As I am sure you know by now, Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that he’s running for president in 2024.

In his remarks, Trump spoke at length about the future and what he will do if he wins a second term. It was everything you would expect — from securing the border to making America energy independent again.

Trump also vowed to return to service every brave soldier, sailor, airman and Marine Biden kicked out of the military over vaccine mandates. He vowed to kick the woke agenda out of the Pentagon. He promised to get boys out of girls’ sports. He called for congressional term limits and major election reforms, including voter ID laws.

He made a strong push for Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff election, and he called for Americans to stand together to save the country, saying:

“This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate. This is a task for a great movement that embodies the courage, confidence, and the spirit of the American people.

"This is a movement. This is not for any one individual. This is a job for tens of millions of proud people working together … from all walks of life, young and old, black and white, Hispanic and Asian… This is a job for grandmothers and construction workers, firefighters, builders, teachers, doctors and farmers who cannot stay quiet any longer.

"I will fight like no one has ever fought before. We will defeat the radical left Democrats who are trying to destroy our country from within, and likewise protect us all.”

The Resistance

But first, Trump has to win the Republican primary, and there are powerful people in the GOP establishment who are resisting another Trump run. Reasonable people can disagree over who the best nominee might be, but here’s what worries me.

Many in the GOP establishment don’t want to only move past Trump. They want to move past his platform and abandon his policies. That would be a disaster.

What is Trump’s platform? It’s making America great again.

That means putting America’s interests first. There’s nothing wrong with that. If America doesn’t thrive, the world is worse off.

That means instilling patriotism in our children, teaching them that America was and can still be a great nation. It means rejecting the left’s anti-Americanism, which trashes our country as evil.

It means fighting for the middle class and the working class, not the special interests. It means securing the border, and keeping American jobs here instead of exporting them to places like communist China.

It means being tough with our enemies, while avoiding wars we will not fight to win. It means defending religious liberty here and abroad.

Maybe someone other than Donald Trump will win the GOP nomination. But if they don’t run on his ideas, they will not be the next president of the United States.

World War III

The stock market dropped suddenly Tuesday afternoon. Nobody on the financial networks seemed to know why. Later it was reported that Russian missiles had smashed into Poland, killing at least two people.

Such an event could potentially trigger Article 5 of the NATO alliance, setting off the third major European war since 1914. The odds of the conflict going nuclear would be substantial.

Hours later we learned that it was a Ukrainian missile that either went astray or was attempting to intercept a Russian missile that landed in Poland. In the fog of war, you never know for sure. But the incident highlighted yet again the very real risks we are facing and how quickly everything could unravel.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he’s asking for an additional $50 billion from the lame duck Congress — $10 billion for COVID and $40 billion for Ukraine.

Biden just returned from Indonesia. He gave that country $20 billion to wean it off coal. So, in the last 36 hours, Sleepy Joe Biden is trying to spend another $70 billion of taxpayer money. I’m not aware of how one penny of it will help one American struggling from the failures of his economic policies.

By the way, Target reported yesterday that looting has cost it $400 million so far this year. Welcome to Joe Biden’s economy.

Wray & J6

FBI Director Christopher Wray was on Capitol Hill Tuesday testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee. Rep. Clay Higgins asked Wray whether there were undercover FBI agents inside the Capitol on January 6th.

Wray declined to answer the question, saying he had to be careful about divulging “when we do and do not” use confidential human sources.

Rep. Higgins wasn’t satisfied with this non-answer, so he asked again, “Did you have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6th prior to the doors being opened?”

Once again, Wray refused to answer. Higgins shot back, “It should be a no! Can you not tell the American people, ‘no’?”

If the answer was no, this would have been a very simple exchange. But Wray’s refusal to answer the question is its own answer.

Meanwhile, we now know from recent court filings that the FBI had at least eight informants inside the Proud Boys organization prior to January 6th. That raises all kinds of questions about the lack of security on Capitol Hill that day.

Investigate The Deep State

Tuesday night, California’s Third Congressional District was called for Trump-endorsed conservative Kevin Kiley, securing the GOP’s House majority.

Hey, Nancy… You’re fired!

This incoming Republican House had better stop the kinds of oversight charades that took place Tuesday in the Homeland Security Committee.

These little linguistic dances by FBI and CIA officials must stop. They are making a mockery of the constitutional requirement for congressional oversight of government agencies!

This is the bare minimum Congress is expected to do. And it shouldn’t be just one Republican asking the tough questions or all the Republicans asking the same question.

They must go into these hearings with a plan to extract the truth from Deep State operatives trained to hide it. That means if Congressman A doesn’t get an answer, Congressman B had better follow up on it. And so on.

I know this report is widely read on Capitol Hill. Mr. McCarthy and his team are on notice: You must show results and how it really matters whether Republicans control the majority or not.

Reaching The Middle

There’s a lot of talk about how Republicans can attract independent and moderate voters. I can tell from what people are saying that they are conflating someone who identifies as “independent” with someone who is “moderate.” Those are two entirely different things.

Among self-described independents, some are right-wing independents. They are independents because they don’t think the Republican Party is conservative enough. I hear from these folks all the time.

There are left-wing independents who don’t think the Democrat Party is progressive enough. Think Bernie Bros. And then there are independents who are conservative on some things and liberal on other things.

It’s important to appreciate the difference because when the GOP consulting class says we have to appeal to the middle, they’re often giving us suicidal advice that alienates the conservative independents.

That rationale was used to nominate John McCain and Mitt Romney. How did that work out?

We need to run as many committed populist conservatives as possible. In marginal districts where we need to get some Democrat votes to win, maybe it makes sense to nominate someone who doesn’t quite fit that mold.

But in most states of the union and in most congressional districts, the populist, America First conservative platform is a winning platform.