America is waiting…
When will Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially throw his hat into the ring for the 2024 Republican nomination? Sources close to the governor are spilling the beans…
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – In the most glaring example of wokeness in the military, which the Marine Commandant recently claimed wasn’t an issue in our beloved Corps, jarheads are being urged not to use sir or ma’am in Marine boot camp.
According to the Marine Corps Times, this is seen as part of a sweeping effort to avoid ‘misgendering’ drill instructors. This is something all Marines know has been a huge and pressing issue at boot camp for decades, as we have so many non-binary and trans drill instructors.
Please note my sarcasm.
The recommendation is part of a massive, recently completed, 738-page academic report from the University of Pittsburgh, which was commissioned by the Corps in 2020.
Instead of sir or ma’am the 22 University of Pittsburgh Academics that concocted the study – headed by biologists Bradley C. Nindl and Mita Lovalekar, recommend aspiring privates call their superiors by their last names.
The study notes that other military branches have made strides to “de-emphasize gender” by using other names instead.
The Marine Corps Times reports:
Instead of saying ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir,’ recruits in these Services refer to their drill instructors using their ranks or roles followed by their last names. Gendered identifiers prime recruits to think about or visually search for a drill instructor’s gender first, before their rank or role.
The far-left report is riddled with other woke ideas and includes a detailed study on improving gender integration at boot camp.
One important figure who thankfully appeared hesitant about this gender-neutral proposal was Col. Howard Hall, chief of staff for Marine Corps Training and Education Command.
Hall and others maintain that even if the Corps implements the change at its training facilities, recruits will then need to re-adapt to again addressing senior officers by ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ when they enter the fleet, as Marines in the real world would likely not enforce the rule.
Hall told the Marine Corps Times, in slightly mangled terms, and some big words:
Honestly, that’s not a quick fix. What are inculcating in our young recruits that will or will not be reinforced when they graduate and enter the fleet Marine force? So again, we want to avoid any quick-fix solutions that introduce perturbations down the line.
And yes, while we all want to avoid ‘perturbations’ down the line, more importantly we want to avoid sheer idiocy right now.
Maybe our Marine officers should learn to be blunter.
This study also shows why the military needs to stop relying so much on outside consultants and academics, and their idiotic, ideologically-driven studies, to guide its policies.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz met with Panamanian officials about growing Communist Chinese influence over the Panama Canal, a crucial artery for global trade that was built and once controlled by the United States, until it was given away by liberal the-President Jimmy Carter.
Cruz announced in a statement he “recently traveled to Panama and underscored the Panama Canal’s strategic importance to the United States.”
Cruz reports he “met with top Panamanian officials, including the Minister of Economy and Finance, Felipe Chapman; Minister of Public Security, Frank Abrego; and Panama Canal Authority Administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez Morales. During these meetings, Sen. Cruz reiterated the growing threats posed by China and other foreign actors seeking to exert influence over the region, threatening both American and Panamanian national and economic security.”
“The Senate Commerce Committee has primary jurisdiction over the Panama Canal due to its role in the facilitation of global trade and U.S. commerce,” Cruz notes.
“There is undoubtedly a strong Chinese presence, and I believe a threat to the canal. The purpose of my visit is number one, to try to strengthen the longtime friendship and alliance between the United States and Panama. And number two, I’m the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which, among other things, has jurisdiction over the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal is vital, both to national security and economic security of the United States and Panama,” said Cruz.
Cruz summarized the long-brewing issue of Communist Chinese control of the Panama Canal and its threat to the United States, writing:
Previously, Sen. Cruz convened a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to examine the growing number of challenges facing the maritime industry in the region due to capacity limitations and increased transit fees. Sen. Cruz sounded alarms over China’s growing foothold in Panama, which poses a direct threat to U.S. trade. China has exploited Panama’s institutional weakness to evade U.S. sanctions and has taken controlling stakes in critical infrastructure surrounding the Panama Canal. During the hearing, multiple senators raised concerns about Panama’s management of the canal, citing allegations of corruption, suggesting that they may be violating the Neutrality Treaty.
One week after the hearing, a preliminary deal was announced that would give an American company primary control of Port Balboa and Port Cristobal, which are container ports on either end of the canal. However, the deal has faced delay amid pressure from China seeking to secure a stake in the deal, stalling progress to protect both American and Panamanian interests.
Sen. Cruz concluded, “China is not America’s friend, and China is not Panama’s friend, and if God forbid, a military conflict emerges between the United States and China, I believe there is an unacceptable risk that China would act to shut down the Panama Canal, which would have a devastating impact on the United States and an even worse impact on Panama…
“There is strong American interest in expanding and improving commerce and transportation through the Panama Canal. The United States built the Panama Canal more than a century ago and our nations have been close friends for a long, long time. The economies of both the United States and Panama benefit enormously from the Panama Canal, and there are strong American interests in investing in ports on both ends of the Panama Canal and assisting in new infrastructure, whether it is gas pipelines to transport gas from one end to the other, or whether it is building a new reservoir and expanding the ability to ensure there’s
ANALYSIS – While much of the establishment media dutifully informed us that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s recent interview of Joe Biden regarding his alleged mishandling of classified materials signals the investigation is ending, ‘with nothing there,’ it could just be the beginning.
In a bombshell new discovery, it appears that Biden may have been lying about those classified documents all along.
I have previously noted that former president Donald Trump improperly held on to classified documents mostly out of vanity, gave multiple bogus justifications for having them, refused to give them all back, moved them around, and essentially dared the Biden Department of Justice (DoJ) to come after him – which it did.
Had he returned all the materials he had in his possession, I have argued, DoJ likely would not have raided his Mar-a-Lago home and found damning evidence to indict him. None of the charges against Trump in that case are tied to materials he earlier returned to authorities.
Biden, and former vice president Mike Pence, seemed to have behaved quite differently when they discovered classified materials. Both supposedly quickly returned documents they had held improperly at their homes or private offices.
This was a big difference with Trump’s actions.
Well, that may be true of Pence, but not of Biden, who seems to have a much more tangled web of deceit surrounding his classified materials that date back to his time as vice president and even senator.
As Jonathan Turley, Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School notes in The Hill: “The most glaring problem [with Biden’s case] is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up.”
That sounds a lot like what Trump did, but going back much farther, and for potentially far more sinister motives.
Turley added:
Biden made clear from the beginning that he expected the investigation to be perfunctory and brief. He publicly declared that he has “no regrets” over his own conduct and told the public that the documents investigation would soon peter out when it determined that “there is no ‘there’ there.”
Now, however, it appears that a critical claim by the White House in the scandal may not only be false but was knowingly false at the time it was made. The White House and Biden’s counsel have long maintained that, as soon as documents were discovered in the D.C. office, they notified the national archives. Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities.
However, it now appears that this was not true. One of the closest aides to Biden and a close friend to Hunter Biden is Annie Tomasini. She referred to Hunter as her “brother” and signed off messages with “LY” or “love you.”
Tomasini was once a senior aide to Joe Biden and, according to the Oversight Committee, inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office — nearly 20 months before they were said to be found by the Biden team.
The Oversight Committee released a new timeline of when the classified documents were discovered.
As Turley notes, “the committee now alleges that the White House “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials.”
This is huge. It means Biden repeatedly lied about when his staff discovered classified materials in his private residences and offices, and Team Biden had 20 months to tamper with, hide or otherwise dispose of evidence.
While a sitting president can’t be indicted according to existing DoJ policy, that could be changed. Beyond that, this new information has already been added to an increasingly heated impeachment inquiry by the GOP-led House.
The question being asked now by House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is: How many of the documents improperly kept by Biden related to the countries the Biden family engaged with as part of their alleged foreign influence peddling scheme?
If there were any, that could mean there is “a lot more ‘there,’ there,” than Biden claimed.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
*Warning: This article contains some graphic language.
ANALYSIS – For those conservatives who say that Republicans are weak or ineffective, take note of all the actions this GOP-led House has taken so far. And with only the slimmest of majorities. The latest effort targets a distasteful anti-Christian group that focuses on influencing Pentagon policy.
While operating under the misleading name of the ‘Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), this advocacy group is anything but an organization for religious freedom. Its real mission is to attack and remove any Christian influences from our entire military.
In February, for example, the MRFF convinced Merchant Marine Academy leaders to move a massive historical painting titled “Christ on the Water” from a public space to a chapel.
This move was attacked by Republican lawmakers and Christian groups as gross overreach, especially since it was a historical item and part of the Academy’s proud heritage.
But the Academy caved quickly to the group’s outrageous demand.
The aggressive actions of the group have raised concerns among lawmakers for years, with ill-informed military staffers often overreacting to the group’s incessant, and at times inappropriate, demands without following proper review procedures.
Thankfully, the GOP House has it in its sights.
Under an amendment to the House draft of the annual defense authorization bill last week, reported Military Times, Defense officials and troops would be barred from communicating with the Foundation or from making “any decision as a result of any claim, objection, or protest made by MRFF without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”
While the language for the amendment was offered by Republican Rep. Mike Turner, of Ohio, the amendment was adopted with unanimous, bipartisan support in the House Armed Services Committee.
The amendment is designed to simply ensure that military staffers don’t overreact to the group’s demands without following proper protocols. And its bipartisan support shows that it is very reasonable.
But that didn’t stop the group from issuing a profanity-laced tirade.
Confirming its bigoted anti-Christian bias, not to mention lack of professionalism and decorum, the MRFF’s president and founder Mikey Weinstein, angrily lashed out, calling his opponents “bastards” and “enemies.”
More specifically he said, according to Military Times: “If they don’t like what we do at MRFF … they can take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line with the rest of those fundamentalist Christian extremist bastards who constitute our enemies.”
But he didn’t stop digging his anti-Christian hole there. He went on:
If the fundamentalist Christian nationalists who are behind this are trying to execute us through legislation, we’ll take that as validation of the positive effect that we’re having for our clients and for the Constitution.”
“And they can go fuck themselves.”
Well, Mr. Weinstein, we won’t do that, but we will fight him and his group tooth and nail legislatively.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s draft of the defense authorization bill does not include any similar restrictions on communications or response to MRFF requests, but it should. Expect intense efforts to ensure that they are included in a final bill.
House Republicans will also likely add more amendments on abortion and transgender issues when the bill is debated in the full chamber next month.
If you want to be part of the solution, then contact your Senators and tell them how you feel about far-left extremists pushing a bigoted, anti-Christian agenda on our military.
Religious freedom means our troops are guaranteed the right to express their religion, even on military bases and facilities. And defending that right is a fight worth having.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Americans who purchased Bibles, sporting goods or products associated with former President Donald Trump were flagged for surveillance by a federal government spy program, U.S. House investigators reveal.
After the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, FBI officials told banks that Americans who support President Trump or express religious views may be suspected terrorists, and demanded banks report customers whose transactions indicated they may be political conservatives.
Such blanket surveillance is prohibited by the United States Constitution, which requires the federal government to secure a warrant, based on probable cause, specifically naming the person targeted.
“New documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government reveal that the federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP” for financial institutions if Americans used those phrases when completing transactions,” the U.S. House Judiciary Committee revealed in a statement.
“Individuals who shopped at stores like Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods, or purchased religious texts like a bible, may also have had their transactions flagged. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the FBI’s respect for fundamental civil liberties,” the Committee stated.
In response, the Committee is demanding senior government officials appear for questioning.
“In light of these revelations, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has requested transcribed interviews from Peter Sullivan, Senior Private Sector Partner for Outreach in the Strategic Partner Engagement Section of the FBI, and Noah Bishoff, former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN),” the Committee reveals.
Jordan’s letter to Noah Bishoff reads, in part:
“The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that following January 6, 2021, FinCEN distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement. These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA’ to ‘search Zelle payment messages’ as well as a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.
“In addition, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that FinCEN distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution, explaining how other financial institutions can use MCC codes to detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters, [and] who may include dangerous International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists / Homegrown Violent Extremists (“Lone Wolves”).’ For example, the slides instruct financial institutions to query for transactions using certain MCC codes such as ‘3484: Small Arms,’ ‘5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies,’ and the keywords ‘Cabela’s,’ and ‘Dick’s Sporting Goods,’ among several others. Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.
“As the former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division, you engaged regularly with financial institutions following the events of January 6, 2021, including the distribution of material about how financial institutions could use private customer information to assist federal law enforcement. As such, your testimony will aid our oversight. In particular, your testimony will help to inform the Committee and Select Subcommittee about federal law enforcement’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; FinCEN’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information; and FinCEN’s general engagement with the private sector on law-enforcement matters.”
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Every now and then you see a story that just hits home, and you know you need to write about it and spread the word. This one, reported by CBS News, is absolutely one of them.
Caleb Morse, 39, an Army combat veteran, set up Rustic Renegade, a gun shop and shooting range in 2018 in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Morse had served two combat tours in Iraq with the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion, followed by service in the National Guard, and then worked as a military contractor in Iraq for four years.
One day an Army buddy Morse served with in Iraq showed up at his gun store with his car and his dog. Then he brought a lot of guns inside the store, Morse said, adding: “And I’m like, brother, what are you doing?”
Morse knew well that often when people, especially combat veterans, start giving away their things, they may be considering suicide.
But before Morse could have a chat with his buddy, the vet simply left. And for six months his buddy didn’t answer his phone.
Meanwhile, Morse decided to hold his friend’s guns at Rustic Renegade in case he ever came back.
Thankfully, as CBS News reported:
…his friend called and explained he had been in a bad spot and wondered where his guns were. Morse said he told him, “They’re your guns, man. They’re yours, you may want them back. And whenever you’re ready, they’re here for you.
“More than half of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, the CDC reported that 26,993 people died by firearm suicide. Deaths by gun suicide are at an all-time high and have steadily increased, nearly uninterrupted, since 2006 according to researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health.
In the veteran population the problem is acute; in its 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate in 2020 was 57.3 % greater for veterans.
Guns are more commonly involved among veteran suicides, at 71%, than the rest of the population, at 50.3%, according to the CDC.
Soon after his first buddy chose to drop off his guns with Morse, another veteran came by to do the same, telling Morse that he was “in a bad spot.”
Morse, who had similarly been very depressed after returning from Iraq, accepted the vet’s gun and decided to set up a system to hold and track guns being left for storage by troubled vets in his store’s inventory, telling them to pick up their firearms when they felt better.
Within a year, other veterans dropped off guns “about a dozen times,” CBS reported. Since then, he has stored about 100 firearms.
Soon after the second vet asked for gun storage, Morse was contacted by Gala True, an associate professor at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who specializes in efforts to prevent veteran suicides.
According to CBS, she met with Morse in 2021 to work on a project she was coordinating with gun store owners who wanted to store firearm storage for those in crisis who, for a time, didn’t want their firearms in their homes.
The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana that same year with three different gun shop owners interested in providing storage for firearms.
Through a Veterans Administration (VA) grant, True and her team helped the gun dealers build local networks and partnerships.
Mike Anestis, a suicide prevention expert, professor at Rutgers University, and Executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and a professor at Rutgers University, said that in a country with roughly 400 million guns, the solution can’t be about banning firearms or stopping people from buying them.
And Anestis is absolutely correct. Voluntary outside storage, like preventing drunk driving by “taking away the car keys,” is a far better solution for preventing suicide by gunshot, than bans that violate our 2nd Amendment rights.
However, storing guns as part of a gun store’s inventory can cause liability issues.
So, as CBS reported, in July 2023 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) got involved (in a good way this time). It issued an open letter to Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) and gun shops advising how to legally and safely store firearms for these individuals.
Providing gun storage lockers at the gun store that individuals can open themselves and put their firearms inside, is one option.
As the ATF letter states: “In this situation, an FFL does not “receive “or “acquire ” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume control of the individual’s firearm.” This can reduce liability for gun shop owners like Morse, who want to provide outside storage for others in need.
This is a great idea, and a great story. Look up The Armory Project and see if you can help with the effort in your state, city, or locality.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Another Hollywood hero has gone woke!
“X-Men” Actor and Broadway performer Hugh Jackman says that gender-specific awards are a thing of the past!
Watch Amanda explain the newest controversy below:
ANALYSIS – Where there’s smoke there’s fire. And there is a lot of smoke surrounding Joe and Hunter Biden. It is increasingly clear that Joe Biden has repeatedly lied about his involvement in, and knowledge of, his son Hunter’s overseas influence peddling businesses.
And with Biden’s Department of Justice (DoJ) and FBI dragging their feet with documents requested by congressional investigators, an official impeachment inquiry may be the only way to get to the truth.
And that official inquiry may be coming very soon.
Republicans could open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over ties to his son Hunter’s shady and unethical business entanglements when Congress reconvenes on September 12.
In the final presidential debate of the 2020 U.S. election between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden, moderator Kristen Welker asked Biden: “there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president; in retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?”
“Nothing was unethical. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China,” Biden replied.
Biden also said he never discussed business with his son.
Well, to put it in Biden terms, that was all a bunch of malarkey.
Now, nearly three years later, Hunter has rebutted Joe Biden’s assertions directly. In court testimony in late June, Hunter acknowledged that he had been paid substantial sums in China – the first official confirmation that this was the case.
This direct contradiction creates a major problem for the White House, and Republicans insist there’s a lot more to find out.
“A lot of the things the president said about his family’s shady business dealings, we’re proving every day that they’re not true,” Republican James Comer, Chair of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, said.
An impeachment inquiry is the next logical step to find out what is true.
The Epoch Times (ET) reported: “House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that initiating an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden would be a ‘natural step forward.’” This, following unresolved questions from the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s investigations into the Biden family’s business dealings.
The speaker said on Monday that the impeachment inquiry could start soon. McCarthy added that an impeachment inquiry would provide Congress “the apex of legal power to get all the information they need” to investigate whether President Biden misused his office to assist family businesses.
ET continued:
McCarthy said on Monday that the inquiry was needed to overcome stonewalling of congressional investigators looking for transparency about the Biden family’s business records following testimony from former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer that President Biden met with son Hunter Biden’s business partners during the time he was vice president, as well as concerns raised by whistleblowers at the IRS regarding Hunter Biden’s tax records.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has so far subpoenaed six different banks, receiving thousands of bank records of businesses and individuals connected to Joe Biden’s family members.
According to ET:
Those records showed that more than $20 million in payments from foreign sources have been made to the president’s relatives, including Hunter Biden, and their business associates while Mr. Biden was acting as U.S. vice president from 2009 to 2017.
Romanian, Chinese, and Russian nationals were among those making payments to the Biden family and their associates. The records also revealed that the funds were funneled through a network of at least 20 shell companies before being transferred to Biden family members.
An inquiry doesn’t mean the House will impeach Biden. But it does give Republicans far more legal power to force reluctant Biden DoJ bureaucrats and others to come forward with the truth.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk.
Fix The NSC: A Warning & Roadmap For Trump’s Second Term
A Call to Action: Reforming the National Security Council
Joshua Steinman, the former senior director for cyber on President Trump’s National Security Council (NSC), has issued a stark warning to the incoming president that demands immediate attention. Steinman, who loyally served from Trump’s first day in office to his last, cautions that mistakes in NSC staffing could spell disaster for the administration’s second term, leading to either ineffectiveness or outright betrayal. His insights form a compelling argument for a complete overhaul of the NSC as the cornerstone of Trump’s efforts to govern effectively.
The NSC, as Steinman explains, is not merely a bureaucratic appendage. It is the quarterback of the White House—the entity tasked with ensuring that the president’s directives are executed seamlessly across the vast machinery of the federal government. “If the president is the owner of the football team, the NSC is the quarterback,” he asserts, underscoring the centrality of this institution in driving the administration’s policy agenda. And yet, Steinman’s concerns suggest that the team surrounding this quarterback may not be up to the task.
Reflecting on Trump’s first term, Steinman identifies a critical error: the decision to retain approximately 50% of the NSC staff from the Obama administration. This hesitation to implement a sweeping purge, according to Steinman, allowed disloyal actors to undermine Trump’s policies. Some of these holdovers allegedly continued to operate under Obama-era guidance until explicitly instructed otherwise. Steinman’s message is clear: “Removing people like this isn’t personal; it’s just prudent.”
The stakes are high. Steinman contrasts Trump’s initial approach with the swift and decisive action taken by President Biden, who executed a comprehensive purge of Trump-aligned NSC staff upon taking office. This move ensured that Biden’s team could implement his agenda without interference from ideological adversaries. Critics labeled Biden’s actions a “purge” and raised concerns about the politicization of traditionally non-partisan roles, but his administration’s determination to align its personnel with its policies proved effective in consolidating its power.
Steinman’s critique does not stop at holdovers. He raises alarms about new hires, questioning their loyalty and expertise. Among those rumored to join Trump’s team is Adam Howard, GOP Staff Director for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), who is set to take the critical role of senior director for intelligence programs. Steinman questions whether Howard’s background equips him to confront potential interference from the intelligence community—a task vital to ensuring Trump’s agenda is not derailed.
The urgency of Steinman’s warning lies in the fundamental truth that personnel is policy. For Trump’s administration to succeed, the NSC must be staffed with individuals who are not only loyal to his vision but also possess the subject-matter expertise to navigate the complexities of their roles. Steinman’s concerns about Anne Neuberger, the Biden-appointed NSC cybersecurity director, exemplify this need. Her alignment with policies on artificial intelligence and tech censorship could undermine Trump’s objectives, should she remain in place.
Trump’s response to these challenges is beginning to take shape. Key appointments to his NSC include:
While these appointments reflect a renewed emphasis on loyalty and alignment, Steinman’s cautionary tale lingers. The success of Trump’s second term hinges on avoiding the missteps of the first. The NSC’s ability to serve as an effective quarterback depends entirely on the quality of its staff. As Steinman aptly puts it, “The Intel Senior Director position is one of the most CRITICAL posts in U.S. Government.”
The broader implications of Steinman’s warning extend beyond Trump’s presidency. The debate over Biden’s NSC purge highlighted the tension between ensuring policy alignment and maintaining non-partisan governance. Critics, including the Heritage Foundation, argued that Biden’s actions undermined the apolitical nature of advisory roles, while supporters contended that loyalty is essential for effective governance. Trump’s administration must navigate this delicate balance, prioritizing mission alignment without descending into the partisanship that critics decry.
As Trump prepares to assume office once more, the lessons of his first term and Biden’s purge are clear: the NSC must be reimagined, restructured, and resolutely loyal to the President’s agenda. Failure to act decisively could jeopardize the very goals Trump has championed—from ending unnecessary conflicts to revitalizing the economy. Steinman’s call to action is both a warning and a roadmap: “Fix the NSC, fix the presidency.”
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