There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
“The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.” —George Washington (1783)
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Epstein Files are coming: Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated last night that today will be the day for at least a partial release of the records of the, ahem, suicidal pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. She said there’s good reason for the delay — namely, that there are more than 250 victims, and their privacy rights must be protected. Still, she said, “What you’re going to see … is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information, but it’s pretty sick what that man did.” Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn has long led the charge for transparency, calling for the complete release of the files, including videos from Epstein’s Florida residence, the flight logs from his private aircraft, and the records of his partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.
SCOTUS sides with Trump: Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse have met with furious legal challenges from the Big Government Left. Still, Trump got some good news yesterday in one of those legal battles when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled on an emergency appeal from the administration that USAID could at least temporarily hold off on paying around $2 billion in aid work that’s already been completed. Roberts’s reprieve comes after a Trump executive order putting a 90-day freeze on foreign aid disbursements was ruled unlawful by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee.
State Dept. finds 15,000 grants and $60B to be cut: Following an “exhaustive review” of the State Department’s grant program initiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, roughly 15,000 grants totaling $60 billion have been identified for elimination. The majority of these grants were found under USAID and were aimed at advancing leftist ideological agendas around the world. A State Department memo noted, “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safe? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” The Biden administration used taxpayer dollars to push DEI across the globe. That will now end.
Pentagon spent millions on non-defense DEI: Say what you will about those $1,300 reheatable coffee mugs used on KC-10 aircraft — at least the money was being flushed down the toilet on behalf of our warriors. But as the Heritage Foundation’s Wilson Beaver reports, “Research and development spending in the Department of Defense contains large sums of money being spent on non-defense spending, ‘centers of excellence’ sponsored as pork spending by congressmen never requested by the Pentagon, and politicized initiatives like DEI and climate change.” On the bright side, with waste like this, it should be easy for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to cut 8% of its budget in each of the next five years.
Healthcare price transparency: One of the most frustrating aspects of healthcare is the lack of clarity regarding costs. To address this problem, Donald Trump has signed an executive order mandating pricing transparency for healthcare. Unsurprisingly, hospitals and insurers oppose the rule, which Trump first issued during his first term. This new order directs the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services Departments to enforce his original order mandating that hospitals post their prices for common procedures. Trump stated that it is “one of the biggest things that can happen” to reduce the cost of healthcare.
Illegal alien registry: Exactly how many illegal aliens are living in the U.S.? To answer that question, the Trump administration is looking to create an illegal alien registry. Anyone over 14 years old living in the country illegally has one month to submit their fingerprints and home address for the registry. Those who refuse to comply will face criminal charges, which could include up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. The planned registry would not include migrants who have work permits or have applied for asylum.
Shameless Tapper writes the book on Biden’s decline and cover-up: After having spent four years covering for the cognitively addled Joe Biden, CNN’s Jake Tapper now wants you to cough up $32 to buy his book about “President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” The book is titled “Original Sin,” but let’s be honest: The original sin was the lockstep refusal of Tapper and his MSM fellow travelers to report on what anybody could see as plain as day back in August 2020: Joe Biden was being propped up by the Democrats purely because he polled better against Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders did.
A massive increase in China cyberattacks: The cyber firm CrowdStrike recently warned that it saw a massive increase in China-linked cyberattacks and digital espionage this past year. “The scariest statement that I’ve ever uttered, before Congress or any place else, is that after decades of investment into China’s offensive capabilities, they’re now on par with other world powers,” said Senior Vice President Adam Meyers. CrowdStrike’s annual report noted, “Decades of government investment into China’s cyber workforce and programs have yielded matured capabilities and efficiencies as well as an increasing number of new, specialized China-nexus adversaries.” Furthermore, the firm predicts that detecting and defeating China’s cyberattacks will get more difficult.
Headlines
Trump administration orders agencies to plan for sweeping layoffs (National Review)
Trump says Mexico, Canada tariffs will start March 4, plus additional 10% on China (CNBC)
Trump reverses Biden-era agreement allowing oil giant to operate in Venezuela (Fox Business)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is heading to Washington to sign a deal granting the U.S. access to his country’s rare earth mineral deposits. According to Donald Trump, “We’re going to be signing an agreement, which will be a very big agreement, that’ll be on rare earth and other things.”
The development marks a seemingly drastic swing from just a week ago when Trump, frustrated with Zelensky’s obstinance in negotiating a deal with Russia to end the years-long war, suggested that Ukraine started the war. While Trump later backed off that false claim, he expressed displeasure with Zelensky, and it may have been the necessary chess move.
Zelensky has been demanding the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, including Crimea, but he now seems willing to negotiate. Trump also labeled Zelensky a dictator for refusing to hold elections (Ukraine’s constitution forbids elections under martial law), but the Ukrainian leader has since expressed his willingness to leave office if it would secure peace.
For Trump, the agreement is a bit of a twofer. Not only is he looking to end the war in Ukraine, but he’s also looking to find access to rare earth minerals outside of China. Estimates are that Ukraine’s six known deposits may contain as much as $500 billion in mineral wealth.
That said, there are some significant drawbacks, not the least of which is the fact that two of those mineral deposit sites are located in Ukrainian territory that is currently occupied by Russian forces.
Furthermore, the data on these mineral deposits is rather old. These sites were last mapped in the 1980s. Independent geologist Tony Mariano observed, “To my knowledge, there are no economically viable rare earth deposits in Ukraine.” However, he added, “This doesn’t mean there aren’t any, only that further exploration and evaluation needs to be done.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is making the U.S. his own mineral offer, and Trump has far from dismissed it. “You know, they have massive rare earth. It’s … very large,” he said. “If we could do that, I think it would be a very good thing for world peace and lasting peace. Just as we’re doing with Ukraine, if we could do some economic development in terms of Russia and getting things that we want, something like that would be possible.”
The problem is that Putin’s mineral offer includes the aforementioned Ukrainian land occupied by Russian forces. If an agreement was made with Russia, would this not seemingly reward Putin’s decision to invade in the first place?
For Ukraine, with the prospect of joining NATO a nonstarter, getting the U.S. signed onto a mineral rights deal would afford a measure of future security against further Russian aggression since doing so would threaten U.S. assets.
Another issue, should this deal go through, is the message it sends to both Taiwan and China. If China elects to invade Taiwan, what assurances does Taiwan have that Trump will have its back? If China offers Trump some kind of deal in exchange for staying out of its efforts to take Taiwan, will Trump accept it?
What assurances does Taiwan have that it, like Ukraine, won’t end up getting sidelined in a deal-making process for peace? While Trump may see his efforts in Ukraine as finally ending the war, ironically, it may be sowing the seeds for greater Chinese aggression in Taiwan.
Samantha Koch: The Growing Trend of Bad Moms — Mothers should be advocating for their children’s best interests, not their self-destruction.
Douglas Andrews: Musk Takes Center Stage — In President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting, we were treated to a level of transparency never seen before.
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“We know even from fetal development perspective that sex is defined in the first trimester of pregnancy, whereas the beginnings of the sense of gender identity start in the second trimester of pregnancy.” —Colorado State Representative Karen McCormick
Touché
“OK, I didn’t realise I needed to explain this, but wizards aren’t real. In that respect, they greatly resemble women with penises. Hope this helps.” —J.K. Rowling
A Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.” —Jeff Bezos announcing a change to the opinion section of The Washington Post
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
“Why shouldn’t a federal worker face the same scrutiny and job performance standards that are routine in the private sector? That’s especially true when the employer is losing money — in this case to the tune of $2 trillion a year.” —Stephen Moore
Observations
“It should be simple: Just because you don’t want to fund Ukraine doesn’t mean you have to jump in bed with its attacker. And even if you do think Ukraine is the bad guy for daring to defend itself against a years-long military onslaught, why does that make Russia the good guy?” —Ian Haworth
“After 75-plus years of Palestinian Arabs saying no, doing zero to solve their own problems, creating nothing but death and destruction, and enriching a terrorist leadership to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of millions, it’s time to move on. Let the victims of this destructive history choose among the 50 Muslim countries when deciding where to build new lives. And let Donald Trump develop beautiful beachfront property in Gaza.” —Star Parker
“Israel is the only place in the Middle East I, a woman and a Christian, could safely travel. This isn’t complex.” —Allie Beth Stuckey
“The deeper issue with our top generals is that they are the creatures of a system geared toward bureaucratic conformity and a flavorless competence; they tend to be highly replaceable cogs who know what it takes to get promoted but not what it means to be distinctive. Originality and strategic thinking are not valued, or they are even treated as liabilities. Personal peccadilloes are mercilessly punished, while minor matters, like losing wars, don’t rate.” —Rich Lowry
Belly Laugh of the Day
“Pretty wild watching a President run a LIVE cabinet meeting. The only time Biden even met with his cabinet was when Jill sent him to the kitchen to fetch the oat bran.” —Jimmy Failla
And Last…
“They should release the Epstein list right before the Oscars.” —John Rich
The Trumpian agenda to “Make America Great Again” emerged during the 2015–16 campaign and ensured Donald Trump’s nomination and his eventual victory over Hillary Clinton. This counterrevolutionary movement reflected the public’s displeasure with both the Obama administration’s hard swing to the left and the doctrinaire, anemic Republican reaction to it.
Although only partially implemented during Trump’s first term, maga policies nevertheless marked a break from many past Republican orthodoxies, especially in their signature skepticism concerning the goal of nation-building abroad and the so-called endless wars, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, that tended to follow. But like all counterrevolutions, there were intrinsic challenges in the transition from simply opposing the status quo to actually ending it.
There was a promising start during Trump’s first administration. Corporate interest in a porous border to ensure inexpensive labor was ignored; immigration was deterred or restricted to legal channels, and the border was largely secured. Deregulation and tax cuts, rather than deficit reduction, were prioritized. Selective tariffs were no longer deemed apostasies from the free market, but acceptable and indeed useful levers to enforce reciprocity in foreign trade. Costly middle-class entitlements were pronounced sacrosanct. Social Security and Medicare were declared immune from cost-cutting and privatization.
This “action plan to Make America Great Again” went hand in hand with an effort to transform the Republican Party. What had once been routinely caricatured as a wealthy club of elites was reinvented by Trump as a working-class populist movement. Racial chauvinism and tribalism were rejected. Race was to be seen as incidental to shared class concerns—notably, reining in the excesses of a progressive, identity-politics-obsessed bicoastal elite. Athletes who in 2020 had bent a knee to express outrage at “systemic” racism were in 2024 celebrating their scores by emulating Trump’s signature dance moves.
Despite intense resistance from the media, the Democratic Party, and the cultural Left, the first Trump term enjoyed success in implementing many of these agendas. After losing the 2020 election—in which nearly 70 percent of voters in key swing states voted by mail-in ballot—Trump left office without a major war on his watch. He had overseen a period with 1.9 percent annualized inflation, low interest rates, steady economic growth, and, finally, after constant battles and controversy, a secure border with little illegal immigration.
Yet during the succeeding four-year Biden interregnum, the world became far more chaotic and dangerous, both at home and abroad. Biden’s general agenda was to reverse by executive order almost every policy that Trump had implemented. And while Trump was successfully reelected in 2024 after reminding voters that they had been far better off under the maga agenda than during Biden’s subsequent shambolic tenure, the changed conditions in 2024 will also make implementing that agenda even more difficult than after Trump’s first victory.
Trump has now inherited an almost bankrupt country. The ratio of debt to annual gdp has reached a record high of nearly 125 percent—exceeding the worst years of World War II. The nation remains sharply divided over the southern border, which for most of Biden’s term was nonexistent. Trump’s own base demands that he address an estimated twelve million additional unvetted illegal aliens, diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates and racial quotas, and an array of enemies abroad who are no longer deterred by or content with the global status quo. The eight-year Obama revolution in retrospect did not change American institutions and policies nearly as much as the more radical four-year Biden tenure. And so often, when drastic remedies are proposed, their implementation may appear to the inured public—at least initially—as a cure worse than the disease.
Take the example of illegal immigration. Since Trump left office in January 2021, two major and unexpected developments have followed during the Biden years. First, the border did not just become porous but virtually disappeared. Indeed, Biden in his first hours of governance stopped further construction of the Trump wall, restored catch-and-release policies, and allowed illegal immigrants to cross the border without first applying for refugee status.
Given the magnitude of what followed—as many as twelve million illegal aliens crossed the border during the Biden tenure—the remedy of deportation would now necessitate a massive, indeed unprecedented, effort. The public has been increasingly hectored by the Left to fear the supposedly authoritarian measures Trump had in mind when he called for “massive deportations.” Left unsaid was that such deportations would only be a response to the prior four years of lawless and equally “massive” importations of foreign nationals. And yet, while the twelve million illegal entrances over four years were an insidious process, the expulsion of most of those entrants will be seen as abrupt, dramatic, and harsh. In addition, it was much easier for felons and criminals to blend into the daily influx of thousands than it will be to find them now amid a population of 335 million.
Second, in the 2024 election, Trump won a record number of Hispanic voters (somewhere between 40 and 50 percent, depending on how the term “Hispanic” is defined) in one of the most dramatic political defections from the Democratic Party in history. While voters’ switch to Trump can be largely attributed to the deleterious effects of the Biden-Harris open border on Hispanic communities, schools, and social services, no one knows what, if any, might be the paradoxical political effects of the mass deportation of many within these same Hispanic communities.
Will Hispanic voters continue to resent the ecumenical nature of illegal immigration across the southern border, which now draws millions from outside Latin America? Will they wish to focus primarily on violent criminals while exempting on a case-by-case basis Mexican nationals, many of whom have kinship ties to Hispanic U.S. citizens? In sum, no one yet knows the political consequences of deporting all—or even 5 to 10 percent—of the Biden-era illegal aliens, given their unprecedented numbers. Even if polls tell us that 52 percent of Americans support “massive” deportations, will that number still hold true if they eventually include friends and relatives or entail five or six million deportations?
Trump’s fiscal policies pose similar known unknowns. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised a number of large tax cuts to various groups. For example, eliminating taxes on service workers’ tips might cost the treasury in excess of $10 billion a year. Trump’s call to make tax-free the incomes of police officers, firefighters, veterans, and active-duty military personnel would translate into at minimum a shortfall of $200 billion a year in federal tax revenue. Another $200 billion in annual revenue would be lost if, as promised, Trump once again allowed state and local taxes to be deducted from federal income taxes. Some $300 billion per annum would also vanish under Trump’s proposals to cease taxing hourly overtime pay. Other promises to eliminate taxes on Social Security income, cut corporate taxes to 15 percent, or reextend his 2017 tax cuts could in toto reach $1 trillion in lost federal revenue per year.
The 2024 yearly deficit was projected at about $1.83 trillion. So how would Trump reach his goal of moving toward a balanced budget if all the promised tax reductions were realized, with a yearly loss of at least $1 trillion in revenue added to the nearly $2 trillion currently borrowed each year? No one knows the precise increase in annual revenues that will accrue from greater productivity and economic growth due to Trump’s deregulatory and tax-reduction agendas. Furthermore, how much income can be expected from proposed reciprocal tariffs on foreign imports? And how much will realistically be gained in savings from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s new Department of Government Efficiency and their promise to cut $2 trillion from the annual federal budget?
So far, Trump’s proposed radical tax cuts are quite popular, mostly transparent, and often detailed, while the commensurate massive reductions in federal spending are as yet none of the above. The political success of Trump’s tax and spending reductions will hinge on the degree to which he can eliminate massive unpopular waste, slash useless programs, increase federal revenue from targeted foreign tariffs, and through incentives grow the size and incomes of the taxpaying public and corporations—without touching sacrosanct big-ticket items like defense, Social Security, and Medicare. It bears noting that no prior administration has been able to cut the annual defecit while also massively reducing federal income taxes.
Trump has also promised a radically new and different cohort to run his cabinet posts and large agencies. In his first term, Trump’s agenda was stymied by both his own political appointees and the high-ranking officials of the administrative state. Starting in 2017, they saw their new jobs as either warping maga directives into their own preferred policies or colluding to block a supposedly unqualified and indeed “dangerous” Trump. Almost monthly, his cabinet heads or agency directors—John Bolton, James Comey, John Kelly, James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, Christopher Wray—were at odds with their politically inexperienced president.
Anonymous lower-ranking officials routinely claimed to the media that they were internally frustrating Trump initiatives and leaked embarrassing (and possibly fabricated) anecdotes about their president. One supposedly high-ranking Trump official known as “Anonymous” —later revealed to be a rather low-ranking bureaucrat named Miles Taylor—began a New York Times hit piece, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” He further boasted of how appointees deliberately tried to sabotage Trump policies and executive orders.
But paradoxes also arise from Trump’s 2024 remedies for this earlier internal obstruction. Given this past experience, only genuine outsiders appear immune to the compromises and careerism endemic among veterans of the administrative state. And yet such would-be reformers often lack the insider knowledge, expertise, and familiarity with the government blob needed to reduce or eliminate it.
The radical growth in the federal government, the surge in entitlements, the increases in regulations and taxes, and the soaring deficit and national debt were overseen by so-called experts in the bureaucracy as well as by traditional politicians on both sides of the aisle. In response, would-be reformers have talked grandly about the dangers of unsustainable national debt, the interest payments that now exceed $1 trillion per year, and the need to rein in nearly $2 trillion in annual budget deficits. But few, especially in Congress, may be willing to cancel the sacred-cow programs that have enriched their constituents, provided jobs for millions of Americans, and offered high-paying revolving-door billets for retired politicians and their staffers.
For example, the general public, liberal and conservative alike, acknowledges vast waste and wrongheaded procurement at the Pentagon. Auditors quietly grant that massive subsidies and corporate welfare to pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and crony-capitalist wind- and solar-energy companies are near scandalous. An increasing number of voters now believe that the government needs to get out of the business of guaranteeing student loans that are nonperforming, stop funding boondoggles like high-speed rail, and dismantle the vast dei-commissar system at government agencies.
Yet those most familiar with these programs are their beneficiaries. And those who could most effectively discontinue them are precisely those who perhaps could least be trusted to do so. Therefore, outsiders are needed, even or especially those without the degrees and résumés customarily required to run these huge government entities.
Trump’s cabinet nominee Pete Hegseth, for example, a decorated combat veteran who wrote a book on the Pentagon’s pathologies, is by conventional standards unqualified to be the defense secretary. He is not a four-star officer, former Fortune 500 ceo, or prior cabinet official. Unlike his two predecessors, however, he would not revolve into the office from a post at a defense corporation with huge Pentagon contracts.
The fbi nominee Kash Patel has a lengthy record of government service in Congress, the executive branch, and legal circles. But he also is a fierce critic of the fbi and was once himself a target of agency monitoring. Indeed, Patel wrote a book about fbi misadventures, incompetence, and political weaponization. He promises to move the agency outside of Washington, D.C., and to end its political contamination—which has earned him fierce opposition from within the bureau and its congressional and media supporters.
In rejection of the Republican establishment that obstructed him in his first administration, Trump has often opted for anti-big-government picks who were once Democrats or who otherwise emphatically reflect the populist nature of the new Republican Party, such as Tulsi Gabbard (National Intelligence), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Health and Human Services), Dr. Marty Makary (Food and Drug Administration), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (National Institutes of Health), or Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor).
In sum, while it is not impossible for reformers to emerge from the status quo, it is precisely those “unqualified,” “firebrand,” or “dangerous” outsiders without “proper” experience in government, without prestigious degrees and credentials, and without sober and judicious reputations within the bureaucracies (indeed, they are sometimes the very targets of the agencies that they are tasked to reform or end) who are most immune to being compromised by those bureaucracies.
But it is abroad where the implementation of the maga agenda will be most severely stress-tested, particularly regarding China, Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East. Trump’s first term was neither isolationist nor interventionist. He loathed nation-building, but he also ridiculed the appeasement strategies of prior administrations. Recalling the Roman military commentator Vegetius’s famous aphorism si vis pacem, para bellum (If you desire peace, prepare for war), Trump’s strategy in building up the nation’s defenses and reforming the Pentagon was not to fight elective ground wars or to democratize foreign nations, but to avoid future conflicts through demonstrable deterrence.
A good example is his first-term experience with radical Islamists in the Middle East. On January 3, 2020, the Trump administration killed by drone the Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani near the Baghdad airport. Soleimani had a long record of waging surrogate wars against Americans, especially during the Iraq conflict and its aftermath. After the Trump cancellation of the Iran deal, followed by U.S. sanctions, Soleimani reportedly stepped up violence against regional American bases in Iraq and Syria—most of which, ironically, Trump himself wished to remove.
A few days after Soleimani’s death, Iran staged a performance-art retaliatory strike of twelve missiles against two U.S. airbases in Iraq, assuming that Trump had no desire for a wider Middle Eastern war. Tehran had supposedly warned the Trump administration of the impending attacks, which killed no Americans. Later reports, however, did suggest that some Americans suffered concussions and that more damage was done to the bases than was initially disclosed. Nonetheless, this Iranian interlude seemed to reflect Trump’s agenda of avoiding “endless wars” in the Middle East, while restoring deterrence that prevented, rather than prompted, full-scale conflicts.
Yet in a second Trump administration, such threading of the deterrence needle may become far more challenging. The world today is far more dangerous than it was when Trump left office in 2021. The U.S. military is far weaker, suffering from munitions shortages, massive recruitment shortfalls, dei mandates, and dwindling public confidence. The State Department is far less credible, and America’s enemies have been long nursed on Biden-era appeasement. Four years ago, for example, no one would have dreamed that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians would become casualties in a full-scale war on Europe’s doorstep.
Indeed, an inept Biden administration crippled U.S. deterrence abroad through both actual and symbolic disasters. In March 2021, Chinese diplomats brazenly dressed down newly appointed Biden-administration diplomats in Anchorage without rebuke. The debacle in Afghanistan in August 2021 marked the greatest abandonment of U.S. arms and facilities in American military history. Six months later, an observant Vladimir Putin correctly surmised that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would likely face few countermeasures from a now humiliated and unsteady United States.
In late January 2023, the meandering and uninterrupted week-long flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the American homeland seemed to exemplify the general disdain enemies now held for the Biden administration. Indeed, foreign foes assumed that there would be few Western consequences for their aggression, at least during a window of opportunity never before seen—nor likely to be repeated.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists, followed eagerly by a ragtag mob of Gazans, stormed into Israel. They murdered, tortured, raped, or took hostage some 1,200 Israeli victims, sparking a theater-wide war against Israel instigated by Iran and its surrogates.
The serial Houthi attacks on international shipping intensified to such a degree that the Red Sea joined the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean as virtual no-go zones for Western shipping, given the absence of visible American and nato deterrents. By autumn 2024, Iran had launched five hundred missiles, rockets, and drones at the Israeli homeland, with the United States loudly enjoining de-escalation and restraint on our Israeli ally.
By year’s end, tens of thousands of North Korean combat troops were fighting with Russians on the Ukrainian border. And by late 2024, the combined Russian and Ukrainian dead, wounded, and missing had passed one million, in the greatest European charnel house since the World War II battle for Stalingrad.
All these foreign wars and quagmires pose dilemmas for maga reformers. Again, Trump was not elected to be a nation-builder, globalist, or neoconservative interventionist. Conversely, he is no isolationist or appeaser, on whose watch the world would continue to descend into the chaos of the past four years. Yet Trump in 2024 is much more emphatic about the need to avoid such dead-end overseas entanglements, or even the gratuitous use of force that can lead to tit-for-tat entanglements. That caution may obscure his Jacksonian foreign policy and wrongly convince opportunists to test his frequent braggadocio and purported deterrence credentials.
In this regard, Trump’s selection of J. D. Vance as vice president and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, along with Tucker Carlson and the once-Democratic pacifist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as close advisors— coupled with his announcements that the hawkish former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley would not be in the administration—may be misinterpreted by scheming foreign adversaries as proof of a new Trumpian unilateral restraint.
The Republican Party is now the party of peace, and Trump the most reluctant president to spend American blood and treasure abroad in memory. Trump broke with previous Republican interventionism largely because he damned past American misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars while they distracted from an unsustainable national debt, a nonexistent southern border, and a floundering lower-middle class. Similarly, it is no wonder that the public often sees the use of force abroad as coming at the zero-sum expense of unaddressed American needs at home. Moreover, a woke, manpower-short military has disparaged and alienated the working-class recruits who disproportionately sought out combat units and fought and died in far-off Afghanistan and Iraq.
Recently, however, even as President Trump’s inner circle emphasized a stop to endless conflicts, Trump himself in November 2024 warned Vladimir Putin not to escalate his attacks against Ukraine. Yet that warning was followed by massive Russian air onslaughts against largely civilian Ukrainian targets—and further threats of tactical nuclear weapons deployed against Ukraine. Trump also instructed Hamas and Hezbollah to cease their wars against Israel, and advised the former to release the hostages, Americans particularly—or else.
Vladimir Putin no doubt took note, but he also may have wished to encourage America’s enemies to test Trump’s Jacksonian rhetoric against his campaign’s domestic promises to mind America’s own business at home. So, is there a way to square the circle of neither appeasing nor unwisely intervening?
Trump will have to speak softly yet clearly while carrying a club. For the first few months of his tenure, his administration will be tested as never before to make it clear to Iran and its terrorist surrogates, as well as China, North Korea, and Russia, that aggression against U.S. interests will swiftly incur disproportionate and overwhelming repercussions—in order to prevent wider wars that eventually might require the use of much larger forces.
Ukraine is, paradoxically, a case study of both the dangers of American intervention in distant foreign wars and the consequences of being regarded as weak, timid, and unable or unwilling to protect friends and deter enemies. The cauldron on the Ukrainian border, as already noted, has likely already caused between 1 and 1.5 million Ukrainian and Russian casualties, soldiers and civilians alike. There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. And there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior could escalate and lead to wider wars among the world’s nuclear powers. Joe Biden’s post-election decision to allow Ukraine to launch sophisticated American missiles deep into the Russian homeland was met by further Russian warnings of escalation to the use of nuclear weapons.
Many on the right wish for Trump immediately to cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that cessation would end any leverage to force Putin to negotiate. They feel the conflict was egged on by a globalist Left, as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia to the last Ukrainian soldier. These critics see the war as conducted by a now undemocratic Ukrainian government, without elections, habeas corpus, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has intrigued with the American Left in an election year. Preferring negotiations that might cede Ukrainian territories already occupied by Russia for guarantees of peace, they point to polls revealing that less than half of the Ukrainian people are confident of a full military “victory” that would restore the country’s 1991 borders.
In contrast, many on the left see Putin’s invasion and the Right’s weariness with the costs of Ukraine as the long-awaited proof of the Trump–Russia “collusion” unicorn and generally perfidious Trumpian Russophilia. They judge Putin, not China’s imperialist juggernaut, as the real enemy. And they discount the dangers of a new Russia–China–Iran–North Korea axis. To see Ukraine at last defeat Russia, recover all of the Donbas and Crimea, and destroy the Putin dictatorship, they are willing to feed the war with American cash and weapons—again, to the last Ukrainian.
Trump vowed to end the catastrophe within a day by doing what is now taboo—namely, calling up Vladimir Putin and making a deal that would do the seemingly impossible and entice Russia back inside its pre-invasion borders of February 24, 2022, thus preserving a reduced but still autonomous, and even secure, Ukraine. How could Trump pull this off?
Ostensibly, Trump would be following the advice of a growing number of Western diplomats, generals, scholars, and pundits who have reluctantly outlined a general plan to stop the slaughter. But how would the dictator Putin face the Russian people with anything short of an absolute annexation of Ukraine, after wasting a million Russian casualties?
Perhaps, after the deal, Putin could brag to Russians that he institutionalized forever his 2014 annexations of the majority-Russian Donbas and Crimea; that he prevented Ukraine from joining nato on the doorstep of Mother Russia; and that he achieved a strategic coup in uniting Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in a grand new alliance against the West and particularly the United States, with the acquiescence if not support of the nato member Turkey and an ever more sympathetic India.
And what would Ukraine and the West gain from such an example of the Trumpian “art of the deal”? Kyiv might boast that, as the bulwark of Europe, Ukraine heroically saved itself from Russian annexation, as was envisioned by Putin in the 2022 attempt to decapitate Kyiv and absorb the entire country. Ukraine was subsequently armed by the West and fought effectively enough to stymie the Russian juggernaut and humiliate and severely weaken the Russian military—to the benefit of nato and EU nations. Trump might then pull off the agreement if he could further establish a demilitarized zone between the Russian and Ukrainian borders and ensure EU economic help for a Ukraine fully armed to deter an endlessly restless Russian neighbor.
What would be the incentives for such a deal, and would they be contrary to the interests of the American people or antithetical to the views of the new Republican populist-nationalist coalition? First, consider that if Trump were to cut all support for Ukraine, it would likely soon be absorbed by Russia. The maga Right would then be blamed for a humiliation comparable to the Kabul catastrophe. Indeed, the fallout would likely be worse, since the situation in Ukraine, unlike the Afghanistan mess, required only American arms, rather than lives. In contrast, if the conflict grinds on and on, at some point the purportedly humanitarian yet pro-war Left will be permanently stamped as the callous party of unending conflict, and seen as utterly indifferent to the Ukrainian youth consumed to further its endless vendetta against a Russian people who also are worn out by the war.
Both Russia and Ukraine are running out of soldiers, with escalating casualties that will haunt them for years. Russia yearns to be free of sanctions and to sell oil and gas to Europe. The West, and the United States in particular, would like to triangulate with Russia against China and vice versa, in Kissingerian style, and thus avoid any multi-power nuclear standoff.
Trump wants global quiet in order to increase and stockpile American munitions with an emboldened China on the horizon. He will inherit a U.S. military budget dangerously exhausted by wasteful procurement of overpriced systems like the F-22 aircraft and the littoral combat ship, by cuts in training for troops and maintenance of ships, and by massive aid to Ukraine and Israel. Accordingly, Trump prefers allies like Israel that can win with a few billion, rather than those that continue to struggle after receiving $200 billion, as Ukraine has done.
Last, Europe is mentally worn out by the war, and increasingly reneging on its once-boastful unqualified support for Ukraine, as it hopes the demonic Trump can both end the hated war and be hated for ending it.
The same challenge of forcefully dissuading bullies while avoiding exhausting wars will confront Trump in the Middle East. To restore deterrence, Trump will have to put the Houthis on notice that their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea will earn them something more deleterious than the Biden administration’s passive deflections of shore-to-ship missile attacks. That passivity has so far cost the Unites States about $2 billion in munitions without achieving tangible results.
Iran, of course, is at the nexus of Middle Eastern tensions. Both fear of Tehran’s missiles and the Biden administration’s opposition paralyzed the Abraham Accords. Iran supplies all the terrorist organizations—Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—that have attacked Israel since Trump’s departure. Accordingly, Trump will likely lift American restraints on Israel, supply the necessary heavy-duty ordnance should it wish to retaliate against Iranian attacks by taking out Iran’s nuclear program and oil-export facilities, and deter Russia and China from intervening to help their client Iran.
In sum, to ensure that there are no theater-wide conflicts in the Middle East, as well as in Eastern Europe and beyond, Trump will have to use disproportionate force to dispel the image of the United States as indifferent to aggression due to fears of costly intervention.
The maga revolution that will now ensue in the four years of Trump’s second and last presidential term promises to remake America in ways only haphazardly realized four years ago. In Trump’s favor this time around are his past years of governance and his knowledge of the sort of opposition he will now face—after two impeachments, five weaponized civil and criminal court cases, repeated efforts to remove his candidacy from state ballots, two assassination attempts, and three brutal presidential campaigns.
The failed Biden years—the entrance of twelve million illegal aliens through a deliberately opened border, wars abroad, inflation, and soaring crime—helped propel the most spectacular political resurrection in American political history. The backroom Biden removal from the Democratic nomination, the subsequent listless Harris campaign, and the ever more radical trajectory of the increasingly unpopular Democratic Party have all put Trump in a far more powerful position than when he entered the presidency in 2017 or when he left office in 2021.
Trump’s success in resetting the United States will hinge not merely on outwitting the desperation of his enemies, but also on navigating the paradoxes of implementing his own maga agenda.
The peace talks between America and Russia continue to dominate headlines, with leaders in Europe and Ukraine increasingly wary of how they’ve been excluded from those discussions. While President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and even Russian President Vladimir Putin have all acknowledged that Ukraine will be part of the negotiations when they begin in earnest, that is not how much of the Western world has seen this week’s events.
It didn’t help that the conversations with Russia’s representation have already essentially acknowledged that Ukraine will likely not be able to join NATO and that Russia will keep much—if not all—of the land they have taken so far in the war. Couple those accessions with Trump’s recent rhetoric in which he called Ukrainian President Zelensky a dictator and implied that Ukraine bore responsibility for starting the war, and it’s not difficult to see why many are wary of America leading the push for peace.
After all, one of Trump’s most frequent claims throughout his campaign was that he would bring an end to the war in Ukraine and that he would do it quickly. While he’s already missed his first deadline of having an agreement in place before he took office, the goal remains to achieve peace as soon as possible.
Most would agree that it’s better for the war to end sooner rather than later, but America’s allies—Ukraine most of all—are wary of prioritizing speed over justice and a peace that lasts.
What is the Munich Agreement?
An increasingly common refrain among many in the West in the wake of this week’s conversations is that the negotiations are a repeat of the same mistakes that enabled Hitler during the buildup to World War II.
After absorbing Austria in March of 1938, Hitler began to covet Czechoslovakia and made plans to take the Sudetenland—a region of roughly three million people of German origin—next. As his aggression escalated, France and Britain, both of whom had pledged to protect the country in the aftermath of World War I, did not feel prepared for a full-scale war with the Nazis. Instead, they prioritized peace.
The result was the Munich Agreement, in which European leaders essentially allowed Hitler to absorb parts of Czechoslovakia in exchange for promises to leave the rest of Europe alone.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned home to declare that he had achieved “peace with honor,” adding “I believe it is peace for our time.”
Winston Churchill famously retorted “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Churchill was proven right when Hitler proceeded to take the rest of Czechoslovakia the next year.
But while the parallels to America’s current conversations with Russia are easy to see, is Trump heading toward the same mistake? That question is a good bit more difficult to answer.
Living in reality
You see, the primary reason why the Munich Agreement failed to do more than provide a brief pause in the conflict that culminated in World War II is that France and Britain were not prepared to go to war with Germany. They needed peace more than the Nazis, even if that peace was not to last.
The situation in Ukraine is much the same: Ukraine needs peace more than Russia. The last three years have made clear that the most likely outcome of simply giving Ukraine more money and munitions is a slower pace of defeat. Victory is not a realistic option unless the US and its European allies are willing to take a more active role in the fighting.
So, as much as Ukraine may want to act like it is negotiating from a position of strength or should continue fighting until they are, that is never going to be the case in the current conflict.
As such, when Trump began his conversations with Russia by essentially ceding Ukraine’s ability to join NATO or reclaim all the land they’ve lost, he didn’t really give up anything that was within their power to keep.
Putin’s desires to maintain a buffer between his borders and those of NATO while also retaining control over the fertile lands of Eastern Ukraine have long been among his primary motivations for waging this war. He has little reason to come to the table if those are not part of the agreement.
The sanctions currently crippling the Russian economy, however, were notably absent from those early negotiations. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio implied they could be removed once peace was achieved, he also seemed to indicate that they would remain in place until that point.
Moreover, Trump recently declared that he is “all for” European peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war, calling such promises “a beautiful gesture” from France and Britain. The prospect of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil is particularly notable since Russia considers it an unacceptable condition for peace.
So, while it is certainly possible that any treaty with Russia will end like the Munich Agreement and simply delay a much larger conflict, it would be a mistake to presume that will be the case. There is still too much left undecided to know what the final agreement will look like.
What is clear is that there can be no peace unless everyone involved approaches the negotiations with a recognition of the fact that the West is not in a position to dictate the terms of that agreement. The only way to stop the bloodshed and wanton destruction that has already killed or injured nearly a million people is to recognize what is realistic to achieve.
As a culture not accustomed to losing in geopolitics and war, that is an understandably hard pill to swallow. Yet it remains the reality in which everyone involved must operate. And that need to accept reality applies to each of us as well.
Why “lies are the root of evil”
One of Satan’s most effective tactics is convincing people to trust the narrative they prefer to believe rather than the reality in which they live. If we claim to serve the God who is truth, then rejecting that truth in favor of a more palatable lie undermines the very foundation of who Christ has called us to be. And make no mistake, there are few things more detrimental to both our witness and our walk with God than living in a lie.
As Dennis Prager once warned, “Lies are the root of evil more than any other of the sins that we commit because people who believe lies don’t know that they’re doing evil. That’s why it’s so terrible.” He goes on to give examples from the holocaust and slavery to illustrate the principle that lies are a necessary prerequisite to the belief that it is permissible to commit such atrocities.
And while most of the lies we accept as truth will not have consequences so grave as those, each one that we believe takes us further away from the Lord.
So where have your beliefs diverged from reality? Are there any lies you’ve accepted as truth?
If so, today is a great day to confess them to the Lord and embrace his truth as the guiding light for every facet of your life.
Will you start now?
Quote of the day:
“Self-awareness is indispensable to seeing the lines between what you want to be true and what is actually true.” —Jonah Goldberg
Zelensky in AI-Generated image by Grok/ a reimagining of ‘The Scream’ classic painting by Edvard Munch.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has turned into a ‘persona non-grata’ for the administration of Donald J. Trump.
First, Zelensky turned back on the agreed proposal about sharing rare earth elements with the US as repayment for military aid, mistreating the Treasury Secretary. Then, he took it upon himself to lambast Trump’s emissaries for meeting Russian diplomats without a Ukrainian presence.
Finally, the former comedian accused Trump of living in a Russian ‘disinformation bubble’.
Trump is not one to stand for such behavior, and blasted Zelensky as a ‘Dictator’ who lured his country into an unwinnable war and ‘played Joe Biden like a fiddle’.
One source familiar with the White House’s reasonings tole the New York Post:
“’It’s nothing new to me. I heard months ago it’s time for an election and new leadership’, added this person, who said the public breakdown was a long time coming and that anti-Zelensky feeling is widespread within the West Wing.
A second source close to Trump concurred with the assessment and suggested that ‘the best case for [Zelensky] and the world is that he leaves to France immediately’.”
Zelensky badmouthed Trump, and will live to regret it.
While there are people in the White House who still have a ‘traditional’ (uninformed) view on Zelensky, they have no access to decision-making. Even Mike Waltz has aligned himself with Trump’s unfavorable view of ‘Ze’.
“’President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky’, Waltz said Thursday at a White House briefing, where he appeared to indicate a slowdown in arms transfers was taking place, after a Ukrainian parliamentarian claimed ‘the weapons that were going to be sold have stopped being supplied’.
‘Trump’s administration obviously doesn’t like Zelensky and does everything to let everyone know that’, said a Ukrainian political analyst and active-duty soldier who asked not to be identified by name. ‘Recent remarks by the US president show that he wants Ukrainian elections ASAP and Zelensky replaced by someone more negotiable. This can be some who Trump and his allies trust: Military leader or businessman’.”
The Presidential elections in Ukraine were ‘postponed’ due to the state of martial law, giving Zelensky an absurd open-ended mandate.
Trump and his team now want Zelensky gone.
“Zelensky has also vulgarly disparaged other leading conservative critics of his government — saying this month that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a major outside ally of Trump’s, should ‘stop licking’ Putin’s ‘ass’.”
VP Vance has stated that Ukraine wouldn’t exist without the generosity of the people of the United States of America. So, he should say ‘thank you’.
Trump manifested his outrage that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was turned away in Kiev – in a menacing tone.
“’We had a deal’, Trump said during remarks at a Saudi-backed investment conference in Miami. ‘We had a deal based on rare earth and things, but they broke that deal… they broke it two days ago. I’m going to resurrect it or things are not going to make him too happy’, Trump told reporters on Air Force One.”
“We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.” —Thomas Jefferson (1805)
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Trump signs EO ending benefits to illegal aliens: With the flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border screeching to a halt, Donald Trump is now turning his focus to disincentivizing the millions of illegals who are already here — those who streamed across the border during the Biden years. Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order ending all taxpayer-funded benefits that may be going to illegals. According to the EO, all federal departments and agencies must identify all programs “currently providing financial benefits to illegal aliens and take corrective action,” including those which might support local “sanctuary” policies. It should never have come to this, of course. The American taxpayer would much rather see their hard-earned money going toward better roads, better schools, and a stronger military rather than incentivizing illegal border crossings.
Trump’s birthright citizenship EO hits another wall: It didn’t take long for the Democrats to file multiple lawsuits against Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutionally dubious notion of birthright citizenship, and a decision yesterday by a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals only increased the likelihood that the issue will make its way to the Supreme Court. The panel denied the DOJ’s emergency request to reinstate Trump’s repeal of birthright citizenship after a Seattle-based judge had originally blocked it. The panel said the government hadn’t put forth a “strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of this appeal.” We’ll see about that. As we noted recently, the constitutional law professor who literally wrote the book on the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes clear that the law isn’t as settled as the open-borders Left would have us believe.
IRS job cuts are coming: A portion of those 87,000 new IRS staffers that Joe Biden funded will likely have to find other employment, as roughly 6,000 IRS staff are being laid off by the Trump administration as part of its effort to shrink the federal workforce. According to The New York Times, the pink slips will go to relatively recent hires, which is largely in keeping with the sorts of cuts the Trump administration has been making. Apparently, IRS managers have asked their people to report to the office along with their government-issued gear and wait for further instruction. Still, we needn’t shed any tears for the 100,000-employee agency, which is notorious for having targeted conservatives. A cut of 6,000 still leaves the IRS with plenty of teeth.
Inflation grabs Trump’s attention: In his recent interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Donald Trump acknowledged that “inflation is back.” He attributed it to massive government spending under the Biden administration. With headline inflation ticking up in January, combined with the Avian flu sending egg prices through the roof, Trump recognizes that he must get inflation moving down soon or risk losing support. Meanwhile, the head of DOGE, Elon Musk, recently floated the idea of giving Americans a “dividend” of up to $5,000 per household from the savings DOGE garners from cutting government waste. However, if massive government spending spiked inflation in the first place, would this not produce the same result?
Trump pauses EV charging station program: The Biden administration’s $7.5 billion program to construct a national grid of electric vehicle charging stations has been put on hold by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in response to Donald Trump’s executive order pausing its funding. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program was part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which the Biden administration touted as a way to get more Americans to buy EVs by delivering 500,000 charging stations across the U.S. by 2030. Yet three years in and $3.3 billion later, the program has completed just 201 charging stations. The “major flaw,” according to analytics analyst Loren McDonald, is that NEVI “is based on the states stepping up to the plate and executing it, and that was very inconsistent.” The FHWA is now working on updating the NEVI guidelines.
Trump HHS says sex is “immutable”: When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed last week as health secretary, one of the things he promised was to make decisions based on “gold-standard research.” We don’t know of any “gold-standard” studies that have been done to establish that there are more sexual classifications out there beyond male and female, and this might have something to do with the HHS decree yesterday that it would heretofore define sex as an “immutable biological classification” and thereby recognize only males and females. Hallelujah. Predictably, The Washington Post calls this announcement an escalation of the Trump administration’s “campaign against transgender protections.” What it really is, though, is part of a campaign in favor of common sense and scientific sanity.
NYC congestion pricing axed: On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy notified New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority that his department had rescinded approval of Manhattan’s dubious congestion pricing system. The program charged most drivers a $9 toll to enter the city during peak hours. Duffy pointed to the lack of any toll-free option for accessing Lower Manhattan as part of the rationale for the decision. He also surmised that the program appeared focused on generating revenue for NYC’s public transportation system rather than limiting congestion, calling it a “slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners.” While NY Governor Kathy Hochul objected, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy praised the decision.
LA Mayor Bass passes the buck: When parts of Los Angeles caught fire last month, burning entire neighborhoods to the ground, Democrat Mayor Karen Bass was not in the city. Indeed, she wasn’t even in the country but rather in Ghana. In a recent interview with a local news network, she was pressed on her “thought process” for travel given that “we know that there was warnings about the weather before you went and you still went.” Bass claimed that she was unaware of these weather warnings but also said, “I think our preparation, it wasn’t what it typically is.” She appeared to blame the fire chief. “We have warnings of Santa Ana winds a lot,” she said, but the “level of preparation” didn’t say to her that “something terrible could happen.” Oh.
Headlines
Senate confirms Kelly Loeffler to lead Small Business Administration (Fox News)
DOGE finds $2 billion in taxpayer funds earmarked for Stacey Abrams-linked group (Washington Free Beacon)
Energy Department cancels more than $124 million in wasteful spending (Fox Business)
Hegseth directs Pentagon to find $50 billion in cuts this year (AP)
“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. … You should’ve ended it,” Donald Trump opined rhetorically to Ukraine about peace talks to end its war with Russia. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
Mr. President, you said Ukraine “should have never started” the war with Russia. Can you explain what you mean by that?
That’s my question to the president because the way I see it, Trump just accused the scrawny kid of sticking his face right in the bully’s fist.
His statement is abjectly false.
Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and everyone with two eyes and a brain knows that’s how it went down. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin launched that invasion as part of a scheme to restore the former “glory” of the Soviet Union, which he resented seeing fall apart 35 years ago. It was an invasion we saw coming because of Joe Biden’s provocative weakness displayed by his disastrous surrender in Afghanistan.
Taken at face value, Trump’s comment is so absurd that it undermines whatever else he’s trying to do here. It’s also a reversal from last month, when he warned Putin, “We can do it the easy way, or the hard way.” Suddenly, he’s putting more pressure on Kyiv than Moscow, despite the U.S. having a 30-year history of promising support for Ukraine.
As always with Trump, there are some rope-a-dope reasons for his negotiating style. His detractors scream about his lies while his most devoted supporters gush over the genius of his 4D chess. The truth is somewhere in between, and negotiations usually bear that out.
So far, the U.S. and Russia have begun talks to end the war, and, unfortunately, Ukraine has been left out. Trump was responding to Ukraine’s complaints. President Volodymyr Zelensky promised he “will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine” if Ukraine is left out of negotiations. Call me crazy, but that’s not an unreasonable assertion.
That’s doubly true given that Trump has already largely conceded several items to Russia — it can keep the land it stole, Ukraine won’t join NATO, the U.S. will lift sanctions, and there will be no U.S. troops in Ukraine after the war. “And in exchange,” notes National Review’s Jim Geraghy, “Putin offered … well, nothing, really.”
While Zelensky says he has “great respect” for Trump, “unfortunately, [he] lives in this disinformation space” regarding who started what. “I want there to be more truth in Trump’s team.”
Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe. … On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is “MISSING.” He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.” A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died — And so it continues….
Trump is right that it’s time to end the war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives (including at least 12,000 Ukrainian civilians) and countless billions in losses. He’s right that defending specific borders in Ukraine is of little interest to Americans or U.S. national security. Most Americans have lost patience with the seemingly blank check Joe Biden wanted for Ukraine. He’s also right that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump had remained president.
On the other hand, Russia could end the war today by withdrawing its army from another country’s soil. Furthermore, though Trump detests when other nations become dependent on the U.S., his numbers are a bit off. We haven’t spent anywhere near $350 billion — it’s actually roughly half that, though one could argue that’s far too much. If Zelensky is telling the truth, that “missing” $100 billion never made it to Ukraine. If he’s not telling the truth, well, he does run one of the most corrupt nations on the planet.
As for elections, “Ukraine has delayed elections while it is operating under martial law and fighting a war for survival,” observes the Wall Street Journal editorial board. “Its constitution allows this, and Britain under Nazi siege didn’t hold an election during World War II. Was Churchill a dictator?” Moreover, when was the last time Russia held a truly free election?
As a side note, Newsweek posted this gem on X: “There are concerns that the Ukrainian president could be voted out of office if the country holds an election.” Huh. You don’t say.
That brings me to some broader context for Trump’s remarks.
After being dogged for years by the phony Hillary Clinton-funded Russia collusion hoax, Trump was impeached (the first time) for that infamous phone call with Zelensky. The unbelievable irony is that he was impeached for what Joe Biden actually did — squeezing a quid pro quo from Ukraine in exchange for U.S. money. Biden and his family, of course, were famously corrupt in dealing with Ukraine, which is a big reason why the Big Guy pardoned his wastrel son before leaving office.
Last fall, Zelensky also arguably interfered in the 2024 election on behalf of Team Biden and its puppet candidate, Kamala Harris. Zelensky and Putin may be enemies, but they both wanted Harris to win.
Thus, it’s quite possible that Trump’s dislike for Ukraine is personal.
Unfortunately, that’s not the best guide for U.S. foreign policy. If this ends the way it seems to be headed, Trump’s recklessness may hamper rather than advance the America First agenda. The critical possible exception is that if Trump can smooth over relations with Russia — or even merely blunt the antagonism — it may clarify the U.S. focus on increasing Chinese aggression.
Samantha Koch: Coping With Trump Derangement Syndrome — “It was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained methamphetamine and rabies.”
Thomas Gallatin: Time to Dump the Failed DOE — The Nation’s Report Card shows a continuing trend of American students falling further behind in educational basics.
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Reader Comments
Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.
Latest PodcastPopCon #84: USAID is NOT About AidElon Musk has released his DOGE analysis program into the ledgers of federal agencies, and his findings are every bit as shocking as one might expect.
BEST OF VIDEOS
Did Ilhan Omar Commit Immigration Fraud? — A new report alleges that DNA evidence proves U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar married her own brother to commit immigration fraud.
The Rainbow Reich — German speech police featured positively on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
JD Vance’s Message to Europe — The vice president’s criticism was multifaceted: Close your borders. Legal-only immigration. Up your defense budget. Allow for free speech.
The Tide Is Turning — Konstantin Kisin gives a hilarious and inspirational speech defending Western values at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.
SHORT CUTS
Passing the Buck
“There were [wildfire] warnings that I, frankly, wasn’t aware of. … It didn’t reach that level to me to say, ‘Something terrible could happen, and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip.’” —Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
Non Compos Mentis
“RFK’s plan to make America healthy again? Round up people with mental health conditions in camps.” —Salon headline
World’s Smallest Violin
“After the speech of Vice President Vance [to the Munich Security Conference] we have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore.” —Christoph Heusgen, German ambassador to the United Nations, who left the podium in tears after lamenting America is not embracing the totalitarian “values” of leftist Europe
Food for Thought
“OK, imagine we had laws like Germany’s in the United States. … What of all the Democratic politicians and mainstream media figures who claimed Joe Biden was mentally fit to run for re-election. Should we round them all up? Fine them? Put them in prison for disinformation?” —Phil Boas
Upright
“I don’t think it’s happening fast enough — they’re not cutting enough. Keep slashing. Keep hacking while you have a 24-month mandate. We must keep going. Cut. Cut, cut, cut, cut. More. More cutting. Believe me, it’s going to work out just great.” —Kevin O’Leary
Re: The Left
“Maybe Elon Musk should hire the mainstream media to figure out physics because, apparently, they know something that nobody in the rest of the world does, which is how to divide your credibility, which is zero, in half. Because somehow they just keep managing to do that.” —YouTuber Asmongold
“The truth is that the Democrats have become increasingly unpopular because they have become the party of radicals and extremists. Furthermore, their dishonesty and corrupt incestuous relationship with the Washington bureaucratic state has been exposed thanks to DOGE in ways they likely never believed possible.” —Thomas Gallatin
“It’s funny how often when these attacks occur, the thing that they’re accusing the administration of is what they are guilty of. … They are guilty of the crime of which they accuse us.” —Elon Musk referring to the caterwauling about DOGE cuts
“The left is screaming that President Donald Trump is on some kind of ideological crusade. … It’s sort of like labeling a company CEO ideological because he is driven to keep his company profitable and competitive.” —Star Parker
“Those on the left who are verbally assaulting the new Trump administration are the ideologues. They are in love with empty words and bankrupt ideas.” —Star Parker
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
“If you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts and the reforms that are being instituted?” —White House senior adviser Stephen Miller to CNN anchor Brianna Keilar
For the Record
“‘We’re living under a flawed Constitution. Let’s start fresh and rewrite it,’ [Dean of Berkeley Law Erwin] Chemerinsky wrote last August. Yes, that’s the same guy The New York Times cited as an expert to explain how Trump is creating a constitutional crisis.” —Victor Joecks
“Whenever you see the phrase ‘scholars say’ in a news report, tread carefully. It’s very likely to be a poorly disguised opinion piece.” —Victor Joecks
And Last…
“I feel like there is too much focus on Israel’s and Ukraine’s response and not enough on how the Palestinians and Russians just could have not invaded in the first place.” —Frank J. Fleming
President Trump on Wednesday, amid negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his U.S.-funded war “that couldn’t be won” and called him a “Dictator without Elections.”
As Americans know, Zelensky has canceled elections, citing the war.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” President Trump said.
He also noted that “Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’”
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Zelensky, in a recent interview, revealed that Ukraine had only received about $75 billion of the roughly $180 billion in U.S. aid supposedly delivered to support Ukraine.
During a press conference at the Mar a Lago on Tuesday, President Trump made similar remarks, noting that “Zelensky said last week that he doesn’t know where half of the money is that we gave him.”
“I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given him almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down… Biden, in all fairness, he doesn’t have a clue— he was so bad for this,” the President said.
WATCH:
The President also highlighted this in his statement earlier, slamming Zelenskyy and saying he “probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.”
Trump: Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.
Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is “MISSING.” He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.”
A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..
It’s been a busy week in news, politics, sports, and pop culture. So join Conner Jones and Micah Tomasella as they brief you on the week’s biggest stories…all from a Christian perspective. This week, they discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine peace talks, the history and legality of executive orders, and a variety of recent events across culture. Highlights include diving into the U.S. deploying military resources against Mexican cartels, recent plane crashes, the SNL50 special, the new Captain America movie’s underwhelming performance, and the thrilling U.S. vs. Canada hockey showdown and so much more!
Micah Tomasella is the Advancement Officer at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Conner Jones
Conner is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
[00:00:00] Conner Jones: I’m Connor Jones and hi, I’m Micah Tomasella and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories in news, politics, sports, pop culture, tech, anything else. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Let me tell you, we got a ton to cover this week.
So Micah, why don’t you give us what’s on the docket for this week?
[00:00:24] Micah Tomasella: Connor, the first thing that’s on the docket is the fact that you and I are matching today. Did we, did we plan this? No, not
[00:00:32] Conner Jones: not at all. We both hopped on here. We were like, oh
[00:00:34] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, but neither of us wanted to change, so it just kind of is what it is.
We’re both wearing the official Denison Ministries pullovers. That’s exciting. Always repping the ministry, but let me tell you what we’re going to dive into today. So we’ve got Russia, Ukraine, peace talks. We’ve got executive orders. We’ve got childhood hobbies and stories and a rundown on everything you need to know this week.
So let’s jump into the brief.
[00:01:00] Conner Jones: Okay, Micah, let’s hit on the big thing happening right now in just the geopolitical world. Yeah. It’s going to be Russia, Ukraine, the war, and then the United States started to kind of initiate negotiation and potential peace talks. So here’s what’s going on currently. Last week, Donald Trump had a call with President Putin of Russia.
That was on Wednesday, I believe, February 12th. What they did was agree to commence immediate negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. This would be a good thing. I mean, obviously we’re going on three years of this terrible conflict when Russia invaded basically a sovereign nation. And has just killed tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, injured and destroyed many, many cities.
And tons of people. Anyways, they did agree to commence those negotiations. Vice President J. D. Vance was in Munich, Germany, this week at the Munich Security Conference. And he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And Zelensky said they had a good meeting with Vance. And that they were ready to move as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace.
I think that’s a good thing, right? Seems positive. But But, here’s the catch I know. U Ukraine is not actually currently involved in any of these negotiation talks. Neither is all of Europe, by the way. Europe’s on the sidelines too. It’s like the two big kids in the room are like. It’s like planning a game and they’re leaving the younger sibling out.
You know what I mean? It’s obviously far more serious than that, but I got left out
[00:02:29] Micah Tomasella: sometimes.
[00:02:30] Conner Jones: Ukraine’s not happy. Europe’s not happy. And Russia and the U. S. are just like I’m sorry, did you say you got left out sometimes? Yeah. Oh, sorry to bring up bad memories. You just ignored it. I just kept going. Yeah, sorry.
Anyways, so the U. S. and Russia have just been kind of doing this on their own. In a way, it makes sense. They’re two of the big superpowers in the world, obviously, Cold War, the many, many years of history here. They met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. That was the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and then the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
They met and had discussions. Sergei, sorry, what did I say? No,
[00:03:06] Micah Tomasella: no, no, I was just like Sergei, like I, like I know who he is. I’ve never heard of him before.
[00:03:11] Conner Jones: Oh he’s like, he’s like Putin’s right hand man. Yeah, there you go. And he does a lot of the, a lot of the just foreign leadership work for Putin. So they did meet in Saudi Arabia as kind of a middle ground and they agreed to start restoring embassy operations in both countries.
And they’re going to try to establish a high level negotiation team dedicated to resolving the Ukrainian conflict and explore avenues for enhanced diplomatic and economic cooperation. Ukrainian officials and European leaders not being invited to these initial talks. Does have them concerned. They are being critical of it.
They’re just worried. They’re like, why are we not involved with this? This is our, our continent. But it’s, you know, Trump and his administration are taking it under their own hand to try to get this solved and done. European leaders like French president Emmanuel Macron emphasize that any peace effort must include strong security guarantees for Ukraine.
And involve European participation, so they called their own emergency summit this week. The European leaders did in France and Paris and they discussed their exclusion from these talks and they started to try to strategize what they can do to ensure their involvement in future negotiations. This led to some of the countries saying that they are willing to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
So remember, Micah, as of right now, no Western troops have actually stepped foot on Ukrainian soil. Right. It’s just been Ukrainian troops and any sort of volunteers that come from foreign countries, but no other military has actually gone in to support Ukraine with boots on the ground.
[00:04:42] Micah Tomasella: Yes, but there has been heavy funding, specifically from the U.
S.
[00:04:48] Conner Jones: So many,
[00:04:49] Micah Tomasella: so many stimulus bills, so much money, billions of dollars sent to Ukraine,
[00:04:55] Conner Jones: tons of weapons, all of that. Yeah. Yeah. These countries have all been supportive. The U. S. has been supportive. Canada, all the NATO nations have been very supportive. The U. S. has
[00:05:02] Micah Tomasella: been the most monetarily supportive, right?
[00:05:05] Conner Jones: Correct. Yeah. Yes. The Ukrainians are using many U. S. Purchased or built weapons and drones, missiles, all of that. Anyways, no one’s had boots on the ground. So some of these European countries suggesting they may be willing to do that. It’s kind of interesting. It’s almost like it feels a little bit like a last ditch effort to be part of these negotiation talks.
All of that to say Ukrainians perspective Zelensky, of course, is. Frustrated over being sidelined in the negotiations. He’s emphasizing that any peace agreement must involve ukraine Now rubio and some of the other leaders in the us have said that ukraine will be brought in at the appropriate time So hey, you guys can come join us when it’s time, but it is their country that’s in the war that was invaded So I totally understand that their desire is to be a part of these Negotiations and figure out a piece on their own terms.
Zelensky definitely cautioned a Russia ceasefire. He did suggest that it could be a benefit to Russia if they are allowed to regroup and stressed that the importance of continued US support is needed for a genuine resolution. Ukrainians definitely see Putin as a terrible, terrible person. Even a lot of them would call him a terrorist.
Zelensky calls him a terrorist. For invading their country and killing so many of their people, you can’t blame them for that. You can’t blame them for being even frustrated that the U. S. is negotiating with Putin. Of course. You know, we’ve always had the mantra of, we don’t negotiate with terrorists, so Ukrainians are asking the U.
S. to have that same stance. And then I don’t know if you saw this, but the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, sparked a significant diplomatic conflict this week by appearing to exclude the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine, which is something that Ukraine has been really begging for us to be included in NATO at the end of this war.
[00:06:47] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, Pete has been coming out with some quick information there. I mean, you know, even a few days before that, he was saying that Ukraine would have to cede some of its border. The one that’s, you know, the, the part that Russia had taken over. And then Pete kind of walked it back. And I mean, he’s, he does that daily video from his office or he does like all of this content, which, you know, is, is interesting to me to see, see this as Secretary of Defense kind of taking a more hands on approach to leadership and like letting people in on his process.
But it does seem yeah, definitely Pete’s been, I don’t know, I don’t know if jumping the gun’s the right word, but he’s definitely been saying some stuff before anybody else is willing to.
[00:07:23] Conner Jones: Yeah, he’s actually, I think, had to walk back some of his comments, so maybe he’s learning fast what it’s like to be one of the top diplomats, not just in America, but in the world.
In the world. It’s a little bit different than being on the news, so he’s learning. Anyways, what does the U. S. want in all of this, Micah? First off, they want normalized relations with Russia. Trump has always said that he’s a friend of Putin, and he wants to have a good relationship with Russia, start, you know, reinvigorating their economy, having more trade.
Reducing the oil sanctions, everything that comes in with that. Trump also wants the U. S., and I think, you know, one of the things with him is himself, to look stronger. And to force Europe to stand on their own without the guarantee of U. S. security in this conflict or any future conflicts. He specifically wants NATO nations to put more of their own GDP into defense spending and not have to rely on the idea that America is going to come in and swoop in and protect them the way that we consistently have over the years and have always said we would.
[00:08:18] Micah Tomasella: I’m sorry, that, that’s fair. That’s fair. I don’t disagree. It’s geographically much closer. It’s, it’s right there. Europe is right there, right? We’re, we’re kind of across the world here. And I mean, even geographically and the resources that Europe has, I mean, I, I see the merit in that for sure.
[00:08:36] Conner Jones: Definitely. Yeah, it makes sense. I, I, I do get that. Okay. But here’s, here’s the kicker. Here’s the last big thing that the U S is wanting. Trump has said that he wants Ukraine to pay for everything that we’ve given them over the last three years through the stimulus bills, like you’re saying, the billions and billions of dollars, the weapons, all of that, that we have quite literally just given them.
He wants repayments, sort of like a loan Hey, we gave you all this now pay it back and here’s how you can do it. So Trump sent over the new U. S. Secretary of the Treasury to meet with Zelensky and lay out a plan for a 500 billion, basically investment in minerals that Ukraine has. as natural resources in their country that are pretty much untapped.
They have all these mines. They have all this underground mineral deposits that is very, very valuable could be worth up to 500 billion. And the U S once that they, they think that it could be very strategic for basically technology, all the tech that’s coming down the line, AI chips, everything, and it would help the U S stay on par with where China is at and technology developments.
And so there, their plan is, Hey, We have helped you, we may even give you some air defenses as a peacekeeping tool to prevent Russia from invading again, but in return, you need to give us access to all of your minerals. Isn’t it like half?
[00:09:51] Micah Tomasella: Wasn’t he asking for like half?
[00:09:53] Conner Jones: Something like that, yeah. It’s not all completely laid out, Zelensky has rebuffed a little bit, but said he’s open to the idea and that they are still having open negotiations on that.
But I’m just saying, there’s a lot going on here, there’s a lot to take in. It’s going to continue to happen over the next few days and really weeks Trump has said he hopes to have a peace negotiated by easter is 60 something days away from now And so that’s not a ton of time. It may be doable. We’ll just see.
Basically, what’s happened now is the talks to start talking like they’re, they’re talking about talking.
[00:10:27] Micah Tomasella: I mean, it started, right? I mean, and that’s, you know, so hopefully the solution comes down the line where. Russia pulls back. Ukraine can be its own free country. And there’s some things set up in the future for Ukraine to be able to take care of themselves.
NATO to do what they need to do. The European nations need to do what they need to do. And, and that there’s less friction with Russia. If, if that’s even possible, I mean, with somebody like Putin in power, I mean, that just, that feels hard to reach, you know, but hopefully there’s a better solution coming down the.
[00:10:58] Conner Jones: Definitely. And there was even an NBC like insider report this week that said Putin. Even though he’s trying to negotiate and start these peace talks is dead set still on having the entirety of Ukraine in Russia. So that’s probably not going to happen, right? So it’s probably not going to happen, but it also may be him just trying to strong hand and say you got to give me more than, you know, he’s, he’s a smart negotiator.
If there’s one thing you can say about him, he is, he does it in very bad will and with a hard darkened heart, but he’s a smart negotiator. So yes, you’re right. Hopefully pieces around the corner. This is like we’ve been saying with all the conflicts around the world, specifically with. In regards to Gaza and Israel, we are praying for peace
[00:11:35] Micah Tomasella: and into
[00:11:36] Conner Jones: this conflict and then into the destruction and devastation on these people in these villages, towns, communities and the death.
And it’s just awful. It’s been hard to watch. And I think, you know, when this war initially broke out, it was a big deal and all of America was watching it and it felt like an attack on a fellow Western nation and all of that. And it was very easy to kind of. Have camaraderie with these people. But over the last three years, I think that’s been distanced and we’ve felt that distance and we’ve felt some anani, like not we specifically, but a lot of Americans have felt animosity towards the conflict and everything.
But we should still pray daily for an end to this conflict. And I wanted to bring up real fast Micah, Dr. Jim Denison and the daily article on Tuesday wrote about Jesus coming to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and questions. He didn’t question it, but he was posing the question. Why is the kingdom of God good news?
We have a king despite the tragedies and challenges of this broken world. There is purpose in order to the cosmos as stated in Colossians 1 16 and 17 and Luke 4 43 says yeah Jesus did come to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and unlike the autocrats and terrorists who seek to rule by force This king knows and loves us.
[00:12:47] Micah Tomasella: Yeah,
[00:12:48] Conner Jones: that includes everyone includes you, me, Ukrainians, Russians, everybody involved in anything around the world. He loves us and we can have that personal relationship with him. That will save and transform us. And I’m grateful for that today, Micah. Just a good reminder that through the midst of everything that we see, even on the homeland or across the world, we know we have a good and loving Father who came to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God.
[00:13:14] Micah Tomasella: Amen. Amen, man. That’s a good reminder. Thank you for taking us through the ever evolving Russia Ukraine peace talks. Really, it should be Russia U. S. peace talks is what we should have called it, because it doesn’t seem like Ukraine is getting to play kickball. Seems like they didn’t get picked to be on the team this time, but we’ll see how all that works out.
Connor, I want to talk about executive orders for a minute. I want to talk about the history, the legality, and the recent use of executive orders. So let’s jump into this next story. Okay. You know, we’ve been hearing executive orders thrown around quite a bit. I did a segment on, on tariffs a couple weeks ago, and I just feel like these, these words have been on the forefront.
Trump was campaigning on these things and then he’s delivering on what he said he was going to do even probably more than people were anticipating. And so let’s talk about the history. But before I do that, I want to hit everybody with a simple definition of an executive order. And this comes from the American Bar Association.
So if you don’t agree with it, let them know. So it says an executive Let the lawyers know. It said an executive order is a signed, written, and published directive for the president from the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. So executive orders or EOs, whatever you want to call them, have been a presidential tool since George Washington used to direct the executive branch without Congress.
First executive order recorded in American history was in 1789 and over time they’ve shaped major U. S. policies like the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. President Abraham Lincoln. issued an executive order to free slaves in confederate states internment of japanese americans in 1942 franklin d roosevelt fdr issued an executive order that authorized the forced relocation of japanese americans during world war ii you had the desegregation of the military in 1948 president harry s truman issued an executive order that ended racial segregation in the armed forces so those are just a few you Executive orders that actually had a profound impact.
It might have just been the start It’s still those laws had to pass congress later But those were really big historical moments that were actually brought about by an executive order. What do you think about that connor?
[00:15:30] Conner Jones: I just think if every executive order had a unique rhyming name like the emancipation proclamation.
Yeah, that’s nice More people would get behind them. You know what I mean? What about internment of
[00:15:39] Micah Tomasella: japanese americans that one doesn’t have a
[00:15:41] Conner Jones: That one didn’t have the ring to it and seemed to actually be the exact opposite of the Emancipation Proclamation. Yeah, right. Seems like a reversal,
[00:15:49] Micah Tomasella: right?
[00:15:49] Conner Jones: It’s very interesting to see kind of the history here of how these have been used over the years and just kind of how powerful the president really is with Just kind of the swipe of a pen signs a piece of paper and these things happen,
[00:16:00] Micah Tomasella: right?
Right. So here’s here’s the legality of it. Here’s where we kind of get executive orders from so executive orders derive authority from article 2 Of the u. s constitution which requires the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed broad. However, they cannot create new laws or override existing ones.
Courts can invalidate executive orders that exceed presidential power. So there was this court case in 1952, Youngstown Sheet and Tuco versus Sawyer. where the Supreme Court blocked Truman’s attempt to seize steel mills during a labor strike. So that’s kind of the basis for what we’re seeing with all of these courts and all of these judges that are freezing what Trump does through an executive order, allowing it to continue stopping it.
So that, that case in 1952 with Harry S. Truman is kind of how, where we get the basis for how the American court system can kind of combat it if, if there’s a belief that it’s actually against the law, what the president’s trying to do. Let’s talk about why presidents issue executive orders. So what’s their reasoning, right?
So presidents issue executive orders to swiftly implement policies, especially when facing congressional gridlock or urgent situations. So for Trump, he has a mapped out first 100 days. And so he’s pushing. And so it’s literally an executive order or two every single day. And so the, the common reasons for why we’ve seen it throughout history, why we’re seeing it now as crisis management needs of national security in order to.
implement certain policies, reversing predecessor policies. There’s been a lot of specifically environmental policies that Trump has immediately come in and reversed. You know, we’ve seen a lot of policies on gender that he’s come in and reversed. And so there’s been a lot of things that he’s focused on to just reverse everything that Biden did.
Just like when Biden came in, he did the same thing to Trump whenever Trump left after his first term. And then, you know, they do it to avoid legislative gridlock as well. And so they, they definitely have their reasons, you know,
[00:17:56] Conner Jones: Yeah you know, and some of it is based off of what they promised on campaign trails, like what Trump is doing with a lot of these.
Yep. Some of it, this is where it gets tricky, is how much of it is just personal desire? How much of it is they’re like, I’m the president, I can do this. That’s where I guess you expect the courts to step in and say, no, we’re gonna, we’re not going to allow that. We’re going to overturn that one. Just interesting stuff.
Thanks for walking us through that.
[00:18:19] Micah Tomasella: Yes. Yes. And so Roosevelt Fdr, let’s go back to him for a second because I just I want to compare and contrast what fdr did Compared to what trump’s doing now. There was this article from politico today And they reminded us and I was reading that roosevelt signed 99 executive orders in his first 100 days More than any other president at that point.
So trump 2. 0 during his second term Could end up smashing that should smash that record at least, but it’s not like we’ve never seen this before. It’s not like we’ve never seen a president come in and immediately get to work in that way and use his additional presidential power to do executive orders.
But the debate that comes up about the legality of it and when to use an executive order and when not to and what has to follow an executive order, those questions are still being answered. But when Barack Obama came in in 2009 and 2017, he issued during his eight years in office, 276 executive orders focused on things like regulatory reform and national security.
Joe Biden and 21 to 25. He signed 162 executive orders, signed a lot of those during his last six months. You know, he did, he had AI regulation, environmental policy, government spending, all kinds of bills had kind of come from him signing those executive orders and then Trump, in his second term, he’s already signed 54 executive orders and we’re just what, a month in or so?
And you know, it’s, he is, he’s off to a feverish pace. He’s done government restructuring, social policies, international policies. These actions have sparked a ton of debate about the balance between executive authority and legislative oversight, as well as concerns over potential overreach and the undermining of democratic institutions.
And when we, you know, went back to what article two of the constitution said, it does seem kind of vague. So this remains a powerful tool and you know, everybody’s just kind of scrambling on the part that executive orders have to play
[00:20:21] Conner Jones: for sure. Yeah. And I know the democratic party right now. It’s still reeling from the just massive losses that they had during this election.
And this just constant barrage of executive orders, and then also a whole bunch of other things. Just, Trump is, and his team are really good about staying in the news quite literally every hour. And just dropping some sort of news or executive order, whatever it is. They’re struggling to fight back on the executive orders in a way that a normal Opposing party would and say, you know, we’re going to get together.
We got to figure out how to fight this in the courts, file lawsuits. I do think that they’re starting to get there. There’s been some lawsuits filed by. Democratic politicians and federal prosecutors and all of that. So we’ll just see, we’ll see,
[00:21:01] Micah Tomasella: we’ll see because, because his plan right now, it’s three weeks from now, he’ll have a whole lot more executive orders, right?
And so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s getting to the point now where they’re filing these lawsuits from executive orders that he signed into law like two weeks ago. And then he’s already doing something. Like first 10 and he’s already at 54. It’s just this insane barrage, but let me give you a spiritual application.
I was really thinking about this. It’s really, really thinking about this and it just kind of hit me. So each president in recent years, as I kind of ran through them pretty quickly has issued more executive actions than the last. It’s just continued to kind of ramp up, especially since Obama, but.
Normalizing a practice never, it was never intended explicitly by the Constitution, I just read you from the Constitution, where they get executive orders from. So with each election, reversing them becomes harder. So likewise, sin gains more power when we allow it. making repentance more difficult. So what begins as justifiable in our minds can quickly entangle us until only God can step in and break the cycle or something happens and we choose to break the cycle and repent.
So his intervention, God’s intervention is often painful, but it’s also merciful. So offering us the chance to turn back before we’re completely lost. So the best way to avoid that hardship is simple. Surrender to his will and walk with him. So executive orders, it just continues to be ramped up. And the more and more that it becomes normal, the more and more difficult it’s going to be to reign it in.
in. And so in the same way, the more that we give into sin and the more that we hide things that we’re struggling with in our lives from those that love us and want the best for us, and the more that we try to hide things from God, which is actually impossible, it’s just going to take you deeper and farther than you ever imagined.
And so the time is now to repent and turn to Jesus, not later.
[00:22:57] Conner Jones: Yeah, man, that’s good. That’s also true. And thank you, Micah, for just kind of the explanation on the executive orders. I just sat here and learned a lot. I mean, kind of one of those terms that you hear all the time, but just don’t know the history of.
And then thank you for that spiritual application. Yeah, that was fun.
[00:23:11] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, that was fun. Thanks, man.
[00:23:15] Conner Jones: What’s next? Micah, I think we need to try something new here. Okay. Let’s, let’s go through. Quite a few things rather than just one big topic and diving into it deeply We’re gonna give a big high level overview.
This is a bunch of stuff that’s happened in this last week. It’s been a busy week We’re gonna hit on it all across the board with entertainment and sports and finance Let’s dive in. Okay, so things you should know Micah first and foremost the Daytona 500 did happen this past Sunday Byron got his second in a row back to back wins I watched the last few laps of that.
It was wild. There was an insane wreck where a car just popped a wheelie and stood in the air forever. I saw that video. That was fun. Dramatic crash. Anyways, that happened. That was fun. What else do we have, Micah?
[00:23:59] Micah Tomasella: All right. So we have the Four Nations Hockey Tournament. If you haven’t heard about this, I think you probably heard of it when you saw what happened with US versus Canada.
So the US. Canada, Finland, and Sweden are these four teams that are competing. They’re four hockey powerhouses. So the U. S. Canada game was nuts. Okay, so three fights broke out in the first nine seconds. And it all started because this game was happening in Canada. And when the Star Spangled Banner played The Canadian crowd booed during the entire Star Spangled Banner, and you can see the American players did not like that whatsoever.
And so what happens is, is they each pick their fight, they drop their gloves, they took turns, and there were three individual fights that happened within the first nine seconds of that game. The game garnered tons of attention with the fights, and the rematch for the championship is set for Thursday. So Thursday night, the day that our episode is premiering, so on Thursday night.
Canada and the US are facing off again for the championship and it’s for blood man. It’s for blood
[00:25:02] Conner Jones: patriotic memes out there on social media are wild Everybody is like just feeling super just juiced up with patriotic.
[00:25:09] Micah Tomasella: Oh, I love love. Oh, I loved it, dude I mean you’re gonna boo our national anthem. Oh, oh
[00:25:15] Conner Jones: See the Babylon be our article that said Canadians boo their own future national anthem because Trump keeps threatening to make Canada the 51st state.
[00:25:27] Micah Tomasella: That’s funny. And for those who don’t know, the Babylon Bee is like a satirical Christian news website. But just go on there and just make yourself laugh. Just do yourself a favor. But my goodness. Yes, Trump keeps joking about making Canada the 51st. Yeah, he’s probably, he’s probably serious. The 51st state, but then, you know, he’ll also, these tariffs, these different things that have kind of happened have, have changed some perception.
And so I think that that’s why the Canadian crowd was booing, but nonetheless, the U. S. hockey players did not appreciate the booing.
[00:25:59] Conner Jones: They did not, and they won that game big time and the fights were
[00:26:01] Micah Tomasella: awesome. So we’ll see what
[00:26:02] Conner Jones: happens Thursday night. Okay. Also this past weekend was something that I don’t think anybody watched.
It was the NBA all star weekend. Yeah, I didn’t watch it. I don’t think anybody enjoyed it. And it seemed to get a lot of flack even from players and other commentators. I’m only bringing it up because it’s interesting to consider what, what just happened with hockey that basically replaced this four nations tournament, replaced the NHL all star week.
And now NBA players, and even some MLB players are saying, Hey, maybe we should take a page out of this book because interest in our own all star games has dwindled the NFL. Pro Bowl is basically a joke now, is this a new way to do it? Put, you know, American players versus European or other foreign nations and make a little world tournament.
Yeah,
[00:26:46] Micah Tomasella: yeah, we were talking about that just a little bit ago, right? Because, you know, in the 90s. European players, players from around the world. I mean, you had Hakeem, the dream Elijah Juan, who was an international player who played for the Rockets. You had Dirk getting drafted in the late nineties, but he didn’t really come into his own until the mid two thousands.
I mean, right. Dirk really broke the mold for European players. And then since then, I mean, you could field a very, very good world team, European team with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic. Victor Wimbenyama. I mean, those are four of maybe the top 12 players in the NBA and they’re not American.
And I think just now recently, the last 10 or so years, 10, 12 years, this game actually would be incredibly interesting if they decided to do that.
[00:27:32] Conner Jones: I think they would juice viewership, get a lot more entertainment than what they just put on the floor the other night. Anyways, moving on. There was a plane crash.
Another one, Micah. And we talked about plane crashes a few weeks ago. There have been so many in the last two months. In Toronto, a Delta Airlines commuter jet with 80 passengers and crew crashed. Thankfully, everybody lived. The videos are absolutely insane. I’ve got a link, I’ll put it in the show notes if you want to see the video of this plane.
Quite literally, hard landing and flipping over on fire. It is upside down on its roof, essentially belly up, and everybody has to get out from the upside down aspect of the plane. No fatalities, right? Yeah. No fatalities, some injuries. Honestly, it’s a, it’s a miracle, but just a wild plane crash and just kind of another wake up call to, man, we got to figure some stuff out with our aviation safety.
[00:28:22] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Yeah. And it just kind of keeps feeling like I keep getting these news alerts about. These small planes crashing these bigger planes crashing. I mean, there’s just so much focus on the FAA right now. So much focus on pilots and air traffic controllers. I mean, we’re just praying for everybody involved in that and that we can figure out a better way because, you know, right now this all just seems to be happening a little bit too much, but Connor and a
[00:28:44] Conner Jones: plane, a plane dropped out of the sky in Alaska the other day, too.
I don’t know if you saw that and that killed 10 people. So it’s just Yeah, that one didn’t make the news that much. Oh, yes. Probably because it was between all these other big accidents in bigger cities. Yes, I did see that.
[00:28:57] Micah Tomasella: It was a smaller plane.
[00:28:58] Conner Jones: Yeah, it was like, you know, one of those bush planes in Alaska, but it had 10 people on board and just went missing.
[00:29:04] Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
[00:29:05] Conner Jones: Crazy stuff. What were we about to say? Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there.
[00:29:07] Micah Tomasella: No, let’s just get to the next one. So we had SNL 50. So Saturday Night Live had 15 million viewers. There were a ton of stars on it. I saw a lot of the highlights. I didn’t watch it. live because it was actually on Sunday night, right?
So it was Sunday night live and there was, you know, a nod to Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and the feud with Baldoni, a story that we covered last week and many viral clips and some funny and others just, you know, flying around social media because people were upset, you know, about certain things that kind of took place on it.
But, you know, did you watch it? Did you watch the thing Live? Did you watch it all? I
[00:29:40] Conner Jones: watched I it the, there’s a lot happening on Sunday night. I don’t know why they put this on Sunday night. I know. I’m trying to watch the final lapse of the Daytona 500. I’m trying to watch
[00:29:47] Micah Tomasella: Right, of course,
[00:29:48] Conner Jones: tune into a little bit of the all star NBA game.
Didn’t even end up making it there. I’m trying to watch a whole bunch of things. I got a, I got a crying baby. It was crazy. Oh man. No, I watched one or two skits, mostly saw the funniest parts on social media, which I’m gonna guess is how most people this’s what I did too. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I did think that the Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively kind of thing was a little awkward and did not land the way they hoped.
No,
[00:30:12] Micah Tomasella: it didn’t. And, but, you know, it was fun to see all those stars return. I mean, you know, there, you forget how many famous people got their start on Saturday Night Live. I mean, you, you forget. What a training ground that really was. I don’t think it’s the same as it used to be, but it catapulted so many careers of people who are A listers.
That’s kind of what I was reminded of when I was watching those clips.
[00:30:35] Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s seriously insane. It was awesome to kind of reflect back on that. Okay, moving on. We did have floods this week in Kentucky. I’m not sure if you saw this, but there have been 12 people killed in flooding in Kentucky. Yeah, really sad stuff.
Be praying for those communities there. Extreme rains. Okay. And then, Micah, I don’t know if you’ve seen that. It’s now come out that the U. S. is spying on Mexican cartels with drones over the country of Mexico, their own sovereign territory. I’m not sure. I, I assume the Mexican government is aware, but this is happening and it’s probably because Trump has designated Mexican cartels, drug cartels, human trafficking cartels, all of that as terrorist organizations.
So now they can use military. U. S. military resources to do whatever they want. This could spell that there’s drone strikes coming in the future if they’re going to try to get drug labs or any top targets or whatnot. So we’ll just see. That’s interesting, right?
[00:31:28] Micah Tomasella: Yeah. The, the executive orders to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations is a big step in what Trump was trying to do.
And this is, it allows The U. S. Government to take it up a notch to combat everything that kind of comes from cartels. That was a big part of the negotiations for Trump with these tariffs with Mexico and Canada that they would declare the cartels terrorist organizations as well. And they have. And so we’ll see what comes from this, but Did you also see what’s going on with the Pope’s health, Connor?
Have you seen some of those updates? He’s got like bad,
[00:32:00] Conner Jones: bad pneumonia. He’s in a bad situation. Yeah,
[00:32:02] Micah Tomasella: yeah. So Pope Francis is, he’s 88, right? And so he was hospitalized this week with pneumonia on both of his lungs with the Vatican saying he has a complex clinical picture requiring adequate hospitalization.
That is an interesting word picture there. So it’s something to keep an eye on. He’s looked to by a whole lot of Catholics around the world as kind of a forerunner for their faith. I mean, this is a big deal for a whole lot of people, and we need to be sympathetic to that. And, you know, obviously don’t want anything to happen to him or for it to end this way.
But he is 88. I didn’t realize he was at that age.
[00:32:36] Conner Jones: I didn’t realize that either. So yeah, we’ll keep an eye on that. Okay, something that’s impacting probably everyone listening to this, Micah. It’s killing me. These egg prices are just, I mean, I eat two eggs every morning. Sometimes three, sometimes four.
Astronomical. Big omelet guy here. And so I am having to cut down because these prices are insane. They have gone up in price 53 percent year over year. So right now an average for a dozen eggs is 4. 95. So just an insane amount of money compared to what we’re used to. And then this is really happening because there’s a big bird flu going around, wiping out just millions of chickens.
So until that gets repopulated, we may be suffering from these high prices for awhile. Maybe everybody needs to just go get their own chickens. I was
[00:33:23] Micah Tomasella: about to say, man, we have friends who have chickens and they’re definitely looking like the smart ones. They’re definitely looking like the smart ones and they’re definitely saving a lot of money too, I think.
[00:33:32] Conner Jones: They’re saving money and they honestly, they could be making money. They really wanted to. They could sell eggs. I’m sure people would pay for.
[00:33:37] Micah Tomasella: That’s right. That’s right. That’s true. Okay. So we’re, so we’re also in, you know, you talked about bird flu. Let’s talk about flu season. So we’re in a severe flu season right now and health officials report that this flu season is the worst in 15 years with estimates of 29 million cases across the country.
So this is, this has been a pretty bad flu season. There’s been entire school districts in the DFW area shut down because of how flu has affected the entire school district. I mean, which has just been kind of crazy.
[00:34:08] Conner Jones: It feels like I know somebody in every facet of my life that has the flu or just got, you know, recovered from the flu.
So bad season. I’ve avoided it so far. Hopefully you do too. Right,
[00:34:20] Micah Tomasella: right.
[00:34:21] Conner Jones: Okay, Micah. Also, big thing, Elon Musk and the Doge Department, Department of Government Efficiency are continuing to just implement serious budget cuts across federal agencies and reducing government spending. And a lot of that is happening through layoffs, so there’s just mass layoffs happening across the government.
People are concerned that things that are extremely important are going to be cut. That’s already happened, actually. They, I think, laid off like 300 nuclear. People from an agency this past weekend and had to rehire them back because they realized that those are the people who manage the nuclear stockpile.
Just something interesting there. And then on top of that, in the private sector, Southwest Airlines, and this is big for the Dallas area because that is where Southwest Airlines is headquartered, announced this week that they are reducing their corporate workforce by 15%. And it equates to almost 2, 000 positions.
This is the first time Southwest Airlines has ever done mass layoffs. A lot of this is because a private equity company came in and bought up a big chunk of their, just, stake in stock. And now So this is kind of the result of that and trying to recalibrate to a new airline and aviation world post COVID.
So my goodness, we’ve got some personal friends that work there and all that. So shout out to all of our Southwest people stay strong.
[00:35:30] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, definitely tough time praying and hoping that they land on their feet. That’s definitely tough. Connor, tell us about what’s going on with the New York mayor.
[00:35:37] Conner Jones: Yeah, I’ll make this brief, but essentially we need to keep an eye on this. Everybody keep an eye on this. Eric Adams. Was charged with and I think September of last year, bribery, fraud, and soliciting foreign campaign donations. Not a great things. He’s the, you know, mayor of New York and that’s a very Big political office bigger than most governorships in America.
So this is very crucial to just that economy and honestly the U. S. Because of that, he took a lot of heat. But then Trump’s Department of Justice went ahead and just cleared him of all those charges and told the federal prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams. Obviously this has been rebuked across the board from Democrat leaders and New York City leaders.
So the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, Is consulting with other Democrat leaders to figure out what they should do. And she does have the power to actually just remove him from office. It’s never happened before, has been considered before, but would obviously be a massive move for something. That’s wow, really, it’s just somebody that millions of people voted for to be the leader of their city.
So we’ll see what happens. She suggested this week that she is. Considering it,
[00:36:41] Micah Tomasella: that would be, that would be very interesting. There’s obviously a lot of things on the peripheral with this, right? There’s, there’s a lot of things of, Hey, Trump is kind of supporting this guy. Trump is letting this guy get off scot free and easy from their perspective.
I mean, all of these things he was accused of, I don’t actually know what the truth is here as far as if he actually did some of those things. Oftentimes it’s, it’s kind of in the middle. You know, it’s like he might have done some of those things, but maybe not all those things, you know, it’s kind of how it ends up.
So that would be really interesting if she did that. But, Conor, let’s talk about, let’s talk about this new Captain America movie. So the latest Captain America film has received an underwhelming response, underwhelming reviews and low, low end box office returns from what’s expected from a Marvel film, specifically a Captain America type Marvel film, not a good omen for the future of Marvel.
And honestly, Conor, I. I saw a preview for a Marvel movie that I hadn’t heard of last week, and I just caught myself rolling my eyes. I am almost just Thunderbolts movie. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. Just like this. This group of people that they were trying to introduce as new heroes. I just found myself like, I’m kind of done.
Marvel had its day. I just kind of feel that way. I think a lot of people do.
[00:37:51] Conner Jones: Yeah, it’s kind of sad. Remember when we used to go to the midnight premieres in college? Oh man, to all those big Marvel movies and they’d come in, now we’re kind of like, and they were always so good. Yeah, they were always so good.
Absolutely zero desire to see this Captain America movie, sadly. Anyways, last thing, I feel like we should mention this. There is an asteroid headed towards Earth. That’s fun. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Trying to, trying to make it sound more positive. News you can use, man. News you can use. Yeah. So basically NASA is saying in 2032, there is a 3.
1 percent chance that this asteroid hits earth. So you’ve got a few years to prep. If you feel like doing that, here’s the kicker. They keep increasing the chances every few days. So two weeks ago, they were saying there was a 1. 2 percent chance this asteroid hits earth. And now it’s 3. 1% and it kind of keeps going up a few percentage points every day.
So hopefully it stops. This is the highest on record at NASA. What’s up?
[00:38:47] Micah Tomasella: Aren’t they calling this asteroid the City Destroyer?
[00:38:52] Conner Jones: I don’t know. Is that what, are we giving it a name now?
[00:38:54] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, they literally were calling it like the City Destroyer, right? Because it’s going to be big enough to wipe out like a large city.
It’s something like
[00:39:01] Conner Jones: 300 feet wide. It’s essentially the size of a football field, which would destroy. A city, my guess is if it did hit earth, it would land in the ocean somewhere, but that could be tsunami. I mean, it’s going to be bad no matter what happens.
[00:39:12] Micah Tomasella: Even if it does hit earth, the odds that it hits a very populated area is low, right?
So I mean, within that 3. 1%, the odds get even smaller if it does impact, but yes.
[00:39:24] Conner Jones: Anyways, keep an eye on that one. Yep. Micah, all this to say, there’s a lot going on just in our world. Obviously, we just went through a whole bunch of things happening this week alone. I would say, I’m very guilty of this. I’m sure a lot of people are.
It’s so easy to be just overwhelmed by it and even let all this stuff be a distraction. And that’s one of the reasons we want to do this podcast. We want to just give it all to you in an hour so that you’ve got, or even less than an hour sometimes so that you’ve got it all and you don’t need to think about it that much more unless you want to take a big spiritual application to it and say, okay, let me pray about this or whatnot.
All that to say in times like this where it just feels like you’re overwhelmed or anxious about everything going on in the world, just draw near to God and he will draw near to you. That’s what James 4, 8 says. If you’re anxious about all that’s happening, Draw near to God. If you’re constantly in like go, go, go mode and have a mind full of thoughts and you’re struggling to sleep And you feel like you can’t separate what from what’s going on in your life and your personal life or just everything in the news And in the world Draw near to God.
I would say if you need help with that, we have a great resource that we could recommend. That’s actually one of our other brands here at Denison Ministries. That’s First15 Devotionals. I think Mike and I can both attest to the fact that that has been a very powerful resource for us individually. I would go to First15.
org. That’s First15. org. I’ll link that in the show notes. It’s daily devotionals. It’s got worship and scripture reflection. And it’s very peaceful. It’s for the first 15 minutes of your day. Couldn’t recommend it more.
All right, Micah, we got a great email this week from a listener. Love to talk about that. Why don’t you take us through it over in the mailbag?
[00:41:04] Micah Tomasella: Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s jump into the mailbag. So we want to continue to hear from you all. Please send us your questions or thoughts or topic ideas to culturebrief at denisonforum.org. Our listeners have been so good about this. Continue to send it.
We want to talk about what you want to talk about. So we got this fantastic question in this conversation starter in from one of our listeners this past week. Katharine, thank you for this question, Katharine. All right. So here’s what she says.
Let’s talk about childhood hobbies and sports. Connor, we know you collected coins and stamps. The whole world. I heard this last week that you are an avid coin and stamp collector. You still might be, you didn’t even really say that, but what hobbies and sports did you play Connor and do you play any instruments?
[00:41:49] Conner Jones: Okay. Let’s clarify a few things. I don’t collect those things anymore. I was never like a super avid collector of stamps and coins, but I have a decent, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Some boxes full of those things. Anyways. Today, I don’t play any instruments. You don’t want to hear me sing or try to play an instrument.
My musical talent is basically non existent. Just lives in my head and in the, you know, singing in the shower type of situation. That’s where I’m at with that. I did do theater. Which doesn’t necessarily bode well for somebody with no musical talent, but it was still fun did some and somebody who collected
[00:42:20] Micah Tomasella: coins and
[00:42:20] Conner Jones: stamps yeah fair anyways Sports wise, you know played some basketball played some soccer.
I hey, I played middle school basketball Guess what? I was the starting point guard on the C team of my middle school basketball team not the B team Not the A team, the C team. We were dropping dimes though, man. We were at the bottom of the barrel. You know what I’m saying? Anyways.
[00:42:44] Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
[00:42:44] Conner Jones: Honestly, Micah, I’m such a nerd.
I had two big hobbies when I was kind of a kid and growing up and I was watching movies. Just big, big movie buff and nerd. Watched movies all the time as a kid and as a teenager. And then I loved watching the news. It’s part of why I enjoyed doing something like this podcast because
[00:43:03] Micah Tomasella: I liked, I liked watching the news too.
[00:43:05] Conner Jones: Yeah, it was junkie. And of course sports and all that. But man, if when politics were happening, I’m watching every debate. I’m watching every like primary result roll in, everything there, anything going on in the news. I was watching, yeah, I was watching Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity as a kid on primetime every night.
So that was me. Kind of weird. What about you?
I was like a 40 year old man in an
[00:43:26] Micah Tomasella: eight year old’s body. So the question came in and kind of asked Connor and I the same thing. So Micah, what sports or hobbies did I play when, when I was or what was I involved in when I was a child, a teen, what did I collect and do I play an instrument? So sports played football through junior high, and then I played baseball and basketball throughout my life through high school, went to a small school.
So I’m not even sitting here and saying the fact that I was on those varsity teams was anything impressive, but I always did play sports. I always enjoyed it. It was kind of a big part of how I grew up. I also enjoyed the news as well. One of my hobbies was the news. One of my hobbies was also watching sports.
So some of my greatest memories are going to Rangers games. At the ballpark in Arlington, going to Cowboys games, even when the stadium was in Irving, going to Mavericks games and prime Dirk years you know, even going to stars games. I mean, I just, those are some of my best memories of just watching those games or going to those games.
Whenever I got to go, the few times I got to go or just huge memories and moments for me was big into politics, news, love sports, all of that stuff. Now, did I collect anything? I collected baseball and football cards. When I moved off to college a long time ago, I think my mom got tired of holding on to them, and so we decided to get rid of them.
Maybe I get rid of some valuable cards, I don’t know. Do I play an instrument? I Depending on who you ask, can sing. My mom says I sing like an angel. If you ask anybody else, it’s pretty debatable on if I can sing well or not. It just kind of depends on the day.
[00:45:07] Conner Jones: Why don’t you ask me right now? I can give you an answer.
Ask me. What do I think? Connor, can I sing? You sure you want me to answer that? You told me to ask you. I think you’re okay. You know? Would I hire you to lead a, a, a worship segment at a church? Probably not. Yeah, no, I don’t think I would either. Yeah. Would I do karaoke with you? Yeah, sure. You know, let’s get a shot.
[00:45:35] Micah Tomasella: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll take okay. I think, I think speaking has always kind of been more of a skill that I’m kind of better at than, than singing. So I’ll take that. That was a little bit more about us. Katharine, thank you for that question that allows us to kind of talk a little bit more about us and kind of what’s helped form us and what we’ve been into and what we continue to be into.
But let’s, let’s jump into this tune in section here, Connor, and let’s talk about what’s, what’s coming up. Tell us.
[00:46:00] Conner Jones: Yeah, so this week, here’s what we got. We’ve got quite a few shows coming out. Honestly, it feels like an inundation of just television shows right now. I can’t keep up with everything coming out, but did you see the trailer for the show?
House of David about King David from the Bible coming out
[00:46:15] Micah Tomasella: as on
[00:46:16] Conner Jones: prime?
[00:46:16] Micah Tomasella: I cannot. I cannot wait. It’s an MGM production, but then it’s also through this Christian production company. I mean, and I’ve been reading about it. It looks like it’s going to be legit and pretty biblically accurate. I mean, and if you just think about it, like 2025, a show filmed and shot just the, what we’re going to witness and see the life of David from Goliath to him becoming King to, I mean, I, I am very excited about this show.
[00:46:41] Conner Jones: Me too. I feel like it’s going to be similar to the chosen, but of course this old Testament. character and just awesome to see it lived out. Okay. Also on top of that, we’ve got, I know you’re big into this suits LA. A lot of the country has been waiting for this to come out because after the revival and Netflix, this is the spinoff that’s this weekend, Sunday night on NBC or Peacock, wherever you want to watch that.
So suits la is are any of the characters from the main suits gonna be in that
[00:47:09] Micah Tomasella: I don’t think so But in the trailer, they have a photo of Harvey Specter Who’s like the main character of the original suit show and they’re kind of implying he might make an appearance or two I mean and I’ll tell you what I’ll watch I’ll watch the whole season just to see him pop up once or twice I mean, I’m a big Harvey Specter fan.
[00:47:26] Conner Jones: Yeah, that’ll be fun. Especially if he does show up that’s gonna Probably break the internet. Okay. And then Netflix has the show called zero day coming out starring Robert De Niro something along the lines I like how really watch the trailer. Yeah, it’s like he’s a former president. There’s been a big terrorist attack in the u.
s And they bring him back in to help them figure out how to move the country forward and track down the terrorists, all of that. Interesting concept. I don’t know if it’s going to be any good. That releases, if you’re listening on Thursday, that releases tonight. If you’re listening after that, it’s already out, so go check that out on Netflix.
I mean, on
[00:47:59] Micah Tomasella: concept alone, I mean, that might be something I might check out with all of my spare time. Seriously, yeah. Just kidding, don’t have a whole lot of that, but that does sound like a really interesting concept. Okay, and then we’ve got full swing season. Season three coming out on Tuesday of next week on Netflix.
So full swing is like an all access to, to these players on the PGA tour, the live golf tour. I mean, it is, I mean, there is so many stories that’s going to cover Scotty Shuffler getting arrested there for a second when he was I mean, I just all kinds of stuff with Rory and then his divorce, but then not divorce.
I mean, all the things in that trailer, I was like, my goodness, this was a huge year in golf. I cannot wait to watch it.
[00:48:39] Conner Jones: Yeah, dude, it’s, it’s always been really good. The last two seasons have been great. It’s similar. If you’ve ever watched the F1 show on Netflix, it’s similar to that. Just get an access to the behind the scenes of the sports where you’re seeing the parts that you don’t ever get to
[00:48:52] Micah Tomasella: see.
Yeah. Yeah. Any kind of sports show like hard knocks, you know, they’ve done one called quarterback. They’ve done one called receiver. I mean, it’s, it. It’s definitely just more of an in depth look on the day to day lives of professional athletes. And it’s definitely worth checking out.
[00:49:06] Conner Jones: Yeah. It’s fun.
Even if you don’t like golf, it’s actually, I think for both of us, our wives started to get my wife started watching the show. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. And then the big one, we already mentioned this, but Thursday night, tonight is the U S versus Canada hockey game in this four nations face off tournament. This is the championship game.
Let’s go USA. If you’re from Canada, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably going down. Hopefully we get some good fights and yeah. I’m just, dude, those three fights in nine seconds. I’m like ready to play some like free bird. Let’s get this going.
[00:49:42] Micah Tomasella: You’re going down, Canada. I’m all in on it, man. I’m all, I’m all in.
Go USA. Okay. Guys, thank you so much for joining us for this week’s episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please please subscribe, and please rate and review the show wherever you consume the podcast.
And share with a friend. We’ll see you next Thursday.
Secretary Marco Rubio, with from left, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, attend a meeting together at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 18, 2025. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
U.S. and Russian officials have reportedly agreed on a framework that could see the end of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but at a potentially steep price for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, the meeting culminated in an agreement to form “high-level teams,” led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to draft a peace agreement, as reported earlier by The Gateway Pundit.
The U.S. delegation also includes National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Ambassador Steve Witkoff.
According to Sergey Lagodinsky, a German lawyer and a Member of the European Parliament, wrote on X:
According to my sources: the proposal by Trump consists of 3 stages:
1) a ceasefire 2) ELECTIONS in Ukraine 3) signing of a final agreement.
BREAKING: According to my sources: the proposal by #Trump consists of 3 stages:
1) a ceasefire 2) ELECTIONS in Ukraine 3) signing of a final agreement.
This is complete fulfillment of all #Putin desires.
Especially the election part is a gift by Trump to Putin. Putin…
This sentiment was echoed by Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, stating:
The US and Russia are proposing a three-stage peace plan, according to multiple foreign diplomatic sources close to the talks in Saudi Arabia. The plan includes a ceasefire, elections in Ukraine, then signing of a final agreement.
Multiple foreign diplomatic sources tell FOX the US and Russia consider holding new elections in Ukraine to be a key condition for the success of the settlement process. This piece is certain to stir controversy, as Russia does not hold true elections and the Ukrainians balk at the prospect of installing a pro-Russia puppet president.
A US source familiar with the negotiations softens this claim – telling me people are “floating” the elections piece – and “it may be part of future talks, but not today.”
Ukraine also disputes the notion that Zelenskyy’s popularity is too low to win reelection, even without Russian interference, citing his refusal to sign anything in Munich.
Multiple foreign diplomatic sources provided this readout from the Ukrainian side: “Putin assesses the probability of electing a puppet president as quite high and is also convinced that any candidate other than the current President of Ukraine will be more flexible and ready for negotiations and concessions. In turn, D. Trump is ready to accept any election result, including the possibility of election of a pro-Russian puppet. D. Trump and V. Putin consider the chances of the current President of Ukraine being re-elected as low.”
NEWS w/ @NanaSajaia – US/Russia 3 stage peace proposal would force new Ukraine elections: foreign diplomatic sources
The US and Russia are proposing a three-stage peace plan, according to multiple foreign diplomatic sources close to the talks in Saudi Arabia. The plan includes…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met withRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today as a follow up to President Donald Trump’s conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 12. Secretary Rubio was joined by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Ambassador Steve Witkoff, the team chosen by President Trump to reestablish the bilateral relationship. Foreign Minister Lavrov was joined by Russian Aide to the President Yuri Ushakov.
President Trump wants to stop the killing; the United States wants peace and is using its strength in the world to bring countries together. President Trump is the only leader in the world who can get Ukraine and Russia to agree to that.
We agreed to:
Establish a consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions.
Appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.
Lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities which will emerge from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine.
The parties to today’s meetings pledge to remain engaged to make sure the process moves forward in a timely and productive manner.
One phone call followed by one meeting is not sufficient to establish enduring peace. We must take action, and today we took an important step forward.
We would like to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
WATCH:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlines three points on U.S. and Russia discussions to end the war in Ukraine after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia:
1 – Reestablish diplomatic facilities in each respective country. 2 – Appoint a high level… pic.twitter.com/tFQ04RqLKf
It can be recalled Volodymyr Zelensky canceled the elections in Ukraine.
This comes after, in May 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law No. 7172-1 that will ban opposition parties and seize their property. The law targets opposition parties if they deny the armed aggression against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy also closed all of the TV stations and consolidated them into one state-run channel.
In December 2022, after banning all TV platforms in Ukraine into one state broadcast, jailing political rivals, and restricting political parties, Zelensky banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In a related development, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has canceled his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, choosing instead to return to Kyiv from Ankara.
NEWS: Zelenskyy CANCELLING trip to Saudi Arabia following US/Russia talks
A source with the direct knowledge tells @NanaSajaia Zelenskyy will now return to Kyiv from Ankara, Turkey.
He is on a previously planned trip – was in UAE yesterday, Turkey today, and was scheduled to…
On Sunday, Ukrainian president Zelensky sat down with far-left ABC News reporter Kristen Welker.
This comes after a Saturday when Zelensky could not stop ranting about the upcoming peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
Zelensky on Saturday told reporters it would be more dangerous if President Trump speaks with Putin first before he speaks with Ukraine.
“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. Our people—never. Our adults and children, everybody—it can’t be so. This is a war in Ukraine against us, and it’s our human losses,” said Zelensky.
Meanwhile, globalists convened a panicked meeting in Paris amid fears that Trump might bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
This comes after the Trump administration has decisively barred Europe’s elitist cabal from participating in crucial peace negotiations
Today in Paris we reaffirmed that Ukraine deserves peace through strength.
Peace respectful of its independance, sovereignty, territorial integrity, with strong security guarantees.
Europe carries its full share of the military assistance to Ukraine.
Ready and willing. That’s my take from today’s meeting in Paris. Europe is ready and willing to step up. To lead in providing security guarantees for Ukraine. Ready and willing to invest a lot more in our security. The details will need to be decided but the commitment is clear. pic.twitter.com/Y4ClrX94Qe
️ WATCH: Keir Starmer’s address to the nation after meeting with European leaders in Paris for an emergency summit on Ukraine
“Ukraine must have a secure future, Europe must have a secure future, Britain must have a secure future, and democratic values must prevail” pic.twitter.com/KuHOJsr5JH
KYIV — To date, the United States has allocated approximately $177 billion worth of aid to Ukraine, but the war-torn nation reports they have received less than half. Now Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is asking for another $20 billion so he can find out what happened to the $101 billion dollars that was somehow lost.
“In order to locate the missing funds, we will need more funds,” said Zelenskyy. “That’s just basic economics. And if you don’t give it to us then you hate Ukraine and democracy.”
Given that the money would have arrived in the form of humanitarian aid or weapons, some officials have questioned exactly how Zelenskyy can be so sure he was shorted the funds, to which he replied, “I don’t know, that’s what I need the $20 billion for.”
According to sources, former President Joe Biden’s inability to end hidden junk fees may the the reason Ukraine is short on funds.
“Sleepy Joe said he’d end junk fees and didn’t do anything about it,” said President Trump. “He never should have put Wells Fargo in charge of Ukraine.”
“Ukraine has been at war with Russia since 2022 and that costs a lot of money,” economist John Havorthorpe said. “If they don’t find the missing funds soon they may have to resort to begging for foreign aid — again.”
At publishing time, Congress voted to reallocate funds intended for victims of the LA fires and give them to Ukraine so they could find out what happened to their missing money.
Travis is back on his mission to interview everyone. Next on the list is celebrity chef and restaurateur Andrew Gruel.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is demanding Ukraine provide the United States with access to its vast reserves of rare earth minerals in exchange for continued military and financial assistance.
“We’re telling Ukraine, they have very valuable rare Earth. We want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office.
“We’re handing them money hand over fist. We’re giving them equipment. [The] European [Union] is not keeping up with us. They should equalize.”
“Look, we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us. But they’re way below us in terms of money, and they should be paying at least equal.
“They should really be paying much more than us, but let’s say equal to us. And they’re billions and billions of dollars below. So we’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare Earth and other things,” Trump said.
🚨 President Trump wants a Guaranteed Right to Ukraines Rare Earth Minerals, at Least Equal to the Amount of aid the US Provided in War
This is pretty huge considering what’s there and what it’s worth:
Trump’s demand signals a dramatic shift from the Biden regime’s blank-check approach, which has funneled almost $200 billion in military and economic assistance to Kyiv since Russia’s 2022 invasion—often with little oversight.
With Ukraine’s government continuing to rely heavily on U.S. aid, Trump is making it clear that there will be no more free rides under his leadership.
As of September 30, 2024, U.S. funding for the Ukraine response had reached nearly $183 billion, with $130.1 billion committed and $86.7 billion already distributed, according to Ukraine Oversight.
Ukraine possesses significant reserves of critical minerals, including titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel, according to the World Economic Forum.
These minerals are essential for various high-tech industries, such as aerospace, defense, electronics, and renewable energy.
Russian forces have already captured key mining regions in Eastern Ukraine, including much of the coal-rich Donbas. However, vast supplies of strategic minerals remain under Ukrainian control in the Dnieper River basin and the Carpathian Mountains.
The United States relies heavily on imports for many of these critical minerals, with China currently dominating the global supply chain.
Reports indicate that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously entertained the idea of leveraging his country’s mineral wealth to maintain U.S. military support, according to New York Post.
A joint statement from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) last year confirmed that Zelensky was “excited” about working toward a strategic agreement regarding Ukraine’s trillion-dollar mineral reserves.
(UKRINFORM) — Ukraine has received military aid from the United States worth more than $70 billion, but claims that U.S. support has amounted to $100–200 billion are inaccurate, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He stated this in an interview with the Associated Press, according to Ukrinform.
BREAKING: Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says Ukraine only received around $75 billion of the $177 billion in aid sent by the United States.
“As the president of a country at war, I can say that we have received more than $75 billion [in U.S. aid]. But the claims that Ukraine has received $100 billion out of the $177 billion total, or even $200 billion, as some say, are simply not true. This is important because we are talking about specifics — we did not receive this aid in cash but in weapons. The total value of the weapons we received is just over $70 billion,” Zelensky said.
‘Martial law’ has kept Volodymyr Zelensky in office.
Amid what US President Donald J. Trump called ‘very serious’ – if still-secret – peace discussions with Russia, some aspects of the sought agreement have started to leak to the press.
One of the most relevant so far is that the US wants Ukraine to hold elections by the end of the year, especially if Kiev signs a ceasefire with Russia in the coming months, according to President Trump’s Ukraine envoy.
“Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, ‘need to be done’.
‘Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so’, Kellogg said. ‘I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running’.”
Trump and Kellogg are working on a plan to achieve a deal in the first months of the new administration, to reach an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
So far, they have offered few details about their strategy for ending it.
“The Trump plan is still evolving, and no policy decisions have been made, but Kellogg and other White House officials have discussed in recent days pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia, two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former U.S. official briefed about the election proposal said.”
If elections took place in Ukraine, the winner would be responsible for negotiating a longer-term pact with Moscow, the sources said.
How would this be greeted in Kiev? It’s unclear. Zelenskiy has said elections could be held this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place for Ukraine.
“A senior adviser to Kyiv and a Ukrainian government source said the Trump administration has not yet formally requested Ukraine hold presidential elections by the end of the year.
Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024, but presidential and parliamentary polls cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022. […] It could also ignite political instability, the source said, because it would make Zelenskiy a lame duck, diluting his power and influence and fueling jockeying by potential challengers.”
Officially, Russian diplomats say that direct contacts between Moscow and the Trump administration were not yet underway.
The Russian Foreign Ministry says it is still waiting for the US to approve its new ambassador in Washington, a post currently unoccupied.
Putin does not think Zelensky is a legitimate leader in the absence of a renewed electoral mandate and has stated that he does not have the legal right to sign binding documents related to a potential peace deal.
Some of the big papers have been able to survive only by having some multimillionaire bail them out with his own money and be willing to absorb the ongoing financial losses.
Why is this? I submit that one big reason is that most Americans simply do not trust the media. They have come to see the media as just an unofficial mouthpiece for the federal government, especially the national-security branch of the government, the branch that rules the roost.
A good example of this phenomenon relates to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The official narrative is that the invasion was an unprovoked war of aggression, much like the U.S. government’s unprovoked invasion of and war of aggression against Iraq.
But the undisputed evidence establishes beyond any doubt whatsoever the contrary. The evidence establishes that after the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO remained in existence, which was quite unusual, to say the least. That’s because the ostensible reason that NATO was brought into existence was to supposedly protect Western Europe from an attack by the Soviets.
Even worse, NATO began moving eastward, absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact, and moving inexorably in the direction of Russia’s border. And this occurred in violation of promises made by U.S. officials to Russian officials that that would never happen.
Throughout the absorption process, Russian officials continually stated, “Stop it. Stop bringing your missiles, troops, weapons, tanks, and military bases closer to our border.” But U.S. officials, operating through NATO, refused to stop it. They just kept moving eastward until they finally threatened to absorb Ukraine.
As they proceeded with their absorption campaign, U.S. officials knew exactly what Russia’s reaction would be. It would be the same reaction that the U.S. had when the Soviets installed their nuclear weapons in Cuba. If the Soviets had refused to remove those nuclear weapons, the U.S. would have invaded Cuba, just as the Russians invaded Ukraine to prevent Ukraine from being absorbed into NATO.
We have reached such a pivotal moment in world history. During his time in the White House, Joe Biden brought us closer to nuclear war with Russia than ever before. If Kamala Harris had won the election, I am convinced that a nuclear war with Russia would have almost certainly happened during her term. But Donald Trump won the election instead, and now he has a historic opportunity. He can end the conflict in Ukraine and avoid a nuclear war with Russia. If he is able to do that, he will save countless lives. However, if he handles this situation with Russia badly and nuclear missiles start flying back and forth, it will be the end of America as we know it today.
It is not going to be easy to end the war in Ukraine. Anyone that suggests otherwise simply does not understand the dynamics that are at play.
The good news is that unlike Biden, Trump actually wants to make a deal, and on Wednesday he posted a message on Truth Social in which he revealed quite a bit about what he is thinking…
I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin – and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX. We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!
I very much agree with Trump that we need to end this ridiculous war.
But Trump needs to be very careful. Diplomatic finesse will be required to reach an agreement, and making threats is not going to help at all.
In particular, telling Russia that we “can do it the easy way, or the hard way” is not going to move the needle in the right direction.
Precisely what would “the hard way” look like?
Would that mean greatly escalating the conflict in Ukraine?
Already, Trump is calling on the Europeans to substantially increase their financial support for the war…
Additionally, the U.S. President reiterated his call for European Union nations to step up their contributions to support Ukraine, calling for an extra $200 billion [USD].
I understand what Trump is trying to do.
He has repeatedly expressed his desire for “peace through strength”, and so he is attempting to get leverage on the Russians.
But issuing threats could threaten the temporary “window of opportunity” that we have right now.
In fact, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov just stressed that the “window of opportunity” that has opened up is “a small one”…
‘Compared to the hopelessness in every aspect of the previous White House chief (President Joe Biden), there is a window of opportunity today, albeit a small one,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies in Moscow.
‘It’s therefore important to understand with what and whom we will have to deal, how best to build relations with Washington, how best to maximise opportunities and minimise risks.’
Hopefully the two sides will sit down and talk very soon, because if an agreement does not happen in the coming months there probably will not be one at all.
And when talks do commence, they will be quite tricky.
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that the Russians must be allowed to keep all of the territory in Ukraine that they have conquered and NATO forces will not be allowed on Ukrainian territory once the conflict is over…
Putin has repeatedly said that he is ready to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine but that Russia’s current control of 20% of Ukrainian territory will have to be accepted and that Ukraine must remain neutral.
On the other side, the Ukrainians have no intention of accepting what Russia is offering.
The Ukrainians want all of their territory back, and President Zelensky just told that world that he wants “a minimum of 200,000 European soldiers” on Ukrainian soil once the war has concluded…
Zelensky said “a minimum of 200,000 European soldiers will be required to secure Ukraine after any peace deal is reached.”
“A minimum, otherwise it’s nothing,” he said, emphasizing the need to keep Putin in check.
He also decried Russia’s demand to cut Ukraine’s army down to a fifth of its current size of 800,000 troops, saying that would leave the country defenseless.
The Russians will absolutely not accept NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine.
In fact, during a recent broadcast Russian television host Vladimir Solovyov issued an ominous warning to “every mother in Europe”…
During a state TV broadcast, he furiously declared, “[The West] don’t understand that we can easily destroy all these countries, at least their capitals, which send peacekeepers….”, reports the Express US. “For us, these are not peacekeeping troops, but interventionists. And we will kill them all. The French, the English, the ******* Germans.”
Addressing his audience across 11 Russian time zones on Kremlin-controlled state TV, he said, “I just want you to translate my words carefully so that they reach the consciousness of every mother in Europe. You will send your sons and they will all be destroyed. And if that happens, thanks to your politicians, war will come to your homes.”
That is rather chilling.
Unfortunately, Solovyov represents what mainstream Russians are thinking.
The Russians will not accept NATO troops in Ukraine under any circumstances, and the Russians will not give any territory back.
And with each passing day, the Russians are taking even more territory.
It literally will take a major miracle to end this war.
But now Trump has his chance. He is the master of “the art of the deal”, and so let’s see what he can do.
I just hope that he realizes that the fate of our society hangs in the balance.
Five days separate us from the historic January 20th, when Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States – but as of now, considerable progress has already taken place in one of the key foreign policy issues facing the new administration: the peace process to end the war in the Ukraine, and a new security architecture that will defuse tensions between the nuclear superpowers US and Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held his annual press conference in Moscow, and although he had criticism toward the UDS on a range of subjects, he did bring warm words of praise towards new President Trump.
He especially commended Trump’s analysis pointing at NATO’s plan to include Ukraine as one of the root causes of the conflict.
Lavrov reiterated that peace talks have to include ‘broader arrangements for security in Europe’.
“Trump said Russia had it ‘written in stone’ that Ukraine’s membership in NATO should never be allowed, but the Biden administration had sought to expand the military alliance to Russia’s doorstep. Trump added that, ‘I could understand their feelings about that’.”
US-Russia peace talks are now a reality.
Trump’s comments lift the seriousness of discussion, moving away from the tired old trope of denouncing Russia’s action as ‘an unprovoked act of aggression’.
“’NATO did exactly what it had promised not to do, and Trump said that’, Lavrov said. ‘It marked the first such candid acknowledgement not only from a U.S. but any Western leader that NATO had lied when they signed numerous documents. They were used as a cover while NATO has expanded to our borders in violation of the agreements’.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps insisting for an invitation for Kiev to join NATO, but at this point it’s become clear it’s a no-no.
Trump is determined to end the madness in Ukraine, and has declaring earlier this month that ‘Putin wants to meet’, adding that the meeting is being set up.
Incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on “This Week” on ABC. 1/12/25
Minister Lavrov reminded that President Vladimir Putin is open for talks with Trump, and Moscow wants to hear Trump’s view on Ukraine when he takes office.
“Lavrov also praised comments by Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who said Sunday it’s unrealistic to expect that Ukraine could drive Russian forces ‘from every inch of Ukrainian soil’.
‘The very fact that people have increasingly started to mention the realities on the ground deserves welcome’, Lavrov said during his annual news conference in Moscow.”
Lavrov acknowledged Joe Biden’s plans to sabotage as much as he can the incoming administration, ‘slamming the door’ before Trump arrives.
One vital aspect of the Russian position is that the peace talks ‘must address Russia’s security concerns and reflect a broad European security environment’.
“’Threats on the western flank, on our western borders, must be eliminated as one of the main reasons (of the conflict)’, he said. ‘They can probably be eliminated only in the context of some broader agreements’.”
Scooters and Motorcycles have become effective means of transportation on the front.
If we were to listen to the MSM – which we hardly ever do – we’d think the Russians have an old-fashioned, antiquated army saddled with a Soviet backwards mentality.
This MSM-fantasy army would only ever advance due to ‘mass meat attacks’, losing a trillion soldiers a day.
The reality is that, not only has the Russian military industrial complex outpaced all NATO countries, but also the Russian troops have shown a level of improvisation and sophistication that is astonishing – and their losses have been progressively diminishing.
Russian losses are way down, despite MSM’s narrative – source pro-Ukraine MEDIAZONA.
MSM now has to admit that the conquerors are swarming Ukrainian positions with seemingly simple but deadly strategies, using electric scooters, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and also on foot – the days of the long lines of armored cars advancing is over, they’ve become sitting ducks to air force, the myriads of drones and field artillery.
Watch: Russian soldiers moving on electric scooters near the frontline.
Two Russian soldiers decided instead of walking 35km on these impassable roads, they’d get e-scooters instead. Now they don’t have to walk, but on the downside, they do have to watch out for the exploding batteries. pic.twitter.com/F7m4nO01Pf
“The Russian troops have also been increasingly using electric scooters, motorcycles and ATVs, which allow them to disperse quickly across the front, he said.
‘Hitting just one piece of equipment carrying 15 people, well, that’s possible, it can be done quite easily’, [Azov Lt. Col. Dmytro Pavlenko-Kryzheshevskyi] said. ‘But when those 15 people are riding electric scooters, then that’s a very big problem’.”
WILD: Russian soldier racing on a motorcycle to drop 30 kg of explosives into the trenches of Ukrainian defenders.
Relentless Russian attacks caused the lines of defense to crumble in parts of eastern Donetsk.
“The widespread assumption that Russia could not sustain this punishing pace of operations has proved misplaced, Ukrainian soldiers said.
‘It’s important to understand that they have significant reserves’, Colonel Pavlenko-Kryzheshevskyi said.”
Watch: footage of the breakthrough of Russian fighters in Rabotino, back in May. Soldiers of the 70th regiment on a motorcycle break through to enemy positions.
The most powerful footage of the breakthrough of Russian fighters in Rabotino.
Soldiers of the 70th regiment on a motorcycle break through to enemy positions.
⚡️🇷🇺Video of a Russian assault group from the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade's Zarya battalion that uses motorcycles in their assaults on the Siversk front. The bikes allow them to reach trenches faster and they are harder to spot. Their assaults are done in coordination with… pic.twitter.com/aEgD7oyjd6
The Ukrainian military has so far failed to stabilize its defensive lines.
“As Ukraine’s lines have fragmented along parts of the front, longstanding problems in troop management have grown more urgent, soldiers and analysts said.”
Russia has conquered around 1,300 square miles of land in 2024, the fastest gains since the very first months of the war.
Watch: take a ride along with Russian motorcycle soldiers as they deliver water and rations to troops in Krasnogorovka.
China and Russia are growing stronger and challenging U.S. dominance on the global stage. Meanwhile, terrorists within our own borders are becoming better armed and far more deadly. Amid this tensions and challenges, our military is not as effective as it needs to be.
From The Epoch Times. The United States isn’t prepared enough for a major war even as threats of one grow due to new technologies, greater access to advanced weaponry for malign actors, and heightened geopolitical tensions, defense analysts and insiders say. …
The RAND National Security and Research Division underscored this point in a 2024 report.
It stated current threats against the United States are the “most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.”
The report also cited expanding partnerships between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as part of the reason why any conflict could escalate and drag the United States into a “multitheater or global war.”
It said a conflict of such a scale isn’t sufficiently accounted for in U.S. military planning.
Compounding this is the lack of preparedness of the U.S. military noted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
On its website, the agency states that two decades of near-perpetual conflict have eroded the readiness of America’s armed forces.
The GAO states that the U.S. military faces imminent challenges such as equipment modernization, maintenance, realistic funding, and service member fatigue. …
China’s Buildup
In a 2024 report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) observed that China is investing in munitions and advanced warfare weaponry five to six times faster than the United States.
Beijing also has an estimated 230 times larger shipbuilding capacity.
This becomes concerning within the context of escalating military tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in the Taiwan Straight and the Korean Peninsula. …
Enemy Within
Some defense professionals say the number of antagonistic forces already operating inside the United States isn’t something U.S. officials can afford to brush off.
“Everything that’s happened, what we’re seeing now, did not happen in a vacuum,” Anthony Mele, president of AMI Global Security, told The Epoch Times. …
Mele said a more relaxed attitude toward illegal immigration has inadvertently created an “enemy within” while giving criminal organizations and hostile nations a vast pool of sympathizers to recruit from. …
Nuclear Threat
In June, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned of an increased risk of a nuclear conflict. …
Mele believes U.S. foreign policy is in dire need of revisions to avoid a direct conflict with another nation, especially a nuclear one.
This point was highlighted in November when outgoing President Joe Biden reportedly authorized the use of long-range U.S. missiles in Ukraine that ended with shots fired directly into Russia’s Kursk region. …
Mele compared the situation to throwing firecrackers through a neighbor’s window.
“Eventually, they’ll cross the street and punch you in the face,” he said, calling the conflict between Russia and Ukraine a “World War III trip wire.” …
He believes there may be a chance for better foreign diplomacy in President-elect Donald Trump’s second term. …
Non-State Threats
Some experts noted that non-state actors are increasingly able to access weaponry as sophisticated as nations possess.
The expansion of criminal economies like radical terrorist groups and cartels into the traditional warfare space is a huge problem, Evan Ellis, an analyst and research professor for the U.S. Army War College, told The Epoch Times. …
They may even be getting closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon, he warned. …
Mele described U.S. security threats in terms of rings, with those on the inside presenting the most immediate danger. …
2024 ended with a BANG in the Donetsk region, disputed by Russia and Ukraine in some of the largest battles since WW2.
On the last day of December, the Russian 5th brigade raised their flag over the Kurakhovo industrial zone, last bastion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the city.
They really ruined the whole New Year for the Ukrainians.
Three factories in the Kurakhovo industrial zone are now under Moscow control.
Watch: Russian soldiers raised a flag near one of the buildings of the pipe plant.
Kurakhovo was the lynchpin of Ukrainian defenses in the region, and its fall opens the way for the Russian troops to Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub for Kiev.
The loss of Kurakhovo hurts Kiev from the economic standpoint as well, since the local coal mining area was the only place under Ukrainian control where coking coal was still being produced.
The loss of the coal plant kneecaps Ukraine’s steel production, and therefore its military industries.
Military sources report that these factories were the last fortified area of the Ukrainian defenders, completing the conquest of the town.
All that remains is to wait for an official report from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Kurakhovo, besides being a key logistics hub, was the last Ukrainian position for firing artillery shells towards Donetsk city. The 10-year siege against the breakaway regional capital is over.
Watch: Russian forces pound Ukrainian positions during the siege of Kurakhovo.
Donetsk Güney:
Kurakhove mevkiinde Rus hava kuvvetleri Ukraynanın Termik santralini FAB atışıyla vurdu. pic.twitter.com/UTw9Eft09v
As 2024 ends, the Russian Ministry of Defense Has divulged the numbers for the year – a significant result where they claim its forces ‘liberated’ 214 settlements (I say ‘conquered,’ Ukraine says ‘occupied’) in the special military operation zone in Ukraine and in the Russian Kursk region.
Some of the most significant successes of the year is the capture of the key cities of Avdeevka, Ugledar, and Selidovo.
And, as 2025 arrives, there are major ongoing sieges in Chasov Yar, Pokrovsk, Kurakhovo, among others.
The largest number of settlements that have been liberated are located in the Donetsk Region — no less than 157 cities and villages.
With the upcoming inauguration of Donald J. Trump as 47th US President, attention is focused on the possibility – probability, even – of real peace negotiations that will put this thing to rest.
Up until a while ago, the MSM was insisting on peace formulas emanating from the Kiev regime, which contradicts a basic formula of warfare – ‘to the victor, the spoils’.
The solution must logically address the conditions of the party that’s winning the confrontation – and that, of course, means Ukraine will cede land – a LOT of it.
It is calculated that Russia now controls around 20% of former Ukrainian territory – including almost all coastal areas. And it will keep it all, for starters.
Russian forces conquered 214 settlements in 2024.
Russian diplomats have made it repeatedly clear: negotiations are only possible following President Vladimir Putin’s ‘peace initiatives’.
“Russia and Ukraine may clinch a peace deal in 2025, which could envisage Moscow retaining territories it earlier liberated, the Financial Times has reported.
‘[Under the possible deal] Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy will agree to de facto but not de jure Russian control of the land it currently occupies, with some land swaps, in return for European security guarantees with US support, while Ukraine’s NATO accession is ultimately put on ice. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin will calculate that European resolve will eventually falter’, according to the newspaper.”
In the key region of Donetsk, Russian forces conqueres 157 settlements in 2024.
The Sputnik report also quotes the Die Welt weekly (originally in German, behind a paywall), which stated unequivocally that ‘territorial concessions to Russia are the only option for the Kiev regime in terms of peace negotiations’.
“’Ukraine is significantly weakened militarily: troop morale is falling and the number of deserters is rising. […] Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to give up Ukrainian territory for a ceasefire [talks]’, Die Welt pointed out.”
Trump has said that Zelensky told him that he ‘would like to make a deal’ to end the conflict.
“Putin, for his part, previously put forward initiatives for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, which, in particular, stipulate that Moscow will immediately cease fire and declare its readiness for negotiations after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of Russia’s new regions.”
There are a number of other conditions by Russia: no NATO for Ukraine, ever; demilitarization and de-Nazification; a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status of the country – and anti-Russian sanctions must be lifted.
Joe Biden’s handlers send billions more to Ukraine to prolong war.
Joe Biden’s handlers announced another $2.5 billion will be gifted to Ukraine.
Today’s multi-billion dollar donation included an additional $1.25 billion drawdown package for the Ukrainian military and a $1.22 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) package.
Biden’s handlers are hoping to escalated the Russia-Ukrainian conflict before the senile Democrat leaves office.
Who’s up for World War III?
The Biden team announced the latest donation early Monday morning on the White House website.
The Biden handlers continued:
I’ve directed my Administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible—including drawing down older U.S. equipment for Ukraine, rapidly delivering it to the battlefield, and then revitalizing the U.S. defense industrial base to modernize and replenish our stockpiles with new weapons. The Department of Defense is in the process of delivering hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, and hundreds of armored vehicles which will strengthen Ukraine’s hand as it heads into the winter. At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.
This latest giveaway to Ukraine follows the last giveaway of $1.25 billion to Ukraine that Biden announced on FRIDAY!
The Biden regime announced earlier this month they would give Ukraine a controversial $20 billion loan to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets. This was an unprecedented and dangerous move by America’s worst president in history.
In September, the Biden Regime announced an eye-watering $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington.
This massive giveaway comes as Americans continue to face economic hardships, skyrocketing inflation, and an unprecedented crisis at the southern border.
Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Congress has approved at least $175 billion in aid and military assistance for Ukraine.
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