The 2021 botched withdrawal from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden's watch sparked widespread calls for his top advisers and military leaders to resign. Nobody did.

However, according to Fox News, in a bombshell revelation admitted to The Washington Post's David Ignatius, Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, reportedly offered to resign in the wake of the disastrous situation that resulted in numerous dead American soldiers. 

The news came as Ignatius spoke with Sullivan and other top Biden advisers as their roles come to an end.

Sullivan's offer to resign was met with resistance by the president, according to the other aides the Post columnist spoke with.

What did they say?

Ignatius reported that the early disaster in Biden's presidency immediately created a rift and turmoil behind the scenes of the president's national security team.

Fox News reported:

Ignatius reported that the Afghanistan withdrawal "broke the early comity" of the Biden administration's national security team, and created a riff between Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Sullivan weighed in on the "challenge" of the Afghanistan troop withdrawal.

"You cannot end a war like Afghanistan, where you’ve built up dependencies and pathologies, without the end being complex and challenging," Sullivan told Ignatius. "The choice was: Leave, and it would not be easy, or stay forever."

Sullivan added, "Leaving Kabul freed the [United States] to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in ways that might have been impossible if we had stayed."

Questionable assessment

Sullivan provided Ignatius a self-assessed performance review of his time in the Biden administration.

"Are our alliances stronger? Yes. Are our enemies weaker? Yes. Did we keep America out of war? Yes. Did we improve our strategic position in the competition with China while stabilizing the relationship? Yes. Did we strengthen the engines of American economic and technological power? Yes," he said.

Fox News reached out to both the National Security Council and the White House in the wake of the published interview. Neither responded.

Earlier reports indicated that nobody offered to resign in the wake of the withdrawal. So, somebody's lying.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Murmurings about the stability of the Islamic Regime in Iran are beginning to be looked at more seriously, as the dust begins to settle on the period of the last few months, which have been some of the most tumultuous in the country's recent history.

A foreign policy with regard to Israel, which relied on the strength of its proxy armies in the several countries encircling the Jewish state (despite Khamanei's meaningless protestations to the contrary) – the so-called "Ring of Fire" – painstakingly assembled over decades largely lies in tatters. His main ally in the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, former secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, was killed along with his most senior lieutenants in a two-month period from the end of July to the end of September.

Israel's exploding beeper and walkie-talkie operation exposed lapses in both Hezbollah and Iran's organizational structures, revealing the depths to which Mossad intelligence agents had penetrated both. To that end, the hugely embarrassing elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Hanlyeh on Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps turf in the heart of Tehran was seemingly the catalyst for a series of events potentially catastrophic for the regime.

Perhaps the portents for Iran were less than stellar when we regard its initial ballistic missile strike on Israel on April 13. Having fired more than 300 projectiles, including cruise missiles and drones, many did not make it out of Iranian airspace, the majority that did were shot down by a previously unlikely coalition of Israel, the U.S., France, the U.K., Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia – the latter three not allowing their country's airspace to be used as flyover country for Iranian missiles. Israel's response, which some considered too subtle, actually impressed many in defense establishments across the world, who understood Israel had taken out a critical radar station with an ingenious new missile.

Iran's October mass missile strike, where it launched some 180 projectiles, was more successful, not least because Israel could not count on the same coalition as six months previously. However, the upshot of this attack was an Israeli reprisal, which comprised a third to a half of the entire Israeli airforce taking out all of Iran's surface-to-air missile defense capabilities.

Israeli warplanes had the freedom of the skies over Tehran, and were entirely unmolested, either by Iranian fighter jets or modern anti-aircraft systems. The footage of flak guns blasting into the Tehran night sky against Israel's state-of-the-art fighters was pitiful.

Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei defended his country's involvement in Syria's civil war Wednesday at an event to mark the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Quds Force leader General Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike ordered by President-elect Donald Trump.

Indeed, there are hints, if one knows where to look for them, that this one individual has never been adequately replaced. His influence over strategy and planning is seemingly so complete that his absence cannot be filled.

Khamanei responded to criticism of his country's defense of Shia Islamic shrines in Syria – at the cost of significant men and treasure – saying, "some people lack the proper analysis and understanding."

According to the Iran International website, Iran has promoted the narrative of the defense of these shrines in both Syria and Iraq – much like Hamas and other Palestinian Islamist groups do with al-Aqsa – as a justification for the military presence there.

"Shi'a Islamic holy sites, particularly the Shrine of Sayyida Zainab in Damascus, Syria. Sayyida Zainab was the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad. However, following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Khamenei's rhetoric expanded beyond shrine defense, openly advocating an all-out war against Israel."

However, according to Middle Eastern analyst Eva Koulouriotis, there are signals all is not well in Tehran. She predicted the move to stop Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias from firing missiles at Israel and did so following Assad's fall in Syria. In comparison with Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, Iran's Iraqi proxies were used somewhat sparingly, although they were responsible for dozens of missile and drone attacks, one of the latter of which killed two IDF soldiers at a northern army base.

She makes a damning assessment of the Obama stance during the P5+1 negotiations, which led to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In her assessment, it merely gave Iran the green light to do exactly as Obama had effectively stated he wanted; namely, a reorganizing of the balance of power in the Middle East with Iran cast as the hegemon. The apotheosis of this direction of travel was the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

Additionally, she points out, as have others that Iran is facing an energy crisis. A rise in fuel prices, frequent power outages, and increased commodity prices have added downward pressure on the economy. Matters came to a head earlier this week when the ancient bazaar in Tehran was the scene of protests for what many view as economic mismanagement.

As a result of what the regime perceives to be bubbling unrest, the IRGC has been granted more extensive powers to deal with Iranian cities becoming more restless. It is this increased scrutiny that led to the arrest of the female Italian journalist Cecilia Sala over accusations of "violating the law." It seems her crime was to collate reports about Iranian women and their experiences in the Islamic Republic.

After having looked at other factors such as whether the regime has settled on a policy of nuclear deterrence as well as the intense Foreign Ministry activity including a tilt toward Moscow and Beijing, in addition to keeping lines of communication open with Western, and even Arab diplomats, Koulouriotis concludes Iranian decision-makers cast a nervous glance at Syria given the speed with which Assad fell.

Reports about Khamanei's health, which have been doing the rounds for years, are now viewed with more urgency as he moves into his late 80s. It is thought that if he were to die suddenly, whether he has nominated a successor or not, it might prove catastrophic to the regime.

And above it all sits the Trump factor. In his first term, America's incoming president showed how he wanted to deal with Iran, creating maximum pressure on the Tehran regime. His Vice President JD Vance seems similarly disposed to think along similar lines. Factor in the Khamanei plan to assassinate Trump, as well as other high-ranking U.S. politicians, and the nervousness that is allegedly gripping Tehran may be heightened yet further.

The White House made an embarrassing error when it failed to delete the old title of an executive order when issuing a new and unrelated one, the Daily Caller reported. President Joe Biden issued the order Friday prohibiting Nippon Steel from acquiring U.S. Steel.

Biden said the sale will not go through over national security concerns. It was the same reason given in an executive order in May to Chinese Real Estate "regarding the acquisition of certain real property of Cheyenne leads by MineOne cloud computing investment I L.P.," an archived version noted.

"Oops. White House copy-and-pastes from a previous presidential order on a Chinese real estate transaction and uses it for the Nippon Steel announcement. And forgets to delete the title," Ken Moriyasu, a journalist for Nikkei Asia, captioned a screenshot of the error on X, formerly Twitter.

Security Concerns

Biden explained his reasoning for blocking the $15 million deal in a statement, including national security concerns. "As I have said many times, steel production—and the steelworkers who produce it—are the backbone of our nation," Biden began.

"A strong domestically owned and operated steel industry represents an essential national security priority and is critical for resilient supply chains. That is because steel powers our country: our infrastructure, our auto industry, and our defense industrial base," Biden added.

"Without domestic steel production and domestic steelworkers, our nation is less strong and less secure," the press release said. Biden blamed foreign producers for driving down the prices which leads to job loss for Americans.

Shockingly, his remedy for this sounds much like President-elect Donald Trump's plans. "I have taken decisive action to level the playing field for American steelworkers and steel producers by tripling tariffs on steel imports from China," Biden said.

Biden also cited the importance of domestic steel production "to keep leading the fight on behalf of America’s national interests," he said. "As a committee of national security and trade experts across the executive branch determined, this acquisition would place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create risk for our national security and our critical supply chains."

Ongoing Issue

These concerns echo those from the original order from which the language relic came, though the two are unrelated. In May, Biden blocked a Chinese company from purchasing land near Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, the Associated Press reported.

The Wyoming facility is a nuclear base, and Biden called the potential sale to Chinese-backed MineOne Partners Ltd. a "national security risk." The company, a crypto mining firm, had purchased the land in 2022 but went under the radar until a public tip came into the  U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The agency is supposed to review and approve land purchases near "sensitive" U.S. sites but was not informed of the purchase until recently. Biden's order didn't specify objections but noted "specialized and foreign-sourced equipment potentially capable of facilitating surveillance and espionage activities" there "presented a significant national security risk."

This is a reasonable concern that will likely be taken even more seriously in the next administration. Still, it's not without consequences as the prohibition against the U.S. Steel sale could mean facility closures for the company.

Biden is right to put national security issues first regarding these matters. However, it seems his staffers may just be phoning it in at this point, considering the sloppiness of the documentation.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Military records reveal possible links between two New Year's Day terrorists: They both served at Fort Bragg in North Carolina during their service careers.

A report at the Gateway Pundit documents the intersections that may have occurred between Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, who rented a Ford pickup truck and drove it through a New Orleans crowd, killing 15 and injuring dozens, and Matthew Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado Springs, who detonated a rented Tesla truck in Las Vegas, killing himself and injuring a handful of passersby.

In addition to both terrorists having military careers, they also both rented their trucks from the Turo app, the report said.

Tony Kovaleski, a reporter for Denver's Channel 7, said, "Sources also confirming Livelsberger served at the same military base as the terrorist responsible for the attack in New Orleans and authorities are investigating a possible connection between the two men."

The New Orleans attack involved a truck being through a Bourbon Street crowd, leaving behind 15 dead and dozens with injuries. The driver died when he jumped out of the truck and started shooting at people, and police returned fire.

In the Las Vegas violence, reports say the vehicle's bed contained a combination of fireworks, gas tanks, and camping fuel, and the truck exploded when it apparently was triggered by the driver, who died.

An ISIS flag was found at the scene of the New Orleans attack.

Joe Biden said federal law enforcement members are investigating and tracking the incidents and any connections.

Speaking after the Las Vegas blast, he said. "Law enforcement and the intelligence community are investigating this as well, including whether there is any possible connection with the attack in New Orleans."

He said, "Thus far there is nothing to report on that score for this time."

Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, reportedly offered to resign his post following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, according to Fox News.

Sullivan's reported resignation offer highlights the internal tensions and challenges faced by President Biden's administration during the Afghanistan withdrawal.

In the summer of 2021, the United States executed a complete withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan after two decades of military presence. The decision to withdraw troops had significant ramifications, culminating in the resurgence of the Taliban and tragic losses, including the deaths of over a dozen American service members. As the operation unfolded, Sullivan encountered intense scrutiny, leading to speculation about his continued role in the Biden administration.

Controversial Afghanistan Withdrawal Sparks Tensions

Reports by journalist David Ignatius of The Washington Post allege that Sullivan, amid mounting pressure, offered his resignation. This dramatic move followed the rapid unraveling of the situation in Afghanistan, which ultimately saw the national security team embroiled in heated disputes. Sullivan's fellow colleagues, however, suggested that President Biden was unequivocal in his decision to retain Sullivan in his advisory role.

At the heart of this fraught period was a divide within the administration. The withdrawal strained Sullivan's relationship with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with differing viewpoints on how to proceed. While the Secretary of State was reportedly more aligned with the President's plan, Sullivan initially echoed the Pentagon's call for a residual force in Kabul, indicating caution over a total troop withdrawal.

Disagreement Between Key Administration Figures

The Pentagon strongly advocated against a complete troop removal, expressing belief in maintaining a limited military presence to safeguard interests in the region. Despite these initial concerns, Sullivan eventually supported President Biden's decision to withdraw all American forces. His understanding of the geopolitical landscape was clear, as illustrated in subsequent reflections.

"You cannot end a war like Afghanistan, where you’ve built up dependencies and pathologies, without the end being complex and challenging," Sullivan stated, shedding light on the inevitable complexities that accompanied the decision to withdraw troops. This acknowledgment underscored the difficult choices the administration faced.

Sullivan's Justification for the Withdrawal

Further adding to the confusion, Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Ward mentioned that sources contradicted reports of Sullivan offering to step down, highlighting the opacity and tension within the administration during this pivotal moment. Neither the White House nor the National Security Council issued prompt responses to clarify the situation, leaving the public and observers in speculation.

Sullivan has been vocal in defending the administration's actions, positioning the withdrawal in strategic terms. According to Sullivan, the decision allowed the United States to refocus its efforts on other global challenges, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and fostered stronger alliances.

The national security adviser emphasized, "Leaving Kabul freed the [United States] to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in ways that might have been impossible if we had stayed." In this context, Sullivan underscored the broader strategic imperatives beyond the immediate chaos.

Defense of Strategic Decisions Post-Withdrawal

By articulating a broader vision, Sullivan aimed to shift the narrative towards the administration's long-term strategic goals. He confidently asserted that the critical policy decisions taken post-withdrawal had bolstered American alliances, weakened adversaries, and kept the nation out of further military conflicts.

"Are our alliances stronger? Yes. Are our enemies weaker? Yes. Did we keep America out of war? Yes," emphasized Sullivan, highlighting the successes he believed were achieved by following this course of action. His definitive stance served as both a defense and a forward-looking justification of the policy.

Reflection on the Administration’s Strategic Success

Sullivan's comments reflect an attempt to repaint the chaotic scenes of Kabul into a strategic advantage. He believes these actions allowed the U.S. to improve its geopolitical standing, particularly in competing with China, and stabilize relationships globally. Such a narrative is aimed at reassuring both domestic and international audiences of the administration's competency and vision.

The ripple effects of the Afghan withdrawal continue to be felt and dissected within policy and public spheres. The unfolding narrative of Sullivan's resignation offer and its aftermath epitomizes the multifaceted challenge of untangling the United States from prolonged conflicts.

In conclusion, the reported resignation offer by Jake Sullivan following the Afghanistan withdrawal reflects the substantial pressures and complex dynamics within President Biden's administration, pointing to both the immediate aftermath of this pivotal decision and its broader strategic implications on the global stage. Sullivan's reflections and assertions continue to steer the conversation towards understanding the future trajectories shaped by past actions.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – The topic of the largely Muslim grooming gangs that operated in working-class areas of the U.K. and in which thousands of white girls and barely pubescent young women were routinely sexually abused over a more than 30-year period is one of the most shameful in recent British history. The issue apparently had died down a little, until two interconnected events brought it rocketing back above the surface.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The well-known critics of all things religious, especially anything connected to Christianity, at the Freedom from Religion Foundation now are being accused of adopting the very ideology the group was created to fight.

It is because the organization censored from its website an article from Jerry Coyne, professor emeritus of ecology in Chicago, an atheist and a board member.

Coyne wrote "Biology is not bigotry" to critique an early column promoting transgenderism.

Coyne's response was to point out to the FFRF, "The gender ideology which caused you take down my article is itself quasi-religious, having many aspects of religious and cults, including dogma, blasphemy, belief in what is palpably untrue ('a women is whoever she says she is'), apostasy, and a tendence to ignore science when it contradicts a preferred ideology."

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, has written about such contradictions in his book, "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage."

And he said the censorship agenda at the FFRF came from "transgender activists" over Coyne's simple explanation that human sex is "binary" and his work to separate the science from the "politics" of the transgender ideology, which has been promoted widely by Joe Biden.

His criticisms took aim at Kat Grant's earlier claim that "A woman is whoever she says she is."

Turley explained, "Coyne offered a view shared by many that '[i]n biology … a woman can be simply defined in four words: 'An adult human female.'…Because some nonbinary people — or men who identify as women ('transwomen') — feel that their identity is not adequately recognized by biology, they choose to impose ideology onto biology and concoct a new definition of 'woman." While Coyne supports equal rights for transgender people, he argued that, as a scientist, 'feelings don't create reality.'"

One result was the resignations of biologist Richard Dawkins and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker in support of Coyne, Turley noted.

Even so, FFRF "caved into the pressure" and removed Coyne's comments.

The essay now is appearing on "Reality's Last Stand."

In Pinker's resignation note, he charged, the foundation "is no longer a defender of freedom from religion but the imposer of a new religion, complete with dogma, blasphemy, and heretics."

Turley wrote, "The intolerance for opposing views is so great that the FFRF is willing to engage in atheist orthodoxy, which not long ago would have been viewed as a contradiction in terms. It is a disgraceful position for a group that once defended those banned or canceled for their views. It is a moment that reminds one of what Robert Oppenheimer said about physicists, but it is particularly poignant for these atheists who have joined a mob to silence: they 'have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.'"

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Pretty soon it's "President Trump" again. Not former president. Not president-elect. When Donald Trump repeats the oath on Jan. 20, he's back in office. Celebration time.

We'll have a man in the White House who plugs the border, tames inflation, keeps men out of women's sports, discolors the green new scam, drills baby drills, jettisons the Education Department to the states and cuts spending like a DOGE.

That's on the home front. This is the America First president, after all.

Still, the commander in chief oversees plenty on the globe. And this is where President Trump will especially buttress his bio while lasting as long as Jimmy Carter.

Call it the Art of the Real. DJT's common sense and force of nature will spell peace on Earth. Let's go through the map:

Korea. Free and red Korea are still technically at war. Fighting ended in 1953, but only with an armistice. It's not a peace treaty.

It sure will be when President Trump steps across the 38th parallel again and shakes hands with Kim Jong-un, this time with real results. Their 2018 and 2019 meetings were warmups to cold, hard negotiations to convince Little Rocket Man the good life comes from ditching nukes and building beachfront property.

Can the 47th president engineer a One Korea? Yes. Even John Bolton wrote in the Washington Times in 2017 before he joined the Trump administration and subsequently turned on his former boss, "The Korean Peninsula will be reunified. Its division in 1945 was purely expedient, intended to be temporary, and just as unnatural as Germany's contemporaneous partition. The only questions are when and how Korean reunification will occur. China, through its massive economic power over North Korea, could itself quickly remove any Pyongyang regime."

There you have it. The key is Xi. Use Mr. Trump's favorite word, tariffs, to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping into helping make Korea great again.

Seems impossible? So it was with Germany by the late 1980s. No one saw the commie East capitulating.

Well, almost no one. President Ronald Reagan sure did in 1987 when he pushed USSR boss Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." And plenty of Germans hoped the Soviet would.

But having lived in Germany back then, I know the man in the street didn't think the Berlin Wall was falling in his lifetime. Yet it did with a thud two years after Reagan's exhortation.

So it is with Korea. Most people figure North is red, and South is fed, and never the twain shall meet.

Yet if the Germans could do it, so can the Koreans. They need a Trump Thrust and Xi Charge to remake that land across the Yalu River into One Korea.

It'll be President Trump's grandest deal.

Ukraine. Peace between Zelenskyy and Putin requires the Trump Touch. He'll put the belligerents on speakerphone and tell them to quit the nonsense. America's upcoming oil dominance will give DJT the requisite ammo to stop the fighting on the eastern front. Best of all for Americans: no more $50 billion checks going down that Ukraine rat hole.

Israel. Simple equation for 47. He'll revert to shutting the cash spigot to Arab terrorists, namely Hamas. As for the big bully brother, Iran can forget slurping oil millions. As he did in his first term, the Donald will halt any energy dealings with the Persians. No money equals no guns, no missiles, no posters screaming death to America/Israel. When the fighting ends, the Abraham Accords shift into higher gear.

Mexico. Our southern sister is crucial in DJT's aim to Make America Great Again. If the Mexicans stop millions from around the world in their tracks, happy days are here again. The invasion ends. The ouster starts. Message to migrants: This isn't home. It's Homan, ready to boot you. Our schools and hospitals will have enough room to properly teach and care for Americans. The budget bust caused by the illegal throngs will come to a screeching halt. ISIS skirting the border door will become WASWAS.

On Inauguration Day, this all starts. President Trump's America atop the world.

House Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for their "dereliction of duty" that led to the New Year's Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, The Washington Examiner reported. The Louisiana Republican said the GOP has been "ringing the alarms" that have gone unheeded.

Early Wednesday morning, a 42-year-old Army veteran plowed into a crowd of New Year's revelers in New Orleans. At least 15 were killed and another 30 injured in the attack.

Although it appears illegal immigration wasn't a factor in this particular crime, it became a talking point after the FBI deemed it an act of terrorism. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have a general habit of putting Americans needlessly at risk.

President-elect Donald Trump blasted the "OPEN BORDERS" and "nonexistent leadership" that allowed people into the country unchecked shortly after the attack. Johnson similarly excoriated Biden and Senate Democrats for their unwillingness to secure the country while on Fox & Friends Thursday.

The Immigration Link

According to the New York Post, Shamsud-Din Jabbar was from Texas and served in the U.S. Army. However, significant evidence, including an ISIS flag in the vehicle he used to commit the crime, points to his radicalism that was nurtured by someone.

Johnson acknowledged a mindset problem when it comes to protecting the country. The Biden administration's unwillingness to secure the border with Mexico underscores the lack of care given to preventing terrorism.

"I don’t know if enough attention is being paid to this, but we all know that for the last four years, the Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty," Johnson charged. The House Speaker explained that Republicans in Congress have been pushing for border security to no avail.

"The idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country, we have been ringing the alarms, we impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas in the House over that very issue and others related to it so this is a big concern," Johnson said. Jabbard was radicalized and acted upon it, but it seems the administration didn't care about that possibility at all.

Priorities

Co-host Lawrence Jones asked Johnson whether there was any warning about this attack before it happened. Johnson unleashed, explaining how the "Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty" to protect America.

"They told us, Lawrence, for four years that the No. 1 threat was so-called 'racially motivated extremism.' It was nonsense. This is the thing that we were all concerned about," Johnson said.

"This is why we raised the alarms. This is why we passed H.R. 2, the strongest border security act ever passed by Congress, and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate would not put that through and make it into law," Johnson continued.

"The Biden administration has a lot to account for here, and we see now in glaring view of everybody that this dereliction of duty has real consequences. It’s a concern, and it will be an ongoing concern for some time," he added.

There are many ways that terrorism reaches our shores, not the least of which is through a porous southern border. Jabbard's crime is precisely the kind of event that Republicans have been warning might happen if that practice continued, and this could just be the start.

A new Gallup poll released on Thursday showed that Americans are mixed in their expectations for what President-elect Donald Trump might achieve in his second term in office, which begins on January 20.

The poll looked at a number of policy priorities, and predicted he'd succeed with seven while failing at the other eight.

The highest expectation for success in the poll was on immigration, which 68% said they thought he would do.

Other policies the respondents expected he would succeed at were reducing unemployment, keeping the country safe from terrorism, improving the economy, keeping the country out of war, cutting people’s taxes and reducing the crime rate.

Great expectations

Respondents thought Trump would not be successful at healing political divisions in the country, improving the quality of the environment, improving the healthcare system, improving race relations, improving education, substantially reducing the federal budget deficit, improving conditions for minorities and the poor, and reducing the prices of groceries and other items.

On two other items, the respondents were about even: improving the way the federal government works and increasing respect for the U.S. abroad.

In the poll, conducted between December 2 and 18, 51% said they approved of how he's handling the transition.

Of course, Republicans were markedly more bullish on Trump's policy success, while Democrats were much less so.

The differences

The main differences between the expectations of Trump now and eight years ago were that reducing prices wasn't on the list (inflation was low at the time) and most Americans in 2016 didn't believe Trump would keep the country out of war.

Trump proved in his first term that he could achieve peace through strength, and he is largely perceived now as a leader who avoids war.

If Trump 2.0 is at all similar to first-term Trump, the economy will go roaring over the next few years.

Immigration will decrease, taxes will go down, and his opponents will look to impeach him a few more times.

Before COVID hit, Trump was widely regarded as a successful president, even if the lefties and the media would never admit it.

Now he has a second chance to show America what he can do and to create a positive legacy to leave us with.

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