Cross-Examination

• Trump haters don’t like DeSantis either: Is it Donald Trump they don’t like or is it what he stands for? Some anti-Trump Republicans are showing their objection to the former president to be much more broad than the man. Recently polling indicates that if Trump does not run in 2024, current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would take the lead for Republican voters. Given this scenario, would anti-Trump Republicans like the just defeated Liz Cheney throw their support behind DeSantis? Her answer says it all: “I think that Ron DeSantis has lined himself up almost entirely with Donald Trump, and I think that’s very dangerous.” She “would find it very difficult” to support him. Ironically, for the anti-Trump Republicans, their best bet at seeing someone other than Trump win the GOP primary might end up being DeSantis. However, for many of them, like the abysmal Lincoln Project “Republicans,” their real problem with Trump was ultimately not with the man but with what he represents — the anti-establishment, America First agenda. While asserting moral superiority, these anti-Trump Republicans spent years castigating those Republicans and conservatives for voting for such a flawed man, claiming that their primary objection to him was that he was unfit for office. Yet that objection rings hollow when presented with an alternative like DeSantis, who has none of the moral failures of Trump but is equally rejected with the lame argument that he is too close to Trump. Maybe it was never Trump the man that most upset these never-Trumpers; rather it was what he stood against — the elitist bureaucratic swamp that Washington has become.

• Young Americans identify as less liberal: Recent polling of Americans’ political identity has found that voters have become less liberal. Since 2017, when Donald Trump first took office, there has been a seven-point shift nationally away from those identifying as “liberal” from 34% to 27%. Voters who have moved away from the “liberal” identity have not, however, embraced the conservative camp. Instead, they have joined the growing “moderate” political demographic. No group has dropped the liberal identifier more than young Americans, ages 18-34. Of course, this has direct implications for the two major parties, with the Democrat Party increasingly being viewed as liberal by 73% of voters and the Republican Party seen as conservative by 60% to 70% of voters. While 42% of voters see the Republican Party as “too conservative,” 45% of voters see the Democrat Party as “too liberal.” Within the two parties and across the whole political landscape there is evidence that voters are overall moving a bit toward the right. Fewer Democrat voters are now identifying as liberal, dropping from 60% to 55%, whereas Republican voters are increasingly identifying as conservative, moving from 70% to 77% since 2017.

• Biden’s Iran fun: “Biden’s new Iran deal would lift sanctions on the very organizations raising bounties to kill Americans,” contends Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department adviser. “That will help Iran raise the funds to kill American dissidents and officials.” In the wake of the attack against author Salman Rushdie, an attack likely inspired by Iran having placed a $3.3 million bounty on his head over 30 years ago, Joe Biden is plowing ahead with his aim to resurrect Barack Obama’s disastrous Iranian nuclear deal. This plowing ahead includes the unwinding of sanctions against the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. The Biden administration’s claim of seeking to protect Americans rings hollow. In reality, Biden wants to chalk up a diplomatic accomplishment in the Middle East, which ironically works to reverse the impressive successes Donald Trump accomplished. Senator Ted Cruz blasted the Biden administration, calling the Iran deal a “catastrophic” failure that “would enable Iran to finance and incite the murder” of Americans “on American soil.”

• On this date last year — Biden’s surrender and retreat from Afghanistan: We are reposting, in chronological order, analysis of events a year ago related to the most disgraceful military exfil in American history — Biden’s deadly surrender and retreat from Afghanistan. This day last year, Mark Alexander covered: Afghanistan: A Message to Combat Vets From a Medal of Honor Marine. “I am just thankful that I had the chance to stand on the shoulders of giants…”

Headlines

• Trump files lawsuit challenging Mar-a-Lago search by FBI (The Wall Street Journal)

• Washington DC Mayor Bowser’s second request for National Guard help with migrant “crisis” denied by Pentagon (Fox News)

• New Inspector General’s report shows Biden left $7 billion in equipment for the Taliban and no one has been fired or disciplined for the disaster (Not the Bee)

• Joe Biden sexually harassed former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — according to his own Title IX definitions (College Fix)

• Former security chief claims Twitter buried “egregious deficiencies” (Washington Post) / Musk subpoenas former Twitter CEO Dorsey (Daily Wire)

• American Academy of Pediatrics ripped for refusing to acknowledge transgenderism causes (Daily Wire)

• Humor: World in panic as science announces retirement (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.