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. The November 2026 elections will be determined, fairly or not, largely on the status of the economy. The Left knows that. They know two things. One, the enormous, projected gain in oil and natural gas production. Two, the deregulation and tax cuts involved in the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that will kick in in full in 2026 and some $10 trillion in foreign investment, even if that’s maybe only half of what’s promised, but that’s an enormous amount, seven or eight times more than President Joe Biden received in his last year of office. You add all of that up: An economy right now that is doing well, and Black Friday, following Thanksgiving, had almost $11 billion in online sales. That was a record, not just better than last year at this time under the Biden administration, but better than in any time in history. So, the economy is already strong, and you can imagine that these catalysts and this stimuli that are coming—deregulation, tax reduction, massive foreign investment, expelling 2 million people from the United States per year who were probably on social assistance, involved in many cases of crime. You can see what’s going to happen. The economy is going to boom in 2026, and the Left knows that. So, what is their strategy? Don’t talk about the Trump economy. And we’ve seen what? Go after Tesla. Firebomb Tesla dealerships. Drive Tesla automobiles off the road because Elon Musk was the prince of darkness, and he was involved in the Department of Government Efficiency. Demonize DOGE. Go after Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Have street theater. Have riots. Call them Gestapo. Say they’re worse than Hitler. Go after the National Guard that has cleaned up Washington, D.C. Encourage massive resistance. Call it illegal. Shut down the government. Shut down the government for longer than any period in history—40 days. Shut it down for no purpose. It gained nothing. Supposedly, it gained nothing. Shut it down. Have major senators on the Democratic side and representatives cut a video. Have them tell the American soldiers, all 1.3 million active-duty strong, you don’t have to obey an order. If, in your legal wisdom, your vast knowledge of jurisprudence, if you’re a private and he says, “Go over that hill,” I don’t have to do it. It’s illegal. Create disruption. And the piece of resistance, the Epstein files. You had the Epstein files for four years under Joe Biden, Democrats. You knew that President Donald Trump expelled him from his circle of friends before he was convicted of anything. But there are about 80% or 90% of people in the so-called Epstein files—these are emails. These are text messages. These are transcripts from court proceedings. These may be IRS files. But 80% to 90% are Democrats. That’s why it was not released during the Democratic administration. But no matter, just say, “Epstein files, Epstein files, Epstein files, Epstein files.” And so, Donald Trump finally says, “OK, they’re released.” And what do we hear? Crickets. Maybe a little bit about Larry Summers, Democrat, but silence. Why doesn’t the Left demand that every single name be released? Because they have more Democratic donors than Trump has Republican donors that are mentioned in it. So, the Epstein files, like the shutdown, like the street theater, like all the videos, like all the smuddy language, they were designed for one point, one reason, one goal: Keep your mind off the economy. Create a word called “affordability.” The real message is: We Democrats raised prices by 21% when we were in power, 5.2% per year. We had enormous budget deficits. We ran the debt up by $8 trillion. We had a $1.1 trillion deficit. Don’t talk about that. Just say that Donald Trump, in 10 months, has a 3% inflation rate, the same as when he entered office, and therefore, he’s responsible for the 21% that we ran up, and we’ll call it affordability. My message to the Trump administration and all of you listening is: Tune out all of the street theater, all the pornography, all the smuddy language, all the insurrectionary activity, and just focus on the economy and talk two points. Two points: how much better it is already than the average of the four years prior, but more importantly, demonstrate why it’s going to be booming in 2026 and why the Democrats don’t want you to think about that. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Democrats Want to Distract You From This Before Midterms appeared first on The Daily Signal.

House Democrats recently blamed the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for poor information security. But the agency was fully staffed during the Biden administration when a massive—and still unresolved—data breach occurred.  In February 2023, CFPB experienced a data breach that forwarded the confidential information of 256,000 consumers to a personal email address. The CFPB fired the staffer who emailed a spreadsheet with the names, transactions, and account numbers.  The breach may have contained customer information from more than 50 financial institutions. Protecting data of consumers compromised in this breach is a separate issue from whether the CFPB should continue to exist in its current state, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Daily Signal. He said he intends to find out directly from the agency. “I have not blown off or forgotten about this,” Sessions noted. “The big question that needs to be answered is, when were notices given to consumers?” “If the CFPB has followed the law, people who were affected have been notified,” he said. “I will go directly to the CFPB and ask questions to be sure they follow the law.” President Donald Trump named Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought acting director of the CFPB, which falls under the Federal Reserve. Vought eliminated the agency’s budget request for the next quarter and ordered about 1,700 employees not to perform any work. Vought has proposed cutting the CFPB workforce by as much as 90%.  “CFPB is an unaccountable agency that D.C. bureaucrats have weaponized to the detriment of consumers,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, told The Daily Signal.  “Under Democrat control, the bureau was responsible for one of the biggest data breaches in recent American history,” Barr said. “I commend Director Russ Vought and President Trump for cleaning up the rogue CFPB, empowering consumers and financial institutions.”  In November, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, pointed to an audit by the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General that said staffing and funding cuts at the CFPB were to blame for the lack of information security.  “To put it bluntly: consumers and their data are more at risk than ever and more vulnerable to bad actors due to the Trump Administration’s harmful actions,” a Waters press release says. “The continued dismantling of the CFPB will only worsen this crisis.”  A Waters spokesperson did not respond to inquiries for this story on Tuesday. The IG report says security issues were “compounded by the loss of contractor resources supporting information security continuous monitoring and testing activities and the departure of agency personnel.”  Experts have noted that personal financial information stored at the agency has been in jeopardy since the agency’s beginning.  A CFPB spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal for this story on Monday or Tuesday. After the 2023 breach happened, a CFPB spokesperson said in a statement at the time, “The CFPB takes data privacy very seriously, and this unauthorized transfer of personal and confidential data is completely unacceptable.”  The CFPB was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation to regulate banks, credit card companies, lenders, and other financial services companies. It receives funding through the Federal Reserve. The post House Republicans Seek Answers on Biden-Era Data Breach of 256,000 Consumers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump called affordability “a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing.” “Look, affordability’s a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing. And they didn’t end it when, look, they lost it in a landslide,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday.   Trump bashed Democrats for using the word “affordability” as a “con job.”   “But the word affordability is a Democrat scam,” Trump said, adding that the Biden administration “had the worst inflation in the history of our country.”  Trump called it a “fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. You just say it—affordability.” President Trump: "There's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about. Affordability. They just say the word. I inherited the worst inflation in history. Nobody could afford anything. Their prices were massively high. The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats." pic.twitter.com/nfrgJLQanA— TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 2, 2025 Trump claimed that Democrats don’t know that prices were “much higher” under President Joe Biden, pointing to the prices of gas as an example. Today, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is $2.99. One year ago, the average price was $3.047, according to AAA.   “But our prices now for energy, and for gasoline are really low. Electricity is coming down, and when that comes down, everything comes down,” Trump said. “Beef is coming down now. We’ve done certain magic and beef is coming down,” the president said, adding, “we fixed inflation.” “We’re gonna get prices down still further, but we brought them down,” he said. “The reason that they had the highest inflation in the history of our country is because they had the highest prices. But we brought them down, and now we have normal inflation.” The U.S. inflation rate hit a 30-year high at 8% in 2022 under the Biden administration. The inflation rate today is 3.01%.   Politicians in Washington and around the country have talked more about the issue of affordability following the elections in November. Affordability surfaced as the key issue voters cared about in Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and the mayoral race in New York. Republican losses in those elections, and the margins by which the GOP candidates lost, is partially being attributed to a failure to address the affordability crisis in America.   Since taking office, Trump has pushed for a decrease in interest rates. Trump has continued to call on the Federal Reserve to decrease them following the recent elections. In November, the White House said Trump plans to ramp up domestic travel ahead of midterms as he sells voters on his affordability accomplishments.   The post ‘HOAX’?: Trump Changes Tune on Affordability appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Lawmakers in Washington are contemplating an artificial intelligence provision that could have wide ranging ramifications for how states and localities regulate the emerging technology and protect the vulnerable online. The provision could be added to the National Defense Authorization Act that will direct how nearly $1 trillion will be spent on national defense for Fiscal Year 2026, The NDAA text is expected to be released this Thursday. While the precise language of the AI provision remains unknown, it could likely entail efforts to prevent states or localities from regulating AI and possibly even render many state laws to protect children moot. According to a report from Axios, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., have shopped language around Capitol Hill that would preempt or override state-level AI regulations. Some of the bills that would come to regulate AI on the federal level would likely pass through Cruz’s Senate committee as the Texas senator eyes another White House bid in 2028. The White House has supported efforts by Congress to get such AI provisions into law. If Congress does decide to slip the AI provision into the NDAA, it would be the second time this year Congress has tried to add an AI provision of this nature to a large legislative item. The Senate debated adding a 10-year AI regulation moratorium for states in the One Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law in July. That AI provision mulled by the Senate would have withheld federal broadband funding to states if sought to enforce the laws passed by the duly elected representatives of their American citizens. Furthermore, federal broadband funds would have also been withheld if states and localities dared to address new concerns about AI for the 10 years following the enactment of the provisions. Cruz was a proponent of placing the AI provision in the reconciliation package signed by President Donald Trump in July. Proponents of the previously debated AI provision expressed concerns that America’s patchwork of AI regulations would hinder American technology companies’ abilities to compete with China and other rivals of the U.S. The provision as written would therefore have affected red and blue states alike including the technology hubs of Texas and California. It was ultimately removed in the final version of the budget bill by a vote of 99 to 1 in the Senate. Some Republicans in Congress, however, are throwing cold water on putting an AI provision into the NDAA. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., has reportedly said he does not think a moratorium on individual state regulation of AI will be included in the final version of the NDAA.  “From what I hear, it’s kind of lost its momentum. It doesn’t have enough support,” Rogers said according to Politico.  As The Daily Signal previously reported, Texas has already passed legislation regulating the utilization of AI in censoring viewpoints on the Internet as well as user privacy protections from AI-empowered data harvesting, allowing Americans to opt-out of being profiled. Such laws are widely supported by the chief law enforcement officers of dozens of states as demonstrated by a National Association of Attorneys General letter to congressional leadership in May that came out against the 10-year moratorium. The letter noted the absence of federal action addressing the potential harms of AI, which has required states to step up and protect their residents themselves by passing laws.  “These include laws designed to protect against AI-generated explicit material, prohibit deep-fakes designed to mislead voters and consumers, protect renters when algorithms are used to set rent, prevent spam phone calls and texts, require basic disclosures when consumers are interacting with specific kinds of AI, and ensure identity protection for endorsements and other AI-generated content,” the attorneys general letter explained. The moratorium was also opposed by one of the most prominent Republican state executives in the country, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders.  “Congressional Republicans like Sen. [Marsha] Blackburn, Sen. [Josh] Hawley, and members of the House Freedom Caucus are right: The One, Big, Beautiful Bill will be a huge win for the American people, but can’t include a provision that strips states of their right to regulate AI,” Sanders said to The Daily Signal in June about the moratorium.  When asked about the return of the potential regulatory ban, Sanders’s office told The Daily Signal that, “Governor Sanders supports President Trump’s leadership to unleash American AI dominance and looks forward to working with his administration and other stakeholders to make sure we win the race against China and also protect Americans.” The post Congress Could Slip a Major AI Regulation Change Into the NDAA appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth defended the Department of War’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, citing the “fog of war.” Hegseth said during the second strike on Sept. 2, the boat “was on fire,” so he didn’t personally see survivors, and he said he “didn’t stick around” for the remainder of the mission following the first strike. He said Adm. Frank Bradley “made the correct decision” in sinking the boat, which he “had complete authority to do.” “This is called the fog of war,” Hegseth said at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. “This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick. You plant fake stories in The Washington Post about ‘kill everybody,’ based on anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in truth at all.” Hegseth said reporters were throwing out “really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.” “I wrote a whole book on this topic because of what politicians and the press does to war fighters,” he said. “President [Donald] Trump has empowered commanders—commanders—to do what is necessary, which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night on behalf of the American people. We support them, and we will stop the poisoning of the American people.” A reporter asked Trump if he supported the second strike to kill survivors of the Venezuelan boat strike. “All I know is this, every boat that’s blown up that you see, we save 25,000 lives,” Trump said, adding that he still hasn’t gotten a lot of information. “To me, it was an attack,” he said. “It wasn’t one strike, two strikes, three strikes.” The president said he wants the drug boats taken out, and he is willing to attack on land if necessary. “These people have killed over 200,000 people last year,” he said. “We’re taking those sons of b—- out.” The post ‘Fog of War’: Hegseth Tells Press What They ‘Don’t Understand’ About Strikes on Narco-Terrorists appeared first on The Daily Signal.