Our republic is sick. The Machiavelli of Mar-a-Lago has the cure.



A progressive friend said something insightful weeks ago: “Trump doesn’t feel like he’s in power unless someone is getting hurt.”

His observation came during the public “breakup” of Elon Musk and President Trump over Musk's criticism of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — but before Trump sent U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to help quell riots over immigration enforcement. And before Trump ordered airstrikes on Iranian nuclear targets. And before the right splintered over America’s role in Israel’s war.

Tucker Carlson’s ‘peace first’ politics will keep the moral high ground, but Trump’s exercise of power affirms his political legitimacy.

As a political science major, our friend owes some of his prescience to his undergraduate study of Niccolo Machiavelli.

In both “The Prince” and “Discourses,” Machiavelli grounded his theory of politics in his understanding of human nature. Because people are motivated by a capricious self-interest, he believed, people will fight with one another to realize their goals.

“This is to be asserted in general of men,” Machiavelli wrote, “that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous,” and compete incessantly for power, resources, and more. The regime whose primary goal is to placate rivals, whether internal dissidents or foreign enemies, will descend into chaos, Machiavelli believed. To prevent collapse, the strong leader must exert force — force that suppresses, punishes, or destroys the weak, force that he uses not occasionally or whenever a problem materializes, but constantly.

This is Machiavelli’s central paradigm: Politics is battle — not a battle between good and evil or right and wrong. Just a battle, ongoing and continuous, to defend the principles on which the regime operates, if not the ones upon which it was built. In “Machiavelli on Modern Leadership,” the late historian Michael Ledeen wrote that according to Machiavelli, a leader “has no other objective or thought or takes anything for his craft, except war.” Democratic and Republican presidents alike abide by this rule, both internationally and domestically. President Lyndon Johnson waged a war on poverty. Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Joe Biden spoke of the war on COVID-19.

Trump uses force because conflict — not consensus-building, cooperation, or governance for the common good — is the nature of political leadership.

This is a reality that pundits and commentators passionately decry, especially when their preferred party isn’t in power. It is a notion that shocks progressives still in thrall to the mellifluous voice of President Barack Obama, who promised that politics was not a battle but a journey toward a more perfect union. His musings about “bringing a gun to a knife fight” are all but forgotten. Obama the pacifist is the living memory.

“I did not set out to be a politician, but a community organizer,” he wrote in “A Promised Land.” “And what I learned in those years, and what I still believe, is that politics, at its best, is a pilgrimage — a steady, sometimes halting, often frustrating march toward greater justice and equality.” His rhetoric called for solidarity. His tone was messianic. He promised that our shared moral striving would lead to a drastically improved future, that the long pilgrimage of America would arrive someday at a profound and sacred destination.

Ironically, that destination was Trump.

From the very beginning of his campaign for president, Trump openly embraced the battle metaphors that embarrassed Obama. We are fighting against the corrupt establishment, he would say. We are fighting to win the battle against illegal immigration. We are in a battle for the soul of our country.

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more,” Trump said on January 6, 2021. In the game of politics, Trump embraced conflict and was determined to win on all counts — for himself and for the country.

His foreign policy supports this point.

RELATED: How Tucker Carlson vs. Ted Cruz exposed a critical biblical question on Israel

  Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Speaking after the military strike on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late 2019, Trump was unequivocal in his statement of victory. “Last night was a great night for the United States and for the world,” Trump said. “He will never again harm another innocent man, woman, or child. He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a safer place. God bless America.”

Both hawks and doves celebrated the win. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called it a “game-changer.” Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson counted Baghdadi’s death a “victory for civilization itself.” A few months later, a fault line appeared on the right when a drone fired missiles at Qasem Soleimani, killing the Iranian Quds Force commander. Carlson criticized Trump for goading Iran into a military conflict that would weaken America.

“There are an awful lot of bad people in this world,” Carlson said on his television program in early 2020. “You can’t kill them all.”

This month, the fault line widened. As Trump prepared to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, Carlson cried out for more public decision-making. He spoke about the “real divide” on the right, a line that separates people like Carlson and Steve Bannon from the interventionists and neoconservatives in the modern conservative movement. “The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it – between warmongers and peacemakers,” Carlson posted on X.

Carlson warned against foreign entanglements as distractions from the problems at home, but the violence itself seemed to offend him. In one conversation with Bannon, Carlson paraphrased a story found in all four Gospels, where the apostle Peter draws his sword against the arresting party in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus scolds Peter, saying: "Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). Carlson interpreted that passage as meaning people who espouse violence will suffer in the end.

But one biblical reference always calls to mind another.

In the Gospel of Luke, a passage about the Last Supper contains a comment from Jesus to the disciples that “the one who has no sword [should] sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36). Looking about, the disciples take an inventory and tell him, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” Jesus offers a cryptic response: “It is enough” (Luke 22:38). Perhaps Jesus is chiding them for taking him too literally, as if to say, “That’s enough of this talk.” But equally possible is that Jesus was saying that two swords are enough, that physical conflict is necessary but should serve the interests of defense rather than conquest.

Though the U.S. strikes on Iran resulted in a ceasefire and perhaps negotiation of a peace deal, this outcome will not be permanent on the larger international scene. There will be more attacks, more violence, more opportunities for political leaders to practice their craft with strength and foresight. Carlson’s “peace first” politics will keep the moral high ground, but Trump’s exercise of power affirms his political legitimacy.

As Machiavelli famously wrote: “It is better to be feared than loved.”

Right now, Donald Trump is both.

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

‘We’re going to do real science’: RFK Jr. promises Tucker Carlson he will study vaccine-autism link



For decades, there has been a significant group of skeptics who claim that ingredients in vaccines have led to increased rates of autism among children. They’ve pointed to past studies as proof. Yet, those in so-called “mainstream science” have said those studies are flawed.

The skeptics have not been deterred, and now one is the secretary of Health and Human Services. In an episode of "The Tucker Carlson Show" podcast released Monday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the eponymous host that he is determined to get answers.

'We’re going to do real science.'

The discussion around autism and vaccines was just one part of a wide-ranging conversation between the two men. Carlson started off the discussion on vaccines and autism by asking, “One of the first things you did as secretary, I think — tell me if I'm misstating it — was commission a kind of study of autism. Can you tell us what that is? What are you seeking to do with that?”

Kennedy went through the history of studies performed in the past on whether there is a link between early childhood vaccinations and autism. He claimed of studies that were conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, “They all say what the CDC wanted them to say — which is they couldn't find a link.”

He then claimed that other groups, including the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, have not completely ruled out the possibility of a link. Kennedy added, “And they were highly critical of the way the CDC was making decisions about the vaccine schedule.”

As the discussion continued, Kennedy laid out why he believed the decision-making process around the vaccination schedule had “essentially been captured by industry.” In other words, the very pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccines were driving the policy on when vaccines should be administered.

RELATED: RFK Jr. torches vaccine panel to make consequences count again

  -

Kennedy explained why he believes that the CDC, led by those with industry ties, eschewed the scientific method, which called for extensive studies and kept approving more vaccines to add to the schedule.

He added, “None of those studies did what you would do if you wanted to find the answer — which is to compare outcomes in a fully vaccinated group to health outcomes in an unvaccinated group.”

Except one.

Kennedy claimed that in 1999, the CDC commissioned a study of children who had received a hepatitis vaccination as compared with those not vaccinated. He then said, “They found an 1,135% elevated risk of autism among the vaccinated children.”

“It shocked them. They kept the study secret and manipulated it through five different iterations to try to bury the link,” the secretary added.

Kennedy went through why he believes the CDC hid the data, noting that many independent scientists have found a “link” between some vaccinations and increased autism.

Kennedy then pledged that under his watch the studies that have been recommended will be done. “We're going to do real science. And the way we’re going to do that is — we’re going to make the databases public for the first time.”

RELATED: How Big Pharma left its mark on woke CDC vax advisory panel — and what RFK Jr. did about it

  

He pledged that data from the CDC, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, private HMO data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, and more will be made available for researchers to peruse.

Kennedy pledged money for grants and to do more “in-house studies ourselves,” all with a goal of having answers within six months from now — or possibly even sooner.

“We should have some answers by September, some initial indicator answers. And then, over the next six months, all these large studies by independent scientists all over the world, we anticipate there will probably be about 15 different major teams who are all trying to answer this question,” said the secretary.

“And within six months, we’ll have definitive answers — after September,” he concluded.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Ted Cruz Should Move On From Sunday School Geopolitics

If you're going to let your vague memory of a Sunday school slogan guide your foreign policy aims, make sure what you learned was correct.

The Abrahamic Covenant Is A Bad Argument For The U.S. Going To War With Iran

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-7.23.13 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-19-at-7.23.13%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]We shouldn't treat the Abrahamic covenant lightly, but neither should we cherry-pick it to haphazardly apply to a modern geopolitical map.
Trump Makes Unexpected Insulting Attack on Tucker Carlson at Press Conference
play icon

Trump Makes Unexpected Insulting Attack on Tucker Carlson at Press Conference

 

TRUMP TO PANICAN DOVES: 'You Can't Have Peace If Iran Has a Nuclear Weapon'

President Donald Trump on Saturday directly addressed Republicans who oppose his steadfast support for Israel’s preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear sites, telling them, "You can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon."

The post TRUMP TO PANICAN DOVES: 'You Can't Have Peace If Iran Has a Nuclear Weapon' appeared first on .

The Return of Peace Through Strength

“Two months ago,” Donald Trump posted Friday morning, “I gave Iran a 60 day ultimatum to ‘make a deal.’ They should have done it! Today is day 61.” That deadline was firmer than the mullahs realized. Thursday night, Israeli operatives in Iran released swarms of drones and other precision munitions while Israeli aircraft rained down strikes from above. Within hours, they killed the commander of Iran’s military, his deputy, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the head of the terrorist Quds Force, and several top nuclear scientists. The Israelis lured nearly all of the Revolutionary Guard's aerial leadership into a bunker and then destroyed it. As one reporter put it, “the senior chain of command has collapsed.”

The post The Return of Peace Through Strength appeared first on .

Ben & Jerry’s co-founder ARRESTED while protesting RFK Jr.



In a recent congressional hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was caught off guard by the protests of none other than Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen — who was then promptly arrested.

Cohen was removed about 15 minutes into the congressional hearing for yelling that “Congress pays for bombs” while the Health and Human Services secretary was trying to speak.

“He’s protesting at RFK Jr., who would be completely aligned with him, I think, on that issue,” Stu Burguiere comments on “The Glenn Beck Program.” “I could be wrong on this, but maybe Ben might even be one of those old school socialist types that would maybe even agree with us on some of the censorship stuff.”


“They were for that when they were the ones being shut up,” Glenn Beck agrees. “And now that they’re not the ones being told to shut up, they’re like, we have every right to tell you to shut up.”

Cohen was also recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson, which Stu believes is actually a symptom of a bigger issue.

“I’ve noticed this thing that we’re doing, and I’m a little concerned,” Stu says. “Us on the right, the conservative side of the spectrum, find someone who has some crossover with us in some way but is really a figure of the left, and we kind of give this warm embrace and say, ‘Hey, come on over.’”

Stu uses Tulsi Gabbard as an example, who made the switch from the Bernie Sanders left to the Make America Great Again movement in the not so distant past.

“She’s great, so this is not a criticism,” Stu says. “But really, what Tulsi is doing in the government right now is she’s being consistent with her old left-wing views on things, like stopping wars and being tough on intelligence issues with the government.”

“Because we woke up on that,” Glenn interjects.

“That’s what I’m getting to here. What seems to be happening is we’re embracing things on the left, and it’s not us changing their views into ours,” Stu says, adding, “it’s us changing our views into theirs and then embracing some of those people. That’s not necessarily bad if we were wrong the whole time.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

John Roberts doesn’t deserve your deference



The first 100 days of Trump’s presidency marked a well-earned honeymoon. But the next 100 days will test whether the marriage can survive — especially with unruly offspring like judicial overreach and intra-MAGA infighting threatening the union.

Take Chief Justice John Roberts, for example. In a recent interview, he claimed the judiciary is “independent” from the other branches, yet also insisted it has the authority to “strike down” both laws and executive actions. So which is it? Are judges independent arbiters — or unaccountable gods?

Every movement walks a fine line between selling its soul and learning to take ‘yes’ for an answer.

Roberts may not understand what “independent” actually means. How can the judiciary call itself independent when it relies entirely on the other two branches for its power? Judges don’t appoint or confirm themselves. They don’t fund their own operations. They can’t enforce their own rulings or impose new policies. They act only through the political structures that created them.

‘Neither force nor will’

The judiciary is, by design, the most dependent of the three branches. The Constitution’s framers structured it that way to protect the rights they believed came from God, not government. Want proof? Run a full-text search of the Constitution for “strike down” or “struck down.” Those words don’t appear — because that power was never explicitly granted or even implied. Read Federalist 78 and 81. Hamilton makes it plain.

He also made clear that courts have no authority to tax, spend, or raise armies. Why did he highlight those powers? Because they are the most sweeping and dangerous. Governments that can conscript citizens and debase the currency can do real harm. But the political branches exercise those powers — and voters can hold them accountable. The judiciary, with its lifetime appointments, cannot be removed when it abuses its role. That’s why, as Hamilton wrote, courts were designed to possess “neither force nor will.”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier shows exactly what’s at stake. He’s openly defying a federal judge’s order on immigration. So why hasn’t anyone arrested him for contempt? Who would enforce the order? The U.S. Marshals? Not without Trump’s OK. Local sheriffs? Only if Gov. Ron DeSantis agrees.

The chief justice is betting you won’t notice. He’s counting on your silence while the courts expand their own power unchecked. But a republic cannot survive if one branch decides its own jurisdiction. Power flows where it’s permitted to go. And the so-called moral majority — the people John Adams believed would hold the republic together — have surrendered too many battles to keep “We the People” alive in more than name. We’ve never truly been a nation of laws. We’ve always been a nation of political will.

Maligning MAHA?

That political will must now be exercised — boldly — against both the judiciary and the emerging fractures inside the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. While it’s true that MAGA 2.0 wouldn’t exist without MAHA, the movement faces internal risks just as dangerous as external enemies. If MAHA lets infighting fester, it will rot from the inside — just as Anthony Fauci’s unchecked power eroded trust during COVID.

I first heard of Casey Means through Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. Now, I’m being asked to believe — by MAHA stalwarts I deeply respect — that Trump’s nominee for surgeon general is some kind of psyop designed to block real accountability. Seriously? If Rogan and Carlson are now launch platforms for deep-state mind control, then it might be time to pack it in and let the judges run wild. Eat, drink, and brace for booster number 666.

When you’ve lived on the margins as long as the MAHA crowd has, it’s natural to view new arrivals — alleged “bandwagon jumpers” like Means and her brother Callie — with suspicion. But every successful team needs bandwagon fans. Have you ever noticed how stadiums only fill when a team wins? That’s no coincidence. MAHA has gained traction and credibility, and now people want in. That’s a good thing. But if MAHA wants to become the new status quo, it must learn to govern.

Every movement walks a fine line between selling its soul and learning to take “yes” for an answer.

At some point, you have to move past the constant sense of betrayal and start making real compromises. That’s how things get done. Whether in marriage, business, or politics — risk always comes with meaning. It’s just math.

Pulling the COVID shot off the market would take guts. So will getting a Republican Congress to accept its mandate from the people, rather than punting to unelected judges while cashing in on K Street.

The next 100 days must restore order. The path forward looks clear. What’s uncertain is whether we have the courage and conviction to walk it. Were we made to be ruled by John Roberts and Anthony Fauci? Or will we step up and govern like citizens? Yes, governing is hard. But letting medical and judicial “experts” run our lives is far worse.

Right?

The New York Times blasts podcaster's ‘revisionist history’ —  while ignoring its own



A recent New York Times hit piece titled, “The Podcaster Asking You to Side With History’s Villains,” is a prime example of why many Americans no longer trust the mainstream media.

The piece criticizes “The Martyr Made Podcast” host Darryl Cooper’s revisionist history — which Glenn Beck of “The Glenn Beck Program” believes couldn’t be more hypocritical, as the New York Times was behind the “1619 Project” written by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Some of Cooper’s claims that the New York Times took grave issue with were that “Winston Churchill was the ‘chief villain’ of the war, not, by implication, Adolf Hitler,” and that “millions had died in Nazi-controlled Eastern Europe because the Nazis had not adequately planned to feed them.”


The New York Times also took issue with Cooper being platformed by Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, who have had the podcaster on their own podcasts.

“They go on and on and on to talk about how ‘this just can’t stand, I mean, there’s got to be some sort of filter, and you know, Joe Rogan just can’t have on whoever he wants to have on,’” Glenn comments.

“That’s the problem, is it, New York Times? Is that the problem?” Glenn asks. “Let me just look in the past here and see if we’ve had this exact same problem with anybody else, because the person that came to mind was not Darryl Cooper, but Nikole Hannah-Jones, because I think those two are the same coin, and the coin’s counterfeit.”

“Jones, she did the ‘1619 Project.’ She did the same thing in reverse, except I think she’s actually worse, I mean, because I think she made up almost everything in that. She recasts American history as racist from the very inception of the country. Neither one of them is telling the whole truth,” he continues.

“They clutch their pearls because he has an audience, and only the New York Times can have that audience. But where was that concern when they gave an audience to Nikole Hannah-Jones and gave her a Pulitzer for a project now so discredited by the very historians that are now talking about Cooper?” he says.

“Where was the caution when they declared that 1619, not 1776, was the true founding of the nation? They didn’t question her authority; they didn’t say, ‘Well, she’s not a historian.’ They printed it. In fact, they taught it and endorsed it. They platformed it in schools,” he adds.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.