Recent polling and national defense surveys underscore a period of robust Republican alignment with President Trump’s more assertive foreign policy, particularly regarding military action in Iran. Data from CNN analyst Harry Enten highlights a near-unanimous consensus within the GOP base, revealing that 89% of MAGA voters approve of the current war against Iran, while only a marginal 9% express disagreement. “The MAGA base really likes the U.S. military action in Iran,” Enter pointed out. “Take a look here. Okay, MAGA GOP on the U.S. military action in Iran. Look at this. Nearly nine in 10, 89 percent approve of the U.S. military action in Iran. That is the MAGA GOP base. Just nine percent disapprove of it. This is tremendously popular among the Republican base. … This war is very popular among the GOP base.” This overwhelming support suggests that the administration’s “peace through strength” approach has resonated deeply with its core constituency. This specific support for the war in Iran mirrors broader trends captured in the 2025 Ronald Reagan Institute’s National Defense Survey. The study found that Americans—and MAGA Republicans in particular—are increasingly embracing global leadership and military superiority. A record 79% of MAGA voters believed the U.S. should take the lead in international affairs, a figure significantly higher than that of their Democratic counterparts. Furthermore, 87% of Americans overall believed it is vital for the U.S. to maintain the world’s most powerful military, with 71% agreeing that global peace is most likely when American strength is unrivaled. The survey also reveals a GOP base that is prepared for sustained conflict and expansion. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believe the military should be sized to win two wars simultaneously, while a majority now supports using military force against drug traffickers in Latin America. Whether it is the 89% approval for the Iranian conflict or the 77% support for defending Taiwan, the data confirm that the Republican Party is solidly behind an era of proactive, well-funded military engagement under the Trump administration.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a St. Patrick’s Day event to complain about “genocide” in Gaza, arguing that the Irish and Palestinians could relate over their shared histories marked by oppression. Mamdani joined former Irish President Mary Robinson at a breakfast honoring Irish New Yorkers, and he used his remarks to praise Robinson for her support for Palestinians. Mamdani rips ‘genocide’ in Palestine during St. Patrick’s Day event https://t.co/qXhjOmqn2e pic.twitter.com/2jP4BHzOWp — New York Post (@nypost) March 17, 2026 “I say this as over the past few years, as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many. For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new – for Palestinians are so often left to weep alone,” Mamdani said. “Yet former President Robinson has never been silent.” “The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation, and of discrimination,” Mamdani said, arguing that it was “no coincidence” that the Irish would see their own history reflected in Gaza. “Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long?” Robinson, who served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997, followed Mamdani’s lead, and after saying that St. Patrick’s Day was a time to celebrate Irish culture and traditions, it was also a time to remember all those who may yet be “living under the shadow of war and suffering.” “For many Irish people, these realities resonate deeply, as the mayor has said. Our own history holds memories of famine, exile and conflict. Perhaps because of that, many recognize echoes of Ireland’s past and the suffering of others today and the pain of displacement and the enduring human longing for dignity, justice, and self-determination,” she said. Mamdani referenced Irish support for a Palestinian state in his official message to New Yorkers as well. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, New York. pic.twitter.com/DPCGPlFbE2 — Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) March 17, 2026

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show. * * * We’re not supposed to say anything but good about people who’ve just died. As the saying goes, speak no ill of the dead. This man, however, left a wake of death, destruction, and catastrophe wherever he went. And most people don’t even know his name: Paul Ehrlich. I write about Paul Ehrlich at some length in my book “Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds.” And now, here we have his obituary in The New York Times: “Premature,” lol. The abject refusal to just admit this guy was completely wrong is one of the funnier Boomer-coded traits. pic.twitter.com/oM5GYgDEtR — Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) March 16, 2026 Source: @SonnyBunch/X.com The headline and sub-headline reads: Paul Ehrlich, who alarmed the world with The Population Bomb, dies at 93. His bestselling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement, but he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature. Here we go. Big lie. His predictions “proved premature.” What were his predictions? His prediction was that if the population grew any more, we would have widespread famine, because the Earth could not sustain all those people. His prescriptions, therefore, were to stop having kids and sterilize people. We should use the government to reduce the population. These policies of his led to the one-child policy in China and forced sterilizations in India. This guy is — not single-handedly, but pretty close — responsible for the population crisis (or depopulation) that we face today. And they say his predictions “proved premature.” Since he made his prediction that we would inevitably face mass starvation because the population was growing too much, since that time, the world population has doubled and global malnutrition has been cut dramatically. Today there are twice as many people as when he made his prediction, and we are more well-fed than ever. It’s not that his predictions proved premature. They were completely wrong. Totally wrong. The New York Times is covering for Ehrlich in its obituary of him. Ehrlich did more evil than almost anybody in the 20th century. And the consequences of his stupid predictions and prescriptions — because he prescribed policy to governments — were mass evil. The consequences of his ideas led to mass death, sterilization, the violation of basic rights, and he never let up on it. Here is Paul Ehrlich, in the 1970s, discussing the problem as he saw it: In a 1970 interview, Paul Ehrlich stated: “The FCC should see to it that large families are always treated in negative light on television.” He added that if this approach failed, then the government should “legislate the size of the family” and “throw you in jail if you have… pic.twitter.com/Ij7C5eso4W — Gentry Gevers (@gentrywgevers) March 16, 2026 Source: @gentrywgevers/X.com In the interview, Ehrlich says, The first thing the government should do is try and take the pressure off to reproduce … Young couples — if they don’t have children — people say, ‘gee, they must be sterile.’ They never say, ‘gee, maybe they like good wine and going to the theater and so on, they prefer that to scraping diapers.’ So there’s pressure to have children. So the first thing that should happen is that the president ought to say, ‘From here on out, no intelligent, patriotic American family ought to have more than two children, preferably one, if you’re starting a family now.’ He ought to make the FCC see to it that large families are always treated in a negative light wherever they appear …  you can move to giving women bonuses for not having babies, that almost certainly would do the job. If that didn’t have the effect, then you could move to changing the tax structure so that people who had the money and had the children paid more for them — in other words, increase taxes on people with children rather than decrease them, since when they have the children they require more services. If that doesn’t work, then you’ll have the government legislating the size of the family. And people say, ‘Oh that’s impossible, government can never intrude and tell you how many children to have.’ Well, I got news — you know it intruded a long time ago and told you how many wives you can have and there’s not the slightest question that if we don’t get the population under control with voluntary means that in the not-too-distant-future, the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw you in jail if you have too many. So God tells us in the book of Genesis to “Be fruitful and multiply.” This Antichrist figure comes out in the 1970s and says, “Do not have children. It’s unpatriotic to have children.” It’s funny because patriotism comes from the word “Pater,” meaning father — it’s an extension of filial piety, it’s an extension of the family — and he’s saying the pro-family thing to do is to destroy your family. He says, first we’re going to incentivize people — we’re going to discourage them culturally. Say having kids is bad, you should just drink good wine instead. All these arguments you hear today — Don’t you want to travel? Don’t you want to have experiences? Don’t have kids. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to pay people not to have kids. Give women bonuses. Subsidize it. Say instead of having kids, go work at the widget factory, do spreadsheets, we’ll give you money. That doesn’t work? Okay, now we punish you. Forget the carrot, now it’s the stick. If you have kids, we’re going to tax you. We’re going to make you pay for the privilege. And if that doesn’t work, we’re just going to stop you from having kids. What does that mean in practice? Because China implemented this. It means forced abortion. The government comes in and kills your child. You want to keep your child? No. Government kills your child. It leads to policies like in India, where people were told you can only get access to food and resources if you sterilize yourself. That happened because of this guy. Because of his book. Because of his ideas. He said in “The Population Bomb”: The battle to feed all of humanity is over… hundreds of millions of people will starve to death… nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. Totally wrong. Could not have been more wrong. He said we must have population control — hopefully through voluntary means, but by compulsion if necessary. That was his thesis. He described population growth as a “cancer.” Population growth just means more people. So if more people are a cancer, then people are the disease. Human beings are a disease. The left has held on to that view for a very, very long time. And this is where the truly wicked origins of leftism — which endeavors to invert reality — began, during the French Revolution as an assault on the Church. This is where the real satanic, Luciferian character of liberalism really begins to show itself. One of the fruits of liberalism is the view that human beings are a disease that must be cured, that must be eradicated from the earth. And now this guy is eradicated from the earth. And it’s sad, because every man’s death diminishes me because I’m a human. As John Donne wrote in his famous poem, “No Man is an Island”: No man is an island entire of itself; every man  is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;  if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe  is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as  well as any manner of thy friends or of thine  own were; any man’s death diminishes me,  because I am involved in mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom  the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. We should pray for him, because he led a very, very evil life. And in many ways, maybe he didn’t fully understand what he was doing. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But we can’t just think about him — we have to think about the institutions. This guy got everything wrong. Not a little wrong — perfectly wrong. And he never paid a price for it. He kept his positions, his prestige, his influence. His policies were implemented. They led to enormous harm. And the institutions backed him up. And now one of the chief cultural institutions, The New York Times, is still covering for him — still saying his ideas were just “premature.” Not premature. Wrong. And as a final note, that idea — “forgive them, for they know not what they do” — this connects to something else. The world feel tense right now. The stakes feel higher. There’s conflict in Iran, division at home, a lot of strain in the culture. For Christians, this is Lent. And if you’ve paid attention over the years, this season often feels like that — more tension, more conflict, more difficulty. In the story, this is the period in the desert, the temptation, the struggle. And then comes Easter. I’m not saying everything magically gets better overnight. But if you believe in spiritual realities, that there is a meaning to history, a rhythm to the liturgical calendar, then it’s not surprising that things feel strained right now. Sometimes things look like they’re falling apart — like when Christ was crucified on Calvary — right before they come back together. That’s the pattern.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard laid out her defense for President Donald Trump and his decision to take action, alongside Israel, against the Iranian regime. Gabbard argued that it was her job to ensure that the president had the best and most accurate information possible, but it was Trump’s responsibility alone to determine what does and does not constitute an “imminent threat” against the United States. “Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief. As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country,” Gabbard posted on Tuesday. “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions,” she continued. “After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.” Gabbard’s statement comes just hours after Joe Kent announced his resignation as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, claiming that there was no “imminent threat” to the United States and that Trump had been pushed by Israel into waging war against the Iranian regime. Kent, according to an intelligence official who spoke with The Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan, had been excluded from planning and briefings regarding the war with Iran. That same official refuted earlier reporting stating that Gabbard had been advised to fire Kent, but had failed to do so. “Intelligence official tells @realDailyWire that it’s true that Joe Kent wasn’t part of the planning of the Iran war or briefings on the war,” Olohan reported. “It is not true that DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard was asked by the White House to fire Kent, source says— if she had been asked to do so, she would have fired him.”

They didn’t get much attention, for obvious reasons — but believe it or not, a handful of white people actually managed to win major civil rights lawsuits during the BLM revolution. As the largest companies on the planet began discriminating against white employees — denying them promotions, firing them, putting their resumes at the bottom of the pile, and so on — a small number of white people decided to invoke their constitutional rights. They went to court. And they came away with tens of millions of dollars. And we should talk more about these stories, especially since they could inspire more victims of anti-white discrimination to take their case to court. One of the most egregious examples involved Starbucks, which was run by CEO Howard Schultz at the time. You may remember this sordid episode in American history, when a couple of black guys walked into a Starbucks and sat down without placing an order. The store wouldn’t let them loiter or use the bathroom without making a purchase — which makes sense, since it’s a private business and they don’t want the property to become a crackhouse. But the two black guys decided that this was their “Rosa Parks” moment. They refused to leave to the point that they were arrested for trespassing. In response, instead of demonstrating a semblance of integrity or courage in the face of a mob, Howard Schultz shut down every Starbucks store for “Racial bias” training, issued a payout to the black customers, attacked his own employees, and groveled on CNN. Watch: Source: CNN Business/YouTube.com So Howard Schultz went on national television and threw his employees under the bus. He accepted the premise of CNN’s question — which is that these black guys were only thrown out of the store because they were black, even though there was precisely zero evidence of that. What happened next is that, amid all of this hysteria, Starbucks fired a white manager who had nothing to do with this incident whatsoever. They couldn’t fire the black manager who actually oversaw operations in this particular store. So Starbucks told a white regional manager named Shannon Phillips to terminate a white manager at a nearby district, as a way of demonstrating that Starbucks was serious about racial equity. And when Phillips refused, they fired her instead. She then sued and won more than $25 million. Watch: Source: NBC News/YouTube.com You’d be hard-pressed to find a better illustration of how self-described “progressives” like Howard Schultz operate. He makes a big show of major reform in the name of equity. He says that he’ll make Starbucks lobbies and bathrooms open to everyone, whether they make a purchase or not. He goes on national television to berate his employees for being white supremacists. And then, just a few years later, he’s gone from the company. Starbucks has started opening offices in Tennessee for up to 2,000 employees to escape the mayhem of Seattle. The bathroom policy returned because vagrants were treating Starbucks like a crackhouse. And Starbucks has to pay tens of millions of dollars because, in fact, there were no white supremacists working at Starbucks. But Starbucks did have an awful lot of executives who despise the white working class. But Starbucks isn’t the only thing that Howard Schultz has left in ruins, without any sense of shame or reflection or self-awareness. After decades of relentlessly promoting Left-wing politics, which have destroyed his hometown of Seattle, Schultz has now fled to Florida — just in time to avoid a massive new “wealth tax” that Washington State is implementing.  Watch: Source: KING 5 News/YouTube.com Notice that Schultz — even as he’s abandoning the city where he lived for decades — still can’t bring himself to condemn any aspect of the Left-wing politics that have destroyed Seattle. He can’t condemn the fact that Leftists have turned downtown into a drug den. He can’t condemn the anti-white racism that just cost his company tens of millions of dollars. He can’t even condemn the fact that Leftists are attempting to confiscate 10% of all household income over one million dollars, even though the Constitution of Washington State makes it illegal to tax income. Something like 30,000 residents will be directly affected, although of course, the actual effect is going to be much larger. When businesses close down and rich people leave, the result is fewer jobs and less tax revenue. It’s important to understand that Howard Schultz is not the exception. There’s now an epidemic of rich Leftists fleeing from Democrat-controlled jurisdictions. These people supported Democrat policies, and now they’re running away from the natural consequences of those policies. Jeff Bezos moved from Seattle to Florida in 2023. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin moved from California (which is also planning a massive wealth tax) to Florida in the past year. Ken Griffin, the co-founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, who donated to both Obama and Biden, just moved from Chicago — where Citadel employees were getting robbed all the time — to Miami.  Travis Kalanick, the founder of Uber, moved from California to Austin. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, who spent half a billion dollars to help Democrats in 2020, just announced the purchase of a mansion in Miami, so he’s apparently leaving California as well.  Watch: Source: FOX Business/YouTube.com And on and on it goes. We are witnessing a mass exodus of billionaires from states that have been destroyed by their politics. In every case, these billionaires either endorsed Left-wing policies or didn’t object as those policies were taking hold. And now that things have gotten out of hand — and major American cities are becoming overtly socialist — they’re all running away. And as you just heard, it’s not just the billionaires who are fleeing. Here’s one way to put the numbers in context: Right now, without any foreign migration, California would lose something like 120,000 people per year. New York would lose around 100,000. On the other hand, Texas is on track to gain hundreds of thousands of residents, even without any foreign migration. So is Florida. So a lot of people — not just the wealthy — are escaping these hellholes that Democrats have created. For the most part, the only people who are willing to live in New York (or downtown Los Angeles) are coming here from the third world. Those are the only people who see America’s urban centers as tolerable places to live. These are the kind of people who are doing most of the damage, by the way.