Friday’s Oval Office Drama
Sometimes, we’re grateful when big news happens late on Friday or a weekend because that gives us time for our 48-hour rule: We don’t talk about some stories until we’re sure we know what happened.
Photo credit: Fox News
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Today’s newsletter is below.
P.S. The Morning Edition is a reader-supported publication. It delivers Monday-Saturday.
Daily Bible Verse
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18
South Carolina wildfires
Once again, we ask you to join us in praying for the safety of those in the path of wildfires, this time in South Carolina. There are more than 175 wildfires there, and the Governor has declared a state of emergency. More details here…
Another vehicle attack in Germany
Breaking News: Monday morning in Mannheim, Germany, in an all-too-familiar story, a man is under arrest after driving a car into a crowd, killing at least one person and injuring 25 others. One witness claimed the driver was on a “rampage.”
How to Win Friends and Influence People:
Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife and children were moved to an “undisclosed location” for their security after pro-Ukrainian protesters showed up at a ski resort where they were staying in Vermont. They were waving signs reading “Vance is a traitor. Go ski in Russia,” “Trump serves Putin,” and “JD Vance is Nazi scum.” We can’t improve on the description of them by one other ski lodge guest, who called them “f***ing morons.”
…So naturally, “Star Trek’s” George Takei is on their side…
Friday’s Oval Office Drama
Sometimes, we’re grateful when big news happens late on Friday or a weekend because that gives us time for our 48-hour rule: We don’t talk about some stories until we’re sure we know what happened. Of course, sometimes, that takes longer than 48 hours. It can be especially confusing when everyone is voicing an opinion on what happened without really knowing. And there may never have been a better example of that than the surprise meltdown on Friday at the White House involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Have you heard about that? We bet you have.
As even some of Zelenskyy’s own backers and advisors lamented, all he had to do was put on a suit, go to the White House, announce the signing of a rare earth minerals deal with the US, sign it, then have lunch. But he couldn’t even manage putting on a suit to show respect for the Oval Office. Still, everything was perfectly cordial for about 40 minutes, until Zelenskyy decided to start using the assembled media to pressure Trump for more support for Ukraine. He must not have gotten the memo that we have a new President who doesn’t give a hoot what the media think.
Vice President J.D. Vance was the first to object to Zelenskyy’s lack of gratitude and complaints about not getting enough support and having to “go it alone” against Russia. That also offended Trump, who said the US had given Ukraine hundreds of billions in aid and weapons “through our stupid President,” and without that, the war would’ve been over in two weeks. Zelenskyy also suggested that Vance didn’t know what he was talking about, and well…as we’re sure you’ve heard, it went downhill from there. It ended with Trump booting Zelenskyy out, the deal not being signed, and the lunch going to the White House press staff.
Trump made it clear that he expected an apology. Zelenskyy was all over the place, going from defense to offense to fending off calls for his resignation to turning to the UK for support. By Sunday, he was talking about how he was ready to sign that mineral deal now.
This is being written early on Monday morning, so there’s no telling what this story will look like by the time you read it on Monday afternoon. Why even try to predict it? Rather than do what every other outlet is doing and tell you what happened and what’s going to happen without having a clue, let’s just talk about things we know for certain.
First of all, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told “Face The Nation” that the mineral deal was more than just a business deal to help get some of the money we’ve put into Ukraine back. It was a way to tie the US and Ukraine closely together, to discourage further Russian aggression without explicitly making military security guarantees or getting the US involved in the war.
Zelenskyy apparently didn’t understand that. Or maybe he was misled, because just before the White House visit, he reportedly met with top Congressional Democrats. As to whether they deliberately sabotaged the deal by telling him to confront Trump in public or they’re just so TDS-ridden that they actually assume the worst of everything Trump does, who can say? But if Zelenskyy listened to them, it was a bad decision, just as it would be for anyone who listens to them about anything.
While we can’t predict how this will end up (although it’s likely to be worked out fairly quickly, now that Zelenskyy has learned Trump can’t be steamrolled), we can provide some reality that might help clear things up.
First of all, there’s a lot of typical “Trump is Putin’s puppet” rhetoric going on. That’s just idiotic and can be safely disregarded.
Most of the Democrats have never held a real job outside of politics and have no idea how deal negotiations work. They want Trump to declare upfront that Putin is evil and he’s on Ukraine’s side. How is that going to entice Putin to the table? Would you show up to play a game if the referee announced in advance which team he favored? No arbitrator would ever say, “Before we start, I just want to say that I’m totally on the side of the guy on my left, and the one on my right is evil.” You may think it – and rightly so in this case – but Trump can’t say that if he wants Putin to go along. That’s like “The Art of the Deal For Dummies.”
Here's some more harsh reality: Despite all the fawning over him by Hollywood and the media, Zelenskyy is not exactly a hero of democracy. He might have been at first, but he’s currently got his country under martial law, he’s canceled elections, and he’s cracked down on opposition parties. In short, he’s actually done the things they claimed Trump would do when they were calling him a “threat to democracy.”
Also, Ukraine is vastly outmatched by Russia in both manpower and firepower. The Ukrainians have done a valiant job of holding off Russia (with the help of billions of US dollars and weapons), but there’s no way they’re going to defeat Russia. This war has been harder and costlier than Putin expected, and he’d probably like an off-ramp to end it, but he’s not going to give up this much blood and treasure for nothing in return. That leaves three possible outcomes:
1. The war goes on indefinitely the way it is now, until Ukraine is rubble, millions are dead and the US is bankrupt (and don’t forget, when you hear Democrats attack Trump for the way he’s handling the war, that was their solution for the past three years, and it apparently still is.)
2. Other nations get more involved (the UK Prime Minister actually talked about “putting boots on the ground” in Ukraine, which we’re sure will be really popular with the British people and work out about as well as it has for North Korean troops fighting with the Russians), but only with US support, and voila! We have World War III on our hands.
3. Trump negotiates an end to the war that gives Putin something to convince him to sign on. Not because Trump WANTS to, but because he knows that’s the only way to end this that doesn’t involve thousands more dead bodies. Sometimes, there are no easy answers so you have to deal with the hard ones.
That may not be how the DC elites or the media see it, but it’s reality. If you’d like to delve a little deeper and understand what’s happening in Ukraine and why Zelenskyy is facing these hard choices, this is a good explanation from Victor Davis Hanson on video, and it only takes six minutes…
And here’s a more in-depth written commentary by VDH…
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor-davis-hanson-10-bad-takeaways-from-zelenskyy-blow-up
Finally, remember when Zelenskyy complained to the US President about not getting enough support, and the President lost his temper and told him the US had been very generous and he needed to “show a little more gratitude”? No, we don’t mean on Friday. We mean in November of 2022, when Zelenskyy ticked off Joe Biden, but the media didn’t have a cow over that.
If you would like to learn more about this fantastic trip, sign up for more information and we will send it to you!
Trump address
Tuesday, President Trump will give an address to Congress, but this is not the State of the Union Address. This link has more information, including places where you can watch it.
English is the official language
President Trump signed an executive order making English the official language of the US.
We wonder if the government will release it in English and Spanish versions. This is also probably another EO that New Yorkers will refuse to comply with.
David Johansen RIP
By “Huckabee” pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.hollywoodhifi.com)
I’m sad to have to report that singer/songwriter David Johansen has died at 75 after nearly a decade of illness and just one month after revealing that he was battling stage four cancer and a brain tumor.
Johansen was the last surviving member of the New York Dolls, the ‘70s cult band that never achieved mass stardom, but was hugely influential on the glam, punk and new wave rock movements. Rolling Stone named their debut album one of the 500 Greatest Rock Albums of All Time. Johansen later reinvented himself under an entirely different persona as that tuxedoed, pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter, who belted out old R&B and big band tunes on “Saturday Day Night” and had a hit with the calypso-tinged, “Hot, Hot, Hot.”
You can read more at the link and see videos of some of his top songs.
FYI: The “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” which includes Eminem and Dolly Parton and recently nominated Mariah Carey, has nominated the New York Dolls three times and never inducted them That puts them in the same exalted company as Jethro Tull, the Guess Who, Grand Funk Railroad and all the other major, influential, actual rock bands that have never been inducted. RIP.
And speaking of bands not in the RRHOF, Badfinger has been eligible since 1996 but still isn’t in. The last surviving core member of that great but seemingly cursed band, guitarist Joey Molland, died Saturday at 77 after a long battle with multiple health issues. In addition to Badfinger hits such as “Come and Get It,” “No Matter What You Do,” and “Day After Day,” Molland also contributed to George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/joey-molland-dead-badfinger-1236151916/
DC prosecutors responsible for railroading J6 defendants have been demoted
We said when Ed Martin was appointed by President Trump to be interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, replacing Biden-appointee Matthew Graves, that this district court would be taking on a very different vibe. And so it already is.
Recall that Graves was the one supervising the January 6 prosecutions in DC. (He’s also the U.S. attorney who would not cooperate with Delaware U.S. attorney-turned-Special-Counsel David Weiss on prosecuting Hunter Biden.)
Martin is transferring numerous prosecutors in the DC office from handling the big cases to dispensing with misdemeanor cases in the DC Superior Court. The reassignment is considered to be a demotion. These are the attorneys who railroaded many Trump supporters to make examples of them. Now, THEY’RE being made examples of.
Remember the sentencing of Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon to four months apiece for contempt of Congress (a charge that seems to have been made only against Republicans)? The two attorneys responsible for those prosecutions, John Crabb and Elizabeth Aloi, are on the list to be reassigned. Then there were the three Proud Boys --- Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean --- who received looooong sentences for their supposed roles. Prosecutor Jason McCullough, who helped lead that team, has been reassigned as well. Also, recall the prosecutions of Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers and over a dozen of his allies. Lead prosecutor Kathryn Rokoczy has been reassigned, along with Greg Rosen, who headed the “Capitol Siege Section” (yes, they actually had something called this).
According to Jim Hoft at THE GATEWAY PUNDIT in a report last week, Enrique Tarrio claims that the only evidence the DOJ had against the Proud Boys was a document he knows was written by the FBI. This is his first major interview after being released on Trump’s pardon and has a lot of new information, including serious allegations against our own government. We must add the caveat that we can’t independently verify, but Hoft has been a reliable reporter.
According to Tarrio, the Biden DOJ pressured him to lie in order to “get” President Trump, but he wouldn’t do it, so they sentenced him to an outrageous 22 years in prison. (Note: we’ve seen this over and over, their hardball attempts to get a defendant to “flip” on Trump and just give them...something.) Tarrio says that to be able to indict the Proud Boys, the DOJ implicated them with a document that they themselves authored, called “1776 Returns.” Tarrio claims the DOJ inserted this into the Proud Boys’ chat group to make them seem more militant.
THE GATEWAY PUNDIT has been on top of this story, reporting on the inauthenticity of the “1776 Returns” document a little over a year ago, when Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys were still on trial. He’d been charged with seditious conspiracy --- that’s why they were able to give him a 22-years sentence. For when you have time, this is an absolute must-read, even if it is from February 2024.
Also note that material in the “1776 Report” reflects ideas from something we’ve reported about here, the Transition Integrity (“Integrity”) Project. It seems much more likely that it sprang from the mind of, say, John Podesta, though jurors were left to assume it came from the defendants.
Of course, this being a DC courtroom, with a DC judge and DC jury, it didn’t matter where that document came from. It could’ve been pulled out of thin air, or out from under the judge’s robe. Guilty!
To sum up, the Proud Boys’ claim that the FBI planted this document was reported over a year ago, during their trial, but they went to jail anyway. Now Trump has pardoned them and Tarrio can finally speak publicly about it. Thankfully, the prosecutors responsible for this injustice have been demoted. However, if prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in DC actually did falsify evidence, as is claimed, to entrap the Proud Boys, mere demotion is too good for them. They should be under the jail themselves. This might not be the end of the story, and let’s hope it isn’t.
Finally: Is this the real reason Michelle O. wasn’t on the ticket?
by Huckabee writer/researcher Laura Ainsworth
It was such a relief during the presidential campaign last July when Michelle Obama was NOT named as Biden’s replacement on the ticket. As longtime newsletter readers know, that had been my worst fear. I had predicted it for two years, all the while hoping and praying I was wrong. But as recently as the Trump-Biden debate, I was quite sure of this, knowing the Democrats had an iron-clad obligation to choose a black woman and that Kamala was the worst disaster of a presidential candidate in living history. How could the Democrats, pathologically obsessed with winning, pick someone they knew could not win?
It was also obvious that President Biden couldn’t handle even four more weeks on the campaign trail, let alone four more years as President. It was obvious then that Democrats had been covering for him, even though some of them (this means you, Jake Tapper) are only now admitting this in ridiculous books that I hope gather dust, mold and flies on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. I assumed the Democrats were trotting out Biden to debate with Trump in the absolute certainty that he’d crash and burn. Then, of course, they’d install Michelle Obama as the new candidate. The media would go wild, and Obama II would be coronated. She was the only black female who had a chance of winning, and (most importantly) this would also ensure another term for the Obama Machine.
As for Kamala, the Democrat Mob --- I mean, Machine -- would make her one of those offers you can’t refuse.
Well, the first part, Biden’s crash-and-burn, happened spectacularly, but the second part, the Michelle coronation, didn’t gel. I was never in my life so happy to be wrong --- it doesn’t happen very often, ha --- but ever since, this chain of events just hasn’t made sense to me. Why would the Democrats have deliberately CHOSEN Kamala? There had to be a puzzle piece we didn’t have.
Then I happened upon a piece from a little over a month ago in AMERICAN THINKER by Jerome Corsi that, if he’s right, explains it. The way he tells it, Michelle, not Kamala, actually was supposed to be the nominee. Looks as though I was right about this. It was all planned.
Corsi’s piece, overall, is about voter fraud, and why this time Democrats apparently didn’t try to rig the top of the ticket but might very well have used ballot fraud to win in some of the down-ballot races. Excellent, highly recommended reading, but the part specifically about Michelle is about seven paragraphs in.
According to his sources, “At the ‘Deep Party’ Central Committee level of the Democrat Party --- at the level of Barack Obama, Klaus Schwab and George Soros, the order went out that Harris needed to lose.” (Recall that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was convinced that after Biden was “induced” (forced?) to withdraw from the race, Michelle Obama would be the nominee, as President Obama’s preference.)
Corsi explains that just under 30 minutes after post-debate Biden withdrew in a social media post on X, he posted again that after deciding “not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” he offered his “full support and endorsement for Kamala [Harris] to be the nominee of our party this year.”
Uh-oh. Recall that almost immediately after this, President Obama (no doubt hotter than a pistol) issued a flowery letter commending Biden for withdrawing but NOT endorsing Kamala. In fact, it didn’t mention Kamala at all. Hilariously, it said, “I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August.” (Note: can’t resist saying that it was the GOP Convention, not the Democrat, that came across as generous, prosperous and united.)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-statement-biden-drops-out-2024-race/
According to Corsi, it wasn’t supposed to go this way at all. Biden, or someone controlling Biden, brought about this outcome. Biden throwing his support to Kamala was really like throwing a giant wrench into The Machine. All consideration of an alternative presidential candidate was over. As for their big plans for Michelle, this nominee was not to be.
And since Biden’s action of positioning Kamala before Michelle was an “unpardonable offense,” Corsi explains, they weren’t going to help her win. They would let HER crash-and-burn this time. Besides, RNC Chairman Lara Trump was keeping too close an eye on the presidential election for them to do the kind of rigging they’d need to do.
So, was Biden aware enough to pull the rug out from under the Obamas this deliberately, out of his tremendous distaste for them? Or was it just a blunder by an elderly man with a poor memory? We might not ever know, but either way, this might be the ONE THING we can be eternally grateful to Joe Biden for doing. And I can be grateful to Jerome Corsi for making sense out of this for me.
Thank you for reading our newsletter.
Like you Laura, I was certain Michele Obama was going to be the nominee and just as surprised when it turned out she was not. I agree, it might be the only thing in a 50 year political career, Biden got correct! I hope this wicked party goes down in a ball of flames. Those who are not a part of this left-wing wickedness would do well to bail before "the ship goes down." As we have seen, many have already disassociated with the DEMS and I'm sure they are sleeping better at night.
Thank you Laura for the realistic view about the Mrs Obama situation. It fits quite well. Considering the Zelenskyy blowup I must admit that I was so excited and happy that I had a very hard time not jumping up cheering and shooting the neighborhood cannon. I was watching it live and realized that FINALLY…Zelenskyy, the left and even the entire world knows that TIMES THEY HAVE CHANGED 🙂🦅🌞🇺🇸