If you ever plan on climbing Mount Everest, you’ll need what they call a sherpa. Named after the small Nepalese ethnic group that populate the Himalayas, sherpas are mountain guides to help climbers navigate the brutal and unpredictable conditions of Everest. It’s no surprise, then, that Washington has adopted the term “sherpa” for counselors to presidential cabinet nominees during the confirmation process. If you think climbing Everest is hard, just try climbing Capitol Hill.

Clint Brown, now the president of American Path, was the sherpa for one of the Trump administration’s toughest nominee battles: the confirmation of FBI Director Kash Patel. Brown takes viewers inside this uphill battle, which ended with a 51-49 vote to confirm Patel, in this week’s episode of "The Signal Sitdown."

With over a decade of Senate experience, Brown helped Patel understand Senate dynamics and procedure so Patel could sell the vision he and Trump had for the FBI.

Tune in to find out what happens next

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It's been 15 days since "Liberation Day," the day President Donald Trump announced a slew of tariffs on foreign goods.

After unexpected movement in the bond market—bond yields rose rather than fell—Trump announced a 90 day pause on many of his April 2 tariffs. Since "Liberation Day," however, the administration claims more than 130 countries have come to the negotiating table. Both proponents and critics of Trump's tariffs can agree that the ongoing trade negotiations are a testament to the monumental undertaking the American people elected Trump to accomplish: A reordering of the global exchange of labor, goods, and services.

Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age, joined "The Signal Sitdown" this week to break down the Trump administration's strategy to effectuate an overhaul of the American system and the challenges the administration could face along the way.

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested on Feb. 12, 1974, for speaking out about the evils of Soviet communism. The next day, he was exiled to the West and would not touch Russian soil again for more than 15 years.

On the day of his arrest, Solzhenitsyn published an essay titled “Live Not by Lies.” The four-page essay was a call for civic courage: The end of Soviet totalitarianism would begin only when the Russian people refused to accept the regime’s lies.

Solzhenitsyn’s essay inspired the title of Rod Dreher’s 2020 book “Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents.” Almost five years later, Angel Studios has turned Dreher’s book into a four-part documentary series focusing on the stories of the brave souls that stood up to communist regimes. Dreher joined “The Signal Sitdown” to give a behind the scenes look at the Angel Studios project.

Dreher started working on “Live Not by Lies” when he received a shocking phone call.

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Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., is a fighter. The week after 9/11, he dropped out of the University of Arizona to join the Navy and accomplished his goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. In 2023, he brought that fighting spirit to Congress, where he’s been proven prescient on major issues such as America’s actual role in the Ukraine war and the need to reign in out-of-control government spending from agencies like USAID.

Crane joined this week’s episode of "The Signal Sitdown" on the heels of a bombshell report from The New York Times about the extent of U.S. involvement in Ukraine and in the midst of major negotiations between Republicans in the House and Senate on cuts to government spending.

The Arizona congressman was onto the U.S. Agency for International Development before DOGE drew attention to it this year.

“I tried to defund USAID last Congress by 50%,” Crane told "The Signal Sitdown."

After Crane co-sponsored a piece of legislation from former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz in August 2023 to abolish USAID, he brought an amendment to the House floor to slash USAID funding in half. 

“Democrats stopped it and Republicans stopped it,” Crane recalled. The amendment failed, with 102 in favor to 326 opposed. A majority of House Republicans—114 of them to be exact—voted against Crane’s amendment.

Tune in to find out what happened next!

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President Donald Trump has made massive inroads with Gen Z voters through an alternative media strategy that took the president’s message directly to the digital town square.

As a deputy assistant to the president and White House deputy communications director, Kaelan Dorr is a key player in executing Trump's digital media strategy. He joined a special episode of The Signal Sitdown to discuss how Trump became “the Memer-in-Chief.”

Over the course of the 2024 campaign, Trump eschewed traditional media, opting for a media strategy that met voters where they were consuming content. The Trump team brought the president’s message to podcasts and social media platforms instead of op-eds and primetime cable news. The big secret, however, is that this strategy is actually “very simple,” Dorr said. “I think that's what makes it very effective at the end of the day.”

“The beauty of the digital strategy and of the movement we've kind of curated over the last decade is that anybody can do it,” Dorr told me. “It's truly valuable because it doesn't require an ad executive on Madison Avenue… to talk about ‘what's our message progression on this issue’ and ‘how do we do videos that tell a story over time?’” 

“I like to tell everybody this is the easiest job I've ever had because the American people gave us a honey-do list and we're just checking things off.”

Trump’s infamous use of social media serves as the foundation for the rest of the administration’s digital strategy.

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President Donald Trump’s pace since returning to the White House has surprised the president’s friends, perhaps even more than his enemies.

On the 66th day of his administration, Trump signed the 100th executive order of his second term, breaking FDR’s record of 99 executive orders in the first 100 days. While Trump plows ahead, the leftist lawfare complex that once sought to imprison the president is attempting to handcuff his second term by filing more than 130 lawsuits against the administration.

As a deputy assistant to the president and Trump senior policy strategist, May Mailman is one of those administration staffers tasked with executing President Trump’s game plan. She sat down for a special episode of "The Signal Sitdown" filmed at the White House.

“I think actually the president's speed has always been this fast,” Mailman said of the offensive posture of the administration. It has always been, ‘I need this, I need this, let's go, let's go, let's go.’”

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Karoline Leavitt made history when she became the youngest person ever to hold the title White House press secretary.

In a special episode of "The Signal Sitdown" filmed at the White House, Leavitt opens up about her relationship with President Donald Trump, her political upbringing, and how the president is garnering record support with young voters.

At just 27 years old, Leavitt is tasked with communicating Trump’s priorities to the American people, oftentimes through testy exchanges with the adversarial corporate media in the White House briefing room.

"I don't think anyone could anticipate having this job," Leavitt told The Daily Signal. "Certainly, one may hope for it, but you never really know if it will happen."

These days, Leavitt makes headlines sparring with journalists, but once upon a time, she thought she might become one. "I always was enthralled with the media and news growing up," Leavitt said. "Always thought I wanted to be a reporter, actually on your side of the table, and covering the news."

That started to change, however, when Trump burst on to the political scene. "2016 was the first election I was actually eligible to vote in, and I cast my ballot in the New Hampshire primary for Donald Trump," Leavitt recalled.

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When Rep. Tom Emmer became the House GOP whip in 2023, Republicans' mission was simple: Limit the damage President Joe Biden did before President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, shared his party's struggles in an interview on "The Signal Sitdown." While coordinated opposition to a forceful administration is no easy chore (just ask former Speaker Kevin McCarthy or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer), governing, even with a trifecta, is even harder. But that’s precisely the task Emmer and his colleagues face.

The House majority whip peeled back the curtain on the dynamics inside the House Republican Conference as budget negotiations and bringing rogue federal judges to heel dominate conversations on Capitol Hill.

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On the heels of a Tuesday phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, joined “The Signal Sitdown” this week to discuss the latest on the push for peace.

Mills said the three-hour call between Trump and Putin “threw a little bit of cold water” on the prospects for a rapid peace. “The Russians don’t have the most incentive right now for the war to end,” he noted.

What we know of the call offers some evidence to Mills’ claim: While both leaders signaled they want the war to end, the only deliverable from the call was that Putin agreed on a 30-day halt on attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. 

Mills continued explaining why Russia lacks incentives to come to the table: Ukraine is only getting weaker.

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"Everything's computer!" President Donald Trump said on Tuesday while checking out a Tesla. The president might be right about that, not only regarding the Tesla, but for the future of the American economy: The Trump administration is attempting to usher in the AI economy while bringing the tech giants working on this technology to heel.

Its no small task, and two massive stories from the tech world that corporate media outlets swiftly swept under the rug this week are illustrative. Thus far, however, “it is a loud silence on the part of the media,” Wes Hodges, acting director of the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation, told me on this week's episode of ”The Signal Sitdown.”

The first story came from a Facebook whistleblower’s allegations that the tech giant was willing to bend over backward to appease the Chinese Communist Party, even sharing critical technological developments in AI and then “lying about it” to U.S. officials.

The second came from Elon Musk’s X. After X suffered a series of outages on Monday, Musk said the social media platform was the victim of “a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.” Corporate media outlets swiftly trotted out experts to claim Musk’s claims were “garbage,” even though U.S. officials claim they have not yet been able to identify who was behind the cyberattack.

Though the corporate media wants the public to pay no mind to these stories, each provides essential insights into the fight for the future of the American economy, a fight President Donald Trump is fighting on two fronts. The first is with China; the second is with American elites.

“There is a lot of truth to being able to deflect and hide your source of attack with enough time and resources,” he said of those questioning whether the attack actually came from the Ukraine area. Nevertheless, “Musk's accusation that it came from Ukraine isn't something that we should rule out,” because of the enemies Musk has made since entering the political arena.

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