Cruz Sets the Immigration Record Straight With Megyn Kelly

The Context

At last night's Fox News/Google GOP Debate in Iowa, Sen. Rubio did a song and dance with Sen. Cruz on immigration. Rubio accused Cruz of supporting a bill that Rubio himself authored as part of the so-called Gang of Eight, trying to make it look like Cruz had flip-flopped his stance on immigration policy. The bill in question allowed for citizenship and legalization. Cruz had introduced a series of amendments, each designed to fix problems in the bill, but the way he handled it keeps coming back to bite him.

The Poison Pill

Rubio's immigration reform bill allowed for both citizenship and legalization. Knowing the bill would not stand without one of those key issues, Cruz proposed an amendment to remove citizenship, leaving the option of legalization. It's what's called a "poison pill," making the bill completely undesirable to the opposition. Now Rubio is trying to say that Cruz was in favor of legalization. Cruz was never in favor of legalization --- and Sen. Rubio knows it.

For the Record

Marco Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight trying to pass immigration reform. It's an extremely complex issue, and he's used that complexity to his advantage this election season to muddy his opponents positions on immigration. Truth be told, Rubio is the candidate that supports giving citizenship and legalization to people who are currently in the U.S. illegally.

"I just can't believe that Marco Rubio is allowed to distort his own record so much," Glenn said Friday on The Glenn Beck Program.

The Kelly File

So, was Megyn Kelly's line of questioning during the debate foul? She presented a series of edited clips that made it appear Sen. Cruz had flip-flopped on the issue of immigration. However, in her follow-up interview (see below), she admitted Cruz's record did not support that argument, that he had been solid on the issue of immigration.

Common Sense Bottom Line

Ted Cruz has never supported amnesty and anyone who says otherwise is playing games. Rubio authored an immigration reform bill that included citizenship and legalization for illegals. Cruz tried to block it. For Rubio to paint Cruz as supporting legalization is blatantly false.

Listen to the exchange on immigration between Megyn Kelly and Senator Cruz, beginning at about 3:45:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Let's go to Mo in California. Hello, Mo.

CALLER: Well, good morning. Thank you guys so much for all you're doing. You know, I have a unique perspective. I listen to all these debates on the radio because I'm always driving. So I'm on the road a lot. I live in California.

I'm a Christian conservative. I've got seven kids, five in the military. I've served myself. So I started out a Ben Carson guy. And I always loved Ted. Now I'm a big Ted fan. I kind of switched over to Ted. I don't think last night did him any favors. I was really concerned with some of the -- him and Rubio -- Marco too, some of the clips they played, I didn't watch the clips, I had to hear them. But by listening to what they were saying, they really did a job on him. He really came across as kind of flippy-floppy. Not what I expected. I was kind of surprised. I do the best I can to read. I listen to you guys all the time. I try to keep as informed as I can. I didn't realize there was a history of changing positions and not being -- I really thought Ted was a lot more solid. I still will vote for him, no doubt.

PAT: He is solid actually.

GLENN: He is. In fact, I want to play the audio because after the debate, Megyn Kelly came up to him -- right after the chute. And she said, "Let's go over this again." Because I don't know what the hell is wrong with Ted on this. He has the best reason for doing this. And he eventually got to it with Megyn Kelly.

PAT: It took a long time though.

GLENN: But it really took a long time.

PAT: And we've looked into this. We've dug into this really deeply. We wanted to know ourselves. And he's got a reasonable explanation for it.

GLENN: I think he just doesn't want to say, "I put a poison pill out."

PAT: He doesn't.

GLENN: But that's exactly what he did, and he admitted that finally with Megyn Kelly last night. But by then, I think the damage was done. But we'll play that really fascinating interview with Megyn Kelly immediately following the debate. Next.

(OUT AT 8:33AM)

GLENN: This is the exchange with Megyn Kelly right after the debate with Ted Cruz. Listen to this.

MEGYN: Was that all an act? It was pretty convincing.

TED: You know, the amendment you're talking about is one sentence. It's 38 words. Anyone can go online on TedCruz.org and read exactly what it said. In those 38 words, it said, "Anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship." It didn't say a word about legalization.

MEGYN: But the bill allowed both. The bill you were amending allowed citizenship and legal- --

TED: But, Megyn, the bill was 1,000 pages. I introduced a series of amendments, each designed to fix problems in the bill. The fact that each amendment didn't fix every problem didn't mean that I supported the rest of the bill.

PAT: So that was the exchange.

MEGYN: So what I was trying to get at there was, you know, the bill offered both, legalization and citizenship. And you tried to take away citizenship, which would have allowed legalization still.

But, I mean, I look back at your record a lot to see, "Did Ted Cruz really want legalization, or didn't he?" I think the record supports you, that you did not want it.

PAT: And to your point, Stu, where was that during the debate?

STU: Yeah, I like Megyn Kelly. I think she did generally a good job. This moment bothered me a little bit because she made this big montage of these clips that were like cut up in real short segments.

PAT: That made him look bad.

STU: And said, "What were you doing, just acting out there? What was the deal?"

PAT: Making him look like a flip-flopper.

GLENN: I think that's her job though. As a person in the debate, you're not supposed to -- Chris Wallace was like, "Marco Rubio, that's Ted Cruz over there. Get him." Where a job is not to flip it one way or the other. It's to present it and say, "What were you doing there? What is that? Was that a good piece of acting, or did you mean something different?" I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

STU: I just think if she went through the work and realized and came to the conclusion that he did not support this amnesty in this particular bill, it just seems to me like that should be at least a mention in -- as you're discussing it. You know, she comes here and says multiple times, "I looked at your record. You did not want amnesty. So what's the deal with the parliamentary tricks?"

I mean, that's a fair question. I think he should have to answer that, why did he do it? That's fine. But she did the homework and she came to the come conclusion that he didn't want amnesty, and the way the question came off, to me, at least was like, "Hey, you obviously wanted amnesty and then now -- and now you're saying you didn't."

Again, I'm not blaming her that she did a terrible job or anything by any means. I think she did a good job. I just wish that was part of the question. I think a lot of people in Iowa are saying, "Wow. I just saw 19 clips edited very tightly with very little context." And now Ted is sitting there saying, "Well, look, this is what I tried to do." It seems like he's on the defensive. When Megyn Kelly herself, the person asking the question, has done the math and found out that it wasn't true.

PAT: Knew the answer. Yeah.

GLENN: All right. Play the rest.

MEGYN: It does. That it really was a poison pill amendment. What I was trying to get to you was, it just seems weird for the average person to see, like, the acting when you're trying to sell it, saying I want the bill to pass.

TED: But no, no. What I said was I wanted immigration reform to pass.

MEGYN: You also said the bill.

TED: I didn't say I want the bill to pass.

MEGYN: You did. I have it. I played it. That was the very first sound bite we played. The very first one.

TED: What I said was I want immigration reform to pass, and I've laid out on my website an 11-page very, very detailed immigration plan that I would like to have passed. We've got to secure the borders. We've got to stop illegal immigration.

MEGYN: You were talking about people coming out of the shadows. It seems like acting.

TED: Well, look, what I often do, particularly when debating Democrats -- and I was debating Chuck Schumer there -- is use the language of the Democrats to show their hypocrisy. Because, you know what, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats talked about people coming under the shadows. But it wasn't about that. It was about votes.

MEGYN: And they were saying at the time that it wasn't about citizenship. And you were trying to put the lie to that? Is that the --

TED: Yes. Right.

MEGYN: As I read your testimonials on this, that's how I read it.

GLENN: Yes.

TED: No, that's exactly right. They said it was all about bringing people out of the shadows. And I said, "Well, great. Then you should be happy to take citizenship off the table." And, of course, Chuck Schumer responded, "If there is no citizenship, there is no reform. We'll kill the whole thing." And, you know, there's an old joke that the new politically correct term for illegal aliens is now undocumented Democrats. This was about votes. And that amendment laid that there. And when the hypocrisy was shown to the American people, that's one of the reasons we were able to kill it.

MEGYN: I got it.

TED: It's why Jeff Sessions said if it wasn't for Cruz -- he said, "If Ted wasn't there, they would have passed."

MEGYN: I thought is he lying about this poison pill thing? The record supports you that it was a poison pill.

PAT: Well, there you go. It took a long time to get to. But it was a poison pill. And he was doing parliamentary, he was playing parliamentary politics. He was trying to show the hypocrisy of the left.

GLENN: He was doing exactly what we said he was doing about three months ago.

PAT: Yeah. That's right.

GLENN: Because we looked at it as well.

PAT: And, by the way, Marco Rubio was part of that. They were part -- he was part of the Gang of Eight trying to get that bill passed. He helped write it.

GLENN: But I just can't believe that Marco Rubio is allowed to distort his own record so much.

PAT: I know. I know.

STU: It is comical.

PAT: It's amazing.

GLENN: He's flipped him.

STU: What Rubio was accusing Cruz of inaccurately is -- as an attack --

PAT: Is what he has done?

STU: He's like, "You, jerk, you used to believe the thing that I believed."

PAT: Right.

STU: It's like, wait a minute. So you're saying -- your attack against him is that he may have supported part of the bill that you wrote. That's not -- that shouldn't be a good attack. But it seemed -- it seems to be --

PAT: It's weird that it seems to be working.

STU: You could argue I guess that it's just people trying to hide their record or something, and that's what he's attacking. But the huge negative you'd be accusing Cruz of was saying the same thing you believed then too. And, by the way, that's not true.

PAT: And part of what Rubio said last night was that Cruz is now trying to out-Trump, Trump. Well, Trump is for a path to citizenship. Trump has been the one that's been trumpeting, there's got to be a way for these people to become legal citizens.

STU: You can't kick out people who have been living here 20 years. You can't do that. You can't get them all.

PAT: He just said that.

GLENN: Do you have the audio of that?

PAT: Yeah, I'll have to find that.

GLENN: 68 percent of Iowans still have not made up their mind.

STU: It's amazing.

GLENN: It really is. It really is. This is the weekend most people begin to make their mind up in Iowa, studies show. Tomorrow and the next day.

Featured Image: Fox News anchor and debate moderator Megyn Kelly speaks with Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after the Republican Presidential debate sponsored by Fox News and Google at the Iowa Events Center on January 28, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa. The Democratic and Republican Iowa Caucuses, the first step in nominating a presidential candidate from each party, will take place on February 1. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.

Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.

They were wrong.

The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.

Willful blindness

On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.

Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”

And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.

Monthly attacks

Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.

In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.

That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”

On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.

Democrats are radicalizing

This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”

Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.

A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.

The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.

Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.