With Republican senators privately indicating they would not support the nomination of Pete Hegseth to become President Trump’s defense secretary, Trump reportedly spoke with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about the job. According to ABC News, at least six GOP senators signaled resistance against confirming Hegseth over allegations that include sexual assault and excessive drinking. 6 REPUBLICAN SENATORS WHO ARE WAVERING ON PETE HEGSETH. Susan Collins Lisa Murkowski John CurtisLindsey Graham Mitch McConnellJoni Ernst And there are 3 others who have not committed. — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) December 4, 2024 Per ABC News: Multiple sources also tell ABC News that Trump and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about the job Tuesday and DeSantis expressed interest in it. Hegseth is due to meet with Ernst on Wednesday afternoon. His mother, Penelope Hegseth, offered a defense of her son on “Fox and Friends” on Wednesday morning. Hegseth’s mother sent an email to her son in 2018 amid his divorce in which she wrote that he was an “abuser of women.” The email was reported by the New York Times. ABC News has not independently obtained the email. Penelope Hegseth on Wednesday said her son was a “changed” man and that the email was written in “haste” during a “very emotional time.” She said that she “retracted it with an apology email” just hours after she sent it, and that her and her son are “very close today.” She also noted the allegations against Hegseth were from several years ago and claimed “most of it” is “misinformation” — while repeatedly stressing that her son is a now different man who has been “redeemed” and “forgiven.” Trump considers replacing Pete Hegseth with Ron DeSantis as Defense secretary pick: report https://t.co/tIGepRuqe3 pic.twitter.com/7PEA2fa3zU — New York Post (@nypost) December 4, 2024 “I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers. The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump—and me. So they smear w/ fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth. Our warriors never back down, & neither will I,” Hegseth said. I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers. The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump—and me. So they smear w/ fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth. Our warriors never back down, & neither will I. pic.twitter.com/nDQ5aUlv7i — Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) December 4, 2024 Fox News reports: The popular conservative governor, a Navy veteran who served in the Iraq War, was re-elected in a landslide in 2022 but is term-limited and cannot run for re-election in 2026. DeSantis is “very much” in contention to replace Hegseth, multiple sources told Fox News. One source added that it was the president-elect himself who floated the governor’s name, and that Trump and DeSantis discussed the idea as they met Tuesday while appearing together in Florida at a memorial service for fallen law enforcement officers in Palm Beach County. The reporting from Fox News and other organizations comes as Hegseth on Wednesday returns to Capitol Hill to continue meeting with Republican senators as he makes his case for confirmation as defense secretary.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz has become the first Democrat to join the Congressional "Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency" (DOGE) Caucus, a Republican-led caucus under President-elect Donald Trump that will work in tandem with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s "Department of Government Efficiency."

The violent illegal migrant who murdered Georgia nursing student Laken Riley has asked a judge for a new trial after being sentenced to life in prison last month for his heinous crimes. 

President Joe Biden was seemingly caught on video resting his eyes at a summit with African leaders in Lobito, Angola, in a moment that has now garnered online virality.

Speaking at CPAC Argentina Wednesday, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro argued that the country and its president, Javier Milei, have offered the world a vision for economic success. “Argentina, the eyes of the world are on you. If you succeed, the rest of the world is going to follow you and I believe that you will succeed,” Shapiro said. “If you remain courageous and honest, liberty will succeed, because liberty must succeed.” Join me today in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to break down the difference between free markets and socialism—right in the heart of a country leading the way toward a new dawn of capitalism. https://t.co/Ckm5gUncsG — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 4, 2024 Shapiro called Argentina’s economic revival “perhaps the most important political development on planet Earth at this very moment.” “Thats thanks to the people of this country who have finally stood up and they’ve said ‘enough,’” Shapiro said. “Enough to socialist evil, enough to the impoverishment, enough to the lies, enough to the bulls***. It’s time to take a chainsaw to all of it.” Shapiro touted Milei’s record of cutting the number of government ministries from 18 to eight, downsizing the bloated public sector, and slashing the budget by 32%, leading to Argentina reporting surpluses. He also pointed out that inflation is declining in Argentina as the stock market is skyrocketing because of Milei’s actions. “President Milei is now leading the world forward to a new golden age of liberty,” Shapiro said. “He’s doing so with extraordinary audacity and courage.” Shapiro’s speech was a fierce defense of free markets against socialism that destroyed the Argentine economy. “Free markets are moral and they are just,” Shapiro said. “They reward merit. They reward hard work and solid decision making. The assumption by socialists very often is that people who succeed in society are sort of leeches, that they are the people who work the least. That isn’t true.” Shapiro stated that socialism, at its core, stems from envy. “Socialism encourages revolutionaries who produce literally nothing and destroy everything that they touch. It encourages laziness. It encourages stupidity and it encourages dishonesty at scale,” Shapiro went on. “Socialism is just evil,” he added. “Socialism is the philosophy of the thief. It is the philosophy of the man who would prefer to burn everything down rather than to build anything up.” Shapiro praised Millei for subscribing to the Austrian school of economics, which teaches that individual actions are motivated by self interest. “President Milei is intelligent, unlike most of our political class,” Shapiro quipped. “Argentina is a perfect example of how all of these bad ideas, when implemented, cost people their lives, cost people their livelihoods and destroy entire civilizations.” Shapiro noted that in the early 20th century, Argentina was among the richest countries in the world. But its failure to fully develop free markets and inclusive economic institutions, coupled with decades of tyranny and corruption, set the country on a downward spiral. That downward trajectory persisted until Milei assumed leadership and addressed these long-standing issues. “Until the rise of President Milei the government was able to basically expropriate property rights at will with impunity and the result was radical impoverishment,” Shapiro said. “If you look at the record of Argentina from 1980 to 2023, it is one of the rare countries in the West where it actually got harder to live here. In fact it took more time to work to buy basic goods in 2023 than it did in 1980.” Milei, a supporter of strengthening relations between Argentina and the United States, told Shapiro on his podcast in April that he believed his citizens needed to embrace the values of freedom that are values in the United States though they are under attack. Shapiro said, however, he believes that Milei is leading the freedom movement in the world. “Javier Milei, Argentina, you are leading the West back on to the right path,” Shapiro said.

Proponents of transgender procedures on children made three stunning admissions on Wednesday as they argued against a Tennessee law protecting children from the irreversible procedures before the Supreme Court.  The admissions — that cross-sex hormones can cause infertility, that people regret the procedures, and that transgender procedures aren’t associated with lower suicide rates — undercut leftist activists’ core arguments that the procedures are necessary and lifesaving.  These revelations were made as justices heard oral arguments in the case brought by the Biden administration and the ACLU against Tennessee for a law that shields children from transgender procedures like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.  The outcome of the case could have nationwide implications and affect the over two dozen states that passed similar laws. The ACLU and the Biden administration argue that Tennessee’s law is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  During arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the side effects of putting children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.  “I want to acknowledge gender-affirming care with respect to hormones can have some impacts on fertility,” Prelogar said in response to Kavanaugh. “With respect to hormone use, there are effects on fertility.”  She then claimed that a lower court “found” that “many individuals who are transgender” can maintain their fertility.  “There are measures they can undertake and they have to be counseled on those risks. As I said before, I can understand that could be a hard tradeoff but it’s not unique to this care,” she asserted.  Cross-sex hormones have been shown to cause infertility, deadly blood clots, heart attacks, increased cancer risks of the breasts and ovaries, liver dysfunction, worsening psychological illness, and other serious conditions. Later, during arguments, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, a woman who identifies as a man, admitted that the data on suicide and transgender procedures wasn’t as clear as pro-transgender activists have previously claimed. Proponents of transgender ideology have claimed that so-called “gender-affirming care” is life-saving, and told parents that they can either have a living child with the treatments or a dead child without.  This claim was referenced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, but Justice Samuel Alito pressed Strangio on the link to suicide and what the available data showed.  Strangio first claimed that it was “clearly established in the science” that the medications reduced the risk of suicide.  In response, Alito pointed to research from the Cass Review produced by the NHS in the United Kingdom that said that “there is no evidence that gender-affirming treatments reduce suicide.” Strangio replied by saying that “there is no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide” but claimed that the procedures would reduce suicidal thoughts. Recent research has shown that, contrary to these claims, transgender procedures can actually increase the likelihood that minors will attempt suicide. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE During oral arguments, both Strangio and Prelogar admitted that there are people who regret undergoing transgender procedures. They both claimed that this was a “smaller” number of people than “those who benefit and find it medically necessary.”  This would contradict a growing movement of “detransitioners” who have come out and opposed transgender procedures on children.  Chloe Cole, who was put on cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and had a double mastectomy as a teenager, has become one of the most outspoken advocates against transgender procedures on women.  “This case really means everything to me,” Cole told The Daily Wire before the case, “because if a law like this were in place in my state while I was growing up, if this were just federally banned across the board when I was going through this, this never would have happened to me.”  After the arguments wrapped, analysts predicted that the Court would likely not overturn Tennessee’s protections.