Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

During last night’s debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, a key question was squarely put about their running mates’ policies towards China. Mr. Pence emphasized that Donald Trump had “stood up” to the Chinese Communists and would continue to do so.

Ms. Harris declined to answer. The closest she came to doing so was to refer to Joe Biden’s belief that foreign policy comes down to personal relationships. That’s really worrying, since his close ties with PRC dictator, Xi Jinping, mightily contributed to the policy of appeasement the Obama team pursued when Biden was its point man on China. 

The then-Vice President’s official stenographer, Michael McCormick, describes in a new memoir how Xi and Vladimir Putin manipulated and humiliated Joe Biden. Leaders’ misplaced emphasis on personal ties usually undermines U.S. foreign policy interests, rather than advance them.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s closing pitch – one sure to be amplified tonight by Sen. Kamala Harris during her debate with incumbent Vice President Mike Pence – is that the Democratic ticket will end America’s divisions.

Unfortunately, recently declassified information suggests that the catalyst for much of the country’s present hyper-partisanship was engineered by the party’s previous presidential standard-bearer: Hillary Clinton. In the summer of 2016, with help from allies like then-CIA Director John Brennan – and, evidently, the knowledge of President Obama and Mr. Biden – Mrs. Clinton set in motion the highly polarizing hoax that Donald Trump and his campaign team were colluding with the Russians.

Mr. Trump tweeted last night that he was going to declassify “all” the relevant documents, with “no redactions.” We’ll see what happens on that front. In the meantime, more bitter fractiousness seems in prospect, not less. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has returned to the White House for the remainder of what will, hopefully, continue to be an extraordinarily speedy recovery from the Chinese Communist Party virus.

Before he left the hospital, Mr. Trump made a Churchillian appeal to our countrymen and women. He urged them not to “let COVID-19 dominate you.” That could mark a tipping point since, for months, the pandemic has been exploited for that very purpose – serving as a political control mechanism over the American people, our economy and our freedoms.

If the President continues to heal and lead, he will upend the transparent agenda of our nation’s adversaries, foreign and domestic, to employ the CCP virus as a weapon that keeps us afraid and isolated, demoralized and unfree. Should that happen, it will be Donald Trump’s Finest Hour and one that just may save our Republic.

This is Frank Gaffney.

his is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

What would happen if, in the midst of a hard-fought presidential election campaign, one party’s candidate allegedly reached out to the Russian government to enlist its help in defeating the other’s.

Well, we don’t have to speculate, of course. We know from the past four years of seemingly endless investigations and prosecutions that have flowed from such allegations about Donald Trump and members of his 2016 campaign staff. In short, the full power of the United States government was brought to bear to try first to prevent his election and then, when that failed, to destroy his presidency.

But we have just had official confirmation that it was Hillary Clinton who worked with the Russians, even hiring one of their spies, to do what she claimed Mr. Trump did. The rule of law requires that she now be prosecuted, too.    

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Seventy-one years ago today, the Chinese Communist Party established the most monstrous government ever. Largely lost to memory is the fact that it accomplished this feat with indispensable help from communist operatives and fellow travelers inside another government – ours.

In the intervening seven decades, a regime that went on to murder a hundred million of its own people and those of neighboring nations it conquered has become vastly more dangerous to the rest of the world – which it explicitly seeks to dominate. Once again, powerful American political and corporate forces have enabled this frightening transformation, among other things by underwriting it.

Today’s terrible anniversary will be marked around the world by representatives of the PRC’s Captive Nations – those already enslaved and others now falling prey to its empire-building “Belt and Road Initiative.” We must stand with them and against the CCP.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Particularly bitter exchanges in last night’s fractious presidential debate involved Donald Trump’s repeated charges that former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was massively enriched by Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese figures while his father was making policy concerning their vital interests.

The Vice President adamantly and repeatedly denied those “discredited” allegations. Why should we care?

Here’s one reason: Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion to invest for China after his father helped engineer a bilateral agreement that gave it preferential access to our capital markets.

China used that access to garner $3 trillion from U.S. investors, money it used to become a vastly greater threat. And Beijing is seeking even more American investments for the same purpose now.

We need to know how the next President will address the danger posed by the CCP and some capitalists’ willingness to prosper by helping it.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

It’s always hazardous to make predictions about presidential debates. One upshot of tonight’s featuring the first of three scheduled between Donald Trump and Joe Biden seems bankable, however.

Based on the evidence available in the course of the campaign to date, the former Vice President will likely show signs of infirmity.

If so, the question is: Will his condition be widely perceived as disqualifying as a candidate for what is, arguably, the world’s most demanding job? 

Two thoughts occur: First, the Democratic Party might be blamed for elder-abuse in selecting and exploiting such a nominee. 

Second, its ticket’s recent references to a “Harris” and “Harris-Biden” administration obviously portend a coming change in the Democratic line-up – maybe not after the election, though, but before it.

Given such a development’s wild implications for the campaign’s endgame and outcome, that must be sorted out now.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Commander-in-Chief correctly says the Chinese Communist Party’s TikTok app is a national security threat. Yesterday, however, a federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump’s order to shutter it here on the grounds that the CCP is entitled to take advantage of Americans’ right to free speech – effectively allowing the company to continue to gain access to their phones and private data.

Who’s right?  Consider this insight from Down Under. Another PRC company called Zhenhua Data has reportedly used social media platforms to “scrape” personal information from 2.4 million prominent Australians. Zhenhua’s CEO has reportedly endorsed waging “‘hybrid warfare’ through manipulation of public opinion and other ‘psychological’ operations.”

The Chinese Communists are signaling they won’t allow TikTok’s owner to go through with a deal with Oracle and Walmart that apparently would allow it to continue doing what Zhenhua has done. Neither should we.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Violence broke out once again last night in Louisville because the facts don’t justify prosecutions in connection with the tragic shooting death of Breonna Taylor.   

The rioting was clearly planned, aided and abetted by organizers who were caught on tape supplying the not-so-spontaneous mob with signs, shields and other gear. The question occurs: Who is behind such violent protests, in Louisville and other cities across America in recent months?

We know that revolutionary Marxist groups like Antifa and the Black Lives Matter organization are involved in many of them. We know the latter has received hundreds of millions of dollars from corporate sponsors. There is also evidence that the Chinese Progressive Association – a radical group tied to Communist China’s consulates in Boston and San Francisco – has been supporting BLM.

We must defend our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

What are we to make of President Trump’s decision to approve conditionally the deal that would allow a Chinese digital Trojan Horse known as TikTok to continue recruiting users in the United States?

The good news is that deal-makers Oracle and Walmart say they can prevent the app from vacuuming up private data and other sensitive information from many millions of U.S. cell phones and other digital devices.

The bad news is that the all-important algorithms that power TikTok may remain subject to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party and, therefore, a threat.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has pledged, however, that “We will ensure that that firewall is real, that the protection is serious, that the data resides in places that aren’t connected to the Chinese information system.” Anything less is unacceptable and must result in TikTok being banned.

This is Frank Gaffney.