EXCLUSIVE: Proof That Liberals Are Working to Remove Bill O'Reilly From Fox News

George Soros-funded Media Matters has a history of conducting smear campaigns against conservative media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Their latest target looks to be Bill O'Reilly, host of the wildly popular and number one-rated cable news program The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. Glenn shared on radio today an email that suggests the liberal watchdog is behind the advertiser exodus from The Factor. The email is from Mary Pat Bonner of The Bonner Group.

RELATED: If Bill O'Reilly Goes, It's the Beginning of the End of Fox News as We Know It

"The Bonner Group, according to the New York Times, was paid $6 million from Hillary For America -- or whatever it was -- and Media Matters to raise money," Glenn said. "They are the largest fundraiser for Media Matters, at least in 2013, and raised $11 million for Media Matters. This is the Hillary super PAC group and the super PAC for Media Matters. That's who Mary Pat Bonner is.

Listen to this segment beginning at mark 19:42 from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: I've only got three or four minutes here. And I don't want to start down this rabbit hole of -- of what happened to us and what's now happening to Bill O'Reilly. And I have the proof. I'll do it after the bottom of the hour break. But I do want to share with you the letter that I have from -- I have 30 seconds? So I can't share it now. I thought I had a little more time. I'm going to share the evidence that I find absolutely astounding, that Bill O'Reilly sent to everybody -- all the papers that I read said, "Well, he has evidence." Well, did you ask for the evidence? Because I know it was really super, super hard. I wrote to Bill and said, "Hey, do you have the evidence?" And then his attorney sent it to me. So I know it was really hard. But nobody's -- nobody's running with this. Why? Because it's a game that works and is being played on you. Next.

[break]

GLENN: All right. I want you to know that you need to write and call the Fox News Channel today, if you buy into what I'm about to tell you, and tell them, "You can lose your advertisers, or you can lose your viewers." But you have to put some spine back into the Murdoch family and the Fox News Channel board because you're about to lose Bill O'Reilly. And this isn't about Bill O'Reilly. This is about Media Matters. And this is about a system that I want to show you, if I have time now -- otherwise, later in the show -- has worked before.

I called Bill last night and said, "Hey, I'm reading that you guys have evidence. Can I see the evidence?" He said, "Let me call my attorney." Calls his attorney. His attorney -- I get up this morning, and I have this.

Now, I've just tweeted this. We've posted it at GlennBeck.com. And I believe a story is going up on TheBlaze soon about it.

It's from Mary Pat Bonner. Now, who is Mary Pat Bonner? Mary Pat Bonner runs what's called the Bonner Group. The Bonner Group, according to the New York Times, was paid $6 million from Hillary For America -- or whatever it was -- and Media Matters to raise money. Another source -- we're not sure. We only have one source on this -- said that Media Matters paid the Bonner Group $1.4 million in 2013 alone, to raise money. They are the largest fundraiser for Media Matters, at least in 2013 and raised $11 million for Media Matters.

This is the Hillary super PAC group and the super PAC for Media Matters. That's who Mary Pat Bonner is. So Mary Pat Bonner who is trying to raise money for Media Matters sends this out: An O'Reilly update call. Subject line. It came out Thursday April 13th, 2:53 p.m.

For years, Bill O'Reilly has been one of the worst purveyors of misinformation on Fox News. A serial misinformer, pushing many of the most extreme, sexist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic conservative theories on TV.

PAT: Such a lie. Name one. Name one.

And she -- they don't obviously.

GLENN: Bill O'Reilly is -- he's the most moderate of conservative television.

PAT: Completely reasoned.

GLENN: He is -- he never would connect the dots. He never does connect the dots. It's one of the biggest complaints, at least of this audience of Bill O'Reilly. They're like, "Don't worry, Bill will come along once the New York Times is there." I mean, Bill is --

PAT: And he's always said, "I deal in facts. I don't extrapolate. I don't connect dots."

GLENN: Right. I don't get ahead of the news. So he's not a theorist at all.

PAT: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: (sighing)

Additionally, recent bombshell New York Times investigation found Fox News and Fox host Bill O'Reilly had paid $13 million to settle with five women who accused the host of repeated sexual harassment or verbal abuse.

No comment on that. I don't know what that is. But if you're going to fire Bill O'Reilly, then you fire him based on that and be transparent. Let everyone know exactly what it was. But I will tell you, again --

PAT: We see no evidence on it. Right? Nobody has recordings. Nobody has photos. We haven't even heard the story.

GLENN: I mean, we haven't heard from Megyn Kelly -- Megyn Kelly isn't shy on what's happening.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: You didn't hit on Megyn Kelly?

PAT: If you're a serial hit-onner, you would think so.

GLENN: Yeah.

Thanks to Media Matters, O'Reilly and Fox News are now being held accountable.

Now, listen to this: Due to our advertiser education campaign, over 80 advertisers have currently dropped O'Reilly's show, and the momentum continues to build.

Stu, based on your past history, is that true or false? Eighty advertisers have already dropped.

STU: Yeah. That's usually not true. Usually not true. It's usually, you know, hey, here's some company that never wanted to be associated with this guy anyway that they've called up to make a statement about it.

GLENN: Wait. I have new information that will blow your mind from Media Matters.

PAT: That's great.

GLENN: It's worse than that. Okay? We are currently at a critical juncture in this campaign, so I hope you can join Media Matters, President Angelo Carusone, to hear about the successes of the campaign so far and our plans moving forward. We're holding an update call next week Thursday April 20th at 2:30. Please RSVP to Doug Farley at DougWalterFarley@Gmail.com. Or call 212-683-2551, and he can send you the dial-in information. I look forward to having you join on one of these critical calls. Regards, Mary Pat.

There is -- there is the evidence that Media Matters, because Bill O'Reilly is a -- what did they say? A sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic conservative.

STU: Here's the ten things that we say about everybody.

PAT: Yep.

GLENN: Right. That's why they're doing it. Now, let me show you what they're doing. And I'm not going to speculate at all. I'm going to take it from the horse's mouth himself.

This is -- came out April 6th, 2017. How a veteran of Fox News boycott does it. And this is from the New Yorker magazine, not exactly a right-wing blog.

This week, a number of companies pulled their ads from Bill O'Reilly's Fox News Show after the Times reported the host and his employer paid millions of dollars to settle accusations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior.

Hang on. My screen has just locked up. Please don't do that to me now.

Angelo Carusone -- or whatever you say his name -- he's the president of Media Matters now --

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: -- took the opportunity to begin tweeting from an account he set up in March 2010. Stop O'Reilly.

In 2009, Carusone's Stop Beck account pressured brands to pull the ads from the program of Glenn Beck, the conspiracy-minded conservative commentator who was then hosting on Fox News. It proved an effective tactic, partly in response to Carusone's tweets, advertisers began to disassociate themselves from Beck's show.

Now, we've always said, "That's not true. Mercedes Benz never -- never -- Kraft was never on my show." Just, it didn't happen.

Listen: Beck and Fox News parted ways in 2011, which we're going to talk about later today.

He started working then -- Carusone started working at Media Matters, the left-wing nonprofit that battles what he considers -- what he considers conservative misinformation in the media. What he considers.

Hmm. Do you want a man or one group dictating to sponsors and to media outlets what is misinformation and what is true?

He's now the president of Media Matters. On Tuesday, he spoke by phone about his Beck campaign in light of the ongoing O'Reilly situation. His account has been edited and condensed. I've never known any of this. Listen to this.

Quote, leading up to the summer of 2009, I was a second-year law student. And when you're a second-year law student in the springtime, procrastination becomes something that was the same time that Glenn Beck was on the rise. He was something different for Fox News. He was not the ideologically different, but his presentation, his manner was much more venomous and vitriolic than even the standard Fox News fare. And he was incredibly successful by all measures, in audience size, revenue, and the kinds of advertisers he was attracting.

My fear became that the market would actually create an environment where people who were doing what Glenn Beck was doing became the new norm when they should become an anathema. That's what planted the seed in my brain. Twitter had finally become more of a thing. You could access companies in a different way because your communications were very public and transparent.

I started the Stop Beck campaign right at the beginning of July saying, I'm just going to try to contact advertisers and say, "Hey, this is what Glenn Beck said today. This is what your ads are appearing next to," so that they would be able to see the association, what they were actually paying for.

That's how it started. I listened to his program every day. I tweeted out everything he was saying. Copied in sponsors. At the end of a month, Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist and said he had a deep-seated hatred of white people and the white culture. That caused a firestorm.

So you're already after -- you have nothing -- you just are looking for something to cause a firestorm. In Bill O'Reilly's case, a settlement that happened how many years ago?

Because of Roger Ailes, that was drug up again. Now we can make something of that. Big organizations got involved, which I was never ever conceived of. Who are the big organizations? People like Media Matters, George Soros. We told you this was being funded by big people, and big people were involved, including Van Jones' Color For Change. Oh, wait. Quote, I was just the Twitter guy, but Color of Change and other activist groups sent out petitions. I got a ton of new followers and new participants in my effort. And then all of a sudden, I had a blog. And Kraft, the cheese company, replied to one of my posts saying, "Hey, we're pulling our ads from the Glenn Beck Show," literally in just a comment. And that's how it all started for me.

About three months in, I was like, "Okay. Now I have a theory, but I need a strategy. What's the actual strategy for holding him accountable?" Because clearly, he was not off the air.

You'd think that if you would get X-number of big companies to leave that it's just magic he'll go away. He won't. I needed something bigger. So this is what I started to do.

Now, I want you to listen very carefully to this because it explains an awful lot. I've never known this. This is not some conspiracy theorist. This is his own words in the New Yorker last month.

You better make a decision, America. Because you're about to lose a big conservative ally and voice. And it's not just Bill O'Reilly. I'm telling you, Sean Hannity will be next. Then Tucker Carlson will be next. Until everyone complies with what they say is not misinformation, they will continue to go -- and once you have the big bear of Fox News out of the way, then they come for TheBlaze. Then they come for The Daily Wire. Then they come for all of us. I didn't say anything because I wasn't Bill O'Reilly, until they came for me, and there was no one left.

No one wants to say anything because they don't know if Bill O'Reilly is innocent or guilty on sexual harassment. I don't either. And if that's true, that's a different story.

But you need to understand there is something else going on. They're only using that.

Now, just like me, when I said that, I was thinking out loud. I'm trying -- I'm reading the -- excuse me. I was reading Obama's book where he said, "That's just the way white people will do you." Where he talked about his grandmother, you know, having a white attitude. And she was bred to not trust blacks.

Well, as I'm reading that, I'm thinking out loud, "I think this guy has a real problem with white people." Okay. That's not unreasonable to think out loud and say that, but not on television as if it's a statement. Stupid.

What happened? I gave them ammunition. What happened? O'Reilly may -- may have given them ammunition.

We've never seen it. But this is a game-changer. And I'll tell you exactly how he did it last time and how you're being played, when we come back.

[break]

GLENN: I believe we have Bill O'Reilly's attorney on. And I want to ask him about these -- about these accusations from these women because I don't want to discredit the women by any stretch of the imagination. I do not know what's happening there. But I want to tell you about what Media Matters and the Hillary campaign is doing, or I should say the Bonner group is doing to raise money and to get Bill O'Reilly off the air.

Okay. So this is how I started. This is according to the head of Media Matters. I listened to his program every day. I tweeted out everything he said to the sponsors. Blah, blah.

Hey, we're pulling our ads from the Glenn Beck show, literally in a comment.

About three months in, I said, okay. Now I have a theory. But I need a strategy. If you think you can get X-number of big companies to leave and it's magic, he goes away. But I needed something bigger. So what I actually started to do is I found a guy in the UK. Glenn Beck's show was simulcast there. He would watch the show and give me the advertisers list for the United Kingdom. Some of them were big advertisers that were never advertising on Glenn Beck's show here.

If you could get the UK division to say, "We're going to pull the ads from Glenn's," it would filter over to the states, and people would say, "Mercedes has cancelled." It became a shot in the arm for the campaign. Within a few months, every single advertiser on Glenn Beck's show in the United Kingdom had been cut off.

He didn't have anymore ads. No ads at all. They would run promos during the breaks.

What I wanted to do was make sure there was enough of an effect so if Glenn Beck was still on the air during the next shareholder conversation, Rupert would have to say there was a problem in the United Kingdom. I'll bet you the same thing is happening here.

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

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

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 EXPOSED: The Marxist roots you weren’t told about

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

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.

Hunter laptop, Steele dossier—Same players, same playbook?

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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

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

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.