Tag Archives: DonaldJTrump47

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The Broadside | Trump Plaza in Gaza-Lago

I predicted here that the Kansas City Chiefs would beat the Philadelphia Eagles by six points in Super Bowl LIX. If the Chiefs had shown up, that may have happened. They kept Saquon Barkley in check, but the Eagles shut down any Chiefs offense and sacked Mahomes six times. That must be the “six” I sensed in my prediction.

Did you know the flu is going around? I had no idea until it flattened me last week. I hope all of you are staying well.

Just when you think Trump can’t shock you with something new.

The U.S. will “take over the Gaza Strip,” level it and rebuild the area, President Donald Trump said during a press conference Tuesday evening after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Wut?

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” Trump said Tuesday evening in a joint press conference with Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexplored bombs and other weapons on the site.”

“Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” he said. “Do a real job. Do something different. Just can’t go back. If you go back, it’s going to end up the same way it has for 100 years.”

Even more amazing is that instead of laughing off the idea, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu embraced it.

Netanyahu, when also asked about the Gaza Strip, reiterated to the media that he has three goals, one of which is to “make sure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again.”

“President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” the Israeli leader said. “He sees a different – he sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism, so much, so many attacks against us, so many, so many trials and so many tribulations. He has a different idea, and I think it’s worth paying attention to this.”

It’s so radical, it might work.

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The Broadside | Trump Is Quickly Remaking American International Policy

Starting a third week of Team Trump that’s firing on all eight cylinders—let’s take a look at his international disruptions.

Trump slapped 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and 10% on China over the weekend (to take effect Tuesday) with threats to increase the rates if the targeted countries don’t reel in illegal immigration and the deadly drug, fentanyl, which is sourced in China.

In the executive order, Trump said that the tariffs stem from an “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, [that] constitutes a national emergency.”

The tariffs have invited international criticism from leaders and citizens alike in Canada and Mexico. During his exchange with reporters on Sunday evening, Trump accused Canada of being “abusive” toward the U.S. in terms of trade.

He was particularly blunt about Canada.

“Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years. They don’t allow our banks,” Trump claimed. “And you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it. That’s pretty amazing. If we have a U.S. bank, they don’t allow them to go in.”

“Canada has been very tough for oil on energy. They don’t allow our farm products in, essentially. They don’t allow a lot of things in. And we allow everything to come in as being a one-way street.”

Trump also claimed that the U.S. subsidizes Canada “by the tune of about $200 billion a year.”

“And for what? What do we get out of it? We don’t get anything out of it,” he added. “I love the people of Canada. I disagree with the leadership of Canada and something is going to happen there.”

He’s got a point. Why do we subsidize our northern neighbor who simply takes advantage of the U.S. relationship? Why should U.S. taxpayers be supporting Canada without some benefit? Plus, Canada relies on the U.S. military for their protection. Okay, then, pony up, eh?

Trump also threatened the EU.

The Republican leader also said that he will “definitely” impose tariffs against the European Union, which he said the U.S. has a $300 billion trade deficit with.

“They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing,” Trump said. “And we take everything from them. Millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products. So the UK is way out of line and we’ll see the UK, but the European Union is really out of line.”

Interestingly, he also said he was cutting off American money to South Africa, in a post on Truth Social.

In this article, we learn that “the United States obligated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent US government data showed.”

During his first administration, Trump said the US would investigate unproven large-scale killings of white farmers in South Africa and violent takeovers of land. Pretoria at the time said Trump was misinformed. It is unclear whether the Trump administration carried out an investigation.

I don’t believe South Africa is aligned with our interests, so why do we send welfare checks to them?

Then there’s Greenland. Trump initially raised the idea of acquiring the island during his first term and is being loud about it in his second.

Veep JD Vance on Sunday refrained from setting expectations too high about President Trump’s chances of usurping Greenland from Denmark, although he still called it “possible” and dismissed European opposition.

Trump, 78, had set his sights on acquiring the icy island since his first administration and has rekindled those aspirations in recent weeks. Vance, 40, stressed Sunday that the territory is important for US security.

“I think it’s possible,” Vance added to Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked about whether the US will acquire Greenland.

“It’s really important to our national security. There are sea lanes there that the Chinese use, that the Russians use,” Vance said. “Frankly, Denmark, which controls Greenland, [is] not doing its job, and it’s not being a good ally.”

Trump is also adamant about reclaiming the Panama Canal. From the same article above:

The vice president also defended Trump’s objectives of reclaiming the Panama Canal.

“They have violated a core tenet of the agreement,” Vance said, referring to Panama. “When we gave over the Panama Canal to the country of Panama, what we said is, you have to make sure that this canal respects American sovereignty and that you don’t give special benefits to the Chinese.”

The US agreed to give the canal zone to Panama in the 1970s under late former President Jimmy Carter in exchange for the South American country agreeing to keep the key waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans neutral.

Trump has long decried Cater’s decision to relinquish control of the canal, the construction for which was largely funded by the US.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio trekked over to Panama and met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, saying he “made clear that this status quo is unacceptable,” according to a readout from the US.

There’s another reason why we need to control the Panama Canal.

The situation in the Panama Canal is worse than we thought. Not only does a Chinese company control container ports at each end of the waterway, but a Chinese construction battalion is slowly building a bridge right across the middle.

How slowly? Well, the bridge won’t be completed until 2027 and Sen. Ted Cruz thinks he knows why.

As Cruz, who is chairman of the Commerce Committee, noted at a hearing this week, “the partially-completed bridge gives China the ability to block the canal without warning…This situation poses acute risks to US national security.”

What kind of risks?

Imagine that China announces a blockade of Taiwan and that we want to surge forces from the Atlantic into the Pacific to counter it.

A US aircraft carrier is midway through the canal, passing under China’s bridge when, without warning, the unfinished bridge collapses, crushing the ship.

China pretends it’s an accident, offering its condolences to the families of the thousands of US sailors who lost their lives. Unable to break the blockade on its own, the island of Taiwan capitulates two months later, and the largest chip-manufacturing factory in the world falls into China’s hands.

Finally, as if he didn’t kick up enough dust yet, Trump weighed in on the conflict in Gaza and Israel with a stunning idea.

President Donald Trump recently floated a fantastic idea: Arab nations, he said, should accept large numbers of Gazans as refugees, a move that “could be temporary or long term.”

The accommodation would allow Israel to eliminate the remnants of Hamas, which, in turn, would allow the international community to rebuild Gaza.

Not only would such a policy enhance the prospects of peace, but it’s also humane.

Neither Jordan nor Egypt want the Palestinians in Gaza. But there is a compelling reason for Jordan to take them.

“Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians,” the nation’s foreign minister said after Trump’s comments.

Well, the biggest problem with the statement is that it reminds us that Jordan is “Palestine.”

Jordan, with a population of over 70% Palestinians, sits principally on land set aside during the British Palestine Mandate to create a new Arab state that was to sit next to the Jewish one.

We already have a two-state solution. We just choose to ignore it.

What’s amazing is that no one else in recent memory has floated any of these ideas. Trump has not only promoted them, but has done so with an edge of belligerence. Who else has thought about our national security from the standpoint of the Arctic and China’s delcaration that they are esablishing a presence there? Who else has looked strategically at the Panama Canal and realized that China has set itself as a threat there, too? Who’s looking at our trade imbalances and doing something about it? Who has put American interests first?

Nobody. Nobody but Trump, that is.

Henry Kissinger once noted that Donald Trump, though he may not do it knowingly, was “one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.”

And it is undeniable that many of Trump’s declarations, perhaps because they are unfettered by the norms of policy debate, end up changing the dynamics of policy.

Greenland. Panama. Canada. South Africa. Israel. Gaza. The EU. Mexico. China.

Trump is remaking American policy while we watch. It’s fascinating.

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The Broadside | No, We Are Not a Nation of Immigrants

One of my pet peeves—hmm, correction—one of my deeply held frustrations with the ruling class has been their refusal to address the invasion over our southern border for decades. It’s not just been the Democrats, although they have exacerbated the problem through their anti-American hostility, while the Republicans just ignored the problem.

Fortunately, President Donald J. Trump, who just won his third election and has been sworn into office for the second time, is wasting no time in closing the border and deporting illegal aliens at a record pace.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, taking directions from President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, have arrested over 2,500 illegal immigrants since Trump was sworn into office last Monday.

One of the arguments made by Dilutionists (those who want to dilute the unity of American culture by importing unvetted hordes of third-world welfare cases into the country) is the “but, we’re a nation of immigrants.” In fact, Vice-President J.D. Vance faced off with Margaret Brennan, the propagandist of “Face the Nation” on CBS Sunday morning.

At 3:57 in the video below (cued to that time), after JD Vance says he doesn’t know why we’d allow a person born to parents living temporarily in the US to be automatically conferred US citizenship since there’s no other nation that does that, Brennan replies, “Well, this is a country founded by immigrants,” and gives him a wry “gotcha” smile.

His response wiped the smile off her face. “Just because we were founded by immigrants doesn’t mean that 240 years later, we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world.”

Exactly. We were founded by some immigrants. So?

In a terrific article at The Federalist, Brianna Lyman dismantles that argument.

Britain began establishing the 13 original colonies in the early 1600’s. Over the next century or so, hundreds of thousands of Brits moved to the British colonies that were established by settlers — not immigrants. There was no “nation” being immigrated to by the first settlers. The Brits didn’t come to America to join a pre-existing country. It was just land. There were no laws, borders, maps, or written language. The British settlers came to uncharted land to establish colonies under British rule. They were entrepreneurs building this nation from scratch, not immigrants joining a pre-existing nation.

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America was never just a multicultural experiment that began with and requires an endless influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal) to sustain itself. The settlers were not a hodge-podge of random cultures and religions and languages and customs. America was founded by Anglo Protestants who pulled ideas of liberty and independence from Anglo-liberalism, which grounded itself in the idea of equality, freedom, and government controlled by the people (it was most commonly associated with thinkers like John Locke). These settlers forged a new nation, instituted customs, traditions, and a national identity.

And our Founders understood the importance of a national identity, with Thomas Jefferson writing in 1776 that while he is “for extending the right of suffrage (or in other words the right of a citizen) to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country … Whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it.”

In simpler terms, assimilation was a requirement of anyone coming to America.

But what exactly is to be preserved or assimilated into if the left is correct in that America was “founded” by immigrants and therefore is just a nation of immigrants? Such a premise presupposes that we are merely an ever-changing mixture of the dominant immigrant groups at any point in time.

Most helpful is Lyman’s distinction between “settlers” and “immigrants.” Immigrants are traveling to an established nation; settlers are traveling to an unsettled land to establish a nation. Immigrants are expected to assimilate into the nation they’re joining, not act like settlers establishing their own distinct culture within the host nation.

Yes, foreigners emigrated to the United States after it had become an established nation, and they still do today. But it should be controlled immigration that protects our unique American culture and values, not an uncontrolled mass invasion of third-world peasants and criminals who burden our nation with the cost of their presence and destroy cultural cohesion.

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s 27-year-old press secretary, held her first press briefing yesterday and addressed this administration’s attitude toward illegals.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was taking questions during her first press briefing since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last week when she was asked about the mass arrests.

“The 3,500 arrests that ICE (U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement) has made so far since President Trump came back into office. Can you just tell us the numbers? How many have a criminal record versus those who are just in the country illegally,” one reporter asked.

“All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and therefore, they are criminals as far as this administration goes,” Leavitt replied. “I know the last administration didn’t see it that way. So it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that’s exactly what they are.”

The reporter then asked if they all have criminal records.

“If they broke our nation’s laws, yes, they are a criminal,” Leavitt said.

More like that, please.

For another great article on immigration from The Federalist, read, “Birthright Citizenship Is A Pernicious Lie That’s Destroying America” by John Daniel Davidson.

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The Broadside | Trump Accomplished More in One Week Than Biden Did in Four Years

I stopped watching the NFL after they started taking knees during the national anthem, but I’m aware of the standings and, just so you know that I’m a well-rounded guy, I was rooting for Buffalo yesterday. But Mahomes and Co. are headed back for their third consecutive Super Bowl to face Philadelphia.

My prediction: Chiefs by 6.

Trump’s only been in office for a week and I already can’t keep up with all the winning.

Deportations. Firings. Pardons. A blizzard of executive orders.

And the Gulf of Mexico became the Gulf of America.

President Donald Trump moved with dizzying speed during his first week back in power as he began the process of enacting his agenda.

Trump’s aggressive use of presidential power out of the starting gate left some observers stunned and his supporters cheering as he wasted little time delivering on a slew of campaign promises, sometimes in provocative and boundary-testing ways.

Shock and awe, I’d say. Just like the Left does when they’re in power.

Health agencies went quiet after a pause was ordered on external communications. Employees overseeing diversity efforts in the federal workforce were put on leave, with plans to fire them. At least one plane was loaded with undocumented immigrants to whisk them out of the country. Pardons were handed out to nearly every person convicted for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The moves sent shock waves from Washington to the nation’s southern border as Trump’s disruptive agenda came into clearer focus.

That is a perfect description of Trump’s agenda. “Disruptive” in the most positive sense of the word.

Much of the transformation was foretold by the president’s hard-charging campaign, where he railed against former President Joe Biden’s policies and promised a radically different approach, and by a transition period that saw him stock his administration with people viewed as eager to dramatically remake government.

Yet the breadth and the tempo of the changes were remarkable.

Trump only has four years to fix what’s broke, or only two years if Democrats were to retake one or both chambers of Congress in the mid-terms. He needs to move at a blistering pace if any of his larger objectives are going to grab and take root.

I like what I’ve seen so far. He’s adopted the “move fast and break things” mindset of tech companies, which iterate quickly. He came into office with a plan and is rapidly putting it into place.

He’s also reacting quickly to unforeseen developments that threaten his agenda. Over the weekend, Colombia’s socialist president, Gustavo Petro, refused to take two planeloads of deported Columbians. Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, reacted swiftly, threatening to slap 25 percent tariffs on Columbian imports, revoking visas and financial sanctions.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

Less than an hour later, Petro folded. Hardcore.

“Colombian President Gustavo Petro is offering his presidential plane to help repatriate deportees from the US who were set to arrive in the country Sunday morning, the presidency said,” CNN reported.

America is back, baby.

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The Broadside | Donald J. Trump Is Our President

I spent most of the day Monday watching the proceedings of the 60th inaugural featuring President Donald J. Trump, and later that day we hosted a party with about 20 friends to celebrate his return to the White House.

We also celebrated the end of the interminable and disastrous cabal known as the Biden administration, arguably the worst and most corrupt “president” in American history—worse even than Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama. After issuing a slew of pardons and commuting death sentences for thousands of condemned criminals, Biden literally signed last-minute preemptive pardons for his criminal family, preposterously claiming that they had been unfairly targeted and were at risk for revenge from the incoming administration.

Biden wasn’t righting wrongs; he was flipping off American citizens and protecting his cronies on his way out the door as he exonerated Anthony Fauci, Liz Cheney and other political scum who served on the J6 committee. The only upside is that now they can’t plead the Fifth Amendment if they are called to testify. And Congress should get busy putting them under oath to find out what they did and how deeply we are compromised.

All that to say that the word that describes the feeling most of us have is one of “relief.” A couple of our friends said separately to me that that’s how they felt. I certainly feel that. It’s like we’ve been granted a reprieve from the destructive forces that have taken over our most sacred civil institutions like government and education and system of justice.

Certainly, Trump feels like he’s been given a mandate to make America great again.

Trump has wasted no time, hitting the ground running with executive orders that begin to turn the ship of state around. A partial list from the NY Post:

  • Withdraw from the Paris climate accord
  • End all federal cases and investigations of any Trump supporters
  • Revoke protections for transgender troops
  • Pardon about 1,500 people criminally charged in the Jan. 6 attack, while commuting the sentences for six
  • Declare a national emergency at the US-Mexico border
  • Designate drug cartels and Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations
  • Reverse several immigration orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes, are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border
  • Rescind the 2021 Title IX order, which bans discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation in education programs that get federal funding
  • Revoke Biden’s recent removal of Cuba from US state sponsors of terrorism list
  • Order federal employees back to work in office five days a week
  • Direct every governmental department and agency to address the cost-of-living crisis
  • Restore freedom of speech and prevent censorship of free speech
  • End the “weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration”
  • Impose 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada as of Feb. 1
  • Reverse Biden order requiring 50% of new cars sold in 2030 be EVs
  • Proclaim that there are two biological sexes: male and female
  • End diversity, equity and inclusion programs within federal agencies
  • Establish Department of Government Efficiency
  • Reopen Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration
  • Order attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of homeland security to “take all appropriate action to prioritize” prosecution of illegal aliens who commit crimes
  • Withdraw US from Global Minimum Tax agreement
  • Order the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for killing of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant
  • Order the secretaries of commerce and the interior to restart efforts to route water from California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state
  • Withdraw the US from the World Health Organization
  • Order Treasury Department to explore creation of External Revenue Service
  • Revoke security clearances for ex-national security adviser John Bolton and 51 intelligence officials who said Hunter Biden laptop bore “classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation.
  • Declare the border crisis an “invasion” and order the attorney general and secretaries of state and homeland security to “take all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged” in such
  • Formally rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and Alaska’s Mt. Denali to “Mt. McKinley”

There’s more, but that’s a flavor of what he’s doing, and it’s all answering the call from the American people to close our border and end the woke nonsense that has consumed our culture for the last four years (and longer).

Yesterday, he also announced a half-trillion-dollar ($500 billion) investment in AI (Artificial Intelligence) data centers featuring a company called “Stargate” and tech investors Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO), Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) and Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO). Exactly what its purpose will be remains a bit unclear, but they talked about curing cancer and designing treatments for illnesses that might change your mRNA—which is what the clot shot did for Covid—setting off alarm bells in my mind.

As Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.”

We’re off to a good start. I’m sure we’ll have plenty to document as the Left tries to cope with all the winning and not be the hypocrites they are.

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The Broadside | It’s Go Time!

I can tell you that I have NEVER been this excited about a Monday as I am today! No, not because it is MLK day, even though that’s a noble moment. No, today marks the end of one of the most radical and destructive administrations in our nation’s history, the end of which I and more than half of America have been waiting for four long years.

Joe Biden, after more than 50 years in Washington, is finally, permanently, leaving office. May he ever be encumbered by his disastrous, fake, and failed [p]residency. His term is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the people of the United States, starting with his sham victory in 2020 through the cabal that ran his brain for four years.

Trump is primed to go full force starting at 12:01 today.

“The American people have given us their trust, and in return, we’re going to give them the best first day, the biggest first week, and the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history. To implement this historic agenda, I have assembled an all-star cabinet of patriots and visionary reformers for America, and together we will win, win, win for America,” he said before giving a shout out to his cabinet picks.

In addition to undoing Biden’s outrageous Executive Orders, pardoning the vast majority of the citizens in jail over J6, Trump is also going to suspend the security clearances of the 51 intelligence officials who claimed in the face of common sense that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian op.

President-elect Donald Trump, on Day 1, plans to suspend security clearances of the 51 intelligence officials who claimed reporting tied to Hunter Biden’s laptop had “the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election, according to a report.

Trump will repeal the clearances of the so-called “Spies Who Lie” as part of a flurry of executive orders he’s expected to sign on his first day back in the Oval Office, Fox News reported, citing a senior administration official familiar with the matter.

[…]

Following the bombshell reporting, a slew of former senior intelligence officers signed a letter alleging the lot of emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” without presenting any new evidence.

OK, it’s not prison terms, but at least they’re suffering some consequences for their election interference.

Trump has a lot to do in the next couple of years. We’ve got an economy in shambles, we’ve got disasters on both coasts in North Carolina and California, we’ve been overrun by foreign invaders. Internationally we’re being threatened by China, the Middle East is unstable, Russia and Ukraine are locked in a death spiral, and Iran is nearing nuclear viability.

But Trump is an optimist and has declared that we are entering a new era of American prosperity and growth, a “golden age.” He’s put a great team together with rockstars like Mike Hegseth, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Mario Rubio, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Pam Bondi, and so on.

With a talented team like that, Trump can brag that, “We’re not going to stop winning. We’re going to win like never before.”

I hope so.

I trust so.

May it be so.

Enjoy the day!

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The Broadside | Trump’s Boast Is Coming True (Again) and We’re All Happier For it

Remember when during his first campaign in 2016 Trump predicted that there would be so much winning that we’d get sick of it? “We will have so much winning if I get elected, that you may get bored with winning.”

Salon, from which that quote is taken, dismissed it as so much bluster. But as we’ve come to learn, Trump seems to embody winning. And before he’s even taken office for his second term, there is a great amount of winning.

His approval numbers during his transition are exponentially higher than during 2016.

“Take a look here,” Enten began, pointing to data from November 2016. At that time, Trump’s net approval during his transition was only “plus one point.” Enten emphasized, “That was well, well, well below the historical norm.” Fast forward to today, and Trump’s approval during this transitional phase has skyrocketed to +18—a remarkable 17-point increase. “The bottom line is this: if eight years ago Americans were lukewarm on Donald Trump, at this particular point, they’re giving him much more of the benefit of the doubt,” Enten noted. “A lot more Americans are in love with this transition.”

All of the outstanding legal assaults on Trump have been dismissed, including Jack Smith’s two cases. The totally made-up documents case that ignores the Presidential Records Act, in which the feds raided Mar-a-Lago and tossed Melania’s underwear drawer, was in turn tossed by the federal judge overseeing the case because of Smith’s illegal appointment by Merrick Garland. Plus, Smith dropped his January 6 “Insurrection” case against Trump.

Nevertheless, in a filing on Monday, Smith noted that he was dropping the charges without prejudice, meaning that he or someone with the notion to continue the weaponization of the law against political opponents, could reanimate them. 

Then, there’s the stock market up and renewed optimism in the air as restaurants, always a bellwether for how the economy is doing, experience a surge of customers.

Financial markets rallied early Monday as stocks and bonds positively responded to President-elect Donald J. Trump‘s announcement that he is naming macro and hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as his Secretary of the Treasury. Bessent, the founder of Key Square Group, is perceived as a stabilizing influence anticipated to effectively manage the $28 trillion Treasuries market. Dow futures were up nearly one percent before the opening bell. Meanwhile, S&P 500 futures had risen 0.5 percent.

One of the most shocking results of a new poll shows that nearly 3 in 4 Americans support Trump’s plan to deport foreigners who are here illegally. That’s a huge majority and a solid mandate.

Quick Hit:

A CBS News poll reveals that 73% of Americans, including a majority across racial lines, believe President-elect Donald Trump should focus on repatriating illegal migrants. More than half also support a nationwide program to deport all illegal immigrants.

Key Details:

  • CBS News/YouGov poll shows 45% of Americans view deportations as a “high priority,” with 28% considering it a “medium priority.” Only 27% say it’s “not a priority.”
  • 57% back a national program to locate and deport all illegal immigrants.
  • 74% of whites, 70% of blacks, and 69% of Hispanics support making deportations a priority.

Diving Deeper:

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, a CBS News poll conducted by YouGov shows that deportation policy is a top concern for many Americans. The survey of 2,232 adults indicates a near-consensus, with 73% calling for prioritizing the removal of illegal migrants.

Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are already self-deporting from that city to (most-likely) sanctuary cities in other states. Not that that will protect them from being evicted from the country, since Tom Holman, Trump’s newly appointed border czar, has made clear.

Mexico and Canada have already responded to Trump’s threats to levy tariffs of 25% on goods imported from those countries. Mexico’s president has already agreed to stop caravans of migrants.

There’s lots more, but I think Benny Johnson sums it up nicely.

I also feel optimistic about Trump’s election and what he will accomplish over the next four years. I’m praying that it will be a start of a resurgence in American prosperity and the dawn of a new “morning” in America that will last more than his term in office.

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The Broadside | Team MAGA is Being Formed

It’s been a week since America spanked the Democrats and sent Donald J. Trump back to the White House. I feel invigorated and deeply satisfied while still harboring some anxiety about getting him sworn in on January 20.

PTSD from 2020’s stolen election, I’m sure.

Trump has wasted no time in nominating and appointing a strong stable of leaders who will join his administration. Since they have been coming in a few at a time, I thought I’d collect them here for you. As of Tuesday night, Trump had named:

Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla, National Security Adviser: “Waltz, a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida, was the first Green Beret elected to the U.S. House, and easily won reelection last week. He has been chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.” *snip* “In a statement last year, Waltz said that as head of the readiness subcommittee: ‘I am ready to get to work to better equip our military and turn our focus away from woke priorities and back to winning wars. Our national security depends on it.'”

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency: “Trump said that the pair will work together to ‘dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.’ It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time,’ the announcement on Tuesday evening said. ‘Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.’ The president-elect said that Musk and Ramaswamy will provide ‘advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.'”

Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense: A Fox News host? I didn’t see this one coming. “‘Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,’ Trump said. ‘Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our “Peace through Strength” policy.'”

Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel: In a statement Trump said, “I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be The United States Ambassador to Israel. Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Huckabee is the first evangelical Christian to hold the position.

John Ratcliffe, CIA Director: “Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence for the final months of Trump’s first term, leading American spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic and as the U.S. government contended with foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. His past experience in intelligence makes him a more traditional pick for the job, which requires Senate confirmation, than some rumored loyalists pushed by some of Trump’s supporters.” *snip* “Ratcliffe was elected to Congress in 2014, but his visibility rose in 2019 as an ardent defender of Trump during the House’s first impeachment proceedings against him.”

SD Gov. Kristi Noem, Department of Homeland Security: “In a statement released on Tuesday night, the Trump transition team said the South Dakota governor has a ‘very strong’ track record on border security. ‘She was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldiers to help Texas fight the Biden Border Crisis, and they were sent a total of eight times,’ the statement reads. ‘She will work closely with “Border Czar” Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries.'”

Tom Homan, Border Czar: “The man tapped by Donald Trump to enact his clampdown on rampant illegal immigration in the U.S. said Monday he is ready for Democrats decrying the get-tough action, declaring: ‘I don’t care what people think of me.’ Tom Homan, Trump’s newly-picked ‘border czar,’ said he will make it a priority to ‘secure the border and do this deportation operation.'”

Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Ambassador to the United Nations: “Stefanik joined Congress as a moderate Republican but became one of Trump’s key defenders after his first impeachment and after his 2020 election loss. She joined House leadership in 2021 as chair of the House Republican Conference.” She is the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House.

Lee Zeldin, EPA Administrator: Zeldin is a Jewish former four-term representative from Long Island. “He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”

Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff: “Wiles spent the past two years co-running Trump’s campaign and is well-respected as a political operative. She will become the first woman to serve as a White House chief of staff. Wiles, among the people Trump thanked after his 2024 victory, was largely a behind-the-scenes figure during his run. She has also worked for Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and was a deputy director during former President Reagan’s 1980 campaign.”

Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy: “Miller was the architect of some of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, including family separation and an order to ban travel into the U.S. from several majority-Muslim countries. He will work alongside Susie Wiles, whom Trump last week named as his chief of staff. During the Biden administration, Miller led America First Legal, an organization that launched dozens of lawsuits against Democratic policies.”

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State: Not confirmed, but reported by several major news outlets. “The third Cabinet-level appointment, by far the biggest name so far, is reported to be Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. Rubio has represented Florida’s sizeable Jewish community in the Senate since his election in 2010. The New York Times characterised Rubio as ‘a foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on China and Iran in particular.’ Rubio is also knowledgeable about foreign policy, fluent in all the issues he would have to handle as Secretary. Finally, it’s worth noting that unlike others who could have been named as Trump’s Secretary of State, Rubio is not an isolationist and would immediately reverse Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s intense hostile-to-Israel energy. America’s allies abroad should be cheered by Rubio’s selection.”

Still no word on where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Tulsi Gabbard, two former Democrats who gave strong support to Trump’s campaign, will serve in the administration, although Trump said that Kennedy would be given a lot of latitude to “Make America Healthy Again.” Gabbard was reportedly interested in the Secretary of Defense position, but Pete Hegseth was chosen. Personally, I’d like to see Gabbard involved in some way.

I’m impressed with the team that Trump is pulling together. He’s got four years to make good on his promises, and I’m excited to see what he does with them. His team will make all the difference.

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The Broadside | Thank God for Donald Trump

Donald J. Trump is going to be the 47th president of the United States. When Trump won Pennsylvania at 12:20 a.m., it effectively foreclosed any path for Harris to win.

It’s truly astonishing. Here’s a guy who, in his first term, was the victim of several hoaxes, twice impeached (and acquitted) on trivial charges, and subverted by members of his own administration. Since then, he’s been smeared as Hitler and a Nazi fascist, survived two assassination attempts, and has stood up under a barrage of lawfare on 90+ charges no one else would ever have been indicted with.

Some optimists were thinking that Trump would win back the presidency in a landslide. I wasn’t one of them, but I was curious to see if Trump could deliver those kinds of numbers.

He was well on his way to doing just that when I set this post up at 3:00 a.m.

It is undoubtably the greatest political comeback in US history.

It’s also a mandate. Trump helped flip the Senate to a Republican majority, which means he gets his Cabinet appointments, which means he’ll have the team he wants. At the time I wrote this, it looked like the GOP would hold a slim majority in the House, too.

Trump put together a broad coalition that is more diverse than the Democrats. Trump increased his support among blacks and Latinos. He won support from the young, from union and non-union blue-collar workers. He’s got a terrific leadership team made up of former Democrats, libertarians, and conservatives.

The American people have just told the Democrats that they’ve had enough of their destructive “policies” like open borders, sending billions of our dollars to useless wars where it’s laundered and pocketed by our enemies foreign and domestic, and tipping us into an economic depression.

They also told the legacy media what they think of them, too: we no longer listen to you. You’re irrelevant. After all the gaslighting and lying you did, the vicious attacks on Trump and his “garbage” supporters, we no longer need you. It’s a total repudiation of what was once an important institution.

It’s also a major setback for Barack Hussein Obama who has been the guy pulling the strings behind Sleepy Joe’s incompetence. If Harris had won, Barry would’ve had another four years to impose his destructive ideals on America.

Once it became clear that Trump was going to win, the Left immediately started demanding that Trump reach out to the Dems to “unify” the country.

Even Fox News’s Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat, said Republicans should reach out to Dems and show grace. My reaction was: no freakin’ way.

Here’s my take: I think we should pound the political snot out of the Democrat Party and make sure they can’t offer another candidate for the next 25 years.

The party that has demonized half the country wants the winners to be gracious. You know what? It starts with the Democrats respecting the will of the people. They just got their butts handed to them. Maybe they might want to take a minute to figure out why.

To Trump’s credit, in his comments after he locked up the win, he talked about unifying the country. “We’re going to help our country heal.” While I think he can be of good will towards the Dems, he better not concede anything to them.

It’s a wild time to be alive. We’re watching a radical realignment of the political makeup of the political parties. The Republican party has been transformed. It isn’t the party of George Bush and Dick Cheney anymore.

In his comments, Trump said, “Many people think God spared my life for a reason. To save our country. To restore America to greatness. We’re going to fulfill that mission.”

That may be. Whether or not that is what happens, thank God for His mercy in giving us Donald J. Trump to give us four years to turn things around.

Now let’s get him inaugurated—after Kamala certifies his win in January.