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The Daybreak Insider
Thursday, September 25, 2025
1.
Shooting at ICE Facility in Dallas Kills Detainee

New York Times: A shooter opened fire on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas on Wednesday, killing one detainee and critically wounding two others, investigators said. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and left behind ammunition that bore the phrase “ANTI-ICE” in blue writing, according to officials (NYTimes). President Trump: This violence is the result of the Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to “Nazis.” The continuing violence from Radical Left Terrorists, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, must be stopped. ICE Officers, and other Brave Members of Law Enforcement, are under grave threat. We have already declared ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization, and I will be signing an Executive Order this week to dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks. I AM CALLING ON ALL DEMOCRATS TO STOP THIS RHETORIC AGAINST ICE AND AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT, RIGHT NOW! (Truth)

2.
JD Vance Responds: “If your political rhetoric encourages violence against our law enforcement, you can go straight to hell”
The Vice President was at an event in Concord, North Carolina when he addressed the latest shooting: Here’s what happens when Democrats—like Gavin Newsom did—say that these people are part of an authoritarian government. When the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing, when they lie about who they’re arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement, what they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence. You don’t have to agree with my immigration policies. You don’t have to agree with Donald Trump’s immigration policies, but if your political rhetoric encourages violence against our law enforcement, you can go straight to hell and you have no place in the political conversations of the United States of America (X). Andrew Kolvet, Charlie Kirk’s longtime friend and producer: Straight into my veins (X).

3.
Douglas Murray: “The American Left has the bigger questions to answer”
The prominent British public intellectual frames the political violence issue well: the American Left has the bigger questions to answer. In recent days, portions of the Left have expressed greater outrage about Jimmy Kimmel’s brief absence from his late-night talk show on ABC than Kirk’s absence from life. Others—up to and including members of Congress—have suggested that Kirk’s words constituted violence, and that therefore condemnations of the violence directed against him require a certain caveat. Such slips became possible only because the American Left has been increasingly drawn to the gray zone…. The issue is not whether both sides can produce individuals willing to commit political violence—that much is undeniable. The real question is whether those individuals will find a supportive ecosystem or, instead, encounter a firm “no,” like the one the Irish electorate eventually delivered to [Martin McGuinness, the former leader of the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army)] (City Journal).

4.
A Look at the Numbers: Yes, Left-Wing Political Violence Is More Prevalent Than Right-Wing Political Violence
Readers are right to trust what they are witnessing with their own two eyes, but the results of a study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies provide empirical support: We found that left-wing terrorism has increased since President Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence in 2016. Indeed, 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber those from the far right…. This year, however, violence on the right has plummeted. Only one right-wing-terrorist incident occurred in the first six months of 2025: the June assassination of the Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband. This extraordinary drop-off is too recent to allow for any definitive explanations—and the number of terror incidents often fluctuates over short periods—but Trump’s reelection could be a key factor (Atlantic).

5.
Former FBI Director James Comey to Be Indicted Soon
Salem News Channel: Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in the coming days, MSNBC reported on Wednesday, citing three sources. “The full extent of the charges being prepared against Comey is unclear, but the sources believe that at least one element of the indictment—if it goes forward–will accuse him of lying to Congress during his testimony on September 30, 2020 about whether he authorized a leak of information,” a MSNBC reporter wrote on X (Salem News Channel). More: The same office is expected to charge Letitia James with mortgage fraud. Trump, exhorting his attorney general to charge those people as soon as possible (X)

6.
Schumer and Jeffries Threatening Government Shutdown
The minority leaders in the Senate and the House, respectively, may be waiting till the last minute for a deal—or they may be willing to push the issue. Republicans have already put forward a “clean” bill—simply extending the debt limit to keep the government open. Fox News: The top House Democrat signaled that his party is readying to blame Republicans as the threat of a government shutdown grows larger by the day. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., held a news conference on Wednesday where he said Democrats were “ready to get to work, ready to meet with anyone, any time, any place in order to avoid a painful Republican-caused government shutdown.” At the same time, he restated that Democrats would not accept a GOP-led plan to keep the government funded at roughly current levels through Nov. 21, dismissing the measure as a “partisan exercise” … “REMINDER: House Republicans have already done the job of passing a clean, bipartisan bill to keep the government open,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement on X Wednesday. “Now it’s up to Senate Democrats – who have long said shutdowns are bad and hurt people – to vote to fund the American government, or shut it down because they want to restore taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens” (Fox News).

7.
Senate Majority Leader Thune on Schumer and the Left: “They just want to blow anything up that has anything to do with President Trump”
The South Dakotan was on with Hugh Hewitt who asked about the Democrats plan to potentially shut down the government. Thune: The radical left view is they just want to blow anything up that has anything to do with President Trump. It is this Trump Derangement Syndrome unlike anything we’ve ever seen before—so much so that they’re taking what I think are pretty bizarre steps and frankly steps that I think are not smart politically for them, but they can’t see. They’re just blinded by the hatred and they’re doing some really strange stuff…. But Schumer, some of the decisions that they’re making now have real consequences and I’m hoping that some of the Democrats over there on his side of the aisle will come to their senses and realize what a bad idea this is. But that seems to be where he is gone and maybe he feels like he doesn’t have any choice after he voted to keep the government open in April. He got blown up by the left-wing base in the country, but that’s who they’re answerable to these days. It is the tail wagging the dog, and Schumer doesn’t seem to have any intention, at least at this point, of deviating from a strategy that would take us into a government shutdown, but I hope there are people around him on the Democrat side who see it differently (Hewitt).

8.
Flyers on Georgetown Campus: “Hey Fascist! Catch!”
For context and a reminder: The assassin who shot Charlie Kirk had a rifle cartridge labeled “Hey Fascist! Catch!” Amy Curtis of Townhall: The American Left, especially on college campuses, has no intention of turning down the temperature in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. At the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), clashes between conservative students and their Leftist classmates got so bad that the Chancellor issued a statement warning law enforcement would get involved. Now at Georgetown, the “John Brown Club” is posting flyers featuring the slogan alleged Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson wrote on the bullets he carried – “Hey, Fascist! Catch!” If you scan the QR code, it takes you to the sign-up page, where it says, “We’re building a community that’s done with ceremonial resistance and strongly worded letters. If you want to make a real change in your community, let us now below” (Townhall).

9.
Gavin Newsom on Colbert: Democrats Need to Show They Are “Willing to Fight”
While calling Trump a “son of a bi***.” So much dialing back the rhetoric.  Newsom, quoted in Huffington Post: “There’s sort of this weakness that dominates our brand and our party. I think what people appreciate is that we’re willing to fight. And not only fight symbolically by having a little bit of fun, but fight substantively. We have 41 lawsuits against the son of a bitch…. I fear that we will not have an election in 2028 — I really mean that, in the core of my soul — unless we wake up to the code red [of] what’s happening in this country, and we wake up soberly to how serious this moment is,” Newsom said (Huff Post).

10.
Vox Compares Killing of Kirk to Killing of Nazi Propagandist Horst Wessel
Katherine Kelaidis for Vox: Since the assassination, a variety of MAGA-foe pundits have compared the MAGA response to Kirk’s murder … to the response to the killing of Horst Wessel, a German Nazi murdered by two members of Communist Party of Germany in 1930. In the hands of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Wessel’s death became a rallying cry, and Wessel himself a heroic martyr whose death symbolized the Nazi struggle against Communism. Goebbels had Wessel mythologized through songs, rallies, and public ceremonies, creating a cult around him that galvanized support for the Nazi movement. The comparisons to Horst Wessel are not without merit. His death was a major boon for Nazi propaganda, just as Kirk’s death has given MAGA and the Trump administration proximate cause to escalate attacks on their political adversaries. But those comparisons miss something crucial. Goebbels himself was consciously drawing on an earlier model, and it is that model, the Late Antique cult of the martyrs, that the MAGA faithful are now, consciously or not, also invoking (Vox).

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