritage is fully engaged in the work required to ensure a free, self-governing people can raise families and engage in community and commerce with peace, principles, and prosperity. Of course, the people will decide our future, as President Donald Trump recently noted, appealing to the beauty of our American system. We are clear-eyed that our effort comes at a time of cultural and civic strain. But we’ve been here before. My friend and predecessor Ed Feulner wrote in his book “The March of Freedom” that conservatism is “a broad social movement of diverse but reinforcing beliefs, gathering travelers on the same journey—pilgrims who argue over the topography of their promised land but move in the same direction.” Building for America’s Next 250 Years As Vice President JD Vance also said, the forces arrayed against conservatives of all stripes have massive resources, and there is a point where infighting becomes counterproductive. So, let’s get to work. It’s time to channel that turbulent passion, refine it with cool reason through public deliberation, and build a better America for the next 250 years, rooted in self-governance. Our Heritage is our future. Through it, together, we will save the republic and secure its future. The post Kevin Roberts: A Playbook for the Work Ahead appeared first on The Daily Signal.