The Dictatorship
Two MAGA ‘debaters’ pulled a stunt at an HBCU campus after Charlie Kirk’s death
Two MAGA provocateurs arrived, uninvited, at Tennessee State University Tuesdayset up a table on the Nashville campus and dared the students at the historically Black school to “debate” their positions against DEI and in favor of mass deportations. Channeling the late Charlie Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” stylethey created the scene they apparently hoped to cause and were escorted off campus by law enforcement officials. TSU officials said the two uninvited guests were escorted off campus by campus police and TSU staff because they didn’t have permission to set up a table, display signs or use a microphone, as campus policies require.
Channeling the late Charlie Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” style, they created the scene they apparently hoped to cause.
Several of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities received credible threats of harm after the Turning Point USA co-founder was shot dead in Utah on Sept. 10. The very next day, classes at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Hampton University in Virginia, Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Virginia State University in Petersburg were canceled and administrators ordered their students to shelter in place in response to the threats.
That makes the sudden, aggressive appearance of two right-wingers — claiming membership in a group called “Fearless Debates” — feel like another attempt to respond to Kirk’s death by antagonizing Black people.
Though multiple Black professors (at HBCUs and otherwise) reported being harassed, or even getting death threatsafter their names were added to Turning Point USA’s “Professor Watchlist,” it’s unlikely that Kirk or TPUSA was much on the minds of most Black people — students or otherwise. That’s why Black students on the campuses that were threatened have every right to ask — as Nene Leakes of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” so famously did — “Why am I in it?”
Those students would be correct in demanding to know: Why is my campus being threatened with violence after an act of political violence that we in particular, and Black people in general, had nothing to do with? Do Kirk’s supporters find the mere existence of HBCUs an offense? If so, why?
Students at TSU, in particular, are justified in asking why Tuesday’s interlopers singled them out. When the “Fearless Debate” pair was asked why they’d picked a Black school, they claimed they didn’t know Tennessee State is an HBCU. But that’s not believable. An Instagram post on Tuesday from the “Fearless Debate” account shows the pair set up at a table at TSU with the adorning caption: “We’re here at Tennessee State University in Nashville — the first HBCU that we’re visiting on the Fearless Tour! Let’s talk.”
The pair’s provocation was not received well at TSU, which, of course, was the visitors’ point: to be rejected, to characterize the Black students as intolerant of debate and to gloat that they’d won their arguments by virtue of the Black students being intolerant of their presence. It was unfortunate to see so many people on social media criticizing TSU students, suggesting the students should have responded by debating the pair, or argued that because Tennessee State is a public institution, everybody is automatically welcome.
Do Kirk’s supporters find the mere existence of HBCUs an offense? If so, why?
The proposition that the students should have debated their obnoxious guests reminds me of a theory being promoted in journalism circles some years ago — that news sites’ comments sections would be less horrible, for example, if opinion writers jumped into the discussions. We’d be showing that we’re real people, our editors insisted, and we’d be encouraging similarly civil people to participate, which would help transform the tone of such sections.
The guidance was based on the faulty premise that people were in the comments section for a good-faith change of ideas — when most were there only to be obnoxious and “pwn” the opposition. It was always foolish, though, to think that folks with such a mindset were interested in debate, and the theory about how we journalists could help elevate the debate didn’t make our engaging in the comments section anything more than a waste of time.
The better advice would have been, “Don’t feed the trolls.”
That’s good advice in real life, too. That’s why the students shouldn’t feel any embarrassment or shame in not falling into the “debate me” trap. Because that’s all it is: a trap. Real debates are intellectual exercises that take place among people who are factually prepared and open to persuasion. The ultimate goal is a pursuit of truth, not “owning” anybody or grandstanding. Honest debates are not “gotcha” affairs.
It’s a shame that since Kirk’s death, arguing in bad faith has become characterized as virtuous and edifying. It’s not. And it’s not beneficial to try to rebut people making bad faith arguments because, by definition, people making bad faith arguments can’t be persuaded of anything.
No, the students at TSU didn’t owe the so-called debaters any of their time or attention Tuesday. Like so many HBCU students since Kirk’s death, saying “Leave us alone” is enough.
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for BLN Daily. He was previously editor-in-chief at the Louisiana Illuminator and a columnist and deputy opinion editor at The Times-Picayune.
NEW YORK (AP) — About 3 million fewer people in the United States had Affordable Care Acthealth insurance plans in February compared with the same time last year, according to new federal data.
In the reportreleased Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggested the 13% drop in enrollment from 22.1 million people in 2025 to 19.2 million this year could be attributed to a federal crackdown on fraudulent or “phantom” enrollment. But health analysts said it was more likely related to the Jan. 1 expiration of federal subsidieswhich caused a surge in plan costs that resulted in many people being unable to pay their premiums.
“We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, citing survey findings on people who had left their plans. “This coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double or even triple digit increases in their premium payments.”
The new data, compiled in April but showing coverage in February, represents the government’s first official look at how people’s inability to pay their first bills this year affected total enrollment. That is because the figures capture the marketplace after a nonpayment grace period expired.
A federal estimate in Januaryshowed that about 800,000 fewer people had signed up for ACA plans compared with the same time last year, marking the first time in the past four years that enrollment had been down from the previous year at that point in the shopping window.
Cox said KFF expects the total number of people in the government healthcare program to continue to declinethroughout the year, potentially to a low of about 17.5 million. That would be a significant drop for the government’s flagship subsidized health insurance program for working-age people who do not qualify for Medicaid. In recent years, ACA plans have become a popular choice for gig workers, farmers, ranchers, hairstylists and others without health coverage through an employer.
The ACA subsidies that expired this year were at the center of a bitter fight in Congress last fall, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for their renewal. Sharp increases in health costs across ACA and other health insurance programs come as voters in the approaching November elections say affordability is among their top concerns.
Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary runoff Saturday, defeating former Rep. John Fleming.
Her win comes as a victory for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed her repeatedly throughout the race — including before she was even officially running.
Letlow made history in 2021 when she became the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in Congress. In that special election, she won the seat that her late husband, Luke Letlow, had won prior to dying of complications related to Covid-19 in December 2020.
Letlow had no political experience prior to running for her late husband’s seat. She holds a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and worked as an administrator for Tulane University and the University of Louisiana, according to her LinkedIn page. Nonetheless, she won the special election House race with nearly 65% of the vote.
In Congress, she has served on the appropriations and education committees, and has been a reliably MAGA Republican.
Letlow’s win also comes as a rebuke to Fleming, who loaned himself more than $11 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and tried running for the same seat in 2016 only to finish in fifth place in the nonpartisan primary. (Letlow did not loan her campaign any money, and took in more than $5.35 million compared to Fleming’s more than $12.1 million, FEC filings show.)
Trump has played a key role in the race. In addition to backing Letlow early on, the president also helped tank Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign in last month’s primary, based on the senator’s record of bucking his party and voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. In the primaryLetlow earned nearly 45% of the vote, giving her a healthy lead over both Fleming, who received about 28% of the vote, and Cassidy, who earned nearly 25%.
Ahead of Saturday’s runoff, polling showed Letlow and Fleming in a close race, with Letlow retaining a small lead in several polls.
Letlow will now proceed to the November general election to face off against the Democratic nominee, farmer Jamie Davis, who came out on top in tonight’s Democratic primary runoff.
The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her last term in office.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligencehas stirred fear by choosing as his chief of staff a GOP election lawyer who oversaw a poll watching program that included Jack Posobiec and other conservative conspiracy theorists. The lawyer, Christina Norton, also appears to have no experience working in the intelligence community.
“It is horrifying,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW Saturday. “Not only does Norton have absolutely no background, experience or expertise in national security or intelligence, but her principal qualifications appear to be loyalty to Pulte and an embrace of absurd election-interference conspiracies.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been a vocal critic of Pulte, also raised concerns about election integrity on Sunday while taking shots at the director of national intelligence and the office itself.
“We should eliminate the DNI, and we should eliminate Pulte from the DNI until that happens,” he said on BLN, adding, “I am concerned that we’re gonna continue to cast doubt on elections in November and erode what has been a 250-year tradition of a peaceful transition of power.”
Pulte’s choice of Norton is also likely to increase concerns among Democrats that President Donald Trump intends to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to interfere in the midterm elections. Pulte, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, has used his current position as head of federal mortgage agencies to refer political rivals of the president for federal criminal prosecution.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW on Sunday that the choice “just confirms” that the “only job qualification is absolute political loyalty and devotion to Donald Trump.” But he expressed faith in the judicial system during an appearance on “The Weekend,” noting that “right now we have federal courts across the land that are rejecting their various attempts to take over the election process. Nine different federal courts have rejected the claim that the president, by executive order, can compel the states in the union to turn over all of their voter lists to Donald Trump and to the White House.”
The New York Times first reported Norton’s appointment.
The former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, told MS NOW the choice also “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.”
Norton, reached by MS NOW by telephone, declined to comment and referred questions to an ODNI spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment on Norton but defended Pulte’s tenure.
“Acting Director Pulte and his team are focused on carrying out President Trump’s national security priorities while faithfully executing ODNI’s statutory mission,” the spokesperson told MS NOW. “We are leading the Intelligence Community to provide President Trump with elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, said his objection to Pulte is “that he used personal information to target a political enemy of the president,” a reference to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“You should not be using the force of government to crash upon somebody just because the person in charge does not like them or finds them inconvenient. The fact that Bill did that is disqualifying for someone to be the director of national intelligence,” Cassidy said.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that Congress would ensure that the ODNI under Pulte will “report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”
Himes warned that, “Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind.”
Trump has said in interviews with the news media that he would like to see Pulte shrink the size of the ODNI and investigate election fraud. Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in investigations in Georgia and Puerto Rico to find proof of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Democrats and some former intelligence officials say they worry that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates in the midterms.
Pulte could falsely claim foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines, they say, and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats during the midterms. Or Trump could instruct Pulte to be present if FBI agents seize ballots and election records in November as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Georgia.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement on Friday that Pulte should not use his position to spread Trump’s false election conspiracy theories.
“The mission of ODNI is to identify and counter foreign threats, not to import election denialism into the Intelligence Community,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
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