The president has threatened to pull the nomination for attorney general as Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina continue to demand guarantees that the “anti-weaponization fund” is dead.

President Donald Trump said on social media that he may pull Todd Blanche’s nomination and then resubmit it after Cornyn’s and Tillis’ terms end in January.

‘POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis.’

“Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it! He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“However, John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, both of whom I refused to Endorse, and whose political careers have been ended by my action, are refusing to vote for this Great Nominee, who will remain, in any event, as Acting,” he added.

Tillis responded by noting that if Democrats are able to seize control of Congress in the midterms, it will be far harder to push Trump’s nominations through.

“He’s perfectly entitled to do that, he just needs to game out what the numbers look like in the next Congress versus a willing group of people who wants to confirm him now if they do nothing more than follow up on what we all thought was true, that [the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund] is inoperative,” he said to a reporter.

Cornyn is demanding that the administration guarantee in writing that the fund is dead, as Blanche has already indicated when speaking to Congress.

“We are not moving forward with the fund. Period,” Blanche said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in June.

Blanche’s comment has been used by the administration to deflect demands for greater guarantees that it will not seek the fund, but judges and the two Republican senators say the promise needs to be in writing.

Cornyn reiterated the point on social media.

“POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis,” he wrote.

RELATED: Newsom signs 100% tax on any Californian who benefits from Trump ‘slush fund’

Tillis said he agrees with Cornyn on the issue.

“We were told that the policy was effectively moot and inoperative. This makes me wonder whether or not — not Blanche, I think he was being sincere — but somebody in the White House or somebody who advises the president isn’t,” the senator said.

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​John cornyn, Thom tillis, Donald trump, Anti weaponization fund, Todd blanche, Politics 

A 26-year-old man found out the hard way that Apple’s Hide My Email feature didn’t conceal his identity when he threatened the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel in February.

Apparently, that anti-anonymous loophole doesn’t just work for federal officials. New information suggests that Apple’s Hide My Email doesn’t hide anyone’s identity, even from websites and marketers as it was originally intended.

Your real address and name may be visible.

So what went wrong?

Hide My Email’s privacy problem

Apple unveiled Hide My Email in 2021 as part of its extended iCloud+ paid subscription. During its WWDC keynote event, then-VP of Apple Cloud Services, Mike Abbott, said, “We’ve all had moments where we’ve thought twice about sharing our personal email address, like when we’re filling out a form on the web. With Hide My Email, you can share a unique random address that forwards messages to your personal inbox, and it’s built right into Mail, Safari, and iCloud settings. So it’s easy to set up as many addresses as you need and delete them at any time, keeping you in control.”

This statement was made during a keynote segment dedicated to “another part of our ecosystem that puts your privacy first,” according to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. Apparently, that was just marketing fluff.

As reported by 404 Media, Tyler Murphy, co-founder of a personal data removal service EasyOptOuts, unearthed Hide My Email’s one glaring privacy flaw. He made the harsh claim that, “Apple Hide My Email is leaking email addresses that are supposed to be hidden. We reported the issue and replication instructions to Apple over a year ago. We don’t know why it hasn’t been fixed, but we don’t feel comfortable waiting any longer. Hide My Email users deserve to know that it may be possible for attackers to discover their hidden email addresses.” He concluded with a warning, “Free, publicly accessible people-search sites make it easy to link an email address to other personal details, so people relying on Hide My Email for safety may be at risk.”

Apple is reportedly investigating the claim, and despite recent software patches for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, the problem has not been fixed.

A privacy-first facade

It’s important to note that this issue is different from the story we covered earlier this year involving Kash Patel’s girlfriend (Alexis Wilkins) and the FBI. In this case, the FBI requested that Apple provide the primary email address and name of the person who was sending threats to Wilkins to charge him for a crime. Although this wasn’t known at the time, Hide My Email addresses are not concealed within Apple’s servers, giving them the ability to link alias accounts to their original creators. (So much for privacy first, huh, Craig?)

RELATED: Is Google tweaking Android to listen in on you all the time?

Yuliia Kaveshnikova/Getty Images

Third-party websites and hackers, on the other hand, don’t have access to Apple’s servers and shouldn’t have the power to draw the same correlations. Yet, this is Murphy’s claim: That all Hide My Email aliases can be traced to their creators and the service actually doesn’t do anything at all.

What should you do?

If you’re a Hide My Email user and you’re relying on it for some sense of anonymity on the web, think again. Your real address and name may be visible. Since Apple has failed to fix the problem, it’s best to refrain from using the service for now. There are potential alternative options available through third-party email providers, but if we’re being honest, nothing on the internet is completely anonymous or private, so it’s hard to recommend those either.

If you think this whole thing has class-action lawsuit written all over it, you’re right! A case has already emerged. Filed by Anthony Alvarez, the suit goes after Apple on several counts, including negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, and fraud.

The suit notes that the vulnerability was originally brought to Apple’s attention in June 2025, an entire year before the problem was revealed to the public by Murphy. Adding insult to injury, the suit claims that Apple reported a fix for the issue in March 2026, yet the problem still remained an active threat, at which point Apple covered up the flaw again.

Only time will tell if Apple gets into any real legal trouble over the Hide My Email debacle. In the meantime, it’s best to stay away from it entirely.

​Apple, Privacy, Security, Identity, Tech 

Anti-woke comedian and writer John Cleese has come out swinging in support of Rupert Lowe, the Restore Britain leader who has become a magnet for leftist abuse over his criticism of mass migration and systemic anti-white racism.

On Sunday, an X user who goes by “The English Crusader” shared an image of Rupert Lowe captioned, “What is the first word that comes into your mind?”

‘I am not a racist. I am a culturalist.’

Cleese, a former supporter of the Liberal Democrats, responded, “I trust this man more than any of the other leaders.”

Lowe is a member of the British Parliament who departed Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party early last year on bad terms. He then founded Restore Britain in February as a party “for those who believe that our nation has been hollowed out by weak leadership, broken institutions, and a political class that no longer serves the people.”

Although presently nowhere close to having the numbers or the support sufficient to displace Reform or one of the legacy parties in Westminster, Lowe and his party have nevertheless made a significant splash in British politics. According to YouGov, Lowe is the third-most popular public figure in the United Kingdom.

Cleese appears to support Lowe and his party chiefly for its proposed approach to immigration — overwhelmingly the most important issue for Restore Britain voters, recent polling shows.

RELATED: ‘I don’t care’: Meet the man building Britain’s new populist, anti-immigration right

Clemens Bilan/Getty Images

While appreciated by Lowe, Cleese’s recent political advocacy has ruffled quite a few feathers across the Atlantic.

Alastair Campbell, a political strategist who served as a spokesman for former Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as for the Labour Party, was among those prickled by Cleese’s comments, accusing the comedian of having “totally lost the plot.”

So-called immigration policy expert Zoe Gardner attributed Cleese’s support for Lowe to “brain worms.”

Deluged with similar reactions online, Cleese silly-walked over his critics’ hurt feelings, noting, “I see I am being ritually insulted for my support of this man. The uneducated call me a racist. I am not a racist. I am a culturalist. I believe that some cultures are better than others.”

Cleese added that he prefers cultures that “do not advocate stoning, pederasty, wife beating, female genital mutilation, and beheading opponents.”

Again, Cleese’s critics seethed, but this time the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, weighed in, stating, “John Cleese has (all too rare) common sense.”

The comedian has shown no signs of stopping when it comes to sharing posts supportive of Lowe and Restore Britain.

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​United kingdom, Rupert lowe, Restore britain, John cleese, Monty python, Politics 

On July 25, Abdul Ballout — a 21-year-old German citizen with ties to ISIS — carried out an Islamist terror attack by driving a van into a crowd at Berlin’s Pride celebrations and then attacking people with a machete, killing one woman and injuring 29 others. Police shot him dead the following day when he charged at them with a sharp object.

Some LGBTQ+ activists have used the tragedy to point the finger not at Islamists who have consistently been the perpetrators of recent terror attacks in Europe but at white Christians.

At the public vigil held for victims of the attack, Berlin-based performer and LGBTQ+ activist Yannicka Riebensahm lamented that Ballout didn’t fit the profile of her preferred villain: a “white Christian person.”

A pink-haired LGBTQ+ activist reacted with similar sentiments. In a video, she said, “So the suspect is an Islamic extremist. … That’s what I read, OK? I’m not going to say anything about the rest of the Muslim population because of actions of this one person, but what I can say is the people who were celebrating about this were all white men — young white men with crosses on their profiles.”

Glenn Beck is stunned by the glaring racism embedded in her anti-racism spiel.

“Why are you willing to lump all white men into one category, but you will only look at the action of one Islamist and say that doesn’t speak for all Islamists?” he asks.

But there’s an even deeper and darker reality behind the words of these LGBTQ+ activists who support Islam: They’re cheering the very people who will discard or destroy them the moment the alliance is no longer useful.

The LGBTQ crowd’s support for an ideology hostile to homosexuality may look bizarre, but Glenn sees exactly how the strange coalition was built: through deliberate concealment and double messaging.

He points to congressional candidate Melissa Chaudhry as a clear example of the double game. She admitted many Muslims don’t support LGBTQ rights, hence why the issue was missing from her website. But progressives attacked her for “causing chaos between two oppressed demographics” rather than for hiding it.

“The problem is not the voter,” says Glenn. “The problem is the candidate who carries one set of beliefs into the mosque and a different set into the fundraiser and then calls you the hater if you point at the seam and go, ‘Wait, what are you stitching together here?’”

He also recalls how Barack Obama publicly claimed in 2008 that marriage was between a man and a woman, only for his strategist David Axelrod to later admit Obama had supported same-sex marriage all along and hid it to secure votes from the black church.

This kind of political “choreography” may win elections in the short term, Glenn warns, but it leaves people unprepared for reality.

Earlier this month, an Atlantis Events LGBTQ cruise ship had to be rerouted not once but twice because Turkey and Egypt both refused to allow the boat to dock because the passengers’ conduct was considered incompatible with the culture and beliefs of the two nations.

“These are the moderate countries, OK? In roughly a dozen jurisdictions from Iran to Afghanistan to northern Nigeria, the penalty on the books for homosexuality or anything LGBTQ is death,” says Glenn.

And yet in America and Europe, politicians are deceptively concealing the diametric opposition between these two groups.

“When a party is assembling a coalition by telling one wing something it does not tell the other, that’s not clever. That has a history, and the history is very specific,” Glenn warns.

In 1931, German communists were ordered by Moscow to join Nazis in a campaign to dissolve Prussia’s democratic government, even though they had previously called it a fascist plot. Their leaders sold the alliance as temporary and controllable — yet less than two years later, communists were among the first prisoners sent to Dachau.

“The lesson is not about the partner; the lesson is about the leadership,” says Glenn. “Rank-and-file communists didn’t choose that alliance. Their leaders chose it for them, sold it as strategy, and they were confident they could manage the people they had climbed into bed with, but they couldn’t.”

“The junior partner in a coalition built on concealment never gets to renegotiate later. When the two wings finally collide, the party sides with the larger number of votes or the ones that are more committed to your death every time,” he adds.

In the alliance between today’s LGBTQ+ community and Islam, there’s no question about who’s the “junior partner.”

“I beg you, wake up. You’re going to be eaten, and it’s not going to be a pleasant moment,” Glenn pleads.

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​Glenn beck, Berlin, Islam, White christians, Blazetv show, Lgbt 

The Biden administration admitted — at an accelerated pace — thousands of Afghans into the United States following the collapse of Kabul, despite warnings from Donald Trump, then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and others about the likelihood of extremists slipping through the cracks.

Among the extremists ultimately admitted into the U.S. under Biden was a jihadist who, with the help of other radicals in his family already in the U.S., plotted to slaughter as many Americans on Election Day 2024 as possible on behalf of ISIS.

‘NAZIRA worked with TAWHEDI to radicalize the family and to conceal their pro-ISIS teaching,’ the DOJ claims.

The Trump Justice Department announced on Thursday that it has filed the first-ever case in the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court — to remove the matriarch of that terrorist family, Nazira Haji Zada.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement noted in its July 15 declaration in support of Zada’s removal that she was first admitted to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident in March 2018 as the spouse of a Middle Easterner employed by the U.S. at Bagram Air Base from 2009 to 2016. It notes further that she “meets the definition of alien terrorist as used in 8 U.S.C. § 1533(a)(1)(D)(i).”

Zada, who has been residing in Fort Worth, Texas, was arrested this week and will appear before ATRC’s Chief Judge Joan Ericksen on Thursday.

The ATRC is a special court created by Congress in 1996. Congress authorized the chief justice of the United States — presently the head of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts — to designate five U.S. district court judges to review removal applications for individuals identified as alien terrorists.

“This is a historic step asking this court for the first time to remove an individual from the United States who supported a plot by ISIS-sympathizing family members to commit an act of terrorism in America,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “No one should be allowed to come into our country and then betray it.”

RELATED: Democrat crashes out AGAIN, threatens ICE with ‘day of reckoning’ for catching suspected terrorist

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

Zada is the mother of Abdullah Haji Zada and the mother-in-law of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, both of whom were arrested on Oct. 7, 2024, after buying guns and ammo from an undercover FBI employee for use in their thwarted Election Day massacre.

Abdullah Zada, an Afghan national who came to the U.S. with Zada in 2018, pleaded guilty in April 2025 to knowingly receiving, attempting to receive, and conspiring to receive a firearm and ammunition to be used to commit a federal crime of terrorism. He was handed down the maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison, after which he will be deported.

Tawhedi, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. on Sept. 9, 2021 — nearly 20 years to the day after the 9/11 attacks — pleaded guilty to the same charges as well as to conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. He has not yet been sentenced.

According to the original criminal complaint, Tawhedi immersed himself and his family members in jihadist propaganda and communicated with an ISIS facilitator about his efforts to procure weapons for use in the terror plot.

Footage taken on July 20, 2024, and later obtained by the FBI allegedly shows Tawhedi reading to his daughter and nephew about the supposed benefits of martyrdom, including a harem of 72 virgins and a crown of jewels.

Abdullah Zada and Tawhedi planned to sell Zada’s home in Moore, Oklahoma, for $185,000 — Zada allegedly signed off on the sale — as well as other property owned by the family to fund both the terrorism plot and the repatriation of their family, including Zada but not her husband, back to Afghanistan on on Oct. 17, 2024, according to the complaint.

It appears the Afghan matriarch played a big role in helping her son and son-in-law advance their plot.

In an unclassified submission to the ATRC, the DOJ claimed:

The FBI has developed information that NAZIRA is a supporter of ISIS, has formally pledged loyalty to ISIS, and supported TAWHEDI and ABDULLAH’s conspiracy. The FBI is further aware that NAZIRA, in collaboration with TAWHEDI, worked to indoctrinate her children with ISIS ideology and have them pledge loyalty to ISIS. NAZIRA worked with TAWHEDI to radicalize the family and to conceal their pro-ISIS teaching and planned family relocation to ISIS-controlled territory from her unsuspecting husband Abdul Haji Zada.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that “the allegations in this case show the matriarch of an ISIS-sympathizing family aiding in a plot to launch a mass casualty attack on American voters on Election Day.”

“The ATRC embodies the recognition that the government should not have to choose between allowing a dangerous alien to remain in the United States and disclosing sensitive classified information in a traditional removal proceeding,” stated Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg. “We will use all the tools at our disposal, including this court, to remove foreign nationals who betray our values and exploit our goodwill by supporting ISIS and terrorist plots.”

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​Afghanistan, Biden, Immigration and customs enforcement, Isis, Justice department, Kash patel, Politics 

The Sunshine State might ultimately have Anthony Fauci making diary entries behind bars.

D.C. Republicans on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs gave Anthony Fauci an energetic tongue-lashing during a hearing on Wednesday, but a tongue-lashing is all, because the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases decided to invoke the Fifth Amendment over 100 times.

‘Bring charges against Fauci for crimes against children in exposing them to a vaccine that has now been PROVEN to hurt people.’

Despite subsequent talk of a potential charge of contempt of Congress, Fauci appears, at least for now, to be safely beyond the reach of federal lawmakers. He received a “full and unconditional” autopen pardon during Joe Biden’s final hours in office, which gives him a pass for possible federal crimes going back to Jan. 1, 2014 — a pardon that President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday he “respects.”

Fauci is not, however, safe from state-level prosecution, which now appears to be in the cards in Florida.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) tweeted after the hearing, “Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable.”

RELATED: Anthony Fauci LASHED OUT at Steve Deace in newly released diary entry — and Deace FIRES BACK

Blaze Media Illustration

“My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci,” continued Uthmeier. “It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID.”

Uthmeier’s office did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

“Not surprised perhaps the best state attorney general in America seems willing to take this up,” said the eponymous host of BlazeTV’s “Steve Deace Show,” who authored a book with co-host Todd Erzen — “Faucian Bargain: The Most Powerful and Dangerous Bureaucrat in American History” — which Fauci complained about in his diary.

“If we cannot hold an obvious fraud and fiend like Fauci accountable somehow as a party, then I’m not sure how we can hold anyone significant accountable for anything,” Deace told Blaze News. “And history says to a very dark place we go when a people loses faith that such obvious evil and corruption will be punished.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was also among those who lauded Florida for taking the initiative, writing, “Appreciate my good friend [James Uthmeier] for leading.”

Uthmeier made the announcement just minutes after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) discussed on X how a state attorney general or a local state attorney might land Fauci in a Florida court and nearly an hour after Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) noted, “Dr. ‘Mengele’ Fauci may be protected by a federal pardon but that does not hold against state prosecution and civil lawsuits.”

“I am calling on the great Attorneys General and Governors of FL, TX, WV, and AR to bring charges against Fauci for crimes against children in exposing them to a vaccine that has now been PROVEN to hurt people,” continued Paulina Luna. “He is and will go down in history as one of the darkest souls who has ever been in federal government.”

RELATED: Diaries expose Fauci obsessing over his own fame during height of COVID as millions died

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Carl Juste/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

When asked by talking head Jesse Watters on Wednesday evening whether Fauci has criminal exposure, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “I definitely think he should be held in contempt [of Congress] and that process will go forward.”

As for state-level exposure, DeSantis said, “The attorney general of Florida has an investigation into Fauci. I would love to see something happen there. The reality is a federal official has a lot of defenses to go if they are dragged into state court, and, in fact, he could probably remove it to federal court. So we’ll see how that plays out. I hope that there’s accountability.”

There is a broader state-level effort to hold Fauci accountable that kicked off last year.

In February 2025, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and 16 other state attorneys general — including former acting Florida Attorney General John Guard — launched an investigation into Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 response, “demanding accountability for alleged mismanagement, misleading statements, and suppression of scientific debate.”

The state AGs further accused Fauci of leading “a deliberate campaign to stifle the voices of premier health scholars regarding the lack of adequate testing of vaccines” and engaging in a propaganda campaign that “contributed to serious vaccine injuries — and in some cases, death.”

While the multistate investigation does not appear to have yet yielded any charges, indictments, or determinations, Wilson — now the Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina — referred to the initiative on Wednesday and stated, “We will continue pursuing the truth because the American people deserve nothing less.”

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​Anthony fauci, Autopen, Covid-19, Donald trump, Florida, James uthmeier, Jesse watters, Ron desantis, Steve deace show, Politics 

Six weeks after Mitch McConnell was hospitalized for a fall and pneumonia, he has yet to be cleared to return to work — but his office did share a brand-new proof-of-life photo of him.

In the statement accompanying the photo, McConnell claimed to be going through “intense physical therapy” and said he would not be making an appearance at any events in the near future.

“That’s the same picture,” “Pat Gray Unleashed” co-host Jeff Fisher comments.

“We don’t even know that that’s recent. We don’t know if it’s real. Could be AI,” Gray says.

The photo, Gray points out, is eerily similar to the first photo released of McConnell. He’s sitting while his wife has her hand on his arm.

“The only difference is sitting in a different chair,” he says.

While the walls in both photos appear to look exactly the same, in the first photo he’s holding a newspaper, and in the second he’s not.

“What kind of game are they playing with the American people?” Gray asks.

“We’re obviously being scammed and played for fools,” he adds.

“We don’t understand why,” Fisher chimes in.

“No. What is it accomplishing?” Gray asks. “If he’s incapacitated-slash-dead, what is this doing for you to not tell the American people?”

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​Ai, Fall, Jeff fisher, Mitch mcconnell, Pat gray, Pneumonia, Proof of life, Wife, Blazetv show 

Sophie Cunningham did not announce that she was joining the conservative movement. She did something more effective: She said what she believed, declined to apologize, and allowed the culture to decide what that meant.

The Indiana Fever guard has emerged over the past several months as one of the WNBA’s most recognizable personalities. She protects Caitlin Clark on the court. She points, taunts, jokes, and produces memes. She embraces glamour without softening the physical edge that earned her a reputation as Clark’s enforcer.

Cunningham’s rise does not prove that the culture has changed. It does suggest that refusing progressive scripts no longer guarantees exile from public life.

Then she said men do not belong in women’s locker rooms.

That statement, and Cunningham’s refusal to retreat from it, transformed a rising basketball personality into a broader cultural figure. Conservative commentators embraced her almost immediately, but her appeal extends beyond people who follow politics — or women’s basketball.

Cunningham is connecting because she projects something increasingly rare in public life: confidence without ideological explanation.

Athletes and celebrities routinely make bold declarations, encounter resistance, and issue an apology drafted in the language of corporate risk management. Cunningham followed a different script.

“I think I said what I said,” she told a reporter who asked how transgender people might receive her comments. Cunningham added that protecting children was important and said she would remain true to her beliefs and morals.

The answer was brief, but it established the central feature of her emerging public persona. Cunningham did not turn the interview into a political speech. She also did not allow the interviewer to make her qualification for continued public life contingent upon an apology.

That restraint made the statement more powerful.

Riley Gaines, the former NCAA swimmer who has become a leading advocate for women’s sports, praised Cunningham’s willingness to speak openly inside a league known for progressive politics.

“If you’re Sophie Cunningham playing in the WNBA, which is like the most woke league of all time in the history of ever, it takes immense courage to say exactly what she did,” Gaines said.

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton urged listeners to buy Cunningham’s jersey. Megyn Kelly called her “damn fearless” and emphasized that Cunningham had “a lot to lose.”

RELATED: WNBA star Sophie Cunningham comes out against men in women’s sports: ‘I want to protect young girls’

Justin Casterline/Getty Images

The support was predictable. The scale and speed of it were more revealing.

Cunningham had already built an audience through basketball. Her willingness to defend Clark during physical confrontations made her a fan favorite. The pointing meme reinforced her image as a player who enjoys conflict rather than merely endures it. Her locker-room comments gave that persona a cultural dimension.

She was no longer simply the Fever player willing to confront an opponent. She had become the athlete willing to confront a prevailing social expectation.

Cunningham expanded that profile in July when she appeared at a UFC event as a surprise guest Octagon girl.

The appearance was not framed as activism. By Cunningham’s account, it came together almost on a whim. She participated in a popular sporting spectacle, displayed her humor and femininity, and appeared comfortable with the attention.

That combination has helped distinguish her from the carefully managed public figures who appear determined to make attractiveness, glamour, or sex appeal politically inoffensive.

Cunningham does not seem embarrassed by any of it. She can be physically aggressive on the court, glamorous outside it, and direct when discussing biological sex. For many fans, those qualities complement rather than contradict one another.

The closest recent comparison may be Sydney Sweeney.

Neither woman appears to have set out to become a conservative symbol. Sweeney became a political flash point largely because activists and journalists insisted on treating conventional beauty, femininity, and mass appeal as ideological provocations.

Cunningham is undergoing a similar transformation. She describes herself as not especially political. Her growing conservative audience has not required her to deliver a partisan endorsement or recite a movement platform. Her refusal to adopt progressive language has been enough.

RELATED: Sydney Sweeney spurns Cosmo girl’s desperate ‘MAGA Barbie’ bait

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Jennifer Sey, a former national champion gymnast and founder of the women’s apparel company XX-XY Athletics, told Blaze News that Cunningham’s support is broader than the organized right.

“Sophie Cunningham’s surge in support isn’t just from conservatives,” Sey said. “It’s coming from people who still believe in reality — and in women’s right to privacy, safety, and a fair shot in sport.”

Sey acknowledged that Cunningham probably leans conservative but argued that the label is beside the point.

“She keeps her politics to herself,” Sey said. “We back her because she’s telling the truth and defending women and girls. Full stop.”

That distinction helps explain Cunningham’s appeal.

She has not become popular because she presents herself as a political activist. She has become politically significant because she refuses to treat ordinary observations as forbidden.

Her recent locker-room remarks also fit an established pattern.

RELATED: Women’s sports finally got a reality check

Oliver Contreras/AFP/Getty Images

Late last year, Cunningham responded to WNBA star Paige Bueckers’ claim that she could beat NBA guard Josh Hart in a one-on-one game. Cunningham said an elite male player should be able to beat a female player.

The underlying point was the same: Biological differences do not disappear because acknowledging them has become culturally uncomfortable.

Sey said Cunningham’s status as an active and popular professional athlete gives her comments greater force.

“All the other pro athletes are lacking,” Sey said. “And she is making a huge impact because she is a popular player, she’s got sass, and she’s not backing down.”

Cunningham’s rise also exposes an opportunity for the WNBA.

The league has attracted unprecedented attention through Clark, but it has often struggled to welcome audiences that do not share the politics of its most vocal players. Cunningham offers a different model. She can attract fans without turning every disagreement into a lecture or every interview into an ideological test.

Whether she wants the larger role remains unclear.

Cunningham may prefer to remain an athlete with opinions rather than become a movement representative. She could decide that the commercial and professional costs are too high. One controversy, one interview, or one carefully worded clarification could alter the trajectory.

But the conditions for a larger cultural profile are already evident. She is visible, attractive, funny, physically fearless, and willing to withstand pressure. She possesses the instincts of a public personality without yet sounding like one manufactured by publicists.

Cunningham’s rise does not prove that the culture has changed. It does suggest that refusing progressive scripts no longer guarantees exile from public life.

For a player in the WNBA, that is already a big deal.

​Caitlin clark, Conservative movement, Indiana fever, Riley gaines, Sophie cunningham, Wnba, Sydney sweeney, Women’s sports, Trans agenda, Opinion & analysis, Analysis, Sports