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The Race to Replace Byron Donalds Could Be the Craziest Election This Year
Same show, different day.

Former New York Rep. Chris Collins, who pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2019, will now face off against former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn in the GOP primary to replace Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.

Donalds’ gubernatorial run has left the safe GOP seat of Florida’s 19th Congressional District open, and two former members of Congress turned Florida transplants are looking to return to Washington.

Collins, who moved to Florida before being pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2020, announced his candidacy in a video statement on Friday.

Cawthorn, meanwhile, served one term in Congress. He lost the GOP primary for North Carolina’s 11th District in 2023 after a series of controversies and scandals. After losing, the House Ethics Committee found that Cawthorn violated conflict of interest rules regarding a cryptocurrency promotion

“We need to take our country back,” Collins said. “We need to make America great again.”

A Crowded Primary

Aside from Cawthorn and Collins, seven other candidates are looking to fill the vacancy left by Donalds.

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno, former South Florida congressional candidate Johnny Fratto, and “populist Republican candidate” Dylan Modarelli have also announced their candidacy.

Former Illinois state Sen. Jim Oberweis, president of a local news station Jim Schwartzel, former Illinois congressional candidate Catalina Lauf, and veteran Mike Pedersen have also announced their candidacy.

President Donald Trump and Donalds have not issued endorsements as of yet.

Cawthorn declined to comment, and Collins did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request.

“Enter Broke, Leave a Millionaire”

Collin’s bid comes as a bi-partisan group in Congress have introduced efforts to ban members of Congress from stock trading.

Congress continues to fall under scrutiny after its members, like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly hold stock portfolios that have outperformed major Wall Street hedge funds by creating national policy that influences private markets and use insider information as an investment strategy.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., one of the most vocal opponents of trading by members of Congress, has described it as an “enter broke, leave a millionaire” scheme. In December, she introduced a discharge petition that would force a vote on a trading ban for members of Congress.

Weeks later, Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., introduced the Stop Insider Trading Act to ban members of Congress from using insider information or altering policy to benefit their private investments.

“Members of Congress should not be enriching themselves with insider knowledge,” Luna wrote in a press release. “Both Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have acknowledged that insider trading in Congress is a serious problem and must be stopped.”

Luna added that on the issue of insider trading, “the people are more united than Washington is.”

Steil and Luna did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

The post The Race to Replace Byron Donalds Could Be the Craziest Election This Year appeared first on The Daily Signal.

MAGA Is Proving How Little It Actually Cares About Gun Rights
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MAGA Is Proving How Little It Actually Cares About Gun Rights

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/ January 26, 2026

MAGA Is Proving How Little It Actually Cares About Gun Rights

The ability to kill dissidents at will is more important to Trump and his supporters than the Second Amendment.

Jeet Heer

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FBI director Kash Patel on January 23, 2026.
(Will Lester / MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images))

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most left-wing figures in American public life. Her recently retired GOP colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene is just as far on the right-wing side of the political spectrum. Yet the two are united in seeing the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday by ICE agents as a constitutional crisis.

Rebuking Vice President JD Vance, Ocasio-Cortez wrote, “You are defending the open killing of everyday Americans for exercising their Constitutional rights.”

Taylor Greene explained the constitutional rights that were violated in this case:

I unapologetically believe in border security and deporting criminal illegal aliens and I support law enforcement. However, I also unapologetically support the 2nd amendment. Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm. I support American’s 1st and 4th amendment rights. There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.

Politically, the constitutional violation that is likely to pose the most trouble is the Second Amendment. The Republican Party, including Donald Trump, has long taken a maximalist position on gun rights, resisting even the most popular restrictions such as limits on automatic weapons. The radical right, which is in many ways the progenitor of Trump’s MAGA movement, has long warned that gun control is a step on the path toward the end of freedom in the US. Toward this end, the right has presented the most inflammatory version of famous cases where government agents faced off against gun owners, as in the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993.

I’d like the Second Amendment to be repealed. But as long as it exists, gun owners do have the constitutional right to carry a gun. Alex Pretti was exercising those constitutional rights when he was killed. He had a license to carry a weapon. None of this, if one accepts the constitutional right to gun ownership, justifies his killing.

That doesn’t mean the government hasn’t tried to smear Pretti anyway. The Wall Street Journal reports that federal agents claimed that Pretti was “violently resisting” arrest but “bystander footage appears to tell a different story. A frame-by-frame review by The Wall Street Journal shows a federal officer pulling a handgun away …

This Is the Perfect Moment for Democrats to Grow a Spine
This is performative politics again.

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/ January 26, 2026

This Is the Perfect Moment for Democrats to Grow a Spine

After the murder of Alex Pretti by federal agents, the least national Democrats can do is dismantle ICE.

Chris Lehmann

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House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer depart a news conference at the US Capitol on January 8, 2026, in Washington, DC.
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The time for triangulating is over. With the second murder of a Minneapolis citizen at the hands of untrained, immunity-drunk, and predatory federal agents, Democrats must fundamentally shift their approach to immigration policy. It’s long past time for the party to move past its learned helplessness in the face of MAGA bloodlust fantasies about an invading horde of undocumented immigrants—and to vindicate the human rights of workers and neighbors confronting Gestapo-style seizures, renditions, and executions of a lawless invading force. Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old VA nurse shot 11 times in the back after being thrown to the ground by federal goons, was documenting their abuses in the hopes of halting them and returning our federal government to some semblance of moral responsibility. The bare minimum that national Democrats can do in his memory is to dismantle the ICE bureaucracy of terror once and for all.

After Pretti’s execution on Saturday, a key swing bloc of Senate Democrats had signaled that they would vote no on the House-passed appropriations bill that would deliver $10 billion in additional funding for ICE. This is on top of the tripling of the agency’s budget secured in last summer’s tax-and-spending bill. House GOP leaders had already carved out the ICE appropriation into a separate bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, so that another swing bloc of right-leaning Democrats would support it after a number of their pet spending priorities were attached to the legislation. That tactic was also garnering support from Democratic senators, with Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray of Washington all but assuring that Republicans would land the seven Democratic votes required to avoid a filibuster. Yet now that the feds have murdered another Minneapolis resident, Democratic support for the measure has collapsed, leaving GOP majority leader John Thune with the option of either blowing up the filibuster or stripping out DHS funding as a standalone bill that wouldn’t clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold, and thereby potentially touching off a partial government shutdown.

In material terms, the Senate vote wouldn’t do much to slow down the rampaging ICE invasions, given the …

Prominent holocaust museum releases scathing response after Walz compares Minnesota children to Anne Frank
This affects the entire country.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is facing pushback from a prominent holocaust remembrance museum after suggesting children in Minnesota today are fearful in the same way Anne Frank was before she was killed by Nazis.
"Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish," the U.S. Holocaust Museum posted on X on Monday. 
"Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges."
During a recent press briefing, Walz said some children in the state felt scared to go outside because of aggressive tactics being employed by federal agents cracking down on illegal immigration. 
MEET THE MINNESOTANS KILLED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAT WALZ, DEMS NEVER HELD NEWS CONFERENCES OR VIGILS FOR
"We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank," Walz said on Sunday after the shooting day of Alex Pretti during an encounter with federal agents, referring to the German-Jewish teenager who documented her life in hiding during the Nazi persecution in World War II.
"Somebody is going to write that children's story about Minnesota, and there's one person who can end this now," he said, referring to President Donald Trump. 
The comment sparked criticism from many on social media, President Trump's antisemitism envoy, and a Republican congressional candidate who spoke to Fox News Digital. 
DOJ TORCHES DEMOCRATS FOR 'SHAMELESSLY LYING' ABOUT MINNESOTA VOTER ROLL REQUEST
"Governor Tim Walz’s decision to compare federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota to Anne Frank and the Holocaust is dangerous, disgusting, and profoundly irresponsible," retired Minnesota State Patrol Lt. John Nagel, running for Congress as a Republican against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, told Fox News Digital. 
"No matter where people stand on immigration policy or recent enforcement actions, invoking the Holocaust — one of the darkest chapters in human history — has no place in responsible public leadership. These comparisons do not clarify the debate. They distort it."
Nagel went on to call Walz's comment a "troubling pattern" rather than an "isolated remark."
"Governor Walz has repeatedly reached for extreme historical analogies — including references to Nazis and the Gestapo — when discussing law enforcement and political opponents," Nagel added. "That kind of rhetoric matters. When elected officials portray police or federal agents as Nazis, they create an …

Thune steamrolls Dems' DHS revolt as Fetterman defects, Schumer under pressure
Who's accountable for the results?

Senate Republicans are moving ahead with a behemoth funding package in their bid to keep the government open and hope to blast through Democratic opposition in the process. 
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Monday teed up the first procedural step for the six-bill funding package, which includes the politically divisive Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill, despite warnings from Senate Democrats that they would block the legislation. 
Monday’s action is just the first of several hurdles lawmakers will have to overcome, but important nonetheless given the extreme weather that rocked much of the country and threatened to delay the process altogether. 
SENATE DEMOCRATS THREATEN SHUTDOWN BY BLOCKING DHS FUNDING AFTER MINNESOTA ICE SHOOTING
Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s, R-S.D., gamble comes as a Friday deadline to fund the government is bearing down on the Senate. Passing the package and sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk would fully fund the government until September, when lawmakers will again need to have passed a dozen spending bills to keep the lights on.
But the immediate fight and one that threatens to derail the GOP’s plan to avert yet another shutdown is over DHS funding. 
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus have come out en masse against the broader package, including the Homeland funding bill, following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis on Saturday. 
Schumer and Senate Democrats rapidly mobilized their opposition to the funding bill, despite maintaining a fragile truce with the GOP in their bipartisan government funding negotiations over the last two days.
KEY SENATOR WON'T FUND DHS AS ICE, FEDERAL AGENTS ENTER HIS STATE
Despite shoring up a largely unified front, including several moderate Senate Democrats who crossed the aisle to help Republicans reopen the government last year, Schumer does have one perennial defector.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has consistently opposed any attempt to shut down the government. He notably joined Senate Republicans over a dozen times last year to reopen the government as his colleagues resisted. 
And like those times before, Fetterman is not keen on shutting the federal government down, despite agreeing with Senate Democrats that the DHS bill should be stripped from the broader package. 
He noted in a statement that even shutting down the government would affect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding, given that the GOP’s colossal, "one big, beautiful" bill injected over …

Agents involved in Pretti killing were wearing body cameras: DHS
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

The Trump administration is reviewing body camera footage from Customs and Border Protection agents involved in a recent deadly encounter with Minnesota protester Alex Pretti.

“There is body camera footage from multiple angles which investigators are currently reviewing,” a Department of Homeland Security official told the Washington Examiner. 

CBP officers work under the umbrella of DHS and are working alongside Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain illegal immigrants in Minnesota as part of “Operation Metro Surge.”

A CBP agent shot and killed Pretti on Saturday, sparking renewed protests in the state against ICE, as well as three separate federal investigations into the incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday. Federal investigators are reviewing footage from multiple CBP agents’ body cameras, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News.

Pretti appeared to be recording his interaction with agents before struggling with them and ultimately being fatally shot. DHS currently has his phone, an official with the Department of Justice told NewsNation on Monday, likely providing investigators with vital first-hand evidence as they unravel the incident. 

“As President Trump said yesterday, the administration is reviewing everything with respect to the shooting, and we will let that investigation play out,” Leavitt said during a press briefing, noting that DHS and the FBI are investigating the incident while CBP is conducting an internal review.

The Trump administration appeared to take steps to de-escalate tensions in Minnesota this week. In addition to publicizing the investigations into Pretti’s death, Trump announced on Monday morning that he had a “very good” phone call with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and is sending border czar Tom Homan to the state to hold conversations with officials. 

“I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future,” Trump said. 

Walz said the two held a “productive” call, during which the president “agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.”

Leavitt suggested that CBP would leave the state if Minnesota dropped sanctuary policies limiting local …

Thune promises 'safe streets, more money in pockets' as GOP senators hit the road to tout tax cuts
Who's accountable for the results?

FIRST ON FOX: Republican senators are hitting the road to sell the Working Families Tax Cuts Act in meetings with local business owners and families, Senate Majority Leader John Thune highlighted.
More than a dozen senators, including Thune, have held events in multiple states during separate trips, including to Texas, West Virginia, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio, Florida and Louisiana.
"When Joe Biden and Democrats had unified control of government, they created open borders and high prices," Thune told Fox News Digital. "Republicans, on the other hand, have delivered safe streets, more money in pockets, and new opportunities to get ahead through the historic Working Families Tax Cuts."
"Now we need to make sure the American people know it. Republicans will be hitting the ground hard in 2026 to sell our accomplishments and continue building on our work with the Trump-Vance administration to create a safe, strong, and prosperous America," Thune added.
BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL IMMEDIATELY HITS THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN BATTLE FOR CONGRESS
The GOP senators who have held events are John Cornyn of Texas, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Jim Justice of West Virginia, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, John Boozman of Arkansas, Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, Dan Sullivan of Arkansas, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Katie Britt of Alabama, Ashley Moody of Florida, Jon Husted 9of Ohio and Rick Scott of Florida.
Senate candidates Mike Rogers and Michael Whatley also joined Thune, Cornyn, Barrasso and Husted during a trip to the southern border in early January to see progress made on improving national security. The Working Families Tax Cuts Act, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, included a roughly $165 billion investment for immigration and border security efforts, including $46.5 billion for funding for the border wall.
Other senators met with local businesses in their respective states to discuss how the bill could benefit local communities.
BESSENT BLASTS DEMOCRAT-LED STATES FOR BLOCKING TRUMP TAX RELIEF IN OBBBA
"This week, I visited Kamp A Demics Learning Center, one of Montgomery’s child care centers, where I toured the facility and read to some of the precious children," Britt posted to X. "I also participated in a roundtable discussion on the updated child care tax credits I secured in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act and my continued work to address our child care crisis."
"I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak with restaurant owners and community leaders about Republicans’ …

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to why there may be a partial government shutdown Saturday
This is performative politics again.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security was already a question for some Democrats before the killing of Alex Pretti.
But Saturday’s killing by federal agents gave Democrats who were on the fence about supporting the upcoming government funding plan a reason to solidify their opposition. And the killing only hardened those who were opposed to funding DHS before.
From a political standpoint, Democrats are compelled to fight this. Otherwise, their base will balk. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., endured brickbats from the liberal base last March when he and a group of other Democratic senators helped Republicans clear a filibuster to avoid a shutdown.
Progressives raged at Schumer. And the Senate’s top Democrat suddenly found himself crossways with House Democratic leaders who expected him to mount more of a fight over government funding.
CONGRESS UNVEILS $1.2T SPENDING BILL AS PROGRESSIVE REVOLT BREWS OVER ICE FUNDING
The liberal base certainly got that this fall as Democrats withheld their votes to fund the government and fought over expiring Obamacare subsidies. The government shuttered for 43 days. But Democrats never earned a restoration of Obamacare subsidies. The Senate took a vote related to restoring the subsidies. Nothing happened. The House actually passed a bill re-upping the subsidies for three years. But the issue remains at an impasse.
Despite the fall brawl, Democratic congressional leaders faced a narrow path to walk for this funding round. They still felt pressure from the left to oppose money for DHS, long before the killing of Renee Good and Pretti. But Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not go to the mat to oppose funding this time. They wanted to finesse this, believing that a shutdown was bad politics for them after the fall experience. After all, Democrats never scored precisely what they wanted. By the same token, Schumer and Jeffries didn’t wade deeply into the funding fight, perhaps afraid of breaking a fragile truce on spending bills.
That all changed Saturday. Democrat after Democrat published statements that they wouldn’t vote to fund DHS. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, caucuses with the Democrats. He was one senator instrumental to helping re-open the government last fall. King said he couldn’t support funding this time around.
MORE THAN HALF OF HOUSE DEMOCRATS BACK IMPEACHMENT PUSH AGAINST DHS CHIEF KRISTI NOEM
So unless something changes by 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Friday, Jan. 30, 78% of the federal government will lack money to operate. The six-bill, $1.2 trillion spending package …

Former NRA spokeswoman has ‘a lot of questions’ about Alex Pretti shooting
Who's accountable for the results?

Former National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch expressed her skepticism about the Border Patrol’s narrative surrounding the fatal shooting in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Loesch appeared on CBS Mornings on Monday to respond to the footage of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Pretti was carrying a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun on his person at the time, but it was not in his hand. Open carry of a handgun is legal in Minnesota with a permit. Video shows that Pretti was disarmed before being shot multiple times.

“Watching what we saw in the video, I think we all have a lot of questions,” Loesch said. “I encourage people to carry. I encourage people to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but I also recognize that people need to be encouraged to de-escalate as well and make sure that you are not impeding any kind of federal investigation.”

WATCH: @DLoesch absolutely crushed it on Monday’s ‘CBS Mornings,’ especially here in pushing back on the leftist notion that what CBP and ICE have been doing in Minnesota – specifically removing sex offenders from the streets – is “tyranny”….

Vlad Duthiers: “It’s just to…
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 26, 2026

“But, for the administration, they need to be careful with their words,” Loesch said.

This comment was in response to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referring to Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” for carrying a firearm. DHS also alleged that Pretti had two magazines in his possession. 

However, President Donald Trump did not characterize Pretti as a terrorist.

BORDER PATROL AGENTS INVOLVED IN PRETTI SHOOTING REASSIGNED

“I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it,” Trump said when asked about the shooting on Sunday. “But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest, and he’s got a very powerful, fully-loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.” 

Pretti allegedly got involved during a federal operation. Pretti was present at the scene of what DHS called a “targeted” operation “against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault.”

Democrat who broke with party says his DHS funding vote a 'mistake' after 2nd Minneapolis ICE shooting
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

One of the seven House Democrats who voted with Republicans to advance a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill last week is now characterizing his vote as a mistake, highlighting growing unrest among moderate Democrats over the department's funding even as lawmakers look to escape a looming government shutdown.
In the wake of a deadly clash between immigration enforcement and agitators in Minnesota over the weekend, Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., apologized publicly for his vote in a post to Facebook.
"I failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis," Suozzi said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a key agency in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown efforts.
DEMS RELENT, SENATE SENDS $174B SPENDING PACKAGE TO TRUMP'S DESK AS SHUTDOWN LOOMS OVER DHS FUNDING
"I hear the anger from my constituents and I take responsibility for that. I have long been critical of ICE’s unlawful behavior, and I must do a better job demonstrating that," he added.
The other six Democrats contacted by Fox News Digital did not respond to inquiries about their votes.
Suozzi's comments come as Democrats in the Senate are signaling growing opposition to passing the DHS bill and funding the government ahead of a possible shutdown on Jan. 30. The DHS bill, which includes funding for ICE, is part of a four-bill package that the House of Representatives passed last week.
The political outlook of the DHS funding bill changed over the weekend with the death of Alex Pretti.
According to DHS, ICE officers shot and killed Pretti, 37, in a confrontation on Saturday when Pretti attempted to disrupt law enforcement activities while in possession of a firearm. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said agents acted in self-defense.
Pretti is the second civilian shot by ICE in the past month.
The Friday before Pretti’s death, Suozzi and six other Democrats broke with the rest of their party to advance a DHS funding bill that the majority of the party had condemned as inadequate in its provisions on ICE.
GOP SEN. CASSIDY BREAKS WITH TRUMP OVER DEADLY SHOOTING BY BORDER PATROL AGENT IN MINNEAPOLIS
Even with new body camera requirements, additional training mandates and some reductions in funding, Democrats saw the package as unlikely to prevent future deadly clashes between ICE and agitators.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of over 70 lawmakers, said they wouldn’t support a spending bill that didn’t include greater guardrails for ICE.
"I am glad to announce that …