I know it’s unusual for a politician to keep his promises. That rare trait distinguishes leaders from the rest the pack. But late Sunday President Trump announced that he is pulling back U.S. forces in Syria, keeping his promise to get us out of endless wars. 

The president is getting a lot of pushback for his decision, and I understand the concerns. I and the other commissioners on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have privately shared those concerns with the president.  

Sadly, a convincing argument can be made that our previous intervention in the Middle East has been a disaster. I know President Trump believes that.

Iraq is broken and is now dominated by Iran. After eight years of weakness, Iran, Russia, and Turkey are all in Syria along with multiple terrorist groups. Well before Trump came into office, Europe and the entire world looked the other way while religious minorities, especially Christians, were brutally persecuted. 

Under President Trump’s leadership, Vice President Mike Pence has directed USAID to ensure that Christians receive the resources they need and can return to their ancestral homes. But for obvious reasons, many are not inclined to do so. 

The president is putting pressure on Iran like never before, and also on the ayatollah’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah. The ISIS caliphate, which grew under Obama, has been wiped off the map by Donald Trump. 

Trump Plays Hardball

Congressional Democrats are considering allowing the Deep State operative who triggered the latest impeachment drama to testify at an undisclosed location and with his identity fully masked. 

Democrats don’t want to follow the rules. They refuse to let the GOP issue subpoenas in the president’s defense. They won’t release transcripts of witness testimony. And now they want to take testimony from witnesses who we can’t see and don’t even know.

Yesterday, the administration announced that it would not permit Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, to testify. Good! There is no reason for the administration to cooperate with this fake inquiry. It is a fishing expedition, not an impeachment process. Trump tweeted yesterday:

I would love to send Ambassador Sondland … to testify, but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republicans’ rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public to see.

Until this process is conducted fairly, the White House should get on with the business of making America great again and do nothing to lend credibility to this charade.

If the president is so bad, shouldn’t Democrats be more confident that the American people will embrace their nominee and vote him out next November? Apparently Democrats not only don’t trust Trump, but they also don’t trust American voters either.

The Left’s War on Speech

As we have noted many times, the totalitarian left has a problem with free speech. The latest example comes from Minneapolis, where Mayor Jacob Frey is using rhetoric against the president that could easily result in violence when the president holds a rally there later this week.

In addition, the leftist mayor has directed the police chief to issue an order banning police officers from appearing at the rally in uniform. According to the Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, when Obama was president police officers were ordered to show up and stand behind Obama in uniform as he was delivering remarks.

The police are so outraged that they have started selling T-shirts reading “Cops For Trump.” But people all over Minnesota are ordering the shirts. President Trump mentioned the shirts yesterday and the website crashed when it received an avalanche of orders.

The final outrage is that the mayor is attempting to charge the Trump campaign more than $500,000 for security issues — which the mayor’s rhetoric has contributed to by suggesting the president and his supporters are bigots, white supremacists, etc.

China Censors the NBA

Yesterday, we reported on the growing international controversy between the NBA and China. It was triggered by a simple message of support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets.

After initially appearing to scold Morey, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver attempted to reassure American basketball fans that the NBA still believes in free speech. “The NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way,” Silver said.

Well, the Chinese communist government does operate that way, and it announced that it will not televise the NBA’s preseason games in China. 

What the NBA and other companies will eventually come to realize is that if and when tanks roll into Hong Kong, China will not be satisfied unless the NBA and American companies applaud while the slaughter is taking place. 

At the end of the day, this is not about the Chinese communists. It’s about us. The world has always had bad actors. The difference is how we respond. We want their money and they want our souls. Sadly, there are plenty of people willing to make that bargain.

Long-time followers of my work know that I have been warning about communist China since the 1990s. Thankfully, we have a president who is willing to stand up to Beijing. 

In addition to pushing back on China’s unfair trade practices, the Trump administration has been aggressively checking China’s national security threats and holding it accountable for human rights abuses.

Monday, the administration put eight Chinese companies on a blacklist for their role in the use of artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to persecute religious minorities, including Christians.

Congratulations, Ed!

President Trump yesterday honored former Attorney General Ed Meese with the Medal of Freedom, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. There is no one more deserving.

Ed Meese is a close friend. I worked with Ed throughout my years in the Reagan administration, both at the White House and when I was under secretary of education. He assigned me the task of producing a major report on welfare reform. Most importantly, Ed was a leader of the “Let Reagan Be Reagan” movement.

Ed Meese has dedicated his life to the conservative cause, and he still plays an active role at The Heritage Foundation, where he was instrumental in guiding the confirmation battle of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

And I don’t mind saying that every time I see General Meese, the first thing he says is, “Gary, the best thing put out in Washington from a conservative perspective is your daily report!”