President Donald Trump says he will make an endorsement in the Texas Senate Republican primary soon, and when he does so, he wants the other candidate to drop out so that Republicans in the Lone Star State can focus on gearing up for a potentially expensive and closely watched general election fight with Democratic nominee James Talarico. The president explained his strategy after Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton both advanced to a runoff election on Tuesday night after an already brutal primary race. Trump had initially opted not to endorse any specific candidate in the three-way race that also included Rep. Wesley Hunt, who failed to earn enough votes to move forward. “The Republican Primary Race for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas, a State I LOVE and won 3 times in Record Numbers (the HIGHEST vote ever recorded, by far!!!), cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!” Trump posted to Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, saying that the party needs to “TOTALLY FOCUS” on beating Talarico, who defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). “Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT! My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable!” he said. “It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot, especially in Texas! I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair?” the president added, stressing that Republicans “must win” the midterms. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but that margin could shift in either direction, thanks to several competitive races on the table in November. The attacks between Cornyn and Paxton, which colored much of the primary race, showed no signs of stopping as of Tuesday night. “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” Cornyn said, according to CSPAN. Meanwhile, Paxton posted to X on Wednesday morning that he wants to “fire John Cornyn once and for all.” “Last night, in a historic failure for John Cornyn, he failed to get nearly 60% of the GOP vote after spending $100 million,” he wrote. “It’s time to finish the job in the runoff.” The Cook Political Report currently ranks the race as “Likely Republican,” but there has been some concern among Republicans that a lengthy, messy primary — especially one that drags even further through a contentious runoff — could continue to drain resources and boost the Democrat in the general election. Trump won the state of Texas with over 56% of the vote in 2024.

Legendary Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz has died at the age of 89, the university announced on Wednesday. A cause of death was not immediately stated. Holtz was considered one of the most influential coaches in college football history, winning 249 games as a collegiate head coach. He began his coaching career at William & Mary in 1969 and spent one season in the NFL before returning to college football. One hundred of those wins happened at Notre Dame, where he served as head coach from 1986 until 1996. “Notre Dame mourns the loss of Lou Holtz, a legendary football coach, a beloved member of the Notre Dame family and devoted husband, father and grandfather,” University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. said in a statement published on their website. “Among his many accomplishments, we will remember him above all as a teacher, leader and mentor who brought out the very best in his players, on and off the field, earning their respect and admiration for a lifetime. In the years since leaving the head football coach position, Lou, together with his beloved wife, Beth, supported Notre Dame in innumerable ways, among them making possible the refurbishment of four residence hall chapels and the construction of the Beth and Lou Holtz Grand Reading Room on the first floor of Hesburgh Library — tangible signs of their great love for their Catholic faith and the mission of Our Lady’s University.” The statement went on, “Whenever Notre Dame called to ask for his help, Lou answered with his characteristic generosity, and he will be sorely missed. The prayers of the entire Notre Dame community are with his family and many friends in this time of sorrow. May he rest in the peace and love of Christ.” Holtz called coaching for Notre Dame “the dream of a lifetime.”  “I remember at school that we would pray every Friday before a game for Notre Dame’s success,” he said, per ESPN. “So, it’s just part of our religion. It’s a part of the way we are, and the football team should reflect the values of Notre Dame. That means we had to play with great enthusiasm, we had to play together. We had to play with great character, great integrity, but we also should be playing for our lady on the Dome.” After retiring from coaching, Holtz worked in television, including spending more than a decade with ESPN. The coach was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008, the university website noted, and was the man behind several honored Notre Dame football traditions including the “Play Like A Champion” sign in the locker room. Holtz was also a close friend and longtime supporter of Donald Trump. The president honored Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December of 2020 for his contributions to the nation. Holtz is survived by his four children, Luanne, Lou “Skip” Junior, Kevin and Elizabeth. The latter three graduated from the University of Notre Dame. “He was successful, but more important he was Significant,” his son Skip shared on X. 

The following is an edited transcript excerpt of The Michael Knowles Show. * * * Scientists are using DMT (dimethyltryptamine), a powerful hallucinogenic drug, to allow people to communicate with the seemingly alien creatures they see when they do the drug. I wish I were making this up. If you’ve ever had a friend who’s done DMT — or shrooms or acid for that matter — and then have them describe what they see, they may claim to see little gray weirdo aliens that all sound eerily similar.  The title of the article in WIRED reads, “Some People See Aliens While on DMT. Researchers Want to Find Out What They Can Teach Us” I agree with the first sentence. I think the second sentence would not follow from the first sentence. It’s probably not a good idea. The subtitle reads, “A new psychedelic retreat calling itself a “SETI for the mind” aims to establish two-way communication with the nonhuman entities people encounter while tripping on DMT.” What could go wrong? From the article: The idea had been suggested six years earlier in a paper by neurobiologist Andrew Gallimore. So, these are not just some weirdo entrepreneurs. These are not just some journalists — he’s a neurobiologist. The ethnobotanist Terence McKenna… Boy, howdy, there are just so many specializations in science today, aren’t there? What do you want to be when you grow up, Sally? “I want to be an ethnobotanist.” Whatever that is. — one of the more gifted articulators of the psychedelic experience — famously described these entities as “self-transforming elf machines” and “jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs from hyperspace …” McKenna likened them to playful leprechauns, but others, like Bilton, have also met more sinister beings: “dark, evil motherfuckers—horrible things,” as he describes them. Okay. Tell me more. I’ve never done psychedelics. The thread connecting most perceived DMT entity encounters is an overwhelming sense of technological sophistication and godlike power. “I was confronted with what seemed to me to be the undeniable hand of some kind of intelligence,” Gallimore said of his first DMT trip during his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “a supremely advanced, ancient, and yet highly technological intelligence.” Is this sounding familiar to anyone? If you’ve done psychedelics it might be sounding familiar because you’ve experienced it. If you are familiar with religion — Christianity in particular — this might be sounding familiar, and it might not be sounding good. Gallimore argues that whatever is happening to the brain during a DMT trip, it’s not mere “hallucination”—a term he uses somewhat derisively. He makes the case that DMT unlocks a realm ordinarily cut off to our senses and populated by unfathomably advanced nonhuman entities. So right off the bat, there are two options. These things can be one of two things.  They can either be, to use the language of the scholastics: “ens reale” or “ens rationis.” They can be mind-independent beings — that is, things that have a reality in themselves outside of your own conceptions — or they can be figments of your imagination, things that we come up with in our heads. Now the whole premise here is that we need to communicate with these things. That very phrase tells us that if these things matter at all — if we’re going to do any of this stuff, have the weird science summer camp DMT trip — then they can’t just be figments of our imagination. Because you can’t communicate with something that is not in itself a cognitive power. Otherwise you’d just be talking to yourself. But you don’t need a DMT trip to talk to yourself. You can have a conversation in your own head. WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+ The only way to communicate is to involve two cognitive powers. I can’t communicate with my tumbler. I can’t communicate with this piece of paper. I can communicate with another person — because he or she has cognitive power. So right off the bat, we are assuming these things are real — but they’re not physical. They’re not visible ordinarily. They’re purely intelligence. Pure intelligence with which we might communicate, but only if we do things that are bad and sinful, like lose our minds on drugs. That is a demon. That’s a long way of saying, that’s a demon. Invisible, nonphysical cognitive powers are spirits. That’s what a spirit means. Spirits can be angels. They can be demons. There are other kinds of spiritual realities. Now, the ones we invite in to communicate when we are doing bad things — when we are sinning — they’re not the good ones. They’re the bad ones. They’re demons. I am not a guy — I’ve said this many times — who sees demons under every rock. I know that’s very popular now. I’ve had conversations with exorcists. I acknowledge spiritual reality. But I take the C.S. Lewis approach: you don’t want to think about demons none of the time, because then you might leave yourself open to danger. But you also don’t want to think about demons all the time, because then you’re obsessing over spiritual darkness instead of focusing on God. So you should think about demons a little bit of the time. This is one of those times. Do not go do a bunch of drugs with a bunch of hippie scientists and try to talk to demons. It’s a bad idea. What is it you desire that would impel you to go do this? There are plenty of people who take psychedelics and want to talk to the aliens — which are demons. Either they’re hallucinations, in which case the whole thing is pointless, or they’re demons. What would impel you? Because you want to learn something about yourself or about the world? Well, if you want to learn something — if you want to learn the truth — you should speak to God, who is the truth, the way, and the life. Christ says that. You would want to speak to the true source and summit of all being, rather than demons whose defining characteristic is that they’re evil and they lie. Why else would you want to do it? I’ll tell you why. And to be fair to the drug users, the reason they want this is because they recognize we are partly spiritual creatures. They recognize we don’t comprehend all the truth. They want knowledge. But if you want that, the reason you would go do drugs with scientists instead of going to church, reading the Bible, praying, or receiving the sacraments — the difference is this: those things promise the truth on God’s terms, while drugs promise the truth on your terms. You want to increase your personal agency. You want to become like a god yourself rather than submit your will and reason to God, who is omnipotent and omniscient. That’s why it’s just a reiteration of the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had everything. They were walking with God. It was paradise. But they wanted paradise on their own terms. And when you try to make paradise on your own terms, it turns into hell. So, have I made my point clear? Don’t do drugs and try to talk to demons. This should go without saying, but we’re living in a very confused age.

A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing went sideways on Wednesday when an anti-war protester and Green Party candidate attempted to disrupt the proceedings, shouting, “No one wants to fight for Israel!” The protester, identified as Brian McGinnis, a Marine Corps veteran and Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, had to be dragged from the hearing by Capitol Police — and when he grabbed onto a door to prevent them from removing him, Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) jumped into action as well. WATCH:

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) grilled Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) during a contentious Capitol Hill hearing addressing the rampant fraud in his state, much of which has been tied to the Somali immigrant community. Mace specifically asked Walz a series of questions about fraud linked to funding designated to help children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder — and the Minnesota governor, combative at times, struggled to answer some of the most basic questions about the people in his state. WATCH: Tim Walz can’t, or won’t, answer simple questions about the absolutely massive increase in Autism program spending in his state. These numbers have been circulating publicly for some time. This is just insane. What a fraud. pic.twitter.com/eF2nWEL7Le — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) March 4, 2026 Mace began by asking Walz how much the state of Minnesota had spent on autism programs in 2017. Walz at first said that he did not know, and when Mace challenged him directly — asking whether he’d prepared for the hearing ahead of time — he argued that he did not know because he was not the governor in 2017. “We’re gonna do some Minnesota math today,” Mace said, and she eventually revealed that Minnesota had spent approximately $1,000,000 on autism programs in 2017. “How much money was spent on autism in Minnesota in 2024?” Mace asked then. “I don’t have the number in front of me,” Walz replied. As governor I don’t —” “Were you governor in 2024?” Mace asked. “I was, but I’m not the —” “Okay, so your excuse before, you didn’t know what 2017 autism numbers were because you were not governor, and today you can’t answer the numbers about 2024 as governor and you still said you prepared for this hearing today, it’s unbelievable,” Mace said. “$343,000,000 was spent in 2024. What percent increase is that, from one million to 343 million?” “I’m not here to be your prop, go ahead and tell me,” Walz snapped. “Are you governor of Minnesota or not?” Mace asked. “Yes, I am,” Walz replied. “Well, when I’m governor of South Carolina, you can sure as hell bet that I’m going to know the math,” Mace shot back, explaining that it those numbers represented a 34,200% increase. “Do you know the number of children in Minnesota?” she asked. “I know that Minnesota ranked as a top three state for children in the last year,” Walz said. Mace asked what the state’s total population was, and Walz knew the answer to that question: “5.7 million.” “What is the total population of children in Minnesota?” Mace followed up. “I don’t have the number in front of me,” Walz said. “Are you governor of Minnesota?” Mace repeated. “And you don’t know the number of children residing in Minnesota? … As governor, I expect you to know this information. Thank God you’re not the vice president.”