The Daily Signal - Kennedy's NPR Receipts, Bipartisan Amnesty Bill Mocked, Midterm Polls Less Blue | July 17, 2025

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Starting point is 00:00:25 We'd love to talk. Business. NPR's last plea for your tax dollars is rather embarrassing. A new bipartisan House bill for illegal immigration amnesty draws serious criticism, and the midterm elections are already bucking typical trends more than a year out. I'm Tony Kinnett, host of the Daily Signals Tony Kinnett cast, syndicated nationally at 7 p.m. Eastern. It is Thursday, July 17, 2025. This is the Daily Signals top news in 10. Nose cuts through the rescission package that is now on its way back to the House,

Starting point is 00:01:07 Democrats and legacy media are trying their darnest to make their last plea for NPR to continue receiving federal funding. NPR CEO, Catherine Mayer, took to CNN yesterday morning to make an interesting claim about NPR's bias. As far as the accusations that were biased, I would stand up and say, please show me a story that concerns you because we want to know and we want to bring that conversation back to our newsroom. Now, it should be noted that there are no known registered Republicans currently on NPR's editorial staff. But aside from that, Senator Kennedy took to the floor of the Senate to outline a series of articles NPR has published in the last couple of years showing significant bias that Mayor apparently believes does not exist.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Michael A Vanotti, quote, a profile of the media savvy attorney. How racism became a marketing tool for country music. Donald Trump. Trump's long embrace of Vladimir Putin. Monuments and teams have changed names as America reckons with racism. Birds are next. I don't know any birds that are racist. Eating less beef is a climate solution.

Starting point is 00:02:23 There is no neutral. Nice white people can still be complicit in a racist society. Ebromex-Kendi says no one is not racist, so what should we do? How artificial intelligence could perpetuate racism, sexism, and other biases in society. Another, scientist debunk lab accident theory of pandemic emergence. As Trump pushes theory of virus origins, some see parallels to lead up and lead up to Iraq war.

Starting point is 00:03:02 After Biden's debate performance, the presidential race is unchanged. Former conservative David French and many other pundits took to the airwaves trying to claim that by removing federal tax dollars from organizations like NPR, this was actually a grand gesture of political censorship akin to the Red Scare. So David, can you put into perspective how much the NPR case is escalating a nationwide culture attack? on free speech? Yeah, I've not seen anything like this in my adult lifetime. I think we're looking at a comprehensive attack on free speech that is maybe most reminiscent of the red scare.

Starting point is 00:03:45 And the one thing that is so particularly pernicious about it is that Donald Trump is very shrewd, politically shrewd in his attack. He's taking on a lot of institutions that a lot of Americans don't like. So for example, elite universities, you're not exactly going to get. millions of Americans in the streets for elite universities or white shoe law firms. People are going to be in the streets for white shoe law firms or for big media outlets where he sued them for defamation, et cetera, or retaliated against them. So he's choosing many of these politically unpopular targets, but that's the classic move of the censors. If you go back to the Red Scare,

Starting point is 00:04:25 this was a frontal attack on free speech aimed at some of the least popular speech in America. This is how authoritarianism begins. It begins not by taking on the popular voices. It begins by taking on the unpopular voices. And I'm not saying that NPR doesn't have millions of listeners, and there are many people who love Harvard. But these institutions are very much in the crosshairs of Trump's base. So he's playing to his base here, which makes it politically sustainable, even while it's a direct

Starting point is 00:04:58 attack on the Constitution. and its political popularity, at least amongst his base, is what makes this so dangerous. He has a lot of the public wind at his back when he's doing it, and then he's turning around and vilifying the judges who are standing up against him. And so he's creating a very, very dangerous dynamic here. And Democrat Senator Chris Coons took to the Senate floor to suggest that the removal of federal funding for NPR and PBS, along with the removal of federal funding from LGBT-plus advocacy groups like the Trevor Project, pushing false biological information, was something that would make Jesus weep.

Starting point is 00:05:39 Check it out. Jesus wept. Jesus wept. Most of us who grew up in Bible-believing households know this is the shortest verse in all of Scripture. and in some ways the most powerful. One that haunts me. Jesus wept in John the 11th chapter 35th verse because he had come too late seemingly

Starting point is 00:06:07 to save the life of Lazarus. He wept because someone he knew and loved had died and it had caused such harm and loss to his family. Today we are doing something on this floor of this Senate. my Republican colleagues are doing something on the floor of this Senate that I believe would make Jesus weep. Now, I haven't seen anything in the rescission package that suggests Republicans are going to kill Lazarus or pass out leprosy to anyone. But again, I typically just read the King James version or the ESV. So that might be in a different version of scripture that Coons is read.

Starting point is 00:06:53 It's the Nissan Black Friday. event where you can, wait, wait, wait. Isn't it like a month long now? Nissan Blackfrey Month? Does that work? It's the Nissan Black Fry Month event. On remaining 2025 Rogan Centra, get 0% financing. Plus, get $1,000 Nissan bonus on kicks models.

Starting point is 00:07:12 This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you. See your local Nissan dealer or nissan.ca for details. Conditions apply. A new bipartisan. bill in the House of Representatives, which would give a kind of amnesty to illegal immigrants of a certain work status, is drawing a lot of heavy criticism. The Dignity Act is legislation that would create a so-called dignity status, neither illegal immigrant nor legal citizen, for undocumented

Starting point is 00:07:45 immigrants with no criminal record, other than illegal immigration, who have been here for at least five years. Republican Representative Maria Salazar from Florida's 27th called on President Trump to support the measure. Here's Representative Gabe Evans from Colorado's 8th District making the case for this piece of legislation. Hi, I'm Congressman Gabe Evans from Colorado's 8th Congressional District and today I am so happy to be able to help introduce the bipartisan Dignity Act. I'm the grandson of immigrants from Mexico and so this bill is particularly important to me because it does three critical things. It makes sure that we have resources to secure the border. It helps us crush the criminals, the cartels and the gang

Starting point is 00:08:27 bangers that are in our community illegally and causing problems, but it also provides a pathway for hardworking immigrants who want to come to the United States, work hard, raise their family, be a contributing part of the American dream. And this is something that I've heard from the employers and from the Latino community in my district. They want that path forward. Now, there are a lot of issues with this, despite being extremely unpopular with the American people and very unconstitutional. We went into this in more detail on last night's episode of the Tony Kinnettcast. In short, creating a separate kind of legal resident in United States law would cause a bevy of problems. It would violate a lot of tax laws.

Starting point is 00:09:10 It would create a ton of legal loopholes that would allow for exploitation of labor. It would not function like a work visa. essentially creating a kind of system that we haven't seen since black individuals who were former slaves before the 14th Amendment were considered legal residents but not citizens. It would be a major mess and, yes, is objectively bad policy. And this brings us over to the approaching midterms, which, though they're more than a year away,

Starting point is 00:09:40 the previous trends of the party in power being usurped by the opposition party in the midterms may not be as likely as, in previous elections. Harry Anton over on CNN explains. The bottom line is this. Democrats are behind their 2006 and 2018 paces when it comes to the generic congressional ballot. What are we talking about here?

Starting point is 00:10:02 All right, the Democrats versus the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot at the margins. Look at where we are now. Democrats are ahead, but by just two points. Look at where Democrats were already ahead by in 2017. They were behind by seven points. How about 2005 on the generic congressional ballot? behind, excuse me, ahead by seven points, ahead by seven points, and now they're only ahead by

Starting point is 00:10:20 two points. Their lead is less than half, less than half of where it was in either 2017 or 2005 in July of those years, the year before the midterm election. Yes, Donald Trump may be unpopular, but Democrats have not come anywhere close to sealing the deal at this particular point. Yeah, wave, wave looks very different. Yes. All right, this is the generic ballot test. This is when you test people in the generic question. Of course, the House races aren't. generic. There are 435 of them. What happens when you go race by race? What happens when you go race by race? Well, it's the same idea. Okay, House seat ratings with the GOP president, like back in 2005 and of course 2017. More net pickup seat chances. Well, last time around, look at that.

Starting point is 00:11:02 Democrats were ahead by 33 seats. How about in 2005, Democrats were ahead by seven seats? What's going on right now? It's actually Republicans. Actually, Republicans with more net picked up chances at plus 12, according to the Cook political report when you add in the likelys the liens and the toss-up races. So it's not just on the generic ballot where Democrats are behind their 2017 and 2005 pace. It's actually when it comes seat by seat, you see that at least at this particular point, Republicans actually have more net pickup opportunities. This doesn't look anything like those wave elections back in 2006 or 2018. If it doesn't look anything like those years, what does it look like? Okay, so what does it look like? Well, let's take a look back at the generic

Starting point is 00:11:41 congressional ballot. What was going on in Ipsos in October of 2024? Democrats were ahead by two points. Look at where we are now. Democrats ahead by two points among registered voters. At this particular point, this election cycle looks a lot more like 2024 than it does than either 2018 or 2006. And so, of course, Republicans actually held onto the House back in 2024. Will it happen this time around? We'll just have to wait and see. But for anyone who's writing the Republican House's political obituaries, hold a phone. This is a reality check. Republicans are still very much in the game. Before you go, head down to the description and make sure you're subscribed to the Tony

Starting point is 00:12:16 Kinnettcast and join us tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern, where we have on the Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky in studio for the first time ever, and we're going to talk a little bit with Kurt Schlichter from townhall.com. I'm Tony Kinnett, and this has been the Daily Signals, top news in 10. Take care.

The Daily Signal - Kennedy's NPR Receipts, Bipartisan Amnesty Bill Mocked, Midterm Polls Less Blue | July 17, 2025

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