President Trump announced Thursday he will sign an emergency order directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to immediately pay TSA agents, bypassing a Congress paralyzed by Democratic obstruction of Department of Homeland Security funding. The move comes as TSA employees enter a second month without a paycheck and security lines snarl at the nation's largest airports.
Trump framed the action as a necessary response to a crisis manufactured by congressional Democrats.
"I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!"
Under the National Emergency Act, the president could order unspent government funds to be used to temporarily pay TSA employees, a move that sidesteps the legislative logjam entirely. With millions of Americans preparing to travel for spring break, the timing is not subtle. Neither is the underlying message: if Congress won't act, the executive branch will.
Democrats have blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security for the past month. They lack the 60 votes needed to advance DHS funding on their own, but they have enough to obstruct. According to the New York Post, the result is a federal workforce caught in the crossfire, TSA agents screening passengers at O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while their bank accounts sit empty.
Workers have been calling in sick. Lines have been backing up. Hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were ordered to deploy to airports to help fill TSA staffing gaps. The system is buckling, and the cause is not complicated.
Trump put it plainly:
"Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!"
This is the part worth pausing on. The Democratic position is not that DHS should be defunded permanently. They want leverage. Specifically, Senate Democrats have been holding DHS funding hostage to block ICE enforcement and removal operations. They want to keep the lights on everywhere except the part of the department that actually enforces immigration law.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) gave Democrats what he called his "final" offer on Thursday. His proposal would fund all of DHS except the part of ICE that handles enforcement and removal operations, essentially meeting Democrats more than halfway by isolating the one area they object to and funding everything else.
That Democrats have not taken this deal tells you everything about their priorities. They are not trying to protect TSA agents. They are not trying to keep airports running. They are trying to defang immigration enforcement, and they are willing to let federal employees go unpaid to do it.
Think about what that means in practice. A TSA screener in Atlanta, someone who shows up every day to keep travelers safe, has gone two months without a paycheck because Senate Democrats want to prevent ICE from removing illegal immigrants. The people who lecture endlessly about "workers" and "government employees" are the ones refusing to pay them.
The emergency order is a workaround, not a permanent solution. It redirects existing unspent government funds to cover TSA pay temporarily. It does not resolve the underlying DHS funding dispute. But it does something Congress has refused to do for a month: it pays the people standing in airports keeping Americans safe.
Critics will inevitably question the legal authority. That debate will happen. But the political reality is harder to argue with. TSA agents are working without pay. Airport security is degrading. Spring break travel is surging. Someone had to act.
The deeper question is why this became necessary at all. Congressional Democrats have spent years building a brand around the idea that they are the party of the working person, the party that fights for federal employees, the party that keeps the government running. And here they are, blocking the paychecks of airport security workers because they refuse to let ICE do its job.
This is not new. The Democratic playbook on DHS funding has always been about carving out exceptions for immigration enforcement. Fund the bureaucracy, starve the enforcement. Keep the administrative apparatus humming, but neutralize the parts that actually secure the border and remove people who entered the country illegally.
What is new is the collateral damage they are willing to accept. Two months of unpaid TSA workers. Swelling security lines at major airports. ICE agents pulled from their actual mission to fill staffing gaps at terminals. All of it traceable to one decision: Senate Democrats refusing to fund the department unless enforcement is gutted.
The emergency order forces a clarifying moment. The president is paying the workers whom Democrats claim to care about. He is doing it over their objections. And the reason he has to do it at all is that those same Democrats chose ideology over the paychecks of the people they pretend to champion.
The airports will keep running. The agents will get paid. And the voters watching those security lines will remember who caused them.
Kristi Noem's new title as Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas comes with a reporting line that tells you everything about where she stands. The former Homeland Security chief will report directly to Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, not Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a State Department official cited by CBS News journalist Olivia Gazis on X.
For a former governor and Cabinet secretary, that's a notable organizational reality. Noem, 54, was fired from DHS on March 5. Weeks later, she resurfaced with a diplomatic title tied to President Trump's new Shield of the Americas initiative. She posted her gratitude on X:
"Thank you @POTUS Trump for appointing me as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas."
But the structure of the role suggests less authority than the title might imply.
Chris Landau, 62, is no lightweight. He clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas. He served as Trump's ambassador to Mexico from 2019 to 2021. He was sworn in as the 23rd deputy secretary of state in March 2025, and his confirmation was bipartisan, with the Senate backing him 60-31.
Landau's focus is the Western Hemisphere, which makes the reporting structure logical on paper. But it also means Noem, who weeks ago ran an entire Cabinet department, now operates under someone who is himself one rung below Rubio, the Daily Beast reported. The organizational chart does not lie.
Landau is a serious person with serious credentials. That's not the issue. The issue is what it says about Noem's trajectory.
Noem's tenure at DHS ended abruptly. Trump fired her on March 5, and his comment afterward was characteristically blunt. When asked about a $220 million advertising campaign, Noem had claimed he approved in advance during congressional testimony, Trump said simply:
"I never knew anything about it."
That contradiction between Noem's congressional testimony and the president's own words put her in an impossible position. When your boss publicly says he had no knowledge of something you told Congress he approved, the conversation is over.
Her departure from DHS was accompanied by reports that Corey Lewandowski, described as her de facto chief of staff, was expected to follow her out. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma was sworn in on Tuesday to take over the department.
The initiative itself is real and substantive. Trump announced the Shield of the Americas and staged a summit at his Doral, Florida, golf club to unveil it, signing a "Commitment to countering cartel criminal activity" document during the event. The framework is aimed at Western Hemisphere cooperation against cartels, which is exactly the kind of muscular, results-oriented diplomacy this administration has prioritized.
The question is whether Noem's role within it carries genuine operational weight or functions as a soft landing. Reporting to a deputy secretary rather than the secretary himself suggests the latter. Envoy titles in government range from enormously powerful to essentially ceremonial. The reporting line is usually the tell.
There's a broader lesson here that conservatives should be honest about. Noem arrived in Washington with real political capital. She was a popular governor. She made her name during COVID by keeping South Dakota open when most of the country locked down. That earned her genuine credibility with the conservative base.
What eroded that credibility was not ideology but execution. The advertising campaign controversy. The congressional testimony that the president himself contradicted. Reports of internal friction between DHS and the White House. These are not policy disagreements. They are management failures.
Conservatives rightly demand competence from government. That standard doesn't get suspended for people on our side. If anything, it matters more. Every cabinet secretary or envoy who fumbles the basics hands ammunition to a media establishment that already assumes the worst about this administration.
Trump's willingness to make changes when performance falls short is itself a feature, not a bug. The same decisiveness that built the Shield of the Americas initiative also removed someone who wasn't delivering. That's accountability, and it's what voters asked for.
Noem now operates in a lane that is narrower and further from the center of gravity. Landau, with his Mexico experience and Supreme Court pedigree, is well-positioned to drive Western Hemisphere strategy. Whether Noem contributes meaningfully to that effort or simply carries the title remains to be seen.
The reporting line has been drawn. It tells the story that the title does not.
Phil Berger, the top Republican in the North Carolina Senate and the chamber's president pro tempore since 2011, conceded to his challenger Tuesday after a recount settled one of the tightest primary races in the state's recent history. Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page beat Berger by just 23 votes, 13,135 to 13,112, according to unofficial state election results.
Berger had trailed Page by only two votes on election night, March 3. The recount didn't close the gap. It widened it.
In a statement, Berger congratulated his opponent and reflected on his tenure:
"While this was a close race, the voters have spoken, and I congratulate Sheriff Page on his victory."
"Over the past 15 years, Republicans in the General Assembly have fundamentally redefined our state's outlook and reputation. It has been an honor to play a role in that transformation."
That transformation is not an overstatement. Berger helped lead Republicans to take control of the North Carolina Senate in 2011 for the first time in 140 years. He held the top leadership post for the entire stretch, making him a defining figure in the state's rightward shift over the past decade and a half.
This was not a story of a Republican incumbent losing to a moderate challenger or a protest candidate. NBC News reported that both men claimed strong ties to President Donald Trump, and the race became an unusual test of loyalty within the same political family.
Trump endorsed Berger in February. On Truth Social, Trump praised his record:
"Phil Berger has served as the Highly Respected Leader of the North Carolina Senate for over a decade, helping us deliver massive and historic Victories across the State, including my six BIG WINS and Primaries in 2016, 2020, and 2024!"
Trump also acknowledged Page's loyalty but made clear where he wanted him. Trump said Page "is GREAT, he has been a longtime supporter," but added that he wanted Page to "come work for us in Washington, D.C., rather than further considering a run against Phil."
Page didn't take the hint. And he didn't take a job offer from Trump either, according to a December social media post in which Page said he had turned down a position in Washington. He called himself a "passionate supporter" of Trump and said he led "Sheriffs for Trump" in 2016. But he wanted the state Senate seat, not a federal role.
The voters, by the thinnest of margins, gave it to him.
Twenty-three votes are not a mandate. It is a rounding error that happened to land on the right side of the ledger for Sam Page. But in a primary, it counts the same as a blowout. There is no silver medal.
For Berger, the loss ends a 15-year run atop the state Senate that reshaped North Carolina politics. He took over a chamber that had been under Democratic control for nearly a century and a half, and he turned it into a reliable conservative engine. That legacy doesn't disappear because of 23 votes. But the seat now belongs to someone else.
For Page, the challenge shifts immediately. He confirmed as much in his statement after Berger's concession call:
"Now it's time for our community to come together and focus on winning in November."
In November, Page will face Steve Luking, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. The general election will test whether Page can hold together the coalition that Berger built, or whether the bruising primary left fractures that a Democratic opponent can exploit.
Primaries like this one reveal something important about the state of the Republican base: voters are not content to simply re-elect incumbents because of past accomplishments. Even a figure as consequential as Berger, with a Trump endorsement in hand, could not survive a challenge from a local sheriff with deep grassroots ties and a credible claim to the same political movement.
That restlessness is not weakness. It is a sign that Republican voters are engaged, demanding, and unwilling to treat any seat as a birthright. The base wants fighters, not just officeholders. Whether Page proves to be the right answer to that demand will become clear soon enough.
Berger built something real in Raleigh. Page now carries it forward with the slimmest possible permission from the electorate. Every vote he casts in that chamber, if he wins in November, will rest on a margin you could fit in a single precinct's living room.
Twenty-three voters made this decision. The rest of the district will have to live with it.
A viral video showing a woman being detained by agents in the lobby of San Francisco International Airport sent the left into predictable convulsions this week. The clip swept social media on Monday, and critics immediately cast it as proof that ICE agents deployed to ease airport security lines were really there to conduct immigration raids on unsuspecting travelers.
There was just one problem. It wasn't true.
An ICE spokesperson told the Daily Mail that the arrest in the video occurred on Sunday, a full day before President Trump deployed agents to help with massive security lines at major airports. The detention had nothing to do with the airport deployment. It was a routine enforcement action against individuals with an outstanding final order of removal issued by an immigration judge in 2019.
The Daily Mail reported that the two individuals detained were Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter, Wendy Godinez-Jimenez. ICE confirmed the family had been ordered removed years ago and simply never left. The agency's statement left little room for the sympathetic narrative the left tried to construct:
"While being escorted to the international terminal for processing, Lopez-Jimenez attempted to flee and resisted law enforcement officers. ICE is working as quickly as possible to repatriate the family unit to their home country of Guatemala."
So the woman in the video wasn't some random traveler swept up in a dragnet. She was an illegal immigrant with a seven-year-old removal order who tried to run from law enforcement when they caught up with her. That's the story the footage actually tells. But context doesn't generate clicks or fuel fundraising emails, so the left ran with the version that served them.
This is how the cycle works. A clip surfaces without context. Progressive accounts frame it as authoritarian overreach. Legacy media amplifies the framing with concerned-sounding headlines. By the time the facts emerge, the narrative has already calcified. Corrections never travel as far as the original lie.
The reason ICE agents were deployed to airports in the first place had nothing to do with immigration enforcement. It had everything to do with a partial government shutdown that began on January 31 and left TSA workers without pay for weeks.
The consequences cascaded fast:
At JFK, the lines spilled into the parking lot. Officials blamed "the federal funding lapse" and said, "wait times are subject to rapid change based on passenger volumes and TSA staffing." That's bureaucratic language for: we have no idea how long you'll be standing here.
One traveler, Julie Kwert, told CBS Mornings that she and her husband arrived almost five hours before their flight and still had to rebook. Her description was blunt:
"Our feet are killing us, and my husband has a heart condition on top of that."
An unnamed TSA officer painted an even grimmer picture for CBS News Atlanta:
"Our kids, our families, houses — everything is at stake at this moment. We are literally drowning in silence, and the world doesn't even know it."
President Trump blamed the "radical left" for the shutdown and its impact on airports, calling on Congress to "honor the deal that was approved and voted on in Congress." He deployed ICE agents as of Monday morning to JFK, Chicago O'Hare, Louis Armstrong International Airport in Louisiana, and Pittsburgh International Airport to help process travelers and reduce wait times.
The airport chaos arrived against a backdrop that should alarm everyone. On Sunday night, a Canada Air aircraft collided with an airport truck at New York's LaGuardia, killing two people and injuring at least 41 others.
CEOs of United, Delta, and American Airlines sent an open letter to Congress on Sunday calling the situation "simply unacceptable" and urging lawmakers to reopen the government immediately. They acknowledged the toll on the workers keeping airports running:
"It's difficult, if not impossible, to put food on the table, put gas in the car and pay rent when you are not getting paid."
The letter pushed Congress to pass the Aviation Funding Solvency Act, the Aviation Funding Stability Act, and the Keep America Flying Act. Whether any of those moves depends on whether Democrats decide functioning airports matter more than leverage.
President Trump posted on Truth Social that he would "greatly appreciate NO MASKS when helping our country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports." The request was straightforward: agents assisting travelers should be identifiable and transparent. That's the posture of an administration solving a problem, not hiding one.
Meanwhile, the left spent its energy on a decontextualized airport video rather than the shutdown they helped engineer or the travelers stranded in four-hour lines. An illegal immigrant with a years-old removal order fled from law enforcement on camera, and the progressive response was to treat her as a victim of the same deployment that hadn't even started yet.
The facts didn't fit the narrative. They used the narrative anyway.
That tells you everything about who is actually interested in solving problems at American airports, and who just needs the chaos to continue.
President Trump seized on a moment of accidental honesty from Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer, posting a video clip to Truth Social on Sunday morning that captured the New York senator calling for the funding of the very agency his party has spent weeks trying to starve.
During a Saturday speech on the Senate floor, Schumer was arguing for an end to the partial government shutdown when he blurted out the quiet part loud.
"We must fund ICE, we must fund TSA."
He corrected himself quickly. Not quickly enough.
Trump's response was characteristically direct:
"Schumer got 'discombobulated' in the Senate yesterday, and said, 'WE MUST FUND ICE,' prior to correcting himself. Thank you Chuck, I agree!"
It was a light moment, but it landed because the underlying politics are anything but light. Democrats have held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security over the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the resulting partial shutdown has real consequences that are getting harder for the left to spin.
The latest effort to fund the entire department failed to achieve the required 60-vote threshold on Friday, the Daily Caller reported. That means the impasse continues, and the DHS has been forced into emergency measures affecting the TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Customs and Border Protection.
The shutdown's effects have been most visible at airports, where TSA employees have reportedly been calling out of work or quitting, leading to long lines. This is the tangible cost of Senate Democrats choosing political posturing over operational governance. They want to punish ICE for enforcing immigration law, and they're willing to let airport security and border protection degrade to do it.
That's the contradiction Schumer's slip accidentally exposed. His party's position requires pretending that you can defund immigration enforcement while keeping the rest of homeland security humming along. You can't. These agencies exist under the same department for a reason. Holding DHS hostage to hamstring ICE means everything else suffers, too.
Schumer knows this. His mouth just got ahead of his talking points for half a second.
The standoff over ICE funding comes against a backdrop that makes the Democrat position even harder to defend. Hundreds of federal agents have been deployed to Minnesota following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in January, along with reports about welfare fraud involving Somali migrants and the agency's clashes with groups opposed to federal immigration enforcement operations.
This is the environment in which Senate Democrats have decided that the hill to die on is preventing ICE from doing its job. They're not offering an alternative vision for immigration enforcement. They're not proposing reforms. They're simply blocking funding and hoping the public blames someone else for the consequences.
Meanwhile, the machinery of government continues to move forward where it can. Trump's nomination of Republican Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace DHS Secretary Kristi Noem advanced to a final vote in the Senate, with Democrat Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico bucking their party in favor of the nominee.
That's worth noting. When even members of the opposing party break ranks to confirm your DHS pick, it suggests the Democrat leadership's blanket obstruction is more about politics than principle.
Schumer's verbal stumble wouldn't matter if it weren't so perfectly illustrative. The Democrat messaging on this shutdown requires a careful rhetorical dance: express concern about TSA and FEMA, insist you support "border security" in the abstract, but never, ever concede that ICE should be funded to do what ICE does.
For one unscripted moment, Schumer dropped the choreography. He said what every serious person already knows. ICE needs funding. TSA needs funding. The Department of Homeland Security needs to operate. The only question is whether Senate Democrats will continue holding all of it hostage to make a political point about immigration enforcement that the majority of Americans don't share.
Trump didn't need to deliver a lengthy rebuttal. He just hit repost and added a thank you. Sometimes the other side makes your argument for you.
Federal investigators have descended back into the Catalina Foothills neighborhood where 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie vanished seven weeks ago, knocking on doors and pressing residents with a new round of questions. The focus this time: a property near Guthrie's home that was vacated shortly before she disappeared, and the construction workers who had access to the area in the days leading up to her abduction.
Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on the night of February 1 after being dropped off at her Arizona home following a family dinner. No suspect has been identified. No arrests have been made. And now, nearly two months later, the FBI is retracing its steps.
NewsNation correspondent Brian Entin, who has tracked the case closely, broke the news on his podcast "Brian Entin Investigates." He confirmed through sources that agents returned to the neighborhood within the last day and began asking pointed questions about specific properties.
"There's one neighbor who moved out before Nancy disappeared, and they have been asking more questions about that situation. Not to say that that has anything to do with what happened, but that is something that the FBI agents are asking about."
Entin was careful to note that investigators are not directly linking the empty home to the crime. But the interest is notable. Retired Pima County SWAT commander Bob Krygier, in an interview with Parade, explained why vacant or partially occupied properties routinely draw scrutiny in abduction investigations. Such locations can allow a suspect to observe a target without attracting notice, offer cover for surveillance, and provide a place to store equipment or monitor daily routines, as Newsweek reports.
The second line of inquiry may prove even more telling. Agents have been asking residents specifically for the names of contractors and workers on nearby construction projects.
"This I found to be particularly interesting: there are several houses that are under construction in the neighborhood, and they are asking specifically for names of contractors and workers who were working in the neighborhood on those houses, on those construction projects."
Entin added that agents wanted granular detail, not just company names, but individual workers. Former FBI agent Steve Moore, appearing on Entin's program, offered a straightforward read: "Obviously, it means they're retracing steps."
The FBI Phoenix Field Office, for its part, offered nothing. A spokesman told Newsweek via email:
"We typically don't respond or reply to independent reporting. Additionally, as a DOJ rule, we don't comment on ongoing investigations."
The known sequence of events on the night Guthrie disappeared remains deeply unsettling in its precision.
Fewer than five hours separated a grandmother closing her garage door for the night and her pacemaker going silent. Whoever did this moved with purpose.
Authorities believe the abduction was targeted, not random. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, speaking to NBC News, made that much clear while stopping short of certainty:
"We believe we know why he did this, and we believe it was targeted, but we're not 100 percent sure. So it would be silly to tell people, 'Yeah, don't worry about it. You're not his target.' Don't think for a minute that because it happened to the Guthrie family, you're safe. No, keep your wits about you."
That statement carries a deliberate tension. Nanos used the word "he," suggesting investigators have at least a working profile. But his refusal to assure the community that the threat has passed tells you something about where this investigation stands. They have a theory. They may even have a suspect in mind. What they don't have is enough to close the case.
The FBI's return to the neighborhood signals an investigation that is still very much active but clearly grinding. Recanvassing a neighborhood you've already canvassed means either new information has surfaced or old answers weren't good enough. The granularity of the questions, down to individual worker names on construction sites, suggests agents are building a web of who had access, who had opportunity, and who had eyes on that street in the weeks before Guthrie vanished.
Construction crews cycle through residential neighborhoods constantly. They see routines. They know which houses are occupied and which sit empty. They blend in. That doesn't make any of them suspects, but it makes them witnesses worth finding.
Authorities have urged anyone with information to contact the FBI. The search remains active.
An 84-year-old woman walked into her garage on a Saturday night and never walked out again. Seven weeks later, the people tasked with finding her are still knocking on doors. Someone in that neighborhood knows something.
Carley Shimkus broke the news herself, live on "FOX & Friends First" Friday morning: she's pregnant with her second child, a boy, due at the end of July.
The New York Post reported that the Fox News host told viewers she is five and a half months along, 22 weeks, and feeling great. Her husband and their 3-year-old son, Brock, will soon welcome another boy into the family.
"My husband and I and Brock … are so excited."
In an era when pregnancy announcements from public figures are often stage-managed through publicists and Instagram posts, something is refreshing about Shimkus sharing the news the old-fashioned way: on live television, with her colleagues, in real time. No curated photo shoot. No exclusive magazine deal. Just genuine excitement on a morning news set.
Shimkus said she had a feeling about the baby's gender before it was confirmed.
"When I got the news … I just knew I was having another boy."
She admitted, with the kind of honesty that makes her relatable to millions of parents, that she had briefly entertained another possibility before the reveal.
"I was thinking, wouldn't it be nice to have like a sweet little girl who likes to color?"
But any fleeting thoughts about a calmer household were quickly overtaken by gratitude. Shimkus described her second child as "such a blessing from God" and said she prays her two boys "are going to be the best of friends throughout their whole life."
Anyone who has raised a toddler boy knows exactly what Shimkus means when she talks about Brock's energy level. She put it plainly.
"I am continually shocked by his energy level and behavior."
She followed that with the kind of perspective that comes naturally to parents who see their children as gifts rather than inconveniences, calling Brock's boundless energy "a blessing" and marveling at "how much of a zest for life he has."
Now multiply that by two.
Shimkus even joked about the logistics of a growing family, noting that a friend had sent her a home listing in Massapequa, prompting her to quip to co-host Brian Kilmeade that they could become neighbors on Long Island.
There's a reason stories like this resonate with conservative audiences in a way that transcends celebrity gossip. Shimkus didn't frame her pregnancy as a disruption to her career. She didn't agonize publicly about work-life balance or treat motherhood as a concession. She called it a blessing. Twice.
"I knew this baby is just such a blessing from God. And I'm so excited to have a second child."
That language matters. In a culture that increasingly treats children as optional accessories to be scheduled around professional milestones, a woman on national television expressing unfiltered joy about expanding her family sends a quiet but powerful message. Not a political one. A human one.
Shimkus also thanked Fox for being "so supportive of my family and me," a detail worth noting at a time when corporate America loves to talk about supporting working parents but often means something very different by it.
Support, in this case, appears to look like what it should: letting a talented woman do her job and celebrate her family without pretending those two things are in conflict.
A baby boy is due at the end of July. A big brother who will almost certainly show him the ropes at full speed. And a mother who seems to understand something that no amount of cultural messaging can undo: that a family growing is a family blessed.
Congratulations to the Shimkus family. The country could use more news like this.
Jeff Webb, the man who built modern cheerleading into a multibillion-dollar industry and later channeled his entrepreneurial energy into conservative media, died unexpectedly on Thursday. He was 76.
Varsity Spirit confirmed Webb's death in a statement on Instagram, honoring the founder who transformed a niche sideline activity into a globally recognized athletic discipline spanning more than four decades.
Webb created Varsity Spirit in 1974 and grew it from the ground up into a franchise that shaped how generations of Americans experienced competitive cheerleading. His fingerprints are on virtually every element of the modern sport, from organized competitions to the international governing structures that now seek Olympic inclusion.
Webb's career arc tells a distinctly American story: identify something with unrealized potential, pour everything into it, and build an institution that outlasts you. That's what he did with Varsity Spirit, and it's what he was doing in conservative media when his life ended.
Webb previously owned Human Events and The Post Millennial, two outlets with deep roots in the conservative movement. He sold both last fall to Just The Network, the parent company of Just the News. Even after the sale, Webb wasn't coasting. John Solomon, founder and CEO of Just the News, said Thursday night that Webb was working with the company to help build a new events business and a new weekly television show.
Solomon captured the man in a single phrase:
"Jeff was a brilliant businessman and entrepreneur and a joyful warrior who made everyone around him better."
That word, "joyful," matters. The conservative movement has no shortage of fighters. It has fewer builders, and fewer still who manage to be both without burning out or becoming bitter. Webb, by all accounts, stayed constructive to the end.
The scale of what Webb built in cheerleading is easy to underestimate if you weren't paying attention. A Varsity Spirit spokesperson laid it out plainly:
"Jeff played a pivotal role in shaping cheerleading as it exists today and in building a community that has impacted generations of athletes, coaches, and teams."
His work extended well beyond American gyms and football stadiums. Webb's involvement with the International Cheer Union helped the organization achieve full recognition by the International Olympic Committee in 2021. That's not a symbolic gesture. Full IOC recognition opens the door to Olympic competition, a milestone that would have been laughable when Webb started Varsity Spirit in the mid-1970s.
Varsity's Instagram tribute noted that Webb "built a community that will continue to inspire generations to come." Given the infrastructure he left behind, that's not corporate sentiment. It's a statement of fact.
Webb's pivot into media ownership reflected a pattern increasingly common among successful conservative entrepreneurs: the recognition that cultural and informational infrastructure matters as much as any single policy fight. Owning Human Events and The Post Millennial wasn't a vanity play. It was an investment in the ecosystem that sustains conservative ideas.
Solomon pointed to Webb's deeper motivations:
"He had a passion for ensuring America's next generations could carry on the torch of liberty, whether through the creation of the Varsity franchise or through his friendship with Charlie Kirk. He will be sorely missed."
That thread connecting Varsity Spirit to conservative media to mentoring the next generation isn't random. Webb understood something fundamental: institutions shape culture, culture shapes politics, and someone has to do the unglamorous work of building those institutions from scratch.
No cause of death has been disclosed. What's been disclosed is a legacy that spans competitive athletics, conservative media, and international sports governance. Not many people leave footprints in one of those arenas, let alone all three.
Jeff Webb built things that lasted. The movement could use more like him.
Andrew Rice, a deputy commonwealth's attorney in Virginia Beach, crushed Democrat Cheryl Smith in the special election for Virginia House of Delegates District 98, capturing 62.46 percent of the vote to Smith's 37.5 percent with more than 11,000 votes counted as of 1 a.m. Eastern.
The margin wasn't close. It was a blowout.
The seat became vacant after Republican Barry Knight died last month, triggering a special election to cover the last two years of his term. When that seat was last contested in 2025, Knight won with 56.6 percent, and Smith took 43.2 percent. Rice didn't just hold the seat. He widened the gap by nearly six points against the same Democratic opponent.
Rice addressed supporters after the race was called:
"I'm so thankful for their support and I can't wait to get to work for them in Richmond."
Democrats have spent months constructing a narrative around special elections. After picking up 13 seats in the Virginia House during the November 2025 elections, the story practically wrote itself: voters were recoiling from Republicans, the political winds had shifted, and the party was riding an unstoppable wave into the 2026 midterms.
District 98 just punched a hole in that storyline, Newsweek reported.
Voter turnout in the district hit only 18 percent, with more than 11,700 ballots cast. Low-turnout special elections are often where enthusiasm shows itself most clearly. The voters who bothered to show up chose the Republican by a commanding margin, in a race where Democrats had every reason to believe the environment favored them.
Virginia wasn't the only bright spot. In Pennsylvania, Republican Catherine Wallen is projected to beat Democrat Todd Crawley in a special election for the state's 193rd House District, according to Decision Desk HQ. That seat has been represented by a Republican since 1972, so the hold itself isn't surprising. But in a cycle where Democrats have been claiming the political landscape is shifting beneath Republican feet, holding ground matters.
Republican State Leadership Committee President Edith Jorge-Tuñón framed the results in no uncertain terms:
"Last night's results shatter Democrats' so-called 'special election momentum.' In states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, voters rejected the claim that Democrats have a better handle on the issues that matter most and pushed back on the failed policies they continue to champion. These wins prove Republicans can break through and compete in tough environments, and the RSLC is building momentum to win nationwide in 2026."
There is a familiar pattern in how media and political operatives treat special elections. When Democrats win them, the results are treated as referendums on the national mood, bellwethers of what's to come, proof that the public has rendered its verdict. When Republicans win them, the caveats arrive immediately: low turnout, local dynamics, district composition, the usual disclaimers.
Republicans themselves have rightly noted that these races have never been predictive of general elections. That's fair. But what's also fair is applying the same standard in both directions. If Democratic special election wins were evidence of a national backlash during President Donald Trump's second term, then Republican wins in the same cycle deserve the same interpretive weight.
You don't get to cherry-pick which results count.
The next major test comes in California, where the seat left vacant by Republican Representative Doug LaMalfa, who died in January at age 65, will be filled through an election set by California Governor Gavin Newsom. A primary is scheduled for June 2, with the general election on August 4. California's 1st Congressional District presents a different kind of battleground, but the results in Virginia and Pennsylvania give Republicans evidence that their voters are engaged and willing to show up even in off-cycle contests.
The November 2026 midterms remain the prize. Democrats will continue to spin their preferred narrative, and the media will continue to amplify it. But narratives don't survive contact with actual vote totals.
In District 98, the voters spoke clearly. Andrew Rice won by nearly 25 points. No amount of "momentum" talk changes that math.
Judge Brian Murphy blocked Trump administration vaccine policies on Monday, issuing a sweeping preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts just hours after a federal appeals court slapped down his previous attempt to halt deportation operations. Two rulings. One judge. Same pattern.
The vaccine case, brought by medical organizations against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., resulted in Murphy finding that Kennedy likely broke the law by overhauling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine policies. Murphy granted preliminary relief by staying a January 2026 immunization schedule that reduced the number of vaccine requirements for children and invalidated a newly appointed vaccine advisory committee and the committee's decisions while the lawsuit proceeds.
Earlier that same Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit paused Murphy's decision blocking the Department of Homeland Security's third-country deportation policy, a decision that had prevented DHS from deporting what court papers said could be thousands of illegal immigrants.
So the scoreboard reads: reversed in the morning, back at it by the afternoon.
This is not the first time Murphy has found himself on the wrong end of a higher court's patience, according to Fox News. He first gained headlines when the Supreme Court stayed his injunction over the third-country deportation policy in a 6-3 order last June. That alone would be a notable rebuke for any federal trial judge.
What happened next was extraordinary. A week later, the Supreme Court issued a rare 7-2 order admonishing Murphy for flouting its decision. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley observed at the time that Murphy had given "a stiff arm" to the Supreme Court. Turley did not mince words about the systemic implications:
"Regardless of your views on the merits, this system cannot function with such rogue operators at the trial level."
A string of high-profile decisions by Murphy have been later reversed on appeal. The 1st Circuit's Monday intervention was simply the latest in a sequence that now looks less like judicial disagreement and more like judicial defiance.
In his vaccine ruling, Murphy quoted Carl Sagan, calling science "the best we have." It's a fine sentiment. It is also, in context, remarkably selective.
University of Minnesota law school professor Ilan Wurman questioned what he viewed as the judge's double standard:
"When I litigated COVID cases against the government, the courts regularly said they had to defer to the public health experts."
Then came the sharper edge:
"I assume there's a good reason for the double standard here? Or are there some health experts federal judges in Massachusetts like more than others?"
The point lands because it does not need to be exaggerated. During the COVID era, courts across the country treated government health pronouncements as functionally unreviewable. Challenges to mandates, lockdowns, and school closures were waved away with near-religious deference to "the experts." Now, a single district judge in Massachusetts has decided he knows better than the sitting HHS Secretary about vaccine scheduling for children.
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., drew the connection even more bluntly:
"Progressive district court judges claim RFK's vaccine policies aren't based on science yet had no problem with Biden's radical gender policies. Seems like they're the ones not following the science."
The inconsistency is the argument. When the executive branch was run by Democrats, judicial deference to agency expertise was treated as a constitutional obligation. Now it's optional. The principle didn't change. The president did.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded on X with a directness that has become characteristic of this administration's approach to judicial overreach:
"How many times can Judge Murphy get reversed in one year?"
Blanche noted the timing with evident incredulity: the same day the 1st Circuit stayed Murphy for "repeatedly refusing to follow the law," the judge turned around and issued another sweeping injunction. Blanche made the administration's posture clear:
"The same day he is stayed for repeatedly refusing to follow the law, he issues another activist decision. We will keep appealing these lawless decisions, and we will keep winning."
He added one final question: "How much embarrassment can this Judge take?"
It is a fair question. The Supreme Court has rebuked Murphy in orders supported by supermajorities of justices, including some appointed by Democratic presidents. The 1st Circuit has now intervened as well. The appeals will continue, and the administration's record on reversals suggests confidence is warranted.
The deeper problem here extends well beyond one judge in Massachusetts. Murphy's deportation ruling alone could have blocked the removal of thousands of illegal immigrants. His vaccine injunction reaches into every pediatrician's office in the country. A single unelected jurist, confirmed a year before these rulings, is barely attempting to set national policy from a district court bench.
This is the structural vulnerability that critics across the political spectrum have identified, but that only seems to generate outrage when it cuts in one direction. When a Trump-appointed judge in Texas issued nationwide injunctions during the Biden years, the legal left treated it as a constitutional crisis. When a Biden-appointed judge in Massachusetts does the same thing, repeatedly, even after the Supreme Court tells him to stop, the reaction from those same voices is silence or celebration.
The hierarchy of the federal judiciary exists for a reason. District courts are bound by circuit courts. Circuit courts are bound by the Supreme Court. When a trial judge treats that structure as a suggestion, the entire system strains. It does not matter whether you agree with Kennedy's vaccine policies or the administration's deportation framework. What matters is whether one district judge gets to override the executive branch, ignore the Supreme Court, and functionally govern by injunction.
Murphy's answer, delivered twice on Monday, appears to be yes.
The Supreme Court has already answered differently. The question is whether anyone will make it stick.