Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are facing down rumors of a divorce as they navigate their post-royal lives in California.
The couple stepped back from their public duties in 2020 but have struggled to find their professional footing since then. An 8,000-word article in Vanity Fair only added to their woes, with sources saying the pair found the claims in the story "distressing."
The story, titled "American Hustle," paints an unflattering picture of the Sussexes since they moved to Los Angeles.
"I still think they're the most entitled, disingenuous people on the planet," one Montecito neighbor said of the couple.
"They moved away from England to get away from the scrutiny of the press, and all they do is try and get in the press in the United States."
While Harry and Megham might desire publicity, the reports in Vanity Fair's article have reportedly troubled the couple.
Perhaps the most shocking claim is that Markle's team gauged interest in a "post-divorce" book to a publisher a few years ago. Markle was previously married, but the hypothetical book would have been about a split from Harry.
"This book—this notion of a book, really—might center on a post-Harry divorce. Not that there was actually one in the works! Just...if this a priori divorce ever came to be, would this publisher theoretically be interested in a book that took place in its aftermath?"
The divorce claim was just one part of the bruising story, which paints Markle as a demanding boss and second mother to her husband, who lost his mother Princess Diana in a car crash.
Harry and Meghan find the claims in the story "distressing," the Times reported, although they have not publicly said anything. A source close to Markle dismissed the divorce rumors as unfounded, saying, "If that's true to any degree, she would have been approached and not vice versa."
Harry and Meghan have pursued increasingly separate professional lives, driving speculation of a divorce that has dogged them for some time.
Prince Harry had a sarcastic response to the speculation in a New York Times interview last month.
"Apparently we've bought or moved house maybe 10 or 12 times and we've apparently divorced maybe 10 or 12 times as well," he said, dismissing the tabloid reports.
"So, it's just like 'what?' So, it's hard to keep up with but that's why you just sort of ignore it."
As she returns to the spotlight, First Lady Melania Trump can expect moral support from her little-known older sister.
Ines Knauss, 56, has kept a low-profile for some 20 years, but she has played a significant role in the lives of Melania and her son, Barron, the Daily Mail reported.
Melania's older sister was the maid of honor at Melania's wedding to Donald Trump and was last pictured at Mar-A-Lago in 2005. Knauss was not pictured at the funeral of her mother, Amalija, when she passed away last year.
"Melania and Ines are very close and since Melania's mother died, Ines and their father are probably the two people Melania trusts the most," an insider familiar with the first lady's thinking told the Daily Mail.
A photographer who worked with Melania in her former modeling career described Knauss as "really polite and very mellow."
The Slovenian-born sisters have a close bond, as Melania shared with readers in her best-selling memoir released last year, which mentions Ines some 30 times.
"Ines was more than just a sister to me; she was a guiding light who illuminated my path and inspired me to reach for the stars," Melania wrote.
Melania's return to the White House has prompted fresh public fascination in one of the most elegant, and elusive, of First Ladies.
Known to have a close-knit family, Melania has long prioritized parenting her son Barron, but there are indications she will embrace a more public role in her second turn as First Lady. In addition to her memoir, Melania is releasing a documentary about her life on Amazon Prime later this year.
“I just feel that people didn’t accept me maybe … And I didn’t have much support,” she recently told Fox News. "Maybe some people, they see me as just a wife of the president, but I’m standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts. I have my own yes and no. I don’t always agree what my husband is saying or doing. And that’s OK.”
Melania's evolution was apparent during her husband's inaugural ceremony Monday, where she cut a bold figure, donning a black boater hat that concealed her eyeline.
The look projected a strong aura of self-possession as Melania prepares for a return to public life.
"The look said ‘I’m flawless and in control,’ and it showed that she’s going to do things her way this time — she won’t look back," fashion journalist and historian Nancy MacDonell told PageSix.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Many Americans were stunned during the course of Joe Biden's administration in Washington by the aggressive censorship tactics used to suppress thought that was not necessarily wrong, but did not align with the Democrat talking points adopted by the White House.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has admitted to Congress that the Biden administration pressured him, including swearing at his employees and screaming at them, to censor what the Democrats didn't like.
Multitudes of conservative thought expressions simply were erased.
Alongside that was the stunning use by Biden of the power of the federal government to attack, through law enforcement and the courts, those whose ideologies differed from his.
An example would be the legal assaults that were created against President Trump, including one that shared virtually identical circumstances as the evidence against Biden. The cases involved a former president, or in Biden's case a former vice president at the time, having government documents.
Trump was attacked with multiple felonies; Biden got a free pass.
But now those two campaigns are going to be under review themselves, as two of Trump's executive orders, issued immediately after his inauguration, address the concerns the American public has about them.
The order also instructs the attorney general, expected to be Trump nominee Pam Bondi, to work with other executive agency chiefs to "investigate how federal government actions over the four years of the Biden administration could have infringed on free speech," the report said.
The logical result will be, the report said, "remedial actions" based on the findings.
The result of the Biden censorship agenda included pressure from the government, and then action by private actors, including social media companies whose officials simply demonetized or even suspended accounts for those individuals and groups, including news organizations, that reported facts unfriendly to Biden and his schemes.
The topics targeted included anything that questioned the COVID-19 shots he mandated for millions, and which now are known to have included possible side effects up to and including death, any questions about the schemes that influenced the 2020 election, such as the FBI's election interference actions, and more.
The report noted, "Facebook-founding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently echoed that accusation, saying senior Biden administration officials pressured his employees to inappropriately 'censor' content during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform that used to be known as Twitter, X, has accused the FBI of illegally coercing Twitter before his tenure to suppress a story about Hunter Biden.
Another was specific to the weaponization programs.
"The American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions," it said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
WASHINGTON – J6 prisoners are in the news, after President Donald Trump's Day One mass pardon. However, as WorldNetDaily has learned from some of the prisoners, many are currently stranded in rural areas of the country, surrounded by farmland, with no cellphone, no money and no family members to take them home.
It seems that, leading up to the expected day of unprecedented presidential pardons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons began transferring J6 prisoners to random states in the middle of nowhere.
J6 prisoner Zachary Alam, a former medical school student, called this WorldNetDaily reporter as he was being processed for release out of the Oklahoma prison he was transferred to last week.
Upon news that he too was pardoned, Alam said he fell to his knees last night, thankful to God for his freedom and with immense gratitude for President Trump's courageous decision to allow him and nearly 1,600 other J6 defendants and prisoners to be immediately released.
However, after four years of incarceration in a politically weaponized case that turned his family against him, Alam is now facing homelessness and will be stranded upon release with no transportation.
"I'm in the middle of nowhere, in rural farmland Oklahoma," Alam told WND on a call from the prison Tuesday morning. "They moved me here last week for no apparent reason."
"I've got to get somehow, some way, to Philadelphia with no cell phone, no money and no family to help. I don't even have enough to get an Uber to Oklahoma City, which is at least 40 miles away. There is no Amtrak that leaves today, the next Amtrack available would leave on Wednesday for about $400," he continued. "I am asking the American public for financial assistance with a place to live and enough money to get back to the city I resided before I was arrested."
Alam warned that three other Jan. 6 prisoners who were also housed in the Oklahoma prison will likewise be stranded upon release.
The decision to immediately release the J6 prisoners, referred to by the president as "political hostages," was highly anticipated, but still sudden.
Alam called WND explaining that he has been released to the streets of Oklahoma without even his ID – just a paper ID from the prison.
With the stroke of a pen last night, hours after being sworn in as the 47th president, Trump historically pardoned and commuted the sentence of every person convicted or charged with crimes at the Save America rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump advisers had insisted the pardons would be issued on a case-by-case basis amid continuous emerging reports about federal informants and confidential human sources, but in one fell swoop the president set them all free.
While Alam and the other men will be released within hours of Trump's pardon, correctional officers across the country are reportedly refusing to release the J6ers.
Large crowds gathered outside of the Washington, D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility, the jail notoriously known as the "D.C. Gulag" where hundreds of J6 prisoners were detained for years pretrial.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says Joe Biden must "know something" that made him think that his family needed presidential pardons, which Biden essentially slipped under the door on his way out of the White House.
"You must know something that other people do not, and what?" McCarthy explained. "Why do you wait until 30 minutes before? Why did you tell the American public you would never pardon your son, and you do it now?"
McCarthy explained the pardons "suggest that members of Biden's family have done 'something wrong,'" the report confirmed.
"Terrible. Terrible. Think about what everybody else had gone through. Why pardon your family? It makes no sense to me. … All it does is put a cloud over that you did something wrong."
In fact, Biden son Hunter was pardoned Dec. 2 after he had been convicted of gun felonies and after he had pleaded guilty to tax charges. He was facing up to years in prison.
Joe Biden had multiple times promised Americans he would let the juries and judicial system decide Hunter's fate, then he pardoned him from all crimes for more than a decade.
Then just hours before his presidency ended, Joe Biden pardoned brothers James and Francis Biden, James' wife Sara, his sister Valerie Owens and her husband John Owens.
"The difference here is whether you agree or disagree about what President Trump's going to do, he told the American public ahead of time," McCarthy said. "They put that into consideration whether they vote for him for president, so he's just keeping a campaign promise."
The Washington Examiner reported McCarthy cited a "double standard" for Biden's pardons for family members and President Trump's pardons for J6 protesters.
He said in an interview with NBC, "This is the difference. This president told the American public, while he was campaigning for office, 'If I'm elected president, I will pardon these people.' Compare this to Joe Biden, who said he would never pardon his son, who now, on the very last day in the last 30 minutes, pardons his entire family.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
JERUSALEM – Leftists – and most prominently U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D–N.Y. – took to X in droves Monday night, following Elon Musk's speech after President Donald Trump's inauguration, claiming the tech billionaire had given a Nazi salute.
A clearly pumped and emotional Elon, while saying "My heart goes out to you," touched his heart and immediately raised his right arm in appreciation of his audience. It was instinctive – and potentially not brilliantly thought-through. But a Nazi salute it was not.
However, the attempt by leftists and a corporate media whose ratings are in the toilet to equate Musk – and therefore, the whole MAGA movement with Nazism – shows they still haven't learned the lessons from the crushing 2024 election defeat.
X was flooded with claims and counter-claims. Those defending Musk said it was a Roman salute, while also referencing his self-acknowledged position on the autism spectrum and his arm-raise was a misplaced expression of exuberance.
Meanwhile, others post images of members of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, side-by-side with Musk, claiming it was indeed a Nazi salute. Other accounts showed stills of four Democrat politicians – President Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton – with their right hands outstretched, showing that catching people in a certain pose can be twisted to suit a particular narrative.
The overwrought reaction to Musk's salute is all the more galling as Leftist politicians and their defenders in the media never raised a peep of protest against pro-Hamas supporters performing genuine Nazi salutes at their anti-Jewish rallies, promoting the actual genocide of Jews, both in the Jewish state and the world beyond. However, a neurodivergent person makes an inelegant gesture and they have no problem jumping up and down over it.
Elon bit back at the critics, saying they needed "better dirty tricks," and that "the 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."
He's right. At Trump's Madison Square Garden rally at the end of October, the compromised media, which overlooked President Biden's infirmity until it became a glaring national embarrassment, harped on about how it was a Nazi rally, redolent of a 20,000-strong event back in 1939, which genuinely was pro-Nazi. Independent observers such as Triggernometry host Konstantin Kisin, remarked he had never seen so many visibly Orthodox Jews and Israeli flags at a Nazi rally.
Former New York assemblyman Doc Hikind posted a powerful defense of Elon on X. In a previous post he showed images ofMusk on stage in an interview wearing the hostage dog tag in honor of those still held in Hamas captivity and barely able to keep his emotions in check, as well as visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp alongside Orthodox Jewish Conservative personality Ben Shapiro.
In the video, Hikind, whose parents survived the horrors of the Holocaust in Auschwitz, called the accusation "pathetic and sick," adding Elon was a "friend of the Jewish people." He also said "Musk is an individual who cares deeply about America," finishing his defense by exclaiming, "Shame on you, shame on you, and go to hell!"
For the fashion-conscious, First Lady Melania Trump stole some of the limelight at her husband's inauguration ceremony by wearing a stylish outfit designed by American craftsmen.
Melania wore a double-breasted navy coat by American designer Adam Lippes and a matching boater hat by American milliner Eric Javits.
“The tradition of the presidential inauguration embodies the beauty of American democracy and today we had the honor to dress our first lady, Mrs. Melania Trump,” Lippes said in a statement. “Mrs. Trump’s outfit was created by some of America’s finest craftsmen and I take great pride in showing such work to the world.”
With her outfit, she wore black gloves for warmth and her signature Manolo Blahnik stilettos.
It was the fourth-coldest Inauguration Day on record with a high of 27 degrees, and incoming President Donald Trump decided to hold the swearing-in ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda rather than outdoors as is traditional.
Ronald Reagan's 1985 swearing-in had a high of only seven degrees, while Ulysses S. Grant's inauguration in 1987 had a high of 16 degrees and John F. Kennedy Jr.'s in 1961 was 22 degrees.
Reagan's inauguration was also held indoors, as was William Taft's 1909 ceremony due to 10 inches of snow in D.C. that day.
With the president being a senior citizen at 78 and several other lawmakers in attendance in their 80s, it was probably a good idea to avoid standing around for hours in sub-freezing temperatures.
It was still necessary for the Trumps, Vances, Bidens and others to dress warmly as they walked from outside to the Rotunda.
Second Lady Usha Vance wore a light pink jacket with suede ivory gloves and Manolo Blahnik boots. The designer of her outfit was not known, but she has favored designers like Oscar de la Renta and Sergio Hudson in the past.
Outgoing First Lady Jill Biden wore a royal blue jacket and dress by Ralph Lauren, where Lippes got his start before developing his own line.
Her heels matched the coat and dress.
Everyone seemed cordial during the swearing in of Trump, putting aside any hostility that had been previously expressed and showing Americans that the transfer of power was peaceful and gracious.
Biden can now get some much-needed rest, and the country will be in good hands under Trump.
Ghislaine Maxwell's London townhouse is up for sale, drawing fresh attention to the British royal family's ties to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The roughly $4 million home is where Prince Andrew was infamously photographed wrapping his arm around the waist of an Epstein accuser.
Prince Andrew stepped back from his public duties after Epstein's sex trafficking trial and shocking jailhouse death put his powerful associates under a microscope.
Andrew has always denied wrongdoing, but the royal's reputation has been damaged by his links with Epstein and Maxwell.
In 2022, Andrews settled a U.S. civil case brought by accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claimed Andrew assaulted her at Maxwell's London home, Epstein's New York mansion and Epstein's notorious island.
Giuffre claimed that she met Andrew at a nightclub in London before Andrew forced her to have sex with him at Maxwell's home. In an infamous 2001 photograph, Andrew is seen with one hand on Giuffre's waist as Maxwell looms in the background.
The picture was taken at Maxwell's former residence in London's wealthy Belgravia neighborhood.
Maxwell, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Britain, is serving a federal prison sentence in Florida for her key role in trafficking underage girls to Epstein.
She sold the London home to help pay for her legal defense in America as she battled criminal charges.
Maxwell has claimed the picture of Andrew and Giuffre is a fake, and Andrew, in a 2019 BBC interview, also cast doubt on the picture's authenticity.
“I’m terribly sorry, but if I, as a member of the royal family, and I have a photograph taken — and I take very, very few photographs — I am not one to, um, as it were, hug,” he said.
“Public displays of affection are not something that, that I do. So. That’s the best explanation I can give you.”
Epstein died in a New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide but led to conspiracy theories about an assassination by powerful clients.
“I deplore the exploitation of any human being and would not condone, participate in, or encourage any such behavior” Prince Andrew said of Epstein at the time, adding, “it was a mistake and an error to see him after his release in 2010.”
“His suicide has left many unanswered questions and I acknowledge and sympathize with everyone who has been affected and wants some form of closure.”
Maxwell's appeal of her conviction was rejected last year.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Today is the day we "right-wing" Americans have all been waiting for, the return of Donald Trump to the presidency, driving a bulldozer. For the first time since Ronald Reagan we have a Republican president devoted not to "conservatism" but to a vision of a better America that requires demolishing Marxist cultural and political infrastructure and rebuilding the constitutionalist structures the left has been systematically supplanting since the 1920s.
Most Americans are focused on the MAGA pushback against the outrages of this generation such as DEI, two-tiered justice, open borders and the near death of parental rights, but I am hoping Trump intends not just to trim the hedges of Marxism but to cut them down to the ground and dig out the roots. In order to do that he must eliminate ALL its elements, including its first principle. atheism, and its central strategy for conquest, LGBTism.
First a word about time-horizons and their importance to reformers. As my long-term readers know, I was in my teens and 20s a sometimes homeless alcoholic and drug addict who drifted around the U.S. sleeping under bridges and begging spare change to survive. My time horizon – the furthest point in the future I planned for and cared about – was about six weeks. Sometimes it was just a day or even hours. I plumbed the depths of Maslow's "Heirarchy of Needs," focused totally on short-term gratification and largely unconcerned about the long-term consequences of my decisions. Through countless reckless adventures and wrong turns, it was only by the grace of God I escaped death or long-term institutionalization.
Years later as a Christian, saved and healed from my addictions through a trauma-inspired prayerful surrender of my life to Jesus Christ, I became an avid student of history – both biblical and secular – and acquired the longest possible timeline, stretching from the Creation to Eternity. In my mid-30s, with only a high school diploma under my belt, and a wife and two small children to support, I set a goal to become a lawyer, which took six years of diligence and determination. At Simon Greenleaf University (now Trinity Law School) I studied both biblical and constitutional law and graduated Magna cum Laude with a Juris Doctor degree (J.D.). I then immediately pursued and earned a Doctor of Theology degree (Th.D.)
I'm the only person I know who got through law school as a missionary, funded by a mailing list of supporters who wanted to help me gain better skills to fight the culture war. I attracted most of those supporters (some of whom are still on my list) by hawking my first book, "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party," on talk radio shows. I self-published to retain total control of the book, sold them only by phone orders from the shows (and person-to-person at speaking events) and sent fundraising letters to the buyers.
I say all this not for self-aggrandizement – there is no good thing in me but Christ – but to establish my credentials to advise Donald Trump on culture-war fighting. I'm an accomplished academic scholar of "culture war studies" (a maverick's self-created career path) who has also been in the front-line trenches fighting this war at huge personal cost since the 1980s.
And so, with this foundation, and a far more educated and realistic perspective of how far back we need to go to "purge" Marxism than the average MAGA patriot has, I contend there are two SCOTUS rulings that must be reversed to restore authentic constitutionalism as it was intended by the founders.
Everson v. Board of Education (1947). "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" (Psalm 33:12), and conversely, the Christian nation that expressly rejects him is cursed. The wicked jurist and KKK member Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion in Everson, replacing the God of the Bible with Secular Humanism on America's throne, by elevating Jefferson's metaphor "separation of church and state" to the status of binding constitutional law. Prior to Everson, God was honored in our law as the Supreme Being (as detailed in the Holy Trinity case), and the truths of the Bible were nationally revered and taught to our children in public schools. Everson set us on a new trajectory away from God toward legally enforced polytheism in the populace and Secular Humanism in the government.
While America was not perfect in the generations prior to Everson, this ruling collapsed our moral underpinnings and triggered the storm of social and cultural chaos that has ever since ravaged this nation in waves of exponentially compounding domestic and international crises. America can never be made great again within the founders understanding of greatness so long as Everson stands as the law of the land.
I've written extensively on this topic over the years, including this essay. (Search "Everson" on my website for more). And for those with an interest in demonology, my book "Dynasty of Darkness, Vol. 2," details the mind-blowing demonic activities associated with the Everson ruling and related cases and historical events. (You should also read Volume 1 for the extensive biblical support for my claims.)
Lawrence v. Texas (2003). "A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination" states God Himself in His explanation to the Hebrew people justifying His policy of extermination of the Canaanites in Leviticus 18. The ancient common law on "sodomy" was based on this verse (18:22) and the following one: "You must not lie carnally with any animal, thus defiling yourself with it; a woman must not stand before an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion (18:23)." As our third president, Thomas Jefferson noted in his restatement of the law:
"Buggery is twofold. 1. With mankind, 2. With beasts. Buggery is the Genus, of which Sodomy and Bestiality, are the species. … Sodomiary is a carnal copulation against nature, to wit, of man or woman in the same sex, or of either of them with beasts. …" Of the two, Jefferson implied, homosexuality was worse, because "bestiality can never make any progress; it cannot therefore be injurious to society in any great degree, which is the true measure of criminality in foro civili, and will ever be properly and severely punished, by universal derision."
God's law against sodomy was enshrined in America's national law until Lawrence, which was the second of the four landmark rulings written by the satanically inspired Justice Anthony Kennedy establishing LGBT cultural supremacy over Christianity in America. My law partner and I were the only law firm in the country that filed a request for SCOTUS not to accept Lawrence for review, but they did. Kennedy then not only struck down the Texas sodomy laws, but reversed the most important sexual morality ruling in our national history, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which recognized the right of states to regulate sexual deviance in the public interest.
Kennedy's Lawrence ruling was the second and most sweeping of the four major dominos to fall (Romer v. Evans was first, Obergefell was the fourth) that eventually made DEI legally possible, and reversing it (hopefully by restoring Bowers) is the only way to truly kill DEI permanently and to push the LGBT agenda back into the closet where it belongs. I've been fighting for this my entire career and predicted in 2013 exactly what we've reaped since.
Please pray with me that Trump's vision for restoration expands to a long-enough timeline to recognize the true destructiveness of these two must-reverse SCOTUS rulings.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Donald J. Trump winning two non-consecutive terms is a feat only one other president has done before: Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president after the 1884 election, and as the 24th president after the campaign of 1892.
Watching Trump become America's 47th president of the United States, I was reminded of yet another president who also wasn't expected to win but did: Ronald Reagan, America's 40th president who served two consecutive terms from 1981-1989.
I'll never forget, in 1980, when Reagan was running for his first term. Like Trump, he was not a typical politician. That is why the Democratic Party was going to do everything possible to keep him from getting to the White House.
However, the people of America, including me, felt Reagan would be a great president. We all saw him as an impressive leader, a man of honor and a man who cared for all the people. He also had a great sense of humor, which was a further attraction.
When Reagan won the presidency in 1980, the Democratic Party couldn't believe they lost, just like when President Trump won the bid for the White House in both 2016 and 2024. The Democrats regarded Reagan similarly then as they view Trump today, not exactly with fondness.
While Reagan was the president of our great country, I had the honor of meeting him and the first lady.
One day Nancy Reagan's assistant called my office. She explained that the first lady was having a tennis celebrity event at the White House, and she wanted to invite me.
My assistant said she would call me and then let her know if I would be able to make it to the event.
When my assistant called and explained Mrs. Reagan's personal invitation, I replied that I definitely wanted to go.
But then when I hung up the phone, it dawned on me that I had never played tennis in my life!
So, I hired a tennis teacher to give me 10 days of intensive lessons before I had to fly to Washington, D.C.
It was a lot of fun playing in the White House tennis event. I had a great time. I didn't play so great, but at least I didn't embarrass myself.
After the event, those participating were all invited to a special evening at the White House, during which we would have the opportunity of meeting President Reagan.
When I met him in person, I immediately knew that he was not only a fine man but also a great leader for our country.
I remember when Reagan ran for his second term in 1984. The Democratic Party leaders again were trying their best to beat him with their presidential candidate, Walter Mondale of Minnesota.
But Reagan had done an incredible job in his first four years, so people from all political persuasions – Republicans, Independents and even Democrats – reelected him. And as history recorded, he went on to be an even greater second-term president, accomplishing things like bringing down the Berlin Wall.
I was again invited a few years later to an event at the White House. This time I had the pleasure and honor to talk a little more with the president and first lady. They were the most wonderful people I had ever met.
Now, let's talk about the second president who was also not supposed to win: that's right, Donald J. Trump.
Let me tell you how I first met Trump, in 1974. Yes, 1974, when Donald was only about 28 years old, and I was only 34. Even then he was doing well as a businessman.
I had won the World Martial Arts Championship in 1968 and held the title until 1974, at which time I decided to retire from professional fighting.
When I informed the promoter of the World Championship that I was retiring, he made a huge deal out of it. I recommended Bill Wallace fight in my place. Bill fought and went on to win the world title, too.
The promoter told me that Trump was going to be in the audience to see the world championships. Even as a young man, Trump was very well-known and liked.
As I walked down from the platform, he was standing there and came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Why did you retire so soon?!"
I replied, "I am 34 years old, have held the world title for six years, and I have decided it is time to move on with my life."
Trump asked me, "What are your plans now?"
I explained that I had wanted to become an actor, and that I had filmed a movie with Bruce Lee in 1972 and really liked it.
Donald looked at me square in the eyes and said, "I have a feeling you are going to do well as an actor." Then, he simply turned around and walked off.
A decade or two later, after I filmed more than a dozen popular action movies, Trump and I encountered each other again at a professional wrestling event. In fact, someone captured the moment on video here (contrary to the title, it was not the first time I met Trump).
Over the decades, I watched Donald Trump grow as a businessman. I would read articles about him and read a few of his insightful books. I was very impressed by his optimistic and positive attitude.
I'm amazed it was 50 years ago that I first met Trump. Then and now, he hasn't changed a bit, except he's got a whole lot wealthier and serves in the most powerful role in the free world.
Though I was a little surprised when he initially ran for president, I honestly wasn't shocked when Trump won in 2016. It was time we had a real businessman deal with the mess in Washington, D.C.
He didn't come from "the establishment." He was an outsider. As everyone knows now, he's not a typical politician, not even close. Say what you will about him, anyone who has gone through what he has (including almost being assassinated twice), and is still willing to serve as president without pay a second time, has earned his place in history.
Democratic Party leaders swore that after Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 and 1985, they would never allow a celebrity to win again. But one did.
When Trump was competing against Hillary Clinton in 2016, mainstream media and Democratic leaders unloaded on him and were absolutely convinced that Hillary would win. They were wrong.
In 2024, it was one big déjà vu. This time, not only the Republicans but Independents and tons of Democratic Americans reelected Trump when he competed against Biden and Harris. He even won all the swing states and the majority of the popular vote.
Many (if not most) thought lighting would never strike twice for Trump, especially after he stepped away from the White House in 2020 for four years. But it did, even after nearly a decade that his adversaries tried to disparage him, impeach him, imprison him and even assassinate him.
Amazingly, Trump has stayed strong and continues to fight (fight, fight) to make America great again. One thing that is difficult to deny: He definitely wants America to win.
Now, it's our turn to do our best to support and pray for him and his amazing league of Cabinet leaders, in order that America can finally experience a stronger economy, a secure border, lower crime and a better international position in the world.
America and Americans have been hurting and even in crisis for far too long, from natural disasters to economic freefall and global dominance, and it's high time we together turned that around.
In a past edition of WND's Whistleblower, recently deceased historian Dr. Lee Edwards, the author or editor of 25 books and the Former Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, hit the nail on the head: "We shall come through this crisis as we have other challenges in our [248]-year history, following the example of leaders such as Reagan, who reminded us in his first inaugural address just what kind of people we are. The crisis we face, Reagan said, requires our willingness to believe in ourselves, 'to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.'"
Dr. Edwards' thoughts remind me of the revolutionary giant Thomas Paine, who might as well have been speaking to our time in his work "The American Crisis," when he wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."