The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris. (Gao Chenxiang/VCG via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump is pulling the U.S. out of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in a move Rep. Randy Fine says he fully supports.
“This is an organization that has repeatedly pushed anti-Israel propaganda, from recognizing Palestinian statehood to denying the Jewish connection to holy sites,” Fine, R-Fla., who is Jewish, told The Daily Signal.
“It has allowed China to expand its influence and promoted woke DEI agendas that have no place in American foreign policy,” Fine said of UNESCO.
China and UNESCO have what UNESCO refers to as “a stable relationship that is conducive to world peace and prosperity.” In 2022, China became the largest financial backer of UNESCO, according to the Global Policy Journal.
“‘America First’ means we do not fund global institutions that undermine our values, rewrite history, or threaten the security of our allies,”according to Fine.
UNESCO is a United Nations organization established to promote education, science, culture, and communication in the name of furthering peace worldwide.
The Trump administration’s decision to leave UNESCO follows a 90-day review of the organization. The review uncovered, according to The New York Post, that UNESCO engages in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices and has a pro-China and pro-Palestinian bias.
“UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsize focus on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our ‘America First’ foreign policy,” Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement Tuesday.
Bruce called “UNESCO’s decision to admit the ‘state of Palestine’ as a member state” of the organization “highly problematic” and “contrary to U.S. policy,” adding the action “contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”
Moving forward, “U.S. participation in international organizations will focus on advancing American interests with clarity and conviction,” she said.
Audrey Azoulay, director general of UNESCO, said Tuesday that the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO “contradicts the fundamental principles of multilateralism, and may affect first and foremost our many partners in the United States of America.” But Azoulay added that the group “has prepared” for the U.S. leaving the organization, since the move was anticipated.
The U.S. will officially withdraw from UNESCO at the end of 2026, but this won’t be the first time the U.S. has pulled out of the organization. President Ronald Reagan withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO in 1984 due to concerns over corruption within the organization. The U.S. rejoined under George W. Bush’s administration in 2003. America again pulled out of UNESCO during Trump’s first administration, but rejoined under President Joe Biden’s administration.
With this now being the third time the U.S. has pulled out of UNESCO, Eugene Kontorovich, a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow specializing in international law and issues related to Israel, says U.S. leaders need to “figure out a way to make this permanent.”
“Congress should repeal, formally, its 1946 authorization for U.S. membership [in UNESCO],” Kontorovich said, “so that a future Democratic president can’t just merry-go-round us back in.”
Several Boeing 747s have been spotted on radar leaving China for Iran over the last week, according to reports, sparking concerns that the CCP is helping the Middle Eastern nation transport cargo or people out of the country as Israel continues to strike the country’s nuclear facilities.
Starting on June 14th, FlightRadar24 shows that at least five flights traveled from China to Iran, and The Telegraph reported that the “mystery transport planes” had flown westward along northern China before crossing into Kazakhstan, south through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and then fell off radar as they approached Iran. Additionally, the report indicated that the flights had a final destination of Luxembourg but don’t appear to have ever crossed into European airspace.
Some experts have speculated that these types of planes are typically used for transport and could be evidence of China aiding its longtime ally Iran during the conflict with Israel, although Fox News Digital has not independently confirmed the nature of the flights.
Israel’s air defense targets Iranian missiles in the sky of Tel Aviv in Israel, on June 16, 2025. (Matan Golan/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
“I think it’s important to remember what the relationship is, forty-three percent of China’s oil and gas comes from the Middle East, a large volume of that from Iran,” Robert Greenway, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told “The Ingraham Angle” on Wednesday night.
“It likes to buy sanctioned oil below market value, and that fuels the Chinese economy and also its military ambitions, and so, that’s the central relationship. They’ve been relatively quiet – in fact, extremely quiet – about the current conflict and coming to Iran’s assistance. We also know that a large fire in Bandar-Bas port was Chinese solid propellant for missiles that exploded and created a tremendous amount of damage just about a month ago. I think it’s unlikely to see Chinese arms shipments under the circumstances to Iran. It’s more likely that Iran may be removing material or personnel or regime valuables to safe haven in light of the conflict. I think that’s probably the extent to which China is willing to accept the risk associated with the current circumstances.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting with officials, Islamic countries’ ambassador to Iran and a group of people in Tehran, Iran (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
In 2021, Fox News Digital reported that Tehran and Beijing signed a 25-year cooperation deal amidst great fanfare in the Iranian capital. University of Tehran Professor Mohammad Marandi, who is close to the regime, told Fox News that it is about much more than what’s on paper.
“This strategic partnership is important because it allows Iran and China to build a roadmap for long-term relations that will be much more fruitful,” he said. “It’s also a signal being sent to the United States. The more the U.S. tries to isolate Iran and China, the more it causes countries like Iran and China to move more closely to each other.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping listens as Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, not pictured, speaks during their meeting at the Office of the Party Central Committee in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Monday, April 14. (AP/Minh Hoang)
Some have cast doubt on the flights representing a nefarious connection between the two nations, including Atlantic Council fellow Tuvia Gering who posted on X that an aviation expert told him the flights are “nothing to write home about.”
“There are regular cargo flights by the Luxembourg-based freight company from several locations in China to Europe, with a stopover in Turkmenistan (just a few dozen kilometers from the Iranian border),” Gering wrote.
“Some flight tracking websites lose the tracking signal shortly before landing and continue to show a projected route that appears to enter Iranian airspace. The sites clearly indicate that this is an estimated path; checking the aircraft tail numbers shows they take off again from Turkmenistan a few hours later, and reviewing the flight history of these routes shows they always land in Ashgabat and do not continue into Iran. All this is before even considering the obvious logic that a major European cargo company is highly unlikely to be the channel through which China transfers its super-advanced, top-secret strategic weapons to Iran.”
President Trump changed the command of the Greenland base in a strategic move as Russia and China take more interest in the Arctic region. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated significantly in recent days, with the United States contemplating whether it will get directly involved in striking Iran. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and he is expected to meet with national security and defense leaders again on Thursday.
“Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this that Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate,” Trump said Wednesday.
“And I said, why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn’t you go? I said to people, why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country. It’s very sad to watch this,” the president added.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
President Trump was in an understandably foul mood early Saturday morning as the radical-left judges continued to sabotage his immigration agenda. That’s because he knows America’s future is bleak if this continues and the Supreme Court continues to do nothing. As The Gateway Pundit reported, a federal judge on Thursday issued a permanent injunction and barred the Trump Administration from using the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to remove Venezuelan gang members and transport them to El Salvador. US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, called the President’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act “unlawful.” According to Judge Rodriguez, the AEA only applies when the US is at war and under an armed attack… READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Senator Thom Tillis has voted for Democrats Blinken, Garland, and Yellen, but can’t bring himself to vote for Trump’s pick for U.S. Attorney, Ed Martin. Folks are smelling a RINO doing his part to sabotage the MAGA movement.
Senator Thom Tillis gloated in response to President Trump’s comment on his opposition to Ed Martin. During a swearing-in ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, a reporter asked President Trump about Senator Tillis’ decision to come out against Ed Martin. On Tuesday Senator Tillis, who voted to confirm Biden’s radical pick for Attorney General Merrick Garland, told reporters that he opposes the nomination of Ed Martin for DC US Attorney. Tillis made a shocking admission to reporters. He actually said he would support Ed Martin for any district except where January 6 happened… READ MORE
Jim Schultz: AG Ellison’s war on common sense an attack on Minnesota’s daughters
By Jim Schultz – AlphaNews.org – May 8, 2025
Ellison sued the federal government to ensure that biological males can compete against girls in school sports. This is not where the public stands. If you want to understand just how disconnected Minnesota’s leadership is from ordinary citizens (and even from basic reality), look no further than Attorney General Keith Ellison. On April 22, Ellison announced he is suing the federal government, not to fight violent crime or recover the $250 million stolen from taxpayers in the Feeding Our Future scandal, but to ensure that biological males can compete against girls in school sports. That’s right. With Minnesota facing the threat of crime, rampant fraud in public programs, and skyrocketing costs burdening every family, Ellison has made it a priority to ensure boys can take spots on girls’ teams. It’s absurd… READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Trump is bringing in the wins every day, with trade deals, ending wars, and boosting the economy, while the Democrats keep doubling down on stupid
RFK Jr. Says Trump Just Did What No Democrat Ever Had the Guts to Do (VIDEO)
By Vigilant Fox – The Gateway Pundit – May 12, 2025
President Trump just did what every other politician only talked about—he took a sledgehammer to Big Pharma. With the stroke of a pen, he signed an executive order that could slash drug prices by as much as 90%. And then RFK Jr. stepped up and revealed why no one else—not even Bernie Sanders—ever followed through. It was a moment you’ll remember for decades. Standing before reporters and his healthcare team, President Trump announced the most aggressive move on drug pricing America has ever seen. The plan? To cut prescription drug costs by up to 90%—a direct strike against the industry that’s drained American families dry for years… READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
Oh, the irony! California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the gel-haired darling of the left, has decided to play President Andrew Jackson’s foil in a modern-day Nullification Crisis. His lawsuit to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs — filed with all the fanfare of a Hollywood premiere — smacks of South Carolina’s 1832 tantrum over federal tariffs. Back then, the Palmetto State tried to nullify federal law, claiming it could pick and choose which national policies applied.
Newsom, it seems, fancies himself a latter-day John C. Calhoun, strutting onto the national stage with a States’ Powers swagger. The only problem? He’s reading from a script debunked by history, law, and common sense.
Let’s rewind to 1832. South Carolina, peeved over the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 — derisively called the “Tariff of Abominations” — declared them null and void within its borders. The state’s economy, tied to slave-driven cotton exports, chafed under duties that protected northern industry but raised costs for southern planters. Calhoun, then vice president, penned the intellectual case for nullification, arguing states could override federal laws they deemed unconstitutional. Andrew Jackson called this treasonous nonsense. He issued a Proclamation of Force, threatening troops, and Congress passed a compromise tariff to cool the feud. South Carolina backed down, but the episode laid bare a dangerous question: Can states defy federal authority rooted in the Constitution? Gavin Newsom, on a different day, would say that the Civil War answered that one with a resounding “no.”
Fast forward to 2025, and enter Newsom, California’s self-anointed guardian of the “resistance.” On April 16, Newsom announced a lawsuit to halt Trump’s tariffs, which slap a 10 percent baseline on imports and far steeper levies on goods from China. Trump justifies these under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law granting presidents broad authority in national emergencies.
Newsom, flanked by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, claims the tariffs are “unlawful” and will wreak “chaos” on California’s economy — think higher prices for almonds, wine, and Hollywood flicks as other nations hike their tariffs in response. Sound familiar? Like South Carolina, California is griping about federal policy hitting its economic interests. Like Calhoun, Newsom is betting on state power to thwart Washington. And like 1832, this is a clash over who gets to call the shots.
The parallels are uncanny, and the irony is thicker than a blanket of Sacramento Tule fog. Newsom, a Democrat who’s spent years preaching federal supremacy on everything from climate to immigration, now cloaks himself in the mantle of state sovereignty to dodge Trump’s trade agenda.
Let’s be clear: States don’t have rights; they have powers, delegated by the Constitution. Only people have rights, a truth the Founders etched into our framework. Newsom’s rhetoric, implying California can opt out of federal policy like some sovereign republic, misreads the Constitution as badly as Calhoun did. This is the same governor who has cheered federal overreach when it suits his progressive piety — think EPA mandates or Obamacare. Yet when Trump wields federal power to address trade deficits, Newsom cries foul, claiming California, the “world’s fifth-largest economy,” deserves special treatment. Newsom is dusting off Calhoun’s playbook, arguing his state can nullify federal law.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Newsom’s not just channeling South Carolina’s ghost. He’s auditioning for 2028. This lawsuit isn’t about protecting California’s farmers or tech bros; it’s about burnishing his anti-Trump credentials for a future presidential run. He’s been laying the groundwork for months, from begging foreign leaders to spare California from retaliatory tariffs to launching a tourism campaign to lure Canadians back to Napa Valley. Never mind that his own state is riddled with “rampant crime, homelessness, and unaffordability,” as a White House spokesperson pointed out. Newsom’s too busy playing global diplomat to fix the mess in his own backyard.
Here’s where the irony deepens. South Carolina’s nullification gambit failed because the Constitution vests Congress with the power to regulate commerce (Article I, Section 8). The Supreme Court has upheld this for centuries, from Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) to modern cases. Newsom’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues Trump’s use of IEEPA exceeds his authority. Good luck with that. Courts have historically given presidents wide latitude under emergency powers, and Trump’s trade war is hardly the first time IEEPA’s been invoked. Newsom’s legal Hail Mary is less about winning in court and more about rallying the coastal elites who cheer his every anti-Trump jab.
And let’s talk about the Logan Act, shall we? Newsom’s earlier stunt of cozying up to foreign governments to secure tariff exemptions for California skirts dangerously close to violating this 1799 law, which bars unauthorized citizens from meddling in U.S. foreign policy. If a conservative governor tried this, the media would scream “treason.” But Newsom gets a pass because, well, he’s the left’s poster boy. Imagine the headlines if Texas Gov. Greg Abbott negotiated trade deals with Mexico. The hypocrisy is staggering.
The Nullification Crisis of 1832 exposed the fragility of a Union in which states could cherry-pick federal laws. It took Jackson’s resolve and a compromise tariff to avert disaster. Today, Newsom’s tariff lawsuit risks reopening that wound, not because California will secede (don’t threaten us with a good time), but because it fuels a narrative of state defiance that undermines national unity. Trump’s tariffs may be bold, but they’re a federal prerogative, like it or not.
Newsom’s grandstanding, like South Carolina’s, is a losing bet. The Constitution hasn’t changed, and neither has the lesson: States don’t get to nullify federal law, no matter how much their governors crave the spotlight.
So, here’s to Gavin Newsom, California’s would-be Calhoun, tilting at windmills while his state’s problems fester. The Nullification Crisis ended with South Carolina eating crow. Newsom might want to study that history before his lawsuit crashes and burns.
Below is my column in the Hill on recent disclosure that the Biden Administration may have withheld evidence contradicting the Chinese on the origins of COVID. Millions of Americans lost loved ones and would like to know who was responsible. It appears that our government and many experts were less motivated to find that answer.
Here is the column:
Imagine a world war that left more than seven million dead, hundreds of millions became ill, wrecked the global economy, and left a generation with lasting psychological and developmental injuries. We have seen such wars in history. What is different in this circumstance, however, is that all of that happened, and yet, years later, we still have no agreement on the original cause or possible culprits behind a pandemic that ravaged the world.
Worse yet, many politicians, experts and journalists do not seem inclined to find the answers. This is like fighting World War II and then shrugging off the question of what actually started it.
New questions are being raised over long-withheld evidence on the origins of COVID, information that contradicted the accounts of not just the Biden administration but also allies in academia and the media.
The Chinese first reported the outbreak in December 2019 and insisted that it came from a wet market in Wuhan — a natural or “zoonotic” transfer from bats sold at the market. Others were skeptical and pointed to the nearby Wuhan government virus lab, known to have conducted coronavirus studies with bats. This lab had a history of safety and contamination concerns.
The “lab-leak theory,” which was always the most obvious explanation, was further reinforced by scientists who saw evidence of possible manipulation of the virus’s genetic code, particularly the “spike protein” that enables the virus to enter the human body in a “gain of function” operation. There was (and still is) a serious controversy over the origins of the virus, but any debate was quickly scuttled in favor of the natural theory.
The Chinese immediately moved to crush any speculation of a lab-leak. Wuhan scientists were gagged and the Chinese refused to allow international investigators access to them or the lab in question. The Chinese also used their considerable influence over the World Health Organization and other groups to dismiss or downplay the lab theory..
Now, a long-withheld military report has finally been released by the Trump administration. It appears to confirm what was once denied by the Biden administration: U.S. military service members contracted COVID-19-like symptoms after participating in the World Military Games in October 2019 in Wuhan.
That contradicts China’s timeline. It suggests a longer cover-up in that country, which allowed the virus to spread not only to the U.S. but to countries around the world. Other nations also reported that their military personnel had fallen ill after attending the same games, suggesting that the virus was not only spreading but already raging in the area at that time.
The most disturbing aspect of this report is not the alleged conduct of the Chinese government, but that of our own. Rumors of U.S. military personnel coming down with the virus had long been out there. Republicans in Congress repeatedly asked the Biden administration about any report on the outbreak. Then-Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told The Washington Post in June 2021 that the military had “no knowledge” of COVID-19 infections among the troops participating in those games.
Even as the illness associated with the games became known, the Biden administration repeatedly refused to confirm the U.S. cases, and a 2022 report was withheld from both Congress and the public. If true, the level of duplicity and dishonesty is shocking. In the U.S. alone, more than 1.2 million died and more than 111 million were made sick by this virus. Yet the Biden administration is accused of withholding this information from the world. Why?
This disclosure follows an equally troubling disclosure that scientists in the Biden administration actually found support for the lab theory but were silenced by their superiors.
Last December, the Wall Street Journal released an alarming report on how these scientists supported the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
As scientists were being attacked publicly and blacklisted for supporting the lab theory, experts at both the FBI and the Energy Department found the lab theory credible. Although no theory could be proven conclusively, it was deemed a more likely scenario than the natural-origin theory. The CIA also found the lab theory credible.
What the public was hearing was entirely different. They were hearing the same narrative laid out by the Chinese government in December 2019. The Chinese relied upon western scientists to form a mob against anyone raising the lab-leak theory as a possible explanation. Many were enlisted to sign letters or publish statements denouncing the idea. It became an article of faith — a required virtue signal among university scientists. The western media were equally primed to quash the theory.
After President Trump embraced the lab theory, the Chinese had the perfect setup. The media was on a hair-trigger in opposition and denounced his comments as not only unfounded but also racist. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified.”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum.” Over at CNN, reporter Drew Griffin criticized the “widely debunked” theory and host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.
The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. After Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) raised the lab-leak theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
The Post’s “fact checker” Glenn Kessler mocked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for entertaining the theory. “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab,” he posted. “Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
Even in 2021 when countervailing evidence was surfacing, the unrelenting attacks continued. New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli urged journalists not to mention the “racist” lab theory. Social media companies also enforced the narrative and, with the coordination of the Biden Administration, experts raising the lab theory were targeted, censored, and blacklisted.
It now appears that the COVID outbreak may have occurred months before the alleged wet market release — months that could have been used to contain the virus. Instead, China is accused of suppressing the news and allowing the virus to spread worldwide. Our military personnel alone went home from the Wuhan games to 25 states, potentially carrying it with them. When information on these infections connected to the games was reported around the world, China even suggested that the U.S. used the games to release the weaponized virus.
In 2020, I wrote a column on why China seemed poised to avoid any liability for what might be the greatest act of negligence in history. The sheer size of the disaster somehow seemed to insulate China. As Joseph Stalin had once said, “a single death is a tragedy” and “a million deaths is a statistic.”
Try more than seven million, and you have a statistic that was not worth confronting the Chinese over. What was done was done.
Attorney Chris Madel said, “Today is a complete vindication for Liz Collin, Dr. Chaix, and Alpha News—and a complete victory for the First Amendment.” On Tuesday, Judge Edward T. Wahl dismissed the defamation lawsuit filed by Katie Blackwell—the Assistant Chief of Operations for the Minneapolis Police Department—against Alpha News, senior reporter Liz Collin, director Dr. JC Chaix, and others. In filing the lawsuit, Blackwell and her attorneys labelled Alpha News and the other defendants as “extremists.” They claimed that “this lawsuit involves the politically motivated attack on a respected member of the Minneapolis Police Department who was maliciously defamed with respect to her performance of the duties of her employment and profession by extremists who are more interested in shaping a narrative and provoking outrage than in communicating any version of truth.”… READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – People suspect that many Democrats and some Republicans are being paid off through CCP money and that it’s influencing their vote on China trade policies, all the while calling Trump a Putin puppet without evidence.
Progressive Anti-Audit Democrats Took Communist-Sponsored Trips to China; “Collaborated Extensively” With CCP
By Julian Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – Aug 19, 2021
Multiple prominent Democrats who have been leading the charge against efforts to audit the 2020 election were just exposed for their “extensive collaboration” with one of the Chinese Communist Party’s most influential propaganda groups. According to an exclusive report byThe National Pulse , “NewDEAL Leaders,” a radical-progressive Democrat ‘network’ comprised of state and local elected officials, has repeatedly sent lawmakers on trips to China that were paid for by the CCP, and have essentially been colluding with America’s foremost adversary since at least 2016. The trips were paid for by funds from the People’s Liberation Army of China, with the express intent to “influence” US policy decisions. READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
The White House is signaling that new tariffs on Chinese imports are taking effect after China’s government missed a deadline to lift its retaliatory tariffs that were imposed in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that because China declined to lift its retaliatory tariff, the president’s additional 50% tariff levied on top of previously imposed tariffs of 20% and 34% took effect, bringing the total tariff on Chinese goods to 104%.
She added that the tariffs took effect at noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, with tariff collection set to begin on Wednesday. Leavitt said that U.S. trading partners should be coming to the administration with deals to improve trade terms.
“The president’s message has been simple and consistent from the beginning to countries around the world – bring us your best offers and he will listen,” Leavitt said during a White House press briefing Tuesday. “Deals will only be made if they benefit American workers and address our nation’s crippling trade deficits.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said China’s failure to lift retaliatory tariffs prompted the Trump administration to hike tariffs further. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque / Reuters)
Leavitt said that by contrast, China’s retaliatory tariffs have prompted Trump to increase duties on Chinese imports in response, serving as an example of what other countries that follow suit can expect.
“On the other hand, countries like China, who have chosen to retaliate, and try to double down on their mistreatment of American workers are making a mistake,” she said.
“President Trump has a spine of steel and he will not break, and America will not break under his leadership. He is guided by a firm belief that America must be able to produce essential goods for our own people and export them to the rest of the world,” Leavitt said. “A strong America cannot be solely dependent on foreign countries for our food, medicines, and critical minerals, and America must always maintain a robust defense supply chain.”
Tariffs are taxes on imported goods that are paid by the importer, who typically passes the higher costs on to consumers. (Photo by Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The Trump administration has centered its tariff strategy around the elimination of trade deficits. After touting plans for “reciprocal” tariffs, the administration’s formula for those tariffs was calculated based on the size of the U.S. trade deficit with various trading partners.
Economists tend to dismiss trade deficits as neither good nor bad, arguing they’re the result of mutually beneficial trade decisions. Ryan Young, senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, previously told FOX Business that trade balances don’t “say anything about a country’s economic health, good or bad,” and noted the U.S. has run trade deficits for over 50 years.
The U.S. and China are escalating their trade war with tariff hikes. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images / Getty Images)
“The U.S. has run a trade deficit every year since the 1970s, yet living standards are better by almost every measure, whether it’s income, unemployment rate, life expectancy, percentage of low-income households with air-conditioning, internet and other goods,” he said.
“If the trade deficit were harmful, much of what we see all around us every day should not exist,” Young added.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual shareholder letter released Monday that trade deficits “are not necessarily good or bad” and observed, “Even if our country had no net trade deficit, it would likely be running deficits with some countries and surpluses with others.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Tampon Tim’s Connections to China run deep. Walz’s relationship with the Chinese government has come under increased scrutiny following Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of the governor as her running mate in her failed 2024 presidential bid.
(Daily Caller News Foundation) — The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official on Wednesday for allegedly failing to comply with an investigation into Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability subpoena requires DHS’s senior advisor to the Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs Jacob Marx to appear for a deposition related to whistleblower disclosures obtained by the committee allegedly concerning Walz’s “longstanding connection” to the CCP. The committee subpoenaed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in September requesting “documents and communications regarding Gov. Walz’s connections with the CCP,” but alleges DHS has not produced “responsive documents,” “substantive information, nor any assurance that substantive information would be forthcoming.” READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
President Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State Sen. Marco Rubio doubled down on his commitment to the America First foreign policy agenda during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, despite a corporate media effort to cause a rift between him and the incoming president.
Politico published a piece one day before the hearing attempting to kiss Rubio’s role as Secretary of State goodbye before it even begins. In the gossip column masquerading as an article, Politico’s Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Nahal Toosi uses the alleged analysis of a dozen unnamed “current and former U.S. and foreign officials” to claim that Rubio won’t last as Trump’s Secretary of State because “the odds are high that the two will differ on policy.” Toosi also invokes Trump and Rubio’s history as presidential primary rivals in 2016 as a potential problem for the pair’s ability to strategize effectively.
The only way Rubio will survive leading the State Department, the author insists, “may be to take the punches from his internal rivals, suffer through whatever insults Trump lobs at him, stick to the lanes that are open, and simply let the State Department fade into irrelevance.”
While it’s true that Rubio and Trump ran against each other and that the former used to take more of an interventionist and neocon approach to foreign policy than he does now, a lot has changed politically and globally in the last decade. The ongoing transformation of the Republican party from an arm of the establishment to a party of and for the people, paired with the rapid rise of China’s hegemony, has pushed Trump and Rubio’s visions for the globe much closer together than they were nearly 10 years ago. Both care deeply about projecting U.S. strength to the world while keeping American tax dollars from funding endless wars.
Rubio spokesman Dan Holler told Politico that Rubio is far more focused on executing Trump’s “ambitious foreign policy agenda that will put Americans first and correct the failures of the past four years” than devoting time to corporate media’s “silly games or gossip.” Rubio confirmed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that his new job will center on putting America first.
“Under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States,” Rubio said in his opening statement. “The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be justified by the answer to one of three questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?”
MARCO RUBIO: Under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States. The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, every policy we pursue, must be… pic.twitter.com/fPayLozf88
On Rubio’s agenda is executing Trump’s vision to curb China’s global influence, end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, and address the vast problems exacerbating the U.S. border invasion.
“In our very own hemisphere, narcoterrorists and dictators, and despots take advantage of open borders to drive mass migration, to traffic in women and children, and to flood our communities with deadly fentanyl and violent criminals,” Rubio said.
The biggest foreign threat facing the U.S. today, he told senators, is the Communist Party of China, “the most potent and dangerous, near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.”
“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order, and they took advantage of all of its benefits. And they ignored all of its obligations and responsibilities. Instead, they have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status. And they have done so at our expense and at the expense of the people of their own country,” Rubio said.
RUBIO: "We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into the global order and they took advantage of all of its benefits…
Instead they have repressed, and lied, and cheated, and hacked, and stolen their way into global superpower status." pic.twitter.com/TvGkoUvJuW
When it comes to Eastern Europe, Rubio says he echoes Trump’s desire for “people to stop dying” and for the U.S. to stop funding a conflict with no end in sight — especially when its own border is compromised.
“I think it should be the official position of the United States that this war should be brought to an end,” Rubio said. “My differences with the Biden administration throughout this process, is that they never clearly delineated what the end goal of the conflict was — what exactly were we funding? What exactly were we putting money towards? On many occasions, it sounded like however much it takes, for however long it takes — that is not a realistic or prudent position.”
Marco Rubio's answer on Ukraine is pitch perfect. First, he makes clear that America's border security MUST come first, before any funding goes to far-off battlefields. Second, he affirms President Trump's demand that the "killing must stop" and calls for an end to the war and an… pic.twitter.com/WjxhDN8uBh
Rubio’s public commitment to following through on Trump’s promises to secure the homeland and restabilize the globe suggests that, if he is confirmed, productivity is the priority, not pretend personal strife.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
A.F. Branco Cartoon—VP Candidate Tim Walz has been to China over 30 times, lived there, and where he spent his Honeymoon. He has been pushing to send more jobs there from America while excusing their genocide policies, ignoring the fact that they have killed over 200,000 Americans with their Fentanyl coming across the border. For Walz, it’s not America first; It’s China first.
Kamala Harris Chooses VP with Deep Ties to Communist China: Tim Walz Visited China Over 30 Times, Had a Special Work Visa, Set Up a Student Program to Travel in China, and even Honeymooned There
By Jim Hoft – August 7, 2024
Kamala Harris has selected Tim Walz as her running mate for the upcoming election. This decision raises serious concerns about national security and the integrity of American values, given Walz’s radical policies and extensive ties to Communist China. Senior reporter Paul Sperry from RealClear Investigations recently uncovered a disturbing pattern in Walz’s relationship with China. According to investigative journalist Paul Sperry on X, Walz traveled to China annually from 1996 until at least 2003. His travels were not merely for tourism; he was granted a special work visa by the Chinese government, which raises questions about his loyalties and motivations. During his time in China, he reportedly expressed a deep admiration for the country. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Kamala says that illegal immigrants entering our southern border are way down, but she fails to mention they are flying 1000s into our country from around the world.
Joe Biden Admits to Secretly Flying 320,000 Illegals into the United States
By Jordan Conradson – March 7, 2024
Trump ICE Director Tom Homan will testify in a House Judiciary Committee hearing alongside Center for Immigration Studies’s Art Arthur and America First Legal Executive Director Gene Hamilton to examine Joe Biden’s handling of the illegal immigration crisis. The hearing “will examine how the Biden Administration has systematically dismantled effective border security measures and has stymied aggressive enforcement of the immigration laws in the interior of the United States” and “how President Biden can mitigate the border crisis by using mechanisms that currently exist within immigration law,” according to the Judiciary Committee’s webpage. This hearing comes after the horrific murder of Georgia college student Laken Riley by an illegal alien suspect named Jose Ibarra. Countless Americans have been raped and murdered by the illegals that Biden rolled out the red carpet for. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco Cartoon — in her desperate attempt to get elected, Kamala is flip-flopping on her long-held core values, like no fracking, border policies, defunding police, Medicare for all, and taxing worker tips. Given her far-left values, we all know she’ll flip back flip back if she’s elected.
Dem California Senator on Kamala’s Constant Flip-Flops: ‘She’s a Human Being Who Learns New Things’ (VIDEO)
Mike LaChance – August 5, 2024
Laphonza Butler, the junior U.S. senator of California, appeared on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ this weekend and was asked by host Dana Bash about Kamala Harris changing her views on a laundry list of major issues. Butler tried to spin this by suggesting that Harris is changing her opinions because she is learning new things. This answer was beyond generous. Harris is not changing her mind about minor issues because she is reading books and speaking to experts. She is doing a total 180 degree turn on major issues because she thinks they could sink her campaign. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is facing scrutiny from Republicans over what they say are pro-China remarks, including an interview in which the Democratic vice presidential nominee said he does not agree with the idea there needs to be an adversarial relationship with the communist government.
Walz worked briefly in China as a teacher, traveling to Guangdong in 1989 for a teach abroad program to teach English and American history. He later became a member of Congress and governor of Minnesota.
The Wall Street Journal, citing local media reports, reported that one trip to China doubled as his honeymoon in 1994, and he planned his wedding date to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
In an interview from 2016, Walz said he believed there was potential for a strong relationship between China and the U.S., although he also said China needed to play “by the rules” on human rights and the environment.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, and Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, appear on stage together during a campaign event at Girard College Aug. 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“I’ve lived in China and, as I’ve said, I’ve been there about 30 times. … I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship. I totally disagree, and I think we need to stand firm on what they’re doing in the South China Sea, but there’s many areas of cooperation we can work on,” he said in the interview with Agri-Pulse Communications.
In the interview, he noted he was on the congressional executive commission on China, a bipartisan commission that focuses on human rights.
Walz taught the same year as the Tiananmen Square crackdown by the communist regime against pro-democracy protesters. He later started a company to organize trips to China and, as he noted in his remarks, has visited the country dozens of times, conducting summer education trips to China. The New York Post reported that he said after his initial travel there, “No matter how long I live, I will never be treated that well again.”
It’s brought criticism from some on the right who believe Walz is soft on the threat coming from the Chinese Communist Party.
Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said “communist China is very happy with [Walz] as Kamala’s VP pick.”
“No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz,” Grenell said.
Tim Walz owes the American people an explanation about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China.
James Hutton, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Walz “doesn’t see China as a problem.”
“This is a guy who will have to learn the truth of the vicious nature of the dictatorship in Beijing. Communist tyranny may not be a bad thing to Walz, but the rest of the world knows. Walz is dangerous.”
“Tim Walz owes the American people an explanation about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said.
The flag of China is flown behind a pair of surveillance cameras outside the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong, China, July 7, 2020. (Roy Liu/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Harris campaign and some Democrats have pushed back against that criticism.
“Throughout his career, Gov. Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights and democracy and always put American jobs and manufacturing first. Republicans are twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda: praising dictators and sending American jobs to China,” spokesperson James Singer said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will ensure we win the competition with China and will always stand up for our values and interests in the face of China’s threats.”
Others, including Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, noted that Walz criticized Beijing for cultural genocide in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2009, accompanied Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a visit to Tibet and had met with the Dalai Lama. He has also co-sponsored resolutions on key human rights issues.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., told the Post his selection is “an affirming signal that a Harris-Walz administration would continue to make human rights a key part of the United States’ relationship with China.”
“In 2014, he said in an interview with U.S. media that he ‘cares a lot about human rights and democracy in China.’ He was also a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He has bad intentions,” another said.
Fox News’ Eryk Michael Smith contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
Chinese sailors and naval officers stand April 23 at the end of an open house celebrating the Chinese navy’s 75th anniversary in Qingdao, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
As Americans focus on the presidential election campaign and domestic political uncertainty, China’s large-scale military exercises loom on the horizon after an unusually provocative summer of such activity. Tensions across the Taiwan Strait simmer and a standoff with the Philippines persists in the South China Sea, and China is becoming more direct with America and its allies, indicating its approach is evolving quickly.
First, activity over the Taiwan Strait by China’s air force (the People’s Liberation Army Air Force) has remained at elevated levels since 2021, but recently set new records.
On July 11, for example, 66 Chinese aircraft were detected over the Taiwan Strait, the highest single-day activity this year. Even more concerning, 56 of the aircraft crossed over Taiwan’s side of the strait, constituting the highest single-day crossing of the median line since recordkeeping began in 2020.
China’s increased military activity also led to the highest recorded 10-day average median line crossing: 23.4 aircraft. Such crossings are highly provocative. That said, activity over the past few months continues an upward trend.
The recent wave of intimidation by the Chinese air force, known as PLAAF, began soon after a July 10 meeting between the top U.S. envoy to Taiwan, Raymond Greene, and Taiwan President Lai Ching-te. Greene pledged increased measures to defend Taiwan, and his visit remains the most plausible reason for China’s response, given historical precedent.
But it’s worth noting that the Chinese escalation also coincided with NATO’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington, which ran from July 9 through 11, where China was mentioned on multiple occasions. With surprisingly stern language, the NATO summit’s communique warns that “the stated ambitions and coercive policies [of the Chinese Communist Party] continue to challenge [NATO’s] interests, security and values.”The alliance’s communique reiterates that China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation.”
In all, China is mentioned 14 times in the document, demonstrating NATO’s first clear acknowledgment that transatlantic security is now deeply intertwined with issues emanating from the Indo-Pacific.
Participation by South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand in the NATO summit further signals the alliance’s deepening concern for the region and how a war there would affect European security.
In response to NATO’s statements, China’s Ministry of Defense offered stern words of its own on the same day as the communist regime’s record aircraft activity over Taiwan. China insisted NATO’s statements constitute “belligerent rhetoric,” making clear that China “will firmly uphold its own sovereignty, security and development interest.” China’s dissatisfaction with the U.S.-led world order and its reach in the Indo-Pacific is well known, and that animosity is being played out increasingly in military shows of force.
Chinese and Russian forces also gathered June 25 near the Blagoveshchensk–Heihe Bridge, which connects Russia and northeast China. According to China Military, a publication funded by the People’s Liberation Army, priorities included “encirclement and capture operations” within the domains of “aerial reconnaissance, surface interception, and ambushes on the shore.”
China said the motivation for the military exercise was to combat separatism—a justification especially significant considering that China quickly labeled Lai, Taiwan’s president, a “separatist” after his May 20 inauguration.
China’s summer activity is expanding to include a variety of other military exercises. On July 13, China carried out multiple waves of missile tests in Inner Mongolia. China’s Rocket Force, responsible for the tests, likely will play a critical role in the regime’s military operations in a war over Taiwan’s future. As such, these tests also serve as preparation for a potential Taiwan war scenario and for more provocative exercises with the Chinese navy and air force during exercises expected soon in the South China Sea. If these missile tests are deemed successful by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, he may decide to execute a more complex and provocative challenge in the region.
NATO’s concern is reinforced by China’s increasingly apparent support of Russia in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. More directly, China and Belarus began joint exercises July 8 dubbed Eagle Assault 2024. This coincided with a visit to Warsaw by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which Ukraine and Poland signed a security agreement. The China-Belarus military exercise took place just 17 miles from the Ukraine border and 2 miles from Poland.
Like Russia, Belarus is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian economic and security coalition. This partnership provides China with an impetus for a greater military presence in Europe, but how it serves China’s strategic interests is less clear. However, this military exercise, planned well in advance and coinciding with the NATO summit in Washington, certainly underscores China’s dismay with Europe’s demurring on Chinese trade and increasing realization of it as a threat.
Earlier this month, China also deepened military cooperation with the United Arab Emirates and Laos, respectively, through two exercises: Falcon Shield 2024 and Friendship Shield 2024. While noteworthy, neither exercise raised a red flag militarily. But the exercises did demonstrate China’s continued willingness to engage favorably with partners who are amenable to accepting its position on Taiwan.
In the South China Sea, a familiar hotspot, China and Russia are increasing joint military engagement, as they are elsewhere. On July 14, Joint Sea 2024 began at a naval port in Zhanjiang, southern China, headquarters for China’s South Sea fleet. Both countries conducted a variety of anti-submarine and air defense exercises.
At the same time, a separate Chinese-Russian naval patrol entered the South China Sea, passing close to Japanese islands, in what the two nations described as a routine operations unrelated to the geopolitical climate. The joint forces simulated missile firing and cross-deck landing operations and carried out gun drills. Military exercises are routinely scheduled during the summer months. But the recent activity amid regional and global tensions demonstrates an unusual increase in Beijing’s risk-taking not seen in previous years.
China also is finding ways to test the United States more directly.
Case in point: Chinese and Russian bomber aircraft were detected July 25 and intercepted by NORAD as they flew into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone off the coast of Alaska. This is the latest example of China and Russia’s deepening defense ties and marks the first time two U.S. adversaries deployed strategic bombers together near the United States. The Chinese aircraft in question was the H-6 bomber, capable of carrying nuclear weapons and sometimes active over the Taiwan Strait.
This latest Alaska incident came just weeks after Chinese warships were detected July 6 and 7 near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. While steering clear of territorial waters, the Chinese vessels passed into the exclusive U.S. economic zone. This marks the fourth consecutive year that China’s naval assets have been detected near Alaska—another component of China’s upward-trending assertiveness in the Pacific.
Only days after that, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, along with two missile destroyers and a frigate, made headlines as they passed close to the Philippines on the way to the Western Pacific to carry out another set of drills.
In a departure from the norm, the carrier group didn’t pass through the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan and the Philippines, but instead went through the Balintang Channel, which runs between two groupings of some of the Philippines’ northernmost islands. This diversion, while subtle, signals continued aggression toward the Philippines, where U.S. Marines recently held joint exercises.
Vietnam also has seen tension before with China in the South China Sea, but unlike the Philippines, Hanoi’s most recent Chinese-style artificial island expansion hasn’t drawn noticeable displeasure from Beijing. Since its positive diplomatic developments with both the U.S. and China last September and December, Vietnam has rapidly pursued island reclamation in the South China Sea. Discovery Great Reef, South Reef, Namyit Island, and Pearson Reef all received dozens of acres of land expansion since November, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
Barque Canada Reef continues to be Vietnam’s largest outpost and recipient of recent efforts, gaining 174 acres of land over the past six months. In all, 692 acres have been added since November. This is up from 404 acres the prior year and represents a 100% increase in land reclamation since 2022.
Manila’s seemingly minor actions prompted violent responses from Beijing and Western states’ diplomatic activities triggered military posturing, but China hasn’t condemned Vietnam’s sweeping reclamation campaign.
Why is China choosing not to back down over the Philippines while simultaneously turning a blind eye to Vietnam’s recent surge of island-building in the same region?
China’s selective enforcement of its own standards points to the likelihood that its reactions are reserved for the U.S. or actions that Beijing perceives to be prompted by or indirectly benefit the U.S.
As tensions over Taiwan and features in the South China Sea reach a boiling point, efforts to understand Beijing’s thinking are paramount and could offer ways to better address and mitigate its escalations. America’s lack of strategic direction is commensurate with China’s recent threatening actions. Beijing’s timing, location, and choice of willing partners lessen the probability that its activities happen at the same time by coincidence and hold no greater meaning.
Washington must be alert in the coming months, particularly around Thursday, Aug. 1, the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army—a symbolic date that China often uses for strategic messaging. The United States has been in China’s crosshairs for years. But given its recent conduct, Beijing is more likely than ever to double down on its posturing and take on added risks with Washington and allies such as the Philippines.
Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)
Did you know that four months before the world had ever heard of COVID-19—on Sept. 3, 2019—authorities in the Veneto region of Italy discovered COVID-19 antibodies in local blood samples. Of course, you didn’t. The deadly and mysterious COVID-19 was around much longer than anyone had previously suspected.
We now know that fact, and indeed much more, because of the investigative diligence of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
On June 18, the committee focused on the crucial question of the pandemic’s origins—whether the pandemic originated from a viral transmission from an animal in nature to humans or somehow leaked from a laboratory in Communist China. Dr. Gregory Koblenz of George Mason University told the committee that there could be a “definitive conclusion” on COVID-19’s origin without an “independent” and fully transparent international investigation.
Short of a full confession from China or a Western intelligence breakthrough, that’s unlikely.
However, there is a mountain of accumulating evidence, both biological and circumstantial, that points to a laboratory origin. And the prime candidate for such a leakage remains the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which had long been engaged in the genetic manipulation of coronaviruses and which had also been a secondary recipient of American research grant funding.
The Senate committee heard sworn testimony from several prominent virologists on both sides of this vexing question in an attempt to get a better idea of where and how one of the world’s most dangerous and deadly pathogens emerged. However, the most powerful testimony was delivered by Dr. Steven Quay, an independent virologist and president of Atossa Therapeutics, and by Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University.
Based on mounting evidence, Quay and Ebright provided detailed scientific assessments of the origins of COVID-19, and their combined contributions on this crucial topic constitute the most impressive account to date on the topic. Both provided the Senate with a detailed description of the critical timeline and the circumstances of the contagion, while Quay offered compelling data and impressive statistical analyses.
Weight of Evidence
True, certain facts are already well-known. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, barred from U.S. grant funding by the Trump administration at the inception of the pandemic, was a center of risky coronavirus gain of function research; that is, research using “humanized mice” deliberately designed to make coronaviruses more transmissible and pathogenic.
Worse, the experiments were conducted under substandard safety conditions. Altogether, the weight of the available evidence, provided by both scientists, points straight to a Chinese laboratory leak.
Among the scientists’ many impressive arguments, three stand out:
The Hunan seafood market is a weak candidate for COVID-19 Origins. While cited by Communist Chinese officials and some Western virologists as the most likely location of viral spillover from some animal to a human, Quay told the Senate: “First, the virus was spreading in Wuhan in the early fall of 2019, two to four months before the first case in the Hunan seafood market. This is supported by 14 observations or evidence. This should be sufficient to dismiss the Hunan market as the source of the outbreak.” Likewise, Ebright stated, “Human cases at the Hunan seafood market in mid- to late-December 2019 cannot—even in principle—shed light on spillover into humans that occurred one to five months earlier in July-November 2019.” Both scientists emphasized that no infected animal host has yet been identified that would justify the natural origin of COVID-19 at the market or anywhere else. Ebright added,“No—zero—sound evidence has been presented that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin.”
The genomic features of the novel coronavirus are incompatible with a natural origin. Among the many reasons pointing to a lab origin, Dr. Quay noted, “ … the genome of SARS-CoV-2 has seven features that would be expected to be found in a virus constructed in a laboratory and which are not found in viruses from nature. The statistical probability of finding each feature in nature can be determined and the combined probability that SARS2 came from nature is less than one in a billion.”
Among the genetic features of the novel coronavirus is a peculiar feature of its capacity to infect organisms on its surface. SARS-CoV-2 is called a coronavirus because its surface is literally covered with protein spikes, giving it a crown-like appearance. It is the spikes that enable the virus to bind and infect the cells of its victims. But this particular coronavirus has what virologists call a “furin cleavage site” among its spikes, a unique feature that makes humans especially vulnerable to this viral infection.
As Ebright told the senators, “SARS-CoV-2 is the only one of more than 800 known SARS-related coronaviruses (sarbecoviruses) that possesses [a furin cleavage site]. Mathematically, this finding—by itself—implies that the probability of encountering a natural SARS-related coronavirus possessing [a furin cleavage site] is less than 1 in 800, P<0.005.”
Note well: In his testimony, Quay cites a revealing email from none other than Dr. Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Institute to his colleagues that “[t]he furin link keeps bugging me … .” Likewise, in a Feb. 2, 2020, email, virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University outlined his detailed observations to his colleagues: “I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotides that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function—that and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Do the alignment of the spikes at the amino acid level—it’s stunning.”
Andersen was the lead author of “The Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2,” published on March 17, 2020, in Nature Medicine, and Garry was one of his co-authors. Despite their private assessments, they publicly concluded: “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”
Their paper quickly became one of the most influential papers in academic history. When Dr. Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Health, strongly endorsed the paper, he solidified the then-dominant government and media narrative that COVID-19 had a “natural” origin.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases “prompted” the authors to write the paper, though he claimed he did not steer them toward any specific conclusion and maintained an “open mind” on the origins issue, recently reaffirming that claim under oath in recent congressional testimony. Nonetheless, despite Andersen’s initial misgivings, as well as Garry’s own stated incredulity of the “natural” origin of the novel coronavirus, they plowed ahead with their publication anyway. Their rapid reversal from their initial assessments remains one of the most remarkable events in the history of the global pandemic.
The circumstantial evidence is most compatible with a lab leak. As Quay told the Senate, “There is complete agreement that the closest viruses to SARS 2 are coronaviruses found only in bats from Southern China or across the southern border in Laos. This is 1,500 [kilometers] from Wuhan. The distance from Washington, D.C. to the Florida Everglades. Imagine you are having dinner at a restaurant in North Bethesda [in Maryland] next to NIAID labs. You get sick and are told that the virus you caught is only found in bats from the Everglades, but it is also being studies at those laboratories you see out the restaurant window.”
Quay and Ebright also recited the well-known efforts of the Chinese communist officials in January 2020 to shut down crucial scientific information and cover up the research being conducted in Wuhan. Even though China locked down Wuhan in January 2020, as Ebright noted, three Wuhan Institute researchers were infected and hospitalized with COVID-19 as early as November 2019.
Fading Natural Origin Theory
During the pandemic’s early stages in America, federal officials and a team of top virologists worked diligently to promote the narrative that COVID-19 had a natural origin and had jumped from an animal—an “intermediate host”—to humans. The problem, however, is that the proponents of the “natural origins” hypothesis have failed to produce the evidence of any such a host before the first human infections.
It was not for lack of a herculean effort. In attempting to prove that the pandemic had a “natural origin,” Chinese officials and scientists took hundreds of specimens of animals and market suppliers from the Hunan market, plus thousands of animal specimens from three provinces in southern China, and many more thousands of specimens from wildlife, including pangolins and bats, as well as from domestic animals.
All were found “negative” for SARS-CoV-2. In detailing China’s extraordinary research effort, Quay observed, “… the largest effort to find a virus host in the history of the world came up empty.”
In his June 18 Senate testimony, Garry reaffirmed his conviction that SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin and remains the most rational explanation for the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the hearing, however, Ebright directly challenged his fellow witness and took aim at the validity of the famous March 2020 Nature Medicine article.
As Ebright told the senators, “It presents no new data and presents no new data analyses.” As he further noted, analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency also criticized the paper because, in their language, it was not based on “scientific analysis, but on unwarranted assumptions.”
In questioning Garry, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., exclaimed, “Multiple intelligence community agents and components have concluded it was likely a lab leak, and they concluded that at the same time that you and your people were propagandizing the American public and using the channels and influence of the American government to censor ordinary Americans.”
Underscoring Hawley’s point, neither Garry nor his co-authors could have even begun to make a strong, data-driven, scientific argument for a “natural origin” of COVID-19. China had shut down release of any such information in January 2020, hiding samples, deleting the genetic sequences of the virus, and crushing internal scientific dissent. Moreover, even if the novel coronavirus emerged naturally from an animal, that does not mean that it did not come from a Chinese laboratory. As Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., noted, “Dr. Garry has told us that this couldn’t have come from bats. It had to go through an intermediate host. That may well be true … but what he also doesn’t tell you is the animal host could be a laboratory animal.”
More to Come
The Senate probe came on the heels of a staff report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic revealing email communications from Fauci, Collins, and Jeremy Farrar, a British scientist who participated in the early 2020 deliberations among top virologists, as well as the authors of the Nature Medicine article. There is, however, more to come. During the Senate hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., for the second year in a row, highlighted the continuing failure of Xavier Becerra, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to release 50 unredacted emails, including internal communications between Fauci, Collins, and Farrar, and any discussions they may have had concerning the origins of the pandemic. While Becerra told Johnson last year he would get back to him, Johnson has still not gotten the vital information he requested.
Washington “cover-ups” are invariably self-destructive. House and Senate investigators are enriching a large and growing public record, while detailing the well-documented federal weaknesses in responding to the global pandemic that killed more than a million Americans.
Such a strong record can provide a basis not only for major institutional reforms at our federal public health agencies, but also the long overdue accountability for those who have deliberately misled Congress and the American people.
President Joe Biden walks from the White House to Marine One on March 19, 2021, on his way to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Newly released documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal early evidence and analysis four years ago in which U.S. government officials indicated that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China. These findings in the CDC documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, dating from about six months after the disease’s initial outbreak, are coming to light only now because of the government’s repeated delays in releasing relevant documents through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In addition, federal employees’ use of encrypted private messaging applications such as Signal or WhatsApp to evade records-retention requirements under the Federal Records Act has become commonplace in the federal workplace, despite clear violations (as we will see below).
To date, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, in that post since January 2021, has released minimal documentation under the COVID-19 Origin Act, which President Joe Biden, who appointed her, signed into law in March 2023. The new law requires Haines as director of national intelligence to declassify information about links between COVID-19 and China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology within 90 days of its enactment.
But Haines apparently didn’t make sure such documents were provided to Congress.
Avril Haines is sworn in Jan. 19, 2021, at the beginning of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee as Joe Biden’s pick for national intelligence director. Biden took office the next day. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Heritage’s Oversight Project obtained 1,066 pages of related documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, through the Freedom of Information Act. The intelligence community’s official assessment of the origin of COVID-19, as of June 2023, states that it can’t be determined: “The IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that this information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins because the researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.”
However, the documents released to Heritage’s Oversight Project include a presentation labeled “Overview of COVID-19 Disease” by Dr. John T. Brooks, who was chief medical officer for the CDC’s emergency COVID-19 response, according to his LinkedIn profile. In his presentation, Brooks repeatedly emphasizes the early analysis that the disease originated in Wuhan. According to the documents (page 386), as of May 8, 2020, Brooks was chief of science under the principal deputy incident manager for the government’s COVID-19 Response Organizational Chart.
A slide excerpt from a June 2020 presentation by the CDC’s John T. Brooks entitled “Overview on COVID-19 Disease.” Note the word “Wuhan” in red to the left of the notation SARS-CoV-2.
One document released under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, includes the above slide presentation. It shows that in data files for a COVID-19 sample analysis, staff used the word “Wuhan” in red letters (in the so-called file paths of a phylogenetic analysis depicting patterns and similarities of DNA sequences).
One source in a position to know, who asked to remain anonymous, told Heritage’s Oversight Project that a sole-sourced, unevaluated intelligence report (meaning one without other sources and intelligence collaboration) floated around the intelligence community in late summer 2020. That report specified that the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, site of the Chinese research lab called the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is no evidence that the U.S. government’s underlying raw intelligence on the origin of the coronavirus was shared with congressional committees or declassified under the COVID-19 Origin Act.
Recent releases of documents to Heritage’s Oversight Project—through the State Department and under the Freedom of Information Act—highlight the tenuous timeline of what email traffic in 2020 labeled as an “Updated timeline of PRC coverup (April 28).” (The acronym PRC refers to the People’s Republic of China, the full name of the communist nation.) This email traffic, primarily sent to State Department principals along with several inspectors general and White House officials, detailed what it called the suppression and destruction of evidence: E.g. virus samples destroyed at genomics labs, wildlife market stalls bleached, genome sequence not shared publicly, Shanghai lab closed for ‘rectification’ after sharing genome on its own, academic articles subjected to prior review by the [Chinese] Ministry of Science and Technology, data on asymptomatic ‘silent carriers’ kept secret …
An excerpt from a State Department document details China’s suppression of data on COVID-19.
This situation, in which Congress is falling behind in gaining timely access to information from the Biden administration, highlights the inherent imbalance between the two branches of government. A significant lag of years occurred before the executive branch provided relevant information to the legislative branch.
Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, testified March 8, 2023, about China’s record on COVID-19 before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
“Since the early days of the pandemic,” Metzl told lawmakers, “China’s government has destroyed samples, hidden records, imprisoned brave Chinese journalists, prevented Chinese scientists from saying or writing anything on pandemic origins without prior government approval, actively spread misinformation, and done pretty much everything possible to prevent the kind of unfettered, evidence-based investigation that is so urgently required.”
A slide excerpt from Brooks’ CDC presentation in June 2020 entitled “Overview on COVID-19 Disease.”
Slides released under the Oversight Project’s FOIA request detail strong links to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan in early January of 2020, as well as the concentration of COVID-19 cases in early January 2020. Four months into his presidency, on May 26, 2021, Biden announced further investigation into the origins of COVID-19, instructing Haines and the rest of the intelligence community to “bring us closer to a definitive conclusion.”
The Biden administration previously had sought to avoid directly linking COVID-19 to China or other geographic locations. The administration labeled terms such as “Wuhan Flu” as “inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric” in presidential actions during the government’s continuing response to the disease.
The COVID-19 Origin Act, the bipartisan bill signed by Biden in March 2023, tasked Haines’ Office of the Director of National Intelligence with declassifying information on the origins of the deadly disease.
This slide excerpt specifies COVID-19 cases in China, as of Jan. 20, 2020, from Brooks’ CDC presentation about six months later.
However, with Democrats in control, it took over three years for Congress to conduct oversight investigations into the origins of COVID-19 by establishing the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The panel was created in early 2023, after the new Republican majority in the House took over from Democrats.
It also took over three years for Congress to resume its oversight of gain-of-function research conducted on coronaviruses in China through grants made by the National Institutes of Health, a U.S. government agency, to EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit. Such research produces a stronger version of a virus.
This slide excerpt, also from the CDC presentation in June 2020, depicts COVID-19 cases in and outside China.
The revelation that documents on COVID-19 weren’t provided to Congress comes on the heels of disclosures that David Morens, a senior adviser to Dr. Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health, intentionally sought to avoid disclosure of government records under the Freedom of Information Act. (Morens also was a senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the public face of the government’s response to COVID-19.)
In letters to the National Archives and NIH regarding records retention guidelines and adherence to the Federal Records Act, the House pandemic subcommittee disclosed that Morens deleted emails and used special characters and misspellings to avoid text matches in records requests. Fauci’s adviser also used private emails to facilitate the destruction and withholding of federal records from oversight through records retention or FOIA requests.
To date, Congress has taken little to no action to curb Morens and other federal employees in the programmatic evasion of federal guidelines on retaining records.
In the information age, with an exponential increase each year in records created by the U.S. government’s executive branch coupled with intentional destruction of records, oversight by Congress consistently has failed to obtain documents from the executive branch in a timely and meaningful manner. Blatant violations of the Federal Records Act have become so extreme that some federal employees openly have included Signal and other encrypted messaging applications in parentheses in their email signature blocks, next to cell phone numbers, without fear of penalty or congressional oversight.
Congress should reaffirm its right to quickly access data and information, including classified information, from the executive branch via congressional inquiries and subpoenas. Without this ability, we risk that oversight by Congress will be delayed for years, undermining the purpose of oversight and potentially rendering it ineffective.
FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden informed his business associates in late 2013 that a top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader allegedly asked him to travel to China to talk about future “business opportunities,” according to an email obtained and verified by Fox News Digital.
In December 2013, Biden accompanied his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on a six-day trip around Asia that included China, South Korea and Japan. While in Beijing, Biden introduced his father to one of his Chinese business associates, who was accompanied by another associate, in the lobby of the hotel they were staying in.
During the China leg of the trip, Biden attended multiple events with his dad, including a lunch that featured some of the most powerful CCP leaders in China. On Dec. 5, Jonathan Li, the business associate who Vice President Biden was introduced to, emailed Biden asking him how his China trip was going, prompting Biden to email later that day that everything “went very well.”
“Do you know former Governor of Hong Kong- C.H. Troung (sp?),” Hunter asked. “He wants me to come to HK to visit to discuss business opportunities. He sat next to Dad at lunch w/ Premiere and implied we knew each other- but I don’t remember him.”
Tung Chee-hwa, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. (YouTube/Screenshot)
“Very good, I can go with you to find out what he can do for us,” Li said to Hunter.
“Troung” refers to C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) between 2005 and 2023, a former business associate of Biden confirmed to Fox News Digital. The CPPCC is the “key mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation” under the leadership of the CCP, according to the CPPCC website.
In December 2013, Hunter Biden asked his business associates whether they knew C.H. Tung, or Tung Chee-hwa, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. (Fox News)
Fox News Digital could not confirm whether Biden took Tung up on his alleged offer to visit Hong Kong to discuss “business opportunities.”
Biden’s email about Tung would not be the last time that his name was mentioned in his emails. In July 2014, James Bulger, who goes by “Jimmy,” and served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC — a firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint-venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners— emailed Biden about introducing their Chinese business associates to Tung.
In July 2014, Hunter Biden said he would be “happy” to help introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and BHR committee person Andy Lu to “Mr. Tung,” who refers to Tung Chee-hwa, the vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at the time. (Fox News)
In the July 2014 email, Bulger asked Biden to introduce Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR committee member, to “Mr. Tung” to discuss “BHR investment targets” and “fundraising,” alleging Biden sat next to Tung at a 2013 dinner welcoming Vice President Biden to Beijing, according to previous Fox News Digital reporting.
“It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,” Bulger wrote. “[A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung, therefore J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund.”
Corporate media organizations spent years dismissing negative information pertaining to Hunter Biden and his father, President Biden, right. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)
“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr Tung by email it is very important to our BHR initiative [sic] at this moment,” Bulger stressed.
Biden responded that he was “happy” to fulfill the request but said he could not recall the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at the dinner.
“Happy to do this,” he wrote, “but I have no email address for Mr. Tung and he very well may have sat next to me, but I don’t recall the two gentlemen’s names to my left and right. Regardless, I would suggest the team draft an email in Mandarin and English for my approval ASAP.”
“Let me reach out to Lin and J will revert ASAP,” Bulger replied later that day.
Multiple inquiries from Fox News Digital to Biden’s lawyer, Bulger, Li, Lu and Tung previously went unreturned about whether Biden ended up introducing Tung to his associates.
In addition to the 2013 dinner in Beijing, Tung was on the “expected attendees” guest list for at least two state dinners at the White House during the Obama-Biden administration. Tung’s bio on the Obama administration archives website for the January 2011 dinner says he was “Vice Chairman, CPPCC, former Hong Kong Chief Executive.”
In another press release for the September 2015 state dinner, Tung’s bio lists him as “Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with then-Vice President Joe Biden inside the Great Hall of the People on Dec. 4, 2013 in Beijing. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
According to a 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government agency, the CPPCC is a “central part” of China’s United Front system, which works to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
According to a 2021 report by The Diplomat, the CPPCC is “designed to liaise with non-Communist Party members – and ultimately see them work with the CCP to advance its interests.” While serving as vice chairman of the CPPCC, Tung also founded the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) in 2008.
Tung has many powerful contacts in Washington, D.C., including President Biden’s top climate diplomat, John Podesta. Fox News Digital previously reported that Podesta referred to Tung as his “friend” and took several phone calls from him between 2015 and 2016 while serving as the chairman for Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign.
In May 2013, Tung and Podesta spoke at a luncheon hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which included Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai.
“For the last four years though, Center for American Progress and China-U.S. Exchange Foundation have co-hosted a US.-China track II dialogue and we continue to host these dialogues on an annual basis,” Podesta said. “I have the highest regard for C.H. Tung’s tireless efforts to bring our two nations closer together. He is always looking ahead to anticipate emerging challenges in the U.S.-China relations and to figure out what he can do to make those challenges more manageable.”
John Podesta, founder and director of the Center for American Progress, speaks at The Center for American Progress CAP 2019 Ideas Conference in Washington, D.C., on May 22, 2019. (Photo by Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital also previously reported on Tung being instrumental in CUSEF’s targeting of Historically Black Colleges and Universities by visiting the office of a Black public relations consultant’s office across the street from the White House in 2009 to learn more about Black Americans.
“In 2009, the former chief executive of Hong Kong visited me in my office with his staff from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and they wanted to know how we got a Black president,” Julia Wilson told the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff students during a 2017 presentation. “They were saying, ‘We don’t know anything about Black people. So can you write us a white paper and share it with us. How did Black people get enough power to vote a Black man into office?’ So they really needed an overview of our history. Who are we? Who are African Americans?”
Tung’s organization would go on to pay out over $1M to Wilson’s firm, Wilson Global Communications, between 2017 and December 2023.
Biden’s attorney, Li, and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
Cameron Cawthorne is a politics editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Cameron.Cawthorne@Fox.com and on Twitter: @cam_cawthorne
President Biden has made his “biggest blunder” yet by driving China and Russia into a closer strategic partnership through his faulty foreign policy, one expert warned, as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Beijing to strengthen bilateral ties.
Heritage Foundation senior fellow Michael Pillsbury argued on “Fox & Friends”that the “shocking” relationship the two nuclear world powers have fostered never would have happened under the Trump administration.
“Basically… we’re seeing what [former President] Trump was trying to do with China when he called himself ‘Tariff Man’ to get leverage over China to help us in various ways,” Pillsbury told co-host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday.
“That’s simply not happening with Biden and to draw, to push together two nuclear powers, Russia and China, it’s really a blunder of the highest order. … The Russians had a million army troops built up on the Chinese border for a while, so to see them come together like this to me is just shocking. It’s one of the biggest blunders we’ll see in my lifetime.”
Pillsbury’s comments come as Putin visited Xi in Beijing to strengthen bilateral relations and garner additional support for the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023. (Sergei Guneyev/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Putin began his two-day state visit on Thursday, where both countries claimed to want an end to the war in Ukraine.
“This would never happen under Trump,” Pillsbury said. “This is a big blunder, I think, by the Biden people to drive Russia and China together. This was one of Trump’s goals never to allow this to happen.”
Meanwhile, China has vowed “resolute measures” against the U.S. in retaliation for Biden’s newly announced tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports. The new measures include an increase in the tariff rate on electric vehicles from 25% to 100% this year, along with hikes on tariffs in “strategic sectors” including steel, aluminum, semiconductors, batteries and solar cells, the White House said.
“China heavily subsidized all these products, pushing Chinese companies to produce far more than the rest of the world can absorb. And then dumping the excess products onto the market and unfairly low prices, driving other manufacturers around the world out of business,” President Biden said Tuesday in a speech at the White House.
Former Trump national security aide John Ullyot argued the summit between Putin and Xi was clearly a “show of force” against the U.S. as both countries face deepening tensions with the West.
“It’s a show of force in the sense that it is… a rebuke to the West, that has… put in these sanctions,” Ullyot said Thursday on “FOX & Friends First.” “But it also is a sign that there’s increasing access here between Russia and China, where… Russia has been shut off from exporting oil and natural gas to the Western Europe, and so now they’re having to look at other markets, and of course, the biggest market… that’s a border state of theirs, and in the region in Asia it is obviously China, so they want to strengthen that.”
“There’s a pipeline that is out now on hold that they want to get approval for the pipeline that goes through Mongolia from North Russia,” he continued. “But more than anything else… this is a show that there’s an axis that… Russia can exploit to work with China to go against the sanctions that are put on Russia, so also get financial and currency stability as well.”
The hikes come after Trump imposed tariffs on thousands of Chinese goods in 2018 and 2019 in response to an investigation that found China was violating U.S. intellectual property laws and coercing American companies into transferring sensitive technology to Chinese firms as a condition of gaining access to China’s market.
Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital. Story ideas can be sent to bailee.hill@fox.com
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan, artificial intelligence and security issues Tuesday in a call meant to demonstrate a return to regular leader-to-leader dialogue between the two powers. The call, described by the White House as “candid and constructive,” was the leaders’ first conversation since their November summit in California produced renewed ties between the two nations’ militaries and a promise of enhanced cooperation on stemming the flow of deadly fentanyl and its precursors from China.
Xi told Biden that the two countries should adhere to the bottom line of “no clash, no confrontation” as one of the principles for this year.
“We should prioritize stability, not provoke troubles, not cross lines but maintain the overall stability of China-U.S. relations,” Xi said, according to China Central Television, the state broadcaster.
The call kicks off several weeks of high-level engagements between the two countries, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set to travel to China on Thursday and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to follow in the weeks ahead.
Biden has pressed for sustained interactions at all levels of government, believing it is key to keeping competition between the two massive economies and nuclear-armed powers from escalating to direct conflict. While in-person summits take place perhaps once a year, officials said, both Washington and Beijing recognize the value of more frequent engagements between the leaders.
The two leaders discussed Taiwan ahead of next month’s inauguration of Lai Ching-te, the island’s president-elect, who has vowed to safeguard its de-facto independence from China and further align it with other democracies. Biden reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding “One China” policy and reiterated that the U.S. opposes any coercive means to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. China considers Taiwan a domestic matter and has vigorously protested U.S. support for the island.
Taiwan remains the “first red line not to be crossed,” Xi told Biden, and emphasized that Beijing will not tolerate separatist activities by Taiwan’s independence forces as well as “exterior indulgence and support,” which alluded to Washington’s support for the island.
Biden also raised concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea, including efforts last month to impede the Philippines, which the U.S. is treaty-obligated to defend, from resupplying its forces on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Next week, Biden will host Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for a joint summit where China’s influence in the region was set to be top of the agenda.
Biden, in the call with Xi, pressed China to do more to meet its commitments to halt the flow of illegal narcotics and to schedule additional precursor chemicals to prevent their export. The pledge was made at the leaders’ summit held in Woodside, California, last year on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.
At the November summit, Biden and Xi also agreed that their governments would hold formal talks on the promises and risks of advanced artificial intelligence, which are set to take place in the coming weeks. The pair touched on the issue on Tuesday just two weeks after China and the U.S. joined more than 120 other nations in backing a resolution at the United Nations calling for global safeguards around the emerging technology.
Biden, in the call, reinforced warnings to Xi against interfering in the 2024 elections in the U.S. as well as against continued malicious cyberattacks against critical American infrastructure, according to a senior U.S. administration official who previewed the call on the condition of anonymity.
He also raised concerns about human rights in China, including Hong Kong’s new restrictive national security law and its treatment of minority groups, and he raised the plight of Americans detained in or barred from leaving China.
The Democrat president also pressed China over its defense relationship with Russia, which is seeking to rebuild its industrial base as it presses forward with its invasion of Ukraine. And he called on Beijing to wield its influence over North Korea to rein in the isolated and erratic nuclear power.
As the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, Biden also raised concerns with Xi over China’s “unfair economic practices,” the official said, and reasserted that the U.S. would take steps to preserve its security and economic interests, including by continuing to limit the transfer of some advanced technology to China.
Xi complained that the U.S. has taken more measures to suppress China’s economy, trade and technology in the past several months and that the list of sanctioned Chinese companies has become ever longer, which is “not de-risking but creating risks,” according to the broadcaster.
Yun Sun, director of the China program at Stimson Center, said the call “does reflect the mutual desire to keep the relationship stable” while the men reiterated their longstanding positions on issues of concern.
The call came ahead of Yellen’s visit to Guangzhou and Beijing for a week of bilateral meetings on the subject with finance leaders from the world’s second largest economy — including Vice Premier He Lifeng, Chinese Central Bank Gov. Pan Gongsheng, former Vice Premier Liu He, American businesses and local leaders.
An advisory for the upcoming trip states that Yellen “will advocate for American workers and businesses to ensure they are treated fairly, including by pressing Chinese counterparts on unfair trade practices.”
It follows Xi’s meeting in Beijing with U.S. business leaders last week, when he emphasized the mutually beneficial economic ties between the two countries and urged people-to-people exchange to maintain the relationship.
Xi told the Americans that the two countries have stayed communicative and “made progress” on issues such as trade, anti-narcotics and climate change since he met with Biden in November. Last week’s high-profile meeting was seen as Beijing’s effort to stabilize bilateral relations.
Ahead of her trip to China, Yellen last week said that Beijing is flooding the market with green energy that “distorts global prices.” She said she intends to share her beliefs with her counterparts that Beijing’s increased production of solar energy, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries poses risks to productivity and growth to the global economy.
U.S. lawmakers’ renewed angst over Chinese ownership of the popular social media app TikTok has generated new legislation that would ban TikTok if its China-based owner ByteDance doesn’t sell its stakes in the platform within six months of the bill’s enactment.
As chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews foreign ownership of firms in the U.S., Yellen has ample leeway to determine how the company could remain operating in the U.S.
Meanwhile, China’s leaders have set a goal of 5% economic growth this year despite a slowdown exacerbated by troubles in the property sector and the lingering effects of strict anti-virus measures during the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted travel, logistics, manufacturing and other industries.
China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global.
The U.S. last year outlined plans to limit EV buyers from claiming tax credits if they purchase cars containing battery materials from China and other countries that are considered hostile to the United States. Separately, the Department of Commerce launched an investigation into the potential national security risks posed by Chinese car exports to the U.S.
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What a shock. According to the newly released budget, the Pentagon wants to slow down America’s aircraft carriers. You may be thinking: no carrier, no “Top Gun,” no “Maverick.” How we’d miss those thriller movies.
But the facts are even worse. Delaying aircraft carriers courts disaster at a time when their deterrence value is higher than ever. The Navy has a budget plan for new aircraft carriers that can launch drones, carry lasers and face down China, but President Biden’s budget took out so much money that the whole aircraft carrier plan may fall apart.
I can’t remember when I’ve seen such a policy and reality mismatch.
Moving two aircraft carriers into place was vital to bottling up Iran and protecting deployed U.S. forces after the Hamas attack on Israel. The first thing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin did was send the USS Gerald R. Ford from the Aegean Sea to a combat position near Lebanon. Next the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower surged from her homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, to add more firepower near the Red Sea.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford was the first of the new class of carriers. But sister ships could be delayed by budget cuts. (Andrej Tarfila/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The deterrence value of Navy aircraft carriers has never been higher. Don’t take my word for it. Back in December, Austin made a special trip to the USS Dwight Eisenhower, praising the action of her sailors and airmen. “Sometimes our greatest achievements are the bad things we stop from happening,” Austin told the crew. “In a moment of huge tension in the region, you all have been the linchpin of preventing a wider regional conflict.”
Right now, the Ike is still there and the F/A-18EF Superhornet fighter planes she carries are mounting continuous air patrols, knocking down Houthi drones and missiles. At the same time, the U.S. has two carriers on operations in the Pacific making sure China’s navy and Coast Guard don’t block off vital sea lanes or encircle Taiwan.
Deterrence in two major combat theaters is resting on these 100,000-ton ships. So, it’s astonishing that the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget just sent to Congress is going to slow down new Navy aircraft carriers by taking away shipbuilding funds for two years.
You know what else makes me mad? China is racing to build aircraft carriers. It makes me mad to see Chinese President Xi Jinping’s admirals investing while the Pentagon backs off.
China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian is bigger and a technological leap ahead for China’s navy. The Fujian started dead-load catapult testing last November. China is serious about launching aircraft carriers to compete with the Ford-class designs.
Their aircraft carriers are still not nuclear-powered, and overall are not as capable as the Ford-class, but they can cause plenty of trouble, especially for allies. If China keeps producing the Fujian class, Chinese carriers could lock out the U.S. and allies from the Strait of Malacca to the Sea of Japan.
So, the carrier slip is also damaging because it impacts the new carriers. Believe me, these are carriers you want the Navy to buy. The Ford class took lessons from decades of carrier operations and created a ship class with innovations and room to grow.
Take the new launch catapults and arresting gear – the wire apparatus that catches the plane’s tailhook. Old steam catapults delivered a huge jolt to launch aircraft. Remember the grimace when Tom Cruise as Maverick and fellow naval aviators launched from the carrier in the “Top Gun” movies? That was old school.
The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and USS Nimitz (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Groups steam in formation, in the South China Sea, Monday, July 6, 2020. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jason Tarleton/U.S. Navy via AP)
The Ford’s electromagnetic catapults finesse the launch with gradually increasing power, and vary the speed for launching lighter airframes such as drones. Pilots do say it’s strange not to see the iconic steam wafting up. However, the USS Ford generated 10,396 sorties in 239 days underway with the new catapults.
All that opens up new options. Retired Rear Adm. Michael “Nasty” Manazir (a real Top Gun pilot and aircraft carrier commander) once described the Advanced Arresting Gear for USNI News as still “a controlled crash, but relatively more softly.” Navy planes had to be heavy to withstand the “cats and traps” getting on and off the ship. With the Ford-class carrier, “you can now start to do things with aircraft design that you couldn’t do before,” Manazir said.
Future carriers in 2040 in a heavy electromagnetic spectrum threat environment have many more options for the types of aircraft flying off their decks. But only if the Navy buys the carriers now.
Don’t forget the Ford-class also has more electric power generation and can one day mount laser self-defense weapons.
China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian is bigger and a technological leap ahead for China’s navy. The Fujian started dead-load catapult testing last November. China is serious about launching aircraft carriers to compete with the Ford-class designs.
Law mandates at least 11 operational aircraft carriers and the Navy always says they’d prefer 12. (Carriers can’t all be deployed at once, due to maintenance, nuclear reactor overhaul, and training schedules.) Yet the Navy’s plan delays CVN-82 and basically, every ship afterward. Older Nimitz class carriers have to retire when their nuclear reactors age out.
That may sound like Washington math, but it’s the beginning of a death spiral. You can imagine how complicated aircraft carrier construction is. Right now, parts of three new aircraft carriers are in the assembly drydocks at Newport News, Virginia. If the Navy hits pause on CVN-82, the shipyards and suppliers can’t catch up.
Buying an aircraft carrier every six or seven years is not economical. Obviously. Worse, it’s probably not feasible. The precious workforce of American men and women who build carriers cannot stand around and they may drift away to other programs which have money. The Navy’s own charts show the result is a fall to 10, then nine aircraft carriers in the next decades.
No carriers, no agile deterrence. Heck, we Americans invented the aircraft carrier and its Pacific tactics in World War II. China’s navy is already bigger than ours. The advanced aircraft carriers are key to America’s military edge that protects our way of life. This is not the moment to let China sneak ahead.
Crooked Biden, Xi of Chin, and the Ayatolha of Iran all would hate Trump to be reelected, and all for the same reason. Trump would put America first. Our enemies do not want America with an America First agenda, they would rather us have a weak president who is compromised that they can push around.
Putin Further Destroys the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax — Says He Prefers Joe Biden to Win Than Trump Because He’s More “Predictable”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has further destroyed the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, stating a preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump due to the current U.S. president’s predictability and experience. During a state television interview reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday, Putin broke his silence on the U.S. political landscape. He described Biden as “more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician.” “Biden, he’s more experienced, more predictable, he’s a politician of the old formation,” Putin said.“But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust,” he added. READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
The uptick in Chinese nationals illegally crossing the southern border proves the record-breaking number of foreigners walking into our nation and being shipped by border agents to American cities with little to no vetting is no longer a crisis but a full-fledged invasion.
The Biden administration’s long-held talking point is that the current border crisis is fueled by a surge of struggling migrants from unstable Latin American countries. Chinese migrants, however, not natural disaster victims in Central America, have become the fastest-growing people group to take advantage of the lapsed southern U.S. border.
Border Patrol agents in San Diego alone recorded encounters with 269 Chinese nationals on Monday, Fox News’s Bill Melugin reports. Since the 2024 fiscal year began, Customs and Border Protection clocked more than 20,000 Chinese nationals illegally crossing into the U.S. via the southern border. Some of them crossed with the help of the Chinese Communist Party-linked app TikTok.
The 2024 number is already dangerously close to the 24,000 Chinese border crossers who were apprehended in the 2023 fiscal year and up significantly from the 450 Chinese arrests border agents made during President Joe Biden’s first year in office.
A large amount of the illegal crossings in San Diego sector happen in Jacumba where there is a small gap in the wall that illegal immigrants pour through every day. (We shot this a couple weeks ago). Inexplicably, the Biden admin has made no effort to fill or fix this small gap. pic.twitter.com/wqQRI917VU
In January alone, border agents encountered 176,205 illegal border crossers. That number may be a significant drop compared to recent record-breaking months, but it still exceeds 23 of the last 24 Janauries on record.
Border Patrol chiefs in several high-traffic sectors have warned that the overwhelming number of foreign illegal border crossers entering the U.S. puts our nation at risk because “information can be hidden” and “their agendas, their ideologies, the reason for them coming could be missed.” Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent for Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol, complained to the House Homeland Security Committee last year that the influx of specifically Chinese migrants has slowed her agents’ interview process to seven hours to ensure some level of vetting.
Even then, CBP does not turn them away. Instead, busloads of Chinese nationals are dropped off in the heart of the U.S. and told to appear for an immigration court date that is often set years in advance.
“My Committee has been informed that some of these Chinese nationals have even been found to be affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and those are just the ones we’ve been able to vet,” Chairman Mark Green noted. “As the CCP works to undermine and infiltrate our institutions and even military installations, Secretary Mayorkas has made it clear to the entire world that our borders are open. This is simply unsustainable, and the national security risks are massive.”
America’s number one foreign enemy isn’t just sending spies through gaps in the abandoned border wall. It’s also actively fueling the death and destruction at the open southern border. Communist China has long taken advantage of Biden’s lax policies to poison hundreds of thousands of Americans with one of the most potent, lucrative, and lethal drugs on the black market.
One gram of fentanyl alone, about the size of a pack of table sugar, can kill approximately 500 people. Yet, in 2023, CBP seized 27,000 pounds of fentanyl, nearly twice as much as they seized in 2022. Since Biden was elected, CBP has reported record-breaking fentanyl seizures nearly every month, marking an 800 percent jump since 2019.
Cartels do most of the fentanyl smuggling, but their operations are directly sustained by investors linked to the Chinese Communist Party, who fund thousands of illegal marijuana-growing and selling operations in Mexico and the U.S. They produce the precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl in Asia and then ship them to packaging facilities close to the southern American border.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives at the U.S. Capitol to meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Dec. 12, 2023. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a group of conservative senators ran out of procedural options for debating a $95 billion funding bill for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. In the middle of the night, Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rand Paul, R-Ky., Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Rick Scott, R-Fla., and JD Vance, R-Ohio, articulated their opposition.
When they ran out of options, the tandem of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., moved swiftly to pass the bill on a vote of 70 to 29. That included 22 Republicans who voted for foreign aid without addressing America’s own border crisis.
The measure now moves to the House of Representatives, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has pledged to hold the line at the urging of conservatives.
National security expert Elbridge Colby, co-founder and principal at the Marathon Initiative, spoke with The Daily Signal about what’s playing out on Capitol Hill and why he thinks this legislation misses the mark. He also explained how the United States should be prioritizing its national security. The conversation has been edited for length.
Elbridge Colby, co-founder and principal at the Marathon Initiative, spoke at Heritage for the release of the 2024 Index of U.S. Military Strength on Jan. 24. (Photo: Erin Granzow/The Heritage Foundation)
Rob Bluey: Let’s start by talking about the current debate that’s taking place in Congress. What’s your perspective on the supplemental?
Bridge Colby: Americans are increasingly, and with very good reason, worried about issues like rising the rising debt, the border, the failed wars, and military interventions.
What we should be doing is having a foreign policy that concretely puts Americans interests first. It’s important to have alliances and to have an international view.
If we look at the world in that perspective and say, “What’s the biggest threat to Americans interests?” It’s the People’s Republic of China, because it’s 10 times the GDP of Russia, and Asia, where China is located, is by far more important. It’s going to be almost half of global GDP. We can’t allow China to dominate Asia. Ostensibly, that is not only the Trump administration position but also the Biden administration’s position.
When I look at the supplemental, it’s totally out of whack. We’re sending $61 billion to Ukraine, and we’re spending a couple billion extra on the Indo-Pacific when very respected institutions like Heritage and the RAND Corp. have assessed that we’re behind militarily. We should be focusing on China.
At the same time, I personally do think that Russia remains a threat. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an evil act. Obviously there’s a lot of nuance there, but that’s fundamentally the reality. I support the Ukrainians, but we live in the world of reality—just like a family making its financial plan or a business making its financial plan.
We can’t solve all the world’s problems and we have big ones ourselves. And the biggest one is China. What do we do about that? First and foremost, we move our foreign policy alliance structure from a dependency structure to a partnership structure, where we expect our allies to actually step up and meet their obligations.
This is something President Trump talked a lot about, rightly. Even President Obama talked about it. The Europeans ignored us. The reality is the Europeans can and actually are now doing a lot more for Ukraine, but they have not yet met their spending commitments.
It’s difficult, but you know what? It’s difficult for Americans. We spend over 3% of GDP on defense. We have huge influx across the border. We’re not securing the border—a lot of fentanyl, etc. We have problems, so that’s the way I look at the supplemental.
Bluey: Why doesn’t the Biden administration put more of an emphasis on China? And why do you consider it such a threat?
Colby: I actually look at it more from just how powerful China is. In fact, I communicate this to the Chinese directly whenever I have the chance. The reason that I’m so worried about China is not because I dislike China—if anything to the contrary, it’s because I have so much respect for China.
They have, according to the Office of Naval Intelligence, over 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. They have the world’s largest industrial base. People talk about the arsenal of democracy, but that arsenal left and went to China, unfortunately. These people are not making toy cars anymore. They’re operating at the forefront of technology in a lot of areas.
I’m looking for a balance of power. People often say, balance of power and realism, that’s un-American. Actually, to the contrary, I reject that. Why? The fundamental idea of the American system is the separation of powers. Nobody should be trusted with too much power, and that’s the logic I take toward China. I’m saying we need a coalition. I don’t trust them just on face value when they say they don’t have expansive intent.
I don’t think there’s so much debate anymore that China is a massive challenge for the United States. The biggest problem is just walking the walk in the sense that in order to deal with something that is really on a different order of magnitude than we’ve dealt with in a really long time.
If you just look at the size of China’s economy, it’s the biggest threat the United States has dealt with since the 19th century. We were much larger than the Soviet Union. The United States alone was larger than all three major Axis states.
A lot of the politicians, especially on the establishment side, are from a different era. It’s very hard to let go of the idea of this sort of “indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright put it. That’s almost like an intoxicating mentality for a lot of people, both Democrats and traditional Republican types. They feel like they are somehow morally on a perch or something. They’re not really capable of grappling with how much has changed.
It’s just not true that the fate of Taiwan will be settled in Ukraine. How do we know? China’s own behavior.
I lay out why.
If we want to defend Taiwan, be straightforward and focus on defending Taiwan. Don’t engage in tortured, triple-bank shot logic. pic.twitter.com/YCGu9z4Sb3
Bluey: There are some who are making the case that the money that we’re spending in the supplemental will be a deterrent for China, specifically because they draw the connection to Ukraine. Why doesn’t that argument hold up?
Colby: It’s so convoluted it could only be a Washington rationalization.
There’s one variant that says China is going to be deterred by what we do in Ukraine. Well, just apply common sense. Here’s the thought experiment that I apply on that one: If China actually thought the future of Taiwan was going to be settled in Ukraine, it would intervene directly in the war.
Instead, it’s not doing that at all. Instead, it’s sitting back, getting us to spend more money and weapons and political capital in Europe, distracting us, tying us down in Europe and the Middle East. Meanwhile, building up its own strength. As Napoleon put it, if you want to take Vienna, take Vienna.
The other argument that you often hear is we’re going to spend a bunch of money on Ukraine and that’s going to help our defense industrial base. But that also doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you just spend the money on weapons to deal with the Chinese to deter them directly? Because you can’t use a weapon again, usually. You can’t use a missile again—it’s going to blow up. You can’t use oil. Aircraft get worn out, artillery, ammunition, etc.
I do support increased investment in the defense industrial base coupled with reforms to make it more equitable and accessible. But if we’re giving money to Ukraine, that’s not the same. And especially because a lot of these weapons will take years and years to replace.
Bluey: You talked about how the Europeans need to step up and do more, particularly in their own backyard. Former President Donald Trump has been critical of NATO. Your thoughts on his criticism and if it’s justified?
Colby: President Trump was absolutely right to urge the Europeans—and put real pressure on them—to increase their defense spending when he was president and so forth.
We’ve been trying to be as polite and nice as possible for many years and they ignored us. So I think at this point, if you actually think the situation is as grave as the Europeans and many of the neoconservatives say, then you should make it clear to the Europeans that this has to happen.
Now, my personal view is the United States should come to NATO’s aid if NATO is attacked. However, I also have said this publicly, and I’ve said this to the Europeans for many years, we should only provide that level of support that is consistent with maintaining deterrence in the Pacific.
There’s going to be a limit. This is true of a Republican administration and a Democrat administration. There has got to be a limit to how much we can provide to Europe because we don’t have what’s called a two-war force. A two-war force basically says the American military can fight two large conflicts at the same time.
We don’t have that, not because we don’t want to, but because we’re dealing with a superpower in China that we haven’t focused on. When I was in the Trump administration, we shifted to say we’ve got to get the big thing right. You’ve got to take care of your case of acute heart disease before you address your arthritis.
The Biden administration actually adopted that same fundamental approach. Their strategy is pretty much the same. But the problem is the Chinese have been moving like gangbusters, so we haven’t solved the problem. What happens if Russia moves into the Baltics? We should deter them and encourage them not to. We’re going to give them what we can, but not things that we also need to defend ourselves and our forces and our allies in the first island chain. Why? Not because we like Asia more than Europe, but because Asia is more important and China’s a bigger threat.
We can’t get that wrong. The solution to this is not to just wallow and criticize each other, but for the Europeans to step up. They’re totally capable of doing this. They have far larger economy than Russia. And by the way, they did this during the Cold War. They were all spending a ton more on defense.
Bluey: Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Vladimir Putin. What was the biggest headline coming out of that interview? And how much stock do we take in some of the things Putin said and what should we disregard as propaganda?
Colby: Let me be clear, I think Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was an evil act. Ukraine has a legitimate just cause to self-defense. On the other hand, the world is not a morality play.
The administration itself has said that this war is going to end through negotiations. So I think the biggest thing that came out, at least that I could see, was that Putin at least ostensibly said that he was open to negotiations. Now he may be disingenuous or lying, but then I think it’s incumbent upon the administration.
This relates back to the supplemental. What’s the plan for ending this war? Because I think for a long time there’s been a kind of fantastical, magical thinking sort of idea to the end of this war that like, not only that the Ukrainians are going take back all of their territory, which looks unfortunately improbable, but more that the Russians are going be fundamentally changed.
Didn’t we learn from Iraq that you can’t fundamentally change a culture? And by the way, Russia is not Iraq, right? Russia’s got thousands of nuclear weapons. It’s one of the major powers of the world.
I agreed with Tucker’s reaction to Putin’s long disquisition on the history, “Well, yeah, a lot of countries have historical disputes.” That doesn’t mean it’s OK to use military force. I think a lot of it was Russian propaganda or spinning or whatever. I don’t think it was very effective, at least in changing a lot of minds in the United States.
There’s no court of right and wrong here. Putin is never going to be dragged in front of the International Criminal Court.
So how is this war going to end? It could just go on and maybe stalemate at some point. Or it’s going to end through some kind of negotiations. Obviously, it’s best for the Ukrainians to negotiate from a position of strength. We may sadly have missed that opportunity, but I think in any case, if the Europeans step up and support the Ukrainians more, they’ll be able to negotiate from a position of strength.
The Biden administration’s position has been very strange because privately, when they leak to the press and so forth, they’ll say this war is going to end through negotiations, but they actually never have the fortitude to publicly present that case.
As we enter what looks to be a very perilous 2024, America and its allies direly need a clear-eyed, rigorous strategy. I tried to lay one out and what it entails in my book.
I believe the book is, if anything, more relevant now than it was in 2021. https://t.co/ts5AAKmY2W
Bluey: Can you share with us about the Marathon Initiative that you founded?
Colby: You can follow me at @ElbridgeColby on X, and I’ve got a book, “The Strategy of Denial,” which came out a few years ago, though I think it’s actually more current now.
My partner and I started the Marathon Initiative a few years ago as a nonprofit 501(c)(3). In the foreign policy space, we say, “We’re living in an era of great power rivalry. There are no easy answers. Let’s go without fear or favor to where the right strategies are.”
That’s what we wanted do—create a think tank in the sense it was originally conceived of in the national security space, which was to think hard about the toughest problems, produce books enable people like me to be able to take a more unorthodox or reformist or even heretical approach that reflects reality.
My concern is whether it’s happening fast enough. Because I don’t think we have so much time, given China and so forth.
House Republicans on Friday demanded access to classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s home amid the Oversight panel’s probe of the Biden family. In a social media post by the GOP-majority House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, chaired by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the panel demanded the Department of Justice Department provide Congress with access “to Joe Biden’s stashed classified documents to determine if they were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling schemes.”
The move follows Comer’s request that “Special Counsel Robert Hur provide our committee with information about whether President Biden retained classified materials related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business schemes that brought in millions for the Biden family,” the panel wrote — and that the DOJ “refused to provide this information under the guise of ‘an ongoing investigation.'”
The committee said that since the probe is now over “and the Special Counsel’s report reveals Joe Biden kept classified materials related to Ukraine and China, two countries where the Bidens made millions,” the DOJ “must provide Congress with unfettered access to these documents.”
Hur released his report to the public on Thursday, but didn’t recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents — and stated he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office.
The records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
They also included documents related to Ukraine and China.
Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in June 2014 and also had joint business ventures with Chinese energy firms.
According to the full special counsel report, a “VP Personal” file folder contained a telephone call sheet from Dec. 12, 2015, talking points for a call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, and a handwritten note attached addressed to Biden’s executive assistant that states: “Get copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” The note is signed “Joe.” That document was marked as “Secret.”
Attached to that document was another, dated Dec. 11, 2015. The report describes that document as “a transcript documenting the substance of a Dec. 11, 2015 call between Mr. Biden and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.” The document is marked “CONFIDENTIAL” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.”
Biden gave a speech on Dec. 9, 2015 in which he discussed corruption in Ukraine.
“And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption,” Biden said in the speech. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.”
At the time, Burisma Holdings was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and Hunter Biden had a highly lucrative role on the board.
Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
The Biden administration is failing to properly track foreign ownership of U.S. farmlands and doesn’t appear to have a plan to begin tracking that data, according to an investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
According to a GAO report detailing the findings of its investigation, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has failed to consistently share timely data on foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land as required under the 1978 Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA). Further, Pentagon officials told investigators, according to the report, that USDA needs to regularly provide more up-to-date and specific AFIDA data.
“Sharing current data could help increase visibility into potential national security risks related to foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land,” the GAO report, which was published late Thursday, states. “USDA implements AFIDA across field offices and headquarters, but its processes to collect, track, and report key information are flawed.”
The GAO investigation concluded that USDA collects AFIDA data on paper forms filed with county or federal offices, but that its process is “unclear and challenging to implement.” And USDA also has no plans and timelines to create an online AFIDA database despite Congress mandating the agency create one by 2025.
President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual meeting at the White House alongside Agriculture Tom Vilsack in 2022. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
Finally, the government watchdog agency’s review of AFIDA data — the most recent of which is from 2021 — found the USDA has published errors such as reporting the largest land holding associated with China twice.
“This report confirms one of our worst fears: that not only is the USDA unable to answer the question of who owns what land and where, but that there is no plan by the department to internally reverse this dangerous flaw that affects our supply chain and economy,” Congressional Western Caucus Chairman Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., said. “Food security is national security, and we cannot allow foreign adversaries to influence our food supply while we stick our heads in the sand.”
“I will, in my capacity as a member of the Select Committee on the CCP, Chairman of the Western Caucus, and as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, be working to introduce measures aimed at fixing USDA’s internal reporting and data management to identify to Congress, and the American people, exactly who is investing in the over 40 million acres of U.S. farm land reported to have ties to foreign actors,” he continued.
In recent months, Republican lawmakers and local leaders nationwide have increased scrutiny on land purchases by foreign investors. The increasing number of land purchases has sparked concern that foreign companies and investors, particularly those from China, may be establishing a stranglehold of key U.S. food and energy supplies.
“China’s ownership of U.S. farmland is a threat to our food security and national security. An affordable, reliable food supply is critical to our nation’s well-being and prosperity and we must ensure America maintains control of our nation’s resources,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in 2022 after requesting the GAO investigation. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
USDA’s most recent data suggests that, as of 2021, foreign investment in U.S. agricultural land grew to approximately 40 million acres. Additionally, Chinese agricultural investment in the U.S. increased tenfold between 2009 and 2016 alone.
The apparent trend led to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., leading a letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro signed by nearly 130 fellow House Republicansin October 2022, requesting a probe into foreign investment in U.S. farmland and its “impact on national security, trade, and food security.”
“Growing foreign ownership of U.S. farmland, particularly by China, poses a direct threat to our food security and national security,” Thompson and Comer said in a joint statement Thursday.
“Safeguarding our farmland and food supply requires a whole of government approach and we will continue to work with the impacted agencies, related committees, and leadership to continue our robust oversight and to identify legislative vehicles to address the findings of the GAO report,” they added.
Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., delivers remarks at the Capitol on May 30, 2023. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
In February 2023, officials in Grand Forks, North Dakota, rejected a Chinese company’s proposed corn mill that received significant local pushback over concerns about its proximity to a U.S. Air Force base in the area. While the company, Chinese-owned Fufeng Group, was able to purchase 300 acres of land in the area, the local government rejected its building permits, effectively killing the project.
Air Force Assistant Secretary Andrew Hunter said prior to the Grand Forks City Council decision that the project would pose a “significant threat” to national security, but that the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) concluded it did not have jurisdiction in the case. CFIUS is an interagency taskforce overseen by the Department of the Treasury and tasked with reviewing certain foreign investments that may pose a national security threat.
In addition, a subsidiary of Chinese green energy firm Gotion High-Tech purchased 270 acres of land, including some zoned for agricultural use, in Green Charter Township, Michigan, in August. The land is slated to be used to build an electric vehicle battery component factory, but is located within 60 miles of military armories and within 100 miles from Camp Grayling, the largest U.S. National Guard training facility in the country.
Like its determination in the Fufeng Group case, CFIUS ruled in April 2023 that Gotion’s plans in Michigan are not covered transactions.
“The process to report and track foreign-owned agricultural land is complex and is governed by a 46 year-old law that depends on self-reporting by foreign buyers and sellers of U.S. agricultural land,” a USDA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “To fulfill our obligations under the law, USDA gathers information from the more than 3,000 counties and county equivalents in the United States, each with their own county clerk and recorder’s office — or none at all — feeding information into more than 50 different state systems.”
“The GAO’s recommendations would require changes by Congress, starting with the funding needed to increase staff and modernize our processes, in addition to a change in data collection mandates down to the county level,” they said. “Any system for tracking land purchases and owners would be complicated, expensive, and create a potential risk to producer privacy, the price of agricultural land, and individual American seller interests.”
Meanwhile, the report was coincidentally published just hours after Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack met with Chinese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian.
“I look forward to further exchanges and cooperation as we continue to forge a relationship that expands and improves market access opportunities for U.S. farmers and ranchers in China, an important agricultural export market,” Vilsack said.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Many are concerned that China, like the Pied Piper, is brainwashing our youth pitting them against American values such as pushing antisemitism and endorsing the terrorist group Hamas through the use of Tic Tok a popular platform among the millennials.
‘Borat’ Star Blasts TikTok Executives for Allowing Nazi-Like Anti-Semitism
“Obviously a lot of what Sacha says, there’s truth to that,” Presser said, citing Cohen’s call for action on all social media fronts, but said there was no “magic button” to fix the problem. Messing tried to win a commitment to clamp down on the pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea,” which has become a shorthand for the elimination of Israel. Presser said TikTok’s 40,000 moderators believe the words are open to interpretation. “Where it is clear exactly what they mean — ‘kill the Jews, eradicate the state of Israel’ — that content is violative and we take it down,” he said.
“Our approach up until Oct. 7, continuing to today, has been that for instances where people use the phrase where it’s not clear, where someone is just using it casually, then that has been considered… READ MORE…
Poll: Majority of Americans 18-24 Believe Israel Should ‘Be Ended and Given to Hamas’
In the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the disturbing level of antisemitism among young Americans has been on full display. That stark reality is on full display in a new poll conducted by Harvard-Harris poll. The poll reveals that 51% of young Americans between 18 and 24 years old believe Israel should “be ended and given to Hamas.” This is what happens when you spend four years being indoctrinated by radical leftists on college campuses and get your political advice from TikTok. The poll further reveals that only 32% believe in a two-state solution.Just 17% said other Arab states should be asked to… READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A leaked document coauthored by American and Chinese scientists provides fresh and disturbing evidence supporting the Covid origin lab-leak theory.
Emily Kopp, an investigative journalist at U.S. Right to Know, an online publication about “Pursuing truth and transparency for public health,” reported recently that her organization has obtained a 2018 grant proposal called Project DEFUSE, coauthored by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and their counterparts in the United States, including EcoHealth Alliance.
According to Kopp, Project DEFUSE “proposed engineering high-risk coronaviruses of the same species as SARS and SARS-CoV-2.” The content of this proposal is concerning for several reasons. First, the proposal “involved synthesizing spike proteins with furin cleavage sites — the same feature that supercharged SARS-CoV-2 into the most infectious pandemic pathogen in a century.”
Second, the proposal publicly stated that such risky research would be done at American scientist Ralph Baric’s high-containment BSL-3 lab at the University of North Carolina. But Peter Daszak, CEO of EcoHealth, revealed in his private comments that once the project is funded, he would let the WIV conduct some of the risky research, despite knowing the WIV is only a BSL-2 lab and has “fewer safety precautions than required in the U.S.” Baric responded that “U.S. researchers would ‘freak out’ if they knew the novel coronavirus engineering and testing work would be conducted in a BSL-2 lab.”
According to Kopp of U.S. Right to Know, “Biosafety levels range from one (BSL-1) to four (BSL-4), with BSL-4 being the most stringent. … Many scientists say viruses that may be transmitted through the air should at minimum be studied in BSL-3.”
Daszak and other Americans on the project team omitted to disclose the WIV’s involvement to Project DEFUSE’s intended funder, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), “in order to evade any national security concerns about doing high-level biosecurity work in China.” Daszak didn’t provide Chinese scientists’ resumes to DARPA “to downplay the non-US focus of this proposal so that DARPA doesn’t see this as a negative.”
What’s even scarier is that these documents “also show the researchers intended to use less regulated SARS-related coronavirus research as proof of concept in order to extend their high-risk methods to more deadly viruses like Ebola, Marburg, Hendra and Nipah,” according to Kopp. Some scientists’ ongoing interest in experimenting with those contagious and lethal viruses is one of the many reasons why we must understand the origin of Covid-19 because such knowledge may help prevent the next pandemic.
Matt Ridley, a British member of Parliament and coauthor of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, writes at Spiked:
It was shocking enough that he [Peter Daszak] failed to tell the world about this proposal, which was leaked instead. It was still more shocking to find that it contained a specific proposal for inserting ‘human-specific cleavage sites’ into sarbecoviruses for the first time, because exactly such a feature is found in the virus that causes Covid, and in none of the other 1,500 known sarbecoviruses. That cleavage site is the reason we had a pandemic because it makes the virus more infectious in human airways and it seems uniquely suited to the human system.
Although DARPA eventually declined to fund Project DEFUSE, Daszak, who has a reputation for not taking no for an answer, likely completed the proposed work with the WIV anyway with other funding sources. Daszak’s EcoHealth has received at least $8 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 2014 and 2021. In 2021, after congressional Republicans’ repeated requests, the NIH finally admitted that it had funded the WIV “to study the risk to humans of coronaviruses circulating in bats in China” through EcoHealth.
NIH’s admission came after the Intercept made public two grant proposals submitted by EcoHealth Alliance to the NIH on gain-of-function research on coronavirus and a progress report covering June 2018 to May 2019.
These documents revealed that EcoHealth’s experiments “involv[ed] infectious clones of MERS-CoV, the virus that caused a deadly outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012.” EcoHealth’s data also demonstrates that “chimeric SARS-like viruses caused more severe disease in a humanized animal model than the original virus,” according to Alina Chan, a Boston-based molecular biologist and coauthor of the book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. All this information contradicts EcoHealth’s previous repeated denials that no such high-risk experiment ever took place.
Given what we know now, a coronavirus pandemic that emerged out of Wuhan more than three years ago seems less like a coincidence. Yet Daszak of EcoHealth has been the most vocal lab-leak theory denier. Among his efforts to shut down any public discussion of the lab-leak theory, the most infamous one was that he organized a group of scientists to co-sign a letter published by Lancet, denouncing the lab-leak theory without disclosing his conflict of interest (his intimate collaboration with the WIV).
Last week, The Wall Street Journal dropped another bombshell, that Daszak’s EcoHealth is under federal investigation (civil, not criminal) about whether it double-billed U.S. taxpayers for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the dangerous gain-of-function coronavirus research in China. Daszak denied any wrongdoing.
The leaked Project DEFUSE documents are a reminder, according to Chan, who commented on X, “This is a pattern of dishonesty. Clearly, we cannot take the word of conflicted parties. It is urgently important that the public and investigators gain full access to all EcoHealth documents relating to WIV research.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that at least 3 million people worldwide died of Covid in 2020. Not to mention that millions more people’s lives, mental health, and economic well-being have been negatively affected by government policies. Many of us still feel the effects of those policies today. The pandemic was a life-changing event for many. Therefore, we all deserve to know how the pandemic started and be better prepared for the next one.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has suppressed any discussion of the lab-leak theory for one apparent reason — to avoid accountability. Yet it is disappointing that the Biden administration, congressional Democrats, and their corporate media allies have shown little interest in uncovering Covid’s origin. They have suppressed the lab-leak theory as shamelessly as the CCP has done, despite that “the evidence that this virus probably came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is now voluminous, detailed and strong,” said Matt Ridley, and their collective silence “speaks volumes.”
Democrats and corporate media’s collective silence and the lack of curiosity about the virus’s origin are likely driven by two reasons. First, they cannot blame the origin of Covid on Trump because the NIH funding occurred under former President Obama. Any investigation of Covid’s origin will inevitably lead to the questionable conduct of Anthony Fauci, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, and his allies at the NIH, from underwriting the WIV’s gain-of-function research to suppressing the lab-leak theory since the beginning of the pandemic.
Second, the Democrats and corporate media’ conduct during the pandemic has shown that they were only interested in taking advantage of a crisis to grab more power and expand their control over the country and the American people. Public health prevention is their last concern. Therefore, it is up to concerned citizens and independent media to keep searching for truth and demanding accountability.
China has used everything from warships and cutters to fishing boats to harass and intimidate the Philippines and other regional actors. Pictured: The Philippines’ coast guard takes part in a maritime exercise June 6 with the U.S. and Japan in waters facing the South China Sea. (Photo: Jes Aznar/Getty Images)
James Di Pane is a policy analyst focusing on defense policy in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
Erin Leone is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
Chinese leader Xi Jinpinglast week told the communist regime’s coast guard simply to enforce maritime law, but we all know what that really means—and it has nothing to do with upholding the rule of law on the high seas.
Chinese vessels collided last month with a Philippine resupply boat and a Philippine coast guard ship within the span of a few hours. These confrontations were the latest of many between the two countries over competing territorial claims to a submerged reef called the Second Thomas Shoal, a military outpost in the Spratly Islands some 120 miles from the Philippines.
This situation underscores the need for America to adopt a robust response in the region and defend its treaty allies from Chinese bullying—before the situation escalates into the next major international conflict.
The Second Thomas Shoal is the site of a critical yet unorthodox Philippine military outpost in the form of a World War II warship run aground on the Spratly Islands, equipped with relatively few marines. The ship’s presence maintains Philippine sovereignty over the shoal, but the vessel remains a liability; its dilapidated state requires frequent resupply missions. In fact, international scrutiny has grown with the belief that the grounded ship may fall off the reef and sink, allowing China to seize the shoal.
Philippine resupply missions are fodder for increasingly aggressive Chinese vessels that attempt to isolate the post, including the two collisions last month.
It’s not new that Chinese ships operate within the Second Thomas Shoal, the Spratly Islands, and the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. China increasingly has used its “maritime militia” to conduct illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing as well as coercive activities against others who claim the South China Sea.
To date, China has used everything from warships and cutters to fishing boats to harass and intimidate the Philippines and other regional actors.
In October, for example, a Chinese naval vessel followed and attempted to cross in front of a Philippine resupply ship near the Spratly Islands.
In September, the Philippines accused China’s maritime militia of damaging coral reefs in the Spratly Islands.
In August, a Philippine military supply boat en route to the shoal reportedly was blocked by Chinese coast guard vessels using water cannons.
In July, the Philippines noted almost 50 Chinese fishing ships “swarming” around a reef in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.
And in April, a Chinese coast guard ship came alarmingly close to colliding with a Philippine patrol vessel heading toward Second Thomas Shoal.
China’s escalation from using fishing boats to deploying naval and coast guard ships and increasing the frequency of these dangerous encounters is a clear warning signal that Xi is taking off the gloves. Now that China has succeeded in physically preventing supplies from reaching the shoal, what will its next moves be?
Although the Second Thomas Shoal is over 8,000 miles from the U.S. mainland, China’s belligerent actions there have major implications for America. The Philippines, with a shared wartime experience, is a longstanding treaty ally with which we have enjoyed strong relations for over 75 years.
During Oct. 22 discussions, Manila and Washington explored the possibility of conducting joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea. The U.S. government has reiterated that any action against Philippine territory in the South China Sea, including islands and shoals claimed by China, would be covered by the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty. Consistent with this, the U.S. could consider joint resupply missions and engage in a persistent, robust naval presence surrounding the shoal.
A lacking response to China’s prior provocations enabled and empowered Xi to pursue the escalations seen today. China’s illegal fishing and maritime bullying activities in neighbors’ waters are a litmus test to gauge the willingness of the United States and the international community to uphold and enforce maritime law. America must do a better job of matching Chinese aggression with steadfast deterrence while highlighting China’s blatant violations of international law.
As The Heritage Foundation has pointed out, the U.S. is in a new Cold War with China. The U.S. should help the Philippines develop better airlift capabilities for resupplying and also shadow Philippine ships to deter China from interfering during resupply missions.
What’s happening at the Second Thomas Shoal is a harbinger of events to come if the U.S. permits this multipronged Chinese pressure campaign to destabilize Indo-Pacific security and international law to go unchecked.
President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping met this week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. The Biden administration touted the meeting as a significant foreign policy achievement, even though it accomplished little but photo ops.
Leading up to the APEC meeting, Xi had a weak hand, while the leverage was on the U.S. side. China’s economic growth has slowed down significantly. Its once high-flying property sector crashed and exports dropped. The youth unemployment rate reached 22 percent in June 2023 before Beijing stopped publishing the data altogether out of fear of causing public panic. Foreign firms have pulled billions out of China, concerned over its weak economy, hostile regulatory environment, and geopolitical tensions with the U.S. China risks prolonged economic stagnation as consumers are unwilling to spend money due to financial and political uncertainty.
In contrast, the U.S. economy grew almost 5 percent in the third quarter despite facing its own
challenges, such as inflation and ballooning national debt. Since China needs American companies’ investments and technologies to revive its weak economy, Biden could have waited for Xi to plead for a summit and used it as leverage to demand some behavioral changes from China. Preconditions could have been that China’s military stops its harassment of Taiwan and the Philippines in the South China Sea, or no more funding Russia and Iran’s geopolitical aggressions by purchasing their oil.
Sadly, Biden and his foreign policy team are known to turn U.S. leverage into weakness by focusing on the wrong priorities. For example, they continue to believe that climate change is the world’s biggest challenge and that the U.S. needs China’s cooperation to save the planet, even though China remains the world’s biggest polluter after signing the Paris Climate Agreement.
Biden’s green initiatives have only deepened the U.S. economy’s dependency on China since the communist regime dominates the global supply chain for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries for electric vehicles due to its willingness to exploit slave laborers (most are ethnic minorities) and the nation’s abundant supply of coal.
Biden, led by misguided policies, sent several cabinet-level officials to China, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They practically begged Xi for a meeting. Xi, of course, played hard to get. Rather than reciprocating senior U.S. government officials’ multiple visits, Xi waited until last month to send Wang Yi, China’s minister of foreign affairs, to visit the U.S. and only recently agreed to a meeting with Biden.
A few days before the summit, China’s People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), faulted the U.S. for the deterioration of the Sino-U.S. relationship and demanded the U.S. “abandon its aggressive Cold War and aggressive mindset, fix the ‘action deficit’ with practical actions and concrete policies,” even though China is the one who has an action deficit as wide as the Grand Canyon. Remember when Xi promised President Barack Obama not to militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea and then armed those islands anyway and claimed 90 percent of the international waterway is Chinese territory?
Communist Party’s Playbook
What Xi has been doing is following the typical CCP playbook. Miles Yu, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, points out that CCP leaders, starting with Mao, love to “use international gatherings to lend legitimacy to [a] beleaguered regime at home.” By playing hard to get with the Biden administration, Xi hid his weakened hand behind a strongman image. He “seeks to send the message to his caged people — aided by the CCP’s relentless propaganda machine — that their supreme leader is respected, even revered, on the global stage,” according to Yu. Another CCP go-to tactic is to make vague and unenforceable pledges for the distant future in exchange for concessions from the other side now.
Unfortunately, the Biden team fell for the CCP’s trick. In a post-summit press conference, Biden put on a brave face and claimed the summit was “among the most constructive and productive we’ve had,” with three key agreements: to restart cooperation on controlling fentanyl, to resume direct (high-level) military-to-military contact, and to set up expert exchanges on risks and safety issues in artificial intelligence (AI).
But none of these represent any meaningful achievement, since the CCP is known for making empty promises, and the joke is on whoever believes them. On the fentanyl issue, many China observers, including Kelley Currie, a former diplomat, quickly pointed out on X, “Don’t forget that China agreed to do this exact thing in 2019 and dramatically reduced the flow of fentanyl out of China, only to switch tactics and instead supply mass amounts of precursor chemicals to Mexican cartels.”
On the AI issue, China promised nothing. Xi has made enhancing the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities through AI a national priority and has already committed plenty of resources for AI research and development. Xi will not change his course because of some experts’ exchanges on AI with Americans. If such a discussion occurs, China will exploit it to identify which American AI expert to poach and what latest AI technology China should steal.
Military Aggression
Biden clearly believes that resuming direct, high-level military-to-military contact between the U.S. and China was a significant accomplishment. He tweeted, “Clear and open communication between our defense establishments is vital to avoid miscalculation by either side and prevent conflict.” But it was Chinese military leaders who refused to pick up phone calls from the U.S. side, and they did so under Xi’s order.
Chinese pilots frequently made dangerous maneuvers near the U.S. and its allies’ military assets in the South China Sea, not because of a lack of communication but because of Xi’s deliberate policy decision: China regards the international water as its territory and tries to block the U.S. and its allies from accessing it through intimidation. According to Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, “China wants the United States and its partners to feel worried about rising military and security risks in East Asia.”
It’s unlikely the Chinese military’s aggressive behavior in and above the South China Sea will stop after the Biden-Xi summit. Furthermore, Elbridge Colby, a former Pentagon official, points out that military-to-military communication is “not vital. It’s not the key issue.” Responding to Biden’s self-congratulatory tweet, Colby wrote, “The key issue is China undertaking a historic military buildup and increasingly using that military to get ready for a war, as your own appointees and generals point out. Just really nowhere near the seriousness we need.”
President Biden and his foreign policy team want Americans to believe that his meeting with Xi in San Francisco was successful. But in truth, the U.S. gained nothing from the Biden-Xi summit. Don’t expect Xi to fulfill any promises or change his policies. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s recent 753-page report to Congress presented evidence that Xi is preparing his military forces and the rest of the country for war and treats diplomacy with the United States, such as the most recent Biden-Xi summit, “primarily as a tool for forestalling and delaying U.S. pressure over a period of years while China moves ever further down the path of developing its own economic, military, and technological capabilities.”
If anything, the world is becoming more dangerous after the Biden-Xi summit, and we are on Xi’s timeline.
President Joe Biden met Chinese dictator Xi Jinping for high-level talks in California on Wednesday, marking the first time the two leaders have spoken face-to-face in a year. While specific details of the conversation will assuredly remain under wraps, a White House readout of the discussion indicates that Biden and Xi covered a variety of hot-button issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s defense against Hamas terrorists in the Middle East, and Taiwan. The two leaders also agreed to revive communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries.
Given Biden and his administration’s history of getting humiliated in talks with their Chinese counterparts, it wasn’t surprising that Wednesday’s meeting didn’t produce any headway on holding China accountable for its human rights violations, military aggression, or cover-up of Covid-19’s origins. But aside from Biden’s incompetence at juggling U.S. foreign policy, Wednesday’s U.S.-China talks raised a far more concerning question. How can Biden be trusted to manage U.S. relations with China when he and his family have received millions of dollars from Chinese entities connected to the Chinese Communist Party?
The Paper Trail
Despite Joe Biden claiming on national television that his son, Hunter, “has not made money” from Chinese entities, the New York Post published a bombshell story in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, sourced to Hunter’s laptop, which called Biden’s assurances into question. Emails from the laptop showed Hunter had “pursued lucrative deals” with CEFC China Energy Co., a Chinese energy giant that operates as “an arm of the Chinese Government.”
As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, one email obtained by the Post showed Hunter describing a business transaction as “interesting for me and my family.” Another listed the younger Biden as “‘Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC’ with pay at ‘850’ and could offer monetary compensation for six people.”
“Those involved in the email from James Gilliar of the international consulting firm J2cR, including Hunter, were allegedly part of the four people who created a ‘provisional agreement’ to split 80 percent of the ‘equity’ of the company equally with ’10 for Jim’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy,’” Boyd wrote. While “Jim” is in reference to Joe’s older brother James Biden, a highly credible confidential human source has since corroborated that “big guy” was a moniker used to refer to Joe Biden.
Hunter’s dealings with CEFC often involved Ye Jianming, the since-arrestedhead of CEFC who has ties to China’s military. In early 2017, Hunter worked for Ye “as a counselor and adviser” and was later hired by CEFC in September 2017 to serve as defense counsel for Chinese businessman Patrick Ho, “despite his little experience in criminal defense.” Ho — who served as Ye’s “top lieutenant” and whom Hunter referred to as “the f-cking spy chief of China” — was arrested and later convicted by the Justice Department for bribing the presidents of several African countries.
Bank records obtained by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office indicate that Hunter was paid $1 million for representing Ho. According to Yahoo News, however, “it is not clear what work, if any, [Hunter] did for Ho,” with court records of Ho’s case “show[ing] no indication that Biden or his law firm at the time … participated in Ho’s legal defense.”
A bevy of communication records released by the House Ways and Means Committee in September included a December 2018 WhatsApp text exchange between Hunter and Hallie Biden — who was the widow of Joe’s other son, Beau, and dated Hunter after Beau’s passing — lamenting Ho’s arrest and Ye’s disappearance. The records also showed how Hunter sold the Biden “brand” to overseas business associates to increase the family’s fortunes.
But as additional evidence released by House Republicans has shown, the Bidens’ financial connections with CEFC and its associates run deeper than previously known, and in several cases, further implicate Joe Biden. Despite the elder Biden repeatedly denying involvement in his family’s foreign business ventures, Hunter’s communication records indicate that Joe was keenly aware of his son’s overseas financial interests and served as a primary force behind the operation.
A series of July 2017 WhatsApp messages sent by Hunter to Chinese businessman Raymond Zhao show the younger Biden leveraging “his father’s name and threaten[ing] CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with Ye.” In his messages, Hunter explicitly stated, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.” He further threatened to leverage “the man sitting next to me and every person he knows” to punish Zhao should he fail to follow through on the arrangement.
Within 10 days of that conversation, a CEFC subsidiary poured roughly $5 million into a Biden-linked bank account. Bank records recently obtained by House Republicans show that on the same day, Hunter “transferred $400,000 out of [that account] and into his corporation, Owasco P.C.,” before wiring $150,000 of these CEFC-tied funds to a company owned by James and his wife, Sara, who withdrew $50,000 from said company and deposited the money into their personal checking account. Less than a month later, on Sept. 3, 2017, Sara signed a $40,000 check to Joe, claiming it represented a “loan repayment.”
As noted by The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland, “the $40,000 Joe ‘the Big Guy’ Biden received was exactly 10 percent of the $400,000 Hunter Biden received from CEFC.”
At a time when China is becoming increasingly aggressive towards the U.S. and its allies, Americans need leaders doing everything in their power to stand up for U.S. interests and limit threats to their security. But with Biden at the helm, that’s no longer a guarantee.
Lunch Bucket Joe and his family’s financial ties to individuals and entities connected to Beijing’s communist government make him a liability for the United States. Americans can’t — and shouldn’t — trust that Biden’s judgment over anything having to do with U.S.-China relations is fully within their best interests.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
After years of California taxpayers begging, Gavin Newsom has finally put his foot down and decided to clean up San Francisco of the Human Facies, needles, and the homeless, but not for the local communities’ benefit. He’s doing this to appease the communist dictator Xi of China.
It seems like it was only a few days ago Newsom was in China licking that genocidal regime’s boots. Oh wait, it was only a few days ago. They must have a lot in common in how to move forward in how to lead their countries.
As a Transplant from California, it breaks my heart to see what Governor Newsom and the Democrats have done to that beautiful state.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
House Republicans want President Joe Biden to “challenge Beijing” when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in San Francisco. The White House confirmed Friday that Biden and Xi will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. During their first meeting in nearly a year, they will discuss trade, Taiwan, and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations.
Republicans on the House Select Committee on China sent Biden a letter Wednesday urging the president to “challenge Beijing” to prove that it wants to improve relations with the U.S., according to multiple media reports.
The items, in the letter, that Biden should demand from Xi included:
Release all U.S. citizens deemed wrongly detained in China.
Cease all military operations in Taiwan’s air space.
Establish know-your-customer requirements on shipments of fentanyl ingredients.
Release and drop charges against Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai and others held by China.
End near-collisions between Chinese and U.S. warships.
“If Xi fails to deliver, your administration must end its pursuit of zombie engagement and shift gears to a more assertive posture in order to defend American interests and values,” committee Chair Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., wrote, NBC News reported.
“Despite repeated concessions from Washington over the past year, Beijing has made none and continues to threaten core U.S. interests,” Gallagher said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“At this week’s meeting, the administration should walk away from the table if the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] proves unwilling to address even the most basic issues in the relationship, such as immediately releasing all Americans wrongfully detained in the PRC [People’s Republic of China], ceasing dangerous and unjustifiable intercepts of American forces, and halting operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone east of the Median Line.”
GOP members on the China committee said they agree with the administration’s “desire to deter a devastating conflict” with China but expressed concerns that the U.S. has made too many concessions while not demanding enough. Republicans criticized Biden for not sanctioning Chinese officials for the “erosion of Hong Kong’s authority” or for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
Biden and Xi last met in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, at a summit of the Group of 20 economies.
Joe Biden received $40,000 from Chinese communists, funneled through his son and brother and their businesses, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer revealed Wednesday morning.
“Where’s the money?,” President Joe Biden quipped over the summer when asked by a reporter to comment on the House’s investigation into the bribery scandal swirling around his family. Comer continues to answer that question for the country, with a press release and video detailing the House Oversight Committee’s latest discovery from subpoenaed bank records that establish Joe Biden directly profited from his family’s influence-peddling.
A 12-page memorandum from the Oversight Committee’s staff to the majority members of the committee, which The Federalist has reviewed, details the latest development Comer summarized in his video and press release. The bottom line is a $40,000 check from Sara and James Biden’s personal checking account written to Joe Biden on Sept. 3, 2017, claiming to represent a “loan repayment.” But following that money upstream reveals it originated from the Chinese “business” partners Hunter Biden had threatened a little over a month earlier in a WhatsApp message.
Hunter Biden had sent that WhatsApp message on July 30, 2017, to Raymond Zhao, an associate of CEFC, the Chinese energy giant Hunter and James Biden began courting in 2016, while Joe Biden was vice president. After Joe Biden left office at the end of the Obama administration, according to one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, the Chinese communist-connected CEFC sent them a $3 million wire in March of 2017 as a “thank you” for the Bidens’ assistance in furthering their business interests.
But CEFC had committed to investing another $10 million, which an email recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicated would be used to form a joint venture. CEFC’s founder and chairman, Ye Jianming, was to hold 50 percent interest in the company, and Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, and some of their business associates would hold the other 50 percent. That email noted Hunter Biden would own a 10 percent interest in the holding company for “the big guy,” a moniker used for Joe Biden.
However, as of the end of July 2017, the $10 million cash infusion had yet to materialize, prompting Hunter Biden to text Zhao on WhatsApp, telling him to “Please have the director call me- not James or Tony or Jim- have him call me tonight,” with the “director” being an apparent reference to the executive director of CEFC, and James and Tony being business partners, along with Jim Biden. The text continued:
I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. I am very concerned that the Chairman has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand. And now means tonight. And Z if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang (sic) or the Chairman I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness — and all too often I am standing over top of them saying I warned you. From this moment until whenever he reaches me. It I [sic] 9:45 AM here and i assume 9:45 PM there so his night is running out.
The Oversight Committee memorandum then detailed how in a WhatsApp message on July 31, 2017, Zhao responded, “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family.” Hunter later followed up with a text to another CEFC associate, Gongwen Dong, stating, “The Biden’s [sic] are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnershipn [sic]. Please let’s not quibble over peanuts.”
The money soon began flowing, with Hunter Biden first opening a bank account on Aug. 3, 2017, for a new company, Hudson West III, which would serve as the joint venture between Hunter Biden and CEFC’s Gongwen Dong. Hunter Biden’s business, Owasco P.C., owned 50 percent of Hudson West III, and Dong’s company, Hudson West V, owned the other 50 percent.
On Aug. 8, 2017, financial records show Hunter Biden’s new business venture with CEFC received a $5 million wire from the CEFC-connected business Northern International Capital. That same day, Hunter Biden transferred $400,000 out of Hudson West III and into his corporation, Owasco P.C. From those funds, Hunter purchased a Porsche and transferred funds to other of his personal or business accounts.
Then on Aug. 14, 2017, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 from his Owasco account to the Lion Hall Group — the company owned by James and Sara Biden. Two weeks later, Sara Biden “signed a withdrawal ticket for $50,000 from the Lion Hall Group bank account,” and on the same day deposited that $50,000 into her and James’ joint personal checking account. Soon after, on Sept. 3, 2017, Sara Biden signed the $40,000 check payable to Joe Biden.
The House Oversight staff memorandum provides a clear narrative of these transactions and copies of the relevant bank records. The memorandum also added this graphic to further crystalize the money trail:
Significantly, the House memorandum also established that the $40,000 used to supposedly repay a loan to Joe Biden came solely from funds the communist China-connected CEFC paid to Hunter Biden to “cooperate with the family.” The House Oversight staff’s memorandum made that point clear by detailing, in addition to the flow of funds from CEFC to Joe Biden, the balances in the various accounts prior to the receipt of those funds.
For instance, before Sara Biden transferred $50,000 into their personal checking account from which they paid Joe Biden $40,000, their balance was $46.88. And before Hunter Biden transferred the $150,000 into the Lion Hall Group bank account, that account showed a balance of $1,964.62.
So, whether James and Sara Biden actually owed Joe Biden $40,000 is irrelevant because the money they used to repay the supposed loan came from the Chinese company that Hunter and James groomed to serve as the family cash cow during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. And CEFC only provided that capital after Hunter Biden — saying he and his father were sitting there trying to understand why the promised $10 million hadn’t yet materialized — threatened their Chinese counterparts.
It’s also interesting to note that the $40,000 Joe “the Big Guy” Biden received was exactly 10 percent of the $400,000 Hunter Biden received from CEFC.
With Wednesday’s release of a copy of the $40,000 check paid to Joe Biden, Comer has provided two examples of the now-president directly benefitting from his son and brother’s selling of his political influence. Earlier this month, Comer released evidence establishing James Biden paid Joe $200,000 in funds the president’s brother obtained from the since-bankrupted Americore.
Wednesday’s news, however, proves even more scandalous because the funds originated from individuals connected to the Chinese Communist Party who first partnered with Hunter and James Biden while Joe Biden was vice president — and the payment followed Hunter Biden’s threatening text message, which invoked his father’s name (and presence) and warned of his wrath.
But to Joe Biden apologists, this will likely remain “no evidence” of corruption.
This article has been updated since publication.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Will the choice in the 2024 election be Tick(Biden) or Treat(Trump)? This is just a thought that came to me this Halloween season after all the damage that Obama 2.0 has done to our country under Biden.
This disaster isn’t just Obama/Biden policies. This is Democrat policy, and unless we get Trump in Office along with taking over the Senate and the House, we will have no hope to save this country. Illegal immigrants Hordes of thousands are coming across our border every day. This is going to destroy our Republic as it was founded based on freedom and justice under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Governor Gavin Newsom, in an effort to look presidential, takes a trip to Communist China to lick their boots and kiss their ring while ignoring their human rights atrocities and the genocidal slave labor treatment of the Uyghurs.
Governor Newscom is running a covert not-so-stealthy campaign for president, smelling blood in the water with Joe Biden’s failing poll numbers and cognitive decline. Still, he’s not fooling anyone but possibly the mainstream media and a few sycophant followers.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
As the Biden family’s corruption scandals tumble out into the open, corporate media badly want you to think the only story here is about Hunter Biden, a struggling drug addict who may have made some unwise decisions while grieving the loss of his brother. The more evidence — from whistleblower testimony to documentation — of President Joe Biden’s involvement arises, the more frantically they shout “no evidence!” and insist the elder Biden was only involved to the extent that he loves his son and talks with his wealthy foreign friends about the weather.
But setting aside the evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in the access-for-sale scheme — of which there is an abundance — there’s another central figure in the operation. The participation of James Biden, Hunter’s uncle and Joe’s brother, shows just how much of a family affair the scandal is, with Joe Biden, the family’s “only asset,” at the top.
So what exactly do we know about James Biden’s involvement?
Payments from CCP-Linked Energy Firm
Chinese energy company CEFC, a state-backed firm that is “effectively an arm of the Chinese Government,” paid the Biden family and their associates millions — presumably for “access” to Joe Biden — funneling the cash through Robinson Walker LLC, an account run by Biden family associate Rob Walker. After receiving a $3 million payout from CEFC, Robinson Walker LLC wired two $50,000 payments to an account belonging to James Biden on April 3, 2017, another $120,000 on April 20, $125,000 on April 24, and $15,000 on May 18, bringing James Biden’s total receipt from CEFC in that exchange to $360,000.
Later, James also received money via his consulting firm, Lion Hall Group. “Between Aug. 14, 2017 and Aug. 3, 2018, [Hunter Biden’s company] Owasco sent 20 wires totaling $1,398,999 to the Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm that lists James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, on the bank account,” Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley reported in 2020. The transfers started days after CEFC wired millions to Hudson West III, a joint venture between Hunter Biden and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming, which began sending money to Owasco. After the transaction into the Lion Hall Group account was flagged “for potential criminal financial activity,” the bank “submitted the account for closure.”
In August 2017, around the time those payments started, James Biden was made a manager at Hudson West III, to be paid $65,000 a month.
Hudson West III also sent a total of $76,746 directly to Lion Hall Group in 2018.
On top of that, James, his wife Sara, and Hunter went on a $101,291 spending spree with credit cards opened by Hunter and Kevin Dong, who “served as ‘Chairman Ye[’s] CEFC emissary’ in the United States.” The three Bidens purchased “extravagant items, including airline tickets and multiple items at Apple Inc. stores, pharmacies, hotels and restaurants.”
Two years later, The Washington Post confirmed Johnson and Grassley’s discoveries, admitting “the Chinese energy conglomerate and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle.”
On Thursday, House investigators subpoenaed bank records for both Hunter and James Biden after additional records revealed “the Bidens and their associates have received over $20 million in payments from foreign entities.”
Meetings and Communication with Hunter Biden’s Foreign Associates
Documents released by the House Ways and Means Committee last week show dozens of WhatsApp communications involving James Biden, including direct communications between Hunter and James, as well as group messages between Hunter, James, and associates like Tony Bobulinski, Rob Walker, and James Gilliar, and group messages between Hunter, James, Kevin Dong, and Mervyn Yan, whom IRS investigators described as one of the “U.S. managers for CEFC related to the Hudson West entities” along with Dong.
On Aug. 27, 2017, Hunter Biden discussed a luncheon with Kevin Dong, telling him that James would be bringing Joe Biden along for an appearance. “My uncle will be here with his BROTHER who would like to say hello to the Chairman,” Hunter wrote.
On Sept. 27, 2017, James Biden messaged Hunter, Yan, and Dong that a meeting between them was “set” at “The Carlyle Hotel Madison Ave at 76th.” “We will meet you in the room, I’m here … Hunter will be arriving shortly,” James wrote. The following day, he sent details for a meeting at a Ritz Carlton in Atlanta to the same group.
In an interview with IRS investigators, James Biden admitted to attending a luncheon in Romania with Hunter, Walker, and Gilliar — a luncheon which James “understood … to be a side deal.”
He also told the IRS he had met with Chairman Ye Jianming of CEFC “once,” along with “the Director” (presumably CEFC Director Bo Zhang), in New York City at Hunter Biden’s request. James even showed Ye’s wife around the city, taking her to private schools where she might enroll her children, he told investigators.
Furthermore, when Patrick Ho — whom Hunter had described as the “spy chief of China” — was arrested by the DOJ for “his role in a multi-year, multimillion-dollar scheme to bribe top officials of Chad and Uganda in exchange for business advantages for CEFC,” James Biden was his first call. (James claims to believe Ho was actually looking for Hunter.)
James’ Role in the ’10 Held By H for the Big Guy’ Email
In October 2020, the New York Post published a May 2017 email that was sent to Hunter Biden discussing “remuneration packages” that included a provision of “10 held by H for the big guy?” — whom involved parties have confirmed is Joe Biden.
The email described a “provisional agreement” splitting up “equity” in an unnamed venture, with numbers indicating percentages. Twenty percent each would go to people identified as H, RW, JG, and TB — abbreviations that correspond, the Post noted, to the names in the email thread: Hunter, Rob Walker, James Gilliar, and Tony Bobulinski. In addition to the “10 held by Hunter for the big guy,” another 10 would go to “Jim,” which almost certainly referred to James Biden.
James and Hunter Discuss Money, ‘Protecting Dad,’ and Getting ‘Help’ From Joe
Despite telling the IRS “that he recalled not being involved with anything beyond 2017,” James Biden sent a message to Hunter in February 2018 that he was “in a near panic” because “we got nothing in Feb! … Did K [likely Kevin Dong] cut us off in Feb? I thought you had said that $ were wired into your account , 82.5 was on its way. We can’t find any record that was sent. Did I miss something?”
James continued to frantically try to reach Hunter for answers, texting weeks later that “I also have something at stake as well.”
In March 2018, Hunter asked James to let him know in writing if James “no longer [wished] to be involved” and expressed regret that “you’ve been drawn into something purely for the purpose of protecting Dad”:
If YOU NO LONGER [W]ISH TO BE INVOLVED IN THIS VENTURE REGARDLESS of how tangentially I need it in writing. Because [as] you have pointed out over and over again- you cannot be my uncle or my protector and counsel if you don’t have all the information. … we can talk later but you’ve been drawn into something purely for the purpose of protecting Dad- and I know any of the BS money is mine ultimately- Well you’ve done your job and he f-cking but only is true to form but even more so why be so horribly angry over nothing g but being duped. You both ha[v]e said it’s bigger than me a family …
“I am no dupe for anyone. If you see me as an agent for my brother, there is something seriously wrong,” James Biden responded later, before continuing to talk business.
Nearly a year later, after Hunter Biden sent James a message on Dec. 29, 2018, complaining that “I can’t pay alimony w/o Dad or tuitions or for food and gas,” James wrote back, “This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father alone!! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work.”
A History of Financial Wheeling-and-Dealing
Unrelated to his role in international influence-peddling, James Biden is “under ongoing investigation by federal authorities in Western Pennsylvania over a series of hospital deals struck under Americore Health,” a scandal The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway reported on in 2020. Americore’s former CEO Grant White accused James Biden of fraud and racketeering, in documents prepared for a lawsuit that was eventually settled.
James also has a history of leveraging the Biden name to get private loans, and even left-wing outlet ProPublica admitted that “on occasion, as Jim pursued opportunities, Joe met with his potential clients or partners, at Jim’s request.”
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
“US military asks the public for help finding its missing F-35 fighter jet after its pilot had to eject while training over South Carolina.”
While the above Insider headline may sound like a comedic piece straight from the pages of The Babylon Bee, it’s not. The U.S. military actually publicly claimed it had lost a multi-million-dollar fighter jet.
The loss occurred Sunday following an alleged “mishap” that required the aircraft’s pilot to eject. The F-35 purportedly kept on flying. It wasn’t until Monday evening — a day after Joint Base Charleston requested the public’s assistance in finding the missing jet — that military officials announced they had discovered a debris field “about two hours northeast” of the base.
The debacle has since prompted the Marine Corps’ acting commandant, Eric Smith, to issue a “two-day stand-down” order for all military aviation units “both inside and outside of the United States.”
A Sign of Decline
This episode raises so many questions. For one, how does the U.S. military — the supposed best and most advanced fighting force on the planet — lose a highly-valued asset, especially over U.S. soil?
Why are military bases such as Joint Base Charleston acting as landing pads for commercial planes transporting members of the People’s Republic of China — the very government trying to topple the United States as the world’s hegemon?
While it’s improbable any of these questions will actually be answered to the public’s satisfaction, the likely answers probably wouldn’t reverse Americans’ waning confidence in the ability of U.S. military leadership to defend the American homeland. Nor should they.
This week’s fighter jet fiasco is just one example of many showcasing a U.S. military in severe institutional decline. Instead of focusing on how to win wars — which should be the sole purpose of any military — top Pentagon brass have since at least the Clinton administration treated the service as one giant, left-wing social experiment.
This is a drag queen that the Biden admin hired to try to recruit servicemembers. Is this supposed to convince people to join the military? pic.twitter.com/5UHMJvNSXJ
Through its adoption and outright promotion of neo-Marxist ideologies including DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), the military has sacrificed efficiency, ruthlessness, and strength for LGBTcelebrations, racial politics, and climate alarmism. A look into the backgrounds of President Biden’s manymilitarynomineesshows the primary focus of the Pentagon’s leading figures isn’t defeating communist China or protecting Americans from other international threats, it’s crafting a “diverse” and “inclusive” social club where leftist lunacy is treated as gospel and conservative “wrongthink” as extreme.
Look no further than the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which violates U.S. law in using taxpayer money to pay for female military members’ travel expenses to kill their unborn child. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Democrats have baselessly claimed for months that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s slow-walking of Biden’s military nominees in protest of the policy harms “military readiness.”
If that’s true, then why hasn’t the Pentagon dropped its policy?
If “readiness” is such a major concern, why did the military fire thousands of service members who chose not to get an experimental shot?
And why isn’t Democrat Chuck Schumer using his power as Senate majority leader to approve Biden’s supposedly important nominees?
The reason, as tacitly admitted by the heads of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, is that taxpayer-funded abortions are a sacrament of the leftist religion so must be preserved at all costs. Coupled with decades of failed military adventurism and nation-building like that conducted in Afghanistan, it’s no wonder the U.S. military is facing the worst recruiting crisissince shifting to an all-volunteer force in 1973.
A High Price to Pay
The Marxist hijacking of America’s military isn’t an accident; it’s an intentional act contributing to the left’s greater plan to re-invent society. For the left, the military is just another piece on the American chessboard to coopt. It’s why the military so vigorously promotes Marxism and penalizes conservative beliefs: to dissuade the God and America-loving patriots who have largely staffed it for generations from joining or remaining in service.
As witnessed many times before, however, the leftist takeover of institutions has its costs. Only America’s “rainbow” military could cost our country its security and well-being.
For decades, the U.S. military has prevented widespread global conflict, deterring aggression from hostile actors and maintaining peace through strength. If the world’s leading aggressors no longer view America as the dominant military power, where does that leave us? If the U.S. gets dragged into a war with a rival power, can we be confident our “rainbow” fighting force can get the job done? The withdrawal from Afghanistan and growing quagmire in Ukraine atop the failed war in Iraq and our military’s distraction into identity politics don’t bode well.
Much like the missing F-35, our nation’s military is lost with no sense of direction or purpose, and those faithfully committed to the American cause are forced to bail out. Let us hope and pray for new military leadership before it’s too late.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
President Biden and other Western leaders have coddled Marxist leaders while treating the São Paulo Forum as a debating society. Pictured: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva joins Chinese leader Xi Jinping in inspecting troops during a welcome ceremony Aptil 14 outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Photo: Ken Ishii/Pool/Getty Images)
You may never have heard of the Foro de São Paulo, since Western media tend to ignore it, But it’s the world’s largest and most impactful Marxist international organization. The latest São Paulo Forum gathering demonstrated how pro-China and pro-Russia this radical body is, and how it retails its winning blueprint throughout the world.
Rubbing elbows at this summer’s gathering in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, were members of the Chinese Communist Party, Cuba’s Communist Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America—the party of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.; and Cori Bush, D-Mo.
One member of the Democratic Socialists of America who attended the conference, Estefania Galvis, assured the main television station of Venezuela’s Marxist government, TeleSur, that her party was “fighting inside the heart of the empire.” Venezuela’s TeleSur, Cuba’s Prensa Latina, and lefty outfits such as Peoples Dispatch gave blanket coverage to the gathering June 29-July 2. But for U.S. media reports, it was crickets.
So, we don’t read that at this year’s São Paulo Forum, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the host along with Brazil’s Communist Party, bragged about how proud he was to be called a communist. His enemies “accuse us of being communist, thinking that this will offend us,” Lula said in his opening speech, adding: But that does not offend us. … To call us communist or socialist will never offend us. Never. On the contrary, it makes us proud. The people know that we deserve to be called that.
The enemies of communists, he said, were the narratives of “family, tradition, and patriotism.”
The conference routinely lambasted the United States and defended and praised China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. The group’s opening declaration said São Paulo Forum members would deepen their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have done nothing but coddle Lula and the region’s other Marxist leaders while treating the São Paulo Forum as a debating society. But the São Paulo Forum is the world’s largest grouping of Marxist governments, political parties, non-governmental organizations or NGOs, third-party groups, guerrilla groups, and terrorists.
Their actions affect Americans and Europeans through drug trafficking, targeted immigration, financing of political parties in the West, and support of violent groups such as Black Lives Matter, whose leaders attend and network at São Paulo Forum conferences.
The São Paulo Forum was formed in 1990 by Fidel Castro, Cuba’s long-time communist tyrant, and Lula, then the leader of Brazil’s Socialist Party. Two main reasons existed for forming a hemispherewide network of communists. First, aside from in Cuba, communists had failed to win power the traditional Marxist way—violent revolution followed by state terror. So another approach was needed.
The second reason: The Soviet Union—the paymaster of all communists since its inception in 1917—was collapsing at the time.
The key strategy for the São Paulo Forum, after switching from bullets to ballots, was for Marxists to run for office not as Marxists per se, but as populists, reformers, or anti-corruption crusaders. Then, after winning, they would change constitutions and society.
The São Paulo Forum’s annual summits, frequent workshops, and smaller gatherings became platforms for planning and sharing “best practices.” In his recent speech, Lula reminded his audience that it was the Foro de São Paulo that introduced the electoral strategy—“and you know we’ve had a lot of victories.”
Using this political do-it-yourself kit, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, instantly putting that country’s enormous oil revenues—and rapidly growing narcotrafficking earnings—at the disposal of the São Paulo Forum’s other communists. Lula was elected president of Brazil in 2002 and ruled for eight years, then was elected again in 2022. Evo Morales followed suit in 2005 in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in 2006 in Ecuador.
All except for Lula have been accused by the U.S. government of engaging with terrorist Marxist guerrillas and drug cartels. Colombia’s FARC guerrilla group (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and ELN (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional), as well as Peru’s Maoist Shining Path guerrillas, have taken part in São Paulo Forum meetings.
A second wave of Marxists has been elected since the last conference in 2019—in Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, and, of course, Brazil. A far-left organization called the North American Congress in Latin America boasts that 80% of the region is now in the control of the Left.
A recent addition to the São Paulo Forum’s winning strategy has been to use social media to incite and organize street protests in free societies, and then use the resulting discontent to place Marxists in power in elections. BLM-style street riots in Chile and Colombia paved the way for the election of their Marxist leaders. As the gathering’s closing declaration put it, this mayhem has been translated into “electoral victories.”
All of these leftist governments are opening the region to China. The São Paulo Forum’s opening declaration was as praiseful of China as it was contemptuous of America.
“The U.S. project of domination over Latin America and the Caribbean is facing an environment marked by threats to its hegemony,” the document said, adding:
The dispute with China, and the growing presence of progressive or leftist political forces in regional governments … constitute an important challenge to a country affected by multiple crises that are manifesting themselves in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres.
Cooperation between China and Latin America is not new, and will grow in the future. China represents a factor for stability and balance in the region …. There are no conflicts of interests between China and Latin America, as the People’s Republic of China has never attacked or illegally occupied any Latin American territory.
The U.S., according to the document, is trying to “reverse its decline and recover its previous hegemonic status, a desperate effort putting world peace at risk.”
The final declaration also characterized Cuba, which hasn’t known democracy or freedom for more than 60 years, as a “universal patrimony of dignity.”
It’s time we took these people seriously, even if our “leaders” do not.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is a widely experienced international correspondent, commentator, and editor who has reported from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He served in the George W. Bush administration, first at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then at the State Department, and is the author of the book “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution.” Read his research.
There is a huge asymmetry in the bizarre Chinese-American relationship. China would never tolerate America treating it as it treats America. Why do our leaders let this situation continue? Pictured: President Joe Biden (right) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping (left) shake hands as they meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
Imagine if the United States treated China in the same way it does us. What if American companies simply ignored Chinese copyrights and patents and stole Chinese ideas, inventions, and intellectual property as they pleased and with impunity? What if the American government targeted Chinese industries by dumping competing American export products at below the cost of production—to bankrupt Chinese competitors and corner their markets? What would the communist Chinese government do if a huge American spy balloon lazily traversed continental China—sending back to the United States photographic surveillance of Chinese military bases and installations? How would China react to America stonewalling any explanation, much less refusing to apologize for such an American attack on Chinese sovereignty?
Envision a U.S. high-security virology lab in the Midwest, run by the Pentagon, allowing the escape of an engineered, gain-of-function deadly virus. Instead of enlisting world cooperation to stop the spread of the virus, the American government would lie that it sprung up from a local bat or wild possum.
Washington would then make all its relevant military scientists disappear who were assigned to the lab while ordering a complete media blackout. America would forbid Chinese scientists from contacting their American counterparts involved in the lab, despite the deaths of more than 1 million Chinese from the American-manufactured disease. And what if during the first days of the pandemic, Washington had quietly prevented all foreign travel to the United States, while keeping open one-way direct flights from America to major Chinese cities?
How would Beijing respond if American biotech company warehouses were discovered in rural China with unsecured vials of deadly viruses and pathogens? Would China be angered that it was never notified by an American company that it had left abandoned COVID-19 and HIV viruses and malaria parasites in its facilities—along with rotting genetically engineered dead rats littering the floors with hundreds more lab animals abandoned in laboratory cages?
What would Chairman Xi Jinping have done if American-made fentanyl was shipped in massive quantities to nearby Tibet on the Chinese border? And what if it would be deliberately repackaged there as deceptive recreational drugs and smuggled into China, where it annually killed 100,000 Chinese youth, year after year?
What if 10,000 Americans this year illegally crossed the Indian border into China and disappeared into its interior?
What if an allied Asian nation—such as South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan—went nuclear? And what if, in North-Korean style, it serially blustered to send one of its nuclear missiles into the major cities of China?
What if almost monthly China discovered an American military operative teaching incognito at a major Chinese university or among the ranks of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army? Would China object if an American femme fatale agent was sleeping with a high-ranking Chinese official of the Chinese Communist Politburo? Or what if one of the chauffeurs of its top-ranking Chinese officials was a nearly two-decade-long American agent?
What would be the Chinese reaction if there were 350,000 American students attending schools all over the Chinese nation, with perhaps 3,000-4,000 of them actively engaged in national security espionage on behalf of the United States?
These “what-ifs” could be expanded endlessly. But they reflect well enough the great asymmetry in the bizarre Chinese-American relationship. Obviously, China would not tolerate America treating it as it does the Americans.
Why then does the imbalance continue? Do naive Americans believe that the more China is indulged, the more it will respond in kind to American magnanimity? Does the U.S. believe that the more China is exposed to our supposedly radically democratic and free culture, the sooner it will become a good democratic citizen of the global community?
Are we afraid of China because it has four times our population and believes its economy and military will overtake ours in a decade?
Are we terrified that its Chinese government is completely amoral, utterly ruthless, and capable of anything?
Or are our political, cultural, and corporate elites so compromised by their lucrative Chinese investments and joint ventures that they prioritize profits over their own country’s national security and self-interest? And did the Biden family—including President Joe Biden himself—in the past receive millions of dollars from Chinese energy and investment interests? Did Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo decade of grifting result in millions in Chinese money filling the Biden family coffers—all in exchange for the current Biden and past Obama administrations going soft on Chinese aggression?
No one seems able to explain the otherwise inexplicable. But one way to get along with China and to regain its respect is to deal with it exactly the way it deals with the United States. Anything less, and America will continually be treated with even more Chinese contempt—and eventually extreme violence.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
The vitriolic exchanges between partisans regarding charges against the past president and family of the current president are obscuring scrutiny of another ethical question important to our national security. According to reports, the U.S. and Germany have given a combined $127 billion to Ukraine during the war, while the Chinese coordinate with Russia. And yet, the Chinese gave $100 million to the University of Pennsylvania under the watch of the current U.S. ambassador to Germany. Confusing?
Yes, and it demands the current U.S. ambassador to Germany, Amy Gutmann, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the Penn Biden Centerwhere classified documents were found in January 2023, answer some questions from Congress.
Penn President Amy Gutmann and Vice President Joe Biden at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center on Jan. 15, 2016. (Ed Hille/Philadelphia Inquirer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
It has been revealed that Penn used the Penn Biden Center for schmoozing with donors during the Biden 2020 presidential run throughout 2019 and 2020. Meetings also were confirmed to have taken place there with future members of Biden’s “kitchen cabinet,” including Antony Blinken.
A colossal problem surrounding the Penn Biden Center that has been largely brushed off is the audio of Ambassador Gutmann’s Senate confirmation hearing where she said she had no knowledge of Chinese money flowing into the university. However, according to congressional testimony from Paul Moore, former head investigative counsel for the Department of Education during the Trump administration, there is a tape recording of the Penn Biden Center being discussed in an event in China coinciding with a massive influx of money being donated to the university while Gutmann was university president.
This claim goes against what the university said in the past, that “The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity.” The Chinese money – apparently close to $100 million – was given to the university itself, but the Penn Biden Center’s name apparently was dropped all over the place in order to raise it.
How many of those donors actually visited the Penn Biden Center, and perhaps got a chance to see the president’s rarely used office, we won’t know without visitor logs that Penn may or may not provide to Congress. We also don’t know who might have looked in the locked closet where Biden’s classified unauthorized documents were stashed for almost six years.
The Chinese government of course knows about this money donated to Penn and where it came from. They also know whether Ambassador Gutmann was forthcoming with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about it during her 2021 confirmation hearing.
The $100 million question is, if Amy Gutmann is compromised by China with her denials and not being forthcoming about soliciting Chinese donations to Penn while she was visiting China during her tenure as Penn’s president. Is there a security risk that needs to be immediately addressed?
A major aspect of this problem is Gutmann’s current role in Germany as U.S. ambassador as Germany itself is central to military intelligence about Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia and U.S. aide to Ukraine. China, however, is coordinating with Russia.
Ambassador Gutmann should be brought back to Washington to testify before the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, as well as the Senate, about her past dealings with China. Members of Congress should do their job on this instead of simply pressuring current Penn President Liz Magill to answer questions about what happened at the school while Gutmann was at the helm. Gutmann is the U.S. ambassador, and the potential security risk.
Former Vice President Joe Biden joins University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann to discuss global affairs at the school’s Irvine Auditorium on Feb. 19, 2019 in Philadelphia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Elite universities constantly argue that they are private and it’s none of the government’s business what they do, all while they take millions of dollars in federal subsidies and millions more from undisclosed foreign donors. These universities have been living off tax dollars for decades while amassing billion-dollar endowments. The least they can do is not pose a risk to our national security by being a gateway for foreign donors, and potentially also foreign intelligence officers, to get access to high level U.S. government officials.
The broader issue at work, however, is how Chinese money significantly influences universities throughout the U.S. The Justice Department had an investigation program into it, but Attorney General Merrick Garland closed the FBI’s so-called China initiative in February last year immediately after over 160 members of the University of Pennsylvania faculty and other universities signed an open letter calling for Garland to shut down the program.
These opponents of DOJ‘s China initiative used arguments against racial profiling as the excuse to nix the investigation. The faculty letter was part of a larger university battle against the program that included Penn, Harvard and the University of Minnesota.
Attorney General Merrick Garland (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The DOJ’s website lists a string of real criminal cases that the China initiative had brought against academics over a four-year span who were caught dealing with China on espionage charges or not disclosing foreign donations and other financial ties they were required to disclose. The DOJ should be capable of avoiding racial profiling and enforcing laws vital to our national security at the same time.
Even though Gutmann at her 2021 confirmation hearing acknowledged that Penn took some Chinese donations, she insisted it did not affect the university’s values. Guttmann also denied that Penn set up a Confucius Institute on campus linked to the Chinese government through funders.
The problem is that Confucius Institutes are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chinese government influence in foreign universities. We still need to know what Ambassador Gutmann knew about the $100 million raised from China during the last few years of her Penn presidency and why she was unable to recall it in her Senate testimony.
Ambassador Amy Gutmann, front left, joins NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, second from left, during NATO air exercises at the Jagel Air Base in Berlin on June 20, 2023. (Cuneyt Karadag/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
It remains clear that our entire system of ethics in this country remains highly politicized. Democrats and Republicans focus on the other party while ignoring their own issues. The lesser of two evils strategy does not justify selective enforcement of our nation’s laws, and if we continue down this path of polarization, our nation could end up in dangerous waters.
Both the House Oversight Committee and Judiciary should be pursuing the truth, not partisan politics. For the good of our national security, Amy Gutmann must be called to testify about any possible ties to China, especially as she is serving as U.S. ambassador to Germany as the war in Ukraine continues.
John Pudner is president of Take Back our Republic Action.
Mike Pence lashed out Monday at President Joe Biden after a chilling Wall Street Journal report revealed a combined Russian and Chinese naval force had last week patrolled the Alaskan coast just outside U.S. territorial waters.
The fleet — the largest such flotilla to approach American shores — was made up of 11 Russian and Chinese ships, and was shadowed by four U.S. destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft, the Journal reported.
The former vice president in the Trump administration — now a 2024 GOP presidential contender — blamed the incident on Biden’s weak leadership.
“Under President Biden, Russia and China threaten to conquer their neighbors & their new Axis is now operating together off the American coast. China & Russia & their ‘no limits’ partnership now conducts joint blue water naval operations off the American coast & the arctic north,” Pence wrote on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
“America needs a new Commander-in-Chief who understands the threat and will build a much bigger navy, new shipyards and a military fitted to the widening threats of the 21st Century. The enemies of freedom only understand strength,” Pence wrote.
The blatant aggression comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and China and Russia, particularly surrounding Taiwan and Ukraine, The Hill noted.
The Journal reported a spokesperson for the U.S. Northern Command confirmed the stunning report, but didn’t provide details on the number of ships or the precise location of the Chinese and Russian ships.
“Air and maritime assets under our commands conducted operations to assure the defense of the United States and Canada. The patrol remained in international waters and was not considered a threat,” the official told the Journal.
Alaska’s GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan applauded the U.S. response amid a “new era of authoritarian aggression,” the news outlet reported.
According to the Journal, Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday said Russian and Chinese vessels had carried out drills involving communications training, helicopter landings and takeoffs from the decks of each other’s ships — and in a joint anti-submarine exercise in which a mock target was detected and destroyed.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the Journal the patrol wasn’t aimed at Washington.
“According to the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, naval vessels of the two countries have recently conducted joint maritime patrols in relevant waters in the western and northern Pacific Ocean. This action is not targeted at any third party and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation,” said the Chinese embassy spokesman, Liu Pengyu, the Journal reported.
The USS John S. McCain, the USS Benfold, the USS John Finn, and the USS Chung-Hoon responded to the flotilla, tracking its movement, the Journal reported. The four destroyers were in addition to the American maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft.
FIRST ON FOX — Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. The findings are detailed in a new report dubbed “Little Red Classrooms,” which was sent to 34 governors, key lawmakers and committee chairs on Wednesday.
“The alarming evidence uncovered by our investigation should concern parents, educators, and policymakers alike. Families deserve to know who is influencing the American education system so that they can make informed choices about what their children are learning behind closed doors,” PDE president Nicole Neily told Fox News Digital.
“The Trump administration took steps to rein in Confucius Institutes at colleges and universities. It is frightening, however, that no such transparency mandate exists at the K-12 level,” Neily continued. “Accordingly, it is imperative that elected officials at both the federal and state levels take immediate action to gauge the extent of these programs in order to ensure that American schoolchildren receive a high-quality education free from undue foreign interference.”
Parents Defending Education, a grassroots organization dedicated to fighting indoctrination in the classroom, says it has uncovered disturbing evidence linking Chinese Communist Party-sponsored financial entities to American K-12 schools. (Getty)
Parents Defending Education bills itself as “a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas. PDE’s sister organization, PDE Action, sent the “alarming” results of its lengthy “Little Red Classrooms” investigation to House Education & Workforce Committee Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C.; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas.
According to the letters, which have been obtained by Fox News Digital, the investigation exposed how millions of dollars of China-linked funding has flowed into America’s K-12 classrooms. PDE believes American students are subject to CCP propaganda under the guise of Chinese language and culture programming.
“The fact the Chinese government had so much access to American classrooms, students, and curriculums should worry families,” PDE senior adviser Michele P. Exner wrote to McCaul.
The committee chairs were informed that through “records requests and publicly available information, it was discovered that 143 school districts across the United States have engaged in contracts to establish Confucius Institutes and Classrooms,” including in three of the nation’s top science and technology high schools, and several that are near 20 U.S. military bases. “Considering China’s adversarial relationship with the United States, this poses significant security risks that warrant immediate attention from your committee,” Exner wrote to Foxx.
“The Chinese government has long touted their Confucius programming as a way to advance their strategic goals around the world. In 2009, former Chinese Communist Party Senior Chairman Li Changchun admitted that Confucius Institutes were an ‘important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up’ and in 2017 Chinese government officials lauded the programs as a way to push China’s Belt and Road initiative,” the Foxx letter continued. “Security concerns with these China-led courses in America’s schools are well documented.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, was notified of Parents Defending Education’s findings. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
PDE also listed “examples of the alarming relationships China’s government has established with American K-12 classrooms,” such as the Simpson County Board of Education in Kentucky entering into an agreement with the North China Electric Power University to develop the Confucius Institute of Western Kentucky.
“The North China Electric Power University works directly with the Chinese government’s energy sector to push China’s global energy initiatives. The Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) tasked the university with selecting more than 34 Chinese teachers to send to Simpson County Public Schools for the 2020-2021 school year,” Exner wrote.
PDE also pointed to a pair of Chinese nationals who taught Mandarin at Appoquinimink School District in Delaware during the 2012-2013 school year. “According to a district webpage, these teachers underwent a ‘rigorous selection process’ in China. This includes interviews with Chinese government officials ‘at the national level,’” according to Exner, who also serves as PDE Action’s director of federal affairs.
The letter to McCaul noted that “34 states and the District of Columbia have had schools that have engaged in financial exchanges with the Chinese government or affiliated entities ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than a million dollars per contract,” according to PDE findings.
“Since 2009, the Chinese government has used Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms to push their agenda in schools around the globe. Chinese Communist Party officials have openly stated how they are using these educational partnerships established under the guise of ‘cultural and language immersion programs’ to expand China’s overseas propaganda campaign,” Exner wrote.
“In a Chinese state media article from 2016, the Chinese Communist Party ‘lauded’ Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms for promoting its Belt and Road Initiative. Security concerns with these China-linked programs became so problematic that the State Department declared them a ‘foreign mission’ during the summer of 2020,” Exner continued. “These programs have created significant security vulnerabilities for the United States and gave the CCP unfettered access to curriculums and America’s classrooms. PDE uncovered at least two connections between U.S. and China schools tied to the Chinese military and energy operations.”
PDE also accused the CCP of openly using deceptive tactics to influence the next generation of Americans to advance their own self-serving agenda.
“We cannot allow this to happen. We urge the committee to take immediate action to investigate, expose, and hold hearings on the Chinese government’s involvement in America’s schools. PDE looks forward to working with you in protecting our students from the threats of the CCP,” Exner wrote to McCaul.
PDE informed Rogers that Confucius Institutes and Classrooms were operating in schools in the vicinity of the following U.S. military bases including U.S. Naval Academy, Buckley Air Force Base and Space Force, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Dover Air Force Base, Fort Bliss, Fort Liberty, Fort Knox, Naval Station Great Lakes, Hanscom Air Force Base, Hill Air Force Base, Lackland Air Force Base, Langley Air Force Base, Los Angeles Air Force Base, MacDill Air Force Base, McGuire Air Force Base, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Nellis Air Force Base, Naval Station Norfolk, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Naval Base San Diego.
“Allowing China to have unfettered access to America’s schools poses significant security risks to students and their families. It becomes even more dangerous when this is happening near sensitive locations containing information critical to our national security,” Exner wrote.
PDE sent a letter to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs urging an investigation between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
PDE Action also wrote to several other influential lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. The House China Select Committee, the Senate HELP Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are expected to be notified of “Little Red Classrooms” findings, too.
PDE Action political director Alex Nester also sent a letter, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs.
“Documents uncovered via online searches and public records requests show that three schools in Arizona — Catalina Foothills School District and Tucson Unified School District, as well as the International School of Tucson — forged ties with Chinese government backed programs over the course of a decade,” Nester wrote.
“PDE Action respectfully requests the Office of the Governor of Arizona to investigate ties between Arizona’s public schools and Chinese government sponsored programs, such as Confucius Classrooms,” Nester continued. “While it’s vital for American students to have opportunities to learn world languages and cultures, public school districts should not give the Chinese government unfettered access to K-12 classrooms. This has the potential of posing significant security risks to students, families, and our national interests.”
A similar letter was sent to 33 additional governors on Wednesday morning, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
PDE’s “Little Red Classrooms” report details more examples that the group finds deeply concerning, breaking down the $17,967,565 spent across 143 school districts in 34 states plus the District of Columbia.
Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump
Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. support of the “One China” policy on Monday, saying that the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We do not support Taiwan independence,” Blinken said in a press conference on Monday. “We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. We continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross strait differences. We remain committed to continuing our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act including making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself.”
“At the same time, we and many others have deep concerns about some of the provocative actions that China has taken in recent years going back to 2016,” Blinken added. “And the reason that this is a concern for so many countries, not just the United States, is that were there to be a crisis over Taiwan, the likelihood is that could produce an economic crisis that could affect quite literally the entire world.”
“Fifty percent of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day. Seventy percent of semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan. If as a result of a crisis that was taken offline, it would have dramatic consequences for virtually every country around the world,” he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pose for photographers in Beijing Monday June 19, 2023. (AP)
Blinken’s comment comes amid increased tensions between China and the United States related to Taiwan. Last week, Taiwan’s air force scrambled fighter jets after a group of 10 Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait for the second time in a matter of days.
This month, the U.S. military released video of a close encounter between a Chinese navy ship and an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, and there have been several close calls between Chinese and U.S. military aircraft recently, including an air intercept by a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea in late May.
China considers self-ruling Taiwan its own territory and has raised the prospect of annexing it by force. The U.S. maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan even as it recognizes Beijing as the government of China.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference with Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan at the State Department, Friday, June 16, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
“We have no illusions about the challenges of this relationship. There are many issues on which we profoundly and even vehemently disagree,” Blinken added. “The United States has a long history of successfully managing complicated relationships through diplomacy.”
Blinken told reporters that the relationship between China and the U.S. took a “positive step” during his trip over the last two days and said his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, agreed to visit Washington D.C., in the future at a “suitable time.”
Blinken acknowledged that China did not agree to set up a crisis military-to-military communications channel which had been one of the goals of the U.S. heading into the meeting.
Chinese President Xi Jinping discussing the country’s economic and social development at a political gathering in Beijing. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Over the last year, the U.S. and China saw more than $700 billion in trade which according to Blinken constituted the highest level between the two countries on record. He reiterated U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s testimony before Congress last week that it would be “disastrous” for the U.S. to decouple and stop all trade and investment with China.
“We are for de-risking and diversifying. That means investing in our own capacities and in secure, resilient supply chains, pushing for level playing fields for our workers in our companies. Defending against harmful trade practices and protecting our critical technologies so that they aren’t used against us. I made clear that we’ll continue to take targeted actions that are necessary to protect U.S. national security,” Blinken said.
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
Circa 1996, U.S. lawmakers wanted to make sure scrappy startups, like AOL and Amazon, had a fighting chance against incumbents. Our government had a straightforward approach: rubberstamp mergers and free tech from any regulatory oversight. These policy approaches were intended to level the playing field for the nascent tech industry and export our values abroad. And it worked! But only in part. Our tech policies of yore have turned those startups into the world’s first set of trillion-dollar companies. But Big Tech failed to export our values — and has even been counterproductive on that end.
Big Tech has set aside American values to profit off China. Apple’s manufacturing arrangements in China, for example, have contributed to the ongoing enslavement of Uyghurs — a religious minority — In the country.
Big Tech has been kowtowing to Chinese interests not American values. (JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)
And Big Tech has helped the Chinese government firm up its own anti-American sentiments. Apple has a multi-billion-dollar deal that gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a back channel to all Apple devices located on the mainland. Apple’s deal with China requires it to take down apps that promote anti-CCP narratives, including those celebrating the Tiananmen Square demonstration and calling for independence for Tibet and Taiwan.
Big Tech has even exported CCP values into the United States. Google demonetizes YouTube videos in the U.S. that offend the CCP. Amazon partnered with China’s propaganda arm “to create a selling portal on the company’s U.S. site, Amazon.com – a project that came to be known as China Books.” Apple still lists TikTok as an “essential app” for its users even with the Treasury Department investigating the app on national security grounds, the Department of Justice investigating the company for spying on American journalists, and the director of the FBI and President Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence raising issues with the app’s relationship with the CCP.
Back in America, our laissez-faire approach has encouraged Big Tech companies to take centralized control over our information, personal data and our markets. These companies are so dominant that they can buy out any competitor that drives away revenue from them, with the federal government green lighting nearly every acquisition Big Tech wants. Since 2000, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple collectively acquired over 800 companies.
What may be worse, Big Tech uses centralized control to kill new startups, force acquisitions, or just flat-out steal their competitors’ functions through their app stores. And to “connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content.”
The firms also totally control digital ad markets to arbitrarily inflate the cost of digital ads. In short, they get richer while you pay more for products online.
Last Congress, a bipartisan chorus of Senators and Representatives proposed bills to curb the effects of Big Tech’s centralized control by reforming our antitrust laws, protecting our children and creating a national privacy regime.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before a congressional panel on Thursday regarding security concerns surrounding the Chinese-owned app. (Fox News)
Not one significant reform passed. Why not? One theory is that Big Tech simply outspends their opposition’s lobbying effort. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The reason is far more entrenched — our tech policies have evolved from nurturing startups to institutionalizing Big Tech incumbents as our national champions.
Sadly, our government still thinks these companies will help us fight against China, even though they kowtow to the CCP at almost every chance and consistently invoke policies that suppress our core values domestically, like freedom of speech, religion or association. And Big Tech has helped the Chinese government firm up its own anti-American sentiments. Apple has a multi-billion-dollar deal that gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a back channel to all Apple devices located on the mainland.
Frankly, these facts should call into question whether Big Tech even shares American values at all.
It is even more imperative to get this right as our nation decides how to deal with artificial intelligence. It’s no secret that the Chinese government wants to militarize its own AI capabilities; we are shaping up to be on the losing end of that digital arms race if we don’t get serious. As it stands now, the AI market is concentrated among a few companies, dominated by Big Tech. Worse, almost all have significant ties to China and its government. Our national security and individual liberty demand that Congress tackle AI with a clear sight of who these companies are and the values they hold — based not only on their words but their actions.
The reality is that Big Tech firms are not our champions, and our policies should stop treating them as such. Instead, we should treat them like the multinational corporations that they are. Let’s start by passing meaningful, bipartisan reforms to protect our consumers, our children, and — let’s face it — our national security.
Joel Thayer is president of the Digital Progress Institute and an attorney who focuses his law practice on telecommunications, regulatory and transactional matters, as well as privacy and cybersecurity issues.
The U.S. government has given Chinese and Russian entities at least $1.3 billion for various research programs over the past five years, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and watchdog group Open the Books.
The analysis revealed that millions of taxpayer dollars have been given to, among others, a Chinese software developer for military tech support, a Russian health insurance provider that has since been sanctioned and Chinese agriculture companies. And it showed the federal government gave $2 million, more than previously reported, to the Chinese state-run Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses.
“Washington’s continued spending is so out of hand, it is losing track of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars, but I am creating accountability for every penny,” Ernst said in a statement after releasing the report.
“It is gravely concerning that no one in Washington can actually account for millions sent to Russia and China for pointless projects,” the Iowa Republican continued. “But I have the receipts. I’m shining a light on this reckless spending, so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks and taxpayers can know exactly what their hard-earned dollars are funding.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said she released the report Wednesday “so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks.” (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In addition to releasing the analysis, Ernst introduced the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act that would require all federal funding for organizations in China and Russia to be tracked and disclosed. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., who chairs the China Select Committee, introduced companion legislation in the House.
Overall, using data obtained from the Congressional Research Service, Ernst and Open the Books tracked $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts paid to Chinese entities and another $870 million paid to Russian entities. The Government Accountability Office previously estimated the U.S. funneled just $48 million to Chinese entities over the five-year period ending in 2021.
According to Ernst’s analysis, one program, a $58.7 million State Department grant, included giving a Chinese organization, Beijing-based Crossroads Cultural Communication, $96,875 for “gender equality” through the exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons.” To increase awareness on gender equality and women empowerment through an exhibition of works by women cartoonists of the New Yorker Magazine in China,” the 2021 grant description states.
President Biden shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia on Nov. 14, 2022. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
Another, a $51.6 million grant from the Department of Defense, resulted in $6 million in funding for Chinese tech firm Beijing Juehua Trading Co. to provide “deployment and distribution command” software for the U.S. military. And Chinese food producers were awarded $1.6 million under the Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program, which was designed to assist domestic producers.
The $2 million in research funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the Chinese lab some experts have blamed for leaking coronavirus, sparking the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 — included $1.1 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $600,000 from the National Institutes of Health. The funding was indirectly transferred through EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. non-governmental organization.
In addition, a $4.2 million Health and Human Services program granted $770,466 to the Pavlov Institute, a state-run lab located in St. Petersburg, Russia, to experiment on cats running on treadmills. The Biden administration ultimately cut off funding for the program after criticism from groups like White Coat Waste and Republican lawmakers.
Ernst’s analysis also showed that the federal government wired $4.7 million to Russian company PAO Rosgosstrakh for health insurance. That same company was sanctioned by the Treasury Department amid the Ukraine invasion in 2022.
Also, $1.45 million was granted to entities in Russia for COVID-19 pandemic virus tracking.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Americans often wonder why they should care or what the consequences would be if China replaced the United States as the world’s most powerful nation. Surprisingly, a clear answer to this question can be found in the ongoing saga of comedian Nigel Ng Kin-ju.
Ng, more popularly known as Uncle Roger, is a British-Malaysian comedian and internet personality who has become wildly popular over the last couple of years, thanks to his hilarious critiques of Westerners’ attempts at cooking Asian food. Even if you are not familiar with his name, chances are you have stumbled upon one of his videos while scrolling through YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, where he has a combined 20.8 million followers.
Overall, things were working out quite nicely for Uncle Roger until he committed the gravest of modern-day sins: criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping and Communist China.
In a recent upload clipped from one of his stand-up comedy shows, Uncle Roger asked an audience member if he was from Boston. When then the gentleman responded that he was in fact from Guangzhou, China, Uncle Roger immediately feigned a look of exaggerated concern and retorted, “China, good country, good country. … We have to say that now, correct?” The entire audience, including the gentleman from Guangzhou, burst into laughter.
— Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger) (@MrNigelNg) May 14, 2023
Uncle Roger continued taking shots at China, noting that the man’s Huawei phone was listening to everything he was saying and repeating, “Long live President Xi.”
The comedian then really went for it, asking who in the audience was from Taiwan. Responding to the cheers of a few Taiwanese audience members, Uncle Roger brazenly quipped, “Not a real country, not a real country,” and, “I hope one day you rejoin the motherland. One China!”
He ended by soliciting the audience to write the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and state that Uncle Roger is a “good comrade.”
The clip immediately went viral and caught the eyes of some of Twitter’s more well-known critics of China, including Melissa Chan, Lele Farley, and former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, who retweeted the video along with the caption, “This guy gets what it’ll look like.” The clip’s virality, however, was not limited to American audiences, and it swiftly caught the eyes of the censorship brigade in Beijing.
On Saturday, Taiwanese news outlet New Liberty Times reported that China suspended Uncle Roger’s Weibo and Bilibili social media accounts. Between both platforms, the comedian lost access to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Weibo said the channel was muted due to “violations of relevant laws and regulations.”
Uncle Roger’s social media blacklisting came just days after Chinese comedian Li Haoshi was arrested for making jokes about the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army. Li’s management company was also hit with a $2 million fine.
“We will never allow any company or individual to wantonly slander the glorious image of the army on any stage in the capital city … or to make fun of serious subject matters,” regulators in Beijing said.
You might ask yourself why censorship within China’s borders should matter to Americans, especially as the United States has serious internal issues. America has her share of problems, not the least of which are those dealing with First Amendment rights. And the rules Beijing regulators decide to enforce have no effect on the average American’s life — for now.
Imagine for a moment, however, a hypothetical world where China has invaded and conquered Taiwan. It might not be readily apparent, but this world would look drastically different than the one you know today. In this world, American credibility in Asia will have been destroyed due to its inability or unwillingness to deter China. Realizing American power is on the way out, nations like Japan, South Korea, and Australia will hedge their bets and move away from Washington and closer to Beijing.
China is now the hegemon, or dominant nation, in Asia. And that means China directly or indirectly controls about half of the world’s economy. If you want to do business in Asia, ship your goods through Pacific waters, or source any of your supply chain on the continent, you will not be able to do so without China’s consent.
And if you think American autarky might be the answer, you may want to reconsider. As Colby noted in a piece for Time Magazine:
America will be at best roughly 20% of global GDP, a far smaller base for competition, making it likely our economy would be outclassed and left behind by China’s much larger area over time. Even more, though, China will very likely seek to diminish the U.S. This is just basic power politics.
At this point, all Americans directly or indirectly work for Chinese companies that are themselves controlled by the CCP, and if you want to keep your income stream flowing, you will have no choice but to bend to the party’s will. If you do not want to play along, well, look no further than what is happening right now with Uncle Roger. He made a simple joke at the expense of the party, and his ability to do business in China vanished.
A China that has gained hegemonic status in Asia now has that same power and authority over all facets of the global economy, including right here in the United States. What suggests that China would not gladly wield such a weapon at its discretion?
This is not the first time Uncle Roger has offended the CCP. In 2021, he angered Chinese social media users after he uploaded a video featuring outspoken China critic Mike Chen. Uncle Roger swiftly deleted the video and apologized to his Chinese audience, no doubt hoping to preserve his market share. As the latest developments show, however, appeasement only lasts until you inevitably upset the party line again, for which you will promptly be punished. Hopefully, Uncle Roger can learn from his past, and Americans can learn from him.
A future discourse dictated by Chinese power is not one that aligns with the preservation of American values or prosperity, and that is just the future Xi is hoping for.
Lane Kendall is a graduate of Wichita State’s Elliott School of Communication and holds a Master’s of International Studies in Korean and East Asian Studies from Korea University in Seoul, South Korea. His research and writing focus on East Asia’s geopolitics and America’s power competition with China, Russia, and Iran.
Corrupt corporate media outlets love scandal but when it comes to questions about whether President Joe Biden sold out the U.S. to enrich his family, they deliberately turn a blind eye.
There are plenty of questions ripe for the asking about the Biden family’s dealings with people tied to some of the nation’s biggest foreign adversaries. Republicans have spent months searching for answers, but every piece of evidence of corruption they uncover simply raises more questions. Meanwhile, press outlets that usually busy themselves with aiding Democrat investigations of this nature either deny the evidence or remain silent altogether.
Here are nine questions the corporate media should ask POTUS about his latest scandal but likely won’t.
1. What Exactly Is the Biden Family Business?
Perhaps the biggest question the American people deserve to know an answer to is: What exactly does the Biden family do to warrant massive payments from foreign nationals? Outside of spending decades influencing U.S. domestic and foreign policy, nobody seems to know.
“We know what [Trump’s] businesses were. I’m not saying whether I agreed with what he did or not but I actually know what these businesses are. What are the Biden businesses?” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer asked during a press conference this week.
2. Why Did Your Unqualified Grandchild Get Paid?
Joe Biden’s son Hunter receiving checks from foreign energy moguls makes some sense if you overlook his suspect rise to fame in the international energy sector. Why at least one of Biden’s grandkids, some nieces or nephews, and even an ex-daughter-in-law are all on the receiving end of funds from foreign nationals is unexplainable.
Despite having no formal experience or education that would qualify them to receive payments from foreign energy companies or “legal fees,” bank records show that at least nine people, between Biden family members and their lovers, spent decades getting rich on at least $10 million from people associated with some of the United States’ biggest foreign adversaries.
3. How Many More Bidens Received Money from Foreign Nationals?
If Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle profited off of deals she claimed to have “my head buried in the sand” about, it’s more than fair to ask the president just how many more members of the Biden circle benefitted from these international deals.
4. Why Dilute Payments from Foreign Nationals?
Payments to the Bidens were diced up and transferred to a spread of Biden associates before hitting the family’s bank accounts. These transactions often occurred within weeks of significant political action by the then-vice president in the country of the transactions’ origins.
“It’s very hard to come up with any legitimate business reason to conduct transactions in this type of complex way,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong noted during a recent Oversight Committee presser. “Why would separate payments go to Hunter Biden’s business and to himself individually? Why would Walker transfer money from his business account to his personal account before distributing the money? Why are other Biden family members receiving any of these payments?”
These are fair questions, based not on speculation but on the pure facts outlined in the Biden family bank records. If the Bidens’ multimillion-dollar “business” is legitimate, the president shouldn’t have a problem answering basic questions about the complexity of transactions from Chinese, Romanian, and other companies.
5. How Many More Biden Bank Accounts and Shell Companies Are There?
Republican investigators say they’ve looked into four of at least 12 apparently Biden-linked bank accounts and have discovered “a web” of more than 20 companies that were “formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.” The question of how many more are out there has yet to be determined but could be helped with clarification from the president.
6. Why Did You Repeatedly Lie about Your Knowledge of Hunter’s Dealings?
During a presidential debate in October 2020, Biden told the nation that neither he nor any of his family members profited from overseas business deals with companies connected to communist China.
That is completely false. It’s also evident that Biden knew about his family’s dealings.
In fact, visitor logs show that Hunter’s associates visited the White House more than 80 times while the elder Biden was vice president. During some of these meetings, several of Hunter’s closest assistants and business partners met with Biden and Biden aides and even attended VP briefings. Vice President Biden also welcomed Hunter on several official trips on Air Force Two, which Hunter appeared to use to secure deals that would enrich his family.
Why would the president go to great lengths to lie over and over and over about it?
7. Should Presidents’ Families Make Money off of People Associated with Our Top Foreign Enemy?
Biden’s approval with Americans is already low. His proximity to the national security threat his family transactions pose only serves to further hurt that low trust.
8. Have You Instructed the DOJ to Avoid Taking Action against You and Your Family?
Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in California and Washington, D.C. both apparently blocked the filing of criminal tax charges against Hunter Biden, according to one IRS whistleblower. The Department of Justice also gave potentially false statements about information on the Bidens’ business in China. And the FBI, which falls under the DOJ’s authority, has refused to turn over records that allegedly implicate Biden in a bribery scheme, despite a congressional subpoena. What’s stopping the DOJ from continuing to do what’s politically favorable for the president and his family by ignoring the issue at hand? Certainly not Biden.
9. How Many Media Outlets Have You Asked to Defend You amid the Investigation?
Comer asked Democrats this week “Do you want to continue covering up the Bidens’ influence-peddling schemes when the evidence is being placed right in front of you?”
The same can be asked of the corrupt corporate media which, since before the 2020 election, offered the president and his family not scrutiny but defense. From the moment House Republicans officially launched an investigation into Biden’s corruption, the press inaccurately asserted there was “no evidence of wrongdoing.” In addition to repeatedly taking the White House’s assertions of innocence at face value, the press tried to distract from the Biden family’s scandals by conflating that corruption with the Trump family’s conduct and blacked out coverage of Comer’s ongoing supply of evidence.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
President Joe Biden and his family are at the center of an influence-peddling scheme in which they traded the patriarch’s decades of time in political offices to line their own pockets and then tried to cover up their profiteering with a myriad of complicated transactions and accounts, the House Oversight Committee confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday.
With the help of whistleblowers and congressional subpoenas, Republicans are confidently reporting that the Bidens received at least $10 million worth of diluted payments from foreign companies during and after the president’s time in the Obama White House.
These payments were diced up and transferred to a spread of Biden bank accounts within weeks of significant political action by the then-vice president in the country of the transactions’ origins.
“These complicated and seemingly unnecessary financial transactions appear to be a concerted effort to conceal the source and total amount received from the foreign companies,” the Oversight Committee’s latest memo warns.
At least nine Biden family members including the president’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden, James’s wife, Hunter’s ex-girlfriend who is also his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hunter’s ex-wife, Hunter’s current wife, and at least one grandchild and a couple of nieces and/or nephews profited from the funneling of funds.
“That’s odd,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. “Most people with grandchildren, who work hard everyday, doesn’t get a wire from a foreign national or anything like that.”
The latest round of records, obtained by the Oversight Committee from four of the Bidens’ 12 apparent banks, detail yet another round of these payments — this time from China and Romania to the Bidens.
One $3 million payment came from the company of Gabriel Popoviciu, who is the subject of a criminal corruption probe in Romania, to the accounts of Biden family associate Rob Walker mere weeks after Biden, then-vice president, welcomed Romanian leaders to the White House to discuss “anti-corruption efforts” and just more than a year after Biden lectured in Romania about the threat corruption poses to national security. Those transactions were quickly funneled to Owasco (one of Hunter’s 15 companies), a Biden associate’s company, one of Hunter’s personal bank accounts, Hallie Biden, and “an unknown Biden bank account.”
The Romanian payments, the Oversight Committee alleges, further prove that the Bidens’ influence peddling operation was in full swing while Biden facilitated foreign policy discussions, especially in Eastern Europe, during the Obama administration.
The newest Romanian payment dilution strongly resembles how the Bidens appeared to use their more than a dozen companies to coordinate with Chinese nationals suspected of close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and “engage in financial deception.”
“The purpose of all these companies being created is to conceal money that the Biden family has been gaining because Joe Biden has been sitting at the upper echelon of our politics for almost five decades. That is the entire purpose here,” Rep. Byron Donalds explained on Wednesday.
These companies receiving funds from foreign nationals, the Republican asserted, serve no legitimate purpose other than enriching the president, his family, and his business associates.
“Joe Biden has no business, except his position in politics,” Donalds concluded.
“If it looks complicated and sounds complicated, it was intentionally made to be complicated so you could not follow the money,” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace added during her talking time. “What we’re trying to do today is show you how to follow the money.”
During a presidential debate in October 2020, Biden told the nation that neither he nor any of his family members profited from overseas business deals with companies connected to communist China.
“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China. I have not had—The only guy who made money from China is this guy [Donald Trump]. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China,” Biden said.
COMER: “President Biden has claimed since the 2020 election that his family has not received money from China. That was a lie in 2020 — and he continues to lie to the American people now.”
Despite the fact that the Oversight Committee has repeatedly proven Biden’s denials wrong with bank records detailing millions of dollars worth of transactions from foreign shell companies to the president’s family, the White House refuses to do anything but double down on the lie.
“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is loudly and proudly broadcasting a press conference today to continue his long pattern of making absurd claims that President Biden has made governing decisions not in the interest of America, but of the Chinese Communist Party, using baseless claims, personal attacks, and innuendo to try to score political points,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told Fox News, after smearing the committee’s latest memo as an “absurd innuendo [that] ignores reality.”
The Oversight Committee once again rejected these claims on Wednesday and refuted them with hard evidence that several Biden family members, including Hunter, James, Hallie, an unknown “Biden,” and companies linked to the family “collectively received $1.3 million in payments” from Walker, whose company was paid millions by Chinese firm State Energy HK Limited, implicating the family in selling political favors to China.
The Biden family received the money via several bank transfers within six months of the vice president departing the Obama White House. Comer said in April that his committee still did not know who the unnamed Biden was in the China transaction because the Biden family holds so many bank accounts and LLCs.
“The Biden family needs to answer for this and the DOJ needs to get off its ass and investigate. We’ve done the work for them so that they can’t screw it up. Now, if these allegations, any of these allegations are proven true then someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged, prosecuted, and maybe spend a little time in prison,” Mace said at the conclusion of her remarks.
Last week, Republicans Sen. Chuck Grassley and Comer subpoenaed the FBI over a document they say alleges a criminal scheme between now-President Joe Biden and a “foreign national” during his years in the Obama White House.
The Oversight Committee led by Comer, who previously warned it “doesn’t look good for POTUS,” promised to continue investigating whether Biden sold out the American people to the nation’s foreign enemies to line family’s pockets.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis officially signed a trio of bills Monday to stop Chinese Communist Party influence in his state. The bills limit Chinese-tied land buys of farmland, near military bases, or critical infrastructure, protect against Chinese forced technology transfer, and prohibit funding tied to China for education institutions in the state.
“Florida is taking action to stand against the United States’ greatest geopolitical threat — the Chinese Communist Party,” DeSantis said Monday.
“I’m proud to sign this legislation to stop the purchase of our farmland and land near our military bases and critical infrastructure by Chinese agents, to stop sensitive digital data from being stored in China, and to stop CCP influence in our education system from grade school to grad school.
“We are following through on our commitment to crack down on communist China.”
In a Friday interview with Newsmax‘s John Bachman, DeSantis hailed the Florida Legislature GOP supermajorities for being able to get an aggressive agenda passed to root out Chinese influence in his state.
“This is trailblazing for the nation,” DeSantis told Bachman in an interview that aired on “Eric Bolling The Balance.” “Certainly, when you talk about CCP, they made a concerted effort to buy farmland, and so we’re very cognizant of that. We’re not going to let that happen in Florida, but we’ve gone even farther and said we don’t want them near any critical infrastructure.”
Interests of Foreign Countries (SB 264) restricts governmental entities from contracting with foreign countries and entities of concern and restricts conveyances of agricultural lands and other interests in real property to foreign principals, the People’s Republic of China, and other entities and persons that are affiliated with them. It also amends certain electronic health record statutes to ensure that health records are physically stored in the continental U.S., U.S. territories, or Canada.
“Food security is national security, and we have a responsibility to ensure Floridians have access to a safe, affordable, and abundant food supply,” Commissioner Wilton Simpson said Monday. “China and other hostile foreign nations control hundreds of thousands of acres of critical agricultural lands in the U.S., leaving our food supply and our national security interests at risk.
“Restricting China and other hostile foreign nations from controlling Florida’s agricultural land lands near critical infrastructure facilities protects our state, provides long-term stability, and preserves our economic freedom. This bill is long overdue.”
Agreements of Educational Entities with Foreign Entities (SB 846) prohibits state colleges and universities and their officials from soliciting or accepting any gift from a college or university based in a foreign country of concern. It also prohibits state colleges and universities from accepting any grant from or participating in any agreement or partnership with any college or university based in a foreign country of concern. The bill also prohibits the ownership or operation of any private school participating in the state’s school choice scholarship program by a person or entity domiciled in, owned by, or in any way controlled by a foreign country of concern.
Prohibited Applications on Government-issued Devices (SB 258) requires the Department of Management Services to create a list of prohibited applications owned by a foreign principal or foreign countries of concern, including China, which present a cybersecurity and data privacy risk.
The bill requires government and educational institution to block access to prohibited applications on all government servers and devices in Florida and requires public employers to retain the ability to remotely wipe and uninstall these dangerous applications from government issued devices.
In July 1944, 44 delegates from Allied countries came together during World War II in Bretton Wood, New Hampshire. The goal? Devise an international currency system to manage foreign exchange that would disadvantage no country and effectively facilitate post-war rebuilding and commerce. The outcome: The U.S. greenback would be the world’s reserve currency.
It has been almost 80 years since, and all nations have been better off with a United States dollar-dominated world. World gross domestic product (GDP) in 1940 was $7.81 trillion. For 2023, the world GDP is expected to be $112.6 trillion. That is an increase of 1,441 percent. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of this.
China is working overtime to disrupt the dollar-dominated world economy. The significance of the dollar losing its premier position cannot be overstated. The Biden administration should not overlook this.
Most Americans may be unaware of crucial transactions occurring around the globe recently. And who could blame them? All the corporate media’s main headlines have been over the now-public indictment of former President Donald Trump, over factually weak allegations involving hush-money payments to a porn star.
The indictment of a former president is a crossing-of-the-Rubicon moment in American history. But displacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as China and Russia have both made known is their objective, has analogous ramifications for the world. But while the world watches Trump’s indictment, they are missing China’s transactions with some of our major allies and trading partners in the yuan. Notably, China is doing this with nations that need better stewards.
Bloomberg News reported in February 2023 that the Inevitable Rise of the Petroyuan (yuan used to settle Middle East oil transactions) was a “myth.” One month later, Saudi Arabia and OPEC are now considering just that.
In our republic, the founders “separated the purse from the sword.” With the passing of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Congress further separated the purse from our elected representatives by giving the Federal Reserve power over the nation’s money supply.
China has no such separation of powers. President Xi Jinping wields both the sword and purse. What that means if the yuan were to become the global reserve currency is giving the Chinese Communist Party effective control over the money supply for the entire world. The United States would still have the dollar, but it would require exchanging for the yuan to transact with other nations.
Inflation and deflation can both have devastating effects on the economy. Deflation is what caused the Great Depression. Inflation, as we all feel the pain currently, caused an entire decade to be lost in the 1970s.
Allowing China to become the facilitator of the currency used in global commerce, such as the dollar is now, would be to give unprecedented powers to a communist dictatorship. The ebbs and flows of the global economic apparatus would be subject to a hostile foreign power that has no issue retaliating against other sovereign nations that disagree with them.
If the Chinese yuan were to become the global reserve currency, it would, in essence, give the CCP the ability to cripple entire nations. With a country as hostile as China, entire sovereign nations would be subject to the whims of the communists who run their countries. The CCP could arbitrarily restrict credit, enact sanctions, block entire nations from global commerce vis a vis foreign exchange prohibition, and use any of the other vast economic warfare tools the global reserve currency brings. Of course, unless nations decide to toe the Communist Party line.
The world would be like when we were younger and our financial life was dependent upon allowances given to us by our parents. Except in this case, instead of doing chores, nations would have to accept genocide, persecution of minorities, and the desecration of civil rights. We can bet governments would likely have to become complicit. That is not out of the realm of possibility when dealing with actors such as communists.
Mackenzie Alan Bettle graduated from Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business with a bachelor’s in business, law, and economics, summa cum laude, and received his Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall University Law School with an emphasis on law and economics. He is a practicing attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. He loves business, politics, economics, law, football, and his two fluffy Havanese dogs, Jack and Kobe.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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