House Republicans in Democrat-controlled states are firing a warning shot at the Senate as it considers President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill.’

GOP lawmakers in New York and California have been demanding that senators leave the House’s increased state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the bill, even as members of the upper chamber eye it as low-hanging fruit for saving taxpayer dollars.

But those blue state Republicans have made raising the current $10,000 SALT deduction cap an existential issue, arguing it provides much-needed tax relief to people in high-cost-of-living areas. The SALT deduction allows people living in areas with high state and local taxes to deduct those penalties in their federal tax filings, up to a point.

‘When did taxing income that’s already been taxed become a Republican ideal? Our party has always stood for lower taxes and a fair, commonsense tax code. We worked in good faith with House leadership to secure a fair deal that provides our constituents with much-needed SALT relief,’ SALT Caucus co-chairs Reps. Young Kim, R-Calif., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., said in a statement.

‘Hardworking families we represent are penalized by the SALT cap, and this deal keeps the President’s commitment to fix this issue and has the support of firefighters, police, small businesses and working Americans who keep our country moving.’

House Republicans can afford little dissent with their razor-thin majority to still pass the bill again, if the Senate returned a modified version – something the SALT caucus pointed out.

‘The Senate would be remiss to forget that the path to 218 — and delivering for the American people — runs through the SALT Caucus,’ the statement read.

The House-passed budget reconciliation bill – aimed at advancing Trump’s priorities on tax, energy, defense, immigration, and the national debt – raises the SALT deduction cap to $40,000.

Republicans are working on the bill as the national debt climbs past $36 trillion.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., a SALT Caucus member and one of the House’s GOP tax-writers, sent in a statement to Fox News Digital, ‘The State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction negotiated in the House should NOT be altered by the Senate. It’s a Republican principle to allow taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money and taxpayers in New York and other SALT states deserve not to be double taxed by their government, especially when we also supported significant savings by rooting out waste, fraud & abuse in our states.’

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who also fought for the increased cap, signaled he would not support the bill if the Senate reinstated the lower number.

‘NY, NJ, and CA have and continue to subsidize many of the states represented in the Senate Republican conference. Furthermore, SALT has been used as a payfor for other provisions in the bill, including the doubling of the standard deduction, which is to the benefit of all Americans,’ Lawler wrote on X.

‘Since the last tax bill, 29 states have blown past the 10k cap. This isn’t a red vs blue issue, it’s an issue of double taxation. Since when do Republicans advocate for taxing you on top of taxes already paid? No SALT. No Deal.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., met with Trump to shore up support for the tax portion of the budget reconciliation bill, and said he recognized SALT was a key issue for blue-state Republicans in the House – but it was one that didn’t really move the needle for Republican senators.

‘We also start from a position that there really isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the SALT issue,’ Thune said. ‘It’s just not an issue that plays. Most of our states, we’re states that are low-tax states, and we don’t think that low-tax states ought to be subsidizing high-tax states.’

Indeed, no Senate Republican hails from a blue state, making the issue for many lawmakers in the upper chamber a moot point. And Thune’s position echoes that of many in the House GOP who were wary of increasing the SALT cap. 

Still, Thune and Senate Republican leadership acknowledge that whatever tweaks and changes to the budget bill that they make have to pass muster with their colleagues in the House.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Thursday morning that he is still keeping SALT lawmakers ‘calm.’

The speaker added that he had been urging the Senate to keep the House’s bill intact.

‘Look, the Senate Republicans are from red states, right? They feel the same way that I do about SALT, but I’m being very deliberate in reminding them that we have, again, this very delicate balance to maintain over here, and you’ve got to address the issue so that our members can take something home,’ Johnson said.

Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, Democrat Sen. John Fetterman and others are teaming up on legislation to codify oversight on foreign countries buying American farmland.

The bipartisan Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure (AFIDA) Improvements Act seeks to implement recommendations published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in January 2024, which found the AFIDA was ill-equipped to combat foreign ownership of American agricultural land. 

‘American farmland should remain in the hands of American farmers and ranchers, not foreign adversaries,’ Ricketts of Nebraska shared first with Fox News Digital. ‘The neighbors who feed us should benefit from land ownership, not Communist China. Food security is national security.’

The bill, also co-sponsored by Sens. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, John Cornyn of Texas, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska introduced legislation, requires AFIDA reporting for foreign persons holding more than one percent interest in American agricultural land.

‘Over the past several decades, China has been buying up American farmland in an attempt to infiltrate our agriculture supply chains. Food security is national security, and we cannot give the CCP a foothold,’ Tuberville said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

The AFIDA Improvements Act aims to increase information-sharing between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It also requires updates to the AFIDA’s handbook and establishes a deadline for USDA to set up an online AFIDA system. 

The bill’s House sponsor, Bacon, told Fox News Digital that ‘having actual processes in place will strengthen the security of our nation in the event nefarious foreign agents, such as the CCP, try to purchase agricultural lands within our nation.’ 

Based on the GAO’s recommendations, the bill seeks to update the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 to better equip the USDA to combat foreign adversaries’ ownership of American agricultural land.

Under AFIDA, foreign entities must disclose to the USDA transactions of American agricultural land. 

Foreign investors own over 40 million acres of agricultural land in the United States, and between 2010 and 2021, Chinese ownership of American agricultural land increased from 13,720 acres to 383,935 acres, according to the USDA. 

The AFIDA Improvements Act is the latest attempt by Congressional Republicans to track foreign ownership of American farmland and strengthen national security. It was first introduced by Bacon and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., in 2024. 

China owned around 350,000 acres of farmland across 27 states as of last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The movement to ban China from buying U.S. farmland located near military bases has been gaining steam in the Senate this year. The PASS Act, led by Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has the backing of Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and would prevent any entity from a ‘covered country,’ which includes China, North Korea, Russia and Iran, from purchasing agricultural land near military bases or sensitive sites. 

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Katie Britt of Alabama, proposed The Not One More Inch or Acre Act, earlier this year to ban China from buying U.S. land entirely. 

On the presidential campaign trail in 2024, President Donald Trump indicated he would ban China from buying American farmland. 

The Senate passed an amendment with bipartisan support in 2023 that would ban China, Russia, North Korea and Iran from buying American farmland and agricultural businesses, but it did not become law. 

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. 

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S. and Israeli-backed group, has been the subject of backlash since before it began distributing aid last month. Since the beginning of its operations there have been reports of violent incidents near distribution sites. Recently, the IDF admitted that troops shot ‘suspects’ who failed to heed orders to back away from the soldiers.

One of the most vocal critics of GHF has been the United Nations, with U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher urging the world to let his agency handle the situation. However, Israeli officials have pushed back on the U.N. narrative, saying that GHF is distributing aid without letting Hamas benefit.

‘Hamas is doing everything that it can to sabotage this effort to distribute aid directly to the people,’ Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Oren Marmorstein told Fox News Digital.  He also said that the terror group is ‘extremely afraid’ that if the GHF is successful, it will ‘lose its grip’ on the population of Gaza.

Marmorstein blamed Hamas for spreading ‘fake news’ and ‘fake information’ to take down the GHF.

On Wednesday, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages and the lifting of all restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the Strip. Israel has repeatedly asserted that without limitations on aid entering Gaza, Hamas would be able to enrich itself and keep control over the area.

In remarks ahead of the veto, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Dorothy Shea criticized the resolution, saying it failed to ‘acknowledge the disastrous shortcomings of the prior method of aid delivery, which allowed Hamas to enrich itself at the expense of Palestinians, and failed to get food and water to those who needed it most.’

She also urged U.N. member states to support GHF ‘to help it safely deliver aid without it being diverted by Hamas.’

Shea is not alone in her criticism of the U.N.’s approach to GHF. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon recently accused the international body of employing ‘mafia-like’ tactics against NGOs that worked with GHF.

‘Without any discussion, without due process, the U.N. removed those NGOs from the shared aid database. That database is the central system for tracking aid deliveries into Gaza,’ Danon told the Security Council on May 28. ‘This is the gravest violation of the U.N.’s own principles. It is extortion of well-meaning NGOs that refuse to kiss the ring.’

The GHF closed its distribution sites on Wednesday, saying it was working to bolster security and would reopen on Thursday. However, the reopening was delayed because of maintenance work. The sites eventually resumed aid distribution later on Thursday.

Trump-loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., dropped a bombshell this week, revealing that she had not read the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in its entirety and no longer supports it. 

Greene joins the growing list of President Donald Trump’s staunchest House GOP allies who have come out in opposition of the bill they voted for two weeks ago. 

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., another loyal MAGA member, said Elon Musk was ‘right to call out House Leadership’ this week.

‘I wish I had a nickel for every time the @freedomcaucus sounded the alarm and nobody listened, only to find out the hard way we were right all along. We expect MASSIVE improvements from the Senate before it gets back to the House,’ Perry said, referring to the bill he voted for. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by one vote in the House after weeks of overnight committee debates and last-minute huddles in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office. Coined by Trump himself, he has championed the legislation to fulfill his key campaign promises, including border security, American energy production and tax cuts. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is under consideration by both a Republican-led White House and Congress. But it’s faced hiccups in the Senate this week as Republicans have indicated they do not support the bill in its current form. 

Leading the charge against Trump’s champion legislation is Musk, who has been a fixture of the second Trump administration through his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk was a ‘special government employee’ until his leadership timeline expired last week.

And Musk’s newfound freedom from the executive branch seems to have inspired him to speak out about Trump’s bill.

‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,’ Musk revealed on Tuesday. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed a question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy this week about how angry Trump would be at Musk for undermining his legislation. 

‘Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,’ Leavitt said. 

Much of the discontent over the bill is rooted in Republicans’ reluctance to increase the United States’ national debt. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cut taxes by $3.7 trillion while raising deficits by $2.4 trillion over a decade. 

Meanwhile, the national debt rose to $36,215,207,426,690.65 as of June 4, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is up about $806 million from the figure reported the previous day.

However, Greene’s newfound issue with the bill has to do with its 10-year restriction on states regulating artificial intelligence (AI). 

The provision reads, in part: ‘Except as provided in paragraph (2), no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce, during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any law or regulation of that State or a political subdivision thereof limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.’

Greene, who voted in favor of the bill two weeks ago, said on X: ‘Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years. I am adamantly OPPOSED to this, and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.’

Not only does she regret her vote, but Greene is urging the Senate to remove the provision, or she won’t vote for the bill when it returns to the House. 

‘We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years, and giving it free rein and tying states’ hands is potentially dangerous. This needs to be stripped out in the Senate. When the OBBB comes back to the House for approval after Senate changes, I will not vote for it with this in it,’ Greene said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Greene for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report. 

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a Wisconsin-based Catholic charity group in a case centered on unemployment tax credits for religious institutions – delivering a victory for faith-based institutions, who argued that the state’s decision had violated the religious clauses under the First Amendment. 

In a unanimous opinion, the justices agreed that the state had engaged in an ‘unnecessary entanglement’ in attempting to define whether religious groups should be entitled to an otherwise-available tax exemption based on the state’s criteria for religious behavior.

‘When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny,’ Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, writing for the majority.

‘Because Wisconsin has transgressed that principle without the tailoring necessary to survive such scrutiny, the judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.’

The decision could clear the way for more states to broaden their tax-exempt status for religious organizations, with ripple effects that could stretch far beyond Wisconsin. 

The Catholic Charities Bureau asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that had required them to pay Wisconsin’s unemployment tax, after the state determined the group’s activities were ‘primarily charitable and secular,’ and therefore not subject to the exemptions.

Lawyers for the Catholic Charities Bureau argued the ruling was an unconstitutional violation of religious freedoms and amounted to viewpoint-based discrimination, and argued that ‘gospel values and the moral teaching of the church.’

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the group must pay the tax since the nature of their work was primarily secular, since it was not ‘operated primarily for religious purposes,’ and serves and employs non-Catholics.

‘There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,’ Sotomayor said on Thursday. ‘When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny.’

The decision comes as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has, in recent years, ruled in favor of religious institutions, including in cases like this one, which center on allowing taxpayer funds to be allocated to some religious organizations to provide ‘non-sectarian services.’

President Donald Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in a lengthy call amid economic and national security friction regarding trade between Washington and Beijing. 

‘I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal,’ Trump said Thursday in a Truth Social post. ‘The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.’

Trump said the conversation focused ‘almost entirely’ on trade, and that Xi invited the U.S. president and first lady Melania Trump to visit China. Trump also said he extended an invitation to Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan. 

Chinese media first reported the call between the two leaders on Thursday, and claimed that the call occurred per Trump’s request. White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told ABC News on Sunday that Trump was expected to talk with the Chinese president this week. 

The call comes nearly a week after Trump condemned China for violating an initial trade agreement that the U.S. and China hashed out in May, and a day after Trump said Xi was ‘extremely hard to make a deal with’ in a Truth Social post. 

The negotiations led both countries to agree that the U.S. would ramp down its tariffs against Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, and China would cut its tariffs against U.S. imports from 125% to 10%.

But Trump accused China on Friday of not holding up its end of the bargain, although he refrained from disclosing specifics. 

‘The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,’ Trump said Friday in a social media post. ‘So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!’

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday in an interview with CNBC that China had failed to lift its non-tariff barriers, as outlined in the deal. 

‘The United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance, which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed,’ Greer said Friday. 

Meanwhile, China pressed the U.S. to reverse course and address its own mistakes. 

‘China once again urges the US to immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva,’ Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a Friday statement.

But Trump later indicated that the two leaders ironed out their differences. 

‘We had a very good talk, and we’ve straightened out any complexity, and it’s very complex stuff, and we straightened it out,’ Trump said Thursday during an Oval Office press briefing with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 

‘I think we’re in very good shape with China and the trade deal,’ Trump said. ‘We have a deal with China, as you know, but we were straightening out some of the points… I would say we have a deal, and we’re going to just make sure that everybody understands what the deal is.’

Meanwhile, Trump’s invitation to Xi and Peng to visit the U.S. comes as Trump’s administration cracks down on student visa holders in the U.S. and as Trump has threatened to ‘aggressively’ rescind visas of students from China. 

On Thursday, Trump appeared to take a softer approach though and said that he did want foreign students to come to the U.S. — he just wants them to undergo proper vetting.

‘We want to have foreign students, but we want them to be checked,’ Trump said from the White House. 

There is mounting evidence that Joe Biden was president in name only during much of his time in office. In his stead, a cabal of top White House staffers appears to have secretly operated a de facto presidency, making crucial decisions without a shred of constitutional authority.  

If proven true, it would call into question the validity of pardons and executive orders issued under his name but without his knowledge or consent. For this reason, it is imperative that Biden’s closest advisers answer questions under oath and others in his orbit be forced to disclose what they knew or observed.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into the pardons, commutations and clemencies granted in the waning days of Biden’s presidency, including preemptive pardons gifted to a half dozen members of his own family along with his shifty son, Hunter Biden. The probe focuses on whether the elder Biden was competent and whether others were taking advantage of his seemingly diminished mental state.  

At the same time, the House Oversight Committee is intensifying its own inquiry into the alleged ‘cover-up’ of Biden’s cognitive decline. Of particular interest in both investigations is ‘the potential unauthorized use of autopen’ for many executive actions, said Oversight Chairman James Comer.

Did rogue actors commandeer the device from a clueless Biden to advance their own political and personal agendas? Was national security jeopardized in the process? Let’s call it, ‘The Case of the Runaway Autopen.’ Solving it won’t be easy, given Washington’s proclivity for concealment, deception, obstruction and lies.       

Comer has requested that five former Biden aides, including his physician Kevin O’Connor, sit down for transcribed interviews.  If they resist, subpoenas will be issued. While Biden might assert Executive Privilege to keep them mum, President Trump could override the privilege just as Biden did to Trump after his first term. Assuming he is sentient, Joe might now wish he had not done so.  

The issue of whether pardons and executive orders could be invalidated is not as simple as some legal experts have opined. They assert, for example, that nothing can be done because there is no constitutional mechanism to revoke or overturn pardons once granted. That is only half true.

There is a well-established legal basis for annulling documents. It is founded in common law.  It is called fraud. Under statutory law, it is known as forgery. (See 18 USC 471 and 495). Each are crimes that would render the signed instruments inoperative and unenforceable.    

Just ask the U.S. Supreme Court, which long ago declared unanimously, ‘There is no question of the general doctrine that fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments.’ (United States v. Throckmorton, 98 US 61, (1878))  There exists no exception for presidential documents.  

But let’s back up.

An autopen is a mechanical device that activates a robotic arm with a pen attached. It imitates a person’s signature, although it is identifiable by a consistent impression on the paper. Past presidents have utilized the autopen for a variety of documents. It is perfectly legal but with an important caveat —there must be consent by the purported ‘signator.’ In this case, that’s Biden.     

If the 46th president never consented or, worse, had no knowledge of the autopen’s use for any given document bearing his signature, it could be deemed null and void under law. If Biden was not even competent or mentally fit to provide knowing consent, the result is the same. 

Two decades ago, the Justice Department formally approved presidential deployment of the autopen, but only if a President personally ‘directs’ a subordinate to affix his signature to a specified document. However, the DOJ cautioned that the chief executive may never ‘delegate’ the actual decision to approve and sign any document with the device. That right rests exclusively with a president.   

The sheer volume of suspected Biden autopen usage merits closer scrutiny. The growing number of descriptive accounts of his worsening mental infirmities and incoherence magnifies the need for an intensive investigation. 

If his aides deliberately obscured their boss’s health problems, did they also circumvent his permission for orders issued under his name? Did they act on their own because they knew Biden was not cognizant or otherwise feared his confused response? Americans deserve honest answers. But expecting to get them from highly secretive political operatives is fanciful at best.

House Speaker Mike Johnson recently recounted his first private meeting with Biden last year during which the President had no idea that he signed an executive order weeks earlier pausing the exports of liquified natural gas. When Johnson pressed him, a stunned Biden insisted, ‘I didn’t do that!’ The speaker patiently explained that he did and a copy could be retrieved, yet the President insisted, ‘No, I didn’t do that.’  

‘He genuinely did not know what he had signed,’ said Johnson later. ‘And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble —who is running the country?’ Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.’  

It is possible that the executive order was signed by autopen without the consent or knowledge of the president. In the alternative, did Biden sign something that he was incapable of understanding? Perhaps his aides willfully misrepresented its contents. Or maybe Biden was so mentally impaired that he couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast, much less having signed an export ban that cratered American GDP by upwards of $200 billion.

It is beyond curious that the preemptive pardons handed out like Halloween candy to Dr. Anthony Fauci, members of the J-6 committee and six of Biden’s immediate relatives all bear the unique marks of an autopen. By contrast, Hunter Biden’s pardon almost certainly resembles his father’s genuine and shaky signature. Why the difference? Did Biden verily approve or direct the group pardons? Or did someone command the autopen without assent?

There is substantial and compelling evidence that Biden was sliding further and further into mental decay as his presidency progressed. Americans are right to wonder just who was running the country. Biden himself seemed to answer the question during several of his rare public outings.  

In one memorable appearance he said, ‘Sorry, but I’ll get in trouble with my staff if I don’t do this the right way.’  In another, a confused Biden turned to staffers and asked, ‘Am I allowed to take questions? Where’s my staff?’ On a still another occasion he mumbled with regret, ‘I thought when I got to be President, I’d get to do things I wanted to do, but my staff tells me what I can’t do.’ These are stunning confessionals.   

There is no need to recite the myriad of instances where Americans witnessed a faltering and enfeebled Biden wandering around a stage lost and bewildered. He was not ‘compos mentis.’ His mental faculties dwindled. His ability to think and communicate vanished. It all came crashing down on the night of June 27, 2024. The disastrous presidential debate reinforced the truth of his withering condition.     

It is increasingly apparent that a coterie of unelected White House aides who connived to hide Biden’s declining state were the ones making vital decisions behind the scenes. They reportedly called themselves the ‘Politburo,’ a nod to the ruling committee of the communist party in the former Soviet Union. The symmetry is not coincidental; it is revealing. They maneuvered and manipulated in a culture of dishonesty.

With Biden mentally incapable of fully performing the demanding duties of his high office, it seems that others took it upon themselves to arrogate his authority. This would constitute a shameful abuse of power that contravenes our constitutional framework. It merits comprehensive investigations by both Congress and the Department of Justice.

In responding to the probes, Biden issued a statement on Wednesday insisting, ‘I made the decisions about pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,’ adding that ‘any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.’ The denial is no surprise. But is it more of the same pretense and cover-up that came to define his presidency? Did Joe even write that statement?

Almost five years ago in my August 2020 podcast, I warned that if Joe Biden was elected, he would become a ‘Marionette President’ controlled by unscrupulous White House puppeteers making critical decisions for the nation. I wasn’t prescient, only paying attention to what was plainly visible.

What is so confounding —and equally alarming— is how long the deceitful charade lasted. As it slowly unravels, we are reminded that calculating lies rarely endure the engine of truth.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth kicked off Pride month this year with a shot across the bow of wokeness, as his plan to rechristen a Navy ship honoring gay rights icon Harvey Milk has emerged.

Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978, and in that same year he was gunned down, leaving him a legacy as a martyr to the cause of gay liberation.

Let’s be clear about two things. First, Hegseth is absolutely trolling the woke left with this move and its timing. Secondly, he is absolutely right to do so, because a navy vessel has nothing to do with men having sex with each other and that is the only thing painting ‘Harvey Milk’ on the side of the ship implies.

Harvey Milk is not a hero to everyone in the United States. One can wholeheartedly support equal rights without celebrating homosexuality, and asking naval officers and civilians to serve on the USNS Harvey Milk does just that.

The ship, which transports oil, isn’t named after Milk, who happened to be gay; it’s named after Milk because he was gay, and Hegseth is correct that this is wildly inappropriate. 

Why not the USNS Liberace? Think of the boon it would be to the domestic chandelier industry.

Progressives seem deeply confused these days about why they don’t appeal to young men, and I would like to submit that the USNS Harvey Milk is a pretty good example of why. 

You take some 18-year-old guy, maybe he watched ‘Top Gun Maverick’ a few too many times and wants to be a warfighter, then you point and say, there’s your ship, it celebrates dudes making out with dudes.

Let’s face it, most sailors in the Navy do not want to be sitting in a diner in 25 years wearing a ballcap that proudly states they served on the ‘Harvey Milk,’ and that’s OK.

Predictably, former House Speaker and San Francisco’s own Rep. Nancy Pelosi decried the decision to rename the ship, calling it, ‘a shameful vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers…’

Is there an element of revenge in Hegseth’s action? There might be, because for decades now Americans have been forced to swallow the bizarre notion that who you have sex with is something to be proud of, as if we should all applaud.

For decades now, every June at ballgames and in TV ads, on municipal buildings and subway trains the rainbow flag has been everywhere, demanding your consent to celebrate gayness.

In recent years, as the teal of the trans flag has bled into the rainbow, we have once again been told that we must accept an absurd lie that men can become women, as if this was just some a priori truth.

Not this time, and as America rejects the trans movement, it is also realizing that bending over backwards every June to cheer on homosexuality makes no sense in a society where gay people face little to no discrimination.

A warship has one purpose, to help to destroy our enemies. Everything about the vessel should be directed towards that goal, including the name emblazoned on it. ‘Harvey Milk’ fails that test.

Throughout the first quarter of the 21st Century, progressives have made enormous gains in American society, and they have generally assumed that once their new norms are established, they cannot be undone.

Hegseth, as he has done before by restoring the names of army bases changed by progressives, is showing that we can indeed go back. History is not a one-way ratchet that only turns left.

Progressives are firmly convinced that everything is an occasion for activism, that their preferred lifestyle and worldview should be threaded into every aspect of our lives. This is wrongheaded in general, but especially so in regard to warfare.

Hegseth is popular with soldiers and vets alike because he understands that his primary job is to kill the enemy while keeping his guys alive. It’s not to promote gay rights, it’s not to foster social justice, it is to destroy.

By all means, name a community center or a clinic after Harvey Milk, but not a warship. Those willing to put their lives on the line aboard deserve better.