Author: The Daily Signal

Tim Murtaugh served as communications director for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign last year, witnessing firsthand how a single tweet could dominate the news cycle. Now, with Trump banished from social media platforms, the former president is still finding a way to wield his influence.

Through daily postings on current events and political issues, Trump is once again commanding attention. Murtaugh, a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation and Daily Signal contributor, explains what it means on the latest episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast."

"President Trump absolutely has a way of throwing a wrench into a news cycle if he so chooses," Murtaugh tells me. "And as much as the media likes to pretend that, oh, they hate President Trump and they're tired of the tone and the mean tweets and all that stuff, they can't get enough. And so when he puts out statements, it really does roil the news cycle for that given day."

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Yael Eckstein and her family, who live in Israel, have heard rockets explode day and night for nearly two weeks. 

Eckstein, who leads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, lives near Jerusalem with her husband and four children. She says the most recent Hamas-Israel conflict has affected her family, and all of Israel, in a deeply personal way. 

“In the past 10 days, we have been living in our bomb shelters," Eckstein says, adding: “Just today alone, for an hour straight, there were just rocket barrages on Israeli cities.” 

As president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Eckstein oversees a team that is providing humanitarian aid to Israelis. The organization has set up mobile bomb shelters across the country. 

Eckstein joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what life is like in Israel now and what America and the world should know about the conflict with Hamas. 

*Please note that the interview with Eckstein was recorded before Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire.

We also cover these stories: 

• The House of Representatives passes a $1.9 billion bill to improve security at the Capitol in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. 
• Nearly half of the states reject "enhanced" federal unemployment benefits in an effort to encourage their residents to return to work. 
• Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, signs into law a measure preventing school officials from forcing students and staff to wear any type of mask or face covering while in school.

Enjoy the show!

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On a recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., saw young girls who had been gang-raped on the journey to America.

In one case, Cammack says, a Border Patrol agent "pointed out a 9-year-old girl" at a processing facility in Donna, Texas.

The girl "came up to me and she had tears in her eyes," the Florida Republican recalls, adding:

She looked extremely distraught and I was asking her her name. She was really struggling to tell me her name. I asked her where she was from, and I kept hearing this really broken crackle. And I asked the Border Patrol agent. I said, "Is she just very upset? What's going on?"And he pulled me aside and he said, "Ma'am, we found this young girl in the fields. She was being gang-raped by cartel members. And she had been screaming so loud for so long that her vocal cords have given out."This is a 9-year-old girl who had been recycled by the cartels, meaning they are children that are sent along to escort single adults to the border so that they can get through the processing, because they don't run biometrics on children under the age of 12.

Cammack joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to describe this encounter as well as share her perspective on the situation at the border.

We also cover these stories:

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he opposes Democrats' “slanted” bill to create a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
• President Joe Biden speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his nation's latest conflict with the terrorist group Hamas.
•  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot appears to be granting interviews only to black or Hispanic journalists. 

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Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants are currently locked in their fourth mini-war since 2008. 

More than 3,400 rockets have been fired between Israel and the neighboring Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 Israelis and about 200 Palestinians. 

“Hamas manipulated ongoing anti-Israeli riots and used that as a pretext to launch missiles at Jerusalem,” said Jim Phillips, a senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at The Heritage Foundation. 

“In Hamas's world, in order to defend Jerusalem, it had to fire missiles at Jerusalem. But this is part of its long-term strategy not only to destroy Israel, but to undermine any chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinian [National] Authority,” he said.

Phillips joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss how the current conflict between Israel and Hamas began and how it likely will end. He also explains the action America should take and how Biden administration policies toward the Middle East differ from those of the Trump administration. 

We also cover these stories: 

• House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., says he won't support legislation to establish a commission to look into the unrest that occurred Jan. 6 at the Capitol.
• McCarthy and 28 other House Republicans draft a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking her to end proxy voting.
• North Carolina sheriff's deputies were "justified" in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr., a North Carolina district attorney says.

Enjoy the show!

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Imagine a currency that can expire, or that the government can require citizens to use only for specific purchases. Imagine no further because that is the power the Chinese government holds through its newly tested digital currency. 

China's digital currency is backed by China's central bank, but unlike traditional bank accounts, users cannot withdraw physical cash. The Chinese government has the power to direct the way users spend the money or how quickly they spend it because the currency is fully digitalized. The money is accessible through an app on users' phones.

“I think it's very likely that the Chinese will push into place a digital currency that will first partner with, and eventually probably supplant, paper money,” Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, tells The Daily Signal. 

There are serious national security and global economic concerns should China choose to embrace a fully digital currency, Cheng says. 

Cheng joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to explain how China’s digital currency works in practice and how it could affect global economic markets. 

We also cover these stories:

• The Supreme Court announces it will hear arguments in a case challenging the abortion precedent set by Roe v. Wade. 
• The popular social media app Parler is back in the Apple App Store. 
• Target, Walmart, Starbucks, CVS, and other businesses announce an end to mask requirements for customers. 

Enjoy the show!

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Canadian author and columnist Lindsay Shepherd's message to Americans is simple: Defend free speech or risk losing it.

In 2017, Shepherd, then a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, played for her class a series of clips in which psychologist and author Jordan Peterson talked about personal pronouns and transgenderism. 

Afterward, Shepherd was called into a meeting with her supervisor and a representative from the college's Diversity and Equity Office. She was accused of creating a toxic environment for students and threatened with punishment if she did something similar again. 

Shepherd, our guest today on "The Daily Signal Podcast," recorded the meeting to protect herself and later leaked it to the media. 

“I wanted people in Canada and abroad internationally to know what's happening inside our universities," Shepherd says. "I saw it as a bigger issue than just me having an encounter in this disciplinary meeting."

Shepherd became an activist dedicated to free speech and academic freedom. Her book, called “Diversity and Exclusion: Confronting the Campus Free Speech Crisis,” recounts her experience and offers advice on how to protect free expression. 

“Don't try to cave into leftist ideas just to try to prove to them that you're a good person." she says. "You don't need to prove anything to them, because they're always not going to like you."

Also on today’s show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo, which is raising money for Georgia small businesses affected by Major League Baseball’s decision to move the All-Star Game from Atlanta. 

Enjoy the show!

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"Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty" is the provocative title of a new book by former U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr.

Starr joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to explain why he thinks religious liberty is in crisis and what the biggest threats posed to religious liberty are.

He also explains why it’s important for every American to know his or her First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and how the faithful can resist the encroachment of secularism.

We also cover these stories:

• President Joe Biden says Americans should not buy gasoline in a panic, as the Colonial Pipeline returns to service after it was hacked by a criminal organization called DarkSide.
• At a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., criticizes Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., for comments he made minimizing the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. 
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to Biden, says people who have had COVID-19 vaccinations don’t need to wear a mask outside. 

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Texas is a border state, and Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss how illegal immigration is affecting it.

"With my military background, 20 years in the Air Force, it's incumbent upon commanders to visit troops in the field," Pfluger told The Daily Signal.

"We've asked the commander in chief to visit the Border Patrol agents, because what stood out to me was, when you talk to these folks, they're trying to the best of their ability to do their job to secure our country, and they don't have the resources," the freshman Texas lawmaker said. "In fact, this administration is cutting resources, halting construction on the border wall, not giving the technology that they need."

Pfluger also shares his take on the 178,622 illegal immigrants who were detained along the U.S.-Mexico border in April. That's the highest number of monthly apprehensions in at least two decades.

He also discusses how demand for gasoline is skyrocketing after the Colonial Pipeline was hacked by a criminal organization called DarkSide.

We also cover these stories:

• House Republicans oust Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming from her position as GOP Conference chairwoman, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.
• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says that the United States is professing “ironclad support” for Israel as the Jewish state faces ongoing attacks from Hamas, a Palestinian militant group. 
• The government is asking Americans not to hoard gasoline amid increased shortages on the East Coast stemming from the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. 

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A small Missouri college is taking the Biden administration to court over a directive that allows biological men who "identify” as women to live in female-only dormitories.  

The College of the Ozarks, a Christian school with just over 1,500 students, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in April after the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a directive requiring colleges and universities to open dorm rooms and other sex-specific spaces to individuals of the opposite sex.

The directive came after President Joe Biden issued his “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” 

“We're seeing an example that from our point of view is out of touch with reality,” Dr. Jerry Davis, president of the College of the Ozarks in Point Outlook, Missouri, said of the directive. He added that the order will “do irreparable harm to a school like this. And it seems to me that somebody is going to have to stand up and say what this really is … . It's an overreach [of government].” 

The College of the Ozarks is represented by the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom. Davis and Ryan Bangert, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the lawsuit and the broader implications of the case. 

We also cover these stories: 

• The Senate Rules Committee marks up the Democrat-backed voter legislation known as “The For the People Act.”
• Demand for gasoline skyrockets after a ransomware attack on Coastal Pipeline.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announces that public colleges and universities will require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for all students returning to campus. 

Enjoy the show! 

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Self-described cake artist Jack Phillips is again at the center of the debate over religious freedom, this time as the defendant in a state trial after being sued for declining to design and bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.

"Jack's been in the news for many years," as Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal, referring to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's finding that Phillips, a Christian, discriminated against a gay couple when he declined on religious grounds to make a custom cake to celebrate the two men's marriage.

Phillips, whose Masterpiece Cakeshop is in Lakewood, Colorado, took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In 2018, the Supreme Court said that Colorado had engaged in religious hostility toward Jack. And so he won that case, 7 to 2," says Tedesco, today's guest on "The Daily Signal Podcast."

"But then Colorado turned around right after that and considered another complaint against him, this time based on a gender transition cake that someone asked him to create. Eventually Colorado got the message and dismissed that complaint," Phillips' lawyer says, "but then the private citizen involved in filing that complaint filed a private lawsuit against Jack. And so that's why he's in court now."

Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read a lightly edited transcript below.

We also cover these stories:

• The Biden administration reverses a Trump administration policy on health care and transgender individuals. 
• The FBI announces that a criminal gang called DarkSide is behind an attack on the Colonial Pipeline network. 
• Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, a biological male, is on track to compete as a woman in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

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