Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

A number of Republican Senators are considering voting with Democrats in the Senate and the House to repudiate President Trump over his declaration of a national emergency at our southern border.  Some Republicans have already declared their intention to do so.

While it now appears there are sufficient GOP defections for a resolution of disapproval to pass in the Senate, the question is: Will there be enough of them to override its veto by Mr. Trump?

Let’s be clear: Should that happen, it would likely be the kiss of death for continued Republican control of the upper house of Congress.

Because enough Americans know the border crisis is an emergency. And they are sufficiently angry to vote out of office Senate Republicans who profess to “want something done about it” – but just not the way the President proposes.  

That dawg won’t hunt.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate is expected today to join the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in rejecting President Trump’s declaration that conditions at our porous southern border constitute a national emergency. 

Bad timing.  Border Patrol data released yesterday shows that intercepts of family units and unaccompanied minors illegally coming across from Mexico is up nearly 100% over the same period last year. And that’s just the number that have been caught. The number that weren’t is far higher.

Worse yet, we do not exercise operational control of either side of the border.  The drug cartels do, enabling them to traffic people, narcotics and other deadly contraband at will.

President Trump is right.  We have a true national emergency on our hands.  He must, therefore, protect his declaration, and us, by vetoing this latest example of dangerous and delusional congressional fecklessness.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will formally repudiate anti-Semitism. We know the resolution will pass because it’s sponsored by the Democratic leadership and enjoys broad support among Republicans.

The vote is not happening because anti-Semitic sentiment and behavior is on the rise in the Middle East, in Britain, other parts of Europe and elsewhere around the world.  Rather, it is primarily because a new Member of Congress, Somali-expatriate Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, has been serially exhibiting intolerance for Jews, their religion and their state, Israel.

Unfortunately, the resolution does not mention and few in Congress – or anywhere else for that matter – are willing to acknowledge the wellspring of anti-Semitism in Somalia and much of the rest of the world. As Dr. Andrew Bostom has documented assiduously, it is deeply rooted in the teachings and sacred texts of authoritative Islam.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The British government has announced its intention to take an important step in the fight against Iranian-backed terrorism: It is going to stop pretending there’s a difference between members of the Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah, who engage in jihad directly and those who form the organization’s so-called “political party.”

This step should end the Hezbollah demonstrations and fundraising operations in London and quite possibly elsewhere in the European Union, as well. That could prove devastating to Hezbollah’s financial viability at a moment when its sponsors in Tehran are reeling from the effects of President Trump’s economic sanctions.

Since Hezbollah’s operatives are propping up Maduro’s odious regime in Venezuela, engaging in drug trafficking world-wide, threatening Israel and running sleeper cells in the United States, every American should applaud the UK’s initiative – and call on the rest of Europe to follow its lead.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Iranian navy says it recently launched a cruise missile from a submarine during exercises in the Strait of Hormuz.  If true, the mullahs have enhanced their ability to act on past threats to close that strategic transit point for world oil supplies.  

Speaking of threats, the Middle East Media Research Institute has just released a transcript of a fresh round of them issued in a speech by the Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.  One passage is illustrative of its theme: “We have a plan [to break America, Israel and their partners and allies.] We are organized and motivated.  We have faith. We have martyrdom. We have jihad….Our enemies should know that we will never let them be.”

Thank you, President Trump for ending the nuclear deal with such thugs – and for working instead to put them out of business.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has channeled his inner Reagan. Just as  the Gipper in 1986 walked away from a disarmament negotiation at Reykjavic rather than accede to Mikhail Gorbachev’s unacceptable demands, Mr. Trump today truncated his summit with North Korea’s despot, Kim Jong-un.  

Evidently, Kim thought the President was so anxious to secure some deal that he would end all economic sanctions on North Korea in exchange for considerably less than its denuclearization. Instead, as Mr. Trump put it, “Sometimes you just have to walk away.”

President Reagan was sharply criticized for doing just that. Inevitably, his successor will be, too. As a witness to the Reykjavic summit, I can attest to the intense pressure to accept whatever accord is on offer.  It takes guts and a highly commendable determination to put America first to refuse to go along for temporary political advantage.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

It would be more accurate to describe the one-on-one summit President Trump will begin shortly with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a three-on-one meeting – even though two of those who will profoundly influence its outcome won’t be present. 

As a practical matter, Mr. Trump is negotiating not just with the North Korean despot.  Clearly, Kim is the puppet of Chinese president Xi Jinping. He’s also the beneficiary of the assiduous support of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in.

Thanks to these two interested parties’ serial violations of economic sanctions on North Korea, Kim Jong-un is significantly less susceptible to U.S. pressure to denuclearize. Worse yet, South Korea’s pursuit of a separate peace with its northern neighbor dramatically undercuts Mr. Trump as it encourages Kim to believe he’ll secure his goal of reunification on the North’s terms without having to disarm.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Today, the House of Representatives will vote to disapprove President Trump’s declaration that the porousness of our southern border – and its exploitation by criminals, terrorists, hostile nations and countless others – constitutes a national emergency.

The President’s assessment has just been challenged by sixty mostly Democratic former national security officials in a letter clearly intended and timed to influence congressional efforts to repudiate him.

These partisans would have you believe them, rather than your own eyes.  For example, please ignore the fact that 70,000 Americans die yearly from drugs smuggled across our open border.

If those illegally entering the country from Mexico by the hundreds of thousands each year would, in due course, vote Republican, they’d probably see things differently.

National security and public health and safety require a secure border.  And yes, the reality that we don’t have one constitutes an emergency.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The latest indication that Communist China is preparing for conflict, presumably with us, is Beijing’s recent announcement of an overhaul of its national security education programs. It’s an ominous asymmetry that scarcely any American civilians have received training about the common defense in two generations.

Many U.S. campuses have actually subjected students to courses, professors and programs sponsored by Chinese influence operations known as Confucius Institutes. 

Think such indoctrination doesn’t matter? Consider the case of Monica Witt, an Air Force counter-intelligence officer who had been exposed at George Washington University to similar operations mounted by Sharia-supremacists. She went on to betray her country to Iran.  

We can’t afford to continue learning the truth about our enemies the hard way – a fact President Trump must consider as he contemplates a trade deal that may obscure, but won’t mitigate, the growing, multifaceted Chinese threat.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

When President Trump sits down today with China’s vice premier, it would be a good time to serve notice that the United States is going to take steps to upend the Chinese bid to dominate fifth-generation wireless technology.

This punch was telegraphed in two Tweets yesterday from the President and two from his campaign manager, Brad Pascale.  They discussed the need for American 5G technology to surpass competitors’.  That can only happen if we abandon the current, anti-competitive structure for wireless spectrum allocation.

It’s time for the United States, instead, to lead the world in adopting a free-market, open-access approach to utilizing the wireless spectrum.  The result will be a private sector-driven build-out of 5G networks that promises greatly to: reduce wireless costs, massively improve service and keep this vital infrastructure out of the hands of our Chinese enemies.

This is Frank Gaffney.