President Donald Trump took a shot at the far-Left wing of the Democratic Party on Thursday and sent a message to “communists” after radical candidates won multiple elections in New York earlier this week. Trump suggested that he wasn’t surprised to see far-Left candidates, such as Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander, win their primaries for the U.S. House. Valdez, Chevalier, and Lander are all backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — and Chevalier and Lander defeated Democratic incumbents. “The Communists are finally making their move,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’ve been waiting and preparing for this for a long time. It’s easy to be a Communist — All you have to do is say, ‘I’ll give you everything,’ but that means you’re taking it away from others that have earned it. Over thousands of years, that Ideology has not worked once. The game is on. Enjoy watching!” While the New York radicals who won their primaries identify as “democratic socialists,” they have been accused of pushing ideas that are indistinguishable from communist talking points. Chevalier was even asked recently to respond to people describing her as a communist, and she refused to address it. “You know, I think that framing is one that I’ve been very proud to say that I don’t respond to, one in which I have been very intentional to say I won’t be reactive,” Chevalier told MS NOW anchor Ali Velshi. “We are presenting a vision of what we’re fighting for, and I think that for far too long, we have had politics that is reactive to what Republicans are doing. What we need is Democrats who are actually going to present a positive vision, one that sets the tone for what we should be talking about, which is the issue of affordability.” Velshi: “How do you respond to allegations that you’re a communist?” Darializa Avila Chevalier: “For far too long, this reactive conversation of what we should be afraid of has prevented us from being able to have a politics Democrats can identify win.” pic.twitter.com/sAKGmQcYju — Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 25, 2026 Along with calling for the government to seize private property, Chevalier has also called to abolish police and borders, disparaged the American flag, and refused to condemn Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Valdez and Lander have also pushed leftist economic views, such as rent freezes, a policy being actively pursued by Mayor Mamdani in NYC. Valdez, meanwhile, has called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expanding universal healthcare, increasing taxes on higher earners, and strengthening labor unions. Shortly after New York democratic socialists won on Tuesday night, Trump said, “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!”

As artificial intelligence transforms the global economy, America faces a choice that will shape our economic and national security future for decades to come. Will we build the infrastructure needed to lead the AI age here in the United States, or will we allow regulatory barriers, political opposition, and short-sighted policymaking to push investment elsewhere? The resistance we’re seeing to data center development in some states is concerning from both national security and economic perspectives. Data centers are the physical infrastructure that powers everything from cloud computing and financial transactions to military operations and artificial intelligence. This fact makes data centers critical national security infrastructure. Furthermore, states that embrace data center investment will be rewarded with jobs, tax revenue, and long-term economic growth, while states that reject it risk being left behind. The bottom line is that we must keep data centers on U.S. soil. Data centers house and process some of the most valuable information in the world. They support government operations, financial institutions, healthcare systems, defense contractors, communications networks, and the growing AI ecosystem that is becoming increasingly important to America’s economic and military strength. Allowing critical computing infrastructure to be hosted overseas would create strategic vulnerabilities precisely at the moment when technological competition with China is accelerating. If America fails to expand domestic data center capacity, we risk becoming dependent on infrastructure located beyond our borders and potentially subject to foreign influence, disruption, or control. Every breakthrough in artificial intelligence depends on massive computing power. Every AI model requires enormous amounts of data storage and processing capacity. That capacity comes from data centers. National security in the 21st century requires military strength, energy security, and digital infrastructure. Data centers are now part of that equation. States that welcome data centers will win in the next economic boom. Yet, we’re seeing a tale of two states when it comes to data center policy: those that are putting out the welcome mat — and those pushing bans. In fact, 11 states are considering bills to pause the construction of data centers. Such resistance is foolish. Data centers represent one of the greatest economic development opportunities available to states today. The evidence is already visible.  Virginia, which hosts the largest concentration of data centers in the world, has become a model for how states can benefit from embracing digital infrastructure. According to a 2024 report by Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the state’s data center industry supports approximately 74,000 jobs annually, generates $5.5 billion in labor income, and contributes $9.1 billion to Virginia’s economy each year. Last year alone, data center investment accounted for roughly 84% of all announced capital investment projects in the Commonwealth. Those numbers are not an accident. Virginia built a policy environment that welcomed investment. State leaders recognized early that data centers would become essential infrastructure for the digital economy and worked to create a competitive environment for development. Other states face a similar choice. Some are pursuing policies that encourage investment by streamlining permitting, supporting workforce development, modernizing infrastructure, and maintaining competitive tax policies. Others are considering moratoriums, burdensome regulations, and restrictions, erroneously blaming data centers for rising energy costs and other community concerns. Companies building AI infrastructure have options. They can invest in Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and other states that welcome growth — or they can move projects to competing states or even competing countries. States that make it easier to build data centers will attract billions of dollars in private investment, create thousands of high-paying jobs, expand their tax base, and position themselves at the center of the AI economy. States that choose obstruction instead of opportunity will watch those benefits flow elsewhere. China recognizes that America’s ability to build large-scale data centers is essential to maintaining leadership in AI, cloud computing, and advanced technologies, which is why it has been aggressively pushing misinformation on social media about environmental impacts, power consumption, and water usage of data centers. The most effective lies fueling the Not In My Backyard (NIMB) movement are that data centers drive up energy prices and are transferring their costs onto Americans. Both are false but are, nevertheless, taking hold among the American public. The reality is that data centers are already regulated at the local, state, and federal levels. There is no data center exemption to environmental and nuisance laws. Beijing has spent years investing heavily in artificial intelligence, advanced computing, semiconductors, and related technologies, and views technological leadership as a core national objective. America cannot maintain leadership in AI without the infrastructure to support it. The states that choose to lead will help secure America’s technological future, with the added benefit of attracting jobs, investment, and economic growth. ***  Patrick Hedger is Director of Policy at NetChoice

There are hard truths in military life that a humane society may dislike but cannot repeal. The first is that military service is not an entitlement. It is a calling, yes; an honor, certainly. But it is also a profession whose members must be prepared to deploy, fight, endure privation, and, if necessary, die in defense of the Republic. Not every patriotic American can meet that standard. Many cannot, through no fault of their own. That point, obvious until it became out of fashion for some, has been obscured in the litigation over President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s implementing policy regarding service by individuals with gender dysphoria. The order and policy have been denounced as discrimination. After a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction pausing implementation of the order, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit earlier this month, in a 2-1 ruling, affirmed the lower court and enjoined Hegseth’s policy as it related to plaintiffs already in the military, but vacated the preliminary injunction as it related to those seeking accession into the military. The majority opinion was written by Judge Robert L. Wilkins (an Obama appointee) and was joined by Judge Judith W. Rogers (a Clinton appointee). It was, as far as we’re concerned, unpersuasive. In his magisterial dissent, Judge Justin Walker (a Trump appointee) isolates the core question in this case: who decides the qualifications for service in the armed forces — Congress and the Commander in Chief, advised by military professionals, or life-tenured federal judges? Judge Walker’s answer is both modest and correct. The Constitution assigns military governance to the political branches. Congress raises and regulates the armed forces; the President commands them. Judges, by contrast, are trained to decide cases and controversies, not to determine who can be deployed to a forward operating base, who can endure combat stress, or what aggregate risks the services may prudently assume. Walker’s dissent is admirable precisely because it practices the judicial restraint that others too often praise only when it produces their preferred results. Nothing in that conclusion requires callousness toward people who suffer from gender dysphoria. They deserve compassion, dignity, and lawful treatment. Many have sincere desires to serve their country, and some have done so honorably. But sympathy cannot be permitted to cloud judgment about the mission of the armed forces. The military is not a therapeutic institution, a laboratory for social experimentation, or a vehicle for vindicating every asserted identity. Its purpose is to deter war, fight war, and win war. For that reason, military medicine has always drawn lines that civilian life need not draw. Applicants and service members may be disqualified because of cardiomyopathy, epilepsy, severe scoliosis, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, limb loss, severe hearing loss, connective-tissue disorders, serious allergies, and scores of other physical and mental conditions. No one imagines that the military thereby declares those Americans less worthy as human beings. It declares only that the profession of arms imposes demands that not everyone can satisfy. Gender dysphoria belongs in that same analytic category. The relevant question is not whether those who experience it are entitled to respect. They are. The question is whether the condition, its persistence, its symptoms, and the medical interventions often associated with it are compatible with military readiness, deployability, unit cohesion, and lethality. The literature and scientific studies reviewed by military authorities show beyond any reasonable doubt that gender dysphoria is inconsistent with the rigors of military service in the same way many other listed disqualifying maladies are inconsistent with service. That is not a moral condemnation; it is a military judgment. The armed forces cannot function if readiness standards become aspirational rather than mandatory. A soldier who cannot deploy is not merely unavailable to himself; he imposes burdens on his unit, his commanders, and the mission. Combat arms, intelligence, logistics, aviation, cyber operations, and medical support all depend upon reliability under stress. The military must know, before a crisis arrives, who can go, who can stay, and who can be counted upon when hesitation is measured in lives. Judge Walker grasped that elementary reality. His dissent did not pretend that judges possess secret competence in military personnel policy, deployment calculus, or battlefield risk. To the contrary, he candidly acknowledged that courts lack both the expertise and constitutional warrant to decide whether particular medical conditions are compatible with service. That humility is not abdication. It is fidelity to the separation of powers. The contrary approach is dangerous. Once courts treat military qualification standards as invitations to free-ranging judicial revision, every disqualification can become a constitutional controversy. If federal judges may override the considered judgment of the Secretary of War on gender dysphoria, why not on depression, seizure disorders, severe orthopedic limitations, or any other condition that renders service more hazardous or less dependable? The logic has no principled stopping point. Nor is the government’s policy some unexplained spasm of prejudice. Executive Order 14183 invokes the military’s central mission: readiness, cohesion, lethality, discipline, uniformity, and deployability. The Department of War then applied that judgment through medical and personnel standards. Critics may quarrel with the policy, but disagreement is not proof of unconstitutionality. In military affairs, the question is not whether a district judge would have balanced the evidence differently; it is whether the political branches have acted within their constitutional authority and on a rational military basis. Walker’s dissent is therefore valuable not merely because it reaches the right result, but because it resists a fashionable temptation: to convert judicial power into a roving commission to supervise the armed forces. Courts have an indispensable role in preserving constitutional liberty. But they do not command platoons, crew ships, maintain aircraft, or send Marines into harm’s way. The Constitution did not entrust them with those responsibilities because judges cannot bear their consequences. *** Charles “Cully” Stimson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the Acting Director of its Institute for Constitutional Government. Helen Nguyen is a member of Heritage’s Young Leaders Program.

The death toll from the massive back-to-back earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday has climbed to at least 235 people as search and rescue teams continue to comb through the rubble, according to the latest report from authorities. More than 4,300 people were also injured in the disaster. Caracas and the surrounding area were rocked Wednesday evening by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that was followed by a 7.5 magnitude quake just 40 seconds later. The devastating earthquakes were unusually close together and instantly leveled large buildings, including homes and apartment complexes.     The Venezuelan government believes that around 50,000 people are still missing after the earthquakes, and the death toll is expected to climb much higher. The U.S. Geological Survey has predicted more than 10,000 deaths, Reuters reported. Rescue teams are working against the clock as they seek to find survivors within the “golden window,” the 48- to 72-hour time period to reach people buried under rubble before their chance of survival greatly diminishes. As of time of publication, it has been over 60 hours since the twin quakes. Many search and rescue teams also follow a “rule of fours,” which states that trapped survivors can last four minutes without air, four days without water, and four weeks without food, according to CNN.   Rescue workers carry a person on a stretcher out of a collapsed building following an earthquake in Caracas on June 24, 2026. (Photo by Juan Barreto / AFP via Getty Images) Search teams have successfully rescued some people from collapsed buildings as video footage has shown emergency workers moving bloodied people out of the wreckage, NBC News reported. Rescue teams from Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Switzerland have joined Venezuelan authorities in the search effort. Numerous other countries have also offered their assistance, including the United States. A senior U.S. Southern Command official has already arrived in Caracas to view the damage and prepare America’s efforts to help Venezuela. President Donald Trump said late Wednesday night, “The U.S.A. stands ready, willing, and able to help! I have instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly. We will be there for our new and great friends.” Venezuela confirmed that 250 buildings have been damaged, including at least eight hospitals.

WASHINGTON — Bill Pulte walked into his new role as Director of National Intelligence and immediately asked for names of officials to cut. He was on a mission to do what President Donald Trump had asked of him: “execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office.”  That mission has set off a firestorm within the intelligence community. The Daily Wire has learned that Pulte is working closely with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who view DNI’s oversight as a hindrance to individual intelligence agencies.  Their opponents argue that downsizing and cutting ODNI’s oversight only enables the very deep state that Trump so adamantly wants to root out.  Trump’s mandate to Pulte didn’t expressly say to fire people, but instead to send them back to their home agencies. That appears to be largely what Pulte is doing: since he took over, more than 50 ODNI staff have been removed from their jobs, an administration official confirmed to The Daily Wire. Forty-five of those individuals were returned to their home agencies, while six career officials were fired. A senate source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Pulte is working closely with Cotton and Ratcliffe, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  Contrary to media reporting, that senate advisor said, the senators like Pulte and enjoy working with him. Asked about reports that Pulte’s cuts have been contradictory or disorganized, the senate source pushed back, saying: “His cuts have been deliberate.”  The CIA would not comment directly on Ratcliffe’s interactions with Pulte, but spokeswoman Liz Lyons told The Daily Wire that Ratcliffe “continues to support acting DNI Pulte’s mission to advance the President’s priorities.” ODNI did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Wire. News that Pulte would assume the acting DNI role sparked massive backlash from Democrats and some Republicans. Critics pointed to his lack of intelligence experience and said he’d be a hatchet man for the president. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in early June: “We don’t need a weaponized DNI.”  His treatment of the outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard drew criticism as well. Gabbard was supposed to stay in her role until the end of June, but Pulte, eager to get started (and make use of his limited time as acting DNI), aggressively pushed for Gabbard to leave early, a senior intelligence official shared. The move angered Gabbard’s supporters, particularly because Gabbard had agreed to a particular timeline with President Trump in light of her husband’s cancer diagnosis. One notable Pulte victim was Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, who was placed on administrative leave. He led the intelligence community’s “collaborative integration efforts and primary intelligence support to policymakers through the President’s Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Council,” CBS News first reported. Some conservatives worry Pulte’s cuts will result in a weakened ODNI that can’t rein in rogue agencies like the FBI and CIA. Under Gabbard’s direction, DNI had already cut 40% of staff, leaving the agency with less than 1,400 employees, compared to the estimated 38,000 of the FBI and 20,000 of the CIA. “The mistake is they’re getting rid of people who are loyal to POTUS,” a former intelligence official alleged, “and if they get rid of ODNI there is no one to do actual effective oversight of the Intelligence Community.” ODNI’s supporters also point to the recent weaponization of the FBI, for example, against Trump and his allies under President Joe Biden, arguing that the bureau still is staffed with agents that were part of this weaponization and that oversight is still needed.  “The DNI manages the National Intelligence Program budget, giving the ODNI real fiscal leverage over FBI Counterintelligence operations,” a second former intelligence official said. “Given that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has been completely rogue since Trump came down the escalator, and because Congress has proven itself incapable of conducting any real oversight of the FBI and CIA, the Trump Administration should be cautious when liquidating a component of the USG with true oversight ability.”  Congress has oversight over the FBI and the CIA, but at the end of the day, the lawmakers are only briefed on what the agencies choose to tell them. In some cases, the senior intelligence official said, Congress will never know “unless shit goes so badly that they can’t hide it.” The DNI position was created after 9/11. Before, the CIA director effectively ran the entire intelligence community in addition to his own agency. Cotton outright made the case that things may have been better off then on the Senate floor this week: “Unfortunately,” he said, “I think we can now assess a couple decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.”  The Arkansas lawmaker, who said he wants ODNI to be downsized and streamlined, noted that ODNI does serve some functions that could possibly be “performed elsewhere.” He shared that he spoke with Pulte this week about sending officers back to their home agencies and reducing ODNI to its original size, but he denied reporting that “mass firings” had begun.  “If Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton once he is confirmed,” Cotton shared. “Mr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one, to continue that work, and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence communities’ important work — not hindering it.” Hardliners like Steve Bannon view Cotton’s stance as an effort to promote the CIA.  “When you see Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham talking about this, it’s not to go after the Deep State,” argued Bannon on his show. “It’s to downsize DNI from its administrative or supervisory function over the intelligence community to what I call ‘CIA supremacism.'” But other members of the intelligence community view ODNI as a massive hindrance to the work that they are trying to accomplish.  One senior government official questioned the efficacy of the layered bureaucracy of ODNI and exactly what the agency accomplishes, noting, “They are not the action arm.”  “The action arm is the FBI. Gonna arrest a spy? The FBI does that. The information arm is the CIA and the NSA,” the official noted. “[ODNI] don’t produce any intelligence either.” Pulte is only serving as acting DNI  — the president chose Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his nominee for permanent Director of National Intelligence. Clayton has received strong support from numerous Republican senators, including Cotton and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but Trump abruptly told Clayton not to attend his confirmation hearings earlier this month after lawmakers allowed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to lapse. Speaking from Switzerland during his trip to the G7, the president said he’ll leave Pulte as acting DNI “as long as it takes to get everybody else approved.” He noted that he is against FISA if it does not come with the SAVE America Act attached to it. “Look, he’s a very legitimate guy,” the president said of Pulte. “He’s very smart. He’s a brilliant guy.” “Why are they afraid of this guy?” he added. “I mean, they’re so afraid of him, they’ll do anything not to have Pulte go in there. He’s a very capable guy, and they’re worried about that.” Pulte is notoriously close to the president, and he certainly has the president’s confidence for now. In the meantime, it appears that he will continue to downsize DNI. A senate advisor familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire of the cuts: “I think this is the start, not the end.”