Kristi Noem, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Corey Lewandowski, her former top adviser, are reportedly facing a criminal investigation. The Homeland Security inspector general has launched an investigation into Noem and Lewandowski over allegations that the agency awarded billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, the Daily Mail reports. Sources told the outlet that the inspector general has sent notices to dozens of people who were allegedly involved in approving a “wide range” of contracts, including ad campaign contracts. No crimes have been alleged in the ongoing investigation, according to the Daily Mail. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump tapped then-Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, to replace Noem following reports that the president was “furious” with her over her testimony before the House and Senate. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed Noem on her department’s large ad campaign aimed at discouraging illegal immigration. “The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked Noem during the hearing. “Yes,” Noem answered. While Noem said Trump approved of the ads, the president later told Reuters he did not sign off on the campaign. Trump has appointed Noem to serve as the special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere. Noem thanked Trump in a post on X on Tuesday for allowing her to serve as homeland security secretary. “In one year, the patriots at DHS delivered the MOST secure border in American history, 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S., located 145,000 unaccompanied children, delivered disaster relief at a 100% faster rate, ushered in the golden age of travel, saved the American taxpayer $13 billion, and revitalized the U.S. Coast Guard,” Noem wrote. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as the 8th Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.I want to thank President Trump for entrusting me to lead the department leading the fight to Make America Safe Again. In one year, the patriots at DHS delivered the MOST…— Secretary Kristi Noem (@EnvoyNoem) March 24, 2026 Trump swore Mullin in on Tuesday as the ninth homeland security secretary. “I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with the 260,000 outstanding DHS employees and their families to keep our nation safe,” Mullin wrote on X. The new secretary says his first priority is to “end the partisan fighting and reopen the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a matter of national security.” The post DHS Inspector General Reportedly Investigating Noem, Lewandowski  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in the deadliest terrorist attack in our nation’s history. The World Trade Center towers collapsed in Lower Manhattan, the Pentagon was breached, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, became a graveyard for heroes who prevented even greater loss. The economic toll exceeded $100 billion. The psychological wound reshaped American life for a generation. Now imagine those same three targets struck not by hijacked airliners but by nuclear devices. Many hundreds of thousands—potentially upward of 800,000 in Manhattan alone—would die instantly in fireballs and blast waves. Hundreds of thousands more would suffer horrific burns and radiation poisoning. Firestorms would rage across dense urban cores. The financial heart of the free world would be paralyzed, the seat of American government devastated, and fallout would render swaths of our most populous regions uninhabitable for years. Trillions in economic damage, mass evacuations, overwhelmed hospitals, and a body count dwarfing 9/11 by orders of magnitude would follow. That is not science fiction. That was the imminent risk a nuclear-armed Iran posed until the United States and Israel launched decisive military action on Feb.28. The ongoing war against the Islamic Republic is not the beginning of a conflict. It is the necessary end to one that has raged for 47 years. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the regime in Tehran has been at war with the U.S. The seizure of the U.S. embassy and the 444-day hostage crisis was only the opening salvo. Iran’s leaders declared America “the Great Satan” and made exporting their revolution a state imperative. They backed Hezbollah in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers. They were linked to the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 U.S. airmen. Through proxies, Iran supplied IEDs that killed and maimed hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They plotted assassinations on U.S. soil, including a 2011 scheme to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington, a threat to assassinate former CIA director Mike Pompeo, and a thwarted assassination plot against President Donald Trump.   The Hamas proxy attack on Oct.7, 2023, killed 46 Americans and took 12 hostage—several of those hostages were later murdered in captivity.  “Death to America” is not a slogan shouted by fringe protesters; it is regime policy, chanted at Friday prayers and emblazoned on missiles. For decades, America managed this simmering war through sanctions, diplomacy, and targeted responses. We hoped the regime would evolve or that the Iranian people would eventually reclaim their nation. Containment worked—barely—because Iran lacked the ultimate weapon. That changed as its nuclear program matured. By 2025, Iran had amassed enough highly enriched uranium for multiple bombs, with breakout time measured in days or weeks. It had mastered advanced centrifuges, ballistic missile technology capable of delivering warheads, and the infrastructure to weaponize fissile material. International inspections were stonewalled. Diplomacy had run its course. A nuclear Iran was not a theoretical threat; it was weeks away from crossing the threshold. In June, the United States and Israel conducted Operation Midnight Hammer, striking key nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. It was hoped these precision strikes would cripple the program and demonstrate American resolve. In early 2026, during the final rounds of Omani-mediated negotiations in Geneva, Iranian negotiators bragged to the American team—led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and including Jared Kushner—that Iran still controlled roughly 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%. They openly stated they knew this stockpile was sufficient to produce material for approximately 11 nuclear bombs and insisted on their “inalienable right” to continue enriching uranium. For reference, commercial nuclear power requires only 3–5% enrichment; anything above 20% is considered Highly Enriched Uranium and is weapons-usable. That is why the United States and Israel launched the current military campaign. Precision strikes have further degraded Iran’s nuclear sites, crippled missile/drone production and launch facilities, and devastated leadership and the IRGC military. The operation is not escalation. It is self-defense—the only responsible way to end a 47-year conflict before it could inflict catastrophic damage. America could no longer afford to “manage” the conflict. It was time to put it to bed. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to use any means necessary to defeat “the infidels.” Their proxies attack Americans and our allies while the regime chants for our annihilation. A nuclear weapon in their hands would not sit in a silo as a bargaining chip. It would be a divine instrument to strike the Great Satan. History teaches that religious zealots who believe they are fulfilling prophecy do not behave like rational actors. We have seen it with suicide bombers and 9/11 hijackers. Scaling that fanaticism to nuclear capability is a risk no responsible American leader could accept. The military operations now underway are not about regime change for its own sake, though a post-theocratic Iran at peace with its neighbors and its own people would be a benefit to the region and the world. Operation Epic Fury is about preventing the next 9/11 from becoming a nuclear horror. It is about protecting American lives, American allies, and the American way of life from an enemy that has been at war with us since 1979. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Case for Iran: Avoiding a Nuclear 9/11 appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s interview with Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, on “The Signal Sitdown.” The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EST on March 26. Congress could be heading for another One Big Beautiful Bill. Congressional Republicans are facing a double-bind of a lingering shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security and the urgent need to pass the SAVE America Act, an election integrity bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote and implement nationwide voter ID, before November’s midterm elections. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, joined “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss where the rapidly-evolving GOP strategy to end the shutdown and secure American elections is heading. The Republican plan to address these key issues has gone through several iterations just this week. On Sunday, President Donald Trump suggested that Republicans should not negotiate with Democrats on reopening the Department of Homeland Security until he signed the SAVE America Act into law. By Monday, the president said DHS funding and the SAVE America Act should be coupled together. That evening, after a meeting with several Republican senators, Republican messaging shifted to reopening DHS in short order and passing the SAVE America Act through budget reconciliation. Gill is one of several House Republicans to refuse to pass bills received from the Senate in the House until the SAVE America Act is signed into law. “This is the number one most important piece of legislation we could be working on right now,” Gill told The Daily Signal of the SAVE America Act. “We need election integrity,” Gill explained, because “every time an illegal alien votes in our election system, it disenfranchises an American citizen by canceling out their vote.” “What we want to ensure is only the people who are citizens are voting,” Gill continued. “That is particularly important right now after four years of open borders under the Biden administration.” Though voter ID and other SAVE America Act provisions regularly poll with approval ratings of over 70%, Gill believes Democrats will never budge on the issue because it does not comport with the Left’s long-term political strategy. ”Whenever you back up a little bit, and you look at what the Left’s overall political agenda is, it has been to flood the country with as many illegal aliens as they possibly can, and they have done that systematically because it benefits them electorally,” Gill claimed. “What they would like to see, I think, ideally, is create a system where illegal aliens can vote in American elections and can vote en masse without any ability to check,” Gill said. Given the urgent need for election integrity, the Senate has been facing pressure to pass the SAVE America Act using the talking filibuster, a mechanism that would have allowed the upper chamber to pass the bill while circumventing the 60 vote cloture threshold. While the Senate has engaged in a long-term debate over the bill, Senate Republican leadership has rebuffed requests for a talking filibuster effort. But because the SAVE America Act stands no chance of passing the filibuster, the Senate is now pushing for a budget reconciliation process to pass the SAVE America Act or some version of it. Apparently, this effort has the support of the Trump administration. “There’s a framework that we can do through reconciliation, paying for, putting some of the policies that cost money in, because there’s nothing more important than the SAVE America Act,” Mullin told The Daily Signal at the White House on Tuesday. Gill and many others on the Hill, however, are skeptical that the budget reconciliation process will lead to any meaningful election integrity measures because they might be stripped out by the Senate parliamentarian, who could rule these policies are not germane to the budget. “If that is possible, I’m all for it,” Gill said of a reconciliation bill with SAVE America attached. “But I have not heard a single person make a cogent case that Save America Act is Byrd-able, that that will pass muster in the Senate.”  “If it is, great, but I do not think that we should be getting our voters and the American people’s hopes up that that’s going to work,” Gill added. ”The purpose of all of this is not to message, it’s not to put Democrats on record, being against voter ID. They’re already against all of that,” Gill said. “It’s to get this on the president’s desk. And, candidly, I don’t think reconciliation is the way to do that.” “If it were, we likely would’ve done it in the first reconciliation bill, but we didn’t,” the Texas congressman said. “I think we need to go back to the, uh, to the talking filibuster and get it done.” The post If GOP Fails on SAVE America Act, Brandon Gill Explains What Democrats Will Do Long-Term appeared first on The Daily Signal.

What do tariffs, covert military operations, and criticizing journalists have in common? They’re all things that the press have accused President Trump of using to distract them, and the public, from the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Since the release of the first batch of Epstein-related files in late 2025, hardly a thing has happened in American politics that some member of the press hasn’t deemed a Trump-engineered “distraction” from Epstein. Below are just some examples of this increasingly absurd trend: TRUMP: *Does a thing he campaigned on since 2016* MEDIA: Ha! A feeble attempt to distract from Epstein.pic.twitter.com/pao98DF1Qt — Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) March 25, 2026 In addition to the examples shown above, here are some other stupid things journalists have dubbed “distractions” from Epstein: In July of 2025, CNN anchor Laura Coates narrated a wild, conspiratorial segment about Trump’s recent social media posts. Her theory was that everything the President had said online about non-Epstein-related topics in the previous 48 hours was meant to be an elaborate distraction, including: Weighing in on the plea deal for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students. An AI-generated video poking fun at former President Obama (a routine hobby of Trump’s). Sharing a video of witness testimony at a recent Senate hearing. Posting an amateurish video compilation of people doing stunts and tricks. Perhaps nothing Coates mentioned seems out of the ordinary to anyone familiar with the president’s Truth Social habits. But maybe that’s why none of us are being paid big money by CNN to find the secret patterns in the Trump’s boomerposting. In August of 2025, then-MSNBC (and current MS NOW) host Chris Hayes asserted that the Department of Justice had launched an investigation into John Bolton to sidetrack the public. Months later, Hayes would complain that the myriad photos of Bill Clinton on Epstein’s island that were included in a subsequent document dump were meant to be a distraction from discredited allegations against Trump.  That complaint about the Clinton photos inadvertently revealed something about the media’s rationale with regards to the Epstein files. To rabidly anti-Trump journalists like Chris Hayes, the only imaginable reason to treat Epstein as a story was to damage Trump. Thus, all other evidence implicating anyone who wasn’t Donald Trump was worthless. It wasn’t newsworthy. It was a “distraction.” Hayes’s colleague, Ali Velshi, had a similar mask-off moment in August of 2025 while guest hosting The Last Word. In addition to echoing Hayes’s suspicion about the Bolton investigation, Velshi he sneered that the newly-released audio interview of convicted Epstein conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was the second of two distractions created by the Trump administration. The worst of the bunch was daytime MS NOW host Chris Jansing, who ran this thought by her panel hours before the 2026 State of the Union Address: The headline in The Times today is that the President would like to use this address tonight as a “reset.” Is that his focus, if he’s resetting, is that his focus, and an acknowledgement that he needs a reset given the polls — or might it be something that he wants to say to distract from these Epstein questions? Jansing was starting from the premise that if Trump wasted time talking about anything other than Epstein during the State of the Union address (such as, for example, the state of the union), then the whole address would be deemed a “distraction.”  There’s no fixing this. If Trump broke the media’s brains, clearly the Epstein files melted whatever was left.

The parent companies of two of the most influential social media platforms were hit with a historic loss by a California jury on Wednesday.While the damages awarded by the jury in the Los Angeles case were negligible for the tech giants, the decision sets a precedent for other potential lawsuits.'It's a resounding verdict.'The lawsuit was filed by a 20-year-old woman who alleged that the design of the online platforms led to her social media addiction and had a deleterious effect on her mental health.The defendants included Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok.Snapchat and TikTok settled with the woman before the trial began, but Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Google, the parent company of YouTube, were ordered to pay $3 million in damages.Even more damaging, the jury ruled against the companies, despite the woman admitting that there were other unrelated causes that degraded her mental health. In comments to Blaze News, economic expert Carol Roth pointed to the stock market reaction to the lawsuit."If the platforms are as addictive as the jury seems to believe, then the companies probably don't have much to worry about in terms of future earnings, as it means their customer base isn't going anywhere!" she joked."But on a more serious note, while the verdict and payout in the Los Angeles case sets a bad precedent for the company and future lawsuits," she added, "the damages won't have a material effect at this point on the companies, and the market's reaction to Meta and Google's stock price isn't showing any concern — in fact, in the case of Meta, the damages are lower than some investors expected. The biggest concern may stem from any future regulation pushes that make use of this ruling."A spokesperson for Meta said in an email statement to Blaze News that the company "respectfully" disagreed with the verdict and will appeal. "Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app," the statement reads. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online." RELATED: Blaze News investigates: Online predators are using artificial intelligence to force children into sextortion scams, says digital expert Fox News legal analyst Josh Ritter, a criminal defense attorney, predicted the case would lead to a wave of lawsuits against the companies."It's huge as far as what it means for all of the other plaintiffs. This is now blood in the water. They now understand that these companies are vulnerable," Ritter said."These arguments work. ... It's a resounding verdict, even though the money itself is probably not a check that's gonna be all that difficult for these companies to write," he added.Worse still for Meta, on Tuesday a jury ordered the company to pay $375 million over a lawsuit brought by the New Mexico state attorney general alleging the company misled users about sexual predators on their platforms. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As politics becomes increasingly shaped by social media, mass messaging, and distant institutions, BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre is questioning whether modern societies have simply grown too large to be human.And author of “The Master and His Emissary” Dr. Iain McGilchrist has an answer for him.“More and more, our politics is this disembodied understanding. It is the thing fed to us through social media feeds and communicated through advertisements and headlines and these things. People feel like they know more about the world than they’ve ever known,” MacIntyre says.“In reality, they know not even their neighbor or the issues that they face politically. And so these things have become completely disconnected. To my mind, the way that this is evolving is that we are basically becoming less human in all of our political interactions, making it very difficult for us to then understand the other as human, to understand the society and the world around us,” he continues.MacIntyre believes this will precede a “collapse in our political systems” that will bring us back “to more of a city-state model.”“Do you think that we can continue to see these large, you know, super-states expand and continue to lean on this idea that they have some kind of meaningful input from the individuals involved in their citizens, or do you think that ultimately we will have to contract and once again deal with each other at a much more local level when it comes to political organization?” MacIntyre asks McGilchrist.“I do think we will need to do that very definitely if we’re to survive,” McGilchrist answers.“We will have to rediscover the virtues of intermediate size,” he continues, pointing out that it may resemble the “downfall of a civilization.”“But it might actually enable the regeneration of a much better way of life in which we lived with more modest demands on the earth, closer to the earth, cultivating the earth in common with our own community, sharing our lives with them, helping and supporting one another,” he explains.“That would be a very different one from the one in which we are alien from one another,” he adds.Want more from Auron MacIntyre?To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist's commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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