Glenn welcomes ‘The People’s Sheriff’ David Clarke to TheBlaze Radio Network!

TheBlaze Radio Network announced a new podcast entitled 'David Clarke: The People's Sheriff', today during Glenn's radio show. Host David Clarke is the current Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin and is an outspoken defender of individual liberties.

The weekly, one-hour podcast will launch on Saturdays beginning June 6 and will focus on law enforcement issues, knowing your rights, commentary on current affairs, racial issues, 2nd Amendment matters, and the importance of empowering individuals rather than the state.

TheBlaze Radio Network's VP of Programming, Dom Theodore, said, "Sheriff Clarke calls it like it is - with an emphasis on common sense and individual responsibility. I'm thrilled to have him join our lineup of amazing talent at TheBlaze Radio Network, where we are committed to being a leader in digital spoken word content."

Sheriff Clarke said, "What an honor to be a part of TheBlaze Radio Network! This podcast is an opportunity to add to the conversation of well-thought-out reason on issues confronting America. I look forward to being a part of TheBlaze family, working to keep the public well informed."

Sheriff Clarke joined Glenn on radio this morning to discuss his new show, the militarization of police, and more.

GLENN: Today, I want to make a major announcement on something we're doing with Blaze Radio. Blaze Radio is -- is kind of an experiment that we've been working on and really kind of kept it pretty quiet. We don't really advertise it or anything else. And it is already the 19th largest stream in the world.

It is wildly successful and allows you to be informed where you want, when you want, how you want. And we have made some additions to Blaze Radio that have been really exciting lately. And we want to make an announcement that we're adding another voice to Blaze Radio. And it's Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. He is a remarkable man and a voice that I think needs to be heard. Well-spoken, well-thought out. And we wanted to welcome him to the Mercury family now.

David, Sheriff, how are you?

DAVID: Good, Glenn. How are you doing? First of all, thank you for this opportunity. When I first came up, I said wow. I've had a lot to say recently over the last, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight years. But I've never had my own platform to do it. So it was always a situation where I had to be led by someone else's platform and whether they wanted to take a discussion. And I am so thrilled to be a part of the Blaze network, a brand that you have built, that you've grown and you've nurtured. And I simply want to add value to what you started. And participate in this larger conversation about America. You mentioned, it's not the country that I recognize anymore either.

But I think that it's important to provide pushback and a countermessage to this modern liberalism that's in full throttle, and that's what I want to do

GLENN: David, first of all, you'll add value. I've heard some of the test broadcasts that you've done. They're remarkable. My guy who used to be the head of CBS radio and Clear Channel radio, a truly remarkable man who is working with you on my behalf. He says that he believes you're one of the biggest talents he's ever heard. And that's only after the first show. You're a natural at this.

But more importantly, we're bringing you on, David, because you can speak with authority. And, you know, black lives matter. But white lives matter too. Young lives matter. Old lives matter. Blue lives matter. All life matters.

And we're getting into a place, David, that I don't -- I don't think this country has seen since the 1960s, and we're headed for real trouble with policing. With the militarization, with the disenfranchisement of the police, with the pitting of the police against the traditional supporters of the police, our cities are going to be in real trouble because I believe there's a real effort underfoot through people like the Nation of Islam and Al Sharpton and some of the friends of the president and the Black Panthers, to literally set our cities on fire. So we need a reasonable voice that can tell us and speak from a position of authority on what to do.

What do our policemen even do?

DAVID: That's kind of interesting. As you know -- many of your listeners may not -- I have 37 years of urban law enforcement experience. All my education -- my bachelor's degree is in Criminal Justice Management. My master's degree is in Security Studies, Homeland Security related to the United States Naval Academy Post Graduate School. It's been my life. It really has. I bleed blue. I tell people, if you cut me open, you won't find red. I bleed blue.

But, Glenn, I sat up and watched after the days of Ferguson, where this proud profession that I've been a part of just came under attack. And I've predicted -- and not because I'm in the prediction business. But I knew. I know cops. I know this profession. I know the importance -- cops matter. I know the importance that law enforcement and public safety has, especially in your urban centers. We have densely populated areas. You don't have all the social controls necessary for these things to work themselves out. So you need to have an intermediary. Especially in the American ghetto, that intermediary is the American police officer. White, black, Hispanic, Asian -- who else is going down into these areas? When we -- our police come under attack. It's, you know, the white cop who shoots the unarmed black guy. And our cops are racist.

You know, these are the smears that we hear. And I go, wait a minute. Who else is going down there? I don't see the politician down there. I don't see the loudmouth demagogue like Al Sharpton down there. It's the American police officer who puts his or her life on the line, is willing to sacrifice their life, if it means that, in service to who in the American ghetto? Other black people. So to hear them maligned like this really bothered me. So I decided to step up and start to fight back, like I said. Countermessage. Defend this proposition. Look, I've said -- and I know this, and everybody knows. But I'll say it anyway. Are cops perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Are police departments perfect? Not even close.

However, these communities we're talking about, these are the finest they have. They go down there with the best of intentions to do right, to do it within the rules. And every once in a while, something goes horribly wrong. But then to come down and throw all the maladies and the pathologies of the urban ghetto on the back of the American police officer and say, you go down there and do something about it. Keep them from killing each other, raping, robbing, and pillaging, and, oh, by the way, if something goes horribly wrong, you know, like it did in Ferguson and in New York and in South Carolina and in other areas, including here in Milwaukee County, all of a sudden it's, oh, the cops are the bad guys now. Let's go attack the cops.

Glenn, we expect that. Because we've seen that before from cop haters. All my 37 years. I know people that just don't like the police. We expect that from that -- that cabal. What we did not expect this time around was to see it come from an unlikely source. And that unlikely source is the political class, who -- we know we need their backing. Not only for resources, but at times when, yeah, maybe we made a mistake or even if we didn't make a mistake, like in the case of Ferguson, there was no mistake made. We don't expect the political class to turn us upside down and to attack us and want us criminally indicted and so on and so forth. That's what's different this time around

GLENN: We're talking to David Clarke. He's the sheriff in Milwaukee County. And if the name sounds familiar and you can't quite place it, it's because he was the guy who was featured on radio ads in Milwaukee saying citizens should not rely on police for protection. They should arm themselves. And they should be -- they're the first responders. And we have talked to him several times. He is fearless. And speaks his -- speaks his mind. And, quite honestly, I think that's what we need.

David, you know, as -- as we're watching this -- I think the police are being set up, myself. We are now starting to see that they're not patrolling because they won't get the backup they deserve. You're also seeing the decay because of the militarization, you're seeing people like me who I'm a big supporter of the police. But I'm gravely concerned about the militarization of our police because of what this administration has stated its goals.

We have now Al Sharpton who is one of the czars with this administration coming out and saying that the Justice Department needs to take over local policing. When the president says he wants to cut back on the militarization, what he's saying is, he wants to -- he wants to just not sell them tanks. But in that executive order, and I don't know if you've read it, in that executive order, it talks about the Pentagon and the Justice Department partnering with the local police, all the way down to things like uniforms. And what their uniforms will look like. It's a very frightening thing.

How can you help bridge the gap on making sure that the cops know that the average citizen still has respect for them? But we are concerned about some of the things that they're now being required to do and some of the things this administration -- we're trying to speak out and warn and say, look, you're going to be left alone because you're being set up. Do you believe that? And how would you respond?

DAVID: First of all, let's unpack that a little bit because there's a lot there. Your concern. I share that concern. I'm not at war with my community here in Milwaukee County. And I don't think any agency -- I have said from the beginning that that 1033 Program needs better oversight. There's no doubt about that. But I don't think that the president should have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. He said some of this equipment belongs in a battlefield. And my first thought was, has he been down in the American ghetto recently? I know he lives life in a bubble.

When you hear, you know, 15 dead, 37 shot in Baltimore in a weekend -- on Memorial Day weekend. When you hear 40 people shot in a month. When you go to Chicago and you look at, in one weekend, Glenn, 15 dead, 37 injured, 40 injured, that sounds like a battlefield. That doesn't mean that we should do overkill in terms of some of the overplus equipment. I think it needs oversight. Each agency should have to make a stronger case as to why they need this equipment. Some of this equipment is missing. It's not even accounted for. So I think it needs more oversight.

However, I think the worse thing that we can do in the United States is federalize local policing. The Founding Fathers didn't want a federal police force. As far as I'm concerned, local policing is a state's rights issue. Each state is responsible for the -- securing the personal safety of their citizens in that city. There's a role for the federal government, and it's not running these agencies. It's not taking these agencies over. It's not telling these agencies, you know, one-size-fits-all. Training them. Setting up policies and standards.

And that's kind of what this whole 21st century task force that the president hastily threw together is trying to accomplish. You know, a one-size-fits-all. Every community is different. Every community's citizens -- and I think it's what you're speaking to, Glenn -- every community's citizens have different wants, needs, and standards. What they'll put up with, what they won't. So I think it needs to be left to the locals. I think it's a slap in the face of the state governments. Because if there's a problem in Ferguson with what was going on -- and there was. Okay. If there's a problem in one of these other cities as to what's going on, you have a state attorney general. You have other oversight. Each city has their own oversight board of civilians. And if they're not doing their job, well then, the state attorney general, I believe, should step in and maybe be that intermediary, not the United States attorney general and especially not the president of the United States.

GLENN: We're talking to Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke who is joining us now on Blaze Radio, Saturdays. It will be posted at noon Eastern at the Blaze.com/radio. A very outspoken guy. A guy who has been with us several times. And I want to take a quick break and come back and ask you one question. You're there in Milwaukee. I'd love to hear your impression of Scott Walker.

[BREAK]

GLENN: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke joins us. He is the latest to join the Blaze Radio. You can find that at the Blaze.com/radio. And it will air on Saturdays. Or it will be posted on Saturdays. So you can hear him. He's fearless. He's the guy that Michael Bloomberg threw money hand over fist during his last campaign and he still won huge. He is a plainspoken guy who can speak with authority and tell you what's really going on from the police perspective. And we're proud to have him a part of Blaze Radio now because we're huge supporters of the police departments and they are coming under fire, big time.

Tell me about Scott Walker. Because we haven't -- we haven't quite made up our mind on him, David. From a distance, he seems to be good. But then there are times, wait a minute. He just kind of flip-flopped here. Is that who he is? Can you give us insight on him?

DAVID: First of all, I want to thank you again for the complimentary comments. I hope people do tune in on the Saturday podcasts. Give me a chance. I think they'll like it. As you know, I give people information unvarnished and no sugarcoating.

Full disclosure, first of all, I'm a friend of Scott Walker. We became friends because we both worked in Milwaukee government. I'm the Milwaukee County sheriff. Came in the same year that he did as County Executive, so we worked closely together. He's a strong supporter of law enforcement. Always made sure that we were properly funded.

But what I've learned about Scott Walker is he listens to people. He would come to me and say, Sheriff, I have this deal here or some funding situation. I want to know how this affects public safety. I would tell them. He's like, I don't know that I want to do that. He's very decisive, but he listens to his advisers. You can bet that he'll listen to his military commanders. You can bet that he'll listen to his economic advisers. But he will make the decision. He will not vacillate.

But the one thing I'm looking for. And I'm telling people now -- and I do have a bias about Scott Walker. But I say, vet everybody. Okay, they'll all do what you just mentioned. Every once in a while, you get a candidate, you say, hey, this guy is looking good. This woman is looking good. Then all of a sudden, boom. Oh, jeez. You know, flip-flop there. I'm not sure now.

That's what this process is supposed to do is weed all of that out. So I'm telling people. And I'll talk about this on some of my shows leading up into the 2016 election. But vet them all. They all have weaknesses. There's no perfect candidate. What I'm looking for is the person that will bring this country back to its founding principles. That's what we need right now. Leadership in that area. And I think that this process will allow us to identify that individual. I like Carly Fiorina. I like Marco Rubio. He has his issues. I like Ted Cruz. I'm not going to say I like all of them. I'm not a big fan of Rand Paul. Because he did some things that kind of insults me in meeting with Al Sharpton.

GLENN: Hang on. Okay. David, I'm out of time. But I'm hoping you'll give that story on one of your first podcasts. Thank you very much. Sheriff David Clarke new to the Blaze Radio.

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 began as a political payoff to Socialist agitators

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?

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.