In the days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, Newsmax was in full Trump Regime Media mode (in addition to its weird “Second Shining” magazine issue):
- DOGE Can Yield Positive Reform for America
- Nothing Unfair, Inhumane About Deporting Illegal Immigrants
- Rep. Babin to Newsmax: Trump Will Return U.S. to ‘Its Rightful Place’
- Rep. Baird to Newsmax: ‘Excitement in the Air’ Over Trump
- Craig Shirley to Newsmax: Historic Parallels in Trump, Reagan Inaugurations
- Trump to Sign 100 Executive Orders on Monday
- Dozens of Senior Diplomats Resign at Trump’s Request
- Blaine Holt to Newsmax: Pentagon’s Morale Soaring With Trump Back
Newsmax’s preferred talking heads even gave Trump credit for something they can’t prove he actually did:
- Jack Kingston to Newsmax: Trump’s Election Brought Hostage Deal
- Brent Sadler to Newsmax: Trump ‘Crucial Element’ In Hostage Release
- Rep. Malliotakis to Newsmax: Ceasefire Shows Trump’s Strength
- Newsmax also hyped his pre-inauguration rally and previewed his inauguration speech:
- Trump at Rally: Will End ‘4 Long Years of American Decline’
- Trump to Call for ‘Revolution of Common Sense’ at Inauguration
There was also a Jan. 17 column by Josh Hammer fretting that Trump might not punish his critics severely enough:
In making history as the first man in over 130 years to earn a second nonconsecutive presidential term, Trump has been given an opportunity not merely to lead the nation he so clearly loves. He has also been given an opportunity — a four-year-long opportunity, as the case may be — to study and learn from what went wrong, or at least didn’t exactly go as planned, the first time around.
So: Has Trump 2.0 learned from Trump 1.0? And will this 47th presidential administration be an improvement over the (already quite good!) 45th presidential administration?
Has Trump learned that he cannot squander the massive political capital that comes with winning a presidential election? Has he learned that, in the aftermath of such a tremendous victory and with a like-minded congressional majority in tow, now is the time to strike with an aggressive, full-throttle legislative agenda?
More to the point: Has Trump learned to lead out of the gate on his most important and signature issue, immigration, rather than be sidetracked by such relative distractions as health care or tax cuts (as he was last time)?
[…]Has Trump learned the indispensable imperative of having true loyalists in power up and down the entirety of the administrative state? Will he, unlike last time, be willing and able to fire each and every single subversive executive branch bureaucrat — no matter what any flawed regulation or erroneous court precedent says about a purported inability to do so?
Will he be able to end the calamitous weaponization of the Department of Justice by any means necessary — and clean out the Augean stables at the fetid Federal Bureau of Investigation?
[…]Will Trump exclusively select jurists who have flawless judicial records, are genuine full-spectrum conservatives, demonstrate an eagerness to overrule bad precedent, and have a conservative spouse and attend a theologically conservative house of worship?
These are just some of the questions I have about the new Trump presidency. I certainly hope the answer to each and every question is “yes.”
Godspeed to you, President Trump.
Looks like Hammer is heading into divine-Donald territory.