Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons suggested that Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman take a trip to the Holocaust Museum for likening federal immigration agents to Nazis. The two sparred during a House Homeland Security hearing Tuesday with top Trump administration immigration officials. It comes after the fatal shootings of two anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis. One of the shootings involved ICE agents, including one who was seen on video appearing to be hit by a car before he fired shots, killing the driver, Renee Good. Weeks later, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot Alex Pretti, who was seen on video days before, kicking in the taillight of federal agents’ car and spitting on one of the officers. Goldman compared ICE agents to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, sparking Lyons to condemn the premise of his question in tying it back to his agency. The Democratic congressman demanded more time to question Lyons, saying he spoke “unnecessarily.” That’s when Lyons intervened and told him to go to the nearby Holocaust Museum. “Sir, the Holocaust Museum is down at 14th and Independence, if you wanna go see Nazis, that’s what it is, not the men and women of ICE that are out there doing it everyday,” Lyons said, adding: “So to say that the men and women of ICE are gestapos is wrong.” Lyons said that terms like “gestapo” and “secret police” are contributing to a surge in attacks on ICE. “The problem is you have it backwards, sir. People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are unAmerican and outright fascist,” Goldman said. “So I have a simple suggestion: if you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one.” Rep. Goldman tells Acting ICE Director Lyons that Democrats calling ICE the “Gestapo” and “secret police” is justified because it is what they are seeing. “People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are unAmerican and outright fascist.” Lyons told… pic.twitter.com/myJ9xaZ02l — Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) February 10, 2026 ICE currently faces a more than 1,000% increase in assaults and a roughly 8,000% surge in death threats, Lyons said. Most recently, federal immigration agents have faced violent attacks from anti-ICE agitators in the streets of Minneapolis. Overnight, local authorities arrested 54 protestors, according to Lyons.

Before Donald Trump stunned the legacy media by winning the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton reassured Americans that “the challenges we face today do not approach those of Lincoln’s time. Not even close.” Measured by bloodshed alone, she was right. Nothing today rivals the carnage of Antietam or Shiloh. Yet in a deeper sense — culturally, psychologically, and spiritually — the United States may now be more divided than it was when Americans were literally leveling rifles at each other. The reason is profound: in 1861, both sides still believed in the legitimacy of the American experiment itself. That may sound counterintuitive. How could the Confederacy — founded on secession and slavery — have believed in the principles of 1776, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights that followed? The answer lies in what the Confederates themselves said. In their Declarations of the Causes of Secession, Southern states were explicit. Mississippi declared, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.” Across the declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, preserving slavery appears more than eighty times as the central justification for rebellion. Taxes appear once. Tariffs not at all. This clarity explains a historical paradox: how the country could fight a war of extraordinary savagery and yet reconcile with relative speed once it ended. The South believed — wrongly and catastrophically — that it was defending the founding principle of self-governance. In its view, states retained sovereignty and thus the right to secede if the federal government threatened their interests. That those interests included the enslavement of millions was morally rationalized or ignored. The North, meanwhile, increasingly understood the war as a test of whether the Declaration’s claim that “all men are created equal” had any binding meaning at all. As Abraham Lincoln recognized, both sides could not be right. But both believed they were acting in service of America. The Civil War resolved a single, defining question: whether self-government extended to the right to enslave others without due process. The ruling was handed down with prejudice at Appomattox. The defeated South accepted the verdict — grudgingly, imperfectly, but decisively enough to prevent endless insurgency. By the end of the nineteenth century, former Confederate states had become among the most patriotic regions of the country. Former Confederate general James Longstreet captured that reconciliation when he wrote in 1899, “Barring a little family misunderstanding of a generation back, the South has never been anything but loyal.” That sentence would be unimaginable today. Reunion after the Civil War was possible because, once slavery — the central issue — was settled, North and South still shared a reverence for the nation’s founding. They disagreed violently about its application, but not about its legitimacy. They still loved and believed in the innate goodness of their country. Now consider the present. What comparable issue divides us today — one that, once resolved, would allow the country to heal? What shared assumptions remain beneath our disputes? The uncomfortable answer: very few. We no longer merely disagree over policy. We disagree over whether the United States itself is a moral enterprise. Americans increasingly do not share a common origin story. When one looks at John Trumbull’s painting of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence, one side sees flawed but courageous men risking everything to found a republic that, despite its contradictions, expanded human freedom. The other sees little more than oppression: “racist, sexist, slave-owning hypocrites” whose words about liberty are dismissed as fraudulent from the outset. Universal History Archive/Getty Images These are not policy disagreements; they are competing realities. They cannot be resolved by elections or concluded by a surrender ceremony. There is no Appomattox for a conflict this diffuse. Today’s divide is not organized around a single issue like slavery. It is cultural and perceptual. It plays out not on battlefields but across classrooms, workplaces, media, and daily life. Even our fiercest moral debates — abortion, immigration, gender — are symptoms rather than causes. They reflect a society that no longer agrees on truth, limits, or even basic definitions. The Civil War removed a localized moral cancer, and the body politic survived. Today’s divisions resemble something more metastatic, dispersed throughout the entire system. There are no clear fronts, no decisive battles, no final terms — only endless skirmishes. Lincoln urged “charity toward all and malice toward none.” But charity requires reciprocity. It requires a shared belief that persuasion matters and that one’s opponent is still a fellow citizen. Whether such an audience still exists is the question that will define the years ahead. * * * Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, The Daily Wire, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three books. You can also follow him on Substack and X. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The New York death toll rose to 18 over the weekend amid brutal freezing temperatures after 86-year-old Charles Williams was found dead just after 9 a.m. ET on Saturday. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed the death during a press conference for the opening of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Brooklyn. “Each loss of a life is a tragedy. We will continue to hold their families in our thoughts,” he said.  Homeless shelter security worker Adam Faad found the 86-year-old unresponsive on East Gun Hill Road and Seymour Avenue in The Bronx. “I feel bad because I’m on my way to help homeless people, and I find this guy, and I couldn’t help him,” Faad told the New York Post.  Over the weekend, temperatures dropped as low as three degrees, with wind chill making it feel like 15 degrees below zero, the Post reported. In response, Mamdani announced two additional warming centers that will open in Far Rockaway and in Washington Heights. He also increased the city’s warming buses from twenty-seven to thirty-three.  “What we’re doing at this time is doubling down on all of our efforts to connect any New Yorker who’s outside with shelter, with warmth, and with safety,” Mamdani said.  Despite opening additional warming centers, Mamdani faces backlash over his refusal to clear homeless encampments during the winter storm, which allows New York’s homeless to remain on the streets. Last year, he insisted on providing housing to the homeless. “If you are not connecting homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need, then you cannot deem anything you’re doing to be a success,” the NYC mayor said in December.   Former New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa says the “inhumanity is overwhelming” on the streets. Sliwa’s volunteer organization, The Guardian Angels, has been working on the streets since the storm took hold. “It has been sixteen days since the snow became ice and the brutally cold weather has set in. In these last two days, for the first time, I have come across homeless men and women without shoes.”   Sliwa described the situation as “survival of the fittest.” He said “stronger homeless individuals” threaten others to hand over their shoes. On the subway, he encountered a homeless man missing half of his foot. “They took his specially made shoe along with his other normal one. The inhumanity is overwhelming,” said Sliwa. He says he will continue to volunteer around the city with his organization, but has “yet to see any other outreach effort in action.” New York City is facing its coldest winter in over twenty years. On Sunday, reports say New York City was colder than parts of Antarctica. Temperatures are expected to increase over the week, with forecasters reporting that the worst of the winter is over.

In a recent ruling that defies both logic and compassion, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to reform the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care program — the federal government’s primary funding mechanism for homelessness assistance. The lawsuit — filed by a coalition of 20 mostly Democratic-led states, local governments, and nonprofit organizations and spearheaded by groups such as Democracy Forward — warns of “funding gaps,” winter instability, and the potential displacement of people currently housed. These alarms are sounded even though HUD includes a nearly 12% increase over last year’s funding allocation. At the core of the complaint is a revealing claim: that reform would “upend longstanding projects that have been thoughtfully developed to comport with evidence-based, best-practices services delivery.” But HUD’s own data make clear that the evidence on which they have long relied is catastrophically wrong. Despite a 300% increase in federal spending, homelessness has reached the highest level ever recorded in the nation’s history. Unsheltered homelessness — the most dangerous and lethal form — has surged.  Mortality among people struggling with homelessness has also peaked. If these outcomes qualify as “evidence-based best practices,” then the phrase has lost all meaning. The real question is not whether reform is upending but upending to whom. The organizations positioning themselves as defenders of the homeless are fully aware of the catastrophe that has unfolded on their watch. Yet they are using the courts to block reforms aimed at saving lives, restoring accountability, and reversing a crisis their preferred policies helped entrench. For more than a decade, Housing First has dominated federal homelessness policy. It prioritizes lifelong subsidized housing — branded as “permanent housing” — while eliminating requirements for sobriety, treatment for mental illness or addiction, or participation in work. Its architects promised stability, lower costs, and an end to homelessness in a decade. Instead, the model guarantees keys to a housing unit while making treatment optional and accountability negligible. With nearly 80% of the homeless population struggling with mental illness and/or addiction, the result is predictable and deadly: people are placed alone in apartments, isolated from the community and clinical intervention these diseases require. Overdoses go unseen, and help arrives too late. California — the only state to adopt federally-mandated Housing First with state funding in 2016 — provides a stark case study. Despite an unprecedented $24 billion investment from 2019 to 2023, homelessness surged 40%. Encampments have proliferated, public trust has eroded, and taxpayers have seen zero return on their investment. Yet as desperately needed reform proposals emerge, self-described “homeless advocates” — including several based in California — reflexively resist. San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team vehicle with city department logo parked on urban street, San Francisco, California, February 5, 2026. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Their concern is not instability for the homeless, but instability for themselves: the potential loss of 12-year guaranteed renewals, preferred status, and the comfort of championing a single, simple — demonstrably failed — approach. HUD’s proposed reforms would rebalance funding toward transitional housing, mandatory treatment for addiction and mental illness, work and recovery expectations, and measurable outcomes — changes designed to promote self-sufficiency, public safety, and life-saving interventions. The plaintiffs warn of “chaos” if reform proceeds. But chaos is not hypothetical — it is the present reality. Record homelessness despite unprecedented public spending. Sidewalks surrendered to encampments. Tens of thousands dead from overdoses, exposure, and untreated psychosis, including 18 mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who died on the streets of New York City in just the past two weeks. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images This is not a system at risk of failure. It has already failed. The threat these reforms pose is to institutional comfort. The Housing First industry knows it will lose guaranteed funding renewals, protected status, and a model optimized for compliance rather than outcomes, to which it has become accustomed over the last 12 years. Where is the outrage for those left lining the streets year after year, promised housing that never materializes? Where is the outrage for those who died waiting for a system to recognize their worth and deliver the help that could have saved their lives? By collapsing expectations to the bare minimum, Housing First has reduced capable human beings to permanent dependents — managed rather than restored, housed rather than helped — rather than treating them as people worthy of recovery, accountability, and reintegration into society. True advocacy requires accountable compassion. It demands intervention when people are too sick to choose safety for themselves, and the moral courage to admit when a policy has become lethal. The court’s injunction jeopardizes urgently needed funding and reform, but it also exposes a grim truth: those fighting to preserve Housing First are defending a deadly status quo. Every day reform is delayed, more lives unravel, and more people die from fentanyl poisoning, methamphetamine addiction, and untreated mental illness. Those struggling with homelessness deserve far more than containment. They deserve a real path off the streets. They deserve recovery. They deserve the opportunity to rediscover purpose. Reform is not disruption. It is a rescue mission. * * * Michele Steeb is the founder of Free Up Foundation and author of “Answers Behind the RED DOOR: Battling the Homeless Epidemic,” based on her 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest program for homeless women and children. She is a Visiting Fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Fix Homelessness Initiative. Follow them on Twitter: @SteebMichele and @ DiscoveryCWP. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Newly released FBI documents reveal President Trump contacted Palm Beach police in 2006 to support their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, telling the chief, “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.” Trump’s Early Warning to Law Enforcement Former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter detailed in a 2019 FBI interview that Donald Trump contacted him in July 2006 during the initial investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Trump reportedly stated, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” according to the FBI summary released through Department of Justice files. Trump informed Reiter that he had thrown Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and described Ghislaine Maxwell as Epstein’s “evil” operative. Trump also told the police chief that people in New York were aware of Epstein’s behavior and recounted leaving an Epstein event after seeing teenagers present. Investigation Timeline and Context The Palm Beach Police Department launched its investigation into Epstein in April 2005 after reports surfaced that he was recruiting underage girls, some as young as 14, for sexual massages at his mansion. Chief Reiter led the probe despite facing resistance from local prosecutors who sought a lenient approach. By June 2006, a grand jury indicted Epstein on one count of solicitation of prostitution, and the FBI began its own investigation shortly after. Trump’s call to Reiter came as details of the investigation became public, positioning him as one of the first high-profile figures to contact law enforcement in support. This contradicts years of media attempts to link Trump to Epstein’s criminal activities. Transparency Act Reveals Truth The FBI document emerged following the November 18, 2025, signing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by President Trump under congressional pressure. The legislation mandated the release of previously sealed materials, including unredacted documents, Maxwell depositions, and new evidence from the investigation. The Miami Herald first reported the FBI interview summary with Chief Reiter, who was interviewed by federal agents in October 2019, two months after Epstein’s death. These files validate Trump’s longstanding claims that he cut ties with Epstein years before the financier’s 2019 arrest. The documented 2006 phone call demonstrates Trump’s proactive cooperation with law enforcement, not the complicity that partisan critics falsely alleged for years. Vindication Against False Narratives The newly released documents directly refute the mainstream media’s sustained effort to implicate Trump in Epstein’s crimes. While Trump and Epstein had social connections in the 1990s and early 2000s, FBI records confirm Trump’s account that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago and distanced himself once he became aware of Epstein’s criminal behavior. Trump’s willingness to contact police and provide information about Epstein’s activities and associates demonstrates the opposite of what left-wing outlets suggested. The files provide primary evidence that Trump recognized Epstein’s predatory behavior and supported law enforcement efforts to stop him, protecting potential victims. This stands in stark contrast to other elites who remained silent or enabled Epstein’s activities through their networks and influence, highlighting the double standard in how the media treats different political figures. The release of these documents underscores the importance of government transparency and accountability that conservatives have long demanded. The FBI’s documentation of Trump’s 2006 call to Chief Reiter provides concrete evidence that should silence critics who exploited the Trump-Epstein connection for political gain. As more files continue to emerge from the ongoing review of three million documents related to the Epstein investigation, Americans deserve the full truth about who enabled these crimes and who worked to stop them. The facts now show President Trump was on the right side of this fight from the beginning. Sources: Ex-police chief says Trump told him ‘thank goodness you’re stopping’ Epstein in 2006 Relationship of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein

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