The White House came to the defense of WNBA star Sophie Cunningham Thursday after the Indiana Fever guard faced criticism for saying that men should not compete in women’s sports or share women’s locker rooms. When asked about the issue by Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump is aware of Cunningham’s comments and shares her concerns about protecting female athletes. “I don’t believe he has reached out to her,” Leavitt said when asked whether Trump had contacted Cunningham. “I know he is following the story.” Leavitt said the backlash against Cunningham demonstrated what she described as a disconnect between leftist activists and the broader American public. “This is something the president feels strongly about as well, and the American people do too,” Leavitt said. “That men should not be playing in women’s sports. It’s completely ludicrous that anyone could support that.” “It’s even more ludicrous that you do have Sophie Cunningham, a female athlete herself, very accomplished in her own right, coming forth and speaking that truth that men shouldn’t play in women’s sports,” she continued. Leavitt called the criticism Cunningham has received “astonishing” and argued that the administration’s position reflects widespread public opinion. “They are clearly very out of touch with the American public on this issue, which again is an 80-20 issue,” Leavitt said. “It’s common sense. It’s rooted in basic biological fact that men should not be competing against women on playing fields across the country.” Cunningham, who has become one of the WNBA’s most recognizable players since joining the Indiana Fever, said in an interview with ESPN earlier this week that she felt compelled to speak out about biological differences in sports despite backlash from critics who accused her of being anti-transgender. “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” Cunningham said. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest.” Cunningham said her concern was protecting female athletes, particularly young girls. “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” she said. The comments drew criticism online, with some labeling the Missouri native as a conservative or “MAGA Barbie,” a characterization Cunningham rejected. “I really am right in the middle [politically],” Cunningham said, adding that she agrees and disagrees with positions on both sides of the political spectrum. Cunningham’s comments come as the WNBA and its players’ union have taken a different position on transgender inclusion. The WNBA Players Association has previously voiced opposition to restrictions on transgender participation in sports and pledged support for transgender athletes. The Fever guard has also drawn attention in recent weeks for refusing to join criticism of President Trump after the White House used a viral clip of her pointing at an opponent during a game as a social media meme. When asked about the White House using the clip, Cunningham said she viewed it as part of a broader internet trend. “Everyone around the world is posting it, every company has done it,” Cunningham said. “They’re just the ones also to get on board and I don’t really think twice about it.”

President Donald Trump advocated for a 35-year Atlanta Braves tradition during a rally in Marietta, Georgia, on Wednesday afternoon. While introducing former Braves manager Brian Snitker and current president and CEO Mike Plant at the event, fans immediately began to do the “tomahawk chop” — a move that has been criticized as culturally insensitive — but Trump quickly voiced his support for the gesture, and the crowd continued, even louder than before. President Donald Trump in Georgia, introducing former Braves Manger Brian Snitker and the tomahawk chop chant breaks out… “Ohhh listen… they say you are not allowed to do that.. do it” pic.twitter.com/EzSDdKOOOF — Zach Klein (@ZachKleinWSB) July 22, 2026 After thanking the president, Snitker expressed his gratitude for how passionate “Braves country” truly is and how there was a “room full of Braves country right here.” Snitker ended his speech telling the rally about gifts President Trump received, as well as possibly receiving in a few months. “Mike and I presented President Trump with one of our 4th of July 250th anniversary jerseys the team wore over the weekend,” Snitker said. “I just wanted to tell President Trump we are going to be back in Washington a year from now and we are going to give him another world championship jersey.” For years, the chant has received pushback from the Left with claims saying the chant is “racist” and “offensive.” Petitions were drawn up calling for a ban on the chant in stadiums across the country. The chop originated at Florida State University — and is still a common occurrence at that school. The Native American tribe reflected in the Seminoles logo has not expressed pushback over the chant. The “tomahawk chop” is one of the most notorious chants across sports, but it only came to Atlanta 35 years ago. The Braves started chopping in 1991 when former Florida State University defensive back turned outfielder Deion Sanders joined the roster, bringing the tradition from college to MLB.

A new Republican-backed bill that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrant agricultural workers is facing an onslaught of criticism from immigration hawks. House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) recently introduced the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act to provide illegal immigrant farmworkers with a path to temporary legal status. Gregory Bovino, who led the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation sweeps in Minneapolis and other major cities before his recent retirement from Border Patrol, said the Republican lawmakers backing the bill “just stabbed Trump’s deportation promise in the back.” “They’re only gonna get the message one way. Vote every single one of them out in a massive wave, and replace them with real immigration hawks. Anything less, and they’ll never take us seriously,” Bovino wrote on X Tuesday. Trump tells me he doesn’t know about Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026, a bill that would allow illegals in farming, meat packing and lodging industries to gain legal status. He says he will look into it. pic.twitter.com/VJNiIujIhy — Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) July 21, 2026 When asked about the bill Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he “didn’t know about it,” but would “take a look at it.” I will fight AGAINST any amnesty proposal in Congress. Illegal aliens BROKE our laws, and they MUST go home. AMNESTY is betraying the trust of the American people. pic.twitter.com/aJJwwD4h6U — Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) July 22, 2026 In a recent Newsmax appearance, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) came out in opposition to the bill, saying it provides illegal immigrants with a “pathway to citizenship” without offering “comprehensive reform.” “So we have a lot of work to do on immigration. Look, we know the immigration system is broken, that’s why I carry most of the legislation on immigration, fixing immigration. But as we have this conversation, there can be no amnesty as part of that conversation,” Ogles said. “Look, if you want to get a work visa, that’s one thing, but you also have to understand that if you want to become a citizen, you need to go back to your country, and you need to apply the right way and you need to stand in line like everyone else,” he added. Jeremy Beck, co-President of NumbersUSA, told Newsweek that the bill is “an amnesty for employers engaged in illegal hiring,” adding that “It allows hundreds of thousands of illegal workers to stay as long as they indenture themselves to the agricultural industry.” “Then the bill lowers workers’ wages and deducts the cost of housing from their paychecks,” Beck said. “No amnesty!” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said in response to the bill. “Amnesty is NOT what people voted for in 2024!” No amnesty. https://t.co/rgghloBMux pic.twitter.com/wHEjV8s3fu — House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) July 20, 2026 The bill would meet the demands of farm industry giants, including by allowing farms to employ H-2A migrant farmworkers for year-round labor, according to Politico. “[The bill] does acknowledge that dairy farmers have never had a workable ag-labor visa program, and it provides a short-term mechanism that will avoid massive disruptions to its workforce, which would in turn devastate family farms, create supply chain disruptions, and increase consumer costs,” Gregg Doud, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, said in a statement. John Hollay, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said the bill “follows through on President Trump’s promise from last Spring to protect American agriculture and seeks to codify a system that will ensure all of agriculture has access to a legal workforce when Americans won’t do the job,” according to Politico. Thompson argues that the bill is needed to address a years-long farm “labor crisis.” “They can’t get the help they need to harvest their crops and astronomical labor costs have pushed many lifelong farmers to the brink of bankruptcy,” Thompson said. “This is happening because the very program that once kept farmers in business is sinking under the weight of bureaucratic costs. Without reform, the H-2A visa program may now be the reason these same farms cannot be passed on to the next generation,” he said.

Oil prices climbed above $100 a barrel Thursday for the first time since May as markets reacted to a major escalation in the war with Iran.  Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly traded above the $100 threshold after Iranian-backed Houthi militants attacked two oil tankers transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. The attacks heightened concerns about global oil shipments as disruptions continued in the Strait of Hormuz. Together, the two waterways handle roughly 30% of the world’s oil. Goldman Sachs warned Brent crude could climb as high as $120 per barrel if disruptions continue in both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. President Donald Trump responded Thursday by warning Iran would face dire consequences if the Houthis continued targeting commercial shipping. Trump said on social media that if the Houthis “do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves.”  Reuters separately reported that Iran earlier this month flew military commanders, advisers, gold, and weapons into neighboring Yemen, citing two Iranian sources who said between 10 and 21 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders were aboard the flight “to support Houthi operations and provide training on new missile systems.” The spike in oil prices also rattled financial markets. The Nasdaq 100 was on pace for its worst day in a month, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.1%, and the S&P 500 lost 1.4%. The selloff came despite otherwise encouraging economic news, with initial jobless claims falling to their lowest level since 1969.  A sustained rise in crude prices could also complicate the fight against inflation by increasing fuel and transportation costs throughout the economy. Despite Thursday’s surge, Goldman Sachs maintained its forecast for Brent crude to average about $80 per barrel in the fourth quarter, citing stronger-than-expected production and weaker demand from China, South Korea, and the Middle East.

I’ve been trying to warn Americans about the human atrocities of fetal organ harvesting in the taxpayer-funded abortion industry for years. Now, because the problem has sadly persisted, I’m trying to help grieving parents track down the infant daughter they lost to this heinous system. Medical records from a taxpayer-funded abortion clinic in New Jersey point to a baby being delivered alive at over five months’ gestation in March 2024 — and then handed off to a shadowy fetal organ harvesting company called Cercle Allocation Services. The baby’s father was on long-distance probation. The baby’s mother was having a panic attack, coerced by the clinic, and under the influence of mind-altering substances. The abortion clinic gave her a massive dose of labor-inducing drugs the morning of the procedure. But the clinic intentionally did not administer anything to cause “fetal demise” — to kill the baby — beforehand. The clinic knew they were funneling her and her baby into their “research” program with Cercle. But they only made her aware of that when they shoved a “donation” form at her while she was having contractions and being wheeled into the operating room. The documents show time intervals and steps in the O.R. that, according to former abortion providers, leave barely one minute to get the baby out during what is normally a 15 to 30 minute extraction. They recorded no use of the normal forceps instruments. And then they handed the baby — named Clementine by her post-abortive parents — off to Cercle. The new investigative documentary “What Happened To Clementine?” tells the story in detail, with family interviews and medical expert insight on the evidence recovered so far. There is more work to be done, and multiple federal agencies with jurisdiction have been asked to intervene. Readers likely remember the groundbreaking undercover videos of Planned Parenthood — the biggest taxpayer-funded abortion business in the country — callously negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts. Breaking that story opened the door to increased public scrutiny of the government’s pervasive support for Big Abortion. It helped secure federal divestment from fetal experimentation, and criminal investigations and prosecutions of entities engaged in fetal organ harvesting and sale. It prompted the first-ever disqualification of abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood from nearly $1 billion in federal subsidies, and even helped the successful Dobbs case that allowed full protection of unborn children and their families. But it also sparked severe retaliation against me and my colleagues for daring to challenge this precious golden calf of child sacrifice, precisely because of the enormous stakes involved for the industry. The more we learn about fetal organ harvesting, the more horrifying and devastating the facts become for the continued viability of the entire abortion enterprise. The abortion clinic responsible in baby Clementine’s case is the anodynely-named Cherry Hill Women’s Center, which openly advertises elective abortions on healthy moms and healthy babies up to 28 weeks gestation — through the 7th month of pregnancy — making it among the top 10 latest 3rd-trimester abortion centers in the country. Cherry Hill receives government funding through both state and federal health programs. And Cherry Hill is a prominent member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), historically always holding a seat on the Planned Parenthood-dominated NAF Board of Directors. Cherry Hill and NAF were both entities that sought to have their networking conversations about fetal organ harvesting and sales covered up with a federal injunction against the release of half of my undercover footage. Cherry Hill has been a registered “study site” in Cercle’s fetal organ harvesting research protocol since at least 2014. Cercle was previously known as Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), rebranding in 2023. Cercle faced increasing scrutiny as ABR since my undercover footage exposed them as stating whole babies sometimes “just fell out” in the operating room for them to harvest. In a 2019 sworn deposition, ABR/Cercle’s procurement manager Perrin Larton testified that whole babies that “just fell out” occurred with some regularity. She testified the organization’s protocol for organ harvesting was no different in these cases: “We do a dissection to get the tissues that the researchers have requested, yeah.” This is especially disturbing because unborn infants scheduled for organ harvesting cannot have feticidal procedures done to them beforehand, so babies that “just fell out” are mostly born alive. Indeed, Ms. Larton testified that sometimes she had seen fetal hearts “beating independently” after already being cut out. ABR/Cercle has primarily worked with Planned Parenthood since the 1990s. The labor induction protocol that Cherry Hill used on Clementine’s mother — 600mcg Misoprostol — was heavily promoted across the abortion industry after Planned Parenthood published a study encouraging it in 2006. That was just a few years after the passage of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The abortion industry stood to lose a lot of fetal organ harvesting business if the partial-birth abortions that yielded whole babies were outlawed. Mandating massive doses of labor-inducing drugs for “cervical preparation” ahead of what were alleged to be “dismemberment” abortions would allow the live delivery of babies who “just fell out” to look like an accident. Misoprostol is part of the mail-order abortion drug regimen that the abortion industry has flooded the zone with since COVID. Indeed, Misoprostol is used for labor induction in standard first-trimester medication abortion protocols to force the baby out of the mother. And Big Abortion is no longer just quietly administering labor-inducing abortion drugs to patients who come into their clinics for surgical procedures. Now, they proudly boast that chemical abortion drugs are the key component to expanding third-trimester abortions as well. The medical records that Cherry Hill produced to Clementine’s mother clearly establish that the clinic transferred Clementine to Cercle, but after that, the records stop. In order to find out exactly what happened to baby Clementine — where she was sent next, what organs were taken from her, what experiments she was subjected to, and even when or if she died — we have to turn to Cercle’s records. Cercle has procurement logs, customer emails, invoices, and other documents that will shed further light on the fate of baby Clementine after she was forced out of her mother in Cherry Hill. But Cercle has refused to provide any information to Clementine’s parents. It’s unconscionable that young people carrying preemie-age human infants can be taken advantage of in their most vulnerable moments of crisis by powerful taxpayer-funded abortion businesses. We have to get government money out of the abortion business completely. We should make our communities safe places for people to have their babies even when they are unplanned, and we must listen to survivors of abortion trauma and exploitation. King David may have felled Goliath with a single stone, but it was an entire army of Israelites that chased the Philistine horde’s influence out of their land — they certainly did not publicly fund them. It is time to shut down Big Abortion once and for all. *** David Daleiden is the investigative reporter responsible for the 2015 undercover video series documenting Planned Parenthood leaders trafficking aborted fetal body parts. He is the founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress.