Glenn talks to one of the few good journalists left in Washington, DC: Jake Tapper

On this morning's radio show, Glenn invited veteran reporter Jake Tapper onto the show. Regarded by many as one of the few good reporters in Washington, Tapper is often one of the only ones to ask the tough questions that matter regardless of who is in office. He talked to Glenn about his experience in Washington as well as his new book The Outpost: A Tale of Uncommon American Valor.

 

Transcript of interview is below:

GLENN: I remember I was working at CNN the day that we found out that Tim Russert had died and I was struck by the conversation in the newsroom because the CNN journalists were saying, "Well, they don't make him like anymore, they sure don't make them like Tim Russert." And I thought to myself, well, A, there's no printing press where people are ‑‑ you know, where somebody's making good journalists. It's up to the journalists to become good journalists. And their conversation wasn't just that he was a decent guy but he was fair and he was ‑‑ he was honest in his approach.

The way I can always tell a good journalist is they piss me off about half the time. They ask the tough questions and they'll ask it consistently no matter who it is. So a good journalist like Tim Russert will say the things and you're never really sure because he will ask the really tough questions and you're never sure is he ‑‑ is he a liberal or is he conservative? Which way does he go? Because he's just asking the question that should be asked. And as Tim Russert used to do, he will ask the tough questions that will make you cheer and then the next ‑‑ he will follow up with the next question and you're like, "Oh, come on, that's unbelievable."

We were talking the other day before the election. We were joking that, well, Jake Tapper's going to start pissing us off because Mitt Romney's going to win and he's perceived to be our guy and so now he'll ask the tough questions and we'll be like, oh, jeez, don't call on Jake Tapper. But that's the sign of a good journalist, one that asks the tough questions no matter who is in office. I believe Jake Tapper is the only one close to Tim Russert and I believe he is probably the best, most honest journalist out there and I think he probably despises me. But that's okay.

Jake Tapper is a senior White House correspondent and author of a new book called The Outpost: The Untold Story of American Valor and he's on program with us now, surprisingly. Hello, Jake, how are you, sir?

TAPPER: Well, let me just first of all thank you for having me on. I do not despise you, Glenn.

GLENN: I don't know. I just assumed that anybody who was in ‑‑

TAPPER: No. No, no, my ‑‑ I have limited reservoir of loathing and you do not earn any of it.

GLENN: All right. Well, that's a smart man. So Jake, I want to talk about ‑‑ I want to talk a little bit about your book because I think you have unique insight to many things, but one of them is what's happening in Afghanistan. And your book is called The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. Tell us about the story and why you wrote it.

TAPPER: I was in the hospital room, the recovery room with my wife and my newborn son Jack. This is October 3rd, 2009. Jack was a day old. And out of the corner of my eye, I caught a news report on, I think it was CNN, maybe Fox, of an outpost I had never heard of, combat outpost Keating that had been overrun by the Taliban that day. And I was holding my son and hearing about eight other sons taken from this world. And there was something about that moment that just captured me. I don't know if it was, you know, the Ecclesiastes nature of something being born while others are being killed or what it was, but the mystery of the outpost, of why it was put in the vulnerable place it was put, at the bottom of three steep mountains 14 miles from the Pakistan border, I waited for reports about why it was put there. And I wanted to hear about the soldiers who fought that day, 53 U.S. troops facing up to 400 Taliban. So outnumbered 7 or 8 to 1. And I never heard. I never heard. No one ever told me. The people covering the war had other things to cover. There were certainly no shortage of battles and things to cover in Afghanistan. So I'm not begrudging war reporters, but the media never provided the information for me and it just gnawed at me and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who these men were who died, I wanted to know why the outpost was there. That became a mystery that I needed to solve. Ultimately ‑‑

GLENN: So explain why it was because I mean, here ‑‑ this is a camp where our troops are sitting ducks.

TAPPER: Yeah, they were.

GLENN: Why was it put there?

TAPPER: Well, when the outpost ‑‑ the book traces the whole history of the outpost from 2006 through 2009. And when it was first put there, the idea was to put a lot of these little remote outposts all over Eastern Afghanistan for a lot of reasons, one of which was to stop insurgents from flowing across the border from the country that dare not speak its name, Pakistan, with bushels of weapons to kill U.S. troops. Another reason was to connect the locals with the Afghan government even though the locals in this part of the country didn't know there was such a thing as the Afghan government. And ultimately one of the reasons it was put in this spot was because this is a very mountainous part of Afghanistan, the base of the Hindu Kush mountain range and it needed to be near the road. And if you're going to be near a road, then you're going to be at the bottom of a mountain. The reason it needed to be near the road, not just to be close to the locals and also to monitor insurgents coming, using those roads was because most of the helicopters were in Iraq. So the only way to resupply the camp was on the road in a convoy and so that's why it was put there. And it was put there at a time when insurgent activity in that area was not that strong. Was ‑‑ you know, it was certainly something, nothing that you or I would like but certainly nothing like what was to come.

So it was a decision that was questionable in retrospect but more importantly the decision to keep it there, to keep that outpost there became increasingly questionable as the years went on.

GLENN: Do you even know why we're over in Afghanistan anymore?

TAPPER: The mission now ‑‑

GLENN: Not as a journalist. Not as a journalist. As an American. As a dad.

TAPPER: Yes. I do, I think, which is we are over there for two reasons. And this is ‑‑ one of them is a direct answer and one of them is more of a theoretical answer. The direct answer is we're there to train the Afghan forces so that they can take control when our troops leave. The theoretical answer is that we're there because we've been there for are so long, we need to make sure that when we leave, it wasn't all for naught. I think that's part of it.

GLENN: Do you believe ‑‑ I mean, Jake, I don't know how much, you know, you know about me really besides, you know, YouTube clips and everything else. But I'm a guy who has been questioning us in Afghanistan with great vigor since Bush was in office.

TAPPER: I know. I know.

GLENN: Nobody in the Bush administration was a fan of mine, either. So this isn't about, you know, parties. This is just about wars that just don't make sense. It just doesn't ‑‑ we're not ‑‑ it's, you know, this idea that we can sacrifice our own to try to give something to a people that don't even begin to understand freedom the way we do and try to, you know, "Here, here's a gift," they don't, many of them don't want it or don't understand it and couldn't protect it. How do you suppose this ends?

TAPPER: That's a great question, Glenn. I think, I think it ends, first of all, it's not going to end in 2014 as you know even though Vice President Biden said, you know, count on it: We're going to leave by 2014. That's not really honest in terms of our true presence because we will have troops there after that. They won't be quote/unquote combat troops. They will be counterterrorist troops. They'll be elite forces of Green Berets and Navy SEALs ready to engage in, you know, counterterrorist missions.

I think it ends over several years. I think it ends with U.S. troops coming home, you know, most of U.S. troops coming home in 2014. I think it ends with a lot of fighting in Afghanistan and there will be I think setbacks and there will be some, some good news, not all bad news, and I think the U.S. will be there for some time. In the same way that, you know, Iraq is what it is but it's not ‑‑ you know, I wouldn't ‑‑ you know, I don't think you and I are planning any vacations there anytime soon.

GLENN: No, that's not exactly a paradise.

TAPPER: Right. But I mean, I think it's going to be long and drawn out before things settle down there, if they ever do.

GLENN: We're talking to Jake Tapper. Jake, you don't have to go very far in this book. You make it to Page 82 and you tell a master story, as a master storyteller. Tell the story about how the death of one soldier reaches his wife.

TAPPER: Do you want me to read it or ‑‑

GLENN: That's up to you.

TAPPER: I'll tell it.

GLENN: Yeah.

TAPPER: Joe Fenty is a character in the book. He was a lieutenant‑colonel and he and his wife, he was a career military. He and his wife Kristin had gone, they were college sweethearts and they had not had a child. Kristin had had some health issues but then she finally got pregnant and she was 40 and Joe Fenty, lieutenant‑colonel Fenty was commander of 371 cav pushing in order into this part of Afghanistan. And their baby was born, Lauren, in just a few weeks before this one mission that Joe Fenty went on when he was extracting his troops from these mountain ranges. One of the things I think a lot of people don't understand about Afghanistan, probably because we in the media don't cover it well enough, is that one of the things that's so dangerous over there is not just the Taliban. It's the land. The mountains are difficult. The roads are narrow and weak. And they're not ‑‑ our combat equipment is not designed for this mountainous terrain.

So Joe Fenty ultimately on this mission, which he did not have to be on but he wanted to be there to command and control from the helicopter as they were extracting U.S. troops from these mountains if killed in a helicopter crash. Ten American soldiers are killed that day, it's May 2006. And in fact, you may recently have heard just a few days ago, and maybe it was even yesterday, there was a suicide attack by Taliban soldiers at forward operating base Fenty, named after Joe Fenty in Jalalabad.

So a major, Timmons, Rich Timmons gets permission from his boss and lieutenant‑colonel Fenty's boss, colonel Nicholson, Mick Nicholson, who's now a general, to go up on top of a mountain and using his satellite phone call his wife to make sure that she, who is on vacation with their kids in Disney World and I guess at that point in Pennsylvania racing back to Fort Drum in New York so that she, Gretchen Timmons, can be by Kristin Fenty's side. Kristin Fenty has a three‑ or four‑week‑old baby Lauren and her college sweetheart has just been killed in a helicopter crash and he wanted to make sure that she had support around her. That's against army protocols but Colonel Nicholson let Major Timmons do that. He reaches his wife, she gets in her car with her mother‑in‑law and kids and races back to Fort Drum. She races up to Kristin Fenty's home, you know, to be there for her. Kristin Fenty opens the door, smiling, happy, holding Baby Lauren. Oh, my God, Gretchen Timmons says to herself. She doesn't know yet. Gretchen Timmons makes small talk to Kristin Fenty, comes inside, they spend the day hanging out, watching TV. Gretchen Timmons watches Kristin Fenty pack a care package for the husband who will never get this care package. A news report comes on TV about this helicopter crash. They knew that there are only 20,000 troops in Afghanistan and the tenth mountain division is a major part of that. Probably somebody they know was killed in that crash. But Kristin Fenty is not told. The reason it takes so long is because the bodies were so badly burned on that mountainside, it took a long time to identify each one of the ten. In any case Gretchen Timmons ends the night at Kristin Fenty's. Kristin Fenty still doesn't know. Gretchen Timmons goes back to her house at Fort Drum and tells her mother‑in‑law Kristin still doesn't know. And it was one of the worst and most surreal days of Gretchen Timmons' life.

The next day she goes back, you know, before 7:00 in the morning, which is not so unusual for Army wives, and Kristin Fenty still doesn't know. Invites her in but now she's starting to suspect something's up because Gretchen Timmons makes up a ridiculous excuse about not having coffee and Gretchen Timmons is the kind of person who always has coffee. And then eventually there's a sound at the door. Kristin Fenty hears it and she thinks maybe that's just the wind. At this point she knows but she's lying to herself. Maybe that's just the wind at the door. But then she goes to the door and she sees Lieutenant‑colonel Mike Howard from across the street and a chaplain and she hands her baby to Gretchen Timmons and starts crying. And that's the end of that scene.

GLENN: The name of the book, The Outpost: The Untold Story of American Valor well worth the read by one of the only real functioning journalists I think in America that is left, Jake Tapper. Jake, let me switch gears here. You going up against Jay Carney and Robert Gibbs, pretty legendary. You're the only guy that seems to keep going in and keep questioning and using common sense and logic. The conservatives will say the press is either in bed, refuses to look at common sense and logic, or they're afraid of the administration. Why do you think you stand alone so often?

TAPPER: Well, you know, obviously I hear a lot of good questions from my colleagues. I ‑‑ it may be that I was early on asking tougher questions than others since a few others maybe. I don't know. You know, I do hear tough questions asked from my colleagues. So I mean ‑‑

GLENN: But it's not ‑‑ I will tell you this, that it's unusual and they're not the kind of questions that would have been asked by any other ‑‑ to any other administration. And if there are tough questions, they usually don't press them. They will say, "Well, that's because we have magic bunny rabbits in the backyard that are making more eggs." And you're like, "Oh, okay. No followup questions." Why is it, does it seem at least, or defend that it's not, why does it seem that there's just really, there's not a lot of pressure on this administration?

PAT: When it certainly seemed like there was pressure on Bush?

GLENN: Or anybody else, anybody else?

TAPPER: I mean, I think, you know, there is an argument to be made that the media didn't ‑‑ first of all let me just say there's no upside in my answering that question.

PAT: Yeah, that's ‑‑ either way that's what I was afraid of.

TAPPER: But I will say I think one of the things that informs how I ask the questions ‑‑ well, there are two things. One is substantive and one is stylistic. Substantively I don't think the media asks enough tough questions about WMD in the buildup to war in Iraq. I just, you know, I just think that is a matter of fact that the media at‑large failed in challenging intelligence assumptions leading up to the war in Iraq. So that informs everything I do because that's a responsibility that I feel the press didn't meet. Stylistically I'll just say that, like, I think early on ‑‑ see, when Gibbs was doing it, Gibbs and I, you know, we would spar all the time but nobody was filming it. So the first couple of times we did it and then I realized that there were TV cameras on us I think got some notice. And then I realized, you know, you can actually be more effective by asking tougher questions in a lower key voice.

GLENN: I have to tell you, I have to tell you, Jake, this ‑‑ I can't believe I'm saying this to you but I'm out of time. I would love to have you on another time because I really have profound respect for you. All of us do. Even though we may come from ‑‑ I have no idea and I don't really care, different political viewpoints, please keep going. Please keep doing your job and we'd love to talk to you again, sir.

TAPPER: Thanks, Glenn. Anytime. Sounds great. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas.

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

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A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

  Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

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By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

  

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

   USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

   Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

 

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.