WASHINGTON — The State Department is ordering posts to refuse visas to Afghan nationals using Afghan passports in the wake of a brutal attack on two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., guidance reviewed by The Daily Wire shows. Effective immediately, according to the Friday guidance, all diplomatic and consular officers are “instructed to refuse under 221(g), or any other applicable ineligibility of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), all otherwise eligible Afghan nationals using an Afghan passport to apply for a nonimmigrant (NIV) or immigrant (IV) visa.” That action includes any applications for Special Immigrant Visas (including Afghan SIVs, SQ, SW, SI, SE, SS, according to the State Department) and SB-1 visas for residents returning to the U.S. It is intended to “ensure that such applications have undergone necessary security vetting and to validate screening protocols ensuring the applicant’s identity and eligibility for a visa under U.S. law,” the State Department memo said. “Additional guidance will follow SEPTEL on updated enhanced vetting or screening measures that may be required for this purpose.”  If they have already print-authorized nonimmigrant or immigrant cases for Afghan nationals who are applying with Afghan passports, but those visas have not yet been printed, they are instructed to refuse the cases and not print the visa. And in cases where the visas were already printed but not handed back, they must “spoil the foil, open the case in the system, and refuse the case.” Police keep a presence following the shooting of two U.S. National Guard members near the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Hu Yousong/Xinhua via Getty Images) The guidance doesn’t apply to dual nationals who are applying with a passport of a different, non-Afghan nationality, the State Department said. More guidance on enhanced vetting or screening will follow for processing the non-immigrant and immigrant visa applicants who are applying with Afghan passports. The move comes after President Donald Trump promised to halt migration from third world countries, writing in a late night Thanksgiving post: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.” The president’s move followed the shocking attack on National Guardsmen the day before Thanksgiving. An Afghan man killed a National Guardswoman and wounded another National Guardsman, both of whom had been deployed from West Virginia to Washington, D.C. to protect the nation’s capital. Twenty-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died from the attack on Friday, her family said. Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Wolfe is still in critical condition. Both Beckstrom and Wolfe “were sworn in less than 24 hours before they were shot on the street in Washington,” United States Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said in a Thursday morning press conference. “They were uniformed members of the West Virginia National Guard, and they were in DC to keep DC safe pursuant to President Trump’s executive order to make DC safe and beautiful,” Pirro shared. “They answered the call, they took the charge, they volunteered, they put their lives on the line for people they don’t even know, and that unfortunately is becoming a reality more and more for the members of law enforcement.” The gunman accused of shooting the two young guardsmen is 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, The Daily Wire previously reported, who was let into the country during President Joe Biden’s administration in 2021, as part of the former president’s “Operation Allies Welcome,” the Afghan refugee program in the wake of Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump, in his late-night Thanksgiving post, argued that the “refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America.” “As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota,” the president said. “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone.” He continued: “The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…” “Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many,” Trump said. The president promised to pause migration from third-world countries, and to end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens and to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.” “These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process,” Trump said. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

On Friday, President Trump detonated a political thunderclap, declaring that any document former President Joe Biden signed with the autopen is null and void—a sweeping reversal that, by Trump’s count, would wipe out roughly 92% of Biden’s executive actions. Trump framed the autopen saga as a usurpation of presidential authority by “Radical Left Lunatics” who “circled Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk,” insisting that Biden himself “was not involved in the Autopen process.” And if Biden now claims otherwise? Trump warned he’d be charged with perjury. The announcement did not emerge in a vacuum. For more than a year, reports—from watchdogs to congressional investigators—have painted a picture of a presidency increasingly outsourced to staff as Biden’s cognitive decline accelerated. In March 2025, The Daily Wire detailed findings from the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project showing that Biden’s December 30, 2022 pardons had been signed with the exact same autopen signature while Biden vacationed in the Virgin Islands. Although some high-profile documents—such as Hunter Biden’s pardon and Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race—appear hand-signed, numerous explosive pardons, including those for Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, the January 6 Committee, and members of the Biden family, bore the same autopen imprint. Kyle Brosnan, the Oversight Project’s chief counsel, has called the situation “troubling,” noting that the power to issue pardons belongs solely to the president as a constitutional principle. Coupled with Special Counsel Robert Hur’s description of Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Brosnan argued the evidence suggests Biden “wasn’t really running the White House. It was the staff.” Meanwhile, further reporting revealed that Biden did not individually approve names for the mass clemency actions signed during his final months. Staff revised lists based on Bureau of Prisons updates and ran the final versions through the autopen without re-presenting them to Biden, according to aides and the New York Times. Biden insisted he “made every decision,” but the admission that actions were carried out “orally” and executed by staff—primarily Staff Secretary Stefanie Feldman, who managed the autopen—only fueled concerns. The Trump White House, the DOJ, and the House Oversight Committee have been conducting parallel investigations, reviewing what may exceed one million documents bearing Biden’s autopen signature. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt summarized the administration’s view bluntly: Biden “handed the power of the presidency to an autopen.” And Trump, with characteristic finality, says those documents are done.

BOSTON—On a brisk November morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy shipped up to Boston with two goals: making his forgotten Merchant Mariners remember who they were, and bringing home the Secretaries’ Cup. That’s the trophy that goes to the victor of an annual college football game that pits the Merchant Marines against the Coast guard, a smaller but beloved version of the annual Army-Navy game. Fans, alumni, and family of the “Kings Point” mariners and the Coast Guard travel from all over the country to support their teams. This year, Duffy and Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem — whose agency includes the Coast Guard — joined their teams for the final showdown of the season. They had a bet: whoever lost would host the other team at their agency back in the nation’s capitol. It was a rare non-political event attended for the two high-profile politicians, who were there to cheer on their teams and talk trash to each other. “Our Merchant Marine Academy, they’re excited to play on a on a big venue like this,” Duffy told The Daily Wire ahead of the game. “And sometimes they don’t get the attention that they deserve … they’re critical as part of America’s infrastructure and making sure that we can defend ourselves.” “The Merchant Marine Academy, our young men and women go out and make sure we have the capability of supporting the military in doing sea lifts, making sure products are moving, supplies are moving, and our midshipman provide those services,” he explained. The Merchant Marine Academy is housed under the Department of Transportation, which formerly also housed the United States Coast Guard. The “Coasties” were moved under Homeland Security’s umbrella in 2003. But the reshuffling did nothing to the football rivalry, which dates back to 1949. The Daily Wire spent the day with Duffy as he wandered around Fenway Park, even down to the locker room, where he aggressively hyped up the mariners before they headed out onto the field. “You guys have more heart, more grit,” Duffy told the animated mariners. “So please go kick some Coast Guard ass today!” Many of the midshipmen who were at the game were delighted to chat with the transportation secretary, who spent a big chunk of his time hanging out in the stands with them. “Oh, yeah,” Edward Lippert told The Daily Wire, asked if he was a Duffy fan. “He’s the man. He’s the man.” “I love that guy,” added Christian Meyers. “I can’t wait to see him.” The two young men, who are both seniors at the academy, responded emphatically when asked what it means to them to be mariners. Meyers will go into Navy aviation after graduation, and Lippert will be sailing on his third mates license in the maritime industry. “Oh man, it’s everything,” said Lippert. “I mean, it’s how cargo moves around the world right? World needs mariners.” “Pretty much everyone here will graduate with a license in the US Coast Guard that’s capable of operating any boat or vessel in the American fleet,” he added.”We move cargo, whatever it be, cars, containers from point A to point B. We’re what puts food on your shelves.” The second mariner conceded that without their work, American lives would be significantly impacted. “It’d be really hard to live,” he said, asked where Americans would be without them. “Costs would be insane. I mean, there would be no food in supermarkets. There’d be nothing. There’d be nothing without us.” Duffy feels that the Merchant Marine Academy has been not only forgotten but downright neglected by other secretaries of transportation, including his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg (“Boot-edge-edge,” as Duffy chuckled aside to his kids). “They’ve been shunned,” Duffy said of the mariners. “They haven’t had the investments. They have one of the most beautiful campuses, but no one has  reinvigorated it. No one has invested in it.” When Duffy first arrived in Kings Point, New York to visit the Merchant Marine Academy, he found out that these midshipmen had gone four months without hot water. A green energy effort brought in an electric boiler that didn’t work and ultimately led to the midshipmen going without water for months, he said with a shake of his head. “So they’re taking cold showers. They have mold in in their dorms. Their dishwasher broke. They didn’t have regular plates and silverware. They had plastic plates, plastic silverware.” When he brought it up to the midshipmen, he expected that they would be angry. Instead, he joked, they beat their chests and were proud of their tough situation: “I said, ‘No hot water?’ And they’re like, ‘ROAR!! You’re damn right we did! No hot water!'” He also found out that President Joe Biden’s administration removed a mural of Jesus Christ on the water from the academy and put it in the basement. “Shameful,” said Duffy. “It’s been in the academy for over 50 years!” “I said that’s it, we are going to we are going to resurrect the painting of Jesus on the water out of the basement and put him back in his place of prominence. And when I mentioned it to the to the midshipman, they lost their minds.” He doesn’t have to “bring faith back to the academy,” he said, questioned about the move: “These are faithful young men and women.” One way that he’s boosting morale is by telling the mariners that the “black sheep” is their mascot, leaning into the idea that they are the “black sheep” of the academies and need to fight to reclaim their identity. Duffy himself was sporting a Merchant Mariners sweatshirt with the black sheep on it, as were his daughters and son who attended the game with him. “I just I think it’s wrong that we have a great American academy with great young American men and women, that we don’t respect them,” Duffy shared. “They are the black sheep of all the academies, right? And sometimes when you feel a little beaten, you’re an underdog, you come back, have a little more heart, a little more energy, a little more fight.” “You can see we have our our black sheep shirts on,” he added. “And we embrace it and we still kick ass. We still have grit. We still crush it like what’s going to happen today on the football field here at Fenway.” The mariners did indeed crush the Coast Guard that day in the very final seconds of the game. Duffy joined them on the field, holding the trophy high above his head as he cheered, exuberantly celebrating with the young men — and even jokingly trash talking Noem, who didn’t come down to the field for the Merchant Marine Academy victory. “Well done man,” he told the mariners as they left the field, shaking their hands and slapping them on the back. “Thank you for fighting! Well done.”

Pregnancy centers across the country helped a record number of women in 2024 with millions of dollars’ worth of medical and support services as pro-lifers grapple with challenges from aggressive Democratic officials, according to a new report.  The report found that 3,799,816 men and women were served across 2,775 pregnancy resource centers in 2024. Services provided by the pregnancy centers were estimated to be valued at around $452,475,801. At the same time, an estimated 12,330 unborn babies were being aborted per month through pills sent by “shield laws” enacted in blue states to protect left-wing activists.  “As the landscape of abortion in America following the Dobbs decision has rapidly changed, pregnancy centers continue to offer steadfast, professional care to women and families,” said Charlotte Lozier Institute executive director Karen Czarnecki.​ “It’s imperative that pregnancy centers continue to increase the availability of services—walking alongside women, men and families to provide love, education and support so they can courageously choose life.” The report was compiled by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Care Net, Heartbeat International, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, and Option Ultrasound Program by Focus on the Family.  It found that the pregnancy resource centers served over a million new clients in 2024 and provided over $116 million in material support, a 48% increase from 2022. Material support includes providing families with items such as diapers, baby wipes, car seats, strollers, clothing, cribs, and other essentials.  Eight out of ten pregnancy centers provide free or low-cost medical services, and over 10,000 medical professionals work at the facilities, according to the report.  Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at dailywire.com/blackfriday. Around one-quarter of the clinics provided abortion pill reversal services. The service “provides a chance to rescue the pregnancy soon after the ingestion of the first abortion drug through the administration of the hormone progesterone,” according to the report. As of June 2025, over 7,000 babies had been saved thanks to the abortion pill reversal, according to statistics included in the report.  At the same time, pro-lifers are dealing with a surge in mail-order abortions as activists and abortionists ship pills into states where medication abortions are illegal. States like New York have passed shield laws to protect abortionists from being punished if they ship abortion pills into states like Texas or Tennessee. Pro-life lawmakers and activists have struggled to contain the spread of these pills and have urged the Trump administration to take action to crack down on FDA regulations that allow for abortion pills to be sent through the mail. Pregnancy resource centers that have promoted the abortion reversal pill protocol have found themselves under scrutiny from Democratic officials in blue states like New York, New Jersey, California, and Illinois.  The Supreme Court is set to hear a case on Wednesday on whether a Christian pregnancy resource center in New Jersey can challenge an expansive subpoena from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin requesting documentation on the center’s donor base. New York Attorney General Letitia James sued 11 pregnancy resource centers and the group Heartbeat International for their support of the abortion pill reversal protocol. In California, pregnancy centers were also sued for their promotion of the abortion pill reversal. Other Democrat lawmakers have opposed pregnancy centers because they don’t encourage or promote abortion. In 2022, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for pregnancy centers to be shuttered entirely. “Shut them down all around the country,” Warren said. Included in the report were testimonials from women who were assisted by pregnancy resource centers. One of the stories included was that of Aagust, a Florida woman who found out she was pregnant in nursing school and took an abortion pill. After regretting the decision, she was able to get in contact with the Mosaic Sexual Health Clinic, a pregnancy resource center, that helped her save her baby. She ended up delivering the baby and naming him Carter Jay. “He is the smartest, most active little boy ever and I love him so much,” she said. “God used Mosaic to save my baby and I am forever grateful.”

Sixteen-year-old Washington state basketball player Frances Staudt has emerged as one of the most forceful young voices challenging the state’s Democratic leadership over policies she argues endanger girls’ sports and punish dissent. After refusing to compete against a transgender player she described as a “quite obvious” male, Frances found herself under investigation by the Tumwater School District and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association for “misgendering”—an action that prompted a federal civil-rights complaint on her behalf earlier this year. The district, citing state law, insisted it would not “discriminate based on sexual identity” while acknowledging that families hold divergent views. But according to Frances, the message from school officials was far harsher: her concerns “did not matter,” and acknowledging biological sex was off-limits. At a recent event supporting two “Let’s Go Washington” initiatives aimed at restoring protections for female athletes, Frances delivered a blistering speech accusing Washington’s highest Democratic officials of abandoning girls to ideological pressures. She described escalating social retaliation—public condemnation from staff, online harassment, threats against her family—and said adults privately expressed support but were too afraid to speak. Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at dailywire.com/blackfriday. Her criticism reached its apex in the passage below: Let me end by saying this: Governor Ferguson, (state superintendent) Chris Reykdal, and (state attorney general) Nick Brown, we see right through you. And what we see is gutless men trying to stifle the voices of young women. I may be 16 years old, but I have way more guts than you’ll ever have.  We’re not going to stand for it anymore. I’m calling your bluff, and I’m exposing the lies that you tell over and over, and I refuse to share my locker room with the boys and men or be kicked out or punished for doing so. I will not be stopped, and what you’ve done to me is wrong. Staudt called on voters and President Donald Trump to intervene, saying, “We need you, President Trump, to please put these out-of-touch politicians in their place and stop this nonsense. I won’t stop.  Thank you. I won’t stop, and I’m asking everyone listening to fight with me. Fight, fight, fight. We will not stand down.” NEW: Tumwater High School girls basketball player Frances Staudt joined Let’s Go WA’25 signature gatherers in Issaquah, WA over the weekend. Staudt is part of a growing movement in the state to ban biological boys from girls sports. Here is her speech in full. ?? https://t.co/49ygUZk4zE pic.twitter.com/w2X5S8Jkya — Jonathan Choe (@choeshow) November 24, 2025