Trump

President Donald Trump, First Lady Sign ‘Take It Down’ Act

President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law today.

The legislation targets nonconsensual sharing of nude and explicit images online.

“This will be the first ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit images posted without subject’s consent,” Mr. Trump spoke alongside First Lady Melania Trump at Monday’s signing ceremony.

“We will not tolerate online exploitation.”

The Take It Down Act targets three common kinds of online exploitation — “revenge porn,” explicit AI-deepfakes and sextortion — by making it illegal to share, or threaten to share, explicit images of a person online without their permission.

Penalties apply equally to real and AI-generated images.

“With the rise of AI image generation, women have been harassed with deepfakes and other explicit images distributed against their will,” the President addressed AI abuse specifically.

“It’s just so horribly wrong … Today, we’re making it totally illegal.”

Focus on the Family’s Vice President of External Relations, Tim Goeglein, attended the ceremony on Focus’ behalf.

“Those of us at Focus on the Family in Washington have championed this outstanding legislation from the beginning,” he told the Daily Citizen, expounding:

The strength of this law is that it builds in real safeguards for people who have been immeasurably damaged and hurt.
Although it doesn’t happen very often in Washington, it was heartening that so many members of Congress worked together in a bipartisan manner to get this over the finish line.

First Lady Melania Trump, who helped shepherd the Take It Down Act through Congress, also thanked Congressmembers for putting politics aside in favor of passing the bill. She signed the legislation after the president, who thanked her for her leadership.

“America is blessed to have such a dedicated and compassionate first lady,” he praised.

The Take It Down Act helps parents protect their children in what can often feel like a lawless online universe. The Daily Citizen is grateful for the first family’s leadership and legislators’ willingness to pass family-first legislation.

To learn more about the Take It Down Act, and why its so important, click on our coverage below.

Additional Articles and Resources

First Lady Melania Trump Celebrates House’s Passage of Take it Down Act

First Lady Melania Trump Celebrates Committee passage of Bill Targeting Revenge Porn, Sextortion and Explicit Deepfakes

First Lady Supports Bill Targeting Deepfakes, Sextortion and Revenge Porn

Teen Boys Falling Prey to Financial Sextortion — Here’s What Parents Can Do

Meta Takes Steps to Prevent Kids From Sexting

Instagram’s Sextortion Safety Measures — Too Little, Too Late?

Zuckerberg Implicated in Meta’s Failures to Protect Children

Instagram Content Restrictions Don’t Work, Tests Show

‘The Dirty Dozen List’ — Corporations Enable and Profit from Sexual Exploitation

Taylor Swift Deepfakes Should Inspire Outrage — But X Isn’t to Blame

The Meaning Behind This Photo Hung Outside the Oval Office

Josh McPherson is lead pastor of preaching and vision at Grace City Church in Wenatchee, Washington. Josh and his wife, Sharon, along with nine other families, helped plant the congregation in 2008.

According to its website, Grace City “Exists to help more people meet, love, and follow Jesus … so that lives and legacies might be transformed as more people know God, live free, and do good in the world God made.”

On a recent episode of a podcast that Pastor McPherson cohosts with Pastor Josh Howerton of Lakepointe Church in Rockwall, Texas, the two men were joined by two other pastors to discuss their recent visit to the White House for the National Day of Prayer.

Pastors who chose to accept President Donald Trump’s invitation to the May 1st event have been criticized by some of the predictable antagonists. On this “Resurge” podcast, the pastors spoke openly and candidly about why such critique was not only misplaced but also flat out wrong.

These ministers rightly believe that it’s not partisan to pray or support policies that are biblical. As they note, it’s not about aligning with a political party – it’s about aligning with God’s moral law.

Pastor McPherson said he wanted to share some of the behind-the-scenes observations of the day, and he specifically delved into the extensive evangelical presence and energy in this current administration.

After ceremonies in the Rose Garden, McPherson and several pastors were taken into the West Wing. They were shown a large photograph that hangs just outside the Oval Office, right by a couch where dignitaries sit before meeting with the president. In his own words, here is how Pastor McPherson described the experience:

We turn around and not 10 feet away was a huge picture of President Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk with about 30 pastors …

The pastors were told the president asked for the photo to be hung there because he wants guests who enter the Oval Office to know they’re not just dealing with a man. Pastor McPherson added:

That’s not a power trip. That’s a statement that says we are a Christian nation and we want to align ourselves with the principles of God. We’re going to seek the help of God, the power of God, the leading of God in all that we do.
And when you go in the Oval Office, the most powerful man in there is not the president. It’s God himself. And that just spoke to me deeply.

The pastors went on to discuss how the apostle Paul expended considerable effort engaging the political leaders of the day. He did this because he knew how culture works. If you can positively influence top leadership, if you can introduce the Savior of the world to those in significant positions of authority, those people downstream from the leaders will inevitably benefit in countless spiritual ways.

Religious Liberty is the Preserver to Keep America Afloat

At an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas back in 1984, President Ronald Reagan said,

“Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

Those words swirled in my head, as I had the honor to attend the Rose Garden ceremony as President Donald Trump announced the formation of a presidential commission to protect religious liberty. The commission members are:

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, chair
Dr. Ben Carson, vice chair
Ryan Anderson
Bishop Robert Barron
Carrie Boller
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York
Rev. Franklin Graham
Allyson Ho
Dr. Phil McGraw
Eric Metaxas
Kelly Shackelford
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik
Pastor Paula White

In his executive order announcing the commission, Trump stated,

“It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law.  The Founders envisioned a Nation in which religious voices and views are integral to a vibrant public square and human flourishing and in which religious people and institutions are free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or hostility from the Government.”

The commission will protect parental rights, conscience and school choice. It will also address anti-religious bias and government overreach and advise the White House on policies to safeguard religious liberty.

The present struggle over religious liberty, and the need for such a commission, boils down to two competing sides. The first side believes they have a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment to practice their faith freely and openly in society. The second believes religious liberty is not a fundamental right, and any mention or practice of faith in the public square is a dangerous conflation of church and state.

Unfortunately, for the past 60 plus years, any public display of faith by an individual or community – prayers by elected officials, religious content in public schools, and many other expressions of religious conviction – has come under attack.

The result has been, as Reagan so eloquently noted, a coarsening of society with Americans now warring against each other rather than standing together in a common bond of unity, regardless of their faith.

If there is a real attack on democracy, it is because of this lack of respect for religious liberty.

President John Adams warned us of this in 1798 when he told the Militia of Massachusetts: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Daniel Mark, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University and an Orthodox Jew, understands this. He has written that religious freedom is under attack because traditional beliefs are a threat to radical autonomy. He concluded: “We need to discover – or recover – a proper account of rights. This begins with a proper grasp of the good of religion, and finally, all of the goods that constitute human flourishing.”

Or in the words of another great American, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his 1953 inaugural address:

“We who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man, governed by eternal moral and natural laws. This faith defines our full view of life. It establishes, beyond debate, those gifts of the Creator that are man’s inalienable rights, and that make all men equal in His sight.”

He then added a short sentence that succinctly sums up our nation’s current state: “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

It is no coincidence that the roots of our present poisonous public discourse can be traced to the abandonment of religious liberty. If we are to preserve our fragile union, it is critical that we set aside our differences and restore religious liberty for all. Otherwise, as Adams, Eisenhower and Reagan warned us, we will lose it all.

That is why I see the establishment of this commission by President Trump as a hopeful first step to bringing about that restoration so that we can once again, be “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Gen Z Women Rejected Pro-Abortion Messaging in 2024, Election Data Shows

Post-election data shows pro-abortion messaging failed to galvanize young women in the 2024 election cycle, suggesting Gen Z women care far less about — or for — pro-abortion policies than political strategists expected.

It’s big news — but pollsters, per usual, are missing the point.

David Shor, head data scientist at a prominent Democrat consulting firm, joined The New York Times’ Ezra Klein last week to break down last year’s decisive presidential election. The two acknowledged young voters became more conservative but, like most analysts, attributed the shift primarily to young men.

It’s true: men aged 18 to 29 moved further right then their female counterparts — about 15 points, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

But Gen Z women also became significantly more conservative. More than 40% of women aged 18 to 29 voted Republican in 2024, compared to just 33% in the 2020 presidential election. The shift spanned races, with white and black women each moving six points to the right and latina women moving 10 points.

This rightward shift is particularly important because, unlike young men, young women were supposed to be a shoo-in for former Vice President Kamala Harris. In a May 2024 piece for The New York Times, two political analysts predicted young women would overwhelmingly support abortion “rights.”

The article, titled “[Abortion] is the Democrats’ Best Shot in 2024. And They’re Spending Like Crazy on It,” reads:

There’s a good chance the [abortion] issue could offset President Biden’s weakness among many young and nonwhite voters, given the strong turnout among women and younger voters in recent years in states where abortion rights were on the ballot.

Pro-abortion candidates leaned hard into this perceived advantage. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its allies spent $175 million on pro-abortion TV ads in 2024 — more than 30% of their total ad spending.

Just one day before the election, Politico reported Harris’ pro-abortion media campaign was “helping her close the gap with Trump on handling voters’ No. 1 issue: the economy.”

 “Abortion rights and Trump’s history of misogynistic statements is fueling a historic gender gap,” it further assessed, implying that women would vote on abortion and men on the economy.

These predictions did not come true. Abortion was not a mobilizing issue for American voters, particularly compared to the economy. In one of Shor’s surveys asking voters to rank issues by importance, 79% of respondents ranked the “cost of living, inflation” as more important than abortion.

Abortion paled in comparison to the economy even among Gen Z women, who are frequently portrayed as abortion’s biggest advocates. In the CIRCLE survey, 39% of women aged 18 to 29 identified “the economy and jobs” as their top policy priority.

Only 17% listed “abortion.”

The data is clear: the Democrat party spent big on an issue women, particularly young women, didn’t care about nearly as much as it thought. It effectively reduced an entire voting block to a stereotype — a caricature of an activist who cares about nothing more than having sex with no strings attached

This misunderstanding was so foundational that the party poured money into it until the bitter end. Democrats spent more than $2 million in mid-October on last minute pro-abortion messaging in swing states, even after polls showed women valued economic policy more highly.

But pro-abortion messaging clearly isn’t the silver bullet the Democrat party believed it to be.

Additional Articles and Resources

Harris’ Abortion Issue Bid Fails

Young People on the Pro-Life Movement’s Future

Young Person Talks to Young People at National March for Life

The Progressives Who Want to Take Down Elon Musk and Tesla

Leftist activists are promoting and encouraging protests and attacks on Telsa, the automotive and clean energy company headed by Elon Musk.

Activists plan a “Tesla Takedown,” a “Global Day of Action to stop Musk” on March 29. Anti-capitalist groups, politicians, actors, and transgender-identified activists are just some of those working to bring down Musk and Tesla.

One of the most appalling celebrations of the violence occurred on The Daily Show, as co-host Jordan Klepper showed news video of Tesla cars set on fire at dealerships around the country.

The audience cheered and applauded the destruction, to which Klepper said, “Wow, you guys like petty acts of domestic terrorism.” The audience laughed and cheered again.

Actually, those are felony acts, and one wonders if Klepper and his audience would laugh at the destruction of thousands of dollars of their own property.

Tesla, headquartered in Texas, employs more than 100,000 workers, developing and manufacturing electric vehicles and installing and maintaining energy systems.

Touted as a clean energy company and long supported by progressive climate activists, many leftists have now turned on the company due to Musk’s work with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, a temporary agency created by an executive order with the goal of combating federal waste, fraud and abuse.

Here are some of the left-leaning groups and individuals who oppose Musk’s work with DOGE and, apparently, support a bloated, wasteful federal government.

Philly Anti-Capitalist “exists to promote and spread anti-authoritarian events and ideas as well as facilitate communication between anti-authoritarians and anarchists in and around Philadelphia.”

According to Fox News, the group “claimed credit for terrorizing a Philadelphia neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania during what it called the ‘Summer of Rage’ in 2020.”

Now, the group is giving tips to would-be arsonists, in a blog post titled, “DONT USE MOLOTOVS: Some notes on safely burning Teslas (or other cars),” as Fox News reports,

“The group’s site recommends against using Molotov cocktails, as several radicals across the country have, in favor of more effective devices. It also directs combatants on how much explosive material to use and where to place that material on vehicles in order to cause the most damage.”

“Philly Anti-Capitalist also provides tips on using those devices without getting hurt and quickly enough to escape undetected, and directs would-be arsonists to another site for further details on protecting their anonymity.”

Indivisible is another leftist group trying to stop Musk’s agenda of cutting federal agencies’ abuse and waste. Paul Sperry, a New York Post columnist and senior reporter at RealClear Investigations, warned about Indivisible back in February, saying agitators from the group planned to mob Tesla “dealerships, showrooms, [and] factories.”

More recently, he posted about founders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, saying they had an $11.7 million war chest which included $7.26 million from billionaire George Soros, the far left donor to many radical causes.

Sperry also stated that Indivisible was paying protestors “$1,500 in ‘reimbursement’ cash” for participating in Tesla protests.

The nonprofit Action Network “trains and educates progressives on how to use technology to organize for change.” Action Network just announced that it is joining forces with MoveOn (formerly MoveOn.org), which also received funds from Soros.

Action Network lists the individual locations of the global Tesla Takedown protest, saying, “Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he’s using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it. We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk’s illegal coup.”

The group gives no specifics about the alleged “illegal coup.” Nor does it explain how cutting federal waste destroys democracy or how Musk is using his fortune to do so. The group simply engages in empty sloganeering, as it urges those who used to support the clean energy company, “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.”

Politicians, Actors and Flight Attendants

Conservative Christian and social media influencer “Insurrection Barbie” recently posted that she sat in on an Indivisible call as the group discussed plans for the big protest day.

She noted that Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett was on the call, saying “March 29, it’s my birthday. And all I want to see happen on my birthday is Elon Musk taken down.”

Crockett, who advocates for abortion and “the LGBTQIA+ community,” stated,

“We are fighting for our country, we are fighting for our democracy, we are fighting for our freedoms. And when I say “fighting,” I am saying that figuratively. Obviously, everything that I’m promoting is nonviolent.”

Crockett did not explain how Tesla and Musk are threatening democracy, but she said elected officials weren’t listening to the American people and thanked the protestors for their work.

According to Insurrection Barbie, “Other prominent organizations involved and mentioned in the call” included:  Planet Over Profit, New Republic 50501, John Cusack Civil Liberties Defense Center, Association of Flight Attendants, Troublemakers [and] Joan Donovan – original organizer of this entire project.”

The Association of Flight Attendants? Ironically, as reported by the Daily Citizen, while it works to “fight for our freedoms,” the organization is embroiled in a lawsuit for refusing to support its members’ religious freedom and free speech.

Back in 2018, conservative radio show host, author and Old Testament scholar Dennis Prager wrote an essay titled, “Whatever the Left Touches It Ruins.” He argues that leftists – who prefer socialism and communism to capitalism and want to “disrupt and dismantle” the West – have wrecked or poisoned art, education, sports, religion and more.  

Rather than building something, as Musk, Tesla and its employees have done, radical activist are trying to destroy a company that creates, innovates and employs thousands of individuals – many of whom have families to support.

Rather than burning down businesses, it’d be good, instead, to see all that time, energy and money focused on creating things that are beautiful, useful and good.

Related Articles and Resources:

300 Attacks on Catholic Churches – In Less Than 3 Years; 82 Attacks on Pregnancy Resource Centers – In Less Than a Year

Antifa Assaults Families, Violently Breaks Up Christian Prayer Event in Portland

Antifa’s Violent and Destructive Tactics Used in Portland for Three Months Will Now be Applied in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Attacks on Tesla Escalate

During Violent Weekend, Rioters Desecrated and Set Ablaze Houses of Worship

Over 400 Attacks on Churches in 2023, New Report Finds

President Trump Declares Antifa a Terrorist Organization. Here’s Its Long History of Violence.

Image from Getty.