FRANKLIN, Tenn. — “The reputation of our state is on the line,” said Tennessee Republican senator Bill Hagerty as he addressed several hundred Republican voters gathered Monday morning to rally support for congressional candidate Matt Van Epps one day before a crucial special election. The temperatures outside the rally were chilly, but the mood of Republican officials inside the rally was confident yet urgent. Most said they believed that Van Epps would win the race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, but that the margins could be closer than what would typically be expected in the Republican favorable district. Van Epps is facing off against state Democrat Representative Aftyn Behn, a far-Left candidate who supports transgender procedures on kids and wants to roll back Tennessee’s pro-life protections. Democrats have poured millions into the race, capitalizing on their wins last month and hoping for low Republican turnout in the rural areas of the district and high turnout in parts of Nashville. Former congressman Mark Green won the district by over 20 points during the 2024 election before later announcing his resignation. “It’s all going to come down to the numbers, and my friends, the Democrats have seen an opportunity. They’re counting on us to slide into December 2 having enjoyed Thanksgiving and not thinking that this seat is at risk,” Hagerty said. “The message that we can send from here in Tennessee has to be loud and clear. Not only is Tennessee a red state, Tennessee seven is a red district, and the reputation of our state is on the line.” Hagerty said he believed that Van Epps would be OK, but that Tennessee voters had a chance to put a stop to Democrat confidence after racking up wins in Virginia and New Jersey. The rally was held at the barn of American businessman and billionaire Willis Johnson in rural Williamson County with the backdrop of Johnson’s classic car collection on display. Inside the rally were a who’s who of Volunteer State Republicans, including Governor Bill Lee, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Rep. John Rose, Rep. Andy Ogles, Rep. Tim Burchett, state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, and state GOP Chair Scott Golden. “We are going to win this because we are going to have a coalition that gets out and we’re going to win decisively,” Van Epps told the crowd, promising to fight for America First policies if elected to office. Van Epps won a crowded Republican primary in August after being endorsed by President Donald Trump. A number of Van Epps’ primary opponents, including Reps. Gino Bulso and Jody Barrett, were in attendance and gave Van Epps their full-throated support. Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters also spoke, as did House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who flew in from Washington, D.C., Monday morning. To much cheering, Johnson called President Donald Trump, who addressed the crowd on speaker phone. Credit: Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images. Trump said that he heard the “crowd is incredible” and that he wanted to be there in person, but that the Secret Service said it would be difficult on such short notice. “I love Tennessee, one of my all-time favorite places. Tennessee, I guess, loves me because we won by the biggest margins anybody has ever won by,” Trump said. “
But if you can go Matt Van Epps, he’s a winner, he’s going to be great. Don’t let this stuff fool you.” Trump also ripped into Behn for previously saying that she hates country music. “How the hell can you elect a person like that?” Trump asked. Several Republican officials said that they expected Van Epps to win by about 7-10% of the vote. State Senator Joey Hensley told The Daily Wire he thought he would win by 8-10% of the vote, while Williamson County GOP Chair Steve Hickey said he believed the margin would be about 7%. Congressman John Rose told The Daily Wire he thought Van Epps would finish strong. Multiple local attendees who spoke with The Daily Wire said that they worried that a sense of complacency had set in across the district because the seat went so strongly Republican in the past. Attendee Matt said that he couldn’t believe how close the polls indicated the race would be and said he was confused why Green resigned his seat. Chad, who said he had voted early, said he was worried that Republican turnout would be low. Other Republicans said the result would hinge on turnout. “The game is tied and it will be decided what we do tomorrow,” Golden said.

The White House doubled down Monday on its authorization of lethal strikes against narco-terrorist groups ahead of a high-level Oval Office meeting amid escalating tensions with Venezuela. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that President Donald Trump has the authority to use lethal force against members of designated narco-terrorist groups and has directed the military to treat suspected traffickers as lawful targets. “The president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists, again, are trafficking illegal drugs towards the United States, he has the authority to kill them—and that’s what this administration is doing,” Leavitt told reporters. She added that “many options at the president’s disposal remain on the table.” Leavitt’s comments come ahead of a scheduled Oval Office meeting Monday afternoon, where top Trump administration officials are set to discuss the administration’s pressure campaign against Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. Officials will include Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Leavitt said the meeting is part of Trump’s “responsibility to ensure that peace is ongoing throughout the world.” The United States has continued to increase its military presence in the Caribbean and conduct strikes on vessels linked to narco-terrorist groups under “Operation Southern Spear.”  The USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, arrived in the Caribbean last month to support the operation, which is aimed at disrupting drug trafficking networks heading toward the U.S. More than 15,000 troops and a dozen warships have reportedly amassed in the region. More than 80 people have been killed in strikes on alleged drug vessels, reported CNN. On Sunday, Trump warned that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered closed. “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump posted to Truth Social. Some flights have continued to operate in Venezuelan airspace despite Trump’s warning, including commercial and private jets, Flightradar24 shows. Maduro’s government responded, calling the president’s comments a “colonialist threat.” “No authority outside the Venezuelan institutional framework has the power to interfere with, block, or condition the use of international airspace,” the statement said. Trump, who designated Maduro as the leader of the Cartel de Los Soles, has been pressuring him to resign and flee the country. Trump confirmed he has spoken with Maduro but did not share the details of what was discussed. 

Americans unwrapped an early present this morning when the White House unveiled its highly anticipated 2025 Christmas theme: Home Is Where The Heart Is. First Lady Melania Trump enlisted her longtime designer and stylist, Hervé Pierre, to bring the holiday spirit to the People’s House with elegance and flair. True to the “Trump 2.0” motto of transformation, the 2025 display features 10,000 blue butterflies in the Red Room and halls of the White House. “The striking color combination coupled with the butterflies’ symbolic meaning of transformation and renewal capture the essence of Christmas,” Trump said in a statement from her office. Staying true to tradition, the first lady selected wreaths with red bows for the White House windows and oversaw the installation of 50 Christmas trees, 700 feet of garland, and 25,000 feet of ribbon to transform the historic residence for the holiday season. Melania Trump said her inspiration came from the joys, challenges, and frequent motion derived from motherhood and business. “The constant movement has taught me that home is not merely a physical space; rather, it is the warmth and comfort I carry within, regardless of my surroundings.” She added that the display reflects the idea that “wherever we are, we can create a home filled with grace, radiance, and endless possibilities.” That sentiment is especially embodied in the Blue Room, where the official White House Christmas tree honors Gold Star families. The 18-foot Concolor Fir from Sidney, Michigan, is adorned with gold stars and ornaments representing the official bird and official flower of every U.S. state and territory, paying tribute to “the resilience, bravery, and sacrifice of military personnel and their families.” Hinting at a future celebration, the East Room showcases trees with bases marked with “America 250.” The trees are donned with decorations in America’s red, white, and blue to “accentuate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Nation.” National symbols including eagles, the Great Seal, roses, and oak cover the tree. The room includes two Presidential Portraits made up of puzzle pieces, offering visiting families “the chance to be challenged … and use their imagination together.” Christmas 2025 marks Melania Trump’s fifth time decorating the White House, a tradition that dates back to Jacqueline Kennedy. Known for her elegant style, Melania has drawn parallels to the iconic first lady. Vanity Fair dubbed her “the new Jackie Kennedy” in 2017. Kennedy started the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree in 1961, when she adorned the tree with ornamental toys, birds, and angels modeled after Petr Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet. In the North Entrance, she decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments made by disabled or senior citizen craftspeople in the United States. Trump hopes that as Americans explore the historic residence this holiday season, the 2025 decorations will serve as a reminder that “the strength of our Nation is found in its people—in our shared values, valued traditions, and the steadfast belief that home is where the heart is.”

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, President Trump went into high gear talking about the necessity of deporting all third-world migrants and of stopping further third-world migration into the United States. This has been a long time coming — Trump has been saying this for roughly a decade. One of the very first things he did during his first administration was attempt a migration moratorium on a series of countries where vetting was very, very difficult. All of this is now coming to a head. On Thursday, President Trump said he would permanently pause all immigration from what he called third-world countries. President Trump stated: Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. 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, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, 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. 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! This happened in the aftermath of a dual set of stories, one of them being an Afghan national shooting two members of the National Guard, killing one, and the other the unbelievable story of Somali welfare fraud in the state of Minnesota. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated, “The President is absolutely determined to stop all processes at this point in time from third-world countries until we can have a thorough opportunity to go through these individuals, know that they’re here for the right intentions, and that they even should be in our country to begin with. He’s putting Americans first, their safety first.” The State Department then immediately announced it would pause visa issuance for individuals traveling on Afghan passports, stating, “The department is taking all necessary steps to protect U.S. national security and public safety again.” Noem said the shooting suspect, who was let in the country by the Biden administration, was later radicalized through connections already in the country, which is significantly more dangerous than just bringing people in from cultures that are non-communicative and non-coalescing with Western civilization. If there are people being brought in who are initially somewhat friendly to the United States and then become radicalized in the United States, you have to start asking some pretty serious questions about which organizations in the United States are actually radicalizing people. The real concern then becomes an Islamization problem inside the United States, which would fit with lone wolf attacks, ISIS-inspired attacks, or ISIS-connected attacks. Those range from the Fort Hood shooting in 2009 all the way through to the 2025 New Orleans truck attack, in which an ISIS-inspired person killed 14 people. It’s amazing how terrorist attacks like the latter can completely be memory-holed. It happened at the beginning of this year. 14 people were killed, and we’ve already forgotten about it because the way the media works is this: If someone is inspired by ISIS or a radical Islamic group and they commit a terror attack in the United States, we simply memory-hole it. The same thing happened in 2016 with the Orlando nightclub shooting, the deadliest mass shooting in American history at that time, in which a shooter killed 49 people. The shooter in that case pledged allegiance to ISIS. What did we get? A national debate about whether Christians were too intolerant toward gay people, even though it was an Islamic terror attack. There was also the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack, in which a couple of people who communicated with ISIS via encrypted messages killed 14 people and injured 22 others. So radicalization in the United States is a massive problem that requires the FBI and the DOJ to actually follow through on what they are supposed to do: Track down the groups doing the radicalizing, follow them around, and monitor the places where the radicalization is occurring. That is a significantly harder problem to solve than shutting the borders, which is what President Trump is attempting to do. They are not mutually exclusive. You can shut the borders to immigration and mass migration from third-world countries. We should also track down the groups doing the radicalizing. In the National Guard case, it seems that the shooter became radicalized after he came to the United States. The New York Post reports that a leading national refugee agency was warned multiple times about him. Apparently, the shooter’s behavior was so disturbing that a local community advocate reached out to a refugee organization for help. This connects with another gigantic story that broke over the course of last week, the amount of Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota. Between 1990 and 2025, the United States has seen significant Somali immigration, with estimates suggesting between 140,000 and 167,000 Somali immigrants settling here. The fraud scandal in Minnesota is staggering. Over $1 billion in taxpayers’ money was reputedly stolen, more than Minnesota spends annually to run its entire Department of Corrections. The reality is that importing gigantic waves of Somali immigrants into Minnesota, of all places, might create some culture clash. Reports say that when the allegations were first made about welfare fraud in Minnesota, the first response was, “We can’t look into this. It’s racist.” So President Trump has responded to all of this by doubling down on his suggestion that third-world migration be reversed. Douglas Murray has a great column over in the New York Post in which he states: You have to be careful with a country. Even a nation as vast in size and huge in population as the United States cannot be endlessly experimented upon. You cannot just leave borders open, or allow in large numbers of people with totally different value systems from your own. That is the mistake many European countries have committed in recent years. They have opened their homes up to people from almost every part of the world where there is civil strife, war or just a lower standard of living. The results can be seen everywhere. It is the reason why a country like Sweden — that used to be such a placid, decent place — has become one of the most violent countries in the world not actually at war. Grenade attacks, gang-warfare: these things were recently alien to Sweden. Not anymore. It is the same here in the United States — though here the effects are more dispersed, so the problem can be covered up for longer. He writes that all of this begs the question: Why should a group of people be given sanctuary in the United States, who presumably say they were fleeing from terror, only to use their time in the United States committing fraud to send money to terrorists? The president of the United States is right about this particular issue. Democrats, of course, are freaking out about it. It’s all coming to a head now, and not just because of the recent shooting of National Guard members in Washington, D.C., or what’s happening in Minnesota. It’s happening all over the West because the West has finally decided to wake up to the reality that — through our niceness, kindness, and civility — we should never have allowed our nations to be eaten from within by people who enter and then take advantage of all the benefits, only to fight and destroy that same civilization.

A man who has referred to himself as “Osama bin Laden” and “Timothy McVeigh” is now facing criminal charges after allegedly threatening to kill federal immigration officers and sexually assault their wives. John Paul Cupp, of Portland, is a “prolific producer” of content involving “aggressive rhetoric, calls for war against the United States, antisemitic threats, and threats of violence” who has zeroed in on Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and their families, according to the FBI. His latest alleged calls for violence come as federal immigration agents face an 8,000% increase in death threats, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Cupp also told authorities “that he was Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh,” according to the FBI affidavit. “Our ICE law enforcement officers face an 8,000% increase in death threats against them while they risk their lives every single day to remove the worst of the worst including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. “From bounties placed on their heads for their murders, threats to their families, stalking, and doxxing online, our officers are experiencing an unprecedented level of violence and threats against them and their families. Secretary Noem has been clear: if you threaten or lay a hand on law enforcement, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” she said. View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Abu Nusaybah Al Amriki (@walidalamriki) View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Abu Nusaybah Al Amriki (@walidalamriki) Cupp was first spotted yelling at officers approaching a crowd in October, according to the Department of Justice. The 45-year-old posted a video the next month, repeating his earlier threats, and continued posting them online days later. Some threats lodged against ICE have tragically materialized. In September, a shooter opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, killing two detainees as he tried to aim at federal agents. A group of accused Antifa terrorists allegedly lured agents out of an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, by setting off fireworks on the Fourth of July before opening fire on them. One police officer was shot in the neck during the attack.

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