The man who kept the CIA up at night



“Angelo.” With no surname necessary, the mere mention put Washington’s late-Cold War intelligence establishment on edge. Their tormentor was but a thirtysomething staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Contrarily, to the Cold Warriors sacrificing their all to defend the nation from communist subversion and nuclear missile threats, that single name, like a messenger from heaven, brought comfort and joy.

Angelo Codevilla, who died in 2021, knew and understood that the country that took him in as a boy would preserve itself and its founding principles by having the most capable intelligence and counterintelligence services the world had ever seen. “Most capable” didn’t mean the largest, or the most lavishly funded, or supplied with the most high-tech gear. It meant having the most creative, most principled, most virtuous, and wisest people doing the job.

Angelo was his own man. He stood true to his principles, never feared burning bridges, and often anticipated enjoying the flames.

Angelo watched the U.S. intelligence apparatus deteriorate. Visiting CIA headquarters over the years, he passed the stone inscription that the late and great CIA Director Allen Dulles placed as what he intended as a permanent greeting: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” — the Gospel according to John.

In the last year of his life, Angelo saw the videos of CIA corridors festooned with mind-numbing murals and telescreens promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. To Angelo, who spoke Latin, DEI meant “of God.” A new god, a false one, possesses the American intelligence community today.

The evolution to this point was entirely predictable, and Angelo foresaw it early. He had the most remarkable track record of any American. Close to a half-century ago, on the newly formed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Angelo called out the CIA, not for its cult of secrecy, but for its cult of untruthfulness.

A relentless force

Angelo arrived at the Senate in 1977, just as George H.W. Bush left his 11-month stint as CIA director and as the liberal Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) wrapped up sensational hearings and reports about the intelligence community.

Angelo’s committee work and intellectual rigor were so distinguished that President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential transition team chose him to be part of its intelligence and diplomatic section. He had built a rapport with Reagan’s campaign manager, the distinguished Office of Strategic Services veteran William J. Casey. Casey had done the unthinkable during World War II by proposing, then running, operations behind German lines after D-Day to open the invasion route for Allied American, French, and British Empire forces to march to Berlin.

Rapport and mutual respect grew to deep trust when Casey ran the CIA. Angelo became Bill Casey’s man in the Senate. But Angelo Codevilla was never the CIA’s man. To him, the CIA was just a bureaucracy that performed a necessary function. He believed that the bureaucracy was performing its function poorly and going in the wrong direction. No bureaucracy, he believed, was sacred. Certainly, none should ever be permanent.

Angelo wasn’t even Bill Casey’s man. He was his own man. He stood true to his principles, never feared burning bridges, and often anticipated enjoying the flames.

Angelo trusted and admired President Reagan for the good in him and for his ideals. He worked closely in a fraternal and trusting relationship with Reagan’s national security adviser, Judge William Clark. Casey brought the Senate staffer Angelo to private White House meetings with President Reagan.

Angelo found himself in the curious situation — or, knowing him, he created the situation — of serving on the Senate committee whose job was to oversee the CIA while also working with the CIA director himself to get ahold of the dysfunctional and demoralized bureaucracy. The CIA wasn’t being truthful with Congress, and it wasn’t being truthful with Casey either.

It wasn’t a matter of the CIA’s being secretive. Angelo had all the necessary clearances. It was a matter of being truthful. This bothered Angelo immensely. So did incompetence. And so did ideological blinders. Angelo was never in awe of the CIA or the FBI, though he did say once, 33 years ago, that the FBI merited some of his esteem. That was then.

That year, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, he wrote a monumental work, “Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century,” on what a successful intelligence community should look like, how it should act, and why. The CIA was far, far behind the curve, looking backward instead of forward. “The major elements of U.S. intelligence will have to be rethought and rebuilt,” he said.

Of course, they were not rethought or rebuilt until after their hand was forced — after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Even then, the rethinking and rebuilding were done entirely wrong. Instead of the eternal standards of philosophical soundness and professional excellence that Angelo laid out in 1991, the U.S. intelligence system treated its bureaucratic instincts as sacrosanct, taking critical theory as its lodestar, and glowering establishmentarians cemented the new order.

The CIA leveraged its network of mid- to late-career bureaucrats — the “Old Boys” — to manage perceptions by leaking to the press, helping write or actually writing the popular histories, dominating the academic studies of intelligence, and credentialing those who would play well with others.

Angelo understood strategy the way others pretended to.

Angelo had his own exceptional network, however. He played five-dimensional chess in his sleep. He knew all about bureaucratic warfare and subversion both as a scholar and a practitioner. He knew exactly whom to call, when, and what to say.

Certain senators dreaded him. So did select high-ranking CIA and FBI officials.

He had a bipartisan spleen. On the Senate Intelligence Committee, Codevilla gleefully terrorized Republicans and Democrats alike with pointed, relentless inquiries that exposed intellectual inconsistencies and sheer sloppiness. He forced analysts and policymakers alike to address inconvenient facts as facts. They hated him for it, but many of them admitted he was right in private.

Angelo was known for his broad smile of iron teeth long before Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (or a KGB officer assigned to the pliant Washington Post reporter Dusko Doder, who related it to the American audience) came up with the term to describe Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

“Iron teeth” applied to Angelo far better than it did to the Soviet leader. Codevilla’s militant joviality while pummeling Washington’s morally corrupt and weak-minded power elite flummoxed both friends and enemies. Hit hardest were the victims of Codevilla’s intellectual inquisitions. They could never quite tell whether the iron smile was a signal of genuine joy in shepherding one lost in a sea of laziness and prejudice toward logical reasoning or whether the smile was a precursor to a deadly verbal salvo — until it was too late.

Allen DullesBettmann via Getty Images

Challenging the Old Boys’ club

Angelo was a perceptive talent-spotter. He sized you up quickly. He would go out of his way to help those whom he deemed earnest. He reveled in discussions of facts, reason, and philosophy. One didn’t have to agree with him to be his friend. But if you were out, you were out permanently. He despised what he called “dishonest treachery.”

Treachery is part of the intelligence profession. It has to be. Angelo studied treachery and respected it. Dishonest treachery, to Angelo, was treachery executed in a morally wrong way and for morally wrong reasons. The world is treacherous. People are treacherous. To navigate treachery for a cause larger than oneself, one had to understand treachery, expect it, and deal with it on its own terms.

Born in Italy during the collapse of Mussolini’s fascist regime during World War II, Angelo always focused on the fundamentals. He always referred to the classics. He was the only member of the Senate Intelligence Committee staff, and perhaps the only person on earth, who read and studied the intelligence community’s entire super-secret annual budget, line by line — a pile of papers two feet high — year after year.

Angelo had a fear-inducing way of questioning intelligence leaders. He would say, “I asked Aristotle’s simple questions of officials throughout the Intelligence Community: What is the purpose of this activity? Why do you do this rather than something else? Do you do this for the sake of that, or vice versa? By what criteria do you judge your products good or bad?”

“I was astounded,” he remarked, “at how little thought had been given to decisions that affected thousands of careers, billions of dollars, and the nation’s very future. All too often, the answers to my questions were ‘We’ve always done it this way,’ and ‘How insulting for you to ask!’”

Angelo understood strategy the way others pretended to.

He was offending the agency or the bureau. Not the missions. The mission is never first in a permanent bureaucracy.

Angelo played five-dimensional chess in his sleep. He knew all about bureaucratic warfare and subversion both as a scholar and a practitioner.

Reasoned arguments were not part of the debate. The custom, then as now, was to attack the questioner and defend the bureaucracy. Decades before DEI and LGBTQ+, the FBI had its own informal acronym for its personnel: “DEB,” or “Don’t Embarrass the Bureau.”

“The attack is usually three-pronged,” Angelo explained when unpacking bureaucratic argumentative tactics. “First, this person must be revealing classified information. Second, this person does not know the whole story, and we who do know it are forbidden from commenting, except to say ‘You’re wrong.’ Third, this person’s demeaning tone precludes a rational explanation of some admittedly valid points.”

“So, in practice, three points boil down to one: Leave the field of intelligence for the Old Boys.”

The Old Boys would retire or die out, having mentored a new set of Old Boys, or New Genders, or whatever the flavor of the month may be, but the goal would be the same: Silence honest discussion about intelligence, counterintelligence, and whatever has become of “national security.”

Making truth-telling politically incorrect, and therefore wrong or immoral — and thus evil and professionally destructive — remains a defense tactic for intelligence agency bureaucrats. Angelo decried political correctness very early as it came into vogue. As it was killed off in favor of a more virulent strain, wokeness, he continued his crusade against it.

The Old Boys' networks that he called out from the 1970s became, or were already part of, what he would later define as “the ruling class.”

‘Why? What for?’ And other inconvenient questions

Before the pale riders of cultural Marxism penetrated the intelligence community, Angelo was hammering away at the sheer aimlessness of American intelligence collection and analysis, most of which he saw as existing for its own sake.

After World War II and the bipartisan consensus about containment of communism, defining American national interests was easy: Take the fight to the communists, who were strategically mobilized to tear apart our country and our culture by any means necessary, both ideologically and physically. By defining national interests, even broadly, America can define the scope of its foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security services.

Even the beginning faced deep flaws, plus tensions about growing globalism. That mission was poorly understood and became diluted over time, with priorities left up to “experts” from the Washington establishment and the Ivy League, further distorted by critical theorists of the Frankfurt School variety. Reagan temporarily disrupted that trend, but his monumental mission to bring down the USSR itself required immense intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities.

The end of the Soviet Union allowed anyone with eyes to see that the intelligence establishment had become, as Codevilla had warned from his Senate staff perch, a huge intelligence-industrial complex that existed more for itself than for the national interest, whatever that national interest had become.

Codevilla became one of the first serious people after the Cold War to question why the United States was pouring so many resources into technologies to spy on everything possible around the world. Surveying America’s colossal human- and technological-intelligence might in 1992, he asked, “What for?”

Then, he crystallized the obvious but inconvenient facts. “To what does all of this amount? The activities to which we loosely refer as the U.S. technical collection system [were] never planned according to any single purpose, nor are they administered by a single organization,” he said. Some congressional oversight “sometimes prod[s] the system toward coherence. Yet coherence is elusive, because coordination is ex post facto to budgetary planning.”

Angelo’s unwelcome observation went unheeded, with Osama bin Laden proving the point with his ingeniously simple attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and all the Saudi and Qatari funding behind them. The al-Qaeda leader was but the most famous of a parade of “known wolves.” A bright and aggressive CIA man in Sudan tried to arrange bin Laden’s capture or elimination before he carried out the acts of terror he was openly planning, but he found little support up the intelligence chain and zero at the top of the CIA and in the Clinton White House. So bin Laden was allowed to remain free to attack.

Angelo had a bipartisan spleen. He gleefully terrorized Republicans and Democrats alike with pointed, relentless inquiries that exposed intellectual inconsistencies and sheer sloppiness.

It took a madman in a cave to force the United States to drop everything and try to add coherence to American intelligence. When that coherence came, it arrived in the hurried form of a huge centralized security apparat with near-limitless capabilities: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an überpowerful post that, in the wrong hands, would build coherence by abusing power and politicizing the apparat, resulting, by the time of Codevilla’s death, in a largely incoherent intelligence politburo, a rogue state deeply embedded within a state, whose modus operandi became guided by a revived Comintern’s critical theory and wokeness.

“Intelligence concerns human activities, and human beings, unlike God, go to great lengths to disguise their work. So perhaps the most serious charge that can be made against the fruits of U.S. intelligence concerns not the collectors but another set of people: the counterintelligence officers who should have guarded the integrity of the collectors’ work,” Angelo wrote in “Informing Statecraft.” American counterintelligence failed to do so, and Codevilla is one of the very few scholars to explain why.

Weaponized language

Angelo carefully studied language and the weaponization of words and grammar. He disdained wishy-washy intelligence products full of caveats, euphemisms, and that terrible passive voice.

He embraced the ancient treasure of virtue. Here I speak of virtue in the Aristotelian, Hebraic, and Christian senses. Niccolò Machiavelli changed the public understanding of virtue, influencing philosophers of liberalism in subsequent centuries. He taught how to change language to trick the reader to agree with the opposite of the original definition and intent and to reason, with easy logic, that evil was a virtue.

This was the most subversive aspect of Machiavelli’s writings. Subversion is an operational part of intelligence, though seldom adequately practiced by the CIA abroad or identified and combatted by the FBI to protect our constitutional republic at home (though competently waged against the American public).

Most readers of Machiavelli rely on translations. Angelo grew frustrated with some of those translations, even those by the finest scholars. Raised in an Italian-speaking home, he read Machiavelli in its original form and discovered that, especially in the case of the Florentine’s most important work, “The Prince,” the translators had “cleaned up” the Florentine evil genius’ imprecise uses of words, his often poor grammar, double meaning, or doublespeak, and indeed his bad use of pronouns. The cleanups improved the flow and readability of the translations and arguably corrected Machiavelli’s sloppy mistakes.

Angelo found that Machiavelli’s mistakes were purposeful, intended to convey or obscure meaning. So he set out to re-translate “The Prince,” in a literal but what he called an “inelegant” translation, and packed it with footnotes to explain the calculated plays on words and puns to distort language and understanding.

RELATED: Trump must clean house at DEI-crazy CIA

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Machiavelli was all about power for power’s sake — not for higher ideals, as Allen Dulles or Bill Casey later sought. It was power politics simply. Angelo explained how the mistranslators of Machiavelli, inadvertently or otherwise, taught people to dispense with goodness and all forms of higher purpose, to break down human relationships and society for the purposes of power.

Machiavelli twisted the meaning of virtue into a “tool for wretchedness,” suggesting that evil may be praiseworthy, twisting the concepts of evil and good. “The Prince,” Angelo said, marked the center of gravity from the standpoint of the sovereign: “Do I do virtuous things that don’t keep me #1, or do I do evil things and stay on top?” It refers to no higher purpose than that.

And so Angelo foresaw, whether translating Machiavelli or writing on — and acting for — intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security, that the machinery created to defend our constitutional republic has been perverted to seek and preserve power for power’s sake. The CIA as a bureaucracy, the FBI as a bureaucracy, Old Boys' networks against citizens, the ruling class, political correctness, wokeness, critical theory, and cultural Marxism are all effectively automatons stockpiling power for their own sake.

Subversion

Treachery had a love child called subversion. Few mainstream American studies of intelligence or counterintelligence over the past six decades or so devote much attention to subversion — how both to defend ourselves and our society against it and to utilize it against our enemies. Codevilla treated subversion as a natural human behavior. He devoted a whole chapter to it in “Informing Statecraft.”

He also made a study of one of the 20th century’s most notorious subversives, the Italian Comintern man Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci adopted the gradualist, cultural-Marxist approach to revolution, combining the evils of Marxism with the evils of Machiavelli and a dash of Mussolini to give us an early strain of critical theory.

Angelo embraced the ancient treasure of virtue in the Aristotelian, Hebraic, and Christian senses.

Few besides Gramsci knew and applied Machiavelli as well as Angelo. Gramsci did it to subvert and destroy Western civilization. Codevilla understood and explained Machiavelli in a bid to save civilization and its moral foundations and to save its chief protector, at least then: the United States of America.

Angelo also understood Gramsci’s kindred spirits at the Germany-based Frankfurt School, another Comintern enterprise, which was rooted at Columbia University and fanned out through the Ivy League and West Coast universities. The Frankfurt School populated the OSS Research and Analysis Branch during World War II and infiltrated the early CIA’s intelligence directorate and its analytical products with a cultural-Marxist worldview. It penetrated the FBI after Robert Mueller’s centralization and indiscriminate mass hires following 9/11, which is quite likely why President Barack Obama asked Congress to extend Mueller’s statutory 10-year term limit as director for another two years, making the then-cognitively-impaired Mueller the second-longest-reigning FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover.

This wreaked damage that the rest of us are only beginning to understand as we watch the rot of critical theory permeate the Intelligence Community, just as it has our military and educational systems.

Angelo called it early. In a work on political warfare that he wrote in 2006 titled “Political Warfare: Means for Achieving Political Ends,” he noted that as dangerous as the enemy spies are who steal secrets, they merely steal secrets. Alger Hiss was a valuable Soviet spy, but his greatest value to the Soviet enemy was something else by far: a major controlled agent of influence and recruiter for Moscow within the Democrat and diplomatic establishments.

Worse than the spies who steal secrets and the controlled agents of influence, Angelo warned, were the subversive, uncontrolled fellow travelers, the so-called innocents and useful idiots who followed and mainstreamed the work of controlled agents — the men who designed the sellout to Stalin at Yalta, for example.

Since World War II, United States foreign policy succeeded despite, not because of, its giant intelligence-industrial apparat, Codevilla argued in his 1992 book. “Informing Statecraft” is so fundamental, and its principles and guidance so timeless, that it remains among the most important and informative volumes on both statecraft and intelligence more than three decades later. A future president should require all his intelligence, national security, and foreign-policy appointees to master the book.

American intelligence and counterintelligence understand little of this in terms of performing their missions that the public has entrusted to them. Nor does Congress, which makes the laws.

Nor do the courts, which interpret them. Nor do all but a very few of the nation’s schools. And so Angelo Codevilla’s approach to intelligence laid the foundations for his studies of America’s national character and of the ruling class.

Enduring character

To Angelo, America’s superpower status was an exception to its exceptionalism, an anomaly brought about by its defeat of fascism and its brief but squandered victory in the Cold War over the Soviet Union and communism. The post-Soviet world, he reasoned, was the time for America to return to its founding roots.

Nations have character. Their governments affect society, the moral order, and family. In a vicious circle, politics make or break all. America’s founders were all men of character. They spoke openly of virtue, not in the twisted Machiavellian sense, but in its real essence.

A coherent and strategic foreign policy was a core element of the American Revolution, the founding of the American constitutional republic, and the growth of the United States and the American dream to become a superpower. The greatest successes occurred when American intelligence, like the federal government itself, was very limited and very small and when U.S. strategic goals were simple and understandable to the average citizen who could support them.

Times are different, but the principle remains. The United States needs a strong foreign secret-intelligence service to collect and analyze information on issues vital to its national interests to inform a president and his administration. It needs a similar service to conduct activities covertly that diplomats and the military cannot or should not do. It needs a robust counterintelligence service to neutralize foreign spying and influence against us and a moderate security service to defend against violent or subversive internal threats to the Constitution.

Sheer size bears no relation to strength and robustness. As the world’s sole superpower, the United States built a Leviathan government that created a new ruling class through a form of bureaucracy and corporatism that linked political power and wealth. It attacked family, religious belief, and personal character. Surveying history, and stressing the profound America chronicled by Alexis de Tocqueville, Angelo in 1997 recognized the culture wars under way that ultimately begat today’s critical theory of wokeness.

How could America keep the peace in the world if it wasn’t even at peace with itself? Angelo naturally wrote a book about it: “To Make and Keep Peace,” subtitled “Among Ourselves and with All Nations.” Much earlier, with Paul Seabury, he wrote one of the most important modern textbooks of peace’s opposite, titled “War: Ends and Means.” And then, he provided a collection of essays during the Global War on Terrorism titled “No Victory, No Peace,” which observed, in what would mark the early part of a forever war, “The Bush Administration has not achieved peace because it has not sought victory.” That was back in 2005.

Photo by MIKE SARGENT/AFP via Getty Images

Angelo constantly asked the annoying question, “Why go to war if you don’t intend to win?”

A common thread bound all his works on conflict, defense, intelligence, peace, and treachery. That thread was about keeping America first, a solid and reasoned approach without the politicized jingoism, and tempered by a firm grounding in America’s founding principles and the Western moral tradition.

As time went by, after Reagan’s successful strategy brought down the Soviet Union and the military-industrial and intelligence-industrial complexes mushroomed to what they are today, Angelo focused extensively on the elites who run American politics and policy and the uniparty that became known as the Swamp and the permanent ruling class.

As an aside, perhaps Angelo’s most impactful legacy, more than 40 years ago, was to build up a leader in the U.S. Senate to push for a space-based weapons system to shoot down incoming ballistic nuclear missiles. This effort involved constant coordination with the Reagan White House. A Soviet active-measures campaign aimed at weak and treacherous politicians and other elites kept Congress from providing the funds to build and deploy that revolutionary, workable system.

The prospect of an American strategic missile-defense system wrecked the Soviets’ nuclear war calculus and, with Reagan’s own nuclear modernization, tricked the Kremlin into bankrupting the USSR with needless new weapons programs that Reagan planned to negotiate away. However, Congress never funded a functional space-based missile defense, and to this day, America remains completely vulnerable to a strategic nuclear missile attack.

The ruling class, as personified by President George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, never tried to understand the nature of the jihadist enemy. Angelo called them out for it at the time. Unlike in domestic politics, where they worked tirelessly to keep themselves in power, he observed, they never sought to win abroad.

Angelo Codevilla flew with the high and mighty, not because he craved being among them but because he knew he had to be.

The same was true for the permanent class within the military and intelligence communities. Indeed, by the 2000s, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had completely removed the word “victory” from its annual 400-page “Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.”

On learning this during dinner with friends, Angelo grew incensed but was not at all surprised, switching the conversation to pose the question, “Why have a military if our leaders say nothing of victory?”

This need for an endlessly growing spy machine resulted more through the incrementalism of American interventionism and forever wars than through a grand design for a giant foreign and domestic spy apparat, or so we’d like to think, but the result was the same. A grandly designed spy apparat would have been more logical and effective than the one we have.

Angelo Codevilla flew with the high and mighty, not because he craved being among them but because he knew he had to be.

Even in Washington, he always took the time to mentor young people to become the next generation of diplomats, spies, and national security leaders.

He taught, among remarkable colleagues, at Boston University during the years when BU President John Silber was on the cusp of transforming the middling school into a top-flight institution with a world-class national security and international diplomacy program — a transformation that died with Silber and swirled down the loo of intellectual mediocrity, wokeness, and the scam of critical-race-theory corruption. Still, Boston University’s very woke Pardee School of Global Studies, of which Angelo was never on the faculty because the school didn’t exist at the time, proudly claims him as a professor emeritus.

Bureaucracies in need of replacement

Government bureaucracies are just bureaucracies. When they atrophy and abuse the public trust, they should be abolished. In an orderly way, their essential functions can be transferred to another bureaucracy that can do the job, or, better yet, they can be culled to create a new bureaucracy to last for as long as it faithfully executes its intended purpose.

Angelo agreed that we don’t need the FBI and CIA as they are. But that doesn’t mean that America doesn’t need strong foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and even internal security agencies to defend the country and its interests from foreign adversaries. Bureaucracies come and go. And just as the FBI and the CIA came from parts of the distant past, Angelo argued in his later years that it was time for them to go in favor of something better.

Replacements would have to be designed according to the priorities of America’s mission in the world, which he saw as driven by the American people’s priorities for the central government to serve them, with their consent as the governed, and not for the ruling class to serve itself. The people determine their needs, the elected officials determine strategies and policies to fulfill those needs, and then the officials design and authorize the intelligence apparatus necessary to execute those strategies and policies.

And this is where Angelo labored his last. For years, he had referred to the America seen by Tocqueville — its mission, its place in the world, its relations with foreign countries, and its securing its own defense. His last work, published posthumously in 2022, drew lessons in statecraft from an intellectual and political giant and near-forgotten contemporary of Tocqueville, President John Quincy Adams.

Although America had leading political families such as the Adamses even when Tocqueville made his observations, there was no ruling class. America’s founders fought relentlessly to avoid the emergence of a national class of elites, even though several states in the federation had their own dominant political or economic families and clans. But there was no massive, permanent central government with a constellation of companies with business models of milking the taxpayers’ udders. There was no interstate ruling class.

The superficiality of popular American history almost passes over John Quincy Adams, viewing him as the son of a founding father and a one-term president during a period of undistinguished one-termers.

In “America’s Rise and Fall Among Nations: Lessons in Statecraft from John Quincy Adams,” Codevilla described a true American foreign policy, one as consistent with the vision of the founding fathers as with present-day America First nationalism. Adams was the brilliant but practically forgotten 19th-century secretary of state and president who, as a 5-year-old, had been brought by his parents, John and Abigail Adams, to watch the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.

John Quincy Adams effectively founded U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy. He authored the Monroe Doctrine to preserve the independence of the new American republics from Mexico to South America and to keep European powers out of the region.

RELATED: The CIA’s greatest failure: Intelligence

Photo by asbe via Getty Images

In studying Adams’ extraordinary experiences as diplomat, secretary of state, president, and statesman, Codevilla showed America’s successes in determining its own national interests in geopolitics by limiting them, reducing the need for a global, expeditionary military and a centralized, European-style security state to prop up, among other things, a ruling class.

He celebrated John Quincy Adams’ principles and achievements — among them, ghostwriting the extraordinarily successful Monroe Doctrine as secretary of state — and tracked American foreign policy and geostrategy from Adams’ time to the present, uncovering a consistency of principles regardless of international circumstances.

Application of those principles is associated directly with America’s rise. Abandonment of them, over time, tracks with America’s relative decline. Revival of them, Codevilla would argue, would be cause for optimism.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind and was adapted from “Fighting Enemies Foreign and Domestic: The Legacy of Angelo Codevilla” (Encounter Books).

'He did horrible s**t!' Joe Rogan rips into Gavin Newsom's presidential aspirations — and he fires back



Joe Rogan mocked and ridiculed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for his presidential aspirations, and the Democrat tried to defend himself in a post on social media.

Newsom has appeared to be increasing his national exposure and fueling speculation that he is looking to mount a presidential campaign in 2028 after being termed out of the California governor's office.

'Everybody's leaving! You have the highest unemployment. You have the highest homelessness. Money's missing. You killed Hollywood. Like, Hollywood doesn't exist anymore. It's literally gone!'

Rogan hammered Newsom on his podcast while interviewing Jack Carr, a retired Navy SEAL and author.

"[Democrats] don't have any faith in Gavin Newsom, which is kind of funny because he wants to be president so bad," Rogan laughed.

"You can't ruin a city and then go on to ruin a state and say, 'Guys, that was just practice. Once I get in as president, I'm gonna fix it. Fix it all,'" he added.

Carr called it "crazy" but added that Newsom was a "great politician," to which Rogan immediately disagreed.

"No, he's not. ... He has low competition. There's no one who's good that's competing against him. There's no sincerity," Rogan responded.

Carr reframed his characterization and called Newsom "smooth" instead.

"He's a good bulls**t artist. ... The things that he says when he gets confronted with anything — 'We have the highest this and the highest that!'" Rogan replied.

"Like, everybody's leaving! You have the highest unemployment. You have the highest homelessness. Money's missing. You killed Hollywood. Like, Hollywood doesn't exist anymore. It's literally gone!" he continued. "You mandated vaccines for kids that didn't need them. You guys, he did horrible s**t!"

Video of the exchange was posted to social media, where it garnered more than 10 million views.

The governor didn't seem to appreciate the comments, and he challenged Rogan on social media.

"Joe Rogan is too [chicken] to have me on his show and expose his listeners to the truth, so I'll put it here," Newsom posted on social media.

RELATED: Gavin Newsom threatens California universities that 'bend to the will' of Trump after latest demand

Newsom listed several indicators of success from the state of California:

  • 4th largest economy in the world
  • #1 in manufacturing
  • #1 in farming
  • #1 in new business starts
  • #1 for tech and VC investments
  • #1 for Fortune 500 companies
  • #1 public higher education

"I could continue ... invite me on any time," he added.

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The 5 biggest Charlie Kirk lies DEBUNKED



The announcement that Charlie Kirk had died was public for all of 10 seconds before the ghouls set in to try to destroy his legacy. It wasn’t enough to label him a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic white supremacist. They had to make up bald-faced lies about him, twisting his words to paint him as the nazi they believe all conservatives are.

Now, those lies, which are circulating like wildfire, are being used to justify his murder. It’s grotesque to the highest decree because the truth is: Charlie Kirk was above reproach.

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn debunked the five biggest lies about his dear friend.

Lie #1: Charlie Kirk endorsed the enslavement of black people

One of the lies currently making the rounds is that Charlie Kirk said, “Black people were better off in slavery.”

Charlie, of course, never uttered any such statement endorsing slavery or suggesting that black people are deserving of or suited for it. On the contrary, Charlie made it clear that the enslavement of any man is evil.

What he did say, however, was that the black family was fairing better before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which ended the Jim Crow era. “And it was!” says Glenn, a history aficionado. In those days, divorce rates were lower, fathers were more present in the home, and the crime rate was lower in the black community. Statistics prove that following the Civil Rights Movement, divorce rates among black couples surged, as did crime rates.

Glenn’s theory is that the Civil Rights Movement was spearheaded by progressives who wanted to oppress the black community, but instead of denying rights, they targeted the family. According to his hypothesis, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who he reminds was “the biggest racist up until he died,” packaged his Great Society — Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and expanded welfare programs — as a means of tackling poverty and racial injustice in order to conceal his true intentions: enslave black people financially.

“The Great Society did more damage to the black family than anybody could have done outside of Margaret Sanger. I think that's what [Charlie] meant,” says Glenn.

Lie #2: Charlie Kirk said black women are intellectually inferior

Many progressive are falsely claiming that Charlie Kirk said all black women are inferior intellectually. This is a distortion of a comment the Turning Point USA founder said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” in 2023 following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC, in which the court declared that affirmative action violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Kirk called out Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — all of whom had admitted that their success was only made possible by affirmative action.

“All of them basically confessed, ‘Yeah, I was an affirmative action person, and I’m proud of it.’ This is how arrogant Joy Reid and Ketanji Brown Jackson and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee are. They’re like, ‘Yeah, I took your slot.’ They do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously, but they had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously,” Kirk said.

Never once did he say or even imply that all black women are intellectually inferior. “Criticizing four members of a group does not mean you're criticizing the group,” says Glenn’s co-host Stu Burguiere.

To suggest that he called all black women dumb is “so incredibly dishonest,” says Glenn.

Lie #3: Charlie Kirk said gun deaths are worth protecting the Second Amendment

Another quote that’s making the rounds is Charlie’s comment following the Nashville school shooting. At a TPUSA event in Salt Lake City, he was asked about defending Second Amendment rights against gun control advocates.

In response, he said, “You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am — I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."

He then gave the example of deaths related to car accidents. “We have determined as a society that it is worth it to have cars, even though 40,000 people die every single year in car accidents.”

Lefties are using this cogent argument to suggest that Kirk’s death was deserved, but the joke is on them. “Even what occurred last week would not change [Charlie’s] mind on [the Second Amendment],” says Stu.

“The other thing that's important here to understand is if you did eliminate all guns, you would not eliminate all murders,” he adds.

Lie #4: Charlie Kirk used an Asian slur

Perhaps the most egregious lie circulating among lefties is that Charlie used the racial slur “c***k” to refer to an Asian woman. A deceptively edited video from a 2018 Politicon event shows Charlie using the word repeatedly.

Except the word he was actually saying was “Cenk.” Charlie was engaged in a heated exchange with socialist progressive Cenk Uygur, co-host of "The Young Turks." The maliciously edited video aimed to paint him as a racist and give progressives justification for celebrating his death.

Stu and Glenn can’t help but laugh at the radical left’s pathetic desperation to defame its political enemy. “I mean, that's just so bad,” says Stu.

Lie #5: Charlie Kirk advocated for stoning gay people

Following Kirk’s death, renowned horror novelist Stephen King responded to a tweet from Fox News’ Jesse Watters calling Kirk a "patriot,” saying, “He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’."

However, he quickly deleted the post and issued an apology when the facts surfaced. Kirk never once advocated for killing anyone in the LGBTQ+ community. King’s lie originates from a 2024 episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” when Kirk called out children's YouTuber Ms. Rachel for citing “love thy neighbor” as justification for supporting Pride Month and LGBTQ+ inclusion as a Christian.

Kirk argued that true love means telling people the "truth" about sin rather than affirming it, accusing Ms. Rachel of cherry-picking scripture by ignoring the context of God's laws on sexual morality. To illustrate his point, he pointed to Leviticus, which calls homosexuality an abomination punishable by death.

Kirk’s point was that God clearly sees homosexuality as sin — not that gay people should be killed.

The truth, says Stu, is that if there was any legitimate dirt on Charlie Kirk, progressives wouldn’t have to resort to these distortions.

Charlie was “a guy who worked hard to debate people, who tried to practice politics and civic life the right way, who tried to be a shining light for his faith, which was vitally important to him and his family,” he says, but “if that vision of Charlie Kirk was false, you wouldn't need to go to these things. You could come up with 50 different things he said that were really offensive. Instead what you come up with are lies because that's what you're in the business of.”

To hear more of Glenn and Stu’s conversation, watch the episode above.

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DC Comics immediately cancels new series after author mocks Charlie Kirk's murder



A new comic book series was canceled after the writer mocked the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Kirk was murdered during a stop on his campus tour at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, leaving behind his loving family that includes his wife and two children. Kirk was just 31 years old.

'We place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints.'

On the same day the first issue of DC Comics' "Red Hood" was released in stores, the company announced it was canceling any future orders of the series. "Red Hood" is a spinoff from the "Batman" universe, with the main character being Batman's former sidekick, Robin.

In a statement sent to retailers late on Wednesday, DC wrote, "DC Comics cancels existing orders for Red Hood #2 and Red Hood #3, and any orders for future issues of the series."

"DC Comics will credit retailers for all invoiced copies of Red Hood #1, inclusive of copies that may have already been sold," the publisher wrote, according to Popverse.

The cancellation comes after the comic's writer, Gretchen Felker-Martin, allegedly posted horrific commentary about Kirk's death on the social media platform Bluesky.

Felker-Martin's name appears on the cover of "Red Hood" as one of the writers.

As reported by Bounding Into Comics, the writer seemingly took to her Bluesky account to mock Kirk within an hour of the news of his shooting.

"Thoughts and prayers you Nazi bitch," the post read. But it did not stop there.

RELATED: Leftists show their true colors after Charlie Kirk is shot — and it's absolutely sickening

Photo by Ollie Millington/Getty Images

Adding to the heartless display, the post added, "Hope the bullet's okay after touching Charlie Kirk."

Without mentioning Felker-Martin's name, DC Comics responded to Popverse after the outlet reached out asking for the reason behind the canceled comic.

"At DC Comics, we place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints," DC Comics said in a statement. "Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC's standards of conduct."

Felker-Martin's Bluesky page no longer exists at the time of this publication, and a search on the social platform for her name did not bring up any other profiles.

RELATED: 'You woke us the f**k up!' Greg Gutfeld fires off message on Fox News after assassination of Charlie Kirk

Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

The second and third issues for "Red Hood" had already been scheduled, but will seemingly never hit the shelves. Issue No. 2 was set for release on October 2, 2025, while the third issue was scheduled for November 12, 2025.

Both issues had Felker-Martin announced as the writer. The series was also meant for a mature audience, with a rating of 17+.

Felker-Martin was the subject of headlines in 2022 after writing a horror novel that featured author J.K. Rowling dying in a fire at the hands of transgender activists, according to Daily Mail.

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BlazeTV's Steve Deace takes aim at 'Rainbow Jihad' with best-selling Christian children's book



BlazeTV host Steve Deace explored the spiritual nature of the divisions that threaten to tear America apart in his 2016 novel "A Nefarious Plot," which was adapted into the well-received film "Nefarious."

Like C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters," Deace's satirical book provided penetrating insights into the nature of evil as well as into how the demonic might seek to pervert language, empathy, notions of justice and tolerance, media, the education system, and politics.

Deace has a new biting book out on the same theme but with a narrowed focus, namely the appropriation of the rainbow by non-straight activists and related distortions regarding marriage and the family.

Numerous American public school libraries across the country are replete with non-straight propaganda — books targeting children that champion deviant lifestyles, sexual promiscuity, and transvestitism and altogether reject traditional understandings of sex, marriage, and virtue.

To a passerby or an uncritical eye, Deace's new book, "Richie Meets the Rainbow: A Heartwarming Tale of Childhood Enlightenment," might look like more of the same. After all, the cover features an image of a cartoonish child pointing gleefully at a rainbow — a symbol now associated with degeneracy despite having signified for millennia God's covenant with man.

RELATED: 'No b*** j** for you': State House silences Republican for reading smut Democrats fought to keep in elementary schools

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

In fact, Deace told Blaze News that several of his own listeners "didn't realize it was a troll and were instantly offended that I had 'sold out' to what I call the Rainbow Jihad."

The book is instead something of a Trojan horse.

"What I call the Rainbow Jihad has noticeably left out the origin story of its own scam," Deace told Blaze News, "which is why I want to use this book to fill that void. Why wouldn't they want people to know where their ideology truly comes from? All the potential answers to that question are bad."

Deace recently told BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere on "Stu Does America" that the book centers on a young boy named Richie who is confronted at school with a blue-haired, nose-ringed, "rainbow-fisted teacher" keen to fill his head with lies.

— (@)

Fortunately for Richie, he "has a secret weapon," said Deace. "He's got a dad."

"Instead of saying, 'Shut up, son, I'm watching the game,' Dad says, 'You know what? I can pause the game, son, and here at dinner, let's have a discussion about this,'" said Deace. "And he puts little Richie on his lap, and he grabs this best-selling book — maybe you've heard about it before; it's the greatest best-seller of all time, the Bible — and he walks Richie through the true story of the rainbow."

"He wants his son to know that 'unrepentant savages' have co-opted this with the intent of brainwashing him and future generations," said Deace. "And he's going to do something that also is not very prevalent in today's culture: His dad's going to get active and going to be a constant force at the school board meeting to make sure ... that the voiceless have a voice in him and set the example."

RELATED: The culture war isn’t a distraction — it’s the main front

Blaze Media Illustration

The book, although written and marketed as a children's book, serves as a tool for parents to better understand the nature of leftist indoctrination, particularly within the school system, just as "A Nefarious Plot" serves as a tool for understanding the demonic infestation at the greater societal level.

Deace emphasized to Blaze News that when he put pen to paper, the intended reader was "the men."

'I didn't do it for the money, but to send a message.'

"It is time to both make dads the hero of the story again — because they really are the antidote to much of what threatens us culturally," said the BlazeTV host, "but also to inspire the men to stop being passive and get engaged because they are the solution."

Deace told Blaze News, "This book has been planned for 10 months to strike right at the heart of Pride Month on purpose."

Unsurprisingly, Deace had issues getting this particular title published despite his previous successes. Even getting it made proved difficult.

"We had to go all the way to Hungary to find an illustrator able [and] willing to do this for us to get it out there," said the BlazeTV host. "We had Amazon jack with us during our rollout, and I think we all know why."

"I only make a few bucks per book, so I'm not going to get rich off of this. I didn't do it for the money, but to send a message. And that message is this: The time for this demonic trash is at an end," added Deace.

At the time of writing, the book was ranked #1 Best-Seller in the Children's Christian Emotions & Feelings Fiction category on Amazon and ranked among the top 10 best-sellers in the Children's Christian Fiction category on the platform.

As the book climbed the new release charts on Amazon, Deace noted, "We are getting closer to being a certified LGBTQFU best-seller deep in the heart of pride month."

When asked if Richie will be making additional appearances, Deace told Blaze News that pending the success of this title, he could "foresee a future where Richie Meets Reparations, Richie Meets the Resurrection, Richie Meets the Real St. Nicholas, etc. Just spitballing here. But that's up to the audience."

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Trump orders restoration of Alcatraz prison to lock up 'dregs of society'



President Donald Trump wants to restore an iconic maximum-security prison for his proposed golden age — an institution in the San Francisco Bay he regards as a "symbol of law and order."

Trump announced Sunday evening that he would direct the Bureau of Prisons, along with the FBI and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America's most ruthless and violent Offenders."

"For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That's the way it’s supposed to be."

"No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets," added the president.

Although first the home of an Army fort — boasting 11 cannons in 1854 and 100 more by the following decade — Alcatraz Island was recognized early on as an ideal place to lock up unsavory characters. It was surrounded by cold water and swift currents and out of earshot of polite society.

Alcatraz's days as a prison island effectively began in December 1859 with the arrival of the first permanent garrison. The National Park Service indicated that 11 soldiers were initially imprisoned in the basement of the fortified gateway blocking the entrance road. This basement and other structures were soon filled to capacity, warranting the construction of additional prison facilities.

In the decades following the 22-acre island's 1861 designation as the military prison for the U.S. Army's Department of the Pacific, Alcatraz's central purpose ceased to be defending America against foreign hostiles and instead became locking up its native threats.

'We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job.'

Alcatraz was transferred from the military to the Bureau of Prisons in the early 1930s. Over the next three decades, it saw numerous big-name felons idle in its dark cells, including Al Capone, George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes, Robert Stroud, and the first "Public Enemy #1," Alvin Karpis.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Alcatraz never reached its capacity of 336 inmates.

On account of its relatively high operating costs — the daily per capita cost of the prison in 1959 was $10.10, compared with $3.00 at United States Penitentiary Atlanta — and in the wake of numerous high-profile escapes and escape attempts, USP Alcatraz was closed on March 21, 1963.

In 1973, the island was opened to the public and has been a tourist trap since, welcoming over 1.5 million visitors a year.

"We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally," wrote Trump. "The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE."

A Bureau of Prisons spokesman said in a statement to the Associated Press that the agency will "comply with all presidential orders."

Trump has been trying in recent months to offshore criminals, both foreign and domestic.

In addition to sending suspected terrorists to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, the Trump administration has sent suspected Tren de Aragua terrorists to Guantanamo Bay.

Shortly after taking office, the president directed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to accommodate roughly 30,000 inmates "for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and to address attendant immigration enforcement needs identified by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security."

Federal judges have so far hindered these efforts, ruling that the administration must grant deportees due process. Restoring the prison on Alcatraz might be one way to get criminal noncitizens offshore without having to deal with activist district court judges.

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Luka’s 45-point revenge: Whitlock says Mavs trade is WAY deeper than just stupidity



On Wednesday, April 9, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks faced off on Dallas’ home court with the Lakers coming out victorious for the second time since Luka Dončić was traded to the team back in February. In the first game back in February, Dončić put up 19 points.

In the second game, however, his performance was truly astonishing. Dončić scored 45 points against his old team that traded him – a generational talent and the former face of the franchise – for 32-year-old Anthony Davis.

The trade has been condemned by many sports critics as the worst trade in NBA history. In response to Luka's staggering performance, ESPN analyst and former NBA player Jay Williams called the trade “basketball treason” and “self sabotage.” The scoreboard seems to confirm it.

Are the Mavs regretting their decision to let Luka go?

Well, that all depends on why they made the trade in the first place. Jason Whitlock and Jay Skapinac, host of “Skap Attack,” debate the real reason behind the Luka trade.

Skap chalks it up to pure stupidity on the part of Mav’s general manager Nico Harrison.

Harrison and Mavs ownership “lost their minds” when they traded Dončić – “an absolute generational star,” he says.

“The only two players ever to score at least 30 points per game in their playoff careers [are] Michael Jordan and Luka Dončić, and they trade that guy for Anthony Davis and one first round draft pick?” he asks in disbelief.

Skap predicts that the Mavs’ ship will sink early in the play-in tournament, if they can maintain their play-in position, while the Lakers, thanks to their new addition, may become “the best team in the Western conference.”

“Thanks for nothing, Nico Harrison and the Dallas Mavericks,” he sighs.

Whitlock, however, doesn’t think it’s that simple. Anybody who knows the basics of basketball understands that trading Luka is basketball suicide, so there must be another reason behind it.

Two theories have him interested.

Theory #1: The NBA pushed for the trade because they “wanted LeBron to have a playoff run.”

Theory #2: The trade was spurred by the owners — the Adelson family — who want to use the team to “leverage their way into a casino and new arena.”

“Blaming Nico is an easy way out,” says Whitlock.

To hear more of the debate, watch the clip above.

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Meet LeBron James’ #1 puppet master



LeBron James’ influence extends far beyond the basketball court. The superstar’s voice is regularly heard in the social and political arena as well.

Is everything LeBron spouts off indicative of his personal beliefs? Or is he just being controlled by his puppet masters?

Jason Whitlock speculates it’s the latter.

The first person who comes to Jason’s mind is Adam Mendelsohn, longtime adviser and spokesperson for James.

“You'll hear a lot of stories out front that it's Rich Paul and Maverick Carter. … That's LeBron's inner circle, but behind the scenes everybody knows Adam Mendelsohn is who controls Lebron James,” he says.

Mendelsohn, along with Ari Emanuel, the CEO of media agency giant Endeavor: “They run the clown show,” Jason argues, adding that these two are experts at working with “useful idiots like LeBron James.”

Even something like LeBron cursing on national television knowing there are children watching is “not an accident,” he says.

Back in 2024, the Los Angeles Times ran a story titled “LeBron Inc: The collective that’s bigger than basketball.” The celebratory piece named Rich Paul, Maverick Carter, Randy Mims, Savannah James (LeBron’s wife), Paul Wachter, and Adam Mendelsohn, along with others, as the key players calling the shots in LeBron’s life.

“This is like the diversity, equity, and inclusion list of who's controlling or influencing or helping LeBron James,” says Jason.

After heralding Paul, Carter, and Mims as LeBron’s “brothers from different mothers,” the article almost half-heartedly mentions Mendelsohn, who Jason argues should be, if truth were important to the L.A. Times, front and center in the piece.

To hear more of Jason’s analysis, watch the clip above.

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How Trump’s fiery Zelenskyy meeting could lead to 5 MASSIVE victories



Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy found himself in an icy Oval Office when his insistence that the U.S. continue to support Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia didn’t land well with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The exchange between the three leaders culminated in a heated argument that ended with no mineral deal signed, Trump threatening to pull “out” if a deal between Russia and Ukraine isn’t made, Zelenskyy being asked to leave the White House, and uncertainty regarding Ukraine's relationship with the U.S.

“Zelenskyy was just playing a game, and you don’t play a game against Trump,” especially when “you don't have any cards” left, says Glenn Beck.

What President Trump is doing, he says, is “playing 5D chess” with both Ukraine and the world.

And his strategy is brilliant. It’s one that could end in five massive victories.

Potential victory #1: Ends the killing and waste of US dollars

Forcing Ukraine to make a deal with Russia would first and foremost stop the killing, which thus far has been relatively mild when you consider death counts in prior wars.

There have been “250,000 people lost in this war. Could be much, much higher. Let's end it ... because I don't even think anybody even knows what this [war] is about anymore,” Glenn says.

Further, “It ends the spending of the United States in Ukraine where we don't have any idea where any of it is going,” he adds. “It is a corrupt country. I don't want to be helping their sock industry.”

Under the corrupt Biden regime, our tax dollars were “paying for all of the Social Security benefits for everybody who has worked in the Ukrainian government,” along with other non-war-related causes.

But this “bleeding of money” will stop if Ukraine can be pushed into a deal with Russia.

Potential victory #2: The illusion of Russian victory

A deal between Ukraine and Russia "lets Putin go home while declaring a win.” However, “Everyone else knows he actually lost,” says Glenn.

After all, his original goal was “to go in there and in two weeks take Ukraine.” Three years later, “He still only has 20%” of the country.

Striking a deal now would mean Putin "can go home and declare he won because he's got some land,” but the truth the rest of us will know is “he lost” because “the idea that Russia can just plow into Europe has now been proven to be false.”

Potential victory #3: The acquisition of rare-earth minerals

“Russia and Ukraine are sitting on a gigantic pile of rare-earth minerals,” says Glenn. “If you don't know what that is, that's the thing that makes your computer work. If we don't have rare-earth minerals, we cannot compete in the world of tomorrow.”

He then explains that the U.S. currently relies heavily on China, which dominates the global supply, for rare-earth minerals. Striking a deal with Ukraine or Russia would allow us to distance ourselves from China while saving money.

On one hand, “giving money to Russia,” which has its own wealth of mineral resources and currently occupies a significant amount of mineral-rich Ukrainian territory, could be “a win for us because we're getting [rare-earth minerals] at a discount,” Glenn explains, noting that a money-motivated Putin would go "away not happy but not vengeful.”

On the other hand, if a deal between the U.S. and Ukraine is signed, then the U.S. will have access to Ukraine’s rare-earth mineral resources, while Ukraine has money for reconstruction. If such a deal is struck, “America's interests are now in Ukraine” — something that ought to tempt Zelenskyy.

Potential Victory #4: A NATO out?

While President Trump has floated the idea of exiting NATO and would likely do it if all the necessary factors aligned, what he really wants above all is “to stop paying 70% for the defense of Europe,” says Glenn.

“Because of the WEF strategy over in Europe, you have them coming together on Zelenskyy’s side. That's not going to make NATO stronger because America is not going to go and get involved,” he explains, noting that America sending troops into NATO is just “not going to happen.”

“That weakens NATO, but it also does what? It forces NATO to spend more money on their own defense — a win for America,” he continues.

Further, “The World War II model for the world takes a major hit,” which is a “goal of anybody who wants to get out of NATO,” including Donald Trump.

Potential victory #5: China loses Russia

“China loses the rare-earth minerals that Russia just captured; China loses its grip not just on Russia but also on us,” says Glenn, reminding us that rare-earth minerals are “what this whole thing is all about.”

“Anybody who says that Trump is stupid [or] Trump is causing a war” is misled, says Glenn.

“No, he's not, but the world is changing, and for once, finally, we have a president that knows how to negotiate ... on so many levels,” he adds, calling Trump’s abilities “mind-boggling.”

To hear more of Glenn’s commentary, watch the clip above.

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Christian animated series 'Gabriel and the Guardians' to get its own comic adaptation with Rippaverse



A Christian anime series is heading to print after hosting an incredibly successful crowdfund that spawned the series.

Angel Studios, the company behind the film "Sound of Freedom," ran a massively successful campaign for the new animated show that garnered over $550,000 and promised to deliver 13 episodes. With just under 1,500 backers, the show drew a whopping average contribution of over $370 per person.

Now that the series is coming to fruition, Rippaverse Comics will bring the show to print as its own manga-style comic series.

'A gift from the Lord.'

The move is part of what has become a massive swing in the media space in terms of publishing and content.

For starters, "Gabriel and the Guardians" is inspired by ancient Hebrew text, taking themes from sources like the book of Genesis. The story follows Gabriel, a celestial guardian who is tasked with recovering a powerful artifact. The show features themes of identity, faith, and the Bible, which are not often broached in an animated series of this caliber.

At the same time, Rippaverse Comics has pushed its way into the publishing space with a firm stance of focusing on content, not progressive themes.

Rippaverse Comics founder and BlazeTV contributor Eric July called the new partnership a "gift from the Lord."

"Couldn't be more grateful," July added in an X post.

— (@)

The new comic will be run by RippaSend, the publishing wing of Rippaverse Comics, which has a stated goal of providing artists a platform to showcase their talents.

July successfully began publishing his own woke-free comics in 2022, starting with "Isom #1," which raised over $3.7 million in a preorder after a stated goal of $100,000. Then "Isom #2" raked in nearly $1 million in preorders within the first 24 hours of its release.

The company now has a cavalcade of characters and stories in its lineup and has a lot to draw from with "Gabriel and the Guardians."

The production has already been greatly received, with top-tier voice talent including Matt Lanter (Lego Star Wars, Call of Duty), Cristina Valenzuela (Sailor Moon, Evil Dead: The Game), and even Johnny Yong Bosch, who starred in "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."

Many fans have since theorized the move could signal that Rippaverse Comics is making the jump into animated productions with Angel Studios, but the crossover remains unclear.

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