Ivanka Trump Holds Secret Meetings With Liberal Special Interest Groups. No Good Can Come From This

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In preparation for her now full-time role in the Trump administration, Ivanka Trump has been secretly reaching out to the heads of liberal special-interest groups for months, including Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

Politico reports that the first daughter “requested a sit-down with Cecile Richards,” apparently wanting “to know more about the facts of Planned Parenthood” and to reach “common ground” on abortion.

“The purpose of the meeting, from Cecile’s point of view, was to make sure that Ivanka fully understood what Planned Parenthood does, how it is funded, and why it would be a terrible idea for Planned Parenthood to be removed from being able to see Medicaid patients,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America told Politico.

The long and short of their discussion, reportedly, was an argument from Cecile Richards to Ivanka Trump on why Planned Parenthood should not be defunded – a position that conflicts with President Trump’s campaign promises and claim to be pro-life.

Ivanka was, of course, fed several lies by Richards — like how “the money doesn’t actually go to abortions” (money is fungible) and how Planned Parenthood provides cancer screenings (mostly false).

Whether those lies translate to policies in the Trump administration remains to be seen, but the first daughter and her husband Jared Kushner have already worked to stop an executive order on religious freedom in defense of LGBT special-interest groups. It is not unreasonable to think Ivanka Trump will fight an effort to defund Planned Parenthood as well.

And that’s not all. Perhaps the most revealing part of Politico’s story is that Trump has been meeting with several leaders of progressive special interest groups since the election.

Ivanka Trump has been on a listening tour since moving to Washington, as she stakes a claim on women’s issues. In addition to her meeting with Richards, she has quietly met with other leaders of the progressive women’s movement, including Marcia Greenberger, co-president the National Women’s Law Center, and Judy Lichtman, senior adviser to the National Partnership for Women and Family, sources familiar with the meetings told POLITICO.

The only conceivable purpose for doing this is to pitch the liberal lies and talking points directly to the president — to move the administration further leftward. That’s what happened when Ivanka Trump brought Al Gore to Trump Tower to discuss environmental issues. Months later, the Trump administration is mulling a carbon tax.

So, through Ivanka Trump, liberal organizations have a direct influence on White House policy. And the administration continues to lurch to the left.

Which member of the Trump administration is meeting with conservatives? (For more from the author of “Ivanka Trump Holds Secret Meetings With Liberal Special Interest Groups. No Good Can Come From This” please click HERE)

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Gorsuch Is in and the Senate Is More Nuclear. Where Do Conservatives Go From Here?

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Neil Gorsuch became the 113th justice of the United States Supreme Court Friday afternoon, following a Republican circumvention of a filibuster with a long-anticipated “nuclear vote” majority.

While the fulfillment of this particular Trump campaign promise is cause for modest celebration for constitutionalists, those who promoted Gorsuch’s nomination need to remain clear-eyed about what this victory really means for our ongoing constitutional crisis.

Now that the dust has settled in the upper chamber, we’re left with a few things: a fulfilled promise from the Trump campaign, the end of the Supreme Court filibuster for the foreseeable future, and at least a nominal return to the balance of the Supreme Court before Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing last year.

It’s hard to imagine how this nuclear-option change doesn’t set the stage for the upper chamber to nuke the legislative filibuster in following suit, thus reaching the natural end of what the progressive populists sought to achieve with the 17th Amendment.

As Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin pointed out on his radio program this week, the roots of this move are over 100 years old and lie at the feet of the Progressive movement. In short, progressives cast the first stones, both on changing the nature of the Senate and politicizing the process (See: Robert Bork, 2013 et al.).

Ironically, what we have seen this week is the natural conclusion of two progressivist forces that simultaneously – if seemingly contradictorily – seek the end of centralization through the means of mob rule. Long story short, when your judiciary and contemplative body — with authority over approving its members — have been so politicized by judicial activism, a hyper-partisan outcome to the system was inevitable.

The nature of Gorsuch’s confirmation has made it painfully clear that there is no longer the prospect of lukewarm talent on the bench. Now the impetus remains on Republicans to go all out and take the Obama strategy of stacking the court with Trump appointees in the lower courts – albeit encumbered by the “blue slip” process . (And remembering all the while that this political football will change hands, leaving Democrats to do the same once again in the future.)

But, nuclear or not, Justice Scalia’s seat has been filled with an originalist and all is right again with the world, right? No. Rather, conservatives ought to keep in mind that this appointment — while a big fulfilled promise to a greatly concerned constituency — will not solve the judicial crisis facing our Constitution and our republic.

At best, the court now stands at the same ideological balance that gave us the Obergefell decision. At worst, we’re a few degrees further away from original intent than we were on Justice Scalia’s last night on this Earth. Either way, hanging all of one’s hopes for the republic, the rights of the unborn, or a list of other issues before the court solely on Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation and then walking away is a fool’s gambit.

Certainly, should Anthony Kennedy step down and offer up a way to halt the pivot on the court’s “swing vote,” or should anyone else on the progressivist side of the bench leave, then it will be incredibly easier to confirm an even more originalist jurist to fill the spot, as Josh Hammer points out at The Daily Wire.

Neil Gorsuch may in fact be “the kind of jurist we need,” as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said before the committee, but there’s ground for healthy skepticism on this front. Daniel Horowitz explains that while Gorsuch is indeed a constitutionalist in a broad sense, and his articulation of the philosophy was both succinct and clear, his history of jurisprudence skews closer to that of an Alito than a Scalia. (And definitely short of a Thomas on the originalism scale.) Only time will tell.

But hope is not a course of action, especially when one branch of our government has so thoroughly co-opted the duties of the other two, as Daniel Horowitz points out in his book “Stolen Sovereignty.” Rather, the problems that so many have sought to fix by finding “better judges” are systemic, and the best answers to them are systemic as well.

The situation we see before us is two-pronged, as is the answer. If we want to see the Senate return to being the Senate again, then it needs to return to its original function prior to the 17th Amendment, while enacting reforms to make the courts themselves less political by nature.

But more important is the need for Congress to depoliticize the process of judicial appointments by depoliticizing the federal courts. Per Article III, the legislative branch has the power to completely reform the black-robed branch of government — as Horowitz and I have written about ad nauseam. And if the Senate’s nuclear outcome doesn’t spur that discussion on both sides of the aisle, perhaps the further politicization of the judicial branch will. Until then, we can only anticipate a more partisan Supreme Court and a more radioactive Senate. (For more from the author of “Gorsuch Is in and the Senate Is More Nuclear. Where Do Conservatives Go From Here?” please click HERE)

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The US Missile Strike Against Syria: What You Need to Know

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For the past five years, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has been given a free pass to murder hundreds of thousands of his own people with impunity. During his tenure, former President Obama used strong language, even implementing a supposed “red-line,” to try and deter the genocidal Syrian leader from further action, but it didn’t work. Assad has continued to push the boundaries of the free world, utilizing weapons of mass destruction to continue his reign of terror over much of Syria. His massive chemical weapons bombardment on innocent women and children this week appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for President Trump.

In launching some 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian regime air base Thursday night, President Trump made clear that the use of chemical weapons as an instrument of warfare would not be tolerated. Allowing for such a precedent to be established, one in which tyrants are allowed to use WMDs without consequences, threatens both the security of the American people and the global community.

The Tomahawks were launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross, which were situated in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of the assault. The Pentagon made clear the missile raid was a “proportional response,” and not part of a larger engagement. The U.S. launch targeted Shayrat Airfield, which was reportedly used as a base for Syrian fighter jets and chemical weapons.

A Pentagon statement said that the strikes have “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment, adding that the Tomahawks reduced Assad’s “ability to deliver chemical weapons.”

Moreover, the launch sent a signal to the Syrian dictator’s enablers — the Iranian regime and Russia under autocrat Vladimir Putin — that America would no longer “lead from behind” or take a back seat on global security issues.

President Trump’s strike against Assad was praised by American allies in Israel, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others.

“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the air base in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” President Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida Thursday night. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson slammed Russia for failing “in its responsibility” to move chemical weapons out of the nation. “Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end,” Tillerson said of Russia’s failures.

Syrian state-media is claiming that the U.S. attack killed nine civilians, but provided no proof for its claims. “The United States of America committed a blatant act of aggression targeting one of the Syrian air bases in the Central Region with a number of missiles, leaving 6 people martyred and a number of others injured and causing huge material damage,” Syria’s government-run SANA news agency commented. (For more from the author of “The US Missile Strike Against Syria: What You Need to Know” please click HERE)

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Where Obamacare Repeal Stands and What It Means for House Republicans

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The House left for its two-week Easter recess Thursday without passing its Obamacare repeal bill, leaving questions about what comes next in terms of health-care reform.

Leadership announced a last-minute Rules Committee meeting on an amendment to the American Health Care Act — put forward by House Freedom Caucus members Gary Palmer of Alabama and David Schweikert of Arizona — allowing them to go back to their districts with the message they are making progress on the bill. But some speculate if members can’t strike a deal, it could be catastrophic for some of their political futures.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told House Speaker Paul Ryan his job could be at risk if he fails to get something passed during a meeting with White House officials Wednesday night, Politico reports.

The administration is calling on leadership to push members to come to a consensus following the bill being pulled off the floor in March due to a lack of votes — a major blow to the GOP’s message of unity. In the wake of the political blunder, top Republicans have been cautious in their approach, saying they are taking a bottom-up approach, allowing conservatives and moderates to come together on changes. Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise have all repeatedly said they don’t want to put an “artificial timeline” in place, as it might be counterproductive to making improvements to the bill. With the White House looking for a win, the pressure is on for Congress to get something done quickly.

Leadership has largely taken a back seat on their second attempt to make good on their campaign promise, allowing Vice President Mike Pence, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Priebus to take the reins on the negotiation process. Pence, Mulvaney and Priebus met with top members of the three largest House GOP caucuses, which represent the different factions of the conference — the House Freedom Caucus, Republican Study Committee and Tuesday Group — Tuesday evening in an attempt to strike a deal. But despite members leaving the meeting asserting progress had been made, bill text remained unseen and finger-pointing continued Wednesday. (Read more from “Where Obamacare Repeal Stands and What It Means for House Republicans” HERE)

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Should We Take out Assad?

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Secretary of State Tillerson says that Bashar Assad is guilty of using chemical weapons against his own people. Former senator Ron Paul says there’s no way Assad would do this at this time. A report on Alex Jones’ Infowars claims that Syrian rebels are responsible for the attack. President Trump blames Obama’s inaction for what happened in Syria.

Do we really know what’s going on in Syria? And even if we did, should we try to remove Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad?

According to Rex Tillerson, “There is no doubt in our mind and the information we have supports that Syria, the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad are responsible for this attack and I think further it’s very important that the Russian government consider carefully their continued support for the Assad regime.”

According to Ron Paul, “[I]t doesn’t make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poison gasses,” he continued. “I think there is a zero chance he would have done, you know, this deliberately.”

According to Infowars, “the White Helmets, a al-Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British government, reportedly staged the sarin attack on civilians in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun to lay blame on the Syrian government.”

Who’s right?

Obviously, the Trump administration has far more intel than any of us, and America has already launched its first attack on an airfield in Syria.

But our previous missteps in the Middle East call for caution. We should not act unilaterally until we have a long-term plan.

Remember Iraq

Think back to Iraq.

We may have had the best intentions in removing Saddam Hussein from power. He was guilty of horrific crimes. But his removal created a vacuum of power in the region. This contributed to the rise of ISIS and the terrible persecution of Christians (and others). What happens if we take out Assad?

Right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson expressed his concerns in one tweet: “Regime change in Syria = More dead children More terrorism More refugees ISIS taking the entire country Possible war with Russia. Disaster”.

The problem is that the sarin attack is so ghastly that it feels criminal not to act.

Who can forget the images of the gassed children? Who can forget the picture of the father holding his dead baby twins?

If war is hell, the war in Syria has been a special kind of hell, a literal inferno of suffering. Yet this latest attack has crossed yet another line. But that’s why we must act cautiously and carefully, especially now that we have struck our first retaliatory blow.

Letting Atrocities Force Our Hand

Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost. Unspeakable atrocities have already been committed. People have been blown to bits, ripped apart, maimed, tortured, and more.

Children have lost their parents and parents have lost their children. Whole families have been destroyed in a single day. The peace-loving have been butchered side by side with the terrorists. And really bad guys are present on all sides of the battle.

In short, while the sarin attack crossed a definite line, other lines have been crossed time and again. (Do you remember President Obama’s red line?) And so we must act, but we must act prudently. The most recent atrocity, as appalling as it is, cannot force our hand.

Pray for Divine Intervention

What then do we do?

First, if we are not 100 percent sure that the Assad regime is responsible for the chemical attack, we must continue gathering information, even after our first strikes. The lasting controversy over WMDs in Iraq serves as a cautionary warning.

Second, we must think through the long-term regional implications of whatever actions we take. We don’t want to add even greater suffering and instability to the region.

Third, we must do what we can to support the best players in this bloody drama (if such players exist) while doing our best to protect and aid the innocent, like Syrian Christians who have been caught in the crossfire.

Fourth, we must pray for God’s kingdom to come to Syria, in the words of the Lord’s prayer. Only divine intervention can bring real healing to that ravaged nation. (For more from the author of “Should We Take out Assad?” please click HERE)

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Why Is the Religious Left Not More of a Force?

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Recently in Religion Dispatches Daniel Schultz criticized a Reuters column that claimed that the religious left is becoming a strong political force. Schultz is a United Church of Christ pastor, and very much on the left himself. He’s right that some media mistake slight bouts of liberal religious activism as signs of broader revival. Such stories may highlight a rally of religious leaders wearing clerical collars and robes for show. Do these demonstrators have a popular following among the religious? It’s not clear that they do.

But I don’t think Schultz understands why the religious left has so little influence. He thinks it has too much diversity — ethnic and otherwise — to ever unite and draw on a larger popular base. Perhaps, but I think that misses the larger point.

It’s true that the religious right is largely made up of conservative white evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons and Jews. But the religious left is largely made up of white liberal mainline Protestants, Catholic social justice activists and Jewish groups. It’s been that way for a long time. Black Protestant church leaders sometimes work with the religious left. But their religious and moral differences have hindered full unity.

So why isn’t the religious left more of a force in politics?

The religious left had weight years ago because it was made up of strong mainline Protestant denominations. It had large ecumenical groups like the National Council of Churches. The “God Box” at 475 Riverside Drive in New York was their headquarters. They had hundreds of staffers and millions of dollars. They were protected by church bodies that founded and sustained American democracy.

Most of that old liberal Protestant world is now gone or much deflated. Most of those church agencies have left New York. The old mainline seminaries became the hotbed of the religious left a century ago. Most are now marginalized with far fewer students and reduced funding. A few have closed despite storied histories.

What institutions represent the religious left today? There is Jim Wallis’s Sojourners, the Interfaith Alliance and Faith in Public Life, among a few others. Much of their constituency is the ever-dwindling base of liberal Mainline Protestants. They can organize petitions and small demonstrations. But they don’t have wide, broad-based followings. That’s why the media usually ignore them, as do politicians. The National Council of Churches worked with the Clinton Administration 20 years ago. There was nothing like this during the Obama Administration.

The religious right, in contrast, came about through groups that work with churches, not denominational heads. The right was often headed by well-known evangelicals followed by Christian media. They were supported by mail campaigns. The Moral Majority and later the Christian Coalition were the early models. After the fall of a pastor or advocacy group, there were many early claims that the religious right was dead. But always there are new leaders and new organizations that have popular appeal.

The religious right is inventive while the religious left is still stuck to declining liberal Protestantism. Even now, most lay mainline Protestants ignore their own denominations and vote conservative.

Here’s the twist that most claims about religious left revival ignore or don’t appreciate: religious left activism is almost always the work of elites who have lost touch with their religious base. Take evangelicalism. It is now the largest religious demographic. But many evangelical colleges, relief and other groups have moved left. Many of the evangelical elite tilt left and don’t want to be associated with the conservative base in their own denominations. Most political witness jamborees for young college educated evangelicals are left-leaning. Much of the evangelical blogosphere is left-leaning.

In short, much of evangelicalism is retracing the steps of Mainline Protestantism 100 years ago. As the elites move left, they also lose touch with their religious roots.

This is why the religious left will never have a very wide following. Religion is about keeping traditions and holding fast to teachings that may go against the culture. Religious people are committed to Scripture, family, and real church institutions. They may engage in politics, but it will never be their top concern. The religious left may have religious motives, at least at first. But it’s often more wedded to politics than to the religious convictions of the ordinary faithful. As a result, it slowly loses its religious identity in favor of secular politics and activism.

This cycle at least in American Protestantism never seems to end. Religious liberals may stretch the boundaries of their faith or leave it altogether. Then, a new generation of excited converts rediscover the old orthodoxy and replace those who are content to provide a religious gloss to left wing politics. (For more from the author of “Why Is the Religious Left Not More of a Force?” please click HERE)

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Gorsuch May Be Decisive Vote in Divisive Supreme Court Cases

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With Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation as the 113th Supreme Court justice Friday, it won’t be long before he starts revealing what he really thinks about a range of hot topics he repeatedly sidestepped during his confirmation hearing.

In less than two weeks, the justices will take up a Missouri church’s claim that the state is stepping on its religious freedom. It’s a case about Missouri’s ban on public money going to religious institutions and it carries with it potential implications for vouchers to attend private, religious schools.

Other cases the court could soon decide to hear involve gun rights, voting rights and a Colorado baker’s refusal to design a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding. Some of those cases may come up April 13, which could be Gorsuch’s first private conference — where justices decide whether to hear a case. It takes four votes to do so, though the court does not generally announce each justice’s decision. (Read more from “Gorsuch May Be Decisive Vote in Divisive Supreme Court Cases” HERE)

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After Missile Attack, the Challenges Facing Trump in Syria

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After President Donald Trump was mostly cheered by the international community for his missile strikes targeted at the Syrian government, he must now grapple with how to pair his first use of decisive military force with a strategy to contest a six-year-old war that has challenged the world.

U.S. officials described Trump’s sudden decision to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian air base as a targeted retaliation on the source of a suspected deadly attack on civilians that occurred two days before—and a symbolic show of American power.

But foreign policy experts say that Trump, by inserting himself squarely into a complex battlefield, will have to deal with the aftermath, and decide how he wants to handle the dual challenges of fighting ISIS, and responding to Syria’s dictator leader Bashar al-Assad, whose brutality many blame for inflaming terrorism in the region.

“Last night’s strikes were an act of war. We need to be clear about that,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a scholar in Middle Eastern studies and vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “The intent here and messaging has been, this was a contained, commensurate response and that’s where this ends.”

“But the question is whether the Russians, Iranians, and Syrians continue to test America’s patience,” he added. “I don’t put it past that axis to continue the atrocities in Syria. The Syrian war certainly has now grabbed the attention of the president, so I wouldn’t rule out future strikes.”

‘Mobilize a Common Strategy’

During the campaign, Trump emphasized his focus in Syria would be on defeating ISIS, the terrorist group that maintains its base in that country, and in the early weeks of his administration, the White House articulated that facilitating the removal of Assad from power was not a priority.

This week, Trump’s calculus seemed to change when the president said the chemical weapons attack had “crossed a lot of lines for me” and that his attitude toward “Syria and Assad has changed very much.”

H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, said Thursday night that he hoped the U.S. strikes on the Syrian government’s infrastructure would “shift Assad’s calculus,” because this was the first time America had taken direct military action against the dictator’s regime.

President Barack Obama had feared being dragged deeper into a civil war that has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced half the country. He refused to strike Assad’s government after a similar chemical weapons attack in 2013 despite issuing a “red line” that created expectations for military force.

Trump’s action, some experts say, could provide leverage against Assad that the previous administration never had.

“The cruise missile strike sends a strong signal that Assad cannot act with impunity and use chemical weapons,” said Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at The Heritage Foundation. “It undermines his perceived power and is a powerful warning shot that will constrain his future options. It is crucial to follow up the strike with aggressive and focused diplomacy to mobilize allies behind a common strategy in Syria.”

Yet the the situation on the ground in Syria has changed dramatically since 2013, with Russian troops intermingled among Syrian forces as part of Moscow’s push to keep Assad in power.

“This strike comes four years from when we should have taken another strike in a similar way,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Now, there is more uncertainty and instability. You don’t want to escalate things and inadvertently kill Russian troops. The chances of retaliation or blowback today are much greater.”

Dealing With Russia

Next week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, along with Iran and Hezbollah, the U.S.-declared Shia terrorist group, has propped up Assad’s government and provided military support to it.

“We have not really seen the affect of U.S. power on the Russian calculus for the last six years or longer,” Schanzer said. “The previous administration was very circumspect with applying power. The Russians took that as a green light to engage in destabilizing activities in Syria and Ukraine. Whether Trump’s new action has a deterrent effect will be interesting to see.”

Russia’s immediate reaction to Trump’s decision has been to not back down. Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, told reporters the Russian president “considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law, and under a far-fetched pretext.”

The Russian government said it was pulling out of an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating in Syria.

U.S. military officials later insisted Russia was continuing to comply with the agreement.

Russia’s early rhetoric concerns experts about the possibility of a direct military confrontation with Moscow, which has air defense systems in Syria that can shoot down U.S. aircraft. This could complicate the fight against ISIS, since the U.S.-led coalition until now has been conducting airstrikes mostly without interference from Russia and the Assad government.

“Trump’s decision to strike in Syria only improves the U.S. leverage against Assad and Russia to a limited extent,” said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “Russia will call our bluff. If we really want them to believe we will dramatically increase our military role in Syria, they know we aren’t serious. I don’t think that’s something Trump wants to do, and I wouldn’t advise it either. As much as I want the war to end, I am not sure I want to risk a U.S.-Russia conflict to do it.”

But James Jeffrey, a deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, predicts Russia will increasingly feel isolated because of Trump’s action. Peskov, the Putin spokesman, recently said Moscow’s support for Assad “is not unconditional” and Jeffrey says the international condemnation of the chemical attack could frustrate Russia enough to change its calculus.

“We amassed support from around world for these strikes,” Jeffrey told The Daily Signal in an interview. “That’s something the Russians have to consider. They want to isolate the U.S. and Western world, and that’s not something Russia has now. Putin is outgunned against the U.S. coalition, and isolated internationally. If Trump gives him some way out of Syria through a diplomatic process, why wouldn’t Putin take that?”

‘Has to Stop’

Still, the experts say the Trump administration should proceed cautiously in how aggressively it presses Assad, who remains determined and capable.

Phillips notes that Trump’s strikes only targeted one airfield, not Syria’s air force or chemical weapons capabilities, and he warns there is little the U.S. can do to stop Assad’s security forces from continuing the war, short of taking more military action.

“It would be a mistake to expand the military effort to include the goal of removing Assad,” Phillips said. “That would be a costly and risky mission creep that would entail military clashes with Russia and Iran. And it would bog down the U.S. military in an open-ended effort to stand up and stabilize a post-Assad government. Pressing Assad to step down as part of a political settlement should be a long-term diplomatic goal pursued through sanctions, but ISIS and al-Qaeda should remain the chief targets for U.S. military action in Syria.”

Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert at Northeastern University, is concerned that pushing for the removal of Assad could leave a power gap and make the country even more of a haven for Islamic extremists.

“I worry by weakening the Syrian government’s position, this will help to breathe new life into the al-Qaeda-allied rebels,” Abrahms told The Daily Signal in an interview. “I don’t think Trump wants to get involved into the domestic politics of this country. It will absolutely consume his presidency.”

Even if the Trump administration keeps its word about the limited intent of its missile attack, the experts agree the president has sent a political message that the U.S. can use to its advantage by demonstrating the use of force is on the table.

“This is not George W. Bush going to Iraq in 2003,” Jeffrey said. “There is no doubt in my mind Trump won’t use force to drive Assad out. But he can use military force as part of a diplomatic strategy to get an agreement between Assad and the Sunni majority of his population who he is trying to bomb out of existence. That has to stop and it started stopping yesterday.” (For more from the author of “After Missile Attack, the Challenges Facing Trump in Syria” please click HERE)

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Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind’

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With his surprise, 180-degree decision to avenge innocents in Syria, President Donald Trump entered the particle accelerator that is foreign affairs.

The barrage of urgencies—inhumanity, chemical weapons, Syrian civil war, North Korean missiles, Russian warships, truck bombings, ISIS—has streamed his focus into a statesmanship that impresses even his detractors. This reminds us of Trump’s speech to Congress in February where he grew visibly into his presidential shoes.

Taking decisive action in Syria indeed was in the U.S. national interest, not only an understandable human response to a human atrocity. How is it in the national interest? Chemical weapons cannot be tolerated a bit. No excuse exists. Any shadow of their acceptability would quickly become a black cloud over a world cowed into suspicion and fear. Our national interest depends upon a world open to itself and to the future.

How else was this in the U.S. national interest? Well, it also re-establishes U.S. credibility abroad. For friends and foes alike the bombing is a North Star reference point to White House foreign policies still in formulation. And certainly, that point is not a line, red or other. That point? No more “leading from behind.”

From military giants to lone wolves, today’s range of actors has expanded up, down, and sideways. And with their real-time access to global affairs, they are weaponizing most anything, be it information, chemicals, national debt, online data, or delivery trucks.

With his action in Syria, Trump chose to weaponize leadership. And he showed that the United States will use it to its best effect. (For more from the author of “Syria Strikes Signal an End of ‘Leading From Behind'” please click HERE)

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Trump’s First Big Foreign Policy Move a Departure From Stump Speeches

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In what will almost certainly be the defining foreign policy decision of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days seems to be a significant shift from his noninterventionist rhetoric on the campaign trail in facing down Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, longtime critics of the president, praised Trump’s decision to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian government’s Shayrat airfield, where a chemical weapons attack was launched that killed more than 70 Syrian civilians, including children.

Conversely, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah stressed that Trump should have sought congressional approval before the strikes. Meanwhile, conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham noted the major policy shift.

While some Trump supporters on the pundit side might have been surprised by the strikes, it’s not likely to hurt the president with his supporters throughout the country, said Richard Benedetto, an adjunct professor of government at American University.

“Some Trump folks will be disappointed,” Benedetto told The Daily Signal. “Many of the so-called blue-collar Trump supporters backed him because they did not like to see America get pushed around.”

As a candidate, Trump heavily criticized George W. Bush, a former president of his own party, for launching the Iraq War, while in 2013, he tweeted that President Barack Obama shouldn’t intervene in Syria.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Trump has shifted away from a cautious attitude toward foreign entanglements, said Benedetto, a former White House correspondent for USA Today.

“He could still be a noninterventionist compared to Bush, but at the same time, wants to make it clear he is not Obama,” Benedetto said. “It doesn’t mean he will be an interventionist in other things. But this means he takes chemical weapons seriously and he believes he had to do something.”

During a Rose Garden press conference Wednesday, the president telegraphed a shift before the strike, stating he is flexible.

I don’t have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way … I do change and I am flexible and I’m proud of that flexibility, and I will tell you that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me, big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing and I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility and it’s very, very possible, and I will tell you it’s already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.

The New York Times ran a story with the headline “Trump’s Far-Right Supporters Turn on Him Over Syria Strike.” However, the story focused mostly on more extreme elements rather than the general Trump supporter or conservatives.

The expectations of Trump as a “restrictionist, realist, or isolationist” during the presidential campaign were miscalculated from the beginning, said Emma Ashford, a research fellow for defense and foreign policy at the libertarian Cato Institute.

“He talked in the campaign about staying out of stupid Middle East wars, but he also talked about Iraq and how we should have taken their oil, and how he would bomb the hell out of ISIS,” Ashford told The Daily Signal. “People tend to focus on whether he is a neocon or like Ron or Rand Paul. They ignore the third way, which is being a restrictionist on humanitarian matters but interventionist in other areas.”

Ashford noted that military presence in the Middle East has increased since Trump became president.

Ashford said that Obama’s decision not to strike Syria in 2013 was sound.

“It worked in that Assad did not use chemical weapons again while Obama was president,” Ashford said.

The change between campaign rhetoric and international affairs isn’t unusual for presidents. Woodrow Wilson campaigned on staying out of World War I. Franklin Roosevelt campaigned on staying out of World War II. Richard Nixon campaigned on exiting the Vietnam War, and George W. Bush shunned nation building, experts said.

“Campaign rhetoric is just designed to get votes,” James Carafano, a national security expert at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “Look at John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008, and they sounded almost identical. There was no way anyone could have predicted Barack Obama’s foreign policy over the next eight years.”

He continued that this is what one should expect from Trump as a businessman.

“This is who Trump is. He deals with what he is dealt,” Carafano said. “If profits are down, he doesn’t hold a press conference to pretend they are not. He deals with it.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s First Big Foreign Policy Move a Departure From Stump Speeches” please click HERE)

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