Republicans have come to a critical juncture, with less than a year to go before their control of Congress is at stake, but they say the way to hold on to power is more legislative aggression, not less. “We have a short time to fix a very large problem that the Biden administration left us, and we did that. Look at how quickly that we secured the border,” House Republican conference chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told The Daily Signal on Tuesday at the Republican Study Committee’s media row event. “My view is we need to continue those bold, aggressive actions for the American people because we don’t have a lot of time to do it.” In just 11 months, Republicans will attempt to hold on to their narrow majorities in the House and Senate. A consensus has emerged that Republicans will have to counter Democrats’ narratives on affordability and offer their own vision. “I think we need to do a better job of messaging,” Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., told The Daily Signal. “Republicans are going to be fine in the midterm. We just need to make sure that we get the message out there that we are correcting the after effect, if you will, of the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.” “I think that we need to be more aggressive in terms of talking about what the real issues are,” Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., told The Daily Signal. “We saw the [losses in] … elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and I actually think that we need to be holding the Democrats accountable for the crises that they created and also describing the things that we are doing to attempt to resolve them.” A big part of Hageman’s vision for a Republican affordability plan is health care—ambitiously restructuring the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. Obamacare “has exacerbated every single problem in the industry, and the Republicans do need to seize this moment and actually come up with a better plan of how to provide health insurance and medical care to the American people,” Hageman said. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images) President Donald Trump and Republican leadership in both chambers have been attempting to attack this issue. Throughout the shutdown, Democrats emphasized the issue of expiring enhanced premium tax credits.  The White House has floated proposals of a temporary, reformed extension of the tax credits.  In the Senate—where this issue came to prominence amid Democrats’ shutdown of the government—Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., have proposed setting up flexible health care savings accounts as an alternative to the tax credits, which they view as inflationary and prone to fraud. In the House, Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., has introduced a similar proposal of “MAHA accounts.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., is currently working on finalizing a health care package. The stakes of the moment are high. If President Donald Trump were to lose his trifecta, it would likely hamstring attempts to pass ambitious, conservative legislation. With a majority, House Democrats would also be able to impeach and stymie the administration. Claiming ‘Affordability’ for MAGA The president appears to understand the importance of winning the narrative and has worked in recent days to counter Democrats’ attempts to frame themselves as the party of affordability. “They just say the word,” Trump told reporters in a cabinet meeting Tuesday of Democrats’ affordability narrative. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it—‘affordability.’ I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.” Trump on affordability: It doesn't mean anything to anybody… The word is a con job by the Democrats pic.twitter.com/pRgh3ZAHa4— Acyn (@Acyn) December 2, 2025 Trump would continue to call the affordability narrative a “con job” at an oval office press event on auto industry deregulation and blame Democrats for the country’s lingering inflation. House Republicans now have a precious eleven month span to try to show the American public that they are the party of affordability.  Republicans had previously hoped to protect their majority with redistricting across the country. But with retaliatory redistricting coming in California, it is unclear how many seats Republicans will be able to net through this strategy. Some Republicans say they need to focus on passing popular legislation which yields tangible benefits for Americans. “Joe Biden put us into a massive hole to take time to dig out of. Some people want to fix affordability by just shoveling more government money out the door. That will only make things worse. More money in the economy will be inflationary,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., told The Daily Signal.  “Instead, we need to do things like reduce regulations, make it easier for people to go out and build projects in this country, Start businesses, do energy exploration,” Johnson continued. “Those chickens take time to come home to roost, but that needs to be the agenda of this Republican majority.” The Speaker’s Future In recent days, Speaker Johnson has faced criticisms from House GOP members, and outlets such as The New York Times have speculated on how long he will retain the gavel. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., recently told The Wall Street Journal that “the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership” if Johnson were up for election tomorrow. But the speaker says he is in it for the long haul. Speaker Johnson downplays House GOP dissent. I asked him if he plans to run for speaker/leader next Congress.“Absolutely,” he said, touting their recordAlso said Trump pardoning Cuellar has “no effect on us at all” in flipping seatTold me he hadn’t yet seen Signalgate report pic.twitter.com/F9AcgMzVxW— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 4, 2025 “Absolutely,” he said Wednesday when asked if he would be running for to lead the Republican conference again next Congress. “We’re going to continue this agenda. We have had one of the most successful, productive congresses in the history of this institution. We’ll put it up against any in history and we did that because we were able to keep everybody together even with the smallest margins in history.” The post Stakes High for House Republicans With Midterms Approaching appeared first on The Daily Signal.

This week, the National Council for Social Studies—the largest professional association dedicated to social studies education—is hosting its 105th annual conference in Washington, D.C. The conference webpage tells attendees, “You will leave the conference with strong strategies for delivering instruction that engages students, the best ways to advocate for the most pressing issues of social studies education, and a network of colleagues to support you throughout the year.”  Naturally, with the NCSS’ conference theme “Because democracy depends on it,” one might expect educational sessions on history, geography, and civics with some soft leftist messaging sprinkled in. However, a closer look at the conference reveals this form of professional development is far beyond neutral social studies pedagogy. Democracy does indeed depend on it—but what version of democracy does the NCSS have in mind?   NCSS conference content is no longer centered around education—it’s practically an ideological boot camp. The conference’s star speaker will be Kimberlé Crenshaw, called the “architect” and “co-editor” of critical race theory. Crenshaw has criticized Republicans’ rejection of CRT as “suffocating democracy” and has led national-level campaigns, hoping to embed CRT into the fabric of American education.   Other speakers include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Episcopalian Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who gained notoriety for her inaugural sermon for President Donald Trump.   But it’s not only about the speakers signaling a political agenda. The sessions themselves reek of ideology:  “Reclaiming Elementary Social Studies Through Critical Literacy, Antiracism, and Storytelling”  “Working Towards More Abolitionist Futures for Environmental and Sustainability Education”  “Conceiving Reproductive Justice in Social Studies Education”  “Contending with the Challenges and Possibilities of Climate Change Education in Social Studies”  “Decolonial Perspectives on Palestine, Indigenous Rights, and Global Justice”  “Teaching democracy in the dark: Perspectives on social studies education amid a cloud of authoritarianism”  Is this professional development or professional brainwashing? The answer seems clear.   This “social studies conference” prompts us to reexamine the intellectual ethos that guides modern education. At this moment, kids don’t need an overdose of reproductive justice, critical race action civics, or decolonial perspectives. Kids need faith. Faith in America and the American experiment.  We should be worried about the worldview that the NCSS wants teachers to pass along to kids. The NCSS would rather systematically train educators to see America as oppressive and out-to-get-everyone than equip educators and students with the confidence and hope to engage confidently with their communities and understand what America—for generations and generations—has invested in its young.   Uncritical patriotism is the antithesis of an effective social studies education, but what we have now is darkness, followed by pessimism, narratives of oppression, and topped with existential despair.   In public education, thanks to organizations such as the NCSS, this darkness has increasingly become an all-too-consuming attitude toward social studies education. “As social studies educators, we play an integral role in protecting democracy now and in perpetuity,” NCSS President Tina M. Ellsworth wrote. What irony from the organization that seeks to undermine it.   As Robert Pondiscio—senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute—put it on his Substack, too many schools and social studies curriculums are consumed by an “unbearable bleakness.” Pondiscio reflects on teaching a civics seminar in a Harlem charter school and passing out invoices detailing the amount that the city and state of New York spent on students’ “free” K-12 education.   The purpose? Remind students that school is their civic inheritance, “a sign that the world might be for them, not against them.” A reminder that behind the scenes, America’s investments into each student’s life are taking place.   “I am all for truth telling,” Pondiscio wrote, “but kids are not getting the full truth. They are getting the bleakest possible version.”  This week, the NCSS will continue replaying this doomed, failure-oriented narrative through its sessions on “troubled times” and “faculty activism.” The long-term result won’t be student engagement. As Pondiscio noted, the result is dejected and unmotivated students, convinced that there’s no reason to invest in a country that hates them.  Kids are less motivated to go to school, period. The key driver? A lack of purpose, quite possibly stemming from overdone, pessimistic narratives that have been shoved down kids’ throats since elementary school social studies education.   Pondiscio concluded with the most important civics lesson kids can learn: optimism, attachment, and patriotism. “Let’s build schools that help them see that the world is not something to withdraw from, but something to join, and a place in which they can flourish.”  Another 7th grade teacher piggybacked on this theme of school as a pathway to civic life. He opened his blog with a joke about the question that every teacher has faced at one point or another: “When am I ever going to use this?” His response? The lessons learned in school aren’t about taking PEMDAS and Shakespearean sonnets to the workforce. What’s learned in school is more important than that.   He argued, what kids are learning in school is as much about about giving kids a way to make sense of the world as it is about content. Social studies, and every lesson, “becomes part of a person’s capacity to navigate life,” giving kids the tools they need to look at the world in an intelligent, thoughtful way.   In this vein, when we give kids nothing but bleakness, darkness, and division, we teach them to look at their futures—and America’s future—through this lens. We’re seeing the first wave of results now—boys falling behind, overall lack of engagement in school, Gen-Zers reporting hatred for America, young people searching for work in other countries. Young people are so angry with the system that they’ve become jaded and uninvested.   This is just the beginning, if we continue letting groups such as the NCSS dictate the narrative for our kids. The NCSS may preach that “democracy depends on it,” but for them, their success depends on framing America in as irredeemable a way as possible, leaving kids as political pawns, rather than civic agents filled with curiosity and hope.  Our students need to learn that the American experiment is not a burden—it’s a complex, faulted promise that requires investment and care. It’s time that social studies classrooms remind kids of their power and agency in fulfilling America’s promise. Teach with hope and courage, rather than disdain.   Unlike the NCSS’ upcoming boot camp, democracy does, indeed, depend on it.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post What Does It Mean to Teach Social Studies? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Multiple attacks are being planned against Christians in Nigeria on Christmas Day, a major publication in the country warns.   “So help me God, if intervention doesn’t happen within the next two weeks, we are going to see a massacre of Christians on Christmas,” Judd Saul, founder of Truth Nigeria, said at an event hosted by the Washington Policy Institute in D.C. on Thursday.   Truth Nigeria, a project of Equipping the Persecuted, is a news outlet employing Nigerian journalists with the aim of telling true stories of corruption and violence in the African nation.   About a year and a half ago, Truth Nigeria began issuing terror alerts as locals started informing the news outlet of planned attacks.   “We have gained intelligence from within communities of when attacks were going to occur and where, [and] in every instance, we get a terror alert, we notify the Nigerian police, we notify the Nigerian military, we notify local government officials,” Saul said.   “Out of all the terror alerts we’ve issued, we’ve had 89% accuracy in all of our terror alerts, and the Nigerian government, police, and military did nothing to intervene,” he added.   The attacks are reportedly expected in the Plateau and Kaduna states of Nigeria.   The Nigerian government did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.   Christians have faced persecution in Nigeria for more than two decades, but violence against followers of Jesus grew far worse with the rise of Boko Haram in 2009, according to Global Christian Relief. In recent years, Fulani militants, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, also began carrying out acts of violence against Christian communities in Nigeria.    It is estimated that more than 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, about 7,000 in the first half 2025 alone, according to Concerned Women for America.  At the end of October, President Donald Trump announced that he was designating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern in response to the violent persecution against Christians.   Asked about the role of Nigeria government should play to ensure there are no attacks against Nigerians on Christmas Day, a White House official told The Daily Signal:  President Trump made his position clear. Nigeria is facing a complex array of threats from terrorist groups and violent extremist organizations that is affecting wide portions of the country. We hope that the Nigerian government will work to take swift and immediate action in collaboration with the United States to address the violence that is affecting Christians, as well as countless other innocent civilians across Nigeria. Nigeria ranks among the top 10 nations in the world for Christian persecution, and according to Saul, 90% of Christian persecution deaths in the past five years have taken place in Nigeria.   In June, Fulani jihadists attacked Christians in Yelwata, Nigeria, setting homes on fire and shooting at will, according to Genocide Watch. Over 200 people were killed in the attack.   “We had intelligence 30 days before this attack,” Saul said. “We notified the Nigerian government. They did nothing.”   With so much attention on the issue of Nigeria after Trump began speaking out on the issue and added Nigeria back to the list of nations of Particular Concern, Saul says what is needed now is “real action, action with teeth.”   “I do believe the gospel of Jesus Christ will help Nigeria and stop the conflict, but I also believe that we have resources, we have brains, we have legs, we have arms, and we can intercede on behalf of our persecuted brothers and sisters with courage, with action, and stand in the gap,” he said.   The post WARNING: Attacks on Nigerian Christians Expected on Christmas, Source Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump, the very man who branded former President Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe” during the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, has been caught on camera seeming to nod off—during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting and a recent Oval Office event. Critics on the Left are gleeful. Let them have their jollies. Because one of these old men is not like the other. Trump, 79, has presided over nine Cabinet meetings this year. Biden, 83, held nine Cabinet meetings during his four years in office. During a Tuesday interview, DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin brought up Trump’s health. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brought up “one of the greatest scandals” of all time: the media’s lack of coverage of Biden’s “diminished capacity.” Noting that Trump just held a lengthy Cabinet meeting and phoned him twice at 2 a.m. last week, Bessent argued, “For 10 months, the Biden administration did not have a Cabinet meeting. How are you going to invoke the 25th Amendment if the Cabinet secretaries never see the president? Which they didn’t.” While cable news channels are all over clips of Trump seemingly nodding off, they weren’t exactly profiles in courage with Biden who, in 2020, campaigned for the White House from the privacy of his Delaware home. Biden’s lockdown campaign was followed by a COVID-19 presidency known for hospital masks, school closures and talking up working from home. Trump plowed through COVID-19. He understood the importance of getting Americans back to work. I’ll never forget the October 2020 evening when Trump returned to the White House after spending 72 hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was treated for the coronavirus. After Marine One touched down on the South Lawn, Trump walked up the long, crescent-shaped South Portico stairs and, from the balcony, took off his light mask and saluted in a show of will and resilience. From day one of his second term, Trump went after bad regulations. Just this week he proposed rolling back car fuel efficiency standards. His Make America Healthy Again campaign has taken on the childhood disease crisis. His robust enforcement of immigration law has discouraged illegal border crossings. No small feat: Trump brokered a Gaza ceasefire deal that resulted in Hamas’ release of the surviving 20 Israeli hostages. Trump talks to the press almost daily. In 2022, The New York Times reported that Biden had given 38 interviews during a fixed point in the presidency compared with 116 for Trump’s first term, 198 for former President Barack Obama, 71 for George W. Bush and 75 for Bill Clinton. It’s not just the media. Biden was cloistered even from his own staff. In the tell-all book “Original Sin,” Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson write of the insider who told them, “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.” At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump was engaged, not asleep at the switch. He hopscotched from one issue to the next. Yes, at moments he seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. Rather than react defensively, however, Trump confronted the age question.  “I’ll let you know when there’s something wrong,” Trump offered. “There will be someday. That’s going to happen to all of us. But right now I think I’m sharper than I was 25 years ago. But who the hell knows?” Is Trump cognitively sharper than he was 25 years ago? Probably not, given his age. But he knows more about the presidency and the world, which has made him remarkably effective. And there’s no mystery as to who’s making the decisions in this administration. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Sleepy Donald Trump? Umm, No, He’s Not Joe Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump made quite the stir in recent days after declaring he does not want Somalis in the U.S.   Somalia “stinks and we don’t want them in our country,” according to the president, who added that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is Somali, is “garbage.”   Trump’s comments come after news broke that a fraud scheme among Minnesota’s Somali population cost taxpayers over $1 billion. Authorities are investigating multiple plots in which Somalis are alleged to have stolen taxpayer money by claiming social services benefits.   “Nonprofits tied to the Somali community claimed to have fed tens of thousands of nonexistent hungry children, claimed to have provided services to non-existent homeless, and claimed to have provided therapy for nonexistent autistic Somali children,” according to the White House. “Kickbacks were paid, lavish lifestyles were funded, and money was sent overseas–some of it even allegedly funneled to a terror group.”  Additionally, Trump has paused all visas for Afghan nationals. This happened after a man from Afghanistan, who has been living in the U.S. since the fall of Kabul in 2021, shot two National Guard members near the White House the day before Thanksgiving, killing U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom.    And after Trump vowed to pause immigration from “developing nations countries,” the U.S. has frozen all immigration applications for foreigners from 19 counties, and is reviewing applications that were approved during the four years of the Biden administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on Fox News Thursday that the list will be expanded to “over 30” nations, but did not specify.   For now, the list includes: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Cuba, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen.   On today’s edition of “Problematic Women,” we discuss Trump’s heightened immigration crackdown, and why assimilation is nonnegotiable.   Plus, what is going on with the narco-terrorist boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific? We break it down. And Sabrina Carpenter is mad at the White House for using her music in an immigration enforcement video. All this and more on this week’s show!   The post Who Gets to Be an American? Trump Has an Answer   appeared first on The Daily Signal.