Connexion
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) envisions himself "running for president," Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), up for reelection in Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.
The post Exclusive – Rep. Scott Perry: Gov. Josh Shapiro Envisions Himself ‘Running for President,’ ‘That’s What He’s Gearing Up For’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The San Francisco offices of OpenAI. According to a court filing, a thumb-size recording device wrapped in toilet paper was found plugged into the back of a television in an executive conference room.
The far-left leader of the British Green Party, Zack Polanski, has been banned from entering the state of Israel after his party adopted a motion declaring "Zionism is racism" as official policy on Sunday.
The post UK Green Leader Polanski Banned From Israel After Party Backs ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Motion appeared first on Breitbart.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a tight race for his political future, with national elections this month that are widely seen as the most consequential in the country’s history.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked frantically to locate and arrest a suspect connected to a “credible threat” to attack the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas on October 1. The suspect, 40-year-old Benny Caldera Jr., was taken into custody early Wednesday morning after a DPS SWAT team located him at his residence in Converse, a suburban city 13 miles northeast of San Antonio.
The post Texas, Feds Stop Planned Terror Attack on Capitol in Austin appeared first on Breitbart.
But the devil is in the details.
No one would claim that the Iran War has been a political godsend for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But some Israel-First conservatives are willing to say—and lately have been incessantly saying—that the Iran War hasn’t been a political scourge.
Those Israel-First conservatives are wrong, even if the devil is, at least partly, hidden in the details. The Iran War has damaged Trump’s approval ratings, consumed his presidency, and darkened the GOP’s prospects in the upcoming midterm elections.
A chief proponent of the argument that Trump hasn’t suffered all that much from the Iran War is Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire. Shapiro’s political analysis is plainly motivated by the fact that he was a loud and influential proponent of the war who promised—falsely, as it turned out—that Iran couldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for the global energy trade.
These days, Shapiro seems to be implicitly acknowledging the war is very unpopular while trying to argue this fact has nothing to do with the declining approval ratings of the president who launched it. We should thank Shapiro, for he has expressed his new argument in such a way as to help us uncover those devilish details that make the Iran War a not-entirely-straightforward story of political calamity.
“There’s an op right now to pretend that the real reason for President Trump’s unpopularity is foreign policy, but that is not true, by the polling data, it is not true,” said Shapiro on a recent episode of his podcast. “The reality is that Americans have affordability concerns, President Trump came into office saying he was going to alleviate the affordability concerns. He has not in fact alleviated the affordability concerns, and therefore, his polling numbers have consistently slid since Liberation Day.”
This is a bit like me saying my wife isn’t mad at me because of the drinking, but because I drunkenly crashed the car.
The Iran War, as everyone now knows, has driven up prices at the pump—prices which, unfortunately for Trump, are prominently displayed on every major street across the country. On the eve of the war, regular gasoline averaged $2.98 per gallon. Today, at the time of writing, the average price is $4.48. Americans are notoriously averse to high gasoline prices and tend to punish presidents over the issue, sometimes even when the president can’t justifiably be blamed.
But make no mistake: Virtually every sentient adult understands that 1) oil comes from the Middle East, 2) Trump started a big war in the region, and 3) gas prices shot up right afterwards. And again, even if Americans didn’t grok the connection between the war and the gas-price spike, the latter would still have hurt Trump politically, and it would still be a knock-on effect of the former.
It’s not just prices at the pump that have gone up because of the war. Groceries and other consumer goods travel across this vast land on tractor-trailers that run on diesel and get a lot fewer miles per gallon than even your Uncle Larry’s F-350. Diesel prices have smashed records and now sit at around $6.50, up from $3.76 before the war.
No wonder truckers are furious, prompting rumors of an imminent strike.
And no wonder the Iran War has contributed to general inflation in America. Anyone who has been reading the official economic reports knows the war is responsible for more than a third of recent inflation.
Before the war, inflation was trending down, only a couple ticks away from the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. It seems likely that Trump, if he hadn’t started his dumb war in the Middle East, would have garnered praise for presiding over declining inflation and that the Fed would have cut interest rates, juicing economic growth. Instead, inflation now sits at 3.4 percent.
(As an aside, this weekend I traveled to Istanbul, where many Middle Easterners of various nationalities complained to me that Americans only oppose the war because of the gas prices. That’s simply not true. The war has been unpopular since day one, when all that Americans knew was the American-Israeli strikes had killed Iranian leaders including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.)
Shapiro, ever the neoconservative, insinuated in the quote above that the decline in Trump’s approval rating owes more to his tariffs than to his war. The data doesn’t back that up, as the conservative commentator and election analyst Ryan Girdusky noted on X in response to new survey data. “The most eye opening part of this poll is that Trump’s approval rating and the strength of the economy went up right after Liberation Day,” Girdusky said. “Fell slightly afterward and then plummeted at the start of the Iran War.”
Shapiro has unwittingly helped uncover another, subtler, way in which the Iran War has indirectly damaged Trump’s approval ratings and, by extension, the Republican Party brand. Shapiro recently went on Fox News to commiserate with the host Mark Levin—another Israel-Firster and warmonger—over all those dastardly antiwar conservatives blaming the Iran War for everything.
“Iran is a 4-percent issue with the American people,” Levin said, as Shapiro nodded in agreement. Levin was referring to Fox News polling that shows not many Americans name the Iran War as their top issue. “So, whatever happens in the midterms, it doesn’t appear that Iran’s going to drive anything one way or another.”
“I think that’s exactly right,” Shapiro replied.
Part of the problem with Levin’s analysis has already been covered above. In the Fox poll, a plurality of Americans—34 percent—named the cost of living as the most important issue, and the Iran War has made living costlier.
But the subtler problem is perhaps even more illuminating. Simply put, Americans believe Trump is too focused on foreign policy at the expense of the problem they really care about, which, in fact, his Iran War has exacerbated. This is a PR disaster for the Trump administration and the GOP. Americans don’t prioritize the war that has dominated the headlines and distracted the White House, even as Trump claims to have boldly prevented Iran from unleashing nuclear apocalypse.
It may be grotesque to find silver linings in this dumb and deadly war, but here’s one: Americans no longer buy the war narratives. That is certainly not, however, a silver lining for Republican candidates in this year’s election, no matter how cynically they try to distance themselves from the war. In fact, it’s a good bet they’ll do much worse than if Trump hadn’t launched this unnecessary war, despite what Shapiro and his ilk may tell you.
The post Yes, the Iran War Has Destroyed Trump’s Presidency appeared first on The American Conservative.
On Monday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) stated that she believes we should end the war in Iran now and the economic pressure on Iran is beginning to work. Capito said, “[T]he president…said it would be
The post GOP Sen. Capito: I Would Tell Trump ‘End the War Now’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Abdul El-Sayed’s sister said the Michigan Democrat Senate candidate is “not a capitalist” in a video published Thursday, contradicting how he has described himself to voters.
The post Hidden Camera: Abdul El-Sayed’s Sister Says He Is ‘Not a F**king Capitalist,’ Just Saying What Will Get Him Elected appeared first on Breitbart.
A campaign event in Jerusalem last month for the Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Colin Kaepernick knelt for the national anthem for the first time a decade ago. Nike rushed to embrace him then and has been paying a heavy price ever since, albeit with a brief spike in 2021, signified by plunging profits and a stock crash of 78 percent since that high.
The post Woke Nike Booted from S&P 100 as Stock Crashes on Dismal Sales appeared first on Breitbart.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) called out the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for being "deeply anti-American" and for wanting to "impoverish middle class" white people.
The post Fetterman: Democratic Socialists of America ‘Deeply Anti-American,’ Want to ‘Impoverish Middle Class Whites’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The policies of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) pose a threat to the United States' energy dominance, warns an expert memo provided to Breitbart News by the Republican lobbying and public affairs firm CGCN Group.
The post Exclusive — Expert Memo Details ‘Socialist Threat’ to American Energy Dominance appeared first on Breitbart.
President Trump said his defense secretary and secretary of state reached an agreement with the Venezuelan government on securing billions of barrels of oil reserves “through a partnership with private business.”
Megan Rapinoe jumped into the criticism of Enes Kanter Freedom over his comments about protecting women's sports
The post Megan Rapinoe Rips Enes Kanter Freedom’s ‘Protect Women’ Comments, Calls Him ‘Bad-Faith Actor’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Gov. Josh Shapiro ran out in front of the cameras to trash the Trump administration with lies about alleged deaths from measles.
The post Nolte: Coroner’s Information Shows Gov. Josh Shapiro (and the Media) Lied About Measles Death appeared first on Breitbart.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Liar) reportedly announced the deaths of two people from measles. This was not true.
The post Nolte: Josh Shapiro’s Great Pennsylvania Measles-Death Hoax Is Unraveling appeared first on Breitbart.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being scapegoated for two 'measles-associated' deaths in Pennsylvania when Anthony Fauci and the media are to blame.
The post Nolte: RFK Jr. Blamed for Two ‘Measles-Associated’ Deaths in PA Instead of Fauci and the Media appeared first on Breitbart.
A 35-year-old California man was arrested Tuesday after he parked near the United States Supreme Court with a wooden guillotine.
The post Nolte: California Man Arrested for Parking Guillotine near U.S. Supreme Court appeared first on Breitbart.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being scapegoated for two measles deaths in Pennsylvania when everyone knows the liars in the corporate media (especially CNN) and the disgraced Dr. Anthony Fauci are to blame for this.
The post Nolte: RFK Jr. Blamed for Two Measles Deaths in PA Instead of CNN and Fauci appeared first on Breitbart.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) responded to a recent poll that found that more than half of Democrats have a positive view of socialism over capitalism, stating that "this is lunacy."
The post John Fetterman Responds to Poll That Democrats Hold Positive View of Socialism: ‘This Is Lunacy’ appeared first on Breitbart.
More than half of Democrats hold a more positive view of socialism as opposed to capitalism, according to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.
The post Poll: 58 Percent of Democrats Hold Positive View of Socialism over Capitalism appeared first on Breitbart.
The latest attacks on Vance are clearly and irreducibly about foreign policy.
J.D. Vance has been taking fire of late. From the left, of course—but also from the right, whose remaining “zombie Reaganites” have launched an effort to call his conservative bona fides into question.
Much of this criticism purports to find in Vance nothing more than a camouflaged leftist. Writing of Vance’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience last month, commentator Ben Shapiro said he heard the vice president articulate “Bernie Sanders’ economics, Barack Obama’s foreign policy, and Ro Khanna’s conspiracy theories,” adding that Vance seemed to be “mirror[ing] the Democrats.”
But of these critiques, it is the second—foreign policy—that really animates the “conservative” carpers. It is this original sin that renders Vance untouchable to the old-guard “fusionists” of the right, for whom anything less than total devotion to the War Party and its partners in Israel is an excommunicable offense.
Consider the timing. Conservatism, Inc. began to attack Vance anew when the memorandum of understanding with Iran was signed––in other words, when the Trump administration acknowledged reality and made a move to wrap up a stupid and unwinnable war. Former Bush speechwriter and arch-interventionist Marc Thiessen dubbed it the “Vance deal.” Ultrahawk Max Abrahms accused Vance of not wanting to achieve the goals of the Trump administration in Iran, clearly working to frame Vance as opposed to the president and see Trump scuttle the agreement. Others of a similar bent (Ben Domenech, Brian Kilmeade) similarly tried to pin what they framed as a surrender on Vance.
These critics all wanted to use the vice president as a proxy to attack the deal itself while avoiding a frontal attack on Trump. If things went sideways, they wanted to ensure Vance would be left holding the bag. Heads, hawks win; tails, Vance loses.
It was, of course, all about foreign policy—specifically, Vance’s apparent enthusiasm for realism and restraint and his willingness to entertain the notion that perhaps policing the world and launching endless wars have been bad for America.
What gives the game away is that the economic critiques of Vance could usually be applied with equal justice to President Donald Trump–but rarely are. Shapiro, for example, has been willing enough to tolerate Trump’s frequent forays into economic populism without tarring him as a socialist. With the vice president, though, he has not pulled his punches. Now economics matters.
The difference is that the president gave Ben Shapiro and the Israel lobby the war with Iran they wanted. It seems that Shapiro’s criticism is selective.
But hey, if free markets are Ben Shapiro’s thing, maybe we should introduce him to the most laissez-faire Republican of the last twenty years: Dr. Ron Paul. Maybe the good doctor would be more to his liking?
Alas, it’s not to be. Shapiro spent much of the 2012 election cycle accusing Paul of antisemitism, and even disparaged Trump’s supposed embrace of a “Ron Paul foreign policy” during the 2016 campaign.
Michael Brendan Dougherty recently observed on X that, if the real issue were Vance’s “domestic socialism,” then the devotees of free markets would have spent far more time attacking Marco Rubio in the past few years. Rubio has played up his interest in the tradition of Catholic “distributist” economics during the past few years as part of his perpetual efforts to catch up to the political moment. He even contributed a chapter to a book edited by the famed distributist Dale Ahlquist, where they redub this outlook “localism” and promote it as an alternative to laissez-faire economics. What does Ben Shapiro think about Marco Rubio? This: “Waltz for NSA. Rubio for SecState. I’ve got a fevah, and the only prescription is more winning!”
At least Marco Rubio supports deporting college students who want to boycott Israel? I suppose that’s good enough for Ben.
The objections of Shapiro and others who share his outlook come down irreducibly to foreign policy. It is enough to make one wonder whether one of the legs of fusionism’s famed “three-legged stool”—which brought together foreign policy hawkishness, free-market economics, and social conservatism—was in fact bigger and more important than the others.
Because industrial policy, state involvement in the economy, and debt-funded spending are all fine when it comes to defense.
Ultimately, Vance’s critics are coming after him because he represents a major threat to the interventionism and mindless pursuit of global primacy that has done so much damage to our republic over the past three decades. They are, when it comes down to it, single-issue voters—and that issue is war.
The post All the Vice President’s Critics appeared first on The American Conservative.
Cunningham remarked in an ESPN profile that she supports fairness in women's sports and emphasized that while she does not have any prejudice toward transgender individuals, girls' sports and spaces deserve protection.
The post Megan Rapinoe Whines About Sophie Cunningham Taking Picture with Riley Gaines: ‘Everything I Need to Know’ appeared first on Breitbart.
There is "nothing more American" than socialism, and it has proven to deliver life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Colorado congressional candidate Melat Kiros asserted during a recent interview.
The post Candidate Melat Kiros: Socialism Delivered Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness; ‘Nothing More American’ appeared first on Breitbart.
A pregame ceremony at the FIFA World Cup final match last month between Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium. FIFA is expected to take in $15 billion in revenue from this year’s event.
The digital platform Capitol CNCT is helping young congressional staffers identify "bad bosses" and toxic offices without fear of backlash.
The post Capitol CNCT Helps Congressional Staffers Identify ‘Bad Bosses’ and Toxic Offices Without Fear of Backlash appeared first on Breitbart.
An entrance to the casino at the Inspire Entertainment Resort in Incheon, South Korea, in January.
Anonymous reviews of Rep. Don Davis’s (D-NC) office allege toxic management, high turnover, and campaign work during office hours.
The post Vulnerable NC Democrat Hit with Brutal Office Reviews Alleging Toxic Workplace, Campaign Work on Official Time appeared first on Breitbart.
Government protesters in Tehran in January.
Remembering Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a service at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance recounted Graham's humor, love of people, and his ability to "disagree with you without being disagreeable."
The post JD Vance Remembers ‘Swashbuckling’ Lindsey Graham: He ‘Loved People from All Walks of Life’ appeared first on Breitbart.
During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said that congressional oversight includes seeing how much spending “is being funded for the Iranian situation and where is the endgame”, which Secretary of Defense
The post GOP Sen. Capito: Hegseth ‘Vague’ on Iran Funds, Endgame, We ‘Exceeded’ ‘Promised Shorter Endgame’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Titans of the defense and tech spheres descended on the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, this week for Sen. Dave McCormick's (R-PA) Defense & Innovation Summit, where President Donald Trump's and McCormick's defense manufacturing boom in the commonwealth was on full display.
The post Trump’s Defense Manufacturing Boom in Pennsylvania Takes Center Stage at McCormick’s War College Summit appeared first on Breitbart.
Protesters against a law banning prosecution of ultra-Orthodox men for evading conscription, in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Sébastien Lecornu, the French prime minister, has called for France to increase its independence from American technology firms, announcing plans to replace Zoom with a French-developed version.
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