This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** We keep hearing that boys are struggling. Of all the possible reasons, the lack of father figures in their lives should be near the top of the list. Like it or not, to become a man, it takes a man. It is indisputable that we need strong male influences in our upbringing to help mold us into the type of men that are necessary for a society to thrive. If you are lucky, as I have been, you can learn by osmosis through your father and the other male role models around you as you grow up. Statistics, like one in four children in America grows up in a fatherless home, can tell us what’s missing. However, they can’t tell us what it actually looks and feels like to have that influence there. The question becomes what, and how, can fathers — or the other male influences in our lives — teach us to help America’s boys become men? All I can share is my experience with my own dad. Let’s start with the most obvious, yet something that unfortunately must be said: He was there. Literally. My dad never missed anything. Games, school events, ceremonies, plays, you name it. If it mattered to my sister or me, it mattered to him. And not because he viewed fatherhood as an obligation. He genuinely wanted to be there for us. That’s an important distinction. Kids can tell the difference between a father who is physically present and one who is genuinely invested. Our society talks a lot about ambition, career success, personal freedom, and self-fulfillment. Words we hear a lot less than we used to are responsibility, commitment, and sacrifice. The best way for boys to learn what manhood looks like is by watching good men live it. They learn it from watching how their father treats their mother with love and respect. They learn it from seeing a man keep his word, even when it’s inconvenient. They learn it from knowing someone who worked all day but still made time to be in the stands at your basketball game or pick you up from school and stop by Dairy Queen on the way home for a “little treat.” They learn it from presence. The beauty of it is, my dad taught me all of those things without ever really sitting me down and announcing it like a lecture. Although, to be clear, as the son of a teacher, I experienced plenty of lectures, too. But most of the important lessons my dad taught me have come through example rather than words. I fall short of his example every single day, but he gave me a standard to strive for and something to live up to. A lot of the problems we are seeing with young men today stem from the fact that too many boys never get to experience that kind of example firsthand. That is not to diminish the incredible single mothers raising boys under difficult circumstances every day. But even they will often tell you the value of strong male role models and support systems in a boy’s life. When fathers are absent, boys don’t stop looking for guidance. They start looking elsewhere. Sometimes that means the internet. Sometimes it means social media influencers, athletes, celebrities, people in their communities, or even just anyone who will fill the silence and the void first. In some cases, those people can be positive. Often, they are not. And, ultimately, it is difficult for any of them to replace a father who is engaged, invested, and present in his child’s life. A good father gives his son something increasingly rare in modern America: stability. He has the power to impart not only confidence, dependability, and toughness, but kindness, warmth, and humility. Most importantly, he shows his sons the kind of man they should strive to become. Growing up, my dad embodied all of this in ways both big and small. But should this really be surprising for a man who, in recent years, made it a habit of sending me Instagram videos of Archie Bunker? Wrap up that humor and warm smile in the same person who insists clean-shaven is better than a 5 o’clock shadow, and you see how to set a standard while still making life fun. It’s one text message with a Bible verse or motivational quote, followed by another text with a “Golden Buzzer” moment from “America’s Got Talent” that you know made him tear up. It’s the dad whom you want to call every day to check in, even when you’re a full-grown adult — because you know he isn’t always going to tell you what you want to hear, but he’ll always tell you what you need to hear. Yet, you don’t realize until later in adulthood how much those check-ins really matter or how much they truly shape you. It’s wearing a suit and tie to church every single Sunday when I was growing up to make sure he set an example for his kids about the importance of the Lord and our faith. But he would also break out a slingshot on the eighth floor condo to launch water balloons too close to unsuspecting strangers camped out on the beach and then play dumb when they came up to complain. It’s the dad who never misses a basketball game but films the game by himself at the top of the bleachers just to calm his nerves and keep him from accidentally elbowing the person sitting next to him. It’s the dad who knows what grades you are capable of and who will accept nothing less, but who will also go in and complain to the middle school principal that Ms. Swineford chose the Monday after the Super Bowl to give a make-up math exam. Looking back now, I realize fatherhood is built in ordinary moments. Small habits, routines, jokes, phone calls, rides home, and quiet acts of consistency that don’t feel extraordinary at the time, and then one day you realize they shaped almost everything about you. “One day” for me was on February 10, 2026. The day I got the last phone call from my dad. It was the day I lost my dad and my best friend. One of my favorite quotes says, “Everything in life has a cost, and grief is the price we pay for love.” But grief also has a way of clarifying things. I’ve found myself recently thinking less about the big moments and more about the mundane ones. And maybe that’s the point. A good father can help shape your life so gradually and consistently that you don’t even fully realize how much of who you are has come from him until he is gone. We spend so much time in modern American discourse debating or defining masculinity. But I was lucky enough to grow up seeing it lived out every day. Not perfectly, but faithfully. The older I get, the clearer it becomes how rare that was and how desperately more children need it. So, what makes a man? The answer is a good father, someone like my dad. *** Evan Berryhill is a Republican communications strategist and attorney. 

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Kids need strong dads. Like, really strong. After all, if your dad can’t bench 225 lbs, he’s probably your mom.  All kidding aside, I embrace being the “jacked” dad. A father’s strength is often the first form of security a child experiences. Kids want to be carried to bed, put on your shoulders, and thrown in the pool. And every summer, I make a spectacle of ripping my shirt off and getting my daughter’s loaded camp trunk from the top of her closet while making Hulk sounds. While my sons actually do care what I can bench, most kids don’t. They just care that dad can do things. Laughing about “dad bods” led to acceptance, which turned into a celebration of sorts. Eventually, we stopped expecting fathers to remain physically capable. But physical capability isn’t vanity. It’s part of the job description. This conversation isn’t about abs. It’s about refusing to be average in areas we can control and that our kids can observe. The inevitable decline of age will catch us all, but surrendering is optional. And I spent years surrendering.  When my wife told me we were pregnant with our first child, I was sitting on the couch eating pizza. For years, I had been saying I’d “get in shape” soon. Long gone were the college football days that came with a strength coach’s accountability. So, I threw the slice in the trash and went on a health journey. I told my wife that if I couldn’t take care of myself, I shouldn’t be expected to take care of a child.  That inflection point sent me on a 50-pound weight-loss journey, and the last 11 years have been a lesson in the benefits of being a strong dad.  My kids know that their beauty is an inherent gift from God, but their health and their strength are mostly within their control and reflect our family’s values.  I teach them that their bodies are their business cards. Before people hear your values, they see your habits. Your body tells a story not about perfection, but about priorities. Do you do hard things? Do you set goals? Are you reliable to show up? Your body doesn’t reveal everything about your character, but it usually reveals something. And our home is where these habits should be most visible. Kids copy far more than they listen. I can’t expect them to keep their bedroom clean if ours is a mess. I can’t demand they eat healthy if I’m constantly digging through the pantry for junk food. The same is true for fitness. Years ago, I built a gym in our garage. My kids see me work out every day. But they’re seeing more than the routine of reps. They’re seeing delayed gratification, discipline, effort, injury, and setbacks. They’re watching their dad set goals, struggle, fail, try again, and eventually succeed. In many ways, they are capturing all the lessons of parenting, marriage, and life.  There is also a faith element here, and we take our faith more seriously than fitness. God didn’t call men to be bodybuilders, but he did call men to protect, provide, serve, and carry burdens. Physical capability forges all four. Strength isn’t the goal; service is. But strength helps. Christianity emphasizes a life of uncomfortable sacrifice. Weight training is voluntary discomfort. One willingly embraces struggle now to become more useful later. That is fundamentally Christian. Jesus carried the cross. We shoulder burdens.  While our culture often teaches us either to worship our bodies or ignore them, Christianity teaches neither. Scripture teaches stewardship. First Corinthians 6:19 says, “Your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit.” God has entrusted me with a wife, children, time, resources, and a body. Stewardship means carrying all of them. The goal is not vanity. It’s readiness. Christian men should not aspire to be impressive. They should aspire to be useful. And nowhere is that usefulness needed more than inside the walls of your home. But capability doesn’t just benefit your children. Before I was a dad, I was a husband. Love isn’t merely spoken; it’s demonstrated through action. When you are physically capable, you are better able to carry your share, serve, protect, and show up. My wife already has enough things to take care of. I’m refusing to be one of them. Weight training lowers your risk of all-cause mortality. I don’t just want to walk my daughter down the aisle. I want to dance with her kids at their weddings. And I want to give my sons fatherhood advice when they’re 40. One of the greatest gifts I can give my kids is putting in the effort to stay around.  I don’t know when I’ll lift my kids onto my shoulders for the last time, but that day will come. Seasons of life end, and age is undefeated. But until then, I will be capable for the people God entrusted to me. They deserve the strongest version of me. And while fatherhood is about being strong and not looking strong, you still might catch me throwing up the occasional flex on the beach.   *** Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast We The People with Gates Garcia. Follow him on X and Instagram @GatesGarciaFL.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris provided her own peculiar definition of hope, adding to a growing list of rambling and confusing responses from the 2026 presidential candidate. “I really, truly believe this. We each have light inside of us,” Harris told former CNN anchor and podcast host Don Lemon on Friday. “And we need to know that that is what inspires our hope as much as anything external to ourselves.”  The former vice president’s attempt to inspire Lemon’s audience when confronted by challenges and failures seemingly fell flat, if not face-first.  Harris was not finished, though. “And when we feel that and not allow an election or an individual to dampen that light, and instead light, let that light kind of carry us in particular through moments of darkness, that we not only act on that hope, but we inspire that hope in each other,” she added.  Harris has quite the word salad catalog. When asked why the Biden administration didn’t release the Epstein files in 2025, Harris offered late-night host Jimmy Kimmel the following response: “To give you an answer that will not satisfy your curiosity, I will tell you, perhaps to our damage, um, but we strongly and rightly believed that there should be an absolute separation between what we wanted as an administration and what the Department of Justice did. We absolutely adhered to that, and it was right to do that.”  “The Justice Department would make its decisions independent of any political or personal, uh, vendetta or concern that we may have and that’s the way it worked,” she finished, before Kimmel was forced to cut to commercial.  In 2024, the then-presidential candidate offered the following bit of insight on the nature of democracy: “Our election is about understanding the importance of this beautiful country of ours in terms of what we stand for around the globe as a democracy,” Harris said. “As a democracy,” she repeated, “we know there’s a duality to the nature of democracy. On the one hand, incredible strength when it is intact.” In her most recent interview, Lemon asked Harris if she planned to run for president in 2028. In classic Harris fashion, she offered the following answer: “I’ve been spending a lot of time traveling the country [and] listening to folks,” she replied. “I think that people want a leader who is willing to take risks, as opposed to just doing what is popular. I think people want to know that they are being seen and heard, and that their leaders — whether they’re at the local, state, federal level or in the White House — are looking first at the people. You know, not looking at themselves in the mirror.” 

Rosie O’Donnell will be featured as a guest host for Jimmy Kimmel’s show as the late-night host steps away for a few months. “I asked one of our commander-in-chief’s all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,” Kimmel said, according to Page Six. O’Donnell’s selection carries a political edge because of her long-running feud with President Donald Trump. The former “View” co-host left the United States after Trump won a second term, moving to Ireland with her youngest child, Clay, who claims to be nonbinary. In March, O’Donnell said she was officially living in Ireland and described the move as the safest and best decision for her family. “I was never someone who thought I would move to another country,” O’Donnell said in a TikTok video. “You know, I’m happy. Clay is happy. I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country and when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back.” Her feud with Trump escalated in July 2025, when the president said he was considering taking away her U.S. citizenship. “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time, according to Page Six. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA.” O’Donnell responded in an Instagram post by saying Trump had “always hated” that she saw him as “a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself.” O’Donnell has since returned to the U.S. for visits, including a quiet two-week trip to see family and a recent appearance on “Watch What Happens Live,” which films in New York City. Now, she is set to return to late-night as one of Kimmel’s guest hosts. Kimmel announced Thursday that he will take the next two months off from his late-night show, joking that he is doing so “this time voluntarily,” per Page Six. The remark appeared to reference the brief period ABC pulled his show over comments he made pertaining to Charlie Kirk’s death in September. The show will continue with a rotation of guest hosts, including Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson, Jelly Roll and Rosie O’Donnell.

Herbert Leon Kimble, 60, was arrested in the Philippines after failing to appear for his sentencing hearing in August 2024, according to federal officials. His capture marks the second arrest from the FBI’s new “Most Wanted Fraudsters” list in just over two weeks. FBI Director Kash Patel said Kimble had been on the run since 2024 after orchestrating a $1.2 billion scheme from 2014 to 2019. “In just over two weeks, this is the second Most Wanted Fraudster arrested on the FBI’s list led by Vice President Vance and the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” Patel posted on X. In just over two weeks, this is the second Most Wanted Fraudster arrested on the FBI’s list led by Vice President Vance and the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Herbert Leon Kimbel was apprehended in the Philippines and is now back in the United States, on the run… pic.twitter.com/9ju6cnEfFX — FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) June 19, 2026 Kimble had pleaded guilty in 2019 to multiple federal offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, health care fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, making false claims, and offering kickbacks and bribes. Prosecutors said Kimble operated a health care fraud scheme that generated more than $1.2 billion in Medicare charges and affected thousands of beneficiaries, many of them elderly. Authorities said the operation used call centers to steer patients toward medically unnecessary orthopedic braces. The case puts a face on the kinds of large-scale fraud federal officials say they are trying to root out. Authorities say elderly beneficiaries were pushed toward unnecessary medical equipment, taxpayers were left with more than a billion dollars in charges, and Kimble fled before he could be sentenced. Patel said the FBI remains committed to carrying out President Donald Trump’s directive to crack down on fraud and protect taxpayer dollars. Kimble’s arrest comes after federal officials announced the apprehension of Said Abdullahi Ereg, 47, who was wanted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Ereg was the first person on the list to be taken into custody. Vice President JD Vance said Kimble’s capture was tied directly to the creation of the Most Wanted Fraudsters list. “Our message is simple,” Vance wrote on X. “If you defraud the American people, we will find you and we will bring you to justice.” “Kimble preyed on the elderly for years, costing taxpayers over a billion dollars,” Vance continued. “The FBI catching Kimble is a direct result of the task force’s partnership with the FBI to create the Most Wanted Fraudsters list.” Vance said authorities had been unable to capture Kimble for months, but that the Philippine government helped locate him after the Justice Department published its list. The arrest comes months after the Justice Department announced the creation of a National Fraud Enforcement Division to support President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, led by Vance. The task force was launched to investigate and recover fraudulent spending in programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Kimble fled to the Philippines rather than face accountability in the United States. “Fleeing the United States does not mean you can flee justice,” Blanche wrote on X. “Instead of facing accountability for his $1.2 billion Medicare fraud crimes in the United States, Kimble fled to the Philippines hoping to escape justice,” Blanche continued. “That plan failed.” Blanche said the FBI has now apprehended two fraudsters from its recently unveiled list in just two weeks, adding that there are “more to come.”