Operation Underground Railroad Has Rescued 600+ Children From Sex Slavery

It's nearly impossible to comprehend the depravity required to turn another human being, especially a child, into a sex slave. But the stark reality is that it happens --- every day, all over the world.

In a riveting interview, Glenn talked with Tim Ballard and Jessica Mass of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), an organization created to free children trapped in sex slavery. Ballard founded O.U.R. after serving as an undercover special agent for the Department of Homeland Security in the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. His expert extraction teams consist of former CIA, Navy SEALs and Special Ops operatives that lead coordinated efforts with law enforcement throughout the world. To date, O.U.R. has rescued more than 600 children.

"What happens when you take these 600 children who have been abused as many as . . . how many times a day have they been sold over and over again?" Glenn asked.

"Thirty times, even 40 times a day. That's the reality," Ballard explained.

Joining Ballard was colleague Jessica Mass, Director of Aftercare at O.U.R., whose primary focus has been helping children and youth heal from trauma and empowering them in their hopes and dreams for the future.

"I love my job. I get to tell the aftercare stories because I get to see the kids after they've been rescued and that healing process," Mass said.

For more information about O.U.R., including details about how you can help and upcoming events, visit OURRescue.org.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these questions:

• How did Glenn's audience help Tim launch O.U.R.?

• Do Tim's extraction operatives pose as sex predators?

• Does Jessica know of American parents who sold their six-month-old child for sex?

• Are there more slaves today than during the during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?

• What hopeful story did Jessica tell about a teenager from India who was raped and sold into sex slavery by her uncle?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Glad you're here, today. Especially since I have a friend coming in, Tim Ballard who was in the studios yesterday, to do something for TheBlaze. And in case you don't know, if you're a long-time listener, you know who Tim is. He is a friend of mine. An accomplished writer and author. And just a brilliant guy who at one point, I thought, I was going to jail because he brought me into a room and said -- along with a bunch of other people and said, "I have to tell you the truth. You don't know who I am." And he reached in under his shirt and pulled out a badge. And I believe my first words was, "Am I going to jail?"

And he was an undercover agent for the federal government on sex crimes and those children that had been abducted and taken into the sex slave trade. And it was horrifying.

He got to a point where the government was -- had handcuffed itself too much and couldn't live with himself because he knew he could do more. And so he started the Operation Underground Railroad. Rescue our children. And you have today now saved 400?

TIM: No. More than 600.

GLENN: 600?

TIM: Yeah.

GLENN: And you go out -- and we've seen the videos before. And it's absolutely amazing what you're doing. And you go in. And some of the guys going with you are former Navy SEALs. Everybody volunteer?

TIM: A lot are volunteers. Some are contractors, but at a reduced rate, yeah.

GLENN: And you go in, and you pose as, frankly, dirtbag Americans who are going in to negotiate to have sex with children.

TIM: That's right.

GLENN: And you tell them, I want -- I want some 9-year-olds. And they negotiate. And it's horrifying to see the video of it.

And you have lined it up with the country for their police departments to come in at the right time and bust it, once the children are delivered to you. It's pretty horrifying.

Yeah, it is -- it's something that I think most people would just -- couldn't believe that it's happening. I didn't believe it. I mean, I would see it and think, "Is this real?" I did it for 12 years before I told you what I did.

And the deeper I got, the more devastating it became. I mean, this is the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet.

Millions -- millions of children who are forced into the commercial sex trade and slave labor, and adults also stuck in this. There's more slaves -- I mean, people who are owned by other people today than ever before in the history of the world. I mean, you could add up all the slaves we read about during the 300/400 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Add them all up. There's more living slaves alive today than all of them. And a lot of them are children.

GLENN: How frustrating is that, that that message is not being heard in the mainstream? That for all the talk of, you know, troubles in our own country because of slaves, that no one is taking a breath and saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Why don't we all come together doing good on this?"

TIM: Yeah. And so frustrating. That's why I left. I couldn't talk about it. And I recognize, you know, I love history and I learn from history. The greatest problems that we were able to conquer as a people was because we had all the people that got involved. Slavery in America, the legalized form of it didn't end because the government said, "We're going to end it today." It was because people like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass, these heroes, they rose up and created this movement. And people stood up. And that was the beginning of the end of slavery. And then government started acting and moving. And so that's part of our mission, is to tell the story. And, frankly, you, Glenn, in your community, and your audience, you're the one who got us started. You started this movement for us and got support.

GLENN: I think you said to me in that meeting, "I need a million dollars, or I can't start." And I said, "Oh, well, we can do at least that. Yes. We'll get you started."

TIM: And you did. You did. A couple of weeks for us.

GLENN: The audience was more than into this, and they still are.

Yesterday, we were talking about the part that I'm interested in. Because I come from a family of abuse. Now, this is way beyond abuse. But I come from a family of abuse. And I know what that abuse has done to every single member of the family. It's destroyed their lives and changed them into people that they aren't. They're really not those people. But the scars affect their life forever.

And so I'm really into, what happens when you take these 600 children, who have been abused as many as how many times a day have they been sold over and over again?

TIM: Thirty times even. Forty times a day. That's the reality.

GLENN: How do you take somebody who was kidnapped at nine and you release them at 16? How do you take them and rebuild?

JEFFY: Rebuild.

GLENN: Rebuild into something good.

TIM: There is no rescue without the healing. It doesn't exist, as you say.

GLENN: Right.

TIM: And we've put so much effort into that side of things. And I have with me one of our superstar operators, Jessica Mass, who is the director of aftercare.

She lives on an airplane. And what she does -- I'll let her describe it. But she goes around and makes sure that the kids we've rescued are still in the proper place, that they're in a healthy environment to heal. And we're just so grateful for Jessica.

GLENN: I want to hear two stories from you. One that you shared with me last night in India. And the -- the -- let's start here.

Out of the kids that are taken out, A, how many are -- how many go home to their parents? Do any of them go home to their parents? How many of them are -- are starting to lead a normal somewhat childhood at this point?

JESSICA: Yeah, so one of the things that we do is we do in-home services. So if a child is going to go back to their family, there is an in-home social worker that actually goes to the home and makes sure it's a safe space before that happens. So we don't just send children back to their home if it's not safe.

GLENN: Because sometimes -- in some countries -- India, I would imagine is one of them, you can be sold by your parents. I know in --

JESSICA: Yeah.

GLENN: I know in -- where was it? Port-au-Prince, that was happening. Where the parents just have a child and they're like, "Eh, I'll sell you my baby." I mean, it's scary.

JESSICA: It happens all the time, unfortunately. I actually worked in the US for several years before working international. And there are so many parents in the US that were selling their children that I worked with. One, as young as six months old.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: And her parents were selling her online and then having men come to their home and actually rape their baby and molest their baby. So that happened for four years before she was rescued.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: So these are -- this is why it's so important, is that --

GLENN: Do you know that child today?

JESSICA: I do actually.

GLENN: How is she?

JESSICA: She went through three failed adoptions, where she was adopted and then actually unadopted. Or they called it a failed adoption.

GLENN: Why?

JESSICA: Her behaviors were ones that the family said, "We can't handle."

GLENN: Right.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JESSICA: However, today, she's I think about 13 or 14. I can't remember which one. But she is actually adopted. She's doing so well. And she was adopted by a family that said, "We will stick with you, no matter what. No matter what behavior. No matter what trauma that you've been through, we'll stick with you, and we're going to do whatever it takes to help you have a successful life."

GLENN: Is that a religious family?

JESSICA: They are. Uh-huh.

GLENN: I figured it was.

JESSICA: Yeah. But those are the type of people that we look for in aftercare homes, both in the US and around the world, are the people that say, "We're with you forever. We are family for life." And that type of mentality, where you go from being an orphan or having your family sell you or whatever situation it was -- and saying, "No matter what it takes, we are with you for life." And this is what family really looks like, is we'll stand by you no matter what happens.

GLENN: Tell me about the girl -- she's 17 -- that is in India.

JESSICA: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Tell me about -- tell me her story.

JESSICA: So she was rescued. She was 15, almost 16.

GLENN: How long had she been a sex slave?

JESSICA: So her uncle had started raping her when she was about 12 or 13 years old. And after he had been raping her for a while, he decided, "I'm going to start selling her and making money off of her." So he started selling her to different people, friends that he knew.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

JESSICA: And then he said, "Well, I can make even more money because I can just sell her out nightly." And so he was trafficking her. And then he ended up selling her to someone else so that that person could be selling her out.

And she was rescued. And I love my job. I get to tell the aftercare stories because I get to see the kids after they've been rescued and that healing process. So she was placed in one of our aftercare centers.

And her passion was to help the elderly. And not just the elderly, but those that were in hospice. So you have a 16-year-old who is rescued. And you find out that that's what she cares about, is helping other people.

So I was at her birthday party. She was turning 17 at her birthday party, and she wanted to actually introduce me to these people that she was helping. And she would go around to each of these different elderly people in the hospice and sit with them and tell them how incredible they were.

So that's part of the healing journey, where she went from a lack of hope, of feeling like no one cared about her, to going to an aftercare center. Having people pour into her and love her. And then her passion was to love others.

GLENN: Giving hope to those who have maybe lost hope.

JESSICA: Yeah.

And she said to me -- and I've had several kids say this to me. But she said, "I was out there, and I didn't think anyone was coming for me. I didn't think anyone cared. And then O.U.R. showed up and does this rescue mission."

And she said, "No one was coming for me until you guys came. Why would you care about me? Why would you come for the one?"

And looking into her eyes and just saying, "Because you matter. If it's just you -- if O.U.R. existed for one child to be free, it's all worth it."

Living on an airplane is worth it if there's one child that goes from slavery, true slavery to freedom and restoration and healing. It's all worth it.

GLENN: So, Tim, I told you this last night, to some degree. And I talked to my wife about it last night because we had to go to a funeral of a friend. Thirty years old. He died.

And a guy who was an alcoholic in his teens. And his mother is a good friend. And when we first met, I thought she was a huge fan. And she said, you know, oh, my gosh, Glenn Beck it's such an honor to meet you.

And I thought I was going to go into a fan conversation. And she said, "You're an alcoholic."

And I said, "Yes." And she said, "I've wanted to meet you for so long because my son is an alcoholic. And how can I help him?"

He turned his life around two years ago, and he died on Thanksgiving with water on his heart. And he had just -- he had just turned his life around and was taken at 30. And so on the way home, I was talking to Tania. And I said, "You know, this is -- this is the year for me, this coming year." I just want to do what is important.

And I think there are millions of people in the audience that feel the same way. We just rescued over 4,000 people in the Middle East, Christians, and got them out, Yazidis, and got them out.

I want to make the same kind of impact with slave trade. Because this is awful. How do people get involved?

TIM: They can go to ourrescue.org and learn about all about what we do and the countries we're in and the rehab efforts.

GLENN: How much does it cost to save a child?

TIM: It's about $2,000 for an international rescue per child. That's what it averages to be.

We're doing more work now where we're really trying to train the locals and get operators who are local in that country, and that cuts our cost way down. So we're in the process of setting that up. Vetting out people --

GLENN: So $2,000 to free a slave is pretty good. I mean, that's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

TIM: Yeah.

GLENN: So if you want to be involved. You want to find out more. You want to donate. I know they can use a donation. This is a great Christmas present to give to your whole family. Free a slave. Free a slave. Go to --

TIM: Ourrescue.org.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Tim. It's nice to meet you.

TIM: Thank you.

GLENN: It's good to see you, Tim.

Featured Image: Tim Ballard of Operation Underground Rescue (Photo Credit: O.U.R.)

Patriotic uprising—Why 90% say Old Glory isn’t just another flag

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In a nation where the Stars and Stripes symbolize the blood-soaked sacrifices of our heroes, President Trump's executive order to crack down on flag desecration amid violent protests has ignited fierce debate. But in a recent poll, Glenn asked the tough question: Can Trump protect the Flag without TRAMPLING free speech? Glenn asked, and you answered—thousands weighed in on this pressing clash between free speech and sacred symbols.

The results paint a picture of resounding distrust toward institutional leniency. A staggering 85% of respondents support banning the burning of American flags when it incites violence or disturbs the peace, a bold rejection of the chaos we've seen from George Floyd riots to pro-Palestinian torchings. Meanwhile, 90% insist that protections for burning other flags—like Pride or foreign banners—should not be treated the same as Old Glory under the First Amendment, exposing the hypocrisy in equating our nation's emblem with fleeting symbols. And 82% believe the Supreme Court's Texas v. Johnson ruling, shielding flag burning as "symbolic speech," should not stand without revision—can the official story survive such resounding doubt from everyday Americans weary of government inaction?

Your verdict sends a thunderous message: In this divided era, the flag demands defense against those who exploit freedoms to sow disorder, without trampling the liberties it represents. It's a catastrophic failure of the establishment to ignore this groundswell.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

Labor Day began as a political payoff to Socialist agitators

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During your time off this holiday, remember the man who started it: Peter J. McGuire, a racist Marxist who co-founded America’s first socialist party.

Labor Day didn’t begin as a noble tribute to American workers. It began as a negotiation with ideological terrorists.

In the late 1800s, factory and mine conditions were brutal. Workers endured 12-to-15-hour days, often seven days a week, in filthy, dangerous environments. Wages were low, injuries went uncompensated, and benefits didn’t exist. Out of desperation, Americans turned to labor unions. Basic protections had to be fought for because none were guaranteed.

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

That era marked a seismic shift — much like today. The Industrial Revolution, like our current digital and political upheaval, left millions behind. And wherever people get left behind, Marxists see an opening.

A revolutionary wedge

This was Marxism’s moment.

Economic suffering created fertile ground for revolutionary agitation. Marxists, socialists, and anarchists stepped in to stoke class resentment. Their goal was to turn the downtrodden into a revolutionary class, tear down the existing system, and redistribute wealth by force.

Among the most influential agitators was Peter J. McGuire, a devout Irish Marxist from New York. In 1874, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workingmens Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. He was also a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, which would become the most powerful union in America.

McGuire’s mission wasn’t hidden. He wanted to transform the U.S. into a socialist nation through labor unions.

That mission soon found a useful symbol.

In the 1880s, labor leaders in Toronto invited McGuire to attend their annual labor festival. Inspired, he returned to New York and launched a similar parade on Sept. 5 — chosen because it fell halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

The first parade drew over 30,000 marchers who skipped work to hear speeches about eight-hour workdays and the alleged promise of Marxism. The parade caught on across the country.

Negotiating with radicals

By 1894, Labor Day had been adopted by 30 states. But the federal government had yet to make it a national holiday. A major strike changed everything.

In Pullman, Illinois, home of the Pullman railroad car company, tensions exploded. The economy tanked. George Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages for those who remained — yet refused to lower the rent on company-owned homes.

That injustice opened the door for Marxist agitators to mobilize.

Sympathetic railroad workers joined the strike. Riots broke out. Hundreds of railcars were torched. Mail service was disrupted. The nation’s rail system ground to a halt.

President Grover Cleveland — under pressure in a midterm election year — panicked. He sent 12,000 federal troops to Chicago. Two strikers were killed in the resulting clashes.

With the crisis spiraling and Democrats desperate to avoid political fallout, Cleveland struck a deal. Within six days of breaking the strike, Congress rushed through legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.

It was the first of many concessions Democrats would make to organized labor in exchange for political power.

What we really celebrated

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

Kean Collection / Staff | Getty Images

What we celebrated was a Canadian idea, brought to America by the founder of the American Socialist Party, endorsed by racially exclusionary unions, and made law by a president and Congress eager to save face.

It was the first of many bones thrown by the Democratic Party to union power brokers. And it marked the beginning of a long, costly compromise with ideologues who wanted to dismantle the American way of life — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Durham annex EXPOSES Soros, Pentagon ties to Deep State machine

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The Durham annex and ODNI report documents expose a vast network of funders and fixers — from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to the Pentagon.

In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network's architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

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Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.