Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

So speaking of poorly considered ideas obviously meant to ignite the base, do you think that Trump will actually denaturalize and deport Ilhan Omar “back where she came from”? As I certainly recall him calling for, way back during the First Trump Administration. It could very well just be a stunt that gets as far as the “let’s Livestream a military firing squad” idea eventually got.

Certainly, MAGA bots tend to screech “De-naturalize and Deport” in response to crimes committed even by brown people who acquired their citizenship by birth, or whose families have lived in the US for generations. So maybe this is just something meant to pander to that crowd. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if there actually is something technically incorrect / illegal about her naturalization application. So, do you think this investigation will actually result in Omar being stripped of her citizenship and deported? Or will it quietly go away after the midterms? —Aylene W.

Hi Aylene. Based on some of the analysis I’ve heard, I heavily suspect the information on Omar’s immigration paperwork decades ago (when she was a minor) was indeed misstated. Also, from what I understand, the statute of limitations for any potential criminal charges related to that offense (if it was indeed an offense) have expired. Even beyond that, there are significant legal hurdles for the government to have to clear in order to make anything stick. Thus, I think the chances of her being denaturalized and deported are extremely low, and I don’t think that was ever really the goal in the first place.

I think this is a political stunt — catnip for Trump’s base. It will put Omar though some legal headaches, and cost her some time and money, but I think the case will eventually get tossed out by a judge (sometime after the midterms). In other words, I don’t think she’s going anywhere.

John - Now that the administration has moved forward- as promised- to investigate U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, will it be a matter of time before they attempt to deport her after their findings of fraud? I believe they absolutely will. — Sharon H.

Hi Sharon. I’ll direct you to my answer above.

Sir John —Why didn’t the Republicans in Texas come out en masse during the primaries to put Cornyn in the race against Talarico? It should’ve been a slam dunk. — “They Should’ve Sent Paxton Packin’!” Regards from The Emperor

Hi Emperor. If President Trump would have endorsed Cornyn, Cornyn would have won the GOP primary, and very likely gone on to win the general election. Senate Republican leadership and the NRSC very much understood how problematic of a nominee Paxton would be, and they plead with Trump to endorse Cornyn.

But unlike with other GOP primary contests, Trump stayed out of the race (until right at the end), because he knew Paxton was aggressively loyal to him. This let Paxton define himself as the most passionately pro-Trump candidate in the race (which is a priority to many Republican voters). And for what it’s worth, he was. As much as Cornyn had humiliated himself for Trump over the years, Paxton literally tried to help our president overturn the 2020 election. This proved to Trump that Paxton was willing to damage or circumvent our constitutional order on his behalf (which Trump likes). When the polls showed Paxton pulling ahead a week out from the primary, Trump officially endorsed Paxton, which sealed Cornyn’s fate.

As I’ve argued a number of times, I don’t think Trump really cares about maintaining Republican majorities in Congress. He just wants a lockstep party that will do whatever he wants.

How much do you think Marc Thiessen hates you by now? 😂 — Ben G.

Oh, I’m thinking a whole lot, Ben. Lol. For those who don’t know what Ben’s talking about, I give the former Bush official and longtime Fox News contributor, Marc Thiessen, a deservedly hard time on X… mostly over the Trump administration’s handling of Ukraine.

Thiessen, who I believe is sincerely pro-Ukraine (like I am), has some kind of direct or indirect access to President Trump. And he clearly calculated, probably two years ago, that if he cheerleads Trump incessantly (online, in print, and on television), and shamelessly whitewashes the president’s foreign policy decisions on Ukraine as being brilliant, super-awesome for Ukraine, and tough on Russia, Thiessen will not only maintain that access, but Trump will — at some point — actually start listening to him, and do the things Thiessen claims he’s already been doing to better help Ukraine against Russia.

It obviously hasn’t worked. Trump has mostly treated Ukraine like garbage since returning to office, all while Thiessen has not only written one WaPo fan-fiction piece after another about how great of an ally Trump’s been, but has also refused to publicly criticize Trump in any way… even at times when Trump betrays Ukraine in especially hideous ways (like he’s doing now). Thiessen just goes completely silent when that happens.

Thus, I’ve gotten into the habit of quote-tweeting the latest Trump atrocities against Ukraine with “Marc Thiessen could not be reached for comment,” and other posters have been putting it on Thiessen’s radar. Marc’s lashed out at me a few times, but what’s particularly interesting is how many former and event current colleagues of his have reached out to tell me I’m very much on-target. They’re embarrassed by how he’s conducted himself, and believe his efforts have been misguided and counterproductive.

Did you happen to see the Chris Como and Bill O’Reilly argument over Trump’s relationship with Putin? If so, what did you think? — Alex D.

I hadn’t seen it, Alex, but was intrigued enough by your question to seek out the segment and watch it. If I watched the correct one (I think I did), I’d call it more of a discussion than an argument. But on the points of the contention, I think Cuomo was right. Putin only understands force. Unlike Trump, Putin can’t be won over by flattery. The same goes for bribery, at least not when it comes to Ukraine.

I flatly reject O’Reilly’s claim that “Trump has done everything that he can” for Ukraine. That’s not even close to being true. Trump has not only pulled back on our country’s support of Ukraine since returning to office, but has repeatedly thrown Ukraine under the bus, often in very disgusting (and even deadly) ways, to try and force Ukraine to basically surrender to Putin. He’s also needlessly offered all kinds of concessions to Russia.

The best thing we could do, not just for Ukraine, but for the United States and the rest of the free world, would be to ratchet up our support for Ukraine, in the form of intelligence, technology, weapons, sanctions etc. — to make it as painful as possible for Russia to continue this invasion. We should have been doing that all along, instead of defaming Zelensky, trashing Ukraine, and snuggling up to Putin (which no other U.S. president would have done).

There’s no need for us to step in militarily. Ukraine has been doing all the fighting on behalf of the free world, and they can end this war largely on their terms if they reliably have the tools to make it happen. That doesn’t necessarily mean driving Russia all the way out beyond Ukraine’s pre-war borders. But it does mean Ukraine at least maintaining the land that Russia hasn’t been able to conquer militarily.

But unfortunately for everyone except Putin, that’s not what Trump is doing.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

During the last administration, I was critical of what I believed to be President Biden’s inadequate support of Ukraine. Yes, the United States remained a pretty reliable ally throughout his tenure, and Biden spoke out strongly against Putin’s illegal invasion, but our president was often a day late and a dollar short when it came to providing Ukraine with the necessary resources to defend itself. I also worried, in the run-up to the 2024 election, that the same would be true if Kamala Harris became president.

But that worry paled in comparison to what I feared might happen to Ukraine if Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office.

About a month before the election, I wrote:

A Trump/Vance administration should very much concern those who believe it’s vitally important that Putin’s war-crime-ridden invasion of Ukraine ultimately ends in defeat. Trump’s well-documented man-crush on the Russian president, his history of playing games with Ukraine defense-funding (and accusing them of U.S. election interference), and his invitation to Putin to attack our Nato allies are far from the only suggestions that Trump will abandon our ally.

Trump couldn’t even bring himself to say at last month’s presidential debate that it would be good if Ukraine won. Last week, he parroted Russian talking points, declaring that “Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore,” and that “any deal, even the worst deal, would be better than what we have right now.”

I truly hoped that my concerns back then were overstated, and would ultimately prove unwarranted. But as it turns out, I was probably being too generous to Trump.

Our president’s lies about Ukraine and their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, haven’t stopped. They’ve only intensified, as has Trump’s regurgitation of Russian propaganda. Direct U.S. aid to Ukraine has been significantly reduced, and the deadly “games” the administration has played with our remaining aid have not only reached new levels of perversity, but are now being coupled with substantive support for Ukraine’s war-criminal invader, Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The latest series of betrayals began on October 9, when President Trump announced that the U.S. had agreed to purchase potentially millions of tons of diesel fuel from Russia, in a purported effort to bring down high gas prices in the United States (which Trump has been falsely blaming on Ukraine). Such a deal would mean billions of U.S. dollars sent to Russia — dollars that would assuredly be used to fund the Russian war machine against Ukraine (while making virtually no difference to what U.S. consumers would pay at the pump).

Two days later, amidst successful Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s oil industry, Trump announced that he had successfully negotiated an “energy cease-fire” between Russia and Ukraine. The announcement came as a huge surprise to pretty much everyone… including Russia and Ukraine, who hadn’t a clue what Trump was talking about. Still, Zelensky complied with the terms by pausing Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil targets. Russia, however, continued targeting Ukrainian energy sites, nullifying the “agreement” that Trump later acknowledged he had basically made up (presumably because he worried Ukraine’s strikes on Russia would screw up his diesel deal).

Early last week, about 24 hours after Trump’s “cease-fire” announcement, Ukraine officials reported that they were no longer receiving their usual U.S. intelligence warnings of incoming Russian ballistic missiles, including those targeting Kyiv. Soon after, Ukraine reported connection slowdowns of the U.S.-provided Starshield internet-satellite system, which the country uses to guide their military drones.

While Ukraine was left to deal with the increasingly chaotic situation, Trump announced on Friday night that he had signed an executive order exempting Russia from the crippling sanctions recently passed by Congress in the Lindsey Graham Act.

The hugely generous favor to Putin was met with bipartisan criticism, including from Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence.

“President Trump’s decision to waive sanctions against Russia as Putin continues his brutal war of aggression against Ukraine dishonors the legacy of the late Senator Lindsey Graham and is decidedly not in the national interests of the United States and should be reversed,” said Pence. “Putin is a war criminal and only understands strength. Waiving Graham Act sanctions on Russia signals weakness at a moment that demands American strength.”

On Sunday, President Zelensky said that U.S. intelligence sharing had resumed, but that their Starshield access had been capped and is still severely limited.

Elon Musk, CEO of Starshield’s creator, SpaceX, is insistent that the U.S. government — not his company — is behind it. Trump has denied the claim, while continuing to blame Ukraine for the war, calling for Ukraine to elect a new president, and arguing that Ukraine, not Russia, has been the obstacle to peace.

Zelensky agrees with Musk, saying on Sunday that Starshield’s manipulation is “a message from the American government.” Zelensky also revealed that the U.S. is holding back on providing Ukraine with already-paid-for Patriot interceptors, which are used to stop incoming Russian ballistic missiles.

Trump, it seems, is firmly holding onto his previously stated belief that “any deal, even the worst deal,” is better than continued fighting between the countries. And the withholding of U.S. intelligence, Starshield access, and other defensive resources all further add to the conclusion that Trump prefers a “deal” that amounts to Ukrainian surrender… even as Russia, the invading country that targets innocent civilians every day (and is aiding the Iranian regime against us), has been dramatically weakened.

As The Dispatch reports:

On the battlefield, this year has been one of Ukraine’s strongest since 2022: Russia’s advance has slowed sharply, in April its forces lost more ground than they took for the first time since August 2024, and Ukraine’s long-range drones hit a Russian oil refinery about once every three days in the first eight months of 2026. And after nearly two years of Russian forces slowly grinding forward in the Donetsk oblast, as of October 14, Ukraine had regained 107 square miles of territory and significantly reduced Russia’s summer push to encircle Ukraine’s remaining cities in the Donbas.

That success has been largely due to Ukraine’s drone superiority and skill—enabled in large part by Starshield, the military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network, which many Ukrainian drone operations depend on.

Vladimir Putin has assuredly concluded that he can’t win his war on Ukraine on the battlefield — not with how strong, innovative, and resilient of a foe Ukraine has proven itself to be. He’s been at it for over four and a half years, and his country continues to incur terrible costs as a result of his unprovoked aggression.

That a president of the United States would step in at this moment, and try to save Putin by knee-capping Ukraine, is beyond disgraceful. It’s a stain on our country, and those inclined to defend or rationalize this betrayal wouldn’t dream of doing so for Biden, Harris, or virtually anyone else.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John, watching your interaction on X / Twitter with the crazies about your post of “Any of them. You could have nominated any of them, Republicans.” made me wonder. How much joy does it bring you to engage with the crazies? Are most of them trolls and bots?

I find it almost exhausting just watching your interaction. I give you credit for it, but I also wonder if you’re starting to lose it. 😉 Maybe we need Kimberly Ross to step in for you for some well needed R&R. — Judd Y.

Lol. For the other readers here, this is the post Judd is referring to:

I posted it after President Trump’s announcement of the “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” agreement he claimed to have made with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, that would have not only violated the U.S. law, but given a crap-load of money to Russia (in exchange for diesel fuel) which would have assuredly gone to further funding Russia’s war-invasion of Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Zelensky knew nothing about the agreement, and Russia never ceased its firing on Ukraine anyway. It’s unclear if this alleged deal (which Trump mistakenly believes will bring down diesel prices in the United States) will go anywhere from here, but Trump has been bashing Ukraine (again) ever since, ridiculously blaming them for the high price of diesel in the United States, and calling for Ukraine to elect a new president. He apparently even withheld real-time intelligence and satellite guidance from them for a day or two, which is disgraceful.

My post was just a quick reminder that there were a number of fit and capable Republicans running for president in 2024 (against a very weak and unpopular Democratic administration), but the party chose the guy who they knew, among other things, had a man-crush on Putin — an enemy of America. As you noticed, the tweet received lots of crazy responses.

To answer your question: No, it doesn’t bring me “joy” to engage with some of the crazies, but I do think there’s some benefit, at times, in mocking these (mostly anonymous) bozos who spend countless hours online trying to bully/harass people into silence. As to whether they’re trolls or bots, it’s a combination of both — I think more trolls than bots (though they’re effectively the same thing these days). And since you brought up my friend Kimberly Ross, I will say that I’m pretty sure she’s meaner to the trolls than I am. Lol. She’s been known to bring a barbwire bat to a rubber-band fight, and you can quote me on that.

John, While sitting here doing a bit of simple math, I realize the debt of many countries, including our own, but at the same time many Muslim countries are very extremely wealthy. Won’t this lead to a scenario of these wealthy countries gaining more world power and influence while Europe and America flounder in debt? Or worse? — Sharon H.

It’s a very good point, Sharon. In addition to what the debt crisis will do to us domestically, it will be very damaging to our role and influence on the world stage. It therefore would not only pose a national security threat, but open up vacuums across the globe for other countries (including bad actors working against American interests) to fill.

Our national debt is a catastrophic threat to our country, and both parties are only making it worse. When things implode, however, we can rest assured that they’ll only blame each other.

Do you think former Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz will receive a presidential pardon, regarding allegations he sex trafficked two young women. — Ben G.

I don’t think he’s been charged with a crime, but is rather facing a civil lawsuit. Thus, a pardon wouldn’t apply. But if Gaetz did want a pardon for something, I’m guessing he could probably get one.

John: Bernie wrote a column this week about NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s obsession with Israel. The Boulder, CO city council (near and dear to your home) is suing several oil companies for their part in climate change, an action that is now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Last year, Karen Bass was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the Palisades fires broke out, despite dire warnings ahead of time that her city was in grave danger of such a natural disaster. What is with this recent phenomenon of local officials involving themselves with international issues far beyond the scope of their municipalities? Are they so bored with bond elections, budgets and potholes that they feel the need to veer way out of their lanes? — Steve R.

I think there’s definitely something to your last question, Steve, but I believe it’s less about boredom than it is an often misguided desire to make a bigger difference. Many years ago, Tip O’Neill said that “All politics is local." The view carried some wisdom at the time, but the political landscape has changed a lot since then. Most Americans these days view politics through a national lens. There are many reasons why, including the 24/7 news cycle and the internet, which have led to the growth of grievance-festering online communities (rather than unifying local communities), and the turning of our politics into a form of entertainment. Far too many people these days view public service as a platform for becoming a celebrity influencer or activist, rather than as an opportunity (and honor) to serve the constituents that voted them into office. Such people tend to — as you say — veer way out of their lanes.

Sir John — Apparently Mayor Mamdahni was recently heckled by his former far left supporters who accused him of being complicit in the false claims of “genocide” because he apparently was NOT far enough to the left for the progs.. Of course the usual left-wing pundits are calling this a “conspiratorial psy-op” from the conservatives. I personally find it amusing to see Mamdahni on the receiving end of the leftist nonsense that he pushes. What are your thoughts on all of this? —“Mamdahni, Whaddya’ Say? How Many Kids Did ‘Ya Kill Today?” Regards from The Emperor

I paid very little attention to this, Emperor, but when someone of influence strings along people with extreme views, that person runs the risk of later falling victim to those same people for not being “extreme enough.”

Case in point, it’s still wild to me how sheepish President Trump is when it comes to Operation Warp Speed (the fast creation and deployment of the Covid-19 vaccines). It’s the biggest achievement of his first term, and it should be a huge bragging point for him (he brags about everything else), but the conspiracy nuts he often caters to think the vaccine is evil and the virus was basically harmless. Thus, he distances himself from that achievement. Some think he even nominated RFK Jr. for HHS Secretary to repent for it.

Like I said, wild.

Trump decided not to live-stream Nidal Malik Hasan’s execution. Good thing, or bad thing? — Alex D.

Good thing. I’m not convinced Trump was ever on board for live-streaming it. I think that was the brainchild of Pete Hegseth, who comes up with lots of bad ideas.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

The New York Federal Reserve released a research report the other day that included some pretty significant findings on the effect of President Trump’s tariffs on American consumers. The most notable among them was that the inflation we’ve seen on many everyday items, since the beginning of the trade war, has been entirely due to the tariffs.

Not partially, but entirely. Without the tariffs, those items (which included 67 categories of products) would have actually lowered in price to below their prior levels. Instead they saw an inflationary increase of 2.9%.

The study covered economic activity from February of 2025 (when the first tariffs of Trump’s second term were applied) to February of 2026, when the Supreme Court determined the unconstitutionally of Trump’s IEEPA tariffs (the continued effects of which are expected to last until early 2027). It did not include Trump’s latest round of tariffs against Canada (which are further increasing costs for American consumers), nor does it include inflation attributable to the ongoing Iran War.

“The New York Fed’s report offers the clearest evidence yet of the impact of Trump’s tariffs — a core policy of his most recent campaign and second term in the White House — on consumers’ wallets,” reported CNBC’s Alex Harring. “Economists had widely expected his levies to push up prices, though the precise effects had been hard to estimate due to the changing nature of the policy and the lack of transparency on how companies set their prices.”

As high as prices have been, one can only imagine how much worse things would be right now (and in the future) if Trump hadn’t been pressured by bond markets to repeal his most severe tariffs, and the Supreme Court hadn’t ruled against his abuse of the IEEPA.

Trump, of course, was elected in 2024 largely because of Americans’ frustration with high consumer prices under President Biden (most of which were tied to the global economic recovery from the pandemic). What has become increasingly clear, as supported by this study (and several before it), is that the economic relief voters so desperately hoped for back then would have actually arrived… had it not been for Trump’s unilaterally imposed trade war.

When you consider, also, that the trade war hasn’t lived up to any of Trump’s promises (or even his premises), but has managed to add an enormous amount of money to his personal wealth (while alienating a number of U.S. allies and trade partners), it’s no wonder the president’s approval ratings are as dismal as they are. The same goes for the GOP’s midterm prospects (at least according to the polls).

Sure, the midterms are always a referendum on the party of the sitting president, but despite Trump having sidestepped the U.S. Congress entirely by imposing his tariffs through executive actions, congressional Republicans have dirty hands on the issue. Congress could have stopped the trade war before it ever started, or at any time after it began, simply by reclaiming their rightful tariff authority.

Heck, it could have been taken care of in an afternoon.

Instead, out of crippling fear of displeasing the president, the Republican-led Congress has let it go on and on, with Americans literally paying the price for their cowardice. The GOP has even lost its longtime polling advantage as the party Americans most trust to handle the economy. That’s despite a slew of DSA candidates and other Democratic progressives proudly campaigning on their own economically illiterate ideas.

In other words, the Republicans have only themselves to blame. They should have stuck with their free trade principles.

After the midterms, Trump will reach traditional “lame duck” status. At that point, the best thing the U.S. Congress could do for American consumers, as well as our trade partnerships and global economic standing, would be for the parties to work together to further limit and reclaim the president’s tariff authority. This failed, self-enriching experiment needs to end.

Will that actually happen? I’m not optimistic.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

What do you think of the horrifyingly botched attempted execution of Christa Pike? Many death penalty opponents have used the incident as yet another reason to abolish capital punishment altogether. Personally, I think the DP can be justified in the abstract for the most horrendous crimes. I shed no tears for, say, Ted Bundy, or Timothy McVeigh. Yet, I have seen too many discrepancies in its application over the years, to think it’s being used justly in practice.

But I also get really annoyed, to say the least, when anti- DP activists go out of their way to minimize the crimes of people on death row. Pike defenders have focused on how she was only 18 when she murdered Colleen Slemmer in 1995, and how she’s “not the same person now”. Yet, they usually omit that she was actually convicted of attempted murder of another inmate in 2001, and attempted to escape in 2012.

I am personally able to say, I oppose the death penalty as it is currently being practiced, without seeing death row inmates as merely helpless victims of the state. But too many people fall into the trap of woobifying the condemned, who are mostly terrible people. And I really hate how the actual victims, of the criminals, so often get forgotten in these debates. — Aylene W.

Hi Aylene. I’m pretty much where you are on this issue. I oppose the death penalty, but I respect the position of those who disagree. What I don’t respect is the portrayal of those on death row as victims rather than as convicts who committed a terrible crime that victimized others.

For the states that still practice the death penalty (which is their right), there should be no margin of error when it comes to executions. Executions need to be as swift and painless as possible, and of course 100% effective. As many have pointed out, we know, as a people, how to do this. Regardless of how one feels about Canada’s practice of medical euthanasia, they euthanize thousands of citizens every year (at those citizens’ request) without the kind of complications we’ve occasionally seen with prisoner executions in the United States. I’ve also seen the argument that we shouldn’t medicalize the process at all, and go back to firing squads (which Pike had actually requested but was denied, I think by law). That too would be better alternative.

The Republicans have been campaigning very hard against “socialism” for a while now, and yet, when VP Vance was asked this week what socialism actually is, he didn’t know the answer. He finally settled on something about replacing American workers with foreign workers, and boys playing in girls sports. Considering how many socialist policies the Trump administration has been pushing, while they point left and yell “socialism!” has the term become meaningless? — Alex D.

In the realm of American politics, Alex, it has indeed become meaningless.

National Review’s Phillip Klein said it well: “Vance has to redefine socialism as ‘things I oppose’ because if he defined it in terms of its actual economic philosophy, he'd agree with much of it.”

The same is true of Trump, others in the administration, and a good number of Republicans who support them.

Sir John — Ben Shapiro recently posted a video of Tucker Carlson stating basically that Germany should have won WWII and that the Allies should have surrendered. WTAF!? OK yes I knew Tucker Carlson had a few screws loose for a while, but this is utterly mind-boggling! How and what caused him to become so F—-ING WiCkED & STUPID!? Did that demonic attack that he allegedly suffered from awhile back bring on some type of demonic possession!? Seriously! How the HELL is he coming up with this excrement!? —“SUCKER CARLSON!” Regards from The Emperor

There’s been lots of speculation over what’s been behind Tucker Carlson’s descent into darkness, Emperor. Some think he’s being paid by foreign entities to spread such nonsense (of which there’s actually some evidence). Some think it’s purely for attention/engagement. Some think it comes from genuine bigotry that’s been emboldened by the excesses of this political era. I think all (or even a combination of the three) are entirely possible.

I also think it’s important to note that while Tucker has gotten worse over time, he’s been deranged like this for the better part of a decade, including when he was still at Fox News (where he pushed all kinds of insane conspiracy theories, lied routinely, and ran cover for America’s enemies including Vladimir Putin). And yet, many on the political right revered him, deferred to him on serious issues, and let him shape perverse narratives that would become their conventional wisdom. This went on until President Trump publicly dressed him down in the summer of 2025 over Carlson’s criticism of the Trump administration helping Israel against Iran. At which point, many on the right, including Senator Ted Cruz (who was previously scared of getting on Carlson’s bad side), decided it was finally okay to start criticizing him, while pretending Carlson had suddenly changed into a different person (which he hadn’t).

I’m glad that more people, including Ben Shapiro (who’s been great on this), are very comfortable doing it now. But it sure would have been better if they had done it much earlier, and not vilified people (like Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes) who did stand up to Carlson. Because again, Carlson shaped a lot of warped and ugly sentiment on the right (that still exists today).

I’ve been cracking up at your “24” posts. I’d forgotten so much about those early episodes. Who’s your favorite character? — Ben G.

Lol. For those reading this, Ben’s referring to my X posts. I’ve been rewatching the great show, 24 (after my wife goes to bed), and reliving some memorable moments with my social-media peeps.

I know this is the conventional pick, but my favorite character really is Jack Bauer. I’ve been a fan of Kiefer Sutherland since I was a kid, and he was perfect on the show. Chloe’s great too, of course. But I’d forgotten, until I rewatched season 4, how entertaining Richard Heller, the defense secretary’s son, was.

Logan Marshall-Green’s portrayal of him was so over the top, but not in a bad or unconvincing way. It was an early role for Marshall-Green, who went on to become a brilliant (and highly underrated) actor.

For those who’ve never seen The Invitation, I’d high recommend it. He’s very good in Devil too.

John: I know like me you are a fiscal conservative, so this question is probably right in your wheelhouse. The situation in France seems like a harbinger of things to come in the United States. Decades of deficit spending have finally caught up to them (they last had a budget surplus in 1974), and France is having to cut basic services in education. This has led to violent protests, encouraged by French leftist politicians. The same ingredients seem to exist over on this side of the pond: Low social trust, low trust in the government, yet high expectations for cradle-to-grave government services. When the math ain’t mathin’ anymore, you get rioting in the streets. Is this about to happen in the U.S? — Steve R.

It reminds me a lot of the Greek debt crisis, that came to a head in 2009-2010, and continued on for almost a decade (with years of EU bailouts).

And yes, the United States is headed toward a catastrophic debt crisis of its own (we’re really already in it), which will be extremely ugly and extremely painful for millions of Americans when it comes to a head. And when that happens, we’ll have only ourselves to blame, because the crisis has been predicted, and supported by the math, for many years. And we’ve chosen to do nothing to avoid or even soften it. In fact, we’ve carelessly accelerated and deepened it.

By “we,” I’m talking about American voters and both major political parties. The numbers have been on display, for all to see, for a long time. The major drivers of our national debt, by far, are our major entitlement programs. They’re broken because they were made for a different era. They’re in desperate need of reform, and have been for many years. The Democratic Party has long denied this, and has demagogued every Republican effort to deal with the situation. Republicans abandoned the efforts themselves at the behest of Donald Trump, once he became the party’s leader and our president a decade ago. Trump promised to veto any major-entitlement reform legislation, and punish any Republican(s) who tried to pass any such bill. The Republican members of congress who actually took this issue seriously (like Paul Ryan) have been chased out of politics for being insufficiently servile to Trump.

And so now, here we are — racing off the edge of a fiscal cliff, while we focus almost all of our political energy on culture-war battles, and dealing with the excesses of Donald Trump and the woke mob. Congratulations, everyone.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John, isn't the poverty rate being manipulated by the Feds, who adjust the monetary amounts that determine the poverty level? Our president states the poverty level is the lowest it's been in many many decades, but doesn't that depend on where the goalposts are being set? According to DSS, they tell me the Federal Government sets the standards and rates. We are being gaslit with faulty information again. — Sharon H.

I don’t know much about this issue, Sharon, and really don’t want to spend a lot of time researching it. Lol. The charts show that the U.S. poverty rate has been in slow, steady decline for over a decade (other than a brief uptick in 2019/2020), spanning multiple presidencies. Is there some fudging going on, somewhere in the federal calculation? I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t have any real insight I can offer on that.

Sen. Eric Schmitt’s “basketball” perjury accusation toward Jack Smith was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen during a congressional hearing. 1) Will Schmitt recover politically? 2) What do you make of a bunch of right-wing influencers/commentators having been told ahead of time about the supposed bombshell accusation, and posting about the “gotcha” moment on social media, only to have to later delete the posts in embarrassment. — Alex D.

1. Schmitt will indeed recover from it (probably by Monday of next week), because there is no shame left in today’s politics. Our political leaders can say or do the most embarrassing, discrediting things imaginable, and never pay any price for it (beyond some short-term jokes at their expense). Schmitt was reportedly under consideration by JD Vance as a potential running mate in 2028. Some commentators think the humiliating moment blew Schmitt’s chance of that, but I can’t imagine it did (if there was ever serious consideration over him in the first place). Vance, after all, fueled a made-up story about Haitian immigrants in his home-state stealing people’s cats and dogs and eating them… And now he’s our vice president.

2. There’s a lot of coordination going on behind the scenes between Republican/MAGA politicians (including Trump) and members of the right-wing media (I’m sure the same happens on the left). This particular moment (which included Sean Hannity, Benny Johnson, Mark Levin, and others) perfectly illustrated that. They were locked and loaded to amplify the “perjury” claim (which was already falling apart within minutes), and the details behind it, the second it left Schmitt’s mouth. But like with Schmitt, their embarrassing role in it will be forgotten by Monday (because there’s no shame in the political media either).

Sir John— apparently an Omani co-pilot onboard a FlyDubai Airliner (heading toward Tel Aviv with mostly Israeli passengers) attacked the Captain, stabbing him repeatedly with a pocketknife in an attempted hijacking. Thankfully the Captain was rescued and the attacker was subdued by passengers, and a couple of other pilots who happened to be onboard were able to get control of the plane and prevent a deadly terrorist attack. Well the New York Times described the incident on X as “an altercation” between the co-pilot & the Captain. Critics claimed that The NYT was intentionally downplaying the attempted terrorist attack. The NYT responded that the critics are “activists & partisans” and that it doesn’t report on speculations & uncertainties. Well maybe. I really don’t know since I don’t spend any time on X. What do you think? Was it too early for the NYT to give any pertinent details? Or was it unnecessarily downplayed initially? Your thoughts ? —“Passengers Fly The Unfriendly Skies & WIN” regards from The Emperor

I saw some talk about this online, Emperor, but wasn’t following the NYT headlines and social-media posts in real-time. There are certainly many examples of news organizations playing down stories that are — let’s say — ideologically inconvenient to those reporting them. I would include violence against Israelis as one such category of reporting, especially in contrast with how military defensive action by the Israeli government, against its hostile neighbors, is often portrayed in the news media.

That said, there’s also a fog of war element to live reporting of wild incidents that are either still developing or just happened. The New York Times later argued that they were only reporting the facts they could confirm, as they were coming in, and weren’t going to speculate on what they couldn’t yet confirm. It’s certainly a defensible position, broadly speaking, but without actually being in the NYT newsroom, as the facts were coming in, it’s hard for me to judge the appropriateness of how they chose to cover the story early on.

On a side-note, it’s nothing short of a miracle that the passengers on that plane survived the attack. There were lots of heroes on board, especially the injured pilot.

John: I want to ask you today about income inequality. Bernie Sanders thinks the difference in wealth between top and bottom is a self-evident issue, so much so that he and his cohorts want to massively change the structure of the U.S. economy. I have often thought this issue stems from the sin of envy and is an excuse for a hard left political and economic takeover. What do I care how much money Bill Gates or Elon Musk make, especially if the bottom 20% also continue to raise their standard of living? However, there is some merit to the argument that top income earners and wealth holders bid the price up for housing and other durable and luxury goods. What are your thoughts about the issue of income inequality and basic affordability for the average American? — Steve R.

Hi Steve. Bernie Sanders is pretty much clueless on economic matters (as well as a number of other things). His brand of economic populism (which JD Vance largely subscribes to as well, sadly) is a recipe for enormous failure. Free market capitalism is hardly a perfect system, but it’s provably the best economic system on the planet, and has lifted more people out of poverty, and created more economic prosperity, than any other.

There will always be envy in societies where income inequality (or any inequality) exists, and people like Sanders stoke that envy for political gain. But societies, as a whole, greatly benefit from free market capitalism, free trade, private enterprise, and wealth creators (including those dastardly “rich people”). Such societies enjoy a higher standard of living across the board.

It’s largely the government, not “greedy CEOs,” that put up barriers to economic growth and prosperity that lead to a higher cost, and lower standard, of living. What Trump’s tariffs have done to the cost of goods in this country is a glaring, real-time example of that. And economic populists like Sanders want to create even more barriers… in the name of “fairness.”

No thanks. I’ll take free market capitalism.

I saw that someone on X got REALLY upset that you dared to criticize Obama in your last column (in a single sentence). Why are people still so defensive of that guy? — Ben G.

I’m not sure if you saw my explanation for it on X, Ben, but I’ve talked about it here before too. There are lefties who started following me on X, because, at some point, they saw that I’m critical of Donald Trump. They’re fine with me criticizing him (for pretty much anything). But some of them can’t take criticism (and I mean ANY criticism) of Barack Obama, which I also put out there from time to time. They almost see it as some kind of betrayal, which makes no sense, because:

1. I’m a conservative, and have very different political views than Democrats.

2. I’ve argued quite consistently that I thought Obama was a bad president. I thought it at the time, and I still think it now.

But similar to how many people on the right can’t accept valid criticism of Donald Trump (in large part due to an emotional attachment), many on the left still can’t accept valid criticism of Barack Obama. Some even still insist that criticizing Obama is inherently racist (though this particular commenter didn’t accuse me of that).

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

In September of 2006, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez stood before the United Nations Assembly in New York City, and launched into a sharp, personal attack on U.S. president George W. Bush.

Chávez, a socialist pseudo-dictator known for using his self-expanded power to punish political opponents and the Venezuelan media, repeatedly called Bush “the devil.” He said Bush smelled of sulfur, and labled him a “donkey,” “war criminal,” and “spokesman of imperialism” (among many other not-so-nice things).

Despite Bush’s approval ratings struggling at the time, many Americans didn’t take kindly to Chávez’s diatribe. It wasn’t just Republicans and conservatives who cried foul. Even some Democratic leaders, including some of Bush’s harshest critics in Washington, rushed to the president’s defense.

“You don’t come into my country, you don’t come into my congressional district, and you don’t condemn my president,” said New York congressman, Charlie Rangel. “George Bush is the president of the United States and represents the entire country. Any demeaning or public attacks against him are viewed by Republicans, Democrats, and all Americans as an attack on all of us.”

Rangel later clarified, “If there’s any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not.”

Nancy Pelosi spoke out as well, saying, “Hugo Chávez fancies himself a modern-day Simón Bolívar, but all he is is an everyday thug.”

The sentiment spread well beyond the Capitol.

Part of the reason Chávez came to the U.S. was to push a propagandistic effort to ingratiate himself with low-income Americans, whom he claimed Bush was neglecting. He offered free heating oil, from Venezuela’s state-owned petroleum company, to remote Alaska Native villages who were expecting a hard winter. It amounted to about 100 gallons per household, which was significant.

Most accepted the oil, but four villages, despite facing a severe fuel shortage and sub-zero temperatures, boldly refused the offer. They cited Chávez’s attack on Bush as the reason, with a spokesman explaining that accepting Chávez’s “gift” would mean “compromising” themselves as Americans.

“As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country,” said tribal administrator, Justine Gunderson. “But I don’t want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us.”

“Us” struck me as the key word in that statement.

I personally found the stance so admirable that I joined many other Americans that year in donating to the villages’ oil fund. To me, it wasn’t about defending George W. Bush. It was about, as Rangel and Gunderson described, standing up for American honor. A strongman leader had trashed our president on U.S. soil. Americans were right to be offended, and they were right to speak out against it.

As I’m often reminded these days, times have changed.

Last week, President Trump welcomed Chinese Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, to the White House. The CCP is, of course, far worse, and far more hostile to the United States and the West, than Chávez’s regime ever was. The Chinese government jails, tortures, and kills domestic critics. They censor speech (including the internet), forbid independent media, and tightly control religion. They run detention camps, and are committing genocide against the Uyghur people. They run the world’s largest state hacking and online-manipulation campaign against the United States, they are the primary source of fentanyl imported into our country, and they are currently supplying the Iranian regime with parts, equipment, and intelligence against U.S. troops and U.S. interests. The list goes on, but you get the point.

Still, I didn’t have an enormous problem with Trump hosting Xi Jinping at the White House, or even rolling out the red carpet and thirstily greeting him on that airport tarmac (though it broke decades of diplomatic protocol and looked pretty embarrassing). What did make me angry, and offended me as an American, were Trump’s perverse antics with Xi Jinping in front of the Presidential Walk of Fame.

Most of you are probably familiar with the “Presidential Walk of Fame” by now. It was one of the early vanity projects of Trump’s second term: a gallery of gold-framed presidential portraits Trump had installed along the West Colonnade of the White House. Contrary to its name, and its view from a distance, the wall is hardly a tribute to our nation’s leaders. It’s instead a running gag for Trump’s personal amusement and self-affirmation. The plaques beneath the portraits include Trump’s personal sentiments toward a number of presidents.

President Obama is described as "one of the most divisive political figures in American History.” President Reagan is falsely depicted a “a fan of President Donald J. Trump.” President Clinton’s plaque includes mention of Trump defeating his wife in 2016. Naturally, President Trump’s own plaques are overflowing with fawning praise of himself. And President Biden? Well, he didn’t even warrant a portrait. Instead, there’s a picture of an autopen above some obligatory “stolen election” nonsense and a slew of other demeaning remarks.

It’s all very stupid and undignified, of course, but there’s a fine line between something being “stupid and undignified” and profoundly un-American. Trump crossed that line when he paused, in front of the cameras, to make a big show out of the “autopen portrait” for Xi Jinping. The two shared a hearty laugh over Biden’s disparagement, which a White House staffer proudly posted on social media (along with a laughter emoji) to commemorate the national disgrace.

And make no mistake about it: it was a national disgrace — a duly elected U.S. president publicly mocking a duly elected U.S. president in front of (and to suck up to) the communist leader of China. And not only did he do it on American soil; he did it at the People’s House.

The butt of the joke wasn’t Joe Biden. It was America.

Like millions of Americans, I thought Biden was a terrible president. I’ve leveled all kinds of criticism at the man. But none of it matters in the context of an enemy (or at least an adversary) of the United States.

Conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg said it well:

The president of the United States is supposed to be a steward of the executive branch, and when conducting foreign affairs, a steward of America. He has an institutional role, which is supposed to have some continuity from president to president — some institutional respect.

We on the political right used to understand this. It’s why so many of us took exception to President Obama’s “apology tour,” and his inclination to blame so many of his political woes on his predecessor (a practice that has only become more popular since then).

Likewise, we understood, as we did with Hugo Chávez, that a foreign adversary insulting our president, especially within our borders, was an insult to our nation.

I still believe that. If you do as well, you should find it abhorrent that a U.S. president would hand-deliver such an insult to a foreign adversary at the White House. If you don’t, I’d love to hear your reasoning.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

Fox News is now running literal campaign ads for Donald Trump that are “Paid for by the U.S Government.” How is this possibly legal? — Alex D.

First of all, you aren’t kidding about it being a campaign ad, Alex. It’s not some PSA message (contrary to what some are saying). It is irrefutably a political campaign ad for Trump himself, featuring his image over and over again, his campaign slogans, supposed political achievements, people praising him, and women singing “love me” a bunch of times. And yes, the caption at the end says it was paid for by the U.S. Government (aka U.S. taxpayers).

For those who haven’t seen the commercial, here it is:

This shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway: This is a completely unethical use of taxpayers’ money, and it should bother every self-respecting American that the federal government is doing this. As for whether it’s illegal, I’m guessing it probably is (based on the Hatch Act). Lawyers are probably already looking into it.

John, sorry for the longer question today. I want to return to the subject of “banned books”, something we have discussed before in this space, because I continue to see it in local bookstore news. “Banned books” seems to be one more term whose definition is intentionally expanded by the left in an effort to be more empowered in their victimhood. The usual understanding of book bans comes from Nazi Germany, where the Nazis began a campaign of extreme censorship in the 1930’s to erase all ideas opposed to fascist ideology. This took the form of public book burnings and outlawing the ownership of certain publications. The 21st Century definition now includes books that are either removed or not allowed in school libraries due to their age appropriateness. To me, this is discretion and not censorship. If I can freely pick up a book at Barnes & Noble or order it from Amazon, it’s not "banned". When I was in high school, a group of friends and I were gathered around a Sports Illustrated when a librarian became suspicious and asked us what we were reading. When she realized it was the SI Swimsuit Edition, she took it from us. Nobody thought our rights were being violated; we just thought we were getting away with something. As a professional writer, what are your thoughts? — Steve R.

Hi Steve. There are some conservatives I very much respect (including Jonah Goldberg) who get really bent out of shape over the “Banned Books” section in bookstores (I’ve teased Jonah about this). I don’t disagree with their reasoning (some of which you described above), and I agree that it is indeed false phrasing, but I guess don’t see it in as nefarious terms as others do. I think it’s largely just a cheap and tacky marketing strategy to sell books.

John DAiLY, how could you say this?: “Trump himself clearly doesn't even care about [the midterms].” President Trump will be campaigning next two months to WIN. — Conrad P.

Because, my dear Conrad, if President Trump were truly worried about the GOP losing congressional majorities, he wouldn’t have endorsed (as he has many times over the years) highly problematic primary candidates (like Ken Paxton) over stronger and safer general-election candidates (like incumbent John Cornyn). His super PAC wouldn’t be withholding hundreds of millions of pledged campaigned dollars from Republican congressional candidates. He wouldn’t be forcing the needless continuation of high consumer prices with his ridiculous trade policies (which have lost Republicans their long-standing polling advantage on the economy). He wouldn’t be shamelessly profiting off the presidency to the tune of billions of dollars, and directing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to his personal vanity projects (which further torches the Republican brand, and highlights the party’s refusal to hold him accountable for anything). He also wouldn’t be cozying up to, praising, and normalizing Zohran Mamdani, who many congressional Republicans and their campaigns have made the face of their opposition.

I’ve never heard a compelling case that Trump genuinely cares about the Republican Party (beyond it being loyal to him). What he cares about is Donald Trump.

Oh, and if Trump were truly worried about a socialist takeover of the country (as you and he insist he is), he wouldn’t be governing as the most socialist president of my lifetime (as demonstrated by him taking government stakes in dozens of private companies, massive tariffs, corporate welfare, price controls, $5,000 “dividend” checks, export bans, etc.).

Sir John: Donald Trump was addressing the UN and he mentioned that he is conflicted about what to do about the Iran war situation. He wonders if the IRGC will come to their senses and make an historic deal with him and make Iran great again, or should he blow them to smithereens. Trump says he won’t make that decision until after the midterm elections. He added that the Iranians need to realize that no matter what happens during the midterms, Trump is still going to be president. Well, OK but that doesn’t solve the problem NOW which I believe that I & many Americans want solved. Why doesn’t he solve the situation now, and be done with it and blow them to smithereens since the IRGC members don’t want to make a deal with him? Seriously what does Trump hope to accomplish by waiting until after the midterms when the Republicans will probably get shellacked anyway? Doesn’t Trump realize that the IRGC is counting on Democrat victories to thwart any of Trump’s plans for victory over the IRGC? —“Hit Or Get Off The Pot” Regards from The Emperor

It’s often a challenge, Emperor, to try and make sense of President Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks, so I’ll address the broader points here…

The timing of the midterms shouldn’t have anything to do with our Iran strategy. If Trump’s consciously holding off on employing something until after the midterms, that would likely mean that that “something” would make the Republican Party even less popular than they currently are. (That said, I again don’t think Trump cares much about the GOP congress, nor the Republican Party as a whole).

As far as “blowing them to smithereens,” it’s sometimes hard to tell if Trump is referring to the Iranian regime or the entire country of Iran (he seems to go back and forth on that). If he’s talking about the latter (which won’t happen), that would obviously be psychotic and amount to massive war crimes. If he’s talking about the former, it’s easier said than done, because what’s left of the regime is quite scattered throughout the country (for their own survival). Airstrikes alone aren’t going to bring regime change in Iran (which doesn’t seem to have ever been the plan in the first place). Regime change would require ground troops and/or arming Iranian opposition (which is still reeling from earlier this year). And thus far, Trump hasn’t had the appetite for that.

Good point on the Reagan podcast this week about JD Vance sharing many of the same views as Michael Moore 20 years ago. I’d never thought of that, but both economically and on foreign policy, he sure does! — Ben G.

Thanks. They assuredly have differences on social issues, but there’s A LOT about today’s Right that lines up closely with yesterday’s (and even today’s) Left. Vance is an especially good example. A lot of people just haven’t noticed it, because ideological differences have been replaced with reflexive tribalism.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

This $5000 “carrot” that Trump floated comes off to me as nothing more than a grandiose, BS, campaign promise like every other politician. And no, I don’t like it. The other thing is, how is this any different than Biden promising to pay off student loan debt.

To me, they are both “vote buying”. And again, I despise it. As always, I could be wrong. But I’m independent, so objectively, that’s my take on it. Every White House lies. And Politicians, especially in an election year, are prone to say anything. I rely on John and Bernie to sort things out. So I always appreciate that!!!! — Rob O.

Hi Rob. As I’ve argued, I do think it’s very similar to Biden’s student-debt forgiveness efforts — just more brazen in the rhetoric, because Trump is making it purely conditional on Republicans maintaining congressional majorities. But I’ve also argued that it’s assuredly not going to happen. Aside from this being at least the fourth time Trump has promised “stimulus” or “dividend” checks to Americans in his second term alone, the condition he laid out this time — of the Republicans maintaining the House — has virtually no chance of being met.

Of note, Bill O’Reilly said [Trump’s $5,000 promise] is not a bribe because the recipients don’t have to do anything, i.e. there’s no quid pro quo. REALLY? Does Mr. O’Reilly think his base viewers are that stupid? Or maybe he thinks they’ll want to believe his remark so much that they’ll accept it without question? Or maybe Mr. O’Reilly is willfully dense when it comes to his old buddy Donald Trump.

He promised that at the so-called Mid-Term Convention when he was urging the audience - those in attendance especially but also viewers and those getting their info from right-wing screechers - to not only vote Republican but to canvass for Republicans and, yes, to vote more than once. Although on this last statement, his hardcore supporters will say “he was only joking.” But he’s the President of the United States delivering a primetime speech!

Although those included in his bribe were those not voting Republican, obviously for the Republicans to win the mid-terms there’d have to be collective and feverous activity.

If the bigwigs in the Democratic Party leap tall buildings to deliver the mid-terms to the Republicans, will President Trump’s hardcore supporters say “He was only joking” when he reneges on his promise? — Bob H.

The generic, widely-accepted definition of the word “bribe” is:

a payment or reward offered to influence a person's behavior or decision.

Personally, I think that applies very well to this situation (as it did to Biden’s student-loan forgiveness efforts). Trump is offering a direct payment to voters, contingent on Republicans holding congressional majorities, to influence those voters to vote for Republicans in the midterms. If someone would rather not use the word “bribe” to describe such a thing, I guess I don’t care much… as long as they’re politically consistent with it.

As for what would happen if Republicans held both a House and Senate majority (the odds of that are almost nothing), and Trump didn’t deliver on his promise, I think his hardcore supporters would just shrug it off, and carry on like he never said it in the first place. Trump has reneged on all kinds of promises, and his supporters never seem to mind.

Sir John, according to this video, two U.S. teens in Alamo, Texas were on their way to enlist in the U. S. Marine Corps; they even had their papers with them. Allegedly they began recording an ICE encounter with someone else. ICE agents eventually caught up to them and brutally assaulted and detained them while blatantly ignoring their proof that they were on their way to enlist in the USMC. After this encounter, the teens are now understandably reconsidering their plans to enlist. The usual suspects in the media (specifically Telemundo & The New Republic) are of course painting this as another example ICE “Gestapo” promoting the white supremacy of the Trump Administration. On the one hand, if this reporting is totally accurate, then the rogue ICE agents must face justice for this abuse! On the other hand, stories such as this (like that hoax about the old man getting picked up by ICE and being deported to El Salvador while he attempted to renew his green card) seem tailor made for leftist media. Do you know anything about this story? Can you share some light on it? —“Dishonorable Intentions In Texas” Regards from The Emperor

Emperor, whenever you begin a question with “according to this video,” a little bit of me dies inside. Lol.

No, I don’t know anything about the story. But I do know that random people can and do post misleading or unsubstantiated takes on YouTube, and make money off the attention they receive. Thus, I don’t use YouTube as a reliable news source.

Some say Bill O'Reilly makes efforts on his NSN to humanize Pres. Trump much more than Trump deserves; one example being he states our president doesn't want to send ground troops in Iran because he doesn't want to kill Iranians. In your opinion, are some attempting to "humanize" Trump far beyond reality? ICE has been accused of human rights violations and he, Trump, has no problem with ICE tactics or abuses. He won't mandate body cams- that speaks volumes. — Sharon H.

Broadly speaking, Sharon, pro-Trump commentators have been doing this type of thing, on a routine basis, for the last ten years. Few want to acknowledge to their pro-Trump audience that our president’s decisions are largely based on self-interest and often even whims, because that would be an admission that he’s a shallow figure, and poor leader, who almost always puts himself before the country. And that would hurt the MAGA mythology.

Thus, the inclination has been to twist and bend Trump’s decisions into artificial alignment with some ideological or moral framework, to make them appear noble and provident (when they’re often not).

In regard to this specific issue, I don’t think Trump’s reluctance to use ground troops in Iran has anything to do with the sanctity of life. Like you, I haven’t seen much evidence of him being a humanitarian. I think he just wants this conflict to be over, because it’s making him look bad, and sending in ground troops would be a significant escalation of the conflict. Trump has made very clear (in his own words) that he believed the military operation in Iran would go down similarly to how the one in Venezuela did: a quick removal of the top leadership, and the rest of the regime just kind of falling in line to play nice with the United States. But that was never going to happen, unfortunately, and so tougher decisions have been called for.

How am I not supposed to laugh at commenters who claim you’re not a conservative, while they simultaneously defend Trump’s leftist income-redistribution ideas, trade wars, and other socialist policies? — Ben G.

Feel free to laugh, Ben. It really is absurd. But I find it more sad that funny. It’s clear such people have no idea what conservatism and socialism even are.

Did you ever think you’d hear an FBI Director advocating for the right of a human “victim” of bestiality to become an FBI agent? Lol — Alex D.

No, but it sadly didn’t feel out of place in today’s politics.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

As a conservative, one of my big frustrations over the past decade has been the willingness (and even eagerness) of self-described conservatives to support and defend initiatives and rhetoric from Donald Trump that are antithetical to conservatism.

I’ve offered countless examples of this over the years (including very recently), so I won’t run back through the list again. But my biggest problem with this tribal inclination is that it conflates the wisdom and successes of fusionist conservatism (that has greatly benefited our nation) with the unprincipled whims, musings, and posturing of a single individual whose actions have steadily chipped away at it.

We’re at the point that authentically conservative ideas (as they were widely understood from the 1950s up until the Trump era) have largely been eradicated from the Republican Party.

This has done an enormous disservice to our the country, the evidence of which presents itself in every sobering glance at the national-debt clock, our government taking equity stakes in dozens of private companies, a self-defeating trade war, the needless alienation of longtime allies, a rising abortion rate, select culture battles, and almost daily displays of federal corruption and executive abuses — many of the rationalizers and blame-shifters of which call themselves “conservatives.”

So yeah, it’s all pretty irritating to me.

What I don’t believe, however, is that the mislabeling has been done out of spite, mockery, or conscious disrespect for conservatism and conservatives. I think it’s instead a convenient rhetorical fallback that lots of people have grown accustomed to, are comfortable identifying themselves with, and continue to use mostly out of habit.

I can not say the same of other activity that comes out of Trump World. It often seems as if the president and his team are conducting some type of social experiment, in the vein of the movie “Trading Places,” in which they’re determined to see just how foolish and hypocritical they can make their most loyal defenders look.

It’s no secret that Trump and company pay very close attention to the narratives and discussions that take off in the right-wing media (heck, they shape many of them). They’re keenly aware of what types of conduct, when displayed by prominent Democrats, are found especially outrageous and contemptible by pro-Trump audiences. Thus, it’s remarkable how often they not only exhibit the same conduct themselves, but ratchet it up to a far more contemptible and outrageously corrupt degree… with the clear (and well-founded) expectation that their passionate supporters will either ignore it, or full-throatedly defend it.

There are many examples of this, but two recent stories illustrate the practice quite well.

We all know the saga of President Biden’s degenerate son, Hunter. Beyond the drug abuse, tax evasion, and exhaustively recorded sexual promiscuity is a guy who spent years trying to cash in on his dad’s name. During the Obama era, there were clear instances of Hunter at least attempting to sell foreign energy companies access to his vice-president father. That revelation later became a major, years-long, Republican and right-wing-media line of attack against Joe Biden, the Biden administration, and what was often referred to as the “Biden crime family.”

Sean Hannity alone, on his Fox News show, aired over 300 segments on Hunter Biden’s corruption, including how Hannity believed it implicated President Biden.

Fast-forward just a few years…

Last May, Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr., got married on a private island in the Bahamas. Some observers found it odd at the time that the patriarch of the Trump family — our president — wasn’t in attendance. What wasn’t known until very recently was that the lavish event was secretly paid for, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, by a Russian oligarch named Umar Kremlev.

Kremlev has a long criminal history, and has been personally sanctioned by Ukraine for his role in the abduction of Ukrainian children. He has control over major automotive and gambling assets, and perhaps more notably has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Not only did Kremlev fork over a six-figure sum to assure the Trump family had a marriage-kickoff they’ll never forget. He was also a guest at the event, the attendees of which the Trump newlyweds have described as a small group of close friends and family.

As Propublica reported, “Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family… For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections… National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?”

One of those national security experts is retired FBI official Frank Montoya Jr., who told Propublica, “If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something… This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

But as we’ve learned countless times in this political era, things that were previously considered unthinkable are now just commonplace… as are the tribal obligations to overlook or defend the indefensible. Case in point, as of the time I’m writing this, Sean Hannity has yet to publicly even mention the Kremlev story. In fact, the story has received only one brief mention (less than a minute of air-time) on all of Fox News, and that was by Bret Baier.

The same has largely been true outside of Fox, with Ben Shapiro being one of the very few Trump-friendly commentators who’s bothered to respond to the controversy.

The other recent news-story of note is President Trump’s vow to send every adult U.S. citizen a check for $5,000 if — and only if — Republicans keep both the Senate and House in the midterm elections. This has received a lot of attention on the political right. But rather than framing the ploy as a shameless act of bribery, income redistribution, or socialism (the way righties justifiably described President Biden’s student-loan forgiveness efforts), many prominent right-wing commentators have twisted themselves into the rhetorical pretzels to defend it.

“It’s not a bribe because it’s not done in secret,” Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld insisted the other day. “If it’s in public, it’s a deal. And it’s not a bribe if it’s your money… Meanwhile, the Dems… it’s always other people’s money — that’s where it’s socialism. They promise people who aren’t paying taxes that they’re going to get more money. That’s socialism.”

Gutfeld’s nonsensical, fact-averse defense was widely mocked online, with a number of people pointing out that almost half of the Americans who’d receive a $5,000 check, under Trump’s “deal,” pay no federal income taxes. Another 20-25% pay less than $5,000 a year. In other words, by Gutfeld’s own definition, it would, in fact, be socialism. It would also be a bribe — at least according to the Greg Gutfeld of 2022, who routinely applied the term to Biden’s student loan stunt (which, like Trump’s proposal, was “not done in secret”).

“Kind of amazing that Gutfeld thinks Fox viewers are stupid enough to believe this,” remarked Vanity Fair’s Aidan McLaughlin. “Just extraordinary contempt for your audience.”

Indeed. And it’s not just contempt. It’s also mockery of those who’ve placed their trust in him.

Unsurprisingly, Sean Hannity defended the socialist bribe as well, calling concerns over the $1.2 trillion of additional national-debt required for the plan’s implementation to be an “intellectually lazy argument.”

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy marveled at “how creative and rule-breaking and out of the box President Trump is.” She added, “I'm surprised no one has thought of this before.”

In reality, lots of politicians have thought of bribing voters… just like lots of political commentators have (at the behest of politicians, political movements, and business models) displayed breathtaking hypocrisy and hackery that disrespects their audience.

But audiences don’t have to go along with the nonsense. Neither do political constituencies. No one’s forcing anyone to reduce themselves to mindless political servants. That’s a choice. And when it comes to choices, it’s always better — at least in the realm of politics — to choose principles over people.

The former preserves your credibility and dignity. The latter compels you to surrender both.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

Trump is now promising to send $5,000 to every adult American citizen if Republicans hold the House and Senate. This is not just plain bribery, but in-your-face socialism. I thought Trump was supposed to be saving us from socialism (that’s the line anyway). Your take? — Alex D.

Many of my fellow righties hate when I say this, Alex, but it’s demonstrably true: Trump has done more socialist things, as U.S. president, than any other president in my lifetime… all while insisting that he’s saving the country from socialism. It’s pure gaslighting, and it’s been very sad to me how many of my fellow righties — many of whom still self-identify as conservatives — refuse to see through it (and even cheer it on).

This particular bribe (as you properly labeled it) would cost $1.3 trillion that we don’t have, and thus would be added to our national debt (which is currently racing toward $41 trillion). It would also drive inflation back up.

Now, the good news, purely from a fiscal perspective, is that Trump is also chronically dishonest. Since returning to the White House, he has promised $5,000 stimulus checks in the form of a “DOGE dividend," $2,000 stimulus checks in the form of a "tariff dividend," and $1,000 checks in the form of "savings" from expiring ACA subsidies. None of these things ever happened. Plus, he has an ‘out’ this time, because he knows Republicans are going to at least lose the House.

Still, Americans (especially conservatives) should be angered and embarrassed by this stuff.

Do you think the question, “Do you love America?” which on the surface is a pretty straightforward question, is now viewed thru a political lens, as almost everything in our society now is? What I mean is, people now read an underlying intent or agenda into the question, rather than accept it at face value. “Do you love America?” could be interpreted as “Do you love Donald Trump’s America?”, or a couple of years ago, “Do you love Joe Biden’s America?”.

If one has an unqualified love for America, why would one need to “Make America Great Again”? The implication is that America is NOT currently great. — John M.

I’m glad you asked this, John. I certainly don’t view that question through a political lens, by I know that a lot of Americans absolutely do.

A few months ago, I interviewed Kevin Williamson of The Dispatch, and we got into this very topic. He did a great job of explaining why so many Americans view that question differently based on who’s sitting in the Oval Office:

It’s important for Americans to remember that the president isn’t the country. He’s not even the government. He’s just the chief administrator of one branch of one level of the American government.

We have a tendency to have this kind of quasi-monarchist view of our country, in which it’s personified in some mystical way by the president who’s become this increasingly, strangely sacramental and spiritualized figure in American life, which is the root of so much of our political discomfort, I think.

When you have a president that you think of as the personification of your country, then one half of the country is always going to be sort of miserable and unhappy when they’re the ones out of power, because it feels like they don’t have that special connection to their country…

I think he’s absolutely right.

O’Reilly can be a polarizing figure, and I don’t agree with everything he says, but he’s adamant that he is fact based on his reporting, and will not ever use anonymous sources. Also claims he has a staff of over 25 people working for him in vetting anything he reports. So when he said THIS on his show, it grabbed my attention. He was asked why the House Democratic votes under Speaker Pelosi were always unanimous, and he responded that she threatens to take away the campaign funds of any dissenters. Huh? And he also said nobody in the CMS media will ever report it. Have you or Bernie ever heard this? We’ve all heard she ran the House with an iron fist, but this sounds like extortion. And how would she have the authority to even do this. I know one thing, it seems to make sense. Because the Dems, unlike the GOP, always stuck together. Could Speaker Johnson do the same thing to get the votes he needs on critical legislation. Not saying I agree with it.

And one other thing. Unlike Fox News viewers, I’m not outraged by Bernie’s integrity (and yours), I’M THANKFUL FOR IT. It’s why I subscribe. — Rob O.

First of all, Rob, thanks again for the kinds words. We really appreciate them.

Regarding Pelosi, that’s not quite right (though it’s not totally wrong either). Democratic House votes were not unanimous under her. They were certainly highly unified by historical standards, but not unanimous. And the primary reason they were unified is that Pelosi wouldn’t even bring legislation to a vote until she was certain she had enough Democratic votes to get that legislation passed. Some people believe that made her a very effective House leader. I think it was a bad practice, because it stifled open congressional debate on legislation, which is sort of how the legislative process is supposed to work.

That said, there were indeed occasional reports of at least implied threats from Pelosi against fellow Democrats when it came to specific legislation, like the Build Back Better reconciliation package. The Democrats had a slim majority in the House at the time, and there were some Democratic holdouts who were trying to get some extra goodies. Behind closed doors, Pelosi reportedly implied that she would put a hold on their campaign funding if they didn’t fall in line. I don’t think this was standard operating procedure for Pelosi, but it was clearly part of her procedural arsenal.

I'm gobsmacked at this one- Trump posts an AI image of himself holding hands or arms with Dolly Parton after her death while everyone knows she was politically neutral, even refusing awards so as to NOT appear political. Dolly's sister Stella is furious, to say the least. This behavior has hit an all-time high, so, what's next? — Sharon H.

All-time high? In the grand scheme of things, Sharon, I think this is actually very small potatoes. It’s probably not even one of Trump’s top-10 most off-putting responses to a celebrity’s death (the mockery of Rob Reiner’s murder being number one). Heck, it’s probably not even in the top 1000 worst things he’s posted on social media.

Here’s how I broadly look at Trump’s behavior: America chose to send Donald Trump back to the White House after he tried to overturn U.S. democracy, caused a deadly riot/insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and showed-off stolen top-secret government documents (including nuclear and war plans) to random people at his country club. After that, the sky was the limit. Someone with Trump’s ego could have only interpreted his reelection as societal validation of his actions, and a deeper permission structure to say and do whatever he wanted for the next four years. Any trepidation from his first term (instilled by the much better presidential advisors he had back then) would essentially become nonexistent.

Thus, we’ve gotten mass pardons of criminals (including hundreds of violent ones), the blatant political-weaponization of the DOJ, the unprecedented personal-monetization of the presidency (that has at least quadrupled Trump’s net-worth), central planning of the U.S. economy, a left-wing crackpot in charge of HHS, a Fox News weekend host in charge of the DOD, etc. The list goes on.

So, in comparison, the Dolly Parton post isn’t even a blip on the radar (at least not my radar).

John: A recent poll showed that 92% of Americans - a record number - distrust the U.S. government. But the latest initiatives by both parties want to greatly expand the size and role of government. I'm having a hard time squaring these two seemingly contradictory situations. Can you explain this? — Steve R.

Yes. The explanation is that neither major political party has any interest in building or maintaining the public’s trust.

Republican leaders largely just do whatever Trump wants, and let him get away with all kinds of things they’d never tolerate from a Democratic president. Democratic leaders largely buried their heads in the sand (until they couldn’t any longer) over our previous president’s cognitive incapacity to do the job. Now Americans are watching wacky DSA candidates make inroads in the Democratic Party.

Neither party is taking on our nation’s biggest challenges, and proposing serious solutions to serious problems; they’re much too busy fueling culture battles, stoking grievance, bribing select constituencies, and burying us under mountains of the debt (while claiming it’s entirely the other side’s fault).

But as Bernie has pointed out numerous times, the unindicted co-conspirator in all of this is the American voter (92% of whom currently say they distrust the government). That’s who keeps putting these untrustworthy clowns in power. In most cases, I blame primary voters (and those who don’t bother participating in the primaries) more than I do general-election voters, but nonetheless, elections have consequences. And now… here we are.

Sir John — as we remember the terrorist attack from Al-Qaeda on 9/11, I’m hearing that some New Yorkers don’t want Mandani attending any anniversary acknowledgements because of his association with alleged terrorist sympathizers. Your thoughts? — “Never Forget!” regards from The Emperor

I suppose I can understand that point of view, Emperor, but as the mayor of New York City, Mamdani will assuredly be attending 9/11 anniversary events.

For years Trump has been making up stories about his actions and supposedly what he witnessed on 9/11/2001, including taking his “crew” down to Ground Zero and he and them helping with the rescue and recovery efforts. That didn’t happen, and yet he brought it up again this week during a speech, and added some story about two firemen picking him up and rushing him to safety. I’ve seen some people describe this as “stolen valor.” Do you agree? — Ben G.

Yes, I think that’s fair. By falsely claiming that he essentially ran toward the danger at Ground Zero, and participated in the work that actual heroes (who put themselves in real danger) were doing, he absolutely opened himself up for that criticism.

As an acquaintance of mine said the other day: “There was a time when a politician making up a story like Trump did about 9/11 would just totally and irrevocably sink them forever. And it was maybe only 12 years ago.”

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

I have been and still am a fan of Bill O'Reilly but I agree he goes easier on President Trump than on others who display behavior similar to that of our president. My opinion is that to behave differently would hinder his access to information he may otherwise not have. What say you? — Benn H.

Hi Benn. I certainly think access plays a role in it, but speaking in broad terms (because this is an industry-wide issue, and not unique to any one person), the primary consideration for many professional political-media commentators and organizations is audience-share.

I think we can learn a lot from Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott’s “respect the audience” business philosophy. It basically comes down to telling viewers (in this case the Fox audience) what they want to hear… rather than the sometimes hard, fair-and-balanced truths they do not want to hear. Bernie has argued that Scott’s model is actually the opposite of respecting the audience, and he’s absolutely right. If you’re in the news business, respecting your audience means leveling with them, and at least trying to be fair (aka using single-standards) in your coverage.

Honesty, earnestness, and fairness — however — can drive viewers away. Suzanne Scott is well aware of this. In an internal email in the wake of the 2020 election (which later went public thanks to the Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit), she infamously complained about (and scolded) Fox hosts and reporters (including Neil Cavuto) who were, on-air, responsibly shooting down Trump’s unsubstantiated “stolen election” claims. Scott was upset because a lot of Fox viewers — who desperately wanted to believe that Trump could only lose if the election was stolen — were turning off Fox in large numbers, and switching over to Newsmax (who was playing faster and looser with the “stolen election” nonsense). She also complained that fact-checking was “bad for business” because “the audience is furious.” That point alone speaks volumes.

Though the 2020 election drama was perhaps an extreme example, her email offered the public a very revealing look at how the right-wing media operates in the era of Trump, including their fears, pressures, motivations, priorities, etc. Those business considerations, by the way, are why Fox News sidelined Bernie a few years earlier. The Fox audience was outraged by Bernie’s honest, fair criticisms of Trump, so the network pulled him off the air (for a year!) until his contract ran out.

But it’s not just Fox. It’s how a large majority of the political-media operates, to varying degrees. Chris Stirewalt (who was famously fired from Fox News for correctly calling the 2020 race for Joe Biden) spelled all of this out in his book, Broken News. These individuals and organizations know what their audience wants, and they know what will keep them coming back for more. So, to stay successful, they give their audience those things good and hard. They’re also keenly aware of how much (and what type of) intra-tribe criticism their audience will tolerate… and they’re careful to stay on the right (aka safe) side of that line.

This is a proven business model for sure (Scott is still Fox News’ CEO, even after the $787.5 million settlement with Dominion). Many people (both talented and untalented) have made a lot of money using it. What it requires, however, are lots of double-standards and a great deal hypocrisy (which, unfortunately, most political consumers don’t care about anymore).

So now James Clyburn has joined Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and other non-DSA Democrats in jumping on the “pack the Court” bandwagon, or at least being open to it, and at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if supporting Court packing, becomes a litmus test for Democrats running in 2028. (I don’t think Clyburn himself is running, but Buttigieg, Harris and Newsom all are, and his badge of approval obviously would give a big boost to a candidate).

I have also started to see some fringe right-wing pundits stating that Democrats are obviously going to pack the Court as soon as they get the chance, so Republicans should do it first.

I must even admit that I am starting to think the main problem with Court expansion is the obvious incentive for both sides to keep doing it until we wind up with 99 Justices on the Court. But I am starting to wonder, if say, a Constitutional Amendment was passed that fixes the number of Justices at 13, that might eventually make it less politicized because the confirmation of a single Justice would be much less likely to completely change the ideological make up of it.

So, do you expect to see Court packing actually happen in your lifetime? If so, do you think it will be started off by Democrats or Republicans? — Aylene W.

I would be surprised to see court-packing in my lifetime, Aylene, but it’s well within the realm of possibility. It would be perfectly legal, and can be enacted through the regular legislative process.

If it were to happen, I think it would most likely come from the Democratic Party, being that the Supreme Court currently has a conservative tilt, and likely will for the foreseeable future. Also, as you point out, Democratic leaders are the ones making most of the hay about it… though it may well just be a political/electoral ploy to excite the base. People may remember that Biden talked about court packing too, but nothing ever came of it while he was in office.

Personally, I’m against court packing. I think nine justices make sense, and see no reason, beyond political/partisan interests, to change it.

How hard did you laugh at the House passing a resolution officially condemning and denouncing socialism "in all its forms”? — Ben G.

Yeah, I took it about as seriously as O.J. Simpson’s vow to “catch the real killers.”

As I keep arguing, Ben: Between the DSA, and Trump taking government equity stakes in dozens of private companies, both parties have been remarkably accepting of socialism.

Scott Bessent this week blamed Ukraine (not the Iran War) for high gas prices. Do you think he actually believes that? — Alex D.

No, I don’t. And even if one wanted to make a superficial argument that Ukraine targeting Russia’s energy assets, in defense of their country, is contributing to already high gas prices, the blame for that falls on Russia (the unprovoked invader of a sovereign country). Not Ukraine.

Bessent made that statement on Fox & Friends, which is apparently President Trump’s favorite show. In other words, Bessent was speaking to an audience of one. And because Ukraine is a favorite whipping boy of the president’s, he chose to throw them under the bus instead of telling the truth.

Sir John —recently country / western music star Jelly Roll hosted the Jimmy Kimmel show for the week. While there, he made some rather crude and nasty jokes about President Trump, which enraged much of Jelly Roll’s conservative Christian fan-base (some of whom called for boycotts, while others labeled him a “fake Christian and a hypocrite”).

At first, Jelly Roll was defiant and encouraged the boycott. However by the time his final night of guest hosting rolled around, he gave a much more humble defense about making jokes about presidents who should be “able to take” a few jokes, while he simultaneously reiterated his Christianity and emphasized that mercy should include Democrats and Republicans, emphasizing that everyone is entitled to mercy. Well…okay. Personally I’d never even heard of Jelly Roll until the conservative pundits brought up some clips of his infamous anti-Trump monologue, and I add that I agree philosophically with Jelly Roll’s points, and of course I can’t boycott somebody I never heard of.

What I do question is his sincerity on the final broadcast. If he truly was comfortable with angering his fan-base, then why did he give a semi-apologetic defense of himself on the final show? It never worked for the Dixie Chicks with conservatives, nor did it work for J.K. Rowling with the liberals (although Rowling was never apologetic about her views on the trans culture, she has emphasized that she still leans left politically.). I ask you—- is it brave for artists to crap on their fan base? Is it wise!? Is it cowardly & hypocritical for them to try and half-heartedly justify themselves afterwards? —“Jelly Roll Damage Control” regards from The Emperor

Hi Emperor. Like you, I had never heard of Jelly Roll. I also don’t like Country music, don’t like Jimmy Kimmel (or his show), and am not motivated at all to get on YouTube and seek out the singer’s anti-Trump monologues (or his “humble defense” of those monologues). As I wrote a while back, I stopped caring about celebrities weighing in on politics a long time ago.

I’ll just make a few broad points, to hopefully satisfy your question:

• I think organized boycotts over stuff like this are pretty lame. If an individual doesn’t want to support an artist or entertainer, because they object to something that person said, fine. It’s a free country. No one’s forcing anyone to give such people their money. But taking on an activist role over it strikes me as a performative display of self-importance. These aren’t elected leaders, or public policy proposals. They’re entertainers.

• If someone wants to question someone else’s Christianity, based on that individual telling some “crude and nasty jokes,” they’re certainly free to do that. But if they go that route, it would be great if they used that same standard for other individuals, who at least claim to be a Christian, when they do the same type of thing. Otherwise, the objection isn’t to the conduct, but rather the specific individual displaying that conduct.

• It’s often (but not always) professionally unwise for an entertainer to publicly express his or her political views — especially if those views are sharp and divisive. It can run the risk of costing them money and opportunities. If someone goes that route, I suppose it could be considered “brave” (depending on the circumstance), and “less brave” if they later try and walk back their comments. But — like I said — I can’t bring myself to care about stuff like this anymore.

Til next week, Emperor.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

One of the frustrations of writing from a conservative perspective in the Trump era is having to sometimes remind yourself that the conservative positions you’ve long maintained — which were previously understood (and largely shared) by your fellow righties — have since been forgotten by a significant number of people who still think of themselves as conservatives. In some cases, they may have never truly explored those positions in the first place.

As I wrote in my last column, this really shouldn’t be surprising. Though the views I subscribe to broadly defined the mainstream conservative movement for close to 60 years, they’ve largely gone undefended over the last decade — at least by those with large public platforms. Few Republican leaders seem interested in them now, and the self-described conservatives who funnel outrage to millions every week (on cable news, popular podcasts, and social-media) are mostly focused on Trump sycophancy, culture-war battles, and otherwise owning the libs.

Gone are the days of Charles Krauthammer as a revered thought-leader on the American Right. Now, smug, know-nothing whataboutists like Jesse Watters rule the roost.

Philosophical foundations, including those that have led to sustained periods of great success and prosperity, can only last so long on muscle-memory. Without gatekeepers and others willing to debate and persuade potential converts on conservative ideas, people were bound to forget them, and fall for the allure of personality-based populism — the success of which is measured not by conservation, enduring success, or the betterment of society… but rather grievance, attitude, and tribal solidarity.

Case in point, our national debt recently flew past the $40 trillion mark. The United States is now spending more on interest payments (to service that debt) than on national defense. Our major entitlement programs are just a few years away from insolvency. Our cost of living is through the roof. Executive abuses and federal corruption have become normalized. And seemingly every week, we’re learning more about the poor planning and mismanagement behind the ongoing Iran War (along with the U.S. vulnerabilities it has exposed).

These are serious, substantive issues. And yet a big focus of our president and his loyal defenders, at least at the moment, is finding more ways to further demonize and screw up our relationship with Canada — one of our closest, safest, and most mutually beneficial allies.

No, I’m not talking about the dopey “Lake America” trolling (though the Right’s jubilation over that juvenile nonsense goes to my larger point). I’m referring to the latest round of Trump’s trade war. Despite the economic damage it has caused to our country, much of the effort being deemed illegal, and all of it amounting to an assault on the longtime conservative tenet of free trade, Trump’s appetite for punishing our allies (often at America’s expense) appears as strong as ever.

As we learned a few months ago from our president’s 2025 financial disclosure, Trump, unlike an overwhelming majority of Americans, has personally made a lot of money off his tariffs. But his mistreatment of our allies clearly runs much deeper than a warped view of international trade.

In a recent Q&A, a subscriber to this website asked if Trump’s latest abuse of Canada stemmed from his “failed excursion into Iran,” and the emotional need to “bully” someone who he could do so with “relative impunity.” While I think there may be something to that, the problem (as Ukraine, South Korea, Greenland, Denmark, and other countries can attest to) is much broader.

While Trump treats anti-America dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un with fawning praise and respect, he takes the opposite tact with many of America’s friends and free-world partners, casting them as leeches and ingrates who only take advantage of the United States’ outsized role in the world order.

I recently spoke about this to Bobby Miller, a commentator and foreign policy scholar from Georgetown University.

“President Trump… has a tendency to do this with a lot of our allies,” Miller told me during the interview. “And while this sort of bravado might sound appealing, superficially appealing — you know, ‘We’re the boss’ sort of machismo; ‘We’re telling our allies how to behave, and they better be supplicants of ours…’ I think the fundamental problem, something that President Trump misunderstands, is that one of the keys to American hegemony — one of the reasons why we have achieved so much... is that we don't treat allies like supplicants. We treat them as equals.”

This is one of those positions that I think most conservatives (and probably most Americans) not only used to understand, but also understood the purpose of. It’s more than a matter of honor (though honor is very important too).

Miller was kind enough to lay it out. “There’s something called mutually beneficial exchanges… There doesn’t need to be this adversarial relationship with our allies, where we’re extracting something. We both can benefit.” He also described how “allies allow us to project power into areas of the world where we aren’t always physically present.”

Miller says that the president’s needless disparagement and punishment of our allies has many of them questioning American resolve — a trend he believes started under Obama, and has only gotten worse under Trump. When allies start to view the U.S. as unreliable (or potentially even hostile), Miller argued, their strategic plan changes. They begin to hedge their bets, either by building more amicable relationships with bad actors on the world stage (including sworn enemies of the United States), or by seeking strategic independence.

That latter may sound good to some, ceded Miller, but he believes that view is short-sighted. He says that if U.S. allies go their own way, their strategic autonomy may well run contrary to U.S. interests.

“Having this vast alliance network,” he added, “has been of immense benefit to the United States… A lot of Americans have taken this world order for granted, and how beneficial the post-1945 arrangement has been for the United States.”

He’s right. And if the Trump era has proven anything, it’s that millions of Americans have taken all kinds of things for granted. Our next president, if he or she has any sense at all, will invest a lot of time in rebuilding our strategic alliances.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John: I am reading the interesting book, “Suicidal Empathy” by Gad Saad. Early in the book, Saad describes four key principles of an ethical journalist as described by The Society of Professional Journalists. Two of these are “Seek Truth and Report It”, and “Minimize Harm.” But what if the truth harms a particular group? Should you refrain from sharing it or obfuscate key features to “minimize harm”? No sooner did I read this than the story of black Cambridge University professor Jason Arday’s suicide made the news. Arday was under heavy scrutiny for rampant plagiarism, a very suspect back story, and other aspects of his life that did not pass basic fact checking. Cambridge University held a vigil for Arday, and the participants mostly blamed the British press for racistly noticing Arday’s suspect personal and academic record. I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist, but you’re the professional writer. Where do you stand? — Steve R.

Hi Steve. Again, I apologize for not seeing this question last week, when you originally asked it.

I haven’t read “Suicidal Empathy,” but the “minimize harm” part you describe does strike me as odd, at least in the journalistic sense. I can think of many scenarios in which attempting to minimize the harm of a story could prevent the necessary truth from coming out.

As for Arday, it’s a tragic story for sure. I can think of certain instances of suicide, in which I do place some partial blame on others, but this isn’t one of them. Revealing that someone in a position of public trust is a fraud isn’t unethical. I’m sure there are better comparisons, but when journalist Brian Williams was exposed for his many false accounts, pretty much no one felt he should be shielded from hard criticism and professional accountability. Unfortunately, Arday handled the fallout much differently than Williams did.

Any thoughts on the passing of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry this week. — Alex D.

Only that both were pop-culture icons, and that Parton was widely beloved for her kindness, generosity, and charitable giving. Unlike lots of people, I never had any particular fan-affection for either of them. Their movies weren’t really my thing, and I was never into Country music, but my sympathy certainly goes out to their families and friends.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump’s trade war has resulted in the United States now paying 75% more for aluminum than the rest of the world. Why are we still doing this crap? The tariffs have done nothing but hurt our country. — Ben G.

We’re still doing this, Ben, because Trump thinks tariffs are super cool, and he loves treating our allies like dirt (even at the expense of our own country). We also know now that he personally makes a good amount of money through stock trades, as a result of his tariff announcements and other central-planning efforts. One more possible explanation, at least in regard to Canada, is covered in the next question…

Questions for the Friday Q&A:

1. Do you attribute Trump’s newly revised bullying of Canada and South Korea a return to “Trump’s Greatest Hits” after his failed excursion into Iran? In other words, like a classic bully, he backed down (while continuing to talk tough) when someone (Iran) stood up to him, and then returned to someone he could bully with relative impunity (Canada, and to a lesser degree, South Korea)? I’m expecting him to bring out the “we need to control Greenland” screed next week.

2. Do you and Bernie think the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by nominating DSA candidates in competitive districts/states, thus making the GOP candidate come across as the more reasonable choice?

3. How concerned are you that Trump will try to thwart the results of the mid-terms if things don’t go his way, for example declaring a National Emergency, seizing voting machines, etc... ?

— John M.

Hi John. I’ll answer one question at a time…

Bullying our allies

You’re broadly right about Trump’s treatment of U.S. allies. He loves to publicly humiliate them, treat them like ingrates, and needlessly punish them economically and/or through the denial of previously pledged support. He thinks it makes him look tough and strong. In reality, it hurts our country (both economically and geopolitically), and compels good foreign actors to build or strengthen ties with bad foreign actors. I can’t emphasize how damaging this has been to the United States, while Trump flatters, fawns over, and makes unbelievable concessions to sworn enemies of America (like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un).

As for whether this latest round of bullying Canada, and now South Korea, stems from Trump trying to revitalize his “tough and strong” persona after ending up in an embarrassing stalemate with Iran, I think it’s entirely possible. Trump’s ego and self-interest dictates almost every decision he makes.

The Democrats snatching defeat from victory with DSA nominees

I assume, John, that you’re referring to 2028, since I don’t think any DSA candidates have been nominated in swing districts/states this year (unless you count Abdul El-Sayed, who isn’t technically a DSA candidate).

So, do I think that DSA candidates can lose winnable seats for Democrats in 2028? Yes, I do. I think we might also see some saner GOP candidates in 2028, with Trump on his way out (and less interested in purging non-conformists from the party). Then again, voters may be so sick of Trump and the GOP by November of 2028 that there could be an electoral bloodbath-victory for the Dems… no matter what.

Trump trying to thwart the midterms

I’m not terribly concerned about it, John, mainly because Trump’s name isn’t on the ballot. As I’ve argued a number of times, I don’t think Trump really cares about the GOP Congress, and whether Republicans hold a majority. In fact, I think he sort of likes the (false) narrative that other Republicans can’t win unless he’s on the ballot.

Trump has proven that he’s more than willing to try and overturn a U.S. election when he loses one. But I very much doubt he’d bother to put forth the effort for other Republicans. Then again, when I give Trump the benefit of the doubt on something, he often proves me wrong.

Sir John — apparently there is some backlash over “a secret meeting” between Hakim Jeffries and Jared Kushner. Any idea what this meeting was about? Are there some shenanigans going on politically? — “Behind Closed Door” regards from The Emperor

I think the most likely explanation, as suggested by the reporting, is that Trump knows the GOP will lose the House in the midterm elections, and his administration is trying to gauge what kind of relationship he may have with the Democratic Congress at that time.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump was interested in trying to work some backdoor deals with the Democrats — perhaps something along the lines of vowing to sign big bills they want passed in exchange for minimizing congressional investigations into him and his partners/allies.

People forget that when the Dems won back the House during Trump’s first term, Trump caved to their wishes multiple times, just to avoid a fight. (Like the Dems, Trump’s a big-government guy, and couldn’t care less about restraining spending). This time, he’d have even more motivation to give them what they want: self-preservation.

Editor’s Note: The below question from Bob H. was trimmed for length (though it’s still fairly long):

Last week Bill O’Reilly ranted against Sen. Ossoff for an off-color remark he made about a WH aide. O’Reilly called him a guttersnipe at least twice. He said Sen. Ossoff was a despicable human being. He looked into the camera and raged with obvious vitriol “Is this who you want representing you?,” presumably addressing Georgia voters. Not an exact quote, but close enough. O’Reilly then said he’d vote for Putin if he were running against Sen. Ossoff. Days later, when Chris Cuomo, called O’Reilly out for this, he said maybe he’d stay home if Putin ran against Sen. Ossoff. Really?

On his Monday show, O’Reilly again ranted against Ossoff, again calling him a guttersnipe and a despicable person. O’Reilly said character matters. Over the last 10 days, O’Reilly must have devoted at least 30 minutes on his show, on Cuomo’s show, and on Leland Vitter’s show to angrily tear into Sen. Ossoff for supposedly being a guttersnipe and a despicable person.

When O’Reilly went on Chris Cuomo’s show, Cuomo rebuked O’Reilly for going bonkers against Sen. Ossoff but saying nothing about President Trump, who does the same thing on a regular basis. Cuomo’s point was that O’Reilly, who claims to be a fair-minded journalist who doesn’t play favorites while claiming that almost every other commentator is dishonest, O’Reilly was being hypocritical by spending so much time angrily tearing into Sen. Ossoff, calling him a guttersnipe and a despicable person and putting him in league with Putin, but not doing anything near comparable with Trump.

Cuomo said that O’Reilly “says nothing” about President Trump frequently demeaning women for just doing their jobs. Here, he was wrong. Actually, O’Reilly says VERY LITTLE about President Trump frequently demeaning women for just doing their jobs. In one segment he said “Why bother with that” (almost an exact quote) implying that such talk obscures his message, in another segment he said if he wants to protect his legacy he must stop doing that, in another segment he said he must put stop to it or it’ll harm him. In other words, O’Reilly NEVER angrily lambastes Trump him for demeaning women for just doing their jobs. O’Reilly said this with NO vitriol as with Sen. Ossoff ‘s singular comment. Rather, O’Reilly was giving Pres. Trump advice to help him.

President Trump demeans women regularly for just doing their job. As two examples, he told a female reporter “Shut up Piggy,” and he repeatedly demeans reporter Kaitlyn Collins at press conferences and once at the WH Correspondence dinner. Did Mr. O’Reilly rant on and on against President Trump about this? Did he call President Trump a guttersnipe even once? Did O’Reilly tear into President Trump with vitriol for being a despicable person? Did he put him in a league with Putin?

O’Reilly emphasizes that Ossoff is a sitting U. S. Senator. But Trump is a sitting U. S. President!

In fact, on one occasion O’Reilly said that President Trump’s bombast doesn’t bother him, “maybe it should, but it doesn’t.” Almost an exact quote. On another occasion O’Reilly essentially told viewers that they should focus on his policies, NOT on the “crazy things” he says. O’Reilly has NEVER angrily torn into President Trump, not by ANY stretch.

In a later episode, O’Reilly tried to patch his hypocrisy by saying that he said these personal attacks “on both sides” must stop. But this is not what O’Reilly said. And he claims to be an honest broker? — Bob H.

Hi Bob. I think your analysis is largely (or even entirely) correct. In fact, earlier this week, I happened to see a heated News Nation debate on this very topic between Cuomo and O’Reilly. I’m not a fan of Cuomo (nor O’Reilly) but Cuomo correctly pointed out, as you just did, that O’Reilly is being an enormous hypocrite on Ossoff’s comments.

Like I said last week, what Ossoff said was cheap, needless, and absolutely worthy of criticism. He was clearly implying that Trump and Natalie Harp were having an affair. O’Reilly, as you described, went absolutely ballistic over it. But as you and Cuomo pointed out, O’Reilly never takes that same tact (or anything close to it) when Trump says or does far worse (which happens on a regular basis). Instead, on those occasions when O’Reilly decides to weigh in on Trump’s bad behavior, he very calmly argues that it’s not in Trump’s political interest to conduct himself in such a manner. No strong condemnation. No anger. No vitriol. Just polite advice from a chum and admirer.

O’Reilly has never held Trump to the standards he holds Democrats, media-liberals, and other Trump critics to (nowhere close), despite Trump being the leader of a major political-party and the president of the United States. The notion that he’s a fair arbiter when it comes to Trump is patently absurd.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John, Just say Pres. Trump does not complete his term due to medical reasons and JD Vance is sworn in as president. Who do you see as Vance's choice of VP? I can envision this scenario truly happening next year. Trump's health is tanking. — Sharon H.

Hi Sharon. If Trump is unable to finish this term, and JD Vance takes over as president, Vance would get to nominate his successor. However, that individual could only assume office after confirmation by a majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In other words, if Trump’s hypothetical early-departure comes after January of 2027, Vance’s nomination would need confirmation votes from Democrats, in addition to Republicans (since the Dems will hold the House and possibly even the Senate at that time).

For that reason, Vance couldn’t get away with nominating one of his half-baked postliberal buddies like Tucker Carlson or Kevin Roberts. He’d have to instead choose someone who could get enough Democratic votes, like Marco Rubio (who’s still widely respected in Congress), though I’m not sure Rubio would want the job. Regardless, because of the need for bipartisan support, Vance’s theoretical vice president would have to be of higher quality than Trump’s current one.

All this extreme far left Socialist nonsense makes great news. Eliminating prisons, abolishing ICE, eliminating the Senate, open borders, eliminating the Electoral College, etc. Does anybody rationally really think for one second that any of these policies would get legislated into actual law. It’s like “Medicare for All”. Estimates are that would cost 4 trillion dollars. Politicians will say anything, but nobody ever asks them hard questions on HOW they are going to do it. I’m not sure the people that vote for them even care. — Rob O.

You bring up a very good point, Rob. While I have little doubt that the DSA crowd would love to get all of the things you listed legislated into law, there are a number of obstacles standing in their way, including public opinion, the separation of powers, and divided government (which, by the way, is another reason why the Senate filibuster should be preserved).

My bigger concern is with a U.S. president abusing his or her executive power, sidestepping Congress, and making radical changes that cause lots of damage until the Supreme Court eventually has to step in to deal with the mess. We saw this with Biden’s student-loan forgiveness venture, and Trump’s sweeping tariffs (which our country is still feeling the pain from). I’m assuming the courts will also eventually have to deal with Trump taking government equity stakes in dozens of private companies, which — as I keep pointing out — is far closer to textbook socialism than anything the DSA crowd has thus far been able to pull off.

I think your last sentence, Rob, is particularly important: “I’m not sure the people that vote for them even care.” I think that by and large, today’s voters care a lot less about policies and competence than they do grievance, attitude, culture-war stuff, and personalities… which is why so many of them are willing to vote for unfit loons who peddle terrible ideas.

Greetings Sir John—well it looks the residents of Seattle are circulating a recall petition for Mayor Katie Wilson. I seriously do wonder how many of them voted for her. I also wonder what the hell they expected when she didn’t hide what she is. I also wonder if they’ll be foolish enough to put somebody else in there similar after she’s gone. Your thoughts? Sing along with me. — “The dumbest mayor you’ll ever see is in Seattle… and the voters the bluest fools in Seattle… like a whiny spoiled child… acting dumb, fool… and wild…”. Perry Como Regards from The Emperor

I haven’t followed this story at all, Emperor, but I think that the last part of my response to Rob above probably applies to your point as well.

What are your thoughts on Ron DeSantis' political aspirations after Florida's election for Governor takes place? — Sharon H.

I have no idea what he plans on doing, Sharon, but few political analysts are bullish on him running for president again. He apparently did a lot of political damage to himself with Republican voters by challenging Trump last time… despite it not being much of a “challenge” (he could barely bring himself to criticize Trump until the eleventh hour of the primary, and then immediately fell in line behind him after dropping out).

My guess is that DeSantis will end up in a future Republican presidential administration, or possibly even the current administration before all is said and done (now that he’s re-prostrated himself for Trump). He’d honestly be an asset, because, like Rubio (and few others in this administration), he’s a smart, competent leader who takes his public responsibility seriously.

What’s your take on the whole Jon Ossoff blowup over his “Trump wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie” comment? — Alex D.

Interesting you should ask this, Alex. The other day, I weighed in on this topic on Twitter/X, and the post went a little viral:

I received hundreds of responses to it. Some people blindly accused me of defending Trump, ignoring Trump’s bad behavior, and being a MAGA guy … which makes absolutely no sense if you actually read the entire tweet… or pretty much anything else I’ve written about Trump over the last eleven years. There are plenty of hypocrites out there when it comes to Trump’s conduct (I addressed them in my tweet), but I’m not one of them.

Many others (and several of the same people) insisted there was nothing cheap or needless about what Ossoff said. They claimed he was making a general statement about Trump and his inner circle of sycophants. I very much disagree with that take. Ossoff was clearly implying that Trump and his staffer, Natalie Harp, are having an affair.

Nick Catoggio of The Dispatch (who isn’t a Trump defender either) mirrored my thinking in a recent column:

…if Ossoff wanted to make a point about Trump being surrounded by sycophants, there are scores of names he might have dropped that are more prominent than [Harp’s]. We’ve all watched those Cabinet meetings where the president goes around the table to receive North Korean-style fealty from the likes of Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. Why not mention them instead?

The senator knew what he was doing. (He’s reportedly quite mindful about the online “virality” of his speeches.) Harp is young, blond, pretty, and constantly by the president’s side. And Trump is a known philanderer with a well-earned reputation for lechery. Ossoff didn’t explicitly accuse the two of having an affair, but he didn’t need to, as his audience’s boisterous reaction to her name proved. The insinuation was clear enough.

…

Ossoff’s jab was sexist, implying that Harp’s boss keeps her around for extracurricular reasons rather than for her impressive talent at curating the paranoid disinformation he consumes. To accuse a woman of sleeping with her superior is to invite the world not to take her seriously, which is unfair when there are so many better reasons not to take Natalie Harp seriously. The fact is that there’s no evidence of a sexual relationship between her and Trump.

…you should frown upon a U.S. senator from the Party of Norms doing his part to normalize a stereotype about attractive young female aides who work in politics. Ossoff might limit his own insinuations to Harp, but not everyone who watched the clip of him speaking will. Some will find moral license in his bad example to demean other professional women toward whom they bear a grudge.

In a recent GOP Senate primary debate, Darline Graham (Lindsey’s sister) admitted that she doesn’t really know anything about foreign policy. Shouldn’t that be a basic requirement for running for the U.S. Senate? — Ben G.

Yes, it should. I had no real problem with Darline Graham being appointed to finish out her late brother’s term, but her actually running for a full 6-year term (with Trump’s support) is ludicrous. She has neither a clue nor interest in what the job entails. As conservative commentator Brad Polumbo argued, this is the “emotional equivalent of a DEI pick for Republicans”.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Last week, I co-interviewed Reason magazine’s Stephanie Slade about her new book, Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right. For those unfamiliar with the term fusionism in the context of American politics, it refers to a conservative philosophical synthesis that combines traditionalist/social conservatism (which emphasizes virtue, moral order, and inherited traditions) with classical liberal or right-libertarian principles (which emphasize individual liberty, free markets, and limited government).

This philosophy is perhaps most commonly associated with Ronald Reagan and Reaganism, which defined the Republican Party in the 1980s. Its origins, however, go back decades earlier to Frank Meyer, William F. Buckley, and National Review magazine in the 1950s.

Unfortunately, one would be hard-pressed to now find anything more than remnants of fusionism on the American Right. Today’s GOP largely defines itself by personal allegiance to President Trump (and whatever he decides to do or say on any given day).

Historically speaking, however, Slade argues that fusionism’s decline began decades before Trump arrived on the political scene.

“I think Reagan was sort of the apotheosis moment,” Slade told me. “… In America, the conservatives are trying to conserve the principles and institutions of the American founding… And that meant a commitment within the conservative movement to this sort of classical liberalism — the separation of powers, the rule of law, limited government, free markets.”

Slade explained that Reagan’s espousal of these principles, and his landslide electoral victories, pulled the GOP into alignment with fusionism. However, after the end of the Cold War, she argues, there was a decline of interest in talking about and promoting fusionistic principles, along with liberty and virtue.

“That kind of all goes away,” said Slade, “and you end up with a Republican Party and a conservative movement that is really mostly focused on just acquiring political power, winning elections, getting our guys into office, and beating the left.”

Slade called it an “understandable mistake,” adding, “There was this sense after Reagan and after the fall of the Soviet Union that ‘Our ideas have been so clearly vindicated that surely we don’t have to spend all this time thinking and talking and debating and persuading of that. Who could possibly doubt this liberty/virtue synthesis is the recipe for a successful society?’ But it turns out over time that if you don’t do the hard work of tending to that philosophical foundation, it will erode.”

I think Slade is largely right, though I also think she’s being a little hard on the post-Reagan, pre-Trump conservative movement. After all, I was only 16 years old when Reagan left office, and I couldn’t have told anyone at that time, other than in very abstract terms, what principles Reagan stood for. That wasn’t Reagan’s fault, of course; he was a brilliant communicator. I just couldn’t have cared less about politics in my youth, and took many things (including American prosperity) for granted.

Like many kids in the 1980s, I was raised with generally conservative sensibilities, but my political conversion to Reagan conservatism (or fusionism, if you will) didn’t really take shape until I was close to the age of 30. It came with the help of Republican and conservative thought leaders of the post-Clinton era — the types of people who used to be welcome on Fox News. I found their ideas, passed on from decades earlier, persuasive and aligned with historical success.

In other words, the torch was still being carried… at least at that time.

That said, if I hadn’t become a news junkie after 9/11, I may have never opened myself up to the conservative principles and voices that ultimately resonated with me on an intellectual level. As the president of the United States, Reagan spoke to the entire country from their living room (though a small number of widely watched television networks), and sold a large majority of Americans on his vision. Conversely, a dozen years after he left office, I had to go looking for well-articulated conservative wisdom. Thankfully, I found it.

Regardless, what was left of Reagan conservatism by 2016 took a sharp nosedive with the election of Donald Trump. Though two-thirds of Republican voters wanted a different presidential nominee that year, enough ended up supporting Trump in the general election to get him across the finish line. At which point, Republican and conservative advocates of things like moral character and decency, inherited traditions (including our constitutional order), limited government, free trade, and the rule of law found themselves increasingly at odds with the party that used to defend all of the above.

Over the years that followed, if Reaganites didn’t surrender their principles and positions for Trump, and play the role of his unconditional defender, they were considered turncoats and pariahs. They were called “liberals” and “progressives,” and purged from their positions of influence, including public office and prominent right-wing media platforms.

We’re now a decade into the Trump era, and the effects of the American Right’s unwillingness to stand up for fusionistic principles — in favor of grievance and personality-fueled populism — are on daily display.

Yes, daily. And if you don’t believe me, just look at some things that happened over the weekend…

Capitulation to North Korea

President Trump announced that he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the United States’ joint military exercises with longtime ally South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. Trump argued that military exercises with South Korea are “totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea — who Trump called “unthreatening and respectful.”

The reality, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. Just days ago, North Korea (who has long run concentration camps the size of Los Angeles, and routinely tortures and executes its own citizens) launched ballistic missiles at our allies, with no stated reason, and then threatened both the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang is actively aiding Russia in its war on Ukraine with missiles, ammunition, and even troops. Kim Jong Un has refused diplomatic talks with Trump and United States, while proceeding with his country’s nuclear weapons program.

It’s crazy that we’ve gone from boldly calling the communist Soviet Union an “evil empire,” and pushing strong policies to precipitate its collapse, to making life easier for perhaps the most brutal dictator on the planet, just because he found a way to personally charm Donald Trump.

But sadly, few on the Right seem to care.

Most Republicans now favor government price controls

54% of Republicans in a new CBS/YouGov poll said they approve of the socialist practice of government price controls. They join 62% of independents and 75% of Democrats.

“We have become economic illiterates,” remarked conservative commentator, Erick Erickson.

The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes lamented, “Supporters of free markets have a lot of work to do...”

“There is a crisis in economics and history education,” wrote economist Jessica Riedl. “People hear this question and think ‘yes I'd like lower prices’ with no understanding of basic supply and demand, 1970s gas lines, life in central planning systems, etc. Even GOP voters no longer understand how markets work.”

Suffice to say, they “no longer understand” because no one’s reminding them.

In fact, President Trump has done just the opposite, advocating for price controls on prescription drugs and gasoline, and a cap on credit card interest rates — a sharp deviation from the pre-Trump, free-market-friendly, GOP platform.

And few on the Right seem to care.

A closer look at Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom

Thanks in large part to a Washington Post investigation into President Trump’s White House Ballroom expenditures, we now know the price-tag of the massive project: about one billion dollars.

Contrary to the president’s longtime contention that it would be paid for entirely by private donors, U.S. taxpayers are flipping most of the bill — roughly $500 million of it — without Congressional authorization. Those funds were diverted from the White House Military Office and the Secret Service. And since the construction has yet to be completed (due in part to a legal concerns surrounding Trump’s sidestepping of Congress), it’s possible the construction costs will continue to grow.

“Set aside the law for a moment,” responded Gregg Nunziata of the Society of the Rule of Law. “Does it seem right to you that a president should be able to tear down a wing of the White House, build a massive new structure forever changing the executive mansion, while spending a billion dollars of taxpayers funds, just on his own whim?”

The optics of the story have always been bad — a ruling-class vanity project at a time when average Americans have been struggling, for years, with high living costs. But between the violation of the separation of powers, possible illegality, lying to the public about who was flipping the bill, and what some (understandably) consider a desecration of The People's House, this fiasco would seem uniquely symbolic of what conservatives used to refer to as “runaway government.”

And yet… few on today’s Right care.

Now consider, again, that these were just weekend developments — essentially footnotes in the context of the much broader, persistent, foreign and domestic challenges we face as a nation — most of which are being ignored or exasperated at our top levels of government.

It’s neither “TDS” nor “leftist” to care about such things. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

But the problem is even worse than that. Former Reagan conservatives who’ve thrown in the towel — to, in their eyes, remain politically “relevant” or be a team player — are just part of the story. Another big part is the future of the American Right.

“You’ll have generations of young conservatives coming up who have never engaged with these ideas, and don’t really understand the philosophy that they’re supposed to be defending,” Stephanie Slade said during our interview. “They think all that matters is winning elections and owning the left. And that’s kind of how we ended up with the movement we have today.”

It’s a scary thought, and it should be far more concerning to the Right than the viral-video culture battles and tribal loyalties we invest an extraordinary amount of our time and passion in.

Our country would be best served by us actually caring again — caring and informing fellow Americans about big-picture issues that have political solutions… and thankfully blueprints for success.

I think we owe our nation and future generations that.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

I can’t help but notice that Republicans, by and large, are far more resistant to the word “socialism” than actual socialism. As you’ve written before, Trump’s federal governance has taken our country closer to socialism than any president in our lifetime, and Republicans seem fine with it. You’ve complained that many on right have forgotten what “conservatism” and “liberalism” mean. Isn’t the same true for socialism? — Ben G.

I think it’s demonstrably true, Ben. Many of my fellow righties hate when I point this out, but it’s important to look at what Trump’s done:

He’s taken government equity stakes in at least 20 private companies now (some of those arrangements include the power to make business decisions in these private companies). That alone is closer to textbook socialism than ANYTHING Biden (and arguably Obama) ever did. Yet, Republicans largely shrug their shoulders at it.

There was no Republican backlash against Trump directing price controls for prescription drugs. He’s also advocated for credit card fee controls in the past, with little pushback.

His central planning efforts, and his extreme intervention in the U.S. economy with his tariff leveraging and manipulation, are other examples. And despite the tariffs producing terrible results (including driving up consumer prices), most Republicans still approve of them (according to the polls anyway).

So yeah, I’m not convinced either party-base really understands what socialism is anymore, because both are FAR too accepting of it. One side (the Dems) is just much more comfortable with the term “socialism.”

I don’t understand why people are making fun of Trump for being taken out of Air Force One in a catering truck, and transferred to a different plane, because of a security threat in Turkey. Do you understand it? — Alex D.

No, I don’t — not that part of it, anyway. To me, it seemed like a smart move by the Secret Service. What I found amusing was that people in Trump’s administration (including Marco Rubio) and members of the press were left on Air Force One, and took off in it, despite the threat being serious. I’m sure they were subject to an appropriate risk assessment and everything, but I at least get why people think that part of it is kind of funny (and maybe even symbolic).

Greetings Sir John — now that Francesca Hong got shellacked in the primaries, is there even the slightest chance that a lot of the corporate Democrats might be willing to stand up against the socialists in their party? Could the conservatives do the same against the diehard MAGA people that excuse the bad things that Trump does, such as being wishy-washy on dealing with the Iranian Mullahs? —“Will They or Won’t They?” regards from The Emperor

Hi Emperor.

To answer your first question, I think what we saw in Wisconsin was the Democratic base standing up to democratic socialism. And because it worked in this case, I do think there’s reason to believe Democratic leaders might grow a little courage and become more emboldened to speak up against the DSA crowd. I don’t have high hopes of that happening, but they’re slightly higher than before Hong lost.

As for the Republicans, I think it’s too late for that now. The midterm primaries are almost over, and while I’m glad Minnesota Republicans shut down Mike Lindell, the party advanced a lot of MAGA nutters elsewhere (like Ken Paxton). MAGA has been the GOP establishment for a decade now, and that won’t change until Trump leaves office for the last time. As we head into the 2028 election cycle, conservatives will have another opportunity to reclaim the Republican Party, but I don’t think Trump will make it easy for them.

You’ve written that Bill Cassidy has become a major disappointment. Which sitting member of congress (Senate or House) do you respect the most, if any? — Jen R.

Rep. Don Bacon. He’s a Reaganite conservative (perhaps the last one in Congress), and a rare adult in the room. He seems to have the right position on virtually every issue.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Over the weekend, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) found himself in the familiar position of being the deciding vote on a highly controversial Trump cabinet nominee. This time it was Todd Blanche. Blanche served as acting Attorney General for just a few months, but quickly demonstrated his commitment to further politicizing the Justice Department during that time. Highlights include him trying to establish the transparently corrupt $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” exempting President Trump from IRS audits, and criminally indicting former FBI Director James Comney over his placement of seashells on a beach.

Cassidy made his intentions clear on the Senate floor a day earlier. After stating his deep concerns with the nominee, the senator, reading closely from his notes, listed what he viewed as Blanche’s strengths and achievements.

Then… things got strange.

Cassidy argued that because Blanche previously served as Trump’s personal attorney, he would be “precisely the person to push back on” the president. He added, “The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”

‘It could be worse’ doesn’t feel like a particularly compelling argument for selecting a top cabinet official, but it was the one Cassidy offered. The senator then soberly declared that he would vote to confirm Blanche, adding, “I’ll be criticized for this vote. What’s new?”

At that point, Cassidy was overcome with emotion, appearing to tear up as he struggled through the last sentence of his prepared remarks: “But the people of Louisiana can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision.”

It’s hard to look at that clip and see anything other than a defeated man — a once widely respected elected-leader, tormented by his conscience in the face of a consequential decision for the country, surrendering — again — to political pressure.

And just like that, the last four months of brazen corruption and attempted corruption from Blanche (and the DOJ under his direction) was effectively ratified by the U.S. Senate.

One can only imagine what’s next on Blanche’s docket, now that he has the wind at his back.

The tale of Bill Cassidy is a tragic one. He did the right thing after January 6, 2021 when he voted to convict Donald Trump for inciting the attack on our nation’s Capitol. It likely wasn’t an easy decision at the time. Trump, after all, was the popular leader of Cassidy’s party, and just weeks after the attack, polls made it clear that the Republican base was rallying around the former president.

Cassidy could have just gone along to get along, and let Trump off the hook. That’s what most GOP leaders did. Instead, he patriotically put the country and U.S. Constitution above politics.

The senator did have one political advantage that most of his pro-impeachment colleagues didn’t. He’d won reelection just a few weeks earlier, guaranteeing himself another six-year term. That would give his deep-red Louisiana constituents (and the rest of the country) plenty of time to move on from the Trump years.

But, as we know, Republicans didn’t want to move on. Most never gave up on the lie that Trump had won the 2020 election. Many latched onto related conspiracy theories (including alternative January 6 realities) and never let go, convincing themselves that Trump was not an instigator, but rather a victim, of terrible injustices to our country.

Republican voters decided that Trump was therefore owed another term in office. And in November of 2024, after years of high inflation, a mentally compromised President Biden, and Kamala Harris failing to impress as Biden’s last-minute replacement, enough of the electorate was compelled to agree.

By then, all but a few pro-impeachment Republicans had been purged from Congress, not through general elections, but party pressure and GOP primaries (often with Trump’s direct involvement). Senator Cassidy, like the rest of us, watched it all play out. He planned to run again in 2026, and decided that if he were to stand any chance of being reelected, he’d need to pucker up and give Trump whatever he asked for… including the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Cassidy, a highly-respected physician, understood better than anyone in the senate just how glaringly unfit Kennedy was for the position. The senator openly stated his concerns — passionately at times, including over Kennedy’s long history of nutty vaccine-skepticism and healthy-industry conspiracy theories. But it was ultimately all for show. Cassidy surrendered his better judgment, and served as the deciding vote to put Kennedy in charge of our nation’s public health (along with confirming the rest of Trump’s nominees over those first few months).

Unsurprisingly, Kennedy made Cassidy pay for that decision. Within months, the HHS Secretary reneged on every vaccine-related assurance he’d offered the senator. He also defunded promising mRNA research, of which Cassidy was a vocal proponent.

Still, Cassidy’s reelection hopes remained alive. He spent lots of time publicly flattering the president, supporting him politically, and lobbying for him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But it was all for nil. Trump urged an election-denying primary opponent into Cassidy’s race, and quickly endorsed her. On the day of the Louisiana primary, Trump took the opportunity to call Cassidy a “disloyal disaster,” a “sleazebag,” and a “terrible guy.”

Cassidy, a two-term incumbent senator who’d won both of his previous statewide elections by double digits, finished in third place with less than 25% of the vote.

Following his defeat, Cassidy threw out some bold, independent talk, suggesting that in his final months in office, he’d stand up to the Trump administration when it made sense to. There was reason to think he might just do it, seemingly having nothing to lose politically. But Blanche’s nomination was a perfect opportunity to showcase that independence, and Cassidy, instead, just caved again.

“Battered wife syndrome all the way down,” a buddy of mine suggested as the reason.

I suppose there could be something to that, especially after Friday’s emotional display (which Cassidy later attributed to the overwhelming honor of being a senator).

“He doesn't want to spend the remainder of his life looking over his shoulder for that deranged MAGA thug who wants to avenge Donald Trump,” another theorized.

I doubt that’s the explanation, being that Cassidy’s impeachment vote (which he says he doesn’t regret) assuredly angered his constituents more than rejecting Blanche ever would have. Still, I suppose Cassidy could be longing for a peaceful Louisiana retirement, and is done ruffling partisan feathers.

Others are suggesting that Cassidy’s thinking about a future job as a lobbyist.

At this point, the “why” doesn’t matter much to me. What may matter to some of my readers is “why” I’m focusing specifically on Cassidy, when dozens of other Republican senators voted to confirm Blanche as well. I heard from people making that point after I singled him out for his RFK Jr. vote, and I suppose their question is a fair one.

The reason is that Cassidy, with his impeachment vote, proved he has more integrity, and a higher regard for the U.S. Constitution, than nearly all of his Republican colleagues. One could summarize that rationale as “he knows better,” but the truth is that most of the GOP Congress has long known better, but often chooses to do the wrong thing anyway.

Cassidy actually is better (or at least was better), and that’s why I expect more from him.

Maybe that’s unfair to the senator, but after handing the keys to people like Kennedy and Blanche, I guess I don’t care.

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John: I read an interesting Proverb a couple of days ago: "Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war. (Proverbs 20:18)" Who is guiding Trump in his execution of this military action with Iran? Is he receiving wise counsel, or does this thing have Trump's fingerprints all over it with its impulsive actions and lack of strategic thinking? — Steve R.

Hi Steve. I think Trump’s impulsiveness and lack of understanding on complex issues plays a big part in all of this. That said, in his first term, he had a number of hawkish foreign policy experts around him to shape his thinking. I think it was helpful. On the other hand, he largely ignored those advisors on Afghanistan. Biden did the same thing, and it was a huge mistake

In his second term, Trump does have some hawks in his orbit, but he also has a lot of “America First” non-interventionist types who are much more interested in appeasing America’s enemies, and building private business relationships with them, than helping our allies. I include JD Vance and Steve Witkoff among that crowd. Sometimes it’s those people who seem to be guiding Trump. Other times, it’s the hawks. I seems to depend, at least in part, on the last person he talks to on any given day.

Sir John — Ben Shapiro has been reporting that some high level security leaks have been occurring regarding Trump’s strategies on pending attacks on Iran. If this is true, then it reeks of high treason! SO…WHY hasn't security figured out who the leakers are and WHY are there no charges or prosecutions? I know Trump demands loyalty, so this is about as disloyal and dangerous to our nation as it can get. Your thoughts? —“PLUG The Leaks!” Regards — From The Emperor

I obviously don’t know for sure who’s leaking the information, Emperor, but there’s been wide speculation (including among serious people) that it’s JD Vance and/or the people on his team, who are ideologically opposed to U.S. military action in other countries. Trump has been denouncing the leaks (and vowing to find and punish the leakers), while simultaneously insisting that the information in the leaks is false (which wouldn’t really make them leaks). So, I don’t know what’s going to come from it.

Regardless, I think the leaks are a problem. Advertising America’s weaknesses or plans to our enemies (real or fabricated) does no good for our nation.

As it turns out, DOGE didn’t save our country any money. Elon and company misreported a bunch of numbers, and the only thing they really achieved was screwing up a bunch of infrastructure and workflow processes. Surprised? — Alex D.

No, not at all. Elon Musk is extremely bright in a number of areas, but he never knew what he was doing with DOGE. We know which government programs need to be reformed to actually curb spending, but he didn’t even touch those, and I don’t think he was allowed to. In the end, it was basically just a big show — a publicity stunt, of sorts. Sadly, a lot of people fell for it.

John, as we all know, agree or disagree, every President issues Pardons on their way out of Office. But aren’t they all normally for people convicted or accused of committing a crime? I’ve never understood why Fauci needed a last minute, preemptive pardon from Biden when he didn’t, to my knowledge, commit a crime. And as far as Biden claiming Trump would try to “trap” Fauci, he can’t be “trapped” if, again, factually he has done nothing wrong. The whole thing, at the very least, raises suspicion that Biden was aware of wrongdoing. And pleading the 5th last week just added to it. I don’t think preemptive pardons should be allowed for any President. And that includes Trump in two years! — Rob O.

Hi Rob. Typically, pardons are indeed issued for people who’ve committed known crimes, or have been charged with committing crimes. As you said, Biden issued a “preemptive” pardon to Fauci. He did the same to Gen. Mark Milley, and also members of the January 6 committee. It struck me as odd at the time, being that none of those those people had been credibly accused of actually committing crimes. I’m also not sure that any of them had even requested a pardon (some seemed legitimately surprised to receive one from Biden). When Biden, soon after, started pardoning his family members, it occurred to me that the earlier pardons were probably more of a smokescreen. I think they were handed out to those who Trump had publicly vowed retribution against, in order for Biden to later rationalize the pardons for his family (who he argued Trump would use his DOJ to target).

On a side note, the Trump DOJ did, in fact, end up targeting a bunch of political opponents, and the DOJ has been losing those cases (or having them tossed out) left and right. It’s been an abuse of power and a waste of time and public money.

As for presidential pardons, I think Congress needs to work to restrict them — perhaps by requiring a majority (or even a super-majority) of the Senate to okay them. Between Trump and Biden, the pardon power has been severely abused. Trump has already pardoned thousands of criminals — including filthy rich individuals who gave him gifts. I expect Trump to issue a full pardon for himself on his way out the door, as well as preemptive pardons for thousands of other individuals (including staff and business associates).

JD Vance fat shamed political columnist Marc Thiessen on X the other day, it seems out of nowhere. I know you’re not a fan of either man. Thoughts? — Ben G.

Hi Ben. You are correct that I’m not a fan of either of them, but that hardly matters in regard to this topic. I couldn’t care less about either one’s physical appearance or dietary choices, and I think it’s gross that the Vice President of the United States would use his position and platform for that. It’s obviously gross when Trump does it as well. I want adults leading our government and representing us in Washington. It seems like very little to ask, yet here we are.

By the way, some people were surprised that Vance would go after Thiessen, being that Thiessen is an unabashed Trump apologist. What they might not know is that Thiessen has been trying to lay blame on Vance for the missteps in the Iran War (in large part because Thiessen refuses to criticize Trump). So yeah, there’s definitely some heat there.

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.

Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s new Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.

It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):

Reagan Caucus Action

Discussions about Reaganite policy and statesmanship, civic education, and American constitutionalism.

By John A. Daly

Now, let’s get to your questions…

John: One of the good things that came out of North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico) hosting the World Cup is the number of foreign visitors mixing with locals. Call it a warm fuzzy or a feelgood, but almost all reported loving the interaction. The same goes for regular folks enjoying the Great American Road Trip this summer. Is there hope for America if we can just get out of the political class, off of Tic Toc, and into genuine human interaction? — Steve R.

I too enjoyed the mingling of cultures, and watching visitors to our country enjoy a heaping helping of American exceptionalism. I’m reminded often that America is so much better than the boobs who represent us in political office. Then again, it’s us Americans who keep electing those boobs.

What did you think about Laura Ingraham making faces behind Dr. Fauci throughout his congressional hearing? — Alex D.

Ingraham is always in actress mode — always (whenever she’s on camera, anyway). What made this performance particularly pitiful is that Ingraham has a long history of claiming that other people are “acting” during congressional hearings when they express any kind of emotion. She even said that about January 6 police officers, one of whom almost died at the hands of rioters. She really is an embarrassment.

So as I noticed you reposted a take from Issac Saul on it, what’s your take on the recently released Fauci emails? I read a few of them (mostly the ones from in the early months of the pandemic) and my general impression was that (1) Wow, this guy has a massive ego, surprised both his head and Trump’s could fit in the same room and (2) He really was scrambling and trying in good faith to figure out what was really going on and come up with ways to fight the pandemic.

Even Point 1 is caveated by the fact that doing comms on COVID actually was his job for much of the pandemic. So of course he would document what news channels and podcasts he went on. I was actually impressed at the ideological breath of his press hits. I also read a few of the Biden-era emails where he seemed to really have let the fame go to his head, and also seemed to be in CYA mode to some extent. But I certainly don’t think they exposed any villainous criminal plot to cover up The COVID Lab Leak on his part, either. — Aylene W.

Hi Aylene. I was kind of hoping no one would ask me about this, because I haven’t paid sufficient attention to the story — as of yet, anyway. But I’ll do my best…

Let me start by saying that during the pandemic, I had a pretty nuanced view of Dr. Fauci. I never believed him to be evil incarnate (like many on the Right did), nor did I think he was our saint and savior (like many on the Left did). My broad assessment was that he was an expert in the field (with a strong reputation) who came across as calm, measured, and knowledgeable during a time when Americans were absolutely desperate for that.

Prior to Fauci became the face of the U.S. government response to the pandemic, the federal government’s public relations efforts were a hot mess. No one seemed to be on the same page, Trump didn’t seem to be taking any of it seriously (many of us still remember those insane press conferences), and Americans were understandably confused and afraid. Fauci presented himself as the adult in the room, he gave answers that made sense, and it made him an unlikely cultural icon.

But as we would find out, he was a proponent of the “noble lie” (on things like mask use), which damaged public trust. His advisement to elected leaders (people forget he was an advisor, not a public-policy maker) erred on the side of overprotection — sometimes to a ridiculous degree. After a while, I think his role probably should have been filled by someone else.

Anyway, as for the diary revelations, I mostly agree with your assessments (including him being caught up in his newfound celebrity status at the time). But, from what little I’ve read, I do have concerns about Fauci’s conflict of interest in determining the origins of Covid-19. I think it’s fair to say that, at minimum, he was too dismissive of the Wuhan lab theory. What I don’t know is whether that dismissiveness was a conscious effort to save face (or an act of denial), being that Fauci’s agency helped fund the lab. I thought the origin of Covid-19 was important then, and I still think it is (for a number of reasons).

Please make sense of just what the H is going on in New York City. I’m so glad I don’t live there. They have a pro antisemitism, anti Israel, Mayor, in a city with the country’s largest population of Jews. And I just heard today where a third of them actually voted for Mandani. How is that possible. And then he comes out publicly and threatens to have Netanyahu arrested as a war criminal, which was foolhardy. He’s stoking hate and division by the day. And where is Chuck Shumer’s voice. As a Jew himself, where is his moral compass, AND LEADERSHIP. — Rob O.

Hi Rob. I think, especially in the political era we’re currently in, a lot of people tend to latch onto one central thing they like about a politician (often their personality or a populist message), become far too emotionally invested in that person (to the point that it becomes part of their identity), and then twist themselves into pretzels rationalizing their support for that individual (even in the face of that individual’s indefensible positions, decisions, and conduct).

Case in point, I think most of Mamdani’s supporters would swear up and down (and even convince themselves) — no matter what he says or does — that his opposition is to certain decisions being made by Israel’s government, and not something more deeply rooted. Those outside of their orbit can tell them all day long that they’re deluded and only fooling themselves, and it won’t make a lick of difference to them.

Someone like Schumer (a teammate of sorts) could be more successful, but again — in this political era — very few people are willing to stand up and tell their own team hard truths, because they fear being booted out of the team and out of power.

In case it isn’t clear from how I answered that question, it’s not just a problem on the Left.

Hello Sir John— Do you have any thoughts on the Nolan Wells mystery/tragedy and how Benjamin Crump and the family are handling the case? —“Robert Stack” Regards from The Emperor

I don’t have any thoughts on this, Emperor, because I haven’t paid any attention to the case at all. Sorry!

I listened to your interview with Scott English (Mark Sanford’s former chief of staff), and was surprised to learn he stuck by Sanford and continued working for him even after Sanford put him through that whole Appalachian Trail mess. If Bernie pulled something like that, would you stick by him? — Ben G.

Bernie can’t walk the Appalachian Trail because of his ankle bracelet, Ben. So, it would never become an issue.

(I should probably add that that’s a joke, lol).

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Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.