Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina gave her Republican colleagues a reality check, expressing deep frustrations with the state of GOP leadership in Congress.

Mace penned an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday criticizing the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill, calling out Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) by name.

‘Here’s a hard truth Republicans don’t want to hear.’

Mace conceded that Johnson is a better choice than former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whom she voted to oust back in 2023, but argued that the most effective congressional leader is actually on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is better than his predecessor,” Mace said. “But the frustrations of being a rank-and-file House member are compounded as certain individuals or groups remain marginalized within the party, getting little say.”

RELATED: ‘You’re a piece of s**t’: Nancy Mace and Cory Mills clash in heated exchange after failed censure

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Mace said Republicans don’t take women in office seriously, implying that the conference chair position was a slot informally reserved for the “token” female in GOP leadership.

“Women will never be taken seriously until leadership decides to take us seriously, and I’m no longer holding my breath,” Mace said. “Since 2013, the Republican conference chair position has gone to a woman. It’s the token slot, the designated leadership role for the top woman in the conference, while the real power lies in other offices.”

One woman Mace admitted was a force to be reckoned with is former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose leadership style Mace deemed more effective than that of the GOP.

RELATED: ‘Low IQ traitor’: Trump torches MTG after she claims he ‘directly fueled’ death threats against her

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“Here’s a hard truth Republicans don’t want to hear: Nancy Pelosi was a more effective House speaker than any Republican this century,” Mace said. “I agree with her on essentially nothing. But she understood something we don’t: No majority is permanent.”

“When Democrats hold the majority, they ram through the most progressive policies they can. They deliver for the coalition that elected them while they are in power.

“Republicans do the opposite. … We pass the most moderate policies we can pressure conservatives to accept, betraying the coalition that delivered us here,” Mace continued.

“Ms. Pelosi was ruthless, but she got things done.”

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Police responded to a car crash at a grocery store late last week only to encounter a Florida man armed to the teeth, who warned he had a “dirty bomb,” according to authorities. The alarming dirty bomb remark triggered a lockdown of the area, police said.

Late Friday night, officers with the Haines City Police Department responded to reports of a vehicle crash at a Publix grocery store in Davenport.

‘Officers located a yellow plastic container secured with chains and locks with a radioactive warning label and immediately repositioned to a safe distance, shut down roadways, and requested assistance from the Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives.’

Police said officers made contact with 43-year-old Benjamin Donald Johnson — a driver allegedly involved in the car accident.

Police said in a statement, “Officers were ultimately required to physically remove Johnson from the truck, at which point multiple firearms were observed in plain view.”

Police said while the suspect was being detained in the back of a patrol vehicle, an officer heard Johnson saying that there was a “dirty bomb” in his Chevrolet Silverado truck.

Police stated, “Officers located a yellow plastic container secured with chains and locks with a radioactive warning label and immediately repositioned to a safe distance, shut down roadways, and requested assistance from the Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives.”

Police imposed a lockdown of the area near the vehicle in question for several hours “out of an abundance of caution” and to “ensure the safety” of anyone nearby.

RELATED: Florida man with meth pipe steals tourist train, picks up passengers for wild ride — and announces it’s his ‘birthday’: Cops

Before the bomb squad arrived, a Florida State Fire Investigator at the crime scene confirmed the container was “emitting positive radioactivity,” according to police.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and an FBI bomb technician launched an investigation into the possible dirty bomb.

According to police, investigators said a device was inside the yellow container. The investigators allegedly determined it was a moisture density gauge, which is “commonly used for soil testing, and contained less radioactivity than a medical X-ray.”

The statement said the container was transported to the Haines City Police Department, where it will be “further inspected” by members of the Florida Bureau of Radioactive Material.

Officers conducted a search of Johnson’s truck, and police said they found a “multitude of firearms and ammunition, firearm magazine speed loaders, thermal scopes, knives, a battering ram, night vision goggles, cannabis, and gummies, which tested positive for THC.”

Johnson told investigators he was in the area for work and had been living out of his pickup truck with his dog, police said.

The dog was transferred to a local animal control service.

Jail records from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office show that Johnson was arrested and charged with hoax weapon of mass destruction, false report concerning a bomb or explosive, resisting an officer without violence, unlawful possession of cannabis resin, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and use of a firearm under the influence of alcohol.

Police noted that Johnson’s prior criminal history revealed he had been arrested for possession of marijuana in Tennessee.

Police said the case remains under investigation.

The Haines City Police Department and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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The Trump administration’s Departments of Transportation and Health and Human Services are teaming up to launch a new effort to “make travel family friendly again” by providing more family-friendly resources and healthier food options at America’s airports.

On Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press conference at Reagan National Airport to announce a new family-friendly travel campaign that will allocate $1 billion in grant funding to airports to improve the travel experience.

‘I can tell you that this is where healthy diets go to die.’

Duffy provided a few examples of how the funds could be used, such as play areas for children, nursing pods for breastfeeding mothers, workout spaces, and separate security lanes for families. He noted that the funds could be used for a range of investments and that the department was open to other improvement suggestions.

“It’s pretty wide open on what airports want to ask for a grant,” Duffy stated.

He stated that he has also reached out to the airlines to encourage them to consider how they could improve the travel experience.

As part of the new campaign, Duffy and Kennedy are advocating for healthy food options at the nation’s airports.

RELATED: Exclusive interview: DOT Secretary Duffy explains how he’s making flying great again in time for Thanksgiving

Sean Duffy. Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images

“I … typically over the past 30 years, probably average 250 days a year in airports. And I can tell you that this is where healthy diets go to die,” Kennedy said. “It’s deep-fried food; it’s sugar bombs; it’s ultra-processed foods. And all of them are gonna leave you sicker than before you ate them.”

During Monday’s press conference, Duffy and Kennedy highlighted Farmer’s Fridge, a company that operates vending machines offering salads, sandwiches, bowls, and oats. Luke Saunders, the CEO of Farmer’s Fridge, who also attended the press conference, explained that he founded the company 12 years ago and that it now operates vending machines in over 30 U.S. airports.

“If you want to reach out to your airport authority and encourage them to participate in this money, please do that,” Duffy said.

RELATED: ‘Exemplary’ TSA agents receive big bonus just in time for Christmas after powering through Dem shutdown without a paycheck

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Duffy noted that last week the department hired an integrator who will help convert the nation’s air travel technology from analog to digital.

In November, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that the Transportation Security Administration would roll out new security screening lanes at select airports for families with small children, as well as for veterans and active-duty military.

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President Donald Trump berated a journalist who pressed him on the lethal attacks on suspected narco-terrorist boats near Venezuela.

Critics of the president say the military strikes are unlawful and unethical, but the administration has defended the actions as necessary and legal defensive acts to protect the American people.

‘Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious — actually a terrible reporter.’

ABC News reporter Rachel Scott asked Trump if he was going to order Department of War Sec. Pete Hegseth to release video of the order to strike the boats, when the president grew angry with her insistence on the question.

“Are you committed to releasing the full video?” she asked.

“Didn’t I just tell you that?” the president fired back.

“You’re the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious — actually a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you!” he added. “I told you, whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”

Video of the president’s comments were posted to social media.

Scott posted her version of the interaction on social media.

“I asked President Trump if he would release the full video from the second strike on Sept 2nd,” she wrote. “Just days ago the president said he would have ‘no problem’ doing that. But now, he denies saying that. And is not committing to releasing it.”

The president’s opponents allege that a second strike on the survivors on a drug-trafficking boat could be prosecuted as a war crime, but the administration has defended the decision.

RELATED: US strike against military targets in Venezuela could begin at any moment: Report

The president may have been referring to an argument he had with the same reporter in July 2024, ahead of the election, at the National Association of Black Journalists.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. The first question. You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ … I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit,” he said at the event.

He later continued to lash out at the reporter during the event.

“Look, if I came onto a stage like this and I got treated so rudely as this woman treated me,” Trump said. “Very rude. That was a nasty — that wasn’t even a question. She didn’t ask me a question. She gave a statement.”

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BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler spent her fall season speaking at college campuses and private events across the country — and she recalls one question on the tip of every young man’s tongue.

“I started to notice this fall that there’s a pattern in the questions that I was getting asked off the record. They were questions that were very different from the questions that I was asked on the record,” Wheeler explains.

“Their question to me was asking if I knew why the Trump administration’s mass deportations were off to what appears to feel like a slow start,” she says.

And it’s not because they’re “racist,” as many on the left would accuse them of being.

“The reason why they care is because of the implications that — it’s not just illegal immigration, but mass migration has had on their lives. A lot of these young men … are more conservative than the men of my generation, the Millennial generation,” she says, noting that a common label placed on these young men is “red-pilled.”

“They’re embracing traditional values a little bit more. They want to get married. They want to have children. They are more religious. They want to buy a home. They want the stability of, you know, what maybe our parents would have sought after,” she continues.

“And yet, these young men on these college campuses are facing a problem as they get their college degree thinking that they’re going to be prepared for the workforce. They’re going to be able to get a good job, have a paycheck, be able to support a wife, and provide for a family,” she adds.

These men are instead finding that they’re not able to get jobs, buy homes, or support families.

“Even if they have a decent-paying job, they’re not able to afford a down payment on a home because 25 years ago they could have bought, you know, a split-level starter home in a suburban neighborhood somewhere in the Midwest for $150,000 or $175,000, and they could afford a down payment on that,” Wheeler explains.

“But today, that same house is like $375,000, and $375,000, even if they could maybe afford the monthly payment of a mortgage for a house of that price, they cannot afford the down payment. And so they feel very helpless,” she says, pointing out that this is where immigration comes in.

“They look at these millions upon millions, tens of millions of illegals who are taking up these homes, and they realize that the demand for these homes from these illegals is part of what drives the price so high, so high that it’s unaffordable to these young men,” she continues.

And these concerns remind Wheeler of someone else.

“This is what Charlie Kirk used to do. He used to speak to these young men on college campuses and not just — he wasn’t just lecturing them. Charlie wasn’t just there to shake his finger and wag his finger and tell them why they’re wrong,” she explains.

“Charlie listened. He listened to their grievances. He listened to what these young men were experiencing. And he didn’t just listen to set himself up for, like, you know, an own-the-lib type of response,” she continues. “He listened so that he could help solve the problem.”

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The Trump administration indicated in its newly released National Security Strategy that “the days of propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over” — that American allies will have to “take more responsibility for security in their neighborhoods,” especially as America orients its focus to the Western Hemisphere and hardens its presence in the Western Pacific.

The strategy document specifically called for “Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including taking primary responsibility for its own defense.”

It appears, however, that members of Congress want America to shoulder the burden of European defense indefinitely.

In order to withdraw US forces past the 76,000 mark, the Trump administration would have to demonstrate to Congress that such a move would not adversely impact American or NATO security interests.

The version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act finalized by both House and Senate negotiators and released on Sunday — a budget that exceeds President Donald Trump’s $892.6 billion budget request for the Pentagon by $8 billion — would block the Pentagon both from reducing the number of troops “stationed in or deployed to the area of responsibility of the United States European Command below 76,000 for longer than a 45-day period” and from using any funds appropriated under the act to move any Pentagon equipment originally valued at $500,000 out of Europe.

In order to withdraw U.S. forces past the 76,000 mark, the Trump administration would have to demonstrate to Congress that such a move would not adversely impact American or NATO security interests. The number of U.S. troops stationed in Europe fluctuates between around 80,000 and 100,000.

Citing five sources familiar with the discussion, including a U.S. official, Reuters reported that Pentagon officials told European diplomats during a recent meeting that Washington expects Europe to take over most of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities such as troops and missile defense by 2027. Failure to do so might prompt America to end its participation in certain NATO defense coordination mechanisms, said the sources.

RELATED: ‘Enemy of Europe’: Liberal globalists attack Trump over recognizing ‘civilizational erasure’ in Europe

American troops and attack helicopters in Germany. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement, “We’ve been very clear in the need for Europeans to lead in the conventional defense of Europe. We are committed to working through NATO coordination mechanisms to strengthen the alliance and ensure its long-term viability as European allies increasingly take on responsibility for conventional deterrence and defense in Europe.”

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau added on X that “Europe must take primary responsibility for its own security.”

“Successive US Administrations have been saying this in one form or another pretty much my whole life — look up the 1969 ‘Nixon doctrine’ — but our Administration means what it says,” added Landau.

The current version of the NDAA would also prohibit the administration from letting the head of U.S. European Command — Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich — relinquish his role as NATO supreme allied commander in Europe.

Thanks to Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the NDAA as written would also codify the Baltic Security Initiative, hamstringing any efforts on the part of the administration to suspend the program, which uses American funds to bankroll Baltic states’ defense capabilities. Billions of U.S. dollars have been poured into the BSI in recent years even as Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia began investing more into their own defense.

In addition to ensuring that America remains bogged down in Europe, the 2026 NDAA as written has other provisions that might hamper the administration’s ability to realize its national security strategy in full.

The legislation states that it is “the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Defense should continue efforts that strengthen United States defense alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region so as to further the comparative advantage of the United States in strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China.”

To this end, the legislation would prohibit obligating or expending any funds to reduce the total number of troops that are permanently stationed in or deployed to Korea below 28,500 or “to complete the transition of wartime operational control of the United States-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command from United States-led command to Republic of Korea-led command” unless War Secretary Pete Hegseth provides an assessment and certification to Congress showing that doing so is in America’s national interest and is being undertaken only after consulting with several foreign nations, including Korea and Japan.

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