Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has broken with Democrats on multiple issues, is toeing the party line on the SAVE America Act, criticizing President Donald Trump over concerns about mail-in ballots and gender procedures for children on Wednesday night. During an appearance on CBS News’s “The Takeout with Major Garrett,” Fetterman said he doesn’t support the SAVE America Act “in its current state.” The legislation, which would establish strict voter ID requirements and limit the use of mail-in ballots, is Trump’s top priority for the Senate. “The president is constantly critical on mail-in voting, and that’s ridiculous. It’s safe,” Fetterman said. “Some of the best examples in the country are from red states like Ohio and Florida, of course.” “I can’t ever vote for that,” the Democrat added. “Because I could never agree [with] something that’s just not true.” Fetterman highlighted how Republicans and Democrats passed legislation in Pennsylvania in 2019 to legalize mail-in voting. Two years later, following Trump’s 2020 loss, many Pennsylvania Republicans filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2019 voting law. Along with imposing strict voter ID requirements and mail-in ballot rules, the SAVE America Act would also keep men from competing in women’s sports and protect children from gender procedures. Fetterman said he also opposes the effort from Trump and Republicans to pass legislation that would outlaw life-altering gender procedures on minors. “That entire community, I refuse to target that or pick on that. It’s difficult enough for transgender kids, so I think this is the wrong venue to discuss it nationally,” Fetterman added. “I think it’s a very personal choice for parents and their children,” he continued. “And I think it’s increasingly going to become a more local or maybe state kind of decisions.” Fetterman acknowledged that the “vast majority” of Americans support requiring people to show ID to register to vote, and he signaled that he would support legislation that focuses solely on enacting stricter voter ID requirements. Recent polls show that more than 80% of Americans back such restrictions. “Hey, I’m not going to tell 83% of Americans that they’re wrong, or that they’re Jim Crow,” he said, referring to a talking point from many Democrats who have claimed that the SAVE America Act would disenfranchise more than 20 million voters and act as “Jim Crow 2.0.” Fetterman blasted Democrats’ characterization of the SAVE America Act as “Jim Crow 2.0.” “I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy,” he told Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany during an appearance on “Saturday in America.” Fetterman told CBS News that the SAVE America Act doesn’t stand a chance in the Senate “because of the filibuster.” The Democrat admitted that part of the reason he ran for Senate in 2022 was to help his party abolish the filibuster, adding, “But now we find ourselves as Democrats, we love the filibuster. We cling to that.” President Trump has called on Republican leaders to change Senate rules and use the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, legislation that he has called “the most popular bill put before Congress.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), however, has said there isn’t enough Republican support to use the talking filibuster. Thune is expected to bring the SAVE America Act to the floor for a vote in the near future, but it’s likely to fall short of the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.

Moody’s downgraded New York City’s financial outlook from “stable” to “negative” on Wednesday, citing a projected $5.4 billion budget deficit. The deficit was unveiled by Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani during a preliminary budget hearing in February. Mamdani has proposed increasing the city’s budget from $115 billion under his predecessor to $127 billion for the upcoming fiscal year.  A spokesperson for Mamdani said Moody’s action is premature, noting that state lawmakers are considering roughly $5 billion in additional funding for the city. In its statement, Moody’s acknowledged that the proposed state funding “could have a stabilizing effect over time,” but cautioned that it would matter only “if enacted.” Without additional state funding, Mamdani has proposed raising property taxes by 9.5% and taking $980 million from the city’s rainy-day fund. Moody’s warned that tapping reserves would “limit financial flexibility, especially if economic growth slows sharply or an outright downturn materializes.”  New York City Comptroller Mark Levine described the potential property tax hike and use of reserves as having “dire consequences” and called Moody’s decision a red flag. “Moody’s decision to review New York City’s outlook to negative is a sobering wakeup call about the fiscal challenges ahead for us,” Levine said. The downgrade comes after a year in which the city posted record Wall Street revenues amid a strong local economy. Despite revising the outlook, Moody’s left the city’s bond rating unchanged. A full downgrade would likely raise New York’s borrowing costs by signaling greater credit risks to investors. Moody’s warned that a rating downgrade could follow if budget gaps widen to 10% of city revenue. Mamdani has attributed the projected deficits to what he describes as mismanagement under former Mayor Eric Adams, arguing that prior budgets failed to adequately fund cash assistance, rental support, and shelter services. During the Adams administration, the city absorbed more than 210,000 migrants, with officials estimating the cost of housing and support services at roughly $4.3 billion. Those expenses continue to strain the city’s budget. Meanwhile, Mamdani has advanced several costly campaign proposals, including expanded childcare and transit initiatives. According to estimates cited by the New York Post, the mayor’s proposed expansion of childcare for two-year-olds could grow from $73 million in its first year to $425 million by 2027. A proposed “free and fast buses” initiative could cost the city up to $800 million.  

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. *** Many, especially those on the political right, are encouraging Americans to have more babies. Proposed policies aim to provoke more robust reproduction, including efforts to make the fertility drugs used in IVF more affordable. But what do we say in our current baby-focused political climate to those for who have tried and failed to do their part to reduce the downward-trending birth rates? How can the conversation around population show compassion for those who have tried to have children, sought treatment, and yet remain decidedly un-pregnant? Enter a little help from popular culture: “Bridgerton,” the Netflix Regency-era romance from Shonda Rhimes, which features an infertility story line in its fourth and latest season. (It’s clear that I need to acknowledge that there are fans of the original Julian Quinn books upset with the change in this story line, from miscarriage to infertility, in the series. I see you. But I have not read the books, so my example will be drawn only from the Netflix series.) In any case, I do appreciate and always have appreciated an accurate depiction of infertility from the entertainment industry, and especially the rare one that doesn’t ultimately end in pregnancy, so I was glad to see it.  Of course, we don’t know yet how Francesca’s story will end, but (spoiler!) with her husband dead, and an unsuccessful bid at motherhood while he was still living, Francesca may find herself redefining the infertile girl’s happy ending. After her husband’s death and conclusion that she is not actually pregnant as she believed, her sorrow is at least doubled (though how can anyone measure such a thing?).  Francesca feels she has let people down and left a duty unfulfilled. She feels guilty and alone. It is tempting to think the way she feels way about her infertility is simply a product of her era. But I can tell you as a woman who realized, treated (unsuccessfully), and grieved her own infertility throughout the first 25 years of the 21st century that those feelings can befall even a modern woman. She, too, will find herself asking, “What is wrong with me?” It is a challenge to know how to support an infertile woman. There are so many ways to put your foot in your mouth. I am thinking of the scene after the terrible physical exam Francesca is forced to endure to confirm that she is pregnant with her deceased husband’s heir. Her mother, also made a widow at a younger age, attempts to empathize with her daughter. Francesca becomes angry and perhaps resentful at her mother’s suggestion that they are the same when Lady Bridgerton has eight children and she has none. That said, providing comfort is a thing worth trying, especially as time goes on. It is an easier thing to cheer a woman on through treatments, especially at first when it’s all new and hope-filled and ripe with the promise of a baby after her arms have been empty. They say a change is as good as a rest. And the change from navigating infertility on your own to being under the care of a doctor can’t be underestimated. With a new regimen there is also new hope, and hope is fuel we burn in our efforts to keep trying again. The real challenge comes when the months, medications, and money start adding up and there is still no baby. Just as with that first year of “trying” when you know every month that passes means you’re one month closer to needing to see a doctor for help, with every cycle of treatment, you know that statistically you are less and less likely to find success. And while there are advances in fertility medicine all the time, there are only so many courses of treatment that may work for you. And with each unsuccessful month, you are now even older than when you began, and the undeniable reality of age and fertility only compounds the all-encompassing fears that all of this effort was for naught and it’s never going to happen. Even with the many advances, doctors can still only do so much. Modern medicine often tries to ease or eradicate physical and psychological suffering, but what about the existential? I don’t think there’s a drug out there that can take away the pain of the unfulfilled desire to become a mother. So, how should we talk about infertility right now? How do we speak about population decline and infertility with compassion? I’m not sure there’s any right way to do it, but we should try. Rally round, stay close, and listen. Agree that it is sad. Know that you can’t fix things for them. And speak with truth and love. Remember, too, that the scars of infertility remain long after the possibility of a pregnancy disappears. While I am no longer, oh I don’t know, actively infertile, I still appreciate when babies, pregnancy, and fertility are discussed with charity and compassion. Like Francesca and her mother, it may well be that “we are not the same.” *** Leigh Fitzpatrick Snead is a fellow with the Catholic Association and author of “Infertile but Fruitful: Finding Fulfillment When You Can’t Concieve” out now from Sophia Institute Press. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

This week Iran claimed to have formally closed the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows every single day. Three more ships – the Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree, the Japanese ONE Majesty, and the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth – were struck by “unknown projectiles,” which is almost certainly reporter-speak for Iranian missiles and drones on Wednesday. This brings the total number of vessels attacked since February 28 to at least 14. Welcome back to the Persian Gulf, circa 1987. Back then, Iran targeted tankers carrying oil from countries supplying Saddam’s Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, forcing the Reagan Administration to escort re-flagged Kuwaiti vessels under U.S. Navy protection — a confrontation that ended with American warships sinking a significant chunk of Iran’s fleet in a single day. This, then, is our “Back to the Future” moment. The Islamic Republic’s dusty playbook from almost 40 years ago dictates if Tehran can’t export oil freely, no one can. Iran’s most important security official now, Ali Larijani, put it plainly this week. The strait “will either be a strait of peace and prosperity for all, or a strait of defeat and suffering for warmongers.” Iranian military elites went further, vowing not to allow “a single liter of oil” to pass for the benefit of America or its allies.  Since 2019, the IRGC Navy has been methodically re-upping its threats to freedom of navigation, using limpet mines against commercial vessels, seizing tankers, and harassing ships throughout the Persian Gulf. It also exported this threat to its Houthi proxies in the Red Sea, impeding maritime trade in yet another critical waterway after October 7, 2023.   The mining threat we’re now confronting was incubated during the Iran-Iraq War. The last time Iran tried this, in 1988, the U.S. Navy responded with Operation Praying Mantis, destroying nearly half of Iran’s operational fleet in a single day, the largest American naval surface engagement since World War II. Tehran blinked, accepted a ceasefire, and then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini famously compared it to “drinking a poisoned chalice.” The lesson was partially written on the wreckage of Iran’s vessels.  U.S. Central Command moved fast this week, destroying 16 Iranian minelayers near the strait on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Trump told reporters the number was up to 28. That’s real progress but it’s not enough to change the risk calculus for ship owners and neighboring Arab states. Yet the Iranian maritime threat here isn’t its conventional fleet, most of which is now, as Trump put it, “at the bottom of the sea.” It’s the hundreds of speedboats and fast attack craft that the IRGC possesses, capable of laying mines faster than they can be hunted down. Destroying a frigate is a photo op. Neutralizing a swarm of cigarette boats is a campaign. That’s the hard truth Trump must reckon with. Threatening “death, fire and fury” is great for the Truth Social feed. But rhetoric doesn’t sweep mines or open shipping lanes. Trump says the escort option is on the table. Ship owners are watching to see if he means it. He should. The Reagan administration faced a strikingly similar moment in 1987, when Iran was targeting tankers in the Persian Gulf during the “Tanker War.” Reagan’s answer was Operation Earnest Will which involved re-flagging Kuwaiti tankers under the American flag and providing them with U.S. Navy escorts through the Persian Gulf. It was a direct challenge to Iranian maritime aggression, and it worked. The message was clear: the free flow of commerce is a vital American interest, and the United States will back that interest with force. Iran stood down. Trump is now facing his version of that moment, and it is arguably a harder one, given the scale of the current conflict, the mining threat, and the IRGC’s asymmetric capabilities. The only way out of this crisis is through it. That means not just destroying minelayers after the fact but going after the IRGC Navy comprehensively including its fast attack craft, its shore-based missile batteries, and its port infrastructure.  It also means considering convoy operations to restore confidence among ship owners and allied regional states, who right now see little reason to risk their vessels in a waterway the United States has not yet secured. And it means making clear to Iran’s current leadership that the Strait of Hormuz is not a bargaining chip. This is Trump’s Reagan moment. He’s already scored a significant security win: Ali Khamenei is gone, Iran’s conventional navy is decimated, and the regime is staggering. But the war for the global economy is still being fought on a battlefield 21 miles wide, between Iran and Oman. Winning it would deliver something Reagan never quite achieved: a decisive, lasting blow to the IRGC’s ability to hold the world’s oil supply hostage. The question is whether Trump will pull the trigger not just on Iran’s military, but on reopening the artery that keeps the global economy alive. The Strait is where the real test of Trump’s resolve against the Islamic Republic begins. * * * Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow and Senior Director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Oil prices jumped Thursday morning to over $100 per barrel as Iran continued striking ships throughout the region. The global benchmark Brent crude climbed above $100 early Thursday morning for the first time since Monday before slipping slightly to $97.81. The spike came as Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf disrupted the flow of oil in the region. At least two oil tankers were struck off the coast of Iraq on Wednesday by projectiles, according to the shipping monitoring group United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Crews on both tankers were evacuated as fires broke out. Iran reportedly took credit for attacking one of the tankers, claiming the ship “disobeyed and ignored” commands. Iran is suspected of attacking the other tanker, according to Iraqi officials. A video released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp featured a man celebrating the attack, the New York Post reported. “Allah is the greatest! The destruction of an American tanker in the northern district of the Persian Gulf! I obey you Khamenei! Hail be the Islamic Republic of Iran! Soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy!” the man said. The attacks prompted both Iraq and Oman to close off oil terminals for security purposes. The disruption has caused gas prices to rise significantly in the United States. The national average on Thursday was $3.59 per gallon compared to $2.94 one month ago, according to AAA. President Donald Trump said Wednesday night that the United States would tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help lower energy costs amid the war. “We’re going to be doing that very quickly and then will fill it up. Will fill up our reserves,” Trump said. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that around 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve would start to be released next week. When asked if the Treasury Department would begin purchasing oil futures to help bring down costs, Trump said he was focused on winning the war with Iran. “They are pretty much at the end of the line. Doesn’t mean we’re going to end it immediately, but they are. They’ve got no navy, they’ve got no air force,” Trump said. “They have no systems of control. We’re just riding free range over their country.” Trump has previously suggested that the Navy might be used to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. “We’re going to look very strongly at the straits. The straits are in great shape. We’ve knocked out all of their boats,” he said Wednesday. “But they have some missiles, but not very many. I think we’re in very good shape.”