Sylvester Stallone calls Trump America's 'second George Washington'



Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone called President-elect Donald Trump America's "second George Washington" during a short speech Thursday night introducing Trump during the America First Policy Institute Gala at the Mar-a-Lago Club.

Stallone began by describing the first scene of his legendary movie "Rocky" with an image of Jesus coming into view — and then as the camera pans out, the audience sees writing below the image of Christ: Resurrection [Athletic Club]. "I found a church that had been converted to a boxing ring," Stallone recalled.

'And I'll just say this, and I mean it: When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world.'

As the camera pans down, the audience sees a pair of boxers going at it in a gritty ring in Philadelphia, just two days before Thanksgiving. The very first image of Rocky is when his opponent socks him in the jaw with a left hook. You can view that first scene here.

“And at that moment, he was a chosen person, and that’s how I began the journey," Stallone continued. "Something was gonna happen. This man was gonna go through a metamorphosis and change lives — just like President Trump.”

When the audience's applause subsided, Stallone added that "we’re in the presence of a really mythical character. I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what [Trump] pulled off, so I’m in awe.”

The actor concluded by saying, “And I'll just say this, and I mean it: When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington. Congratulations!"

With that, Trump ascended to the stage and shook hands with Stallone. You can check out his speech here.

Deadline reported that Stallone previously had stayed quiet about who he politically endorsed during the 2016, 2020, and 2024 election cycles. The outlet said Stallone indicated that he didn’t vote in presidential elections the prior two cycles.

But Deadline noted that the actor told Variety in 2016 that he “love[s]” Trump and views him as a “great Dickensian character.” Deadline also said Stallone in 2018 was pictured in the Oval Office alongside Trump as he posthumously pardoned former world champion boxer Jack Johnson.

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A middle-class party: The GOP’s new path to the American dream



The Republican Party reveals itself as a national middle-class party. A party that is friendly to earned success and those in need looking for a hand up. A party where the middle, bottom, and top are not divided and play a zero-sum game but are instead united in the pursuit and possession of the ever-optimistic American dream.

A patriotic party. A party that loves America — warts and all. A party with America First self-confidence and swagger on a global stage. Not chauvinism, but swagger. Which just happens to be good for everyone.

Pax Americana is not a global occupier or welfare state, but a beacon of freedom and hope to the nations.

A party for men and women alike — from Elon and Tulsi to the forgotten women and men across our great nation. A party of equals who know what a woman is, know what a man is, and celebrate the complementary difference. A love, marriage, baby carriages, "worried about the cost of living and growing prosperity" party.

A party that takes care of its own and defends its sovereignty. That takes full advantage of the natural resources to underwrite American prosperity at home and global peace and stability abroad.

A party that does not withdraw from the world but leads it through good example and willingness to defend and enforce its clearly stated prerogatives. A party willing to make long-term win-win deals. A party willing to use carrots and sticks to defend and pursue its interests.

A party that is dedicated to prudently guiding, funding, and restraining a military that is without equal.

A nation that fights wars to win and not occupy. When we win, we do so decisively and our former foes become prosperous friends. Pax Americana is not a global occupier or welfare state, but a beacon of freedom and hope to the nations.

Editor’s note:This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.

EU signals desperation to avoid trade war with Trump, desire to buy American gas



President-elect Donald Trump is still months away from taking office, yet the European Union already appears desperate to cut a deal with him.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, addressed members of the European Council in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, signaling a desire to avoid a trade war with the United States and to switch from Russian to American gas.

When asked how she intends to negotiate with Trump on trade, Leyen answered, "I think first of all: Engage. Very important what we have started yesterday."

Leyen was referencing her phone call with Trump Thursday, where she apparently congratulated him on his landslide electoral victory. The German politician noted on X that they discussed defense, Ukraine, trade, and energy.

"Secondly, discuss about common interests. And there are common interests that we have," continued Leyen. "Then go into negotiations."

'They are going to have to pay a big price.'

Leyen said that liquid natural gas was among the common interests she briefly discussed with Trump this week, noting that Europe still gets "a lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia."

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, in the first half of 2024, Europe sourced 48% of its LNG imports from U.S., 16% from Russia, 11% from Algeria, 10% from Qatar, and 4% from Nigeria and Norway.

"Why not replace it by American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices?" said Leyen. "It's something where we can get into a discussion, also [where] our trade deficit is concerned."

The U.S. Census Bureau indicated Tuesday that the trade deficit with the EU in September was $23.8 billion, contributing to the year-to-date trade deficit of $173 billion.

Trump indicated in October that the EU would have to "pay a big price" for not buying enough American exports, reported Reuters.

"I'll tell you what, the European Union sounds so nice, so lovely, right? All the nice European little countries that get together," said Trump. "They don't take our cars. They don't take our farm products. They sell millions and millions of cars in the United States. No, no, no, they are going to have to pay a big price."

Politico noted that Leyen's maneuver to dodge the steep tariffs of 10% or more that Trump has threatened by promising to buy LNG is largely political theater granted the European Commission is virtually powerless when it comes to dictating European companies' purchases of gas.

"The EU doesn't buy LNG — there's a global LNG market and LNG buyers have their own contract," Laurent Ruseckas, executive director for gas markets at commodities giant S&P Global, told Politico. "It's certainly possible to do a memorandum of understanding to talk about increasing purchases but ultimately in the past that's been a way to put a political wrapper around something that was delivered by the market. And the EU is buying as much LNG currently as the market needs."

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Donald Trump Has Opportunity To Take America First To A Whole Other Level

'Murica first

Tucker Carlson explains precisely why JD Vance was the right VP pick



President Donald Trump named Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) Monday as his running mate, emphasizing that as "Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."

Vance noted in response, "What an honor it is to run alongside President Donald J. Trump. He delivered peace and prosperity once, and with your help, he'll do it again. Onward to victory!"

Tucker Carlson, who joined Trump and Vance at the Republican National Convention following the announcement, made clear earlier in the day precisely why Vance was the right pick.

Addressing a crowd Monday at the Heritage Foundation's Policy Fest, Carlson prefaced with a condemnation of the political class and the type of people he regards as its predominant constituents.

"I spent the whole day dealing with politics — this day, starting at 5 a.m. — and I ... forgot how repulsive a process it is, and how feline and ruthless the players are. It was a reminder why I don't like politicians," said Carlson, who later suggested that "deception is at the core, actually, of who they are."

'Every bad person I've ever met in a lifetime in Washington was aligned against JD Vance.'

Carlson suggested that whereas those he regularly speaks to on both sides of the spectrum are invested in their causes and mean what they say, politicians alternatively tend to be opportunists who traffic in empty rhetoric in pursuit of power. According to Carlson, the efforts by various personalities to lock down one job in particular — that of Trump's running mate — helped illustrate this point.

"There's this job. One person makes the decision, and whoever gets the job immediately has a lot of power. And it really is like waving a flank steak over an alligator," said Carlson.

While disgusted by the process and some of the prospects vying for the steak in question, Carlson intimated that Vance stood apart from the others.

"Now JD Vance is the VP pick, and I think every person who pays close attention has gotta be thrilled by that," continued Carlson. "And if you don't know much about JD Vance, I'm not even going to make a case for JD Vance. I'm going to tell you what I just saw, which is that every bad person I've ever met in a lifetime in Washington was aligned against JD Vance."

While various deep-pocketed Republican donors were actively demeaning the Appalachian populist, Rupert Murdoch reportedly launched a massive lobbying campaign to dissuade Trump from picking Vance. A source in the Trump camp apparently told NOTUS that Murdoch had been calling Trump multiple times a day to instead choose North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for his running mate — the would-be VP pick Republican strategist Karl Rove also tried to boost over Vance.

Murdoch's personal campaign against Vance spread to two of his publications, namely the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, which both ran multiple editorials hammering Vance.

As the desperation grew and the choice neared, the campaign against Vance among establishmentarians became increasingly desperate and aggressive.

Blaze News previously reported that former Obama adviser and Democratic strategist David Axelrod said Vance should be disqualified for suggesting that Biden's inflammatory rhetoric set the stage for the attempted assassination on Trump.

Vance wrote shortly after Trump was nearly murdered by a would-be assassin, "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

Axelrod wrote, "If @JDVance1 is on the short list for VP, this Tweet, sent an hour after the assassination attempt in PA, ought to disqualify him in the eyes of the Trump campaign. Wrong vibe in that moment."

"Trump probably doesn't want a shoot-from-the-hip VP," added Axelrod.

Adam Kinzinger, a former member of the House Jan. 6 committee, joined the Democratic strategist in suggesting Vance's remark was disqualifying.

Failed Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh responded to Vance on X, writing, "What a sick, disgusting tweet. Donald Trump IS an authoritarian fascist. The Biden campaign is correct to say that. And to connect the millions of Americans who believe that to this shooting is utterly irresponsible. You’ll make a perfect Trump VP. Shame on you."

Trump's decision to ignore such statements and to ultimately pick Vance enraged Bill Kristol and his fellow travelers.

"Having turned the Republican Party into the Trump Party, [Trump is] now turning a Trumpist party into a Trumpist movement. Indeed, the selection of Vance marks the completion of the transformation of a conservative political party into an authoritarian movement," wrote Kristol. "Vance has been more consistently and fervently America First in foreign policy than Trump. He's more committed to ethno-nationalism and anti-'elite' populism than Trump. He's been more committed to destroying any non-political civil service than Trump. He's more contemptuous of the norms, institutions, and mores of liberal democracy than Trump."

Republican strategist Karl Rove called the selection a "missed opportunity" in a Fox News op-ed.

Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney also melted down over Vance's selection, writing, "JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn't — overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution."

Carlson emphasized that the nature and disposition of Vance's detractors spoke volumes about the former Marine.

'They thought he would be harder to manipulate and slightly less enthusiastic about killing people.'

"It's not like I think ... God's always on my side. Sometimes I'm not on God's side," said Carlson. "But I definitely know who's representing the other side."

"It's a lot easier to tell who the people who are only in it because they like, I don't know, killing other people in pointless wars," continued Carlson. "I know who those people are, and their odor is so powerful that I can smell one when he walks in the room. And every single one of those people, in a line that would extend from Milwaukee to Chicago, was lined up last week to knife JD Vance."

According to Carlson, this enmity toward Vance was not because of who he is as a person, noting he is a nice guy and one of the few in Washington with a happy marriage. Instead, the attacks were launched because "they thought he would be harder to manipulate and slightly less enthusiastic about killing people. That's it — that he would be an impediment to their exercising power and, boy, they went after him in a way I've just kind of never seen."

Carlson went on to note that the attacks on Vance and the assassination attempt on Saturday have underscored for him that the battles underway are not simply political but spiritual.

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EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump Jr. To Headline ‘America First Convention Fest’ At Republican National Convention

'at the forefront during the convention'

Potential Trump Cabinet pick Vivek Ramaswamy wants America First movement to lean libertarian



Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is convinced that President Donald Trump is going to win in November. Ramaswamy, a potential Cabinet pick, is, however, uncertain about what making America great again means to some of those who may ultimately claim victory with Trump come Election Day.

In a speech Tuesday evening at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., Ramaswamy identified two dominant branches within the America First movement and indicated which he thinks is more likely to bear fruit.

In his remarks, Ramaswamy noted how Trump effectively landed the killing blow against the neoliberal consensus, offering instead a "nationalist vision for America's future." While the America First movement could apparently agree that nationalism is the way to go, Ramaswamy expressed concern about what kind of nationalism would dominate in the years to come: national protectionism, which some might alternatively recognize as economic nationalism, or national libertarianism, which he favors.

National protectionism, according to Ramaswamy, is animated by a desire to ensure that "American workers earn higher wages and American manufacturers can sell their goods for a higher price, by protecting them from the effects of foreign competition." National protectionists apparently also "believe in reforming the regulatory state to redirect its focus to helping American workers and manufacturers."

Judging from Ramaswamy's comments, it appears he figures Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance (R) — a favorite to become Trump's running mate — for a champion of the protectionist branch of the America First movement.

Vance has, after all, signaled a willingness to use statist interventions to improve the lot of Americans, as in the case of raising the minimum wage. The Ohio senator recently drew the ire of libertarians by advocating in a New York Times interview for "applying as much upward pressure on wages and as much downward pressure on the services that the people use as possible."

The national libertarianism advocates alternatively "care foremost about making sure that our trade and immigration policies do not compromise our national security and national identity, in ways that neoliberal policies inadvertently did."

'We don't want to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state.'

National libertarians "don't believe in reimagining the regulatory state, but instead believe in shutting it down — not because National Libertarians are agnostic to the plight of American workers and manufacturers but because it is their profound conviction that the regulatory state is indeed the enemy itself," said Ramaswamy.

Despite railing against the old consensus, Ramaswamy advocated in his speech for the kind of deregulation that previous National Conservatism speakers indicated was symptomatic of the outgoing liberal regime — the kind of deregulation that elements of the protectionist group might otherwise be resistant to.

After detailing the divergence between these two branches of America First nationalism when it comes to the regulatory state, immigration, and trade, Ramaswamy underscored that he is partial to the national libertarian view because he believes it "is the way to help American workers and manufacturers."

"The National Libertarians — and if it's not obvious already, that's the camp I'm in — believe that we won't beat the left by adopting its methods," Ramaswamy said in his conclusion. "We don't want to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state. Instead our goal is to dismantle the nanny state and its regulatory apparatus altogether, permanently, once and for all; to metaphorically burn its edifice and then to burn the ashes. And if we succeed in doing so, that will mark the beginning of an American revival that starts with the radical principle of our Founding: The people we elect to run the government will once again be the ones who actually run the government."

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Romney says he laughs at the term 'America first'



GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle that he finds it "unimaginable" that there is "a growing isolationism" in the Republican Party.

Romney, who said the U.S. and its economy are connected with the rest of the globe, suggested that Germany would have ended up running the world if America held an isolationist view in the past.

'America is putting ourselves first when we're involved in the world, when we stop bad people.'

The senator, who is not seeking re-election this year, said that he laughs at the term "America first," which he suggested usually means isolationism.

"America is putting ourselves first when we're involved in the world, when we stop bad people," he asserted.

He said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to invade Poland, that would draw the U.S. into war. "Or we could walk away from NATO. In which case, Putin is gonna keep on going and going," he said. "We're safe and prosperous when the world follows the orders that have existed over the last 75 years," he said.

Ruhle asked Romney whether there is any chance Romney could potentially serve as secretary of state if President Joe Biden wins another term — the GOP senator immediately rejected the idea.

Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential election to incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama, noted that he will not vote for Trump this year. He also didn't vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020.

Last month, Romney supported passage of a package that included Ukraine aid and more. "After months of needless delay, Congress has finally approved much-needed funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the U.S. military’s operations in these key regions," he said in a statement at the time.

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EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: Trump to detail America First agenda in CPAC speech

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: Trump To Detail America First Agenda In CPAC Speech

America Can Punch Back At Iran Without Going Back To The Middle East

Like it or not, a United States that looks weak to the world is a weak United States. Our enemies are taking note.