Secure Freedom Minute

The so-called Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party now underway in Beijing may determine whether its dictator, Xi Jinping, retains absolute control – or is removed from power by the large numbers of Chinese military leaders and those of political factions who have suffered at his hands.

Grounds for Xi’s removal include: his relentless purges of the CCP rivals and senior officers; his successive economic policy failures; the resulting widespread popular discontent; and his preparations for a shooting war with the United States and its allies.  

Unfortunately, initiating such a war may offer Xi the best hope of shoring up his position. Political jockeying in that case would be portrayed as treason, justifying far more extensive and lethal purges. 

We should be rooting – and working – for the demise of the Chinese Communist Party, especially if Xi Jinping remains its emperor.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

When is a deal not a deal? That question looms large in Israel at a moment when American envoys are pressing their hosts to comply with an agreement to cease fire in Gaza. 

That agreement, however, required Hamas to stop hostilities, disarm and give up power. It isn’t happening. Hamas is attacking Israeli forces and trying to take some hostage. It’s massacring perceived political opponents and seizing their weapons. 

And Hamas leaders insist they have no intention of surrendering, let alone ending their efforts to destroy Israel. Rather, they declare the ceasefire is, in the tradition of Mohammed, but a temporary pause to regroup, rearm and then resume the fighting under more favorable circumstances.

Intense American pressure on Israel not to respond to Hamas  violations and evident bad faith is a formula for more endless war, not peace for our time.  `

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

On Friday, our PresentDangerChina.org webinar stunningly documented the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party has long engaged in devastating economic warfare against America. 

It underscored the need, at long last, for a comprehensive and effective U.S. response above and beyond what President Trump has commendably done with his tariffs, export restrictions and fees – including, most recently, charges on Chinese ships’ immense use of our ports. 

Make no mistake, China’s hollowing out of our industrial base, its expropriation of U.S. intellectual property and PRC weaponization of Wall Street’s wanton investments there are all part of a comprehensive strategy for taking down this country. 

We must counter with an integrated strategy like the one Ronald Reagan used to take down the Soviet Communist Party if we are to put the CCP on “the ash-heap of history” before it finishes doing that to us.

This is Frank Gaffney.

“Global governance” is a seemingly benign euphemism for destroying our sovereignty and constitutional Republic. After all, if unelected, unaccountable elites and hostile international institutions can tell nations what to do, representative government here will eventually wither away, along with Americans’ freedoms. 

Today, the United States will be defending our founders’ principle of “no taxation without representation” as a UN body called the International Maritime Organization tries to grant itself taxing authority.

If globalists’ priorities need no longer depend for funding on voluntary dues paid by member nations – especially ours, their ability inexorably to impose a world government agenda will be basically unchecked. Given Communist China’s increasingly dominant – and toxic – role in advancing global governance, the stakes couldn’t be higher. 

Thank you, President Trump, for defending our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic! 

This is Frank Gaffney.

With Communist China’s announcement of an intention to impose sweeping new controls on the export and use of its “rare earth” and other critical materials, Beijing is manifestly waging economic war not just on us, but the whole world.

In a somber press conference with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington yesterday, Trade Representative Jamison Greer declared: “China's announcement is nothing more than a global supply chain power-grab….It is an exercise in economic coercion on every country in the world.”

In response, President Trump has threatened to impose a further 100 percent tariff on Chinese imports if the CCP proceeds. Secretary Bessent hopes to buy time, suggesting we just “derisk” our trade ties with China, rather than decouple them.

Depending on our greatest enemy ever for anything important is insane. We must stop underwriting the CCP and start fully decoupling now.

This is Frank Gaffney.

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.