DJ Daniel, teen cancer survivor sworn in as honorary Secret Service agent by Trump, has heartbreaking new diagnosis
The family of Devarjaye 'DJ' Daniel recently revealed a heartbreaking diagnosis just months after the teen brain cancer survivor captured America's hearts when he was sworn in as an honorary member of the Secret Service by President Trump.
DJ, who was given five months to live after being diagnosed with incurable brain and spine cancer in 2018, has 'three new tumors,' his father, Theodis Daniel, told Fox 7 Austin last week.
'It's rough, there isn't a class that can teach you how to deal with it. You're hearing that your child has a nasty disease,' the heartbroken dad said.
6 Devarjaye 'DJ' Daniel after being sworn in as an honorary Secret Service agent during Trump's address to Congress.
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'We're just going around showing people, hey, you do care for one another. Let's give compassion and let's try to join and help each other get through things,' he added.
DJ, who dreams of becoming a police officer, was thrust into the national spotlight when he was sworn in as an honorary protector of Trump during the president's address to a joint session of Congress on March 4.
The teen has nearly completed his quest to be sworn in by 1,000 law enforcement agencies across the country — which would be a Guinness World Record.
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He already holds multiple records, including 'the most keys to the city' and 'most proclamation days.'
6 DJ Daniel dreams of being a police officer.
AFP via Getty Images
6 DJ, in a police uniform, recently developed three new tumors, his father, Theodis Daniel, revealed.
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6 Honorary Special Agent DJ Daniel, 13, visits the Secret Service Training Center in Maryland with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
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6 DJ gestures to the camera after being recognized during President Trump's address to Congress in March.
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6 A 10-year-old Daniel wears a police uniform in a squad car.
William Farrington
After his Secret Service honor, DJ got calls from law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including from Deputy Jeffrey Combs of the Williams County Sheriff's Office in Texas.
'I saw Theodis pick his son up. I felt that unconditional love, and I just knew I had to find DJ, so it all worked out,' he told FOX 7 last week.
The teen has been keeping in good spirits: During the Williams County ceremony, DJ rubbed deputies' bald heads for luck, the outlet reported.
And the youngster was just as upbeat at another recent swearing-in, this one in Polk County, Florida.
'I'll keep going until my gas tank runs out, and that's when God calls you home,' Daniel told officers. 'The craziest thing is on my 11th brain surgery, God told me I was one of his angels and I'm doing God's work.
'On my 12th brain surgery, he gave me my wings, but he told me I'm going to take these back until you graduate the school called life.'
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31 minutes ago
Can Trump fix the national debt? Republican senators, many investors and even Elon Musk have doubts
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won't bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package. The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical as Trump seems unable to trim deficits as promised. 'All of this rhetoric about cutting trillions of dollars of spending has come to nothing — and the tax bill codifies that,' said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. 'There is a level of concern about the competence of Congress and this administration and that makes adding a whole bunch of money to the deficit riskier.' The White House has viciously lashed out at anyone who has voiced concern about the debt snowballing under Trump, even though it did exactly that in his first term after his 2017 tax cuts. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened her briefing Thursday by saying she wanted 'to debunk some false claims" about his tax cuts. Leavitt said that the "blatantly wrong claim that the 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill' increases the deficit is based on the Congressional Budget Office and other scorekeepers who use shoddy assumptions and have historically been terrible at forecasting across Democrat and Republican administrations alike.' But Trump himself has suggested that the lack of sufficient spending cuts to offset his tax reductions came out of the need to hold the Republican congressional coalition together. 'We have to get a lot of votes,' Trump said last week. 'We can't be cutting.' That has left the administration betting on the hope that economic growth can do the trick, a belief that few outside of Trump's orbit think is viable. Tech billionaire Musk, who was until recently part of Trump's inner sanctum as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, told CBS News: 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." The tax and spending cuts that passed the House last month would add more than $5 trillion to the national debt in the coming decade if all of them are allowed to continue, according to the Committee for a Responsible Financial Budget, a fiscal watchdog group. To make the bill's price tag appear lower, various parts of the legislation are set to expire. This same tactic was used with Trump's 2017 tax cuts and it set up this year's dilemma, in which many of the tax cuts in that earlier package will sunset next year unless Congress renews them. But the debt is a much bigger problem now than it was eight years ago. Investors are demanding the government pay a higher premium to keep borrowing as the total debt has crossed $36.1 trillion. The interest rate on a 10-year Treasury Note is around 4.5%, up dramatically from the roughly 2.5% rate being charged when the 2017 tax cuts became law. The White House Council of Economic Advisers argues that its policies will unleash so much rapid growth that the annual budget deficits will shrink in size relative to the overall economy, putting the U.S. government on a fiscally sustainable path. The council argues the economy would expand over the next four years at an annual average of about 3.2%, instead of the Congressional Budget Office's expected 1.9%, and as many as 7.4 million jobs would be created or saved. Council chair Stephen Miran told reporters that when that growth is coupled with expected revenues from tariffs, the expected budget deficits will fall. The tax cuts will increase the supply of money for investment, the supply of workers and the supply of domestically produced goods — all of which, by Miran's logic, would cause faster growth without creating new inflationary pressures. 'I do want to assure everyone that the deficit is a very significant concern for this administration,' Miran told reporters recently. White House budget director Russell Vought told reporters the idea that the bill is 'in any way harmful to debt and deficits is fundamentally untrue.' Most outside economists expect additional debt would keep interest rates higher and slow overall economic growth as the cost of borrowing for homes, cars, businesses and even college educations would increase. 'This just adds to the problem future policymakers are going to face,' said Brendan Duke, a former Biden administration aide now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Duke said that with the tax cuts in the bill set to expire in 2028, lawmakers would be 'dealing with Social Security, Medicare and expiring tax cuts at the same time.' Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, said the growth projections from Trump's economic team are 'a work of fiction.' He said the bill would lead some workers to choose to work fewer hours in order to qualify for Medicaid. 'I don't know of any serious forecaster that has meaningfully raised their growth forecast because of this legislation,' said Harvard University professor Jason Furman, who was the Council of Economic Advisers chair under the Obama administration. 'These are mostly not growth- and competitiveness-oriented tax cuts. And, in fact, the higher long-term interest rates will go the other way and hurt growth.' The White House's inability so far to calm deficit concerns is stirring up political blowback for Trump as the tax and spending cuts approved by the House now move to the Senate. Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have both expressed concerns about the likely deficit increases, with Johnson saying there are enough senators to stall the bill until deficits are addressed. 'I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,' Johnson said on CNN. The White House is also banking that tariff revenues will help cover the additional deficits, even though recent court rulings cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump declaring an economic emergency to impose sweeping taxes on imports. When Trump announced his near-universal tariffs in April, he specifically said his policies would generate enough new revenues to start paying down the national debt. His comments dovetailed with remarks by aides, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that yearly budget deficits could be more than halved. 'It's our turn to prosper and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it'll all happen very quickly,' Trump said two months ago as he talked up his import taxes and encouraged lawmakers to pass the separate tax and spending cuts. The Trump administration is correct that growth can help reduce deficit pressures, but it's not enough on its own to accomplish the task, according to new research by economists Douglas Elmendorf, Glenn Hubbard and Zachary Liscow. Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale University, said additional 'growth doesn't even get us close to where we need to be.' The government would need $10 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years just to stabilize the debt, Tedeschi said. And even though the White House says the tax cuts would add to growth, most of the cost goes to preserve existing tax breaks, so that's unlikely to boost the economy meaningfully. 'It's treading water,' Tedeschi said.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Can Trump fix the national debt? Republican senators, many investors and even Elon Musk have doubts
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump faces the challenge of convincing Republican senators, global investors, voters and even Elon Musk that he won't bury the federal government in debt with his multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package. The response so far from financial markets has been skeptical as Trump seems unable to trim deficits as promised. 'All of this rhetoric about cutting trillions of dollars of spending has come to nothing — and the tax bill codifies that,' said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. 'There is a level of concern about the competence of Congress and this administration and that makes adding a whole bunch of money to the deficit riskier.' The White House has viciously lashed out at anyone who has voiced concern about the debt snowballing under Trump, even though it did exactly that in his first term after his 2017 tax cuts. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened her briefing Thursday by saying she wanted 'to debunk some false claims" about his tax cuts. Leavitt said that the "blatantly wrong claim that the 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill' increases the deficit is based on the Congressional Budget Office and other scorekeepers who use shoddy assumptions and have historically been terrible at forecasting across Democrat and Republican administrations alike.' But Trump himself has suggested that the lack of sufficient spending cuts to offset his tax reductions came out of the need to hold the Republican congressional coalition together. 'We have to get a lot of votes,' Trump said last week. 'We can't be cutting.' That has left the administration betting on the hope that economic growth can do the trick, a belief that few outside of Trump's orbit think is viable. Tech billionaire Musk, who was until recently part of Trump's inner sanctum as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, told CBS News: 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." Federal debt keeps rising The tax and spending cuts that passed the House last month would add more than $5 trillion to the national debt in the coming decade if all of them are allowed to continue, according to the Committee for a Responsible Financial Budget, a fiscal watchdog group. To make the bill's price tag appear lower, various parts of the legislation are set to expire. This same tactic was used with Trump's 2017 tax cuts and it set up this year's dilemma, in which many of the tax cuts in that earlier package will sunset next year unless Congress renews them. But the debt is a much bigger problem now than it was eight years ago. Investors are demanding the government pay a higher premium to keep borrowing as the total debt has crossed $36.1 trillion. The interest rate on a 10-year Treasury Note is around 4.5%, up dramatically from the roughly 2.5% rate being charged when the 2017 tax cuts became law. The White House Council of Economic Advisers argues that its policies will unleash so much rapid growth that the annual budget deficits will shrink in size relative to the overall economy, putting the U.S. government on a fiscally sustainable path. The council argues the economy would expand over the next four years at an annual average of about 3.2%, instead of the Congressional Budget Office's expected 1.9%, and as many as 7.4 million jobs would be created or saved. Council chair Stephen Miran told reporters that when that growth is coupled with expected revenues from tariffs, the expected budget deficits will fall. The tax cuts will increase the supply of money for investment, the supply of workers and the supply of domestically produced goods — all of which, by Miran's logic, would cause faster growth without creating new inflationary pressures. 'I do want to assure everyone that the deficit is a very significant concern for this administration,' Miran told reporters recently. White House budget director Russell Vought told reporters the idea that the bill is 'in any way harmful to debt and deficits is fundamentally untrue.' Economists doubt Trump's plan can spark enough growth to reduce deficits Most outside economists expect additional debt would keep interest rates higher and slow overall economic growth as the cost of borrowing for homes, cars, businesses and even college educations would increase. 'This just adds to the problem future policymakers are going to face,' said Brendan Duke, a former Biden administration aide now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Duke said that with the tax cuts in the bill set to expire in 2028, lawmakers would be 'dealing with Social Security, Medicare and expiring tax cuts at the same time.' Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, said the growth projections from Trump's economic team are 'a work of fiction.' He said the bill would lead some workers to choose to work fewer hours in order to qualify for Medicaid. 'I don't know of any serious forecaster that has meaningfully raised their growth forecast because of this legislation,' said Harvard University professor Jason Furman, who was the Council of Economic Advisers chair under the Obama administration. 'These are mostly not growth- and competitiveness-oriented tax cuts. And, in fact, the higher long-term interest rates will go the other way and hurt growth.' The White House's inability so far to calm deficit concerns is stirring up political blowback for Trump as the tax and spending cuts approved by the House now move to the Senate. Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have both expressed concerns about the likely deficit increases, with Johnson saying there are enough senators to stall the bill until deficits are addressed. 'I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,' Johnson said on CNN. Trump banking on tariff revenues to help The White House is also banking that tariff revenues will help cover the additional deficits, even though recent court rulings cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump declaring an economic emergency to impose sweeping taxes on imports. When Trump announced his near-universal tariffs in April, he specifically said his policies would generate enough new revenues to start paying down the national debt. His comments dovetailed with remarks by aides, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, that yearly budget deficits could be more than halved. 'It's our turn to prosper and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it'll all happen very quickly,' Trump said two months ago as he talked up his import taxes and encouraged lawmakers to pass the separate tax and spending cuts. The Trump administration is correct that growth can help reduce deficit pressures, but it's not enough on its own to accomplish the task, according to new research by economists Douglas Elmendorf, Glenn Hubbard and Zachary Liscow. Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale University, said additional 'growth doesn't even get us close to where we need to be.' The government would need $10 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years just to stabilize the debt, Tedeschi said. And even though the White House says the tax cuts would add to growth, most of the cost goes to preserve existing tax breaks, so that's unlikely to boost the economy meaningfully.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Senate rankings: The 5 seats most likely to flip
The 2026 midterm cycle is already bustling with activity as Senate Republicans gear up to defend their majority and Democrats try to reverse course from a difficult few years and chart a path forward. The fields are starting to take shape as incumbents decide whether to run again, candidates launch campaigns and party leaders attempt to woo their top choices. It's all happening against the backdrop of constant action at the White House and Congress' push to enact President Trump's massive tax bill — both of which will play outsize roles in the coming cycle. Here's an early look at the five Senate seats most likely to flip next year. Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.) is considered the most vulnerable Democrat on the Senate map and Republicans have eagerly been awaiting the chance to win back the seat. But they were barely a quarter of the way into the cycle when Republicans got their first big piece of bad recruitment news: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) decided against a Senate bid, depriving the GOP of its top choice across the entire 2026 map. His decision scrambled the race. Not only did it deprive the GOP of a top-tier candidate in a crucial race, it also increases the chances of a bloody primary. 'Kemp is the 1:1 on the board. Full stop,' one GOP operative said. 'This is a situation where you want a primary. Where you want them to show their mettle because I just don't think that we have a clear enough indication on any of these guys to say they can do it.' Multiple Republicans indicated they expect a primary much like what happened in Ohio last year: a crowded field of B-tier candidates, many of whom will prompt more questions than answers. The field is already starting to take shape. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) is in, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is out and operatives believe Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) may follow Carter into the primary. More are likely to go for it, but none that are considered heavy hitters at this stage. Top party figures have been hoping for freshman Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.) to take the plunge, but few expect him to do so. There have also been murmurs around Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler — but nothing more. Republicans concede Ossoff will be to beat without Kemp, pointing to his growing war chest, battle-tested history and penchant for avoiding missteps during his term. GOP operatives, though, see openings to whack him over support for transgender women in sports and steadfast opposition to Trump. 'I am bullish on Jon Ossoff. … He's done a great job. He's centered the people of Georgia and their needs and their concerns,' Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told The Hill, arguing that the GOP's 'one big, beautiful bill' will be an albatross at the ballot box. 'I'd hate to have to run as a Republican in this moment,' he added. If Democrats are going to make any headway toward winning back the majority, toppling Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is a must. And for now, they are waiting to find out whether Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is in or out for what would be the marquee matchup on the board. Much like Kemp in Georgia, Cooper is a popular two-term governor who would easily give his party the best chance of flipping a seat and avoiding a messy primary. Democrats are hopeful that Cooper will not follow the lead of numerous governors over the past decade who have spurned bids for the upper chamber. 'They've got to convince him that serving in the Senate is better than spending time with his family,' one Democratic operative with North Carolina ties said of party leaders. 'That's a hard sell.' Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) has already announced a bid. Whoever the Democratic nominee is will have to face an incumbent Republican who has twice won close contests. But for Tillis, squaring off against a popular governor in a year when the mood of the country might not be in the GOP's corner would likely make it his toughest political bout yet. Adding to his issues is potential GOP primary as some conservatives continue to cry foul over his work with Democrats in recent years. But Republicans remain confident as the state's rightward tilt stayed true in November. Governors past and present also have found that running for the upper chamber is a different animal, potentially giving Tillis another boost. Does anyone want to face off with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) next year? That's the question on the minds of top politicos as Democrats struggle to find a viable candidate against the Maine centrist after the party failed spectacularly to defeat her in 2020, leaving them burned in the New England state heading into next year. The latest blow came as Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) announced he will run for his toss-up House seat once again rather than mount a statewide bid. That's leaving Democrats to pin their hopes on Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) throwing her hat in the ring — but Mills hasn't sounded overly enthusiastic about a potential bid. 'I'm not planning to do anything right now, I'm just — I'm not planning to run for anything,' Mills told a local outlet in late April. 'Things change week to week, month to month, but I'm not … at this moment, I'm not planning to run for another office.' The reticence comes after Sara Gideon vastly outraised and outspent the five-term senator in 2020, only to see her polling advantage evaporate come election day. Collins won by eight percentage points, owing in large part to her long-standing connections to the state. 'In general, for any senator who's served their state and been out there and talking to the voters and engaging them and working to solve those problems, they're going to be effective with their voters to gain their support,' said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who ran the Democratic Senatorial Committee during the 2020 cycle. 'From what I have seen from so many of my colleagues and Republican colleagues, that's the winning combination,' she added. Nevertheless, Maine remains a blue state and the last one to not change parties as part of the realignment that finally saw Montana and West Virginia fall into GOP hands last year. This and some troublesome polls are keeping that glimmer of hope alive for some Democrats. One Democratic operative made clear to The Hill that there remains donor interest in playing ball —- but only if a 'legit candidate' takes the plunge. It's not even halfway through the off-year and the Michigan Democratic primary is already the leader in the clubhouse to become the most contentious of the 2026 cycle as a trio of key players look to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) in the Wolverine State. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), former health director Abdul El-Sayed, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) and former Michigan state House Speaker Joe Tate have all launched bids in recent months. Stevens, the favorite of Washington Democrats, is the initial leader with 34 percent, according to a new survey released last week. That's a 12-point advantage over El-Sayed, who has Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) backing. But the presence of the two is giving Democrats agita over what is becoming a proxy battle between the party establishment and progressive forces, with that battle stretching into one over Israel and Palestine. 'It's basically a [Hillary Clinton] versus Bernie type fight,' said one Democratic operative with Michigan ties. As for McMorrow, she is the dark horse. The state senator, who has seen her star rise in recent years, is pitching herself as part of a new generation of Democrats, having said she will not back Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for his current post. She is also using the Pete Buttigieg playbook of flooding the zone media wise. Democrats maintain they are unconcerned with a testy primary and believe it will be a net-positive come general election time. 'I've never been opposed to primaries when I was [DSCC] chair,' said Peters, who chaired the committee in both 2022 and 2024. 'A primary can be constructive. … I would hope they wouldn't cross the line and attack each other, although that's always sometimes difficult. But … a primary can really strengthen a candidate before they get into the real show.' Across the aisle, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) is once again the party's top choice to become its nominee. But unlike his 2024 run, he might have a primary on his hands as Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) is moving closer to running. Of course, winning in the state will be difficult for any Republican. Michigan has not elected a Republican to the Senate in more than 30 years. New Hampshire is considered a must-win state for Democrats in 2026. And they are breathing easy despite Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's (D-N.H.) retirement as Rep. Chris Pappas' (D-N.H.) presence gives the party a top-tier candidate. Shaheen, a three-term lawmaker and ex-New Hampshire governor, has been a formidable force in the state's political scene for years and is set to leave a major void in the Democratic-leaning state. However, Democrats remain bullish that the seat will remain in the party's hands. Of all the states on this list, New Hampshire is the only one former Vice President Kamala Harris carried last year. It is also the only one, other than Georgia, that is unlikely to have a knock-out, drag out Democratic primary that could prove damaging in a general election. The major questions reside on the Republican side as former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is eyeing a second run in the Granite state 12 years after he narrowly lost to Shaheen. According to a source familiar with the ex-senator, Brown is continuing to take a 'hard look' at a bid and has been traveling around the state, attending party events and doing his 'due diligence.' He also was spotted on Capitol Hill making the rounds in March. A decision is expected by early fall. Brown was dogged in his 2014 run over accusations that he was a carpetbagger, having run two years prior for reelection in Massachusetts. Republicans are widely expecting that attack once again, especially in contrast to the Pappas family's longstanding ties to the state. 'The problem is the Pappas family is New Hampshire,' the GOP operative said. What isn't clear is what the GOP's fallback options are in a state where they likely need everything to break right to have a chance. No Republican has nabbed a Senate seat in the state in 15 years, though the party has held the governorship since 2017.
