HUGH HEWITT: At Davos, Trump flexes US power and economic strength at home

When President Donald Trump agreed to speak at the “World Economic Forum” in Davos, he saved the meeting from irrelevance for at least a year. If the President of the United States attends a forum, the collective attention of the world will be directed to him.

The American public often squints at this collection of the world’s biggest wigs, drawn from the richest people in the world, mostly not from our republic, but talking about this and how the world should work, and they don’t like that look at all.

But President Trump has arrived with some “A-Team” on international economic and security issues and Made Davos Great Again. People adapted.

Two comments caught my attention. Regarding the President’s desire to seize Greenland, he made one thing clear: “I will not use force.” That simple statement buoyed markets around the world, which panicked Tuesday, imagining some kind of intra-NATO kinetic conflict. Although the President has made it clear that he will use every lever open to him, this will not happen. Regarding Greenland, the President said, “You can say yes, and we will be very grateful.” “You can say no and we will remember,” he added. Message sent and received.

LIZ PEEK: TRUMP IS PLACING AMERICA FIRST BY SUPPORTING IRAN IN THE CORNER

The president’s speech reminded the assembled globalists of increasing American economic growth and the massive American economy behind it. But anyone who listened to the president’s news conference on Wednesday had already heard most of the summary.

It’s a good thing to emphasize these points at every forum the president visits, from Switzerland to Iowa (where he’ll head to the next caucus), because American voters’ perceptions of the economy will drive the midterm elections.

A reminder: The second set of midterm elections in the last four second terms of Republican presidencies—Ike’s in 1958, Nixon/Ford’s in 1974, Reagan’s in 1986, and George W. Bush’s in 2006—were tough for the GOP; for example, the Parliament saw a net loss of 49, 48, 5 and 30 seats respectively. The tide charts of American politics often predict bad news for the “in” party in that terrible sixth year of the presidency.

FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER SAYS TRUMP’S LEADERSHIP HAS CREATED A ‘RARE OPPORTUNITY’ FOR CHANGE IN IRAN

So repeating and repeating and repeating the good news about the economy is a very smart move.

But as President Trump sat down to ask questions, something new crossed our screens.

In a short 15-minute sitting after his speech, President Trump said to his questioner, “Iran was the tyrant of the Middle East. They are not tyrants anymore.” The extremely polite Eurocrat didn’t think to ask about the 18,000 Iranians killed by their own regime last week, or the tens of thousands of Iranians imprisoned in a fanatic-run theocracy, a regime that waits for the world to lose interest before doling out sentences to its captives.

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We have no idea what President Trump will instruct the American military on Iran. It would be a terrible mistake not to punish them severely for barbarism that has few parallels in this century other than 9/11 and 10/7.

USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and the strike group of warships assembled around it were ordered to close in on Iran last week, and if not already, they will almost certainly be within Iran’s attack range by the end of this week. Other military weapons were also shipped to the region. Our allies in Israel and among the Gulf States have given ample notice to be prepared in case Iran is foolish enough to respond with a punitive attack.

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But punishment must come. To do nothing is to reward the brutality of the ayatollahs. “What gets rewarded gets repeated” is one of the oldest and most accurate clichés. If Iran can destroy thousands of its own people and the world yawns in response, it will do it again and again.

President Trump has many options. Pray he uses at least one of these to send his message: Never do this again.

Hugh Hewitt, Fox News contributor and “The Hugh Hewitt Show” weekday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh takes Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates nationwide and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest of Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier on weekdays at 6 p.m. ET A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he started his eponymous radio show in Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on all major national news television networks, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for all major American newspapers, and authored a dozen books. He has moderated multiple Republican candidate debates, most recently the 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in 2015-16. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians Today Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush.

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