Glenn: Here's the truth on Benghazi

Tonight I want to cover two scandals and in these two scandals – Benghazi and the IRS – remember that timing is everything. Just last week, it was a week ago Saturday, the president was speaking to graduating students and of all of the messages that he could deliver to people, here’s the one he thought was the important message.

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President Obama Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.

This is one of the most incredible things. Okay, I can’t take his voice anymore. To actually hear this guy, this is exactly the opposite of George Washington, this is the opposite of Kennedy, for the love of Pete. No president ever says Don’t worry about government tyranny. Are you kidding me? That’s what has made us America and it is something really bizarre for the most powerful man on the planet to say. It kind of wreaks of Hey, here’s my license and registration, Officer. And by the way, there’s nothing absolutely of interest in the trunk, so you shouldn’t look.

The definition of Tyranny: “Cruel or oppressive government rule.” Oppressive Rule: “The unjust exercise of authority.” Now, what would that mean, “the unjust exercise of authority”? Well, you’re looking for tyranny, I don’t have to explain it. Let me have the guys this morning on MSNBC explain it.

VIDEO – Morning Joe Show MSNBC

Man: One other point to make, there’s been many overblown claims of tyranny and abuse of power from the government over the last few years. We’ve had those, “we’re coming for your guns,” that kind of thing. This is tyranny.

Man: This is.

Man: If this is a government, a non-partisan agency coming after specific groups, this time it’s real.

This time, this time it’s real. I hope “this time” it’s not too late. We’re going to get to the IRS scandal here in a minute, but we need to lead with the thing that I think, I hope, or I think the people in the administration are hoping will just go away, because I hope all of the people in Washington are terrified of the news media actually on this story – Benghazi.

Why would they be terrified? Well, because of the one thing that no one really is reporting on yet and it is the truth, what’s really going on with Benghazi. The government is running guns and aid to our enemies: the Muslim Brotherhood, they go into the hands of al Qaeda, other Islamic radical groups and what they’re doing is fomenting revolutionary democracy. They’re running guns.

Ambassador Stevens was the point man for the exchange of guns. When it comes to what happened on September 11, they had forewarning. It came under attack by terrorists. The administration knew it, they watched it happen in real-time, they stopped the military from intervening and they are covering up and have done so by validating the radical Islamist excuse of Islamophobia in an attempt for sympathy and leniency on their murderous attacks. The Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and the State Department, they’re all involved.

And the scariest part is, it continues today. No one will speak out about this yet, but it’s coming. I believe this to be the worst scandal and worst cover up in our nation’s history and we’ve had some bad, bad scandals. The president wants you to look away from this, but we mustn’t as a country. If we don’t solve this problem this time around, God help us, because the administration will be completely out of control.

On September 11, 2012, the president was informed of an ongoing attack in Benghazi. He then decided, strangely, to announce to the world two days later that he just turned in for the night and he said You just tell me what happens in the morning. That should have been the media’s first red flag. Wait a minute, the guy is running for reelection, in the middle of a campaign, there’s an ambassador that’s killed, why would he come out and say Yeah, I was a little sleepy. I went to sleep. They were protecting him. They’re saying, Mr. President, if this ever gets out, you couldn’t be in the room. That was the first red flag, but let’s review on what they said.

First of all, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and the president said that the best intelligence suggested that Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous protest gone bad.

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Hillary Clinton: We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.

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Susan Rice: What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous, uh, reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, uh, which were prompted, of course, by the video.

VIDEO – Face the Nation

Susan Rice: It began spontaneously in Benghazi uh as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy.

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Jay Carney: We saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack. That it was, we saw evidence that it was sparked by uh the reaction to this video.

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President Obama: This was a crude and disgusting video that sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.

This is a really important time. This September 25, really important time, because the president said today, he said he released somebody to go up to Capitol Hill and say it was an attack. Yet two or three days later, he said this, so which is it, Mr. President? It’s only getting worse for them. Every day that goes by, the more they’re on the record, the worse it gets.

They said there was no indication that what happened in Libya was terrorism.

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Jay Carney: I’m simply saying that based on the information of what we initially had available and have available, we do not have any indication at this point of premeditation or preplanned attacks.

Okay, here’s the truth – No protest ever took place.

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Congressman Trey Gowdy: When Ambassador Stevens talked to you, perhaps minutes before he died, as a dying declaration, what precisely did he say to you?

Greg Hicks: He said, “Greg, we’re under attack.”

Congressman Trey Gowdy: Would a highly decorated, career diplomat have told you or Washington had there been a demonstration outside his facility that day?

Greg Hicks: Yes, sir, he would have.

Congressman Trey Gowdy: Did he mention one word about a protest or a demonstration?

Greg Hicks: No, sir. He did not.

No intelligence report, phone call, evidence or anything ever suggested otherwise. In fact, every report from the ground indicated this was clearly a coordinated terror attack planned by a group – not an act of terror by angry protestors. When caught in that lie, the White House tried to shuffle the blame on to the CIA saying the Benghazi talking points that blamed the video were put together by the Intelligence community.

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Jay Carney: Those talking points originated from the Intelligence community. They reflected the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened.

Right. Here’s the truth. There was an extensive amount of input from the State Department, specifically Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson concerning the edits.

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Reporter: I have obtained 12 different versions of those talking points that shows that they were dramatically edited by the administration.

Dramatically. Jay Carney said the administration made one change to the talking points – one.

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Jay Carney: And the only edit made by the White House or the State Department to those talking points generated by the CIA was a change from uh, referring to the, the facility that was attacked in Benghazi from “consulate,” because it was not a consulate, to “diplomatic post.” I think I had referred to it as a diplomatic facility, I think it may have been diplomatic post.

That is incredibly specific. But here’s the truth, there were 12 major revisions that went beyond stylistic. Jay Carney said the edits didn’t change the substance of the talking points.

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Jay Carney: But the point being, it was a matter of uh, uh, non-substantive, factual correction.

Right. Anybody watch, anybody watch last week? Buck Sexton was on and he had it all on the chalkboard, all of the changes. The truth is, the State Department edits deleted all reference to the al-Qaeda affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia as well as references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack. The edits prove the administration knew from day one that this was a planned terror attack and specifically went out of their way to provide cover for the terror groups involved in the attack.

Why? And then why would you instead direct the blame on America and American freedom and a filmmaker? It proves that Hillary Clinton lied in the face of families of the fallen Americans while she gave that speech when she said, “We are going to do everything we can to make sure that the guy who made this video goes to jail.” And they put him in jail. Hillary Clinton also said there was no advanced intelligence that warned of an attack.

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Hillary Clinton: And with all of our missions overseas in advance of September 11th, as is done every year, we did an evaluation on threat streams. And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said we had no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent.

Key word – actionable. I’ll get to that in a second, but here’s the truth. September 8th, three days before the attack, a local security official met with American diplomats in the city and he warned them about the deteriorating security. He told the U.S. officials, “The situation is frightening. It scares us….” And Gregory Hicks said this.

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Greg Hicks: In Bahrain, my Shia opposition contacts gave me advanced warning of impending attacks on our embassy and anti-American demonstrations, allowing us to prepare and avoid injuries to staff.

Okay. We received a quote from one our sources, “Everyone in the Intelligence community knew this attack was coming.” This bolsters Hicks’ account and further proves Hillary Clinton was lying when she said there was no advanced intelligence or warning of any pending attacks. However, she used “actionable.”

Well, if you want to excuse her by using the word “actionable,” then we have to know the answer to this question: why were you confused, why did you swear you were going to arrest a filmmaker, because you did have intelligence. Maybe it wasn’t actionable at the time, but once it broke, you knew.

Just a few hours ago, about noon, the president again talked about the video. Here’s what he said today.

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President Obama: Immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had been, uh, how it had occurred, what the motivations were. It happened at the same time as we had seen uh, attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film.

Unbelievable. But here’s the truth, there was no protest in Benghazi. It was an attack. The protests in Egypt weren’t about the video either. He’s lying again. We know that the 9/12 Egypt protests were about the imprisonment of the Blind Sheik; a terrorist serving a life sentence in the States for his role in the ’93 World Trade Center bombings. So he’s making this up yet again!

No one even knew this video existed. There were no media reports prior to September 11, 2012. It had virtually no views. People weren’t even motivated to email it, let alone protest and kill somebody over it. It is a mountain of lies.

Let me give you a flashback from the debates.

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President Obama: And the suggestion that anybody on my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive.

Oh, well, I want the president to know, I’m not only suggesting it, I’m declaring it and I agree, it is offensive. It’s sick. And so why would this administration do it and then lie? Well, a few reasons. One, it fits with their political correctness theme; their embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals. It also provides political cover for the administration’s lie that al-Qaeda was defeated.

But it goes deeper than that, and this is the one thing that you’re not going to get the Republicans to talk about either. And believe me, believe me, at the highest levels, they know. It goes back to the original theory that we broadcast here on this network just a few days after Libya, and on Friday Geraldo Rivera reported on that very thing, about what we talked about days after Benghazi he said he’s now hearing from his sources – arming the Syrian rebels. Watch.

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Geraldo Rivera: I believe and my sources tell me they were there to round up those shoulder-fire surface to air missiles, they were going to hand those missiles over to the Turks and the Turks were going to give them to the rebels in Syria. It was like Iran Contra. I think that it merits gigantic investigations. It will all become clear—

Okay, this is really interesting, because FOX News should either discredit Gerald Rivera and make it clear that his sources were wrong, or they should follow that story up. We made the same prediction on September 17th. We’re a scrappy little media group. I don’t have the global resources of Fox or ABC or CBS, but we’re still breaking ground on this story.

Why is it the big networks, with all of those resources have nothing? Well, actually they do. CBS News has spiked a couple of stories on this. Yet, the problem is, is that the head of CBS News, he has a brother and his brother happens to be the guy who changed all the talking points on Benghazi – David Rhodes. Now this is the head of ABC. This is Ben Sherwood. I actually like the guy. He’s a friend, but he’s wrong here. Give him credit, they did break the story on Friday and they were the ones that broke the damn, but his brother is President Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, no, that’s this person. Ben’s is his sister. His sister is Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood. She is the Special Assistant to the President. And then you have Jay Carney. Well, Jay Carney is married to somebody, she just happens to be the Senior National Correspondent, Claire Shipman.

Let’s see, CBS, ABC, NBC. Hello! NBC spiked the story this weekend – Gregory Hicks, the whistleblower – they spiked it. The story is a Democrat, a Democrat that voted for Hillary Clinton. But NBC didn’t think that that was important. Maybe the president mocked the idea of tyranny lurking around the corner, because it’s not around the corner. It’s already here. It’s not only here with Benghazi, it is also here with the IRS. And please, Dear God, pray that your neighbors open their eyes, because the IRS becomes the healthcare enforcer in just a few months. And we’ll show you what the press has finally recognized that the IRS has been doing for the last couple of years, next.

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.

Durham annex EXPOSES Soros, Pentagon ties to Deep State machine

ullstein bild Dtl. / Contributor | Getty Images

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.