Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the Republican presidential primary Sunday afternoon. The signs were all there.
 
While he finished second in the Iowa caucuses, it was a distant and disappointing finish given the tremendous effort his campaign invested in the state. Polls in New Hampshire were even worse, and it’s difficult to claim momentum after back-to-back losses.
 
Then stories emerged Saturday that his campaign abruptly canceled two major Sunday interviews due to “scheduling conflicts.” That seemed like a “tell.”
 
Ron DeSantis is a good man. He has been a great governor of Florida. In any other year, he might well be the frontrunner. But this is not his year. Nevertheless, I believe Ron DeSantis definitely has a future in the emerging populist conservative Republican Party.
 
DeSantis immediately endorsed Donald Trump, saying it was clear that a majority of GOP primary voters were behind him. And he wasn’t the only one endorsing Trump.
 
Friday afternoon, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott threw his support behind Donald Trump over Nikki Haley, who appointed Scott to his Senate seat in 2012. (Scott has easily won reelection ever since.)
 
Polling in New Hampshire shows that the vast majority of DeSantis supporters chose Donald Trump as their second choice. Polling also found that a strong plurality of Ramaswamy supporters chose Trump as their second choice. Only Chris Christie supporters are backing Haley over Trump.
 
Some pundits insist that Haley is the future of the Republican Party. Well, I’ll concede that youth is on her side. But, from a policy perspective, she’s a throwback to the Bush era — not the GOP’s future.
 
The New Hampshire primary is today, and it is hard to predict the makeup of the electorate. The latest polls are predicting a big Trump win. We’ll find out soon enough.
 
But something is really bothering me.
 
There is an organized effort among Democrats and left-wing Independents to vote for Haley in the Republican primary, which is allowed. This is being touted by her supporters and some commentators on Fox News as evidence that she can attract moderate voters in November.
 
That’s just not true. These are people who want to keep the GOP in turmoil and who only want to stop Donald Trump. Those are totally different things. They are not voting for Haley. They are now and will be Biden supporters in November.
 
As one of these liberal activists explained to Politico, “We only care about damaging Donald Trump. For better or for worse, the only thing you can do if you really want to stop Trump is to vote for Haley.”
 
 
 
Investigating The Investigators
 
Kudos to Rep. Barry Loudermilk! The Georgia Republican is chairman of a House subcommittee that is investigating the work of the January 6^th Committee.
 
As you may recall, the committee was stacked with anti-Trump members. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the unprecedented action of rejecting the members House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted to appoint to the committee.  It turned into a Stalinist show trial after that.
 
When Republicans won the House after the 2022 elections, one of the first things Kevin McCarthy did was to instruct the January 6^th Committee to preserve all its records so the committee’s work could be audited. McCarthy also wanted to investigate the security failures that occurred that day, which Pelosi’s kangaroo court refused to do.
 
Here we are now a year later and House Republicans have hit one roadblock after another. Rep. Loudermilk tells Fox News that his committee has received about half of the information that Democrats initially indicated they would hand over. Shocker, I know.
 
Moreover, they discovered that more than 100 files had been deleted from the committee’s computers. Forensic experts recovered the files only to find out that they were encrypted. Loudermilk, who is vowing to discover the truth, is demanding that Democrats surrender the passwords so the files can be accessed.
 
Who knows what’s in these files? For example, we do know that Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis conspired with the January 6^th Committee in putting together her case against Donald Trump. The president’s defense team would undoubtedly like to know more about that.
 
Meanwhile, there are many unanswered questions about the events of January 6^th. For example, no one has ever adequately explained why so many people were allowed to just walk through open doors and stroll throughout the Capitol Building.
 
And trying to get answers from FBI Director Christopher Wray about how many FBI agents and informants were in the crowd that day is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
 
Wray openly laments the growing lack of trust Americans have in the FBI. To build trust, all he has to do is just answer the question! How many FBI agents and informants were on the Capitol grounds on January 6^th?
 
There’s no reason to not answer that question. But Wray’s non-answers are actually an answer. It’s very likely that an embarrassing number of agents was on the Hill that day.
 
 
 
Censoring Faith
 
Looking around the country today, there are many disturbing markers of cultural decline. Several, in my opinion, are connected to the decline of Christianity in America, a disturbing trend that is particularly pronounced in younger Americans.
 
There are a variety of reasons for this trend, including the growing hostility toward Christianity in our schools, in the culture and in the media. There are powerful forces in America today that are intent on muzzling men and women of faith.
 
The entire effort to smear conservative Christians as so-called “Christian nationalists” is just one example. We recently got another example of this outrageous effort, courtesy of NBC.
 
C. J. Stroud is the quarterback of the Houston Texans. In his rookie year, he led the Texans to a winning 10-7 season. After a tremendous postseason victory against the Cleveland Browns, Stroud was asked by an NBC reporter what that moment meant to him.
 
Stroud proudly answered, “First and foremost, I just want to give all glory and praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Sadly, but predictably, NBC censored that line when the network posted Stoud’s interview on social media.
 
Imagine if Stroud had said, “First and foremost, I want to give all glory and praise to Allah” or “First and foremost, I want to praise all the LGBTQ fans out there and announce today that I am a woman trapped in the wrong body.” There’s no way NBC would have censored those remarks.
 
The left’s ability to infect the sports world with progressivism is one of those disturbing markers of cultural decline. Neo-Marxist Colin Kaepernick was held up as a hero by the media. Why? Because he disrespected our national anthem, our veterans and America.
 
In stark contrast to Colin Kaepernick, the young men of the U.S. Junior Hockey team love America. They proudly sang our national anthem after winning an international championship. But ESPN didn’t show viewers their incredible patriotism.
 
Now we’ve got men taking over women’s sports. And if you dare to object to this insanity (or to vaccine mandates), ESPN will fire you. Just ask Sage Steele.
 
 
 
Biden’s Broken Borders
 
Former President Donald Trump won a historic victory in the 2024 Iowa caucuses, crushing his nearest competitor by 30 points. One issue explains Trump’s big win.
 
To the surprise of many political observers, the top issue for Iowa’s caucus-goers was not the economy or inflation, but immigration. It’s really not surprising when 65% of Americans now look at the southern border and see not just a crisis but an “invasion.”
 
Read more in my latest opinion piece at AFA’s The Stand.