The Justice Department filed lawsuits against sanctuary states Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington on Wednesday over their refusal to grant undercover license plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. ICE uses the license plates to arrest fugitives, conduct surveillance, investigate missing persons and missing child cases, and carry out abduction investigations involving dangerous actors, according to the lawsuits. If they don’t have the license plates, it compromises their arrests and the safety of the federal officers, who continue to face significant threats. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement, “By denying undercover license plates to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement.” “These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities,” he added. In Washington, the state’s Department of Licensing “began affirmatively denying requests by DHS to obtain and renew undercover license plates and registrations” around October 2025, according to the federal lawsuit. When the state agency received a request for undercover license plates from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), officials responded in January 2026 by “suspending the issuance and renewal of undercover license plates for DHS-affiliated entities for an indeterminate period.” Washington Attorney General Nicholas Brown wrote to the Department of Justice in May that “[t]he Washington State Department of Licensing voluntarily provides hundreds of undercover plates to federal agencies each year,” listing the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Marshals, and the Secret Service while failing to include ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to the lawsuit. Now, the state is “reviewing DHS’s activities” and asking that the agency hand in “all current undercover plates and obtain new registrations for each vehicle,” the lawsuit states. Further, the state is “not permitting renewals of existing undercover plates for any DHS subcomponents.” State officials are also determining whether DHS is in compliance with the “Keep Washington Working Act,” which states that “no state agency, including law enforcement, may use agency funds, facilities, property, equipment, or personnel to investigate, enforce, cooperate with, or assist in the investigation or enforcement of any federal registration or surveillance programs or any other laws, rules, or policies that target Washington residents solely on the basis of race, religion, immigration, or citizenship status, or national or ethnic origin,” according to the lawsuit. Former ICE New York field office deputy director Scott Mechkowski called the Democrat-run state’s actions “a deliberate decision to endanger federal officers and another tactic to doxx ICE.” “Every law enforcement officer in America, DEA, FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, state and local are entitled to undercover capacity for their safety. No one debates that,” Mechkowski said. He continued: “So explain to me why ICE agents are the only federal law enforcement officers these governors think deserve to be exposed?” The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office told The Daily Wire that it is “reviewing the complaint and will defend the RMV [Registry of Motor Vehicles] policy to the greatest extent possible.” The other accused states didn’t respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.

As the great Ella Langley once said, “He’s choosin’ Texas, I can tell by the way he’s two-steppin’ ’round the room. And judgin’ by the smile she’s putting on his face, there’s nothing I can do.” A perfect song. A perfect melody. A perfect metaphor. Will Texas choose Texas? The tried and true, the Texas they know and love, the Texas they always fall back on because she’s stable, shares the same values, and abides by the same laws of the land? In the song, both Texas and Tennessee were great options. In this scenario, however, Attorney General Ken Paxton is Texas. And State Representative James Talarico is Tennessee, with a whole lot more estrogen than Ella Langley and a whole lot fewer attractive characteristics. Actually, that would be doing an injustice to Tennessee. He’s more like Seattle, Washington. Democrats are trying for the millionth time to “take Texas,” but they continue to forget who actually lives there and keep putting up candidates who represent the opposite of the Lone Star State. Texas ain’t choosin’ Talarico, and here’s why. This week, Texans chose their fighters for November. Trump-backed Attorney General Ken Paxton decisively beat incumbent Senator John Cornyn for the Republican ticket. In March, on the Democrat side, State Representative James Talarico, to our chagrin, beat the lovely Representative Jasmine Crockett, who would’ve been quite entertaining to watch flail about. But Talarico is already getting dragged through the media, and not without good reason. He’s a nutcase. He’s everything wrong with the woke religious Left jammed into a small, feminine body. His latest blemish, reported exclusively by the Daily Wire, is that the church the former pastor preached at is pushing radical gender ideology on children through libraries stocked with “banned books” containing descriptions of anal rape, incest, and oral sex. He was asked on a podcast to name something he loved that wasn’t family or friends. He answered, “trans children.” He thinks the Bible is pro-abortion. It’s not. He believes God is “non-binary.” He declared Jesus a “radical feminist.” He said atheists are “more Christ-like” than Christians. He thinks illegal aliens are “more patriotic” than Americans. He believes there are six biological sexes. He called America’s border a “giant welcome mat.” He posts guidelines for evading ICE. He wants to abolish prisons. In an ominous sign of what we’re seeing now, he announced in 2022 (and resurfaced in 2026) that his campaign, in one of the biggest cattle-ranching states in America, had “officially become a non-meat campaign” to combat climate change. This, among a myriad of other reasons, including that Talarico is fully on board with red-flag gun confiscation laws and killing constitutional carry in the state where the Second Amendment isn’t just a right but damn near a religion, is precisely why real Texas is going to cattle-stomp this guy come November. Texas is the conservative stronghold of beef, barbecue, border security, family, fossil fuels, cowboys, firearms, patriotism, and unapologetic faith. Not Seattle soy-boy progressivism wrapped in a fake clerical collar. James Talarico doesn’t just disagree with Texas values. He is the walking, talking rejection of everything that makes this state the envy of the country. That’s exactly why it’s so insulting and alarming that Democrats would even try to run him. At least when they tried this last time with Robert “Beto” O’Rourke (say that with a surfer-dude accent for maximum impact), he was slightly less feminine and slightly less woke. Still a slap in the face to Texans, and he was crushed in rural Texas and conservative strongholds where the margins are simply too big to overcome. Republicans carried Texas statewide by double digits in 2022, and no Democrat has won a statewide race here since 1994. That wall hasn’t moved. It’s gotten taller. Here’s what the radical Left isn’t doing a good job of hiding: Talarico isn’t a miscalculation. He’s a business decision. Democrats know he can’t win Texas. They’re running him to light up coastal donors and build a progressive media presence, using the Lone Star State as a stage rather than a target. Which is actually more cynical than simply being wrong about the electorate. They’re not trying to represent Texans. They’re performing for people who’ve never been there. The vehicle they’ve chosen for this performance is faith. Democrats are deliberately propping up progressive “Christian” voices to launder their most extreme agenda through the language of the pulpit. It’s the same playbook that turned mainline Protestant churches into rainbow-flag social-justice factories. They know they can’t sell open borders, child gender mutilation, and abolishing prisons on the merits, so they’re hijacking Jesus Himself to move the product. This isn’t tolerance; it’s ideological conquest dressed up in piety. If they can ever flip the biggest, baddest red state in America with this not-so-Trojan horse, the GOP will have a massive problem on its hands. Ken Paxton, on the other hand, is from Texas. You can tell. Tuesday night, the Trump-backed AG didn’t just win a primary. He toppled John Cornyn, the Senate’s number-two Republican and the living definition of the establishment old guard, which tells you exactly where the Texas GOP actually stands. Paxton earned it. He’s spent years suing the Biden administration to lock down the border, defend the unborn, protect the Second Amendment, and beat back woke indoctrination in schools and courts, winning more than three out of every four of those lawsuits. He’s a battle-tested bulldog who stands for beef, borders, Bibles, and bold Lone Star independence. The exact opposite of what Democrats are trying to peddle. Texas isn’t just choosing a senator in November. They’re choosing between two entirely different theories of what Texans are. Talarico’s entire platform is built on the premise that Texans need to be managed, corrected, and guided toward someone else’s values. Paxton’s is built on the premise that they don’t. That’s the whole election in one sentence. Conservatives are a simple folk who don’t require much. Stay out of our way. Protect our private property. Cut the regulations so we can flourish, and stop taxing away the money we work hard for. Small government. Big families. A listening ear, not a lecture. Talarico is just too much. We’ve gotten the ick. So choose right, Texas. Choose Texas. Choose Paxton. You know the way you’re leaning. I can tell by the way you’re two-stepping.

Jimmy Kimmel got a little bit misty-eyed during Adam Carolla’s Walk of Fame ceremony on Wednesday. The hyperpartisan late-night host put aside political beliefs during the ceremony for his longtime friend and former collaborator. Carolla is notoriously anti-woke, but Kimmel still showed up to speak at the event. Kimmel started off by remembering when he was introduced to Carolla in 1994 when he was working on the Los Angeles radio show “Kevin and Bean.” Carolla, who was a boxing instructor, was brought in to prepare Kimmel for a boxing match. Kimmel said Carolla began roasting him immediately, saying, “Adam told ‘Kevin and Bean,’ ‘Jimmy is 160 pounds of pure chiseled steel. Unfortunately, he weighs 225.’” “We did very little training. We would box for about eight minutes and then drink Snapple and go to lunch,” Kimmel added. “As a result, I lost that fight, but I gained a life partner. And if that sounds gay to you, it was and it is,” he said during the speech, calling Carolla “one of the funniest people” he’s ever met and the “Laverne to my Shirley.”   Jimmy Kimmel shares hilarious stories and gets emotional during Adam Carolla’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony: “Adam and I, as you probably know, don’t agree much when it comes to politics, but I love him dearly. I have never worked with anyone funnier.” pic.twitter.com/JYtmpKiRHe — Variety (@Variety) May 27, 2026 Kimmel brought up their opposing political beliefs, but said it didn’t change his feelings for his friend. “Adam and I, as you probably know, don’t agree much when it comes to politics, but I love him dearly,” Kimmel went on. “I’ve never worked with anyone funnier. I am proud of him … this is a guy who worked his way up from nothing to become, literally, a millionaire, and if you don’t believe it you’ll hear him say it every single show.”  “Adam is a true original,” he added. “He was a poor kid from the San Fernando Valley who was rejected by the management at Taco Bell, and whose name will now forever be part of this filthy, disgusting intersection,” Kimmel said of the star’s physical location. Kimmel and Carolla are best known for the Comedy Central sketch show “The Man Show” and the prank call puppet show “Crank Yankers.” Kimmel went on to become a big name in late-night, while Carolla launched a podcast and has worked on various other entertainment projects, including comedy content and animated programming with The Daily Wire.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt has received donations from some of Hollywood’s most prominent Democrat supporters despite running on a platform that leans heavily on conservative talking points. It was revealed earlier this month that major Democrat donors Haim and Cheryl Saban, billionaires who have a major financial impact on the party, donated the maximum amount of $1,800 to Pratt.  Nicole Avant, another prominent Democrat supporter and wife of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, has also pledged to support Pratt for mayor. So has Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ minority owner and franchise governor, who also made the max donation of $1,800 to Pratt’s campaign. As The New York Times reported, Elliot Grainge, the CEO of Atlantic Records and Sofia Richie’s husband, also made a donation to Pratt’s campaign. So did billionaire financier Dan Loeb and former CEO of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick; Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange; and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The former reality star, a registered Republican who said he voted for Trump in 2024, has publicly stated that he doesn’t identify with either party. “All my supporters in Los Angeles are Democrats,” he told CBS. “Everyone I know, my family, are all Democrats.”  The mayoral hopeful told NBC earlier this month, “I do not represent a party. I don’t have a campaign manager. I don’t have campaign consultants. There’s no political party backing me.” The former “Hills” star is polling second behind Bass ahead of the June 2 primary. While Pratt’s odds of winning have increased dramatically in recent months, he still faces an uphill battle in the Democrat stronghold. The last time a Republican won a mayoral race in Los Angeles was in 1997. Pratt reportedly raised $2.72 million between April 19 and May 16, per statements obtained by the Los Angeles Times, moving his total to $3.26 million in contributions. Mayor Bass reported only $283,000 during that same period, boosting her total to $3.13 million. As of May 16, Raman hasn’t hit the $1 million mark in contributions.

The idea of a “multipolar world,” where great powers can coexist within separate geopolitical spheres, is increasingly popular. But multipolarism, if it is embraced rather than resisted, will only end in Chinese Communist domination. Multipolarity is innocent enough as a description of changing global trends. It is true that U.S. power has been waning even as China’s star has risen. But normative multipolarism, once isolated to the Left (former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once promised to “turn a multi-polar world into a multi-partner world”), is making new inroads on the Right. Republican “restrainers” are increasingly arguing that the emerging status quo is the natural state of affairs, and American hegemony an oddity. According to the restrainers, the U.S. should normalize relations and continue to sweep tensions under the proverbial rug. Ironically, some of these same voices often object to U.S. support of Ukraine and U.S. action in Iran because the focus has shifted away from China, stating that the U.S. no longer has the strength to combat the CCP on top of Iran and Russia. There is a temptation to sit back and allow the CCP to operate how it prefers in its hemisphere, even with an ongoing genocide and a surveillance state, as long as the U.S. is unbothered. But to assume that other global superpowers will respect U.S. hegemony once they have secured primacy in their sphere is woefully naïve. The majority of people in the United States have never lived in a multipolar world. They have never witnessed a world in which the United States is not the global superpower, the enforcer of international law and free trade, and the credible deterrent to enemies of freedom. They see U.S. defense spending as excessive, especially when U.S. allies aren’t paying for their defense, remain inadequately armed, and refuse to decouple their economies from hostile powers. It is true that the NATO alliance must demonstrate to the U.S. (and to each other) that they are capable of defending their own countries and can adequately deter their enemy to the east, because they, too, have never lived in a world without the alliance deterring hostile powers. The focus of the White House’s summit with China was largely on the economy, trade, and Iran, with Xi Jinping warning of a possible clash with the U.S. over Taiwan. There has been little reporting on President Donald Trump’s response to the question about Taiwan. It still has not been clarified what the U.S. response would be if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moved on Taiwan, and the U.S. has not widely discussed what exactly it would look like for the PLA to begin to take Taiwan, though we can assume it is a war game often played out in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities of the Pentagon. It is no mystery what the isolationist Right’s views on Taiwan will be if the attack occurs. They will argue that Taiwan is very far away, that our men and women should not die for a foreign country, that Taiwan’s independence is not associated with American security, but they misunderstand China’s long-term goal. Isolationists in the U.S. will be content with a multipolar world, so long as they do not feel any major shifts to their day-to-day life, but the Chinese Communist Party will not be content with multipolarity. The United States stands in sharp contrast to the communist hegemony, and in the long term, the CCP will not tolerate the U.S. as a rival power. If the U.S. shrinks into its role in a multipolar world, we will be weaker, freedom around the world will be feebler, and the U.S. economy will suffer. Eventually, all American citizens will feel the consequences if the U.S. is no longer the preeminent force on the world stage, and will hate it. The Chinese Communist Party is hoping for that future, for a U.S. citizenry scrolling TikTok where they are told China was right to take Taiwan, and China’s internal affairs don’t concern the U.S. The CCP already executed a test run after October 7, and the U.S. is still having to sort fact from fiction amongst our population. China will accept a multipolar world for a few years, but that will not satisfy them in the long run. The freedom of America is a thorn in the side of every communist nation, and in the end, China will prefer only one to stay standing. Multipolar worlds do not exist in the long term. China knows this; it is time America learns it, too. *** Ali Holcomb is a National Security Fellow and Communications Advisor at Advancing American Freedom.