As deals advance with foreign countries, farmers may not need bailouts from tariffs, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told The Daily Signal. Rollins hopes deals will be “struck pretty quickly” with foreign countries facing Trump administration tariffs so bailouts to farmers will be unnecessary.  “The economy has already begun to realign around putting America first, so that’s the goal,” Rollins said. “But if the assistance is needed, similar to what [former Agriculture] Secretary [Sonny] Perdue and President Trump did in the first term, we’re already getting ready for that.” How much in assistance will farmers get due to tariffs?.@SecRollins: "Well, hopefully it isn't needed. Hopefully these deals are struck pretty quickly."?"But if the assistance is needed…we're already getting ready for that." @DailySignal https://t.co/zaWuKjAzEu pic.twitter.com/8q9WnczX7R— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) April 21, 2025 “So if we need to move quickly, we can,” Rollins continued, “but we just won’t know a number, because we just don’t know what the potential economic consequences could be until really harvest comes, which will be later this summer.” The Department of Agriculture’s five-point plan to lower egg prices “seems to be working,” Rollins said. The plan includes bringing more hens in to repopulate flocks; removing red tape to help the industry grow; considering temporary egg imports; testing vaccines that protect chickens; and helping farmers prevent the bird flu. The Daily Signal asked Rollins about a plan Trump floated in an April 11 Cabinet meeting of allowing illegal immigrant farm workers to leave the country then get a visa to return legally to work. “The president at his Cabinet meeting, the one about a week and a half ago, brought that up, and he really fully understands and realizes that our dairy producers, our row croppers, our citrus producers, they have to have labor to be able to feed America, and food security, and America is national security, so it’s incredibly encouraging,” Rollins said. “He realizes that, but at the same time realizing that you have to secure the border, you’ve got to have an immigration system in place that makes sense for America and puts America first.” “So I believe it will be soon,” she added, “but we’re working through all the details.” Rollins enjoyed interacting with egg farmers on Monday who donated 30,000 eggs to the annual  White House Easter Egg Roll, she said. “We have so many egg farmers who are there who are sort of showing the world that their trade and how they feed the world and how important eggs are to a good, nutritious diet,” she told The Daily Signal. “So we’re going to keep fighting for all of our farmers and all of our ranchers and all of our egg producers,” Rollins continued. “We’re going to bring up, hopefully, an impressive level of prosperity to rural America, where all our farmers and ranchers reside.” The post As Deals Advance, Farmers May Not Need Tariff Bailouts, Agriculture Secretary Hopes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As Colorado lawmakers consider a bill that would take custody rights away from parents who diverge from transgender orthodoxy, the Trump administration’s Education Department says that children aren’t the property of the government. “Children do not belong to the government. They belong to parents,” Education Department spokeswoman Julie Hartman told The Daily Signal. The Colorado House of Representatives passed a bill April 6 that would remove kids from parents’ custody for behaviors such as “misgendering” and “deadnaming” a transgender-identifying child. The bill has yet to progress in the Colorado Senate.  HB 1312 defines “coercive control” as including “deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health care services.” “A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child,” the summary adds. These provisions would effectively require parents to endorse gender ideology in order to maintain custody of their own children in a dispute. “The department will not tolerate abuse of parents’ rights—or of students who are victims of predatory behavior by adults who are supposed to protect them,” Hartman said. The Department of Education on March 28 sent a “Dear Colleague” letter directing schools to comply with federal parental rights laws. Those laws include the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which gives parents the right to inspect their children’s school’s educational records, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, which gives parents the right to notice of surveys and the right to opt their children out. The Office of Civil Rights has also launched investigations into Maine, California, and Washington state for reportedly concealing student gender identity from parents. “Parents should be the primary decision-makers when it comes to their child’s education,” Hartman said. Tyler O’Neil contributed to this report. The post Children ‘Do Not Belong to Government,’ Education Dept. Warns Colorado on Transgender Bill appeared first on The Daily Signal.

China is sending a stern message to countries across the globe that are cutting trade deals with the United States: Stop it or face retaliatory measures. China’s Ministry of Commerce on Monday told its allies not to reach agreements that would come at the expense of the Chinese government. China “firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” the ministry said in a statement Monday, vowing “countermeasures” if countries disobeyed. .@PressSec says the administration has received 18 trade proposals from foreign countries so far — and that officials have trade meetings with 34 countries this week alone. pic.twitter.com/XyK2LCgoB0— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 22, 2025 China is attempting not to be left in the dust as it faces exclusionary American trade policies. In April, President Donald Trump lowered tariffs on goods from every country down to a baseline of 10%—except for China, which saw duties on imports from it rise to 125%.  In recent days, the Trump administration has been working to reach deals with dozens of nations. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance celebrated progress in reaching a trade deal with India. In the same speech, Vance made an oblique criticism of China, saying, “Our administration seeks trade partners on the basis of fairness and of shared national interests. We want to build relationships with our foreign partners who respect their workers, who don’t suppress their wages to boost exports, but respect the value of their labor.” . @JDVance calling out China during India speech: “Our administration seeks trade partners on the basis of fairness and of shared national interests. We want to build relationships with our foreign partners who respect their workers, who don't suppress their wages to boost… pic.twitter.com/MGublDYHnt— Jack Poso ?? (@JackPosobiec) April 22, 2025 This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with South Korea’s finance minister to discuss trade negotiations. Now, China may be fearing that it will not have a seat at the table as the global economy is being drastically restructured. But the Trump administration might be coming to the negotiating table with China soon.  The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Bessent said in a closed-door speech that, while negotiations with China would probably be a “slog,” he was hoping for a “big, beautiful rebalancing” of the two economies’ import-export relationship. The post Beijing Vows Retaliation Against US Trading Partners’ Deals ‘at the Expense of China’s Interests’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied allegations that he asked Israel’s domestic spy chief to surveil protesting citizens and demanded personal loyalty. The claims come from Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet. Bar’s allegations are from an affidavit made public on Monday as part of a legal case about Netanyahu’s attempted firing of the security chief in March.  “The prime minister expressed to me, on more than one occasion, his desire to see the Shin Bet act against citizens involved in protest activity and demonstrations against the government,” Bar claimed in the court document.  “For instance, I was asked to provide information about the identities of Israeli citizens and protest activists who had followed security protectees. I was also made aware of an expectation to monitor ‘protest funders,’” the security chief alleged.  Netanyahu’s office was resolute that Bar was lying about his interactions with the prime minister.  “Ronen Bar submitted a false affidavit to the Supreme Court today that will soon be refuted in detail,” the prime minister’s team said.  Israel’s Supreme Court has prevented Bar from being removed as the executive of Shin Bet by the prime minister pending a “creative solution.” Bar’s dismissal occurred after members of his agency began investigating Netanyahu press aides over connections to the Gulf state of Qatar. Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, who have served as media advisers to the prime minister, are being investigated over whether they attempted to promote a positive image of Qatar in the Israeli news media. Court records alleged that Feldstein was paid by an Israeli intermediary, which in turn was funded by a pro-Qatar lobbying group named Third Circle. It would be a potential conflict of interest to have such high-ranking advisers to the prime minister also quietly lobbying for a foreign country—especially given that the Gulf state has hosted leaders of Hamas, one of Israel’s chief enemies, in the past.  The prime minister has faced personal investigations, as well as into his advisers before. He was indicted on charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud in 2019. The trial is currently ongoing. Nor is Bar the only top Israeli official Netanyahu has clashed with over the past few months. Last November, he also fired Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after the defense official had questioned Netanyahu’s commitment to “total victory” over Hamas. Some critics of the prime minister have alleged that he is prolonging the war with Hamas for political reasons. The American-educated Israeli leader has promised to continue the fight for “for our very own existence until victory” even as he faces some members of the Israeli public that have grown war weary. “If we surrender to Hamas’ demands now, all the tremendous achievements gained by our soldiers, our fallen, and our wounded heroes—those achievements will simply be lost,” the prime minister said in a recent statement. The post Netanyahu Denies Israeli Security Chief’s Surveillance Allegations appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We’ve talked about higher education before, but now it’s come into sharper focus with the Trump administration’s deadlock with Harvard University over its unwillingness or inability—whatever term we like to use—to meet the administration’s demands that it ensures an antisemitic-free campus that does not allow people to disrupt classes. It doesn’t use race, after the Supreme Court decision that went against Harvard and said that affirmative action was no longer legal. Columbia had the same type of disagreement, other campuses are. I don’t think it’s a wise thing for them to get into a fight with the federal government. If they are dependent on federal funding, these big private marquee universities—Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Duke—and they want federal money, then the federal government is going to ask for some transparency. And we, the public, really don’t know much about it. It’s like a rock, a traditional rock on moist ground. You don’t wanna turn it over because there’s going to be things underneath there that you would better not—it would be better not to be seen. And that’s what the public is going to learn about higher education. Now, what do I mean? I mean loans. These universities are raising tuition higher than the rate of inflation. And that started when the federal government said, “We will ensure these loans for students.” Once that happened, the moral hazard shifted away from the university. So, they have been gouging students for room and board. I’ll give you an example. Hillsdale College, its room, board, and tuition is about $45,000 a year. It takes no money. Harvard gets about $9 billion in total. Its room, board, and tuition is about $95,000. Same with Stanford. They’re about double what Hillsdale charges. And one of the reasons is that they’re so dependent on federal money and therefore they can spend like drunken sailors. Remember, of that 1.7, about 10%, 8% are nonperforming and about maybe 14% are late. The public doesn’t know all that. But they’re paying for it—especially kids, the half of the cohort 18 to 30 that’s not going to college, they’re subsidizing this university boondoggle. The second thing is the university doesn’t really obey the first 10 amendments of the Constitution. If you get accused of particular crimes as a student, faculty member, let’s say, sexual harassment or untoward speech, hate speech—whatever the term they use—it’s very unlikely you’re going to get Fourth and Fifth, maybe Sixth Amendment protection. That is, you’re not going to have an open hearing. You’re not going to be tried by a jury of your peers. You’re not going to necessarily have legal counsel. You’re not necessarily going to know who your accusers are. The affirmative action ruling by the Supreme Court outlawed the use of race in admissions. And we have civil rights statutes that also do that. But the universities do something funny. They have safe spaces. They have theme houses. And they have auxiliary graduations. But the common denominator, they’re predicated on race. So, a black theme house, a Latino theme house has almost very few people. Nobody would want a European, so-called white theme house or an alternate white graduation. And you would say, “Why not, Victor?” Because it would be considered racist, I suppose. But at Stanford, only 22% of the student body is white. Are they going to say, “Well, we’re one of the minorities now. Why don’t we do this?” That’s where it will lead if you enhance tribalism. There’s no intellectual diversity. The National Association of Scholars did a study not long ago. They found not one of the 133 faculty members at Bryn Mawr was a Republican. At Williams, I think they found one or two. They found a lot of elite universities where there was nobody who openly acknowledged that they were a Republican. There are a couple of other things that are disturbing too. And that is the universities get individual faculty grants—Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health. And usually, in most private foundations, the university is not following their model. What I mean is, a private scholar at a think tank, they might deduct 15% for the use of the phone or office that they would get out of that federal grant. But universities like Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, they can go from 40% to 50% to 60% and they’re relying on that multimillion-dollar—I guess we’d call it—price gouging from the federal government. And finally, these universities don’t have multimillion-dollar endowments anymore. They have multibillion-dollar—$30 billion, Stanford $53 billion. And they’re predicated—the income—on that. And sometimes they get almost 10%. They’re very good in investing. This $5 or $6 or $7 or $4 billion a year in income is tax-free, for the most part. Tax-free. And that’s predicated that they’re nonpolitical, they’re nonpartisan. But when you look at the makeup of the faculty and the use of race and gender, contrary to federal law, you can see they’re very partisan. So, let me just sum up. Does the university really want to get in a fight with the Trump administration and then bring all of this information about their endowments; their lack of intellectual diversity; their segregation; their lack of due process for people who undergo inquiries or accusations; their separate racial graduations, safe spaces, theme houses; the use of student loans? I don’t think they want to do that. The public would be shocked. And it’s a losing proposition. If I were the presidents of these major universities, I would do this: I would make a deal with the Trump administration. And I would welcome it because then I would tell my radical students, “You can’t wear a mask. I’d like you to, but the federal government won’t let me.” Or, “We can’t have racially segregated dorms anymore, theme houses. I’d like to, but it’s against the law.” And that would be their way out. Is that going to happen? I don’t think so. And I think we’re going to see some accountability. And the universities are not going to like the consequences. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Advice for Ivy League Universities: Take the Trump Deal, Before It’s Too Late appeared first on The Daily Signal.

One of the Craziest Things About the Tish James Unmasking Is Who Caught Her

The border policies of President Donald Trump have been incredibly successful in halting the flow of illegals crossing into the United States from the south.   Such a conclusion is not surprising if it came from a conservative oriented media source. However, since that was the conclusion of a writer for the Trump hating The Atlantic magazine, it makes one scratch his head in amazement that the periodical someone let this article by Justin Gest get published on Saturday, "Migrants Are Heading South." The subtitle of the article is also highly adulatory of Trump's border policies, "For years, millions of people traveled through Central America north to the United States. Now that flow is changing direction." The big question now is which Atlantic editor is going to get into big trouble for allowing Gest's article into print with such words not only of praise for Trump's border policies but also criticism of the utter failure of Joe Biden on the same issue. ...For the first time in recent history, the people passing through Central America are mostly moving south. The new migration flow seems to have been triggered by the Trump administration’s crackdown on both legal and illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border. And it is already disorienting the region. In recent years, millions of migrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa have carved a path from South America through the treacherous Darién jungle and into Panama en route north to the United States. But that massive flow is now dwindling. Costa Rica is representative of the trend. For decades, hundreds and sometimes thousands of migrants crossed the country by bus every day, traveling the roughly 300 miles from Paso Canoas in the south to Los Chiles in the north; according to the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration, from 2021 to 2024 more than 1.2 million people entered the country heading north from Panama. But after peaking in August 2023 at about 84,500, the number of people migrating north through Costa Rica began to decline—dipping to 14,400 in November 2024, then 1,600 in January 2025, the month Donald Trump was inaugurated; it was 1,600 again in February, then zero as of mid-March. Meanwhile, during a six-week period in February and March, IOM estimates that some 1,200 people moved south into Costa Rica. And yet more praise from Gest highlighting the dramatic change in direction of the migrant flow through Central America due to Trump's border policies: In my conversations with more than two dozen migrants in Costa Rica last month, all but one was either halting their northbound journey or returning after a period in Mexico, where they had resided while awaiting asylum interviews with U.S. officials that never took place. Aid workers I spoke with said that bus companies had recently begun organizing additional routes from Los Chiles to interior cities farther south, such as Quesada and the capital, San José, to account for the new migration flows. At the bus terminals in Los Chiles and Las Tablillas, I observed coyotes, the exploitative human traffickers who once facilitated migrants’ movement northward, offering to guide migrants back down the route if they chose to turn around. The migrants I spoke with were broadly aware of the Trump administration’s hostility toward immigrants, including its highly publicized deportations. Most had reversed their course simply because they didn’t think they could get into the United States. Asylum claims began to fall during the Biden administration, after it imposed restrictions. But the Trump administration effectively ended consideration of asylum claims at the southern border when, hours after Trump’s inauguration, the White House shut down an app that the Biden administration had set up so migrants could schedule screening appointments. Migrants I interviewed said that they had waited up to nine months for their appointments and decided to turn back when those appointments were canceled. Although some migrants continue to cross the border illegally, they often have to pay smuggling sums that most of them can’t afford; El País recently reported fees between $6,000 and $10,000 per person in Tijuana. If anybody wants to know just how successful Trump's border policies have been, just point them to this Atlantic magazine article.

A Minnesota state worker in the Tim Walz administration was given a slap on the wrist by a liberal district attorney after he was accused of causing more than $20,000 in damage to Tesla vehicles, and the sheriff is angry about it. Dylan Bryan Adams was caught on security video keying six Tesla vehicles while walking his dog near the Target retail store parking lot in Minnesota. Minneapolis police recommended felony charges because of the large amount of damage, but a liberal district attorney declined. 'Seems like Minnesota's far-left radicals actually WANT these criminals to continue their dangerous temper tantrums. Ridiculous.'Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara expressed disappointment that Adams was not criminally charged and was allowed the option of entering a diversion program. Adams works at the Minnesota Department of Human Services under Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. “Any frustration related to the charging decision of the Hennepin County Attorney should be directed solely at her office," O'Hara said. "Our investigators are always frustrated when the cases they poured their hearts into are declined. In my experience, the victims in these cases often feel the same." O'Hara had mocked the suspect's stupidity in light of the advanced video monitoring system of the Tesla vehicles. "Frankly, this is pretty stupid. There's high-quality video in all of these cars. It's committing a crime with a spotlight on you," O'Hara said at the time. "Downtown, certainly, there are a lot of cameras, and the city does have cameras in a lot of the neighborhoods around the city," he added. "And when we do have problems in areas, oftentimes we deploy mobile trailers with video. These cases in particular have high-quality video right from the vehicle itself."A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office defended the decision. "This is an approach taken in many property crime cases and helps to ensure the individual keeps their job and can pay restitution, as well as reducing the likelihood of repeat offenses," said the spokesperson in a statement. "Criminal prosecution remains a possibility should unlawful behavior continue." Many were outraged over the charge and accused the district attorney of playing favorites with the suspect because he works for the state. "Mary Moriarty outrageously decided not to charge a Tim Walz employee who committed felony-level vandalism, on camera, against Teslas in Minneapolis," said U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). "Seems like Minnesota's far-left radicals actually WANT these criminals to continue their dangerous temper tantrums. Ridiculous.""Don't forget that Tim Walz is rooting against American workers by hoping for Tesla's collapse. Now, one of his employees caused $20,000 worth of damage trying to destroy a Tesla. Will Walz condemn this attack?" asked former gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls. The Minneapolis Police Department published four of the videos showing Adams vandalizing the vehicles on the department's YouTube channel. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The attorney general of Florida announced a lawsuit against Snapchat after the popular social media platform allegedly failed to follow a state law meant to protect children from online predators. The law signed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered social media companies to restrict access to children under the age of 14, but Snapchat has continued to allow full access to minors, according to the lawsuit.'I can’t say enough to parents at home to scare you about the dangers that are out there. There are sick people out there, and they are using these social media applications to find their way into your homes to reach out to your kids.' “Child predators are using these dangerous devices right here to get to our kids,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier on Tuesday. The lawsuit says that Snapchat also subjects minor users to "addictive features" that can be destructive. “I can’t say enough to parents at home to scare you about the dangers that are out there," he added. "There are sick people out there, and they are using these social media applications to find their way into your homes to reach out to your kids. They’re deceptive, they lure them in, they prey upon them, they try to set up meetings, they ask for photos, and we’re not going to tolerate that.”He said that other platforms may face similar lawsuits but that Snapchat just “happens to be one of the worst offenders.”Uthmeier went on to connect unrestricted social media access to other social ills. “We’re seeing increased mental health issues, increased suicides," he said. "Kids are reacting and changing in a very dangerous way when they spend hours and hours on these platforms that, again, are designed to be addictive. So we’re going to be monitoring those things as well. We’ve got various consumer protection arguments that we’re raising."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The singularity has been at the tip of many tech-savvy and global-elitist tongues as of late — and its implications are more than a little frightening. According to Justin Haskins, president of Our Republic and senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, the definition of the singularity is a "hypothetical moment off into the future when technology advances to a point where it just is completely transformative for humanity.” “Typically, the way it's talked about is artificial intelligence — or just machines in general — become more intelligent than human beings,” Haskins tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.” He goes on to say that some people describe the singularity as the time when AI "has the ability to sort of continue to redesign itself." While Haskins notes that some of the consequences of the singularity are positive — like the potential to cure cancer — it also creates all kinds of ethical problems. “What happens when a lot of employees are no longer needed because HR and loan officers and all these other big gigantic parts of businesses can just be outsourced to an artificial intelligence system?” he asks.In response, Haskins says, “There’ll be massive disruptions in the job market.” Stuckey herself is wary of the small issues we have now that might grow into bigger problems. “People have posted their interactions with different kinds of AI, whether it's ChatGPT or Grok,” she explains. She continues, “I've seen people post their conversations of saying like, ‘Would you rather’ — asking the AI bot — ‘Would you rather misgender someone, like misgender Bruce Jenner, or kill a thousand people,’ and it will literally try to give some nuanced take about how misgendering is never okay.” “And I know that we’re talking beyond just these chat bots. We’re talking about something much bigger than that, but if that’s what's happening on a small scale, we can see a peek into the morality of artificial intelligence,” she adds. “If all of this is being created and programmed by people with particular values, that are either progressive or just pragmatists, like if they’re just like, 'Yeah, whatever we can do and whatever makes life easier, whatever makes me richer, we should just do that’ — there will be consequences of it,” she says. Stuckey also notes that she had recently heard someone of importance discussing the loss of jobs and what people will do as a result, and the answer to that was concerning. “It was some executive that said, ‘I’m not scared about AI killing 150 million jobs. That’s actually why we are creating these very immersive video games — so that when people lose their jobs, they can just play these video games and they can be satisfied and fulfilled that way,” Stuckey explains. “That is a very dystopian look at the future,” she continues, adding, “And yet, that tells us the mind of a lot of the people at WEF, a lot of the people at Davos, a lot of the people in Silicon Valley. That’s really how they see human beings.” “Whether you’re talking about the Great Reset, whether you’re talking about singularity, they don’t see us as people with innate worth; they see us as cogs in a wheel,” she adds. Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.