Investigators searching for Nancy Guthrie said they have a new lead relating to the suspect seen in a terrifying doorbell video last week.

Pima County (Ariz.) Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News that investigators believe the suspect’s clothing and face mask were purchased at Walmart, and they are trying to identify each brand.

The FBI previously described the individual in the surveillance video as a male with an average build who is about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, the news network added.

The news network said it first reported that the suspect’s backpack — identified as a black Ozark Trail Hiker — was sold exclusively at Walmart.

CBS News added that it’s not yet known if the items were purchased online or in an Arizona store — or somewhere else. Investigators have spent several days reviewing surveillance video at local Walmarts, the sheriff also told the news network.

Authorities believe Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie — was abducted from her Tucson home in the middle of the night, CBS News said, adding that she has been missing since Feb. 1.

Nanos called the backpack one of the most promising leads in the case, the news network reported.

More from CBS News:

Walmart has provided records of all Ozark Trail Hiker online and in-store purchases over the past several months, including sales beyond the Tucson area, to investigators, Nanos told CBS News.

CBS News has reached out to Walmart corporate offices but a spokesperson declined to comment.

Investigators believe the face mask the suspect wore is black but appears lighter on the video footage due to Nest camera’s infrared technology.

The FBI previously described the individual in the surveillance video as a male with an average build who is about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, the news network added.

RELATED: How the FBI actually got the Google Nest footage of Nancy Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper

More from CBS News:

Investigators have also collected other DNA evidence from Nancy Guthrie’s property as part of the ongoing investigation, but the results have not led to a suspect, according to Nanos.

Multiple law enforcement agencies spent hours Friday evening searching a residence less than two miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home.

Nanos told CBS affiliate KOLD that the activity was the result of following up on “a lead that led to a search warrant and no arrest.” Authorities did not release other details on what led them there or what, if anything, may have been found.

The FBI on Tuesday released video and images from a security camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door; an FBI press release said the man was armed.

A post on the X platform from FBI Director Kash Patel stated that authorities had been working “to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to a variety of factors — including the removal of recording devices. The video was recovered from residual data located in backend systems.”

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — whose name has been bandied about as a possible 2028 presidential contender — took issue over the weekend with some of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference.

Rather than successfully critique anything Rubio said on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez instead exposed more of her historical illiteracy.

Rubio’s speech

Vice President JD Vance enraged a crowd of European officials last year at the Munich Security Conference by calling out their suppression of popular political movements and ideas, crackdown on religious liberties, and ruinous mass migration policies.

While pointed, Vance’s criticism of Europe’s censorious and self-destructive ways was constructive and imbued with the hope that Western nations across the Atlantic might return to the values they once shared in common with the United States.

‘Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to “Western culture.”‘

In a less-scathing sequel to Vance’s speech, Rubio discussed on Feb. 14 the deep civilizational bonds that he figures the U.S. and Europe still share, the opportunity for concerted renewal, and the way forward to a “new century of prosperity.”

“We are part of one civilization — Western civilization,” said Rubio. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

Rubio noted further that the U.S., under President Donald Trump, has embarked on the “task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past.”

“While we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe,” added the secretary.

Whereas Europeans couldn’t stomach Vance’s speech on-theme last year, the audience gave Rubio a standing ovation following his speech on Saturday.

Bucking the revisionism

While Europeans were receptive to the secretary’s discussion of civilizational inheritance and common responsibility, Ocasio-Cortez apparently had trouble with one of Rubio’s passing remarks.

During a softball interview at the Technical University of Berlin on Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez cited Rubio’s speech as evidence of the “ascent of the right even in places like Munich.”

“Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to ‘Western culture,'” said the congresswoman, employing scare quotes in reference to Western culture.

RELATED: ‘Qualm your t*ts’: Ocasio-Cortez makes embarrassing mistake while defending Don Lemon — and the ridicule is hilarious

Cornado sets out on his expedition for Quivira in 1540. Getty Images.

“My favorite part,” continued Ocasio-Cortez, “was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slaves — enslaved peoples — would like to have a word on that.”

In his speech, Rubio stated:

Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns names all across the Mississippi Valley. Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos — the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West — these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.

Ocasio-Cortez’s critics were quick to point out that horses and cowboy culture were, as Rubio suggested, a European export to North America — including to New Spain, which ultimately became the home of Ocasio-Cortez’s would-be fact-checking, Spanish-speaking Mexicans.

‘Your IQ is lower than the temp in my freezer.’

While ancient horses once roamed North America, they apparently went extinct around 10,000 years ago. The species hitherto unknown to the native population was, however, reintroduced to the continent by Spaniards and other Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, imported the first horses the continent had seen in thousands of years on his second voyage to the New World in 1493. Twenty-six years later — and after decades of Europeans breeding horses in the Caribbean, where Ocasio-Cortez’s family hails from originally — the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés brought 16 horses to what is now Mexico.

With continued European exploration and expansion, horses were ultimately bred and spread across the continent, and mastered by European settlers and Indians alike. The corresponding horseman culture also didn’t appear ex nihilo.

Although it also references the Irish “Cau-boys” of the High Middle Ages, Fort Worth’s Sid Richardson Museum notes in its relevant overview that “cowboy culture in the American West can be traced to the Spanish tradition of the vaquero.”

“Derived from the word vaca (Spanish for cow), the vaqueros would become renowned for their skills and adaptability as Spain expanded their North American empire westward from what is now Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to the Franciscan missions in California by the late 1700s,” noted History.com.

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck responded to Ocasio-Cortez, writing, “Yeah literally every culture learned the cowboy trade from Spanish vaqueros. I’m sorry that your IQ is lower than the temp in my freezer.”

John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at the Federalist, quipped, “Just wait till she finds out where Mexicans came from.”

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The “deep state” — the hidden network of unelected bureaucrats, intelligence officials, military leaders, and other insiders who secretly control government policy regardless of who is elected — has long been written off as a conspiracy theory.

But BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says seven recently declassified documents from Richard Nixon’s 1975 grand jury testimony are evidence that the deep state doesn’t just exist — it’s been forcefully active for decades.

On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” Liz interviews Newsmax chief Washington correspondent James Rosen about the bombshell he helped bring to light.

Rosen, author of the 2008 book “The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate,” has been digging into this story for over 30 years. He explains that the seven newly unsealed pages from Nixon’s secret 1975 grand jury testimony finally confirm one of the most explosive (and deliberately buried) scandals of the Nixon era: the Moorer-Radford espionage affair.

Back in 1971, top military leaders felt ignored by President Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger. They were upset that big foreign-policy decisions were being made without them.

In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff launched a secret spying operation inside the White House. They used a young Navy yeoman named Charles Radford to steal thousands of top-secret documents.

“He took a copy of every document that came across his vision. What he couldn’t copy, he memorized. He dove through waste baskets and burn bags. He literally rifled the briefcases of Henry Kissinger while he slept on overnight flights,” says Rosen.

“It’s estimated that this yeoman stole 5,000 classified documents from the National Security Council over a year’s time, 1970 to ’71, in wartime, and delivered those documents to the Joint Chiefs of Staff through the admirals,” he adds.

When these ultra-sensitive documents Radford had stolen started appearing in newspaper columns just days after high-level meetings, Nixon’s “plumbers” — which Rosen describes as a White House “special investigative unit” — quickly traced the leaks back to Radford and the Pentagon spy ring.

The White House was stunned to discover that the U.S. military had been running an espionage operation against its own commander in chief during wartime.

“[The Senate Armed Services Committee] held classified closed-door hearings, but everybody involved had good reason to want to let the matter drop, and ultimately nothing was done,” says Rosen.

For starters, Nixon didn’t want to publicly “vilify” the military during the Vietnam era, when returning veterans were already facing widespread scorn and being labeled “baby killers,” Rosen explains. Further, Attorney General John Mitchell reminded Nixon of his own administration’s secret operations, making a full-blown scandal risky for everyone.

So the affair was hushed up. Radford and the involved admirals were quietly reassigned to remote posts; the Pentagon liaison office was dissolved; and no charges were filed. Brief classified Senate hearings in 1974 fizzled out amid the Watergate storm.

Rosen, who first detailed this from Nixon’s 1971 White House tapes in his 2002 Atlantic article “Nixon and the Chiefs,” says these seven newly declassified pages from Nixon’s 1975 grand jury testimony add the former president’s own sworn account of the betrayal.

It shows unelected military leaders actively undermining an elected president over policy disagreements — proof, he argues, that the deep state isn’t a modern myth but a decades-old “beast.”

Check out the full eye-opening interview above.

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A partial shutdown of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security entered its third day Monday, leaving thousands of Transportation Security Administration agents and other essential workers without pay as they continue performing critical duties at airports nationwide.

The funding lapse, which began early Saturday, stems from a breakdown in negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans over proposed restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

‘This is getting very old, and we’re hoping this is not going to become the new normal.’

Even WPRI in Rhode Island noted Democrats’ role in the shutdown: “The Department of Homeland Security officially shut down on Saturday after Democrats refused to fund it. They want new restrictions on ICE agents following the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.”

The shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have intensified tensions surrounding immigration enforcement. Democrats have insisted on new limits on DHS funding, while Republicans have accused them of holding up critical funding to secure policy concessions.

RELATED: Government shutdown looms after Democrats tank key DHS vote

TSA screeners, deemed essential personnel, are required to report for duty despite the funding lapse.

Reporting from T.F. Green International Airport in Rhode Island, WPRI’s Sophia Szabo said TSA agents are still recovering from a 43-day government shutdown last year.

“That’s a long time to work without a paycheck,” Szabo said, noting lawmakers have roughly two weeks to reach a deal before another missed pay period.

The impact on workers is mounting.

“This is getting very old, and we’re hoping this is not going to become the new normal, but it does seem that it’s going in that direction,” a union representative for TSA agents in New England said. “A lot of the officers are very anxious because we’re in the middle of winter, and now we’re going to have to choose between paying for heat and paying for food and rent if the checks don’t come through in the next couple of weeks. Because in two weeks, in the next pay period, we’re only going to have half a check, and so choices are going to have to be made — and we shouldn’t be put in this position again.”

RELATED: ‘We do not support ICE’: Speedway gas station sparks backlash after booting Border Patrol boss

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Szabo added that staffing shortages have worsened since the previous shutdown.

“According to a union representing TSA agents across New England, there has been a significant shortage of these agents since that last shutdown, and they’re already struggling to recruit more,” she reported.

The shutdown affects agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service.

Congress is currently in recess until Feb. 23, leaving a narrow window to resolve the impasse before broader operational impacts emerge.

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A group of 10 students in California caused a controversy after spelling out a controversial word with letters on their T-shirts last week.

The students were originally part of a photo celebrating the class of 2026, but then decided to pull a prank that they may end up regretting.

‘A small group of students made the poor decision to publicly spell out a message.’

Originally, more than 20 students wore coordinated T-shirts for a photo in the bleachers at Redwood High School, located southeast of Fresno, California, in the Visalia Unified School District.

Surrounded by a crowd of their peers, the students spelled, “Always Legit, Class of 2026,” with each student having a single letter on the chest.

According to Your Central Valley, some of the students then rearranged themselves for a different photo during the school event.

Seven students spelled out the word “faggots,” utilizing a “6” T-shirt in place of a “G” when spelling the word. Another student sat to the left wearing a “2” T-shirt, while two students sat three rows behind in the photo. All of the students were criticized for smiling or placing their arms around each other in the picture.

RELATED: Dad says former math teacher and coach sent 15-year-old daughter nude selfie

School officials sent out an apology letter to families that same night, KFSN reported, saying the school prides itself on respect, integrity, and leadership.

“Good afternoon, Ranger Families, I am writing to inform you about a recent incident in which a small group of students made the poor decision to publicly spell out a message that was derogatory and disrespectful,” the letter read.

The school added that “this behavior is unacceptable” and “does not reflect who we are as a school community.”

In a statement to Your Central Valley, Visalia Unified Superintendent Kirk Shrum indicated that the district was made aware of students who coordinated to “spell out a hateful, homophobic slur.”

RELATED: 2 Florida 15-year-olds accused of threatening to shoot up high schools

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

“This is unacceptable behavior, and this matter is being thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action will be taken,” Shrum went on. “Every student deserves to feel respected, protected, and valued on our campuses. We will continue working to ensure our schools are places where dignity, belonging, and accountability guide our actions.”

On Friday evening, Visalia Unified School District announced that it had taken “appropriate disciplinary action” against the students for spelling out a “hateful” slur.

It has also been noted that some of the students were reportedly members of the school student government.

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Robert Selden Duvall has died at the age of 95, according to a statement from his wife.

The iconic actor was best known for his roles in “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.”

‘To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything.’

Duvall’s wife posted a statement on Facebook Monday saying that he had died the day before.

“Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” Luciana Pedraza, the actor’s fourth wife, wrote.

“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything. His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court,” she added.

A statement from his public relations agency said he died “peacefully” at his home in Middleburg, Virginia.

Duvall was nominated seven times for an Academy Award and won Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as Mac Sledge in the 1983 film “Tender Mercies.”

He was also known for being openly conservative and campaigned for several Republicans including John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

“What a double standard,” he said about feminists. “They witter on about having the vote and then elect a guy like Clinton because he’s good-looking and puts through women-friendly policies.”

RELATED: Gene Hackman’s death riddled with suspicion

“For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented,” his wife continued.

“In doing so, he leaves something lasting and unforgettable to us all,” she added. “Thank you for the years of support you showed Bob and for giving us this time and privacy to celebrate the memories he leaves behind.”

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The country presently has 27 GOP state attorneys general and 23 Democrat state AGs — counting the Democrat-appointed lesbian activist in Hawaii. Republicans are fighting to maintain their dominance in the top legal offices across the country, the majority of which they have controlled since 2015.

There are 30 state attorney general seats on the ballot this November — 16 of which are presently occupied by Democrats and 14 of which are occupied by Republicans.

The Republican Attorneys General Association, whose support wasn’t enough to spare former Virginia AG Jason Miyares from losing his re-election bid last year, announced on Friday that it raised “a record $29.3 million across all entities last year” — the most that any AG organization has reportedly ever raised in a calendar year.

‘Four of the Toss-up AG races are in states that were considered presidential battlegrounds in 2024.’

“In 11 months, RAGA raised nearly $30 million for the first time ever,” RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper said in a statement. “However, we must shatter previous fundraising records to ensure we protect battleground incumbent seats and pick up winnable seats.”

“2026 is the largest election year for AG races, and RAGA is well positioned for another banner year,” added Piper.

Among the incumbent Republican attorneys general now running or poised to run for re-election are:

Tim Griffin of Arkansas;James Uthmeier of Florida;Chris Carr of Georgia;Raúl Labrador of Idaho;Brenna Bird of Iowa — who received a $1 million donation from the RAGA on Dec. 31;Kris Kobach of Kansas;Mike Hilgers of Nebraska; andDrew Wrigley of North Dakota.

Whereas Ohio’s Dave Yost is ineligible to run again due to term limits, several other GOP incumbents are creating openings because they have their eyes set on different prizes.

RELATED: ‘Going to get someone killed’: Democratic AG shocks with talk about shooting ICE agents in ‘stand your ground’ Arizona

Georgia AG Chris Carr. Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Alabama AG Steve Marshall and Texas AG Ken Paxton are running for the Senate — Marshall for the seat of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is running for governor, and Paxton to deny Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) a fifth term.

South Dakota AG Marty Jackley is running for Congress. Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond is running for governor of his state.

Louis Jacobson at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics suggested in an analysis late last year that “of the 2025-26 AG races, seven states have competitive AG races: five Toss-ups, plus a Leans Republican and a Leans Democratic seat each.”

“Democrats will largely be playing defense: All five Toss-up races are currently held by Democrats, with at least two of them open-seat races, and potentially more to come open if additional incumbents run for a different office,” continued Jacobson. “Mirroring the national partisan split, four of the Toss-up AG races are in states that were considered presidential battlegrounds in 2024.”

Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin were identified as toss-up AG races. Jacobson suggested further that Carr (R) was well-positioned in Georgia.

“The remaining states with AG races this cycle include 10 Safe Republican seats, 3 Likely Republican seats, and 11 Safe Democratic seats,” added Jacobson.

While the races in Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin are attracting significant national and donor attention, the contests in Iowa and Kansas — where Kobach is once again battling Democrat challenger Chris Mann — are fast becoming two of the most closely watched, reported MultiState.

Mann reportedly out-raised Kobach last year. Nevertheless, the incumbent had more cash on hand to kick off this election year.

Bird has managed to raise over $2 million for her re-election campaign — more than double what her Democrat challenger, Nate Willems, has netted. The Des Moines Register reported, however, that Willems has fared far better in terms of fundraising than his state’s former Democrat AG, Tom Miller, who lost to Bird in 2022.

The race in Texas is similarly garnering national attention, though much of the present heat surrounds the Republican primary on March 3.

The candidates who will face off Tuesday in a debate moderated by BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey are:

Aaron Reitz, the Paxton-endorsed former assistant attorney general who has promised to “destroy the left” if elected;Rep. Chip Roy, an antagonist of Paxton who has Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s endorsement; Mayes Middleton, a Texas state senator who has characterized himself as proud supporter of President Trump and the America First agenda and has been endorsed by Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas); andJoan Huffman, a Texas state senator who enjoys the support of various police unions and has been endorsed by National Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Joe Gamaldi.

The debate airs at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

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​Midterm election, Midterm elections, Midterm, State attorneys general, Attorney general, Ken paxton, Chris carr, Kris kobach, Miyares, Tim griffin, Labrador, Brenna bird, Mike hilgers, Raga, Attorneys, Politics 

“People have the right to not be poisoned. Sounds really common sense, but unfortunately, there are a lot of companies in the food industry that do not agree,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says.

That’s why the Florida Department of Health has taken matters into its own hands by launching the Healthy Florida First initiative. Spearheaded by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, first lady Casey DeSantis, and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, this program independently tests common food products for contaminants — such as heavy metals, pesticides like glyphosate, and other toxins — to promote transparency, accountability, clean food systems, and informed choices for families.

The results of Florida’s testing have revealed contaminants in many everyday foods like candy, breads, and even baby formulas.

On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie sits down with Casey DeSantis to discuss some of the most shocking findings.

Baby formula

“When we got the [baby formula] results back, we were very startled and obviously disquieted by the fact that there was 17 out of 24 that came back with problematic levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury,” DeSantis says, noting that after 2025 Consumer Reports data revealed contamination in several name brand baby formulas, many companies’ products “still [have] problematic contaminants.”

Some of those brands include top-sellers, like Enfamil and Similac — both of which had multiple varieties test positive for contaminants such as arsenic, mercury, cadmium, and lead.

“[Heavy metals] don’t just leave the body easily, right? … Unfortunately, what our surgeon general in Florida has said that you have a definite increased risk of cancer over the course of your lifetime if you’re consuming this early in life,” DeSantis tells Allie.

“It is not fair to any mother to go into a store, to have to sit there and wonder which option is better than another when all of it should be safe.”

Bread

Several top brands of bread were found to contain a chemical called glyphosate, which is one of the most commonly used weed killers worldwide.

“It’s Roundup. … It kills plants, and so there’s no reason why any of that should be in any product that we’re consuming,” DeSantis says.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Ladapo, she says, has warned that consuming glyphosate can cause problems “at the cellular level with your microbiome.”

But even more disturbing are the label warnings on Roundup, she says, which caution users to avoid all skin contact skin and inhalation.

“There’s all of these problematic things with being in close proximity to glyphosate. [It’s] probably safe to assume that it’s not good in the food supply in bread,” DeSantis says.

And yet, testing from the Healthy Florida First initiative detected glyphosate in 6 out of 8 popular brands, including Nature’s Own, Dave’s Killer Bread, Wonder Bread, and Sara Lee.

Candy

Most people know that candy isn’t the healthiest food choice, but many have no clue that in addition to the high sugar levels, many top candies contain arsenic — a known human carcinogen.

Florida’s Department of Health tested 46 top candy products and found that 28 (60%) had detectable levels of arsenic in them. Some of those include Laffy Taffy, Nerds, SweeTarts, Jolly Ranchers, Twizzlers, Kit Kat, Snickers, Skittles, and Sour Patch Kids, among several others.

DeSantis gives a real-life example of how drastically this can impact a child.

“Our analysis found that if you eat more than 96 Nerds over the course of a year, for a child, you are exceeding the allowable threshold of arsenic for a child. … It’s realistic to assume that children are eating more than 96 individual Nerds. When you look at a box that you get in a movie theater, there’s 8,000 Nerds in it,” she says.

Crunching the numbers: Eating a full box of Nerds (8,000 pieces) would expose a child to more than 83 times the yearly safe limit of arsenic set by Florida’s Department of Health — just from that one movie-theater treat.

The occasional piece of candy isn’t concerning, DeSantis says. “It’s the consumption in aggregate that is very problematic.”

“That has to be taken into account, and that has to be disclosed to parents so that they can make better decisions,” she adds.

To hear more, watch the full episode above.

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To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable, Casey desantis, Blazetv, Blaze media, Florida department of health, Joseph ladapo, Healthy florida first, Glyphosate, Heavy metals, Baby formula, Allie beth stuckey, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable podcast 

The latest statistics show the U.S. economy is improving steadily, particularly in the shift from government employment to private-sector jobs and toward new hires going to native-born Americans instead of immigrants. Opinion polls, however, show Americans are displeased with the current state of the economy, and young people are turning toward socialism.

The smart course for the Republicans would be to pass major reforms to shrink the welfare state and cut federal spending and regulation instead of mildly reducing scheduled increases.

The concerns about the economy reflect three major factors: one, stubborn economic distortions caused by longtime government policies; two, the lingering effects of acute Biden-presidency price inflation; and, three, dishonest media reporting.

The average inflation rate during the Biden administration was 5%, nearly double the current rate. Real, inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings in private-sector jobs decreased by 4% while Biden was in office. Home prices rose by 37.4%, sparking a housing affordability crisis. Publicly held federal debt increased by one-third, igniting the price inflation.

That has changed dramatically in just one year. “Since President Trump took office, headline inflation has been running at 2.4% (much lower than 3% inherited from Biden) and core inflation has been running at 2.4% (much lower than 3.3% inherited from Biden),” the White House stated correctly last month.

Slowing inflation does not lower prices however. It only reduces the increases. The Biden-era price rises were worst in basic necessities, and the only way to moderate that is for wages to rise. Fortunately, that is starting to happen.

Employment numbers confirm a positive movement from part-time work to full-time work and away from the government into the productive private sector. “Initial jobless claims in the U.S. fell by 9,000 from the previous week to 198,000 on the week ending January 10,” the second-lowest number of job losses in two years, and initial unemployment claims by federal employees rose by more than one-third, Trading Economics reports.

The movement from part-time work to full-time employment in better jobs that pay more and include benefits is of course a highly positive trend. “In December, the number of part-time jobs declined by 740,000, while full-time employment shot up by 890,000,” Unleash Prosperity notes.

Labor productivity in the nonfarm business sector increased by 4.9% in the third quarter of last year, with output rising by 5.4% and hours worked increasing by 0.5%. Manufacturing-sector labor productivity and output are rising markedly after declining during the Biden administration. Overall U.S. industrial production has increased, rising 0.4% month-over-month in both November and December, and manufacturing output rose by 0.2% in December.

Continued improvements in employment and private-sector productivity are the real solution to the affordability crisis. In light of those trends, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta raised its estimate of fourth-quarter annualized real Gross Domestic Product growth to an impressive 5.3%. In addition, mortgage interest rates are down to their lowest level since 2022.

Naturally, the regime media are desperately trying to spin all this good news into a mythical calamity, to cast doubt on the conclusively proven value of market-empowering reforms. “CNN, true to form, immediately tried to make a relatively good report out to be a bad one in a January 13 X post: ‘U.S. inflation remained at 2.7% in December, underscoring persistent cost of living challenges,’” Newsbusters reports.

When inflation was an awful 6% in February 2023, CNN characterized it as good news, saying, “U.S. inflation is still high, but it’s falling. Last month’s Consumer Price Index measured 6%, down from January’s 6.4%,” as Daily Wire reporter Cabot Phillips noted in an X post. Coverage by all the regime media has reflected this bias.

While just under a year’s worth of economic reforms and (disappointingly mild) efforts to hold the line on inflation are showing real progress, the previous four years did major damage to the private, productive sectors of the U.S. economy. It will take some time for the public to feel the full benefit of the policy changes they voted for in 2024.

RELATED: The debt bomb is ticking, and DC spent the blast shield

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Although people should hardly be surprised that Trump and the Congress have not yet fully reversed the economic destruction of the prior four years, poll numbers indicate an impatience that reflects the media’s spin: “Most, 64%, say [Trump] hasn’t gone far enough in trying to reduce the price of everyday goods,” CNN reports.

Trump and the congressional Republicans understandably feel a strong urge to be seen as doing everything possible to fix the economy, though the only thing that will really unleash American prosperity is a full retrenchment of the enormous federal welfare state that Obama and Biden did so much to expand.

Democrats understandably view the economic stagnation that they themselves caused as a terrific political opportunity that could restore them to majority rule in Congress, with a chance to impeach Trump multiple times and block desperately needed reforms to shrink the government.

The smart course for Republicans would be to pass major reforms to shrink the welfare state and cut federal spending and regulation instead of mildly reducing scheduled increases. That would accelerate the economic improvements we are already seeing. It would also make the recent reforms permanent, given that a Democratic congressional majority would not be able to reverse them, given Trump’s veto power.

Those moves would benefit the American people greatly.

The wise course for the Democrats would be to sit back, go quiet, and let the public reject an ineffectual GOP in this November’s elections.

Many decades of American politics have taught us what is most likely to happen: Neither party will do the smart thing, much less the right thing.

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