This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

Yesterday, Donald Trump posthumously awarded Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

Among the many attributes that made Charlie so worthy of this recognition was his relentless defense of liberty and our God-given, unalienable right to it. 

In his final months, Charlie Kirk focused intensively on the threat to freedom posed by adherents of the totalitarian Islamic code called Sharia. He declared flatly that “Islam is not compatible with Western civilization.”

President Trump is confronting that reality in the refusal to date of the Sharia-supremacist group known as Hamas to disarm as required by his Mideast peace deal. The President is right to say they must and will be disarmed. 

But unless that is achieved forcefully, Sharia commands faithful Muslims to lie, violate truces and pursue jihad – and Hamas will do so until it is permanently put out of business.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

A hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidencies has been his commitment that “promises made” will be “promises kept.” In recent days, he secured agreement to a twenty-point plan that promised a durable end to the war in Gaza.

The question now is: Will that promise – and those central to its realization – be kept? 

The latter include: the disarming of Hamas; a demilitarized Gaza with all “military, terror, and offensive infrastructure” destroyed; and the “deradicalization” of Gaza as a terror-free zone. 

With the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from most of Gaza’s cities, however, Hamas has been not only retaining its arms. It has been using them to slaughter opponents who might have been alternatives to the terrorist group’s continued rule. 

Hopes for even a cease-fire, let alone an enduring peace, will be shortlived if promises to end Hamas’ terror permanently are not kept.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Donald Trump has achieved the release of all twenty of the surviving hostages seized and brutalized by Hamas two years ago. Praise God!

It remains to be seen, however, at what price it has been achieved. Two thousand terrorists – including some of the most murderous – have potentially been restored to the jihadists’ ranks, as have 85-percent of those released in such previous exchanges. 

How much that will matter is likely to be largely a function of the extent to which Hamas is actually disarmed, dismantled and denied any future role in Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Another factor, however, will be the impact of the deal on enemies of Western civilization far beyond those lands.

For Middle East peace to be truly achieved and sustained, we must contend with and defeat the threat posed by Sharia-supremacists, both at home and abroad.

This is Frank Gaffney.

In May 2019, the Chinese Communist Party declared a whole-of-society “People’s War” on the United States. Yesterday, Beijing announced highly restrictive controls on exports to this country of rare earth minerals essential to our economic activity and national security. 

History may record it as the moment when China’s longstanding, pre-kinetic “unrestricted warfare” against us took the turn towards the old-fashioned, shooting kind. 

If so, that will be because in short order, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping will follow that crippling blow with others inside America for which he has been preparing for some time. A webinar today will examine the resulting “enemy within” threats. 

You have an urgent need-to-know what is now in prospect – and what we must do immediately to put this country on a war-footing and protect all you hold dear. Please, join us at 1 p.m. ET at PresentDangerChina.org.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Yesterday, negotiations in Egypt on a 20-point plan for ending hostilities in Gaza bore fruit with a ceasefire that is supposed to result in Hamas releasing “all” of the remaining Israeli hostages, living and dead, whom it seized two years ago. 

The question is: Will that fruit prove to be poisonous for Israel and our interests? 

As the British wit, Samuel Johnson, said of second marriages, Mideast peace processes involve “the triumph of hope over experience.” Hard experience with Sharia-supremacists is that so-called ceasefires going back to Mohammed’s day are actually just “hudnas” – temporary suspensions of hostilities when the Muslim side is facing defeat and used to regroup, rearm, then resume the fighting on more favorable terms. 

A critical briefing at 2 p.m. Eastern Time today will examine whether hope is justified. Join us at VictoryCo.org.

In the meantime, hold the champagne.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Two years ago, the Gaza franchise of the terrorist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood perpetrated the most horrific act of jihad since 9/11, beheading raping and murdering 1200 Israeli babies, women and men.

The Biden-Harris administration responded with rhetorical sympathy, intermittent support and a diplomatic and political campaign to save Hamas and its allies from Israel’s retaliation and topple Benjamin Netanyahu.

Today, Egypt is hosting negotiations on a ceasefire “deal” strikingly similar to one drawn up by Kamala Harris’ national security advisor, Philip Gordon. As a practical matter, it would: ensure the survival of Hamas; preclude Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria; conduce to a jihadist Palestinian state in Gaza; and likely result in Netanyahu’s electoral defeat.

That’s a formula for more endless war, not what is required to prevent it – namely, Israel’s decisive victory over her enemies and ours. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Twelve years ago, China’s Communist emperor, Xi Jinping, launched his so-called “Belt and Road Initiative.” It’s used to colonize nations around the world, seducing and entrapping them with large investments in infrastructure and other projects. 

Now, according to the formidable Chairman of the House Select CCP Committee, John Moolenaar, Xi seeks to do the same to us with the tantalizing promise of $1 trillion that would expand opportunities to subvert us from within by further penetrating our markets, elites and country. 

My Present Danger: China Committee colleague, Brian Kennedy, and I similarly warned President Trump yesterday. We pointed out that accepting such a deal would be ill-advised on financial terms alone, given the vastly larger sums the Chinese Communists already extract from us – to say nothing of their determination to destroy this country.

Just say “No,” Mr. President.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Donald Trump has practiced the “art of the deal” for decades.

The question is: Will his ambition to achieve a transformative Middle East peace agreement cause him to violate one of the most important principles of any constructive negotiation: You must be willing to walk away when one of the parties is acting in bad faith even before the deal is done.

That’s exactly what Hamas is doing. Presented with the President’s take-it-or-leave it ultimatum, Hamas accepted conditionally. 

President Trump pledged that Israel would have his support to finish the job in Gaza if Hamas didn’t fully accept the deal. Instead, the jihadists have pulled a bait-and-switch. 

If allowed to get away with it, they’ll only behave worse in a negotiating process that was not supposed to happen, but that’s now nonetheless underway in Egypt.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

For over fifty years, we’ve waged a “war on drugs.” A memo recently sent to Congress says President Trump has now declared we’re in a “non-international armed conflict with…designated terrorist organizations” and directed the Pentagon to conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.

Such operations have already resulted in the destruction of go-fast boats smuggling cocaine and fentanyl from Venezuela by a U.S. Navy task force in the Caribbean.

Inevitably, challenges to this policy will be pursued in court and in Congress. In the meantime, however, President Trump is creating powerful disincentives to our enemies waging what amounts to chemical warfare against us from the sea. 

We must also hold accountable a prime enabler of such warfare – the Chinese Communist Party – that provides the cartels with  precursors for fentanyl and meth and launders the proceeds of their sales.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

At a meeting with military leaders on Tuesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Trump opened the door to an urgently needed corrective to our national security posture. 

In the context of restoring the Pentagon’s focus on warfighting for a potentially imminent conflict, Secretary Hegseth told our top commanders “The next war…will likely not have a rear area.” 

And President Trump declared that the United States has been “invaded” and now confronts “enemies within.”

Such statements are, in fact, irrefutable. Notably, Joe Biden’s open borders permitted a stealthy invasion by Chinese soldiers and jihadists. Ominously, we don’t know their exact numbers or whereabouts, but can no longer ignore the threat they pose to our infrastructure, people and country.

Americans must be enlisted in crowdsourcing “situational awareness” about – and supporting the authorities’ neutralizing of – such enemies within before they strike here.

This is Frank Gaffney.