The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1926-kristi-noem-is-officially-out-at-dhs?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Are we about to take Cuba? President Trump keeps talking about it.
The first time, you might say, well, it&#8217;s a joke. The second time, maybe it&#8217;s still a joke.
The thing about jokes, though, is they often have an element of truth to them. 
First, on Monday, when asked about the communist nation 90 miles off the Florida coast, he said this:
<blockquote>The Cuban government is talking with us. They&#8217;re in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money. They have no anything right now. But they&#8217;re talking with us, and maybe we&#8217;ll have a friendly takeover &#8230; We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Trump: &#8220;Maybe we&#8217;ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/YCI8WcxzBG">pic.twitter.com/YCI8WcxzBG</a>
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) <a href="https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/2028259238464659778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @unusual_whales/FoxNews/X.com
This was the line he made a few days ago: maybe we&#8217;ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. 
Then yesterday, Thursday, he brings up Cuba again. 
<blockquote>All of a sudden you see—where&#8217;s Marco? He&#8217;s not around anymore. I don’t see him, he&#8217;s doing some job. Next one is going to be… we want to do that special Cuba, he&#8217;s waiting. He says let&#8217;s get this one finished first. We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen if you watch countries over the years. If you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We&#8217;re not going to let anything bad happen to this country.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Trump announces Cuba is the US’ next target.
Follow: <a href="https://twitter.com/AFpost?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AFpost</a>
<a href="https://t.co/GLHIHKv5fB">pic.twitter.com/GLHIHKv5fB</a>
— AF Post (@AFpost) <a href="https://twitter.com/AFpost/status/2029705954074210715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump says, “Look—we&#8217;re not going to do it right away. But maybe Marco is going to head on down.”
Marco Rubio, who&#8217;s wanted to topple the communist regime in Cuba for his entire life.
Are we going to do it?
I think Trump is serious about taking Cuba. I think it makes sense to take Cuba.
And let me remind you that this is something that basically everybody agreed on until recently. 
Trump&#8217;s most vocal critic who used to be on the Right and now is on the Left — Bill Kristol — worked in a Republican White House, was a major thought leader on the Right who then he became a Biden guy and a Kamala guy — even Bill Kristol, who hates Donald Trump with the fire of a thousand suns, said some years ago that we should take Cuba.
We have already taken Cuba on multiple occasions. We&#8217;ve controlled Cuba three or four times over the last hundred years. This is not that weird. It&#8217;s 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The regime is starving right now. They don&#8217;t have oil. They don&#8217;t have leadership. Virtually no one can even name the president of Cuba.
I can, because I&#8217;m particularly interested in the tobacco industry — and also it&#8217;s a nice place, Cuba. But can you name the leader of Cuba? No. 
His name is Miguel Díaz-Canel.
We remember the Castros. Fidel Castro ruled for decades and then his brother Raúl took over. But the Castros are now gone.
After Trump took over Venezuela, Cuba has really been on the brink of collapse. So there does seem to be a method to this. And after Iran — maybe check in five or six weeks — maybe Cuba&#8217;s next.
Not so bad.
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President Trump Participates In A Saving College Sports Roundtable In The East Room

President Trump Teases Taking Cuba

Cuba

Donald Trump

Marco Rubio

Michael Knowles

Opinion

Trump Administration

President Donald Trump told CNN host Dana Bash on Friday that Cuba&#8217;s communist government is on the brink of collapse, adding that he would soon send Secretary of State Marco Rubio to handle the situation in the Caribbean island nation.
Bash <a href="https://x.com/DanaBashCNN/status/2029926445431079095">reported</a> that she spoke with Trump on multiple issues across the globe, including the war with Iran and the situation bubbling over in Cuba. Trump told Bash, &#8220;Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon,&#8221; adding that the United States has &#8220;plenty of time, but Cuba is ready.&#8221; Bash also said that Trump told her he would soon &#8220;put Marco over there.&#8221;
Rubio, whom Trump has called the &#8220;greatest secretary of State in U.S. history,&#8221; is the son of Cuban parents who immigrated to the United States just before Fidel Castro seized power. Throughout his political career, Rubio has hoped for the Cuban people to free themselves from communist rule. Now, Rubio has a chance to help turn that hope into reality as he will likely play the most important role in U.S. efforts to stabilize Cuba.
The communist Cuban regime is in the middle of a major economic collapse, with inflation rising out of control and the country&#8217;s infrastructure continuing to fall apart. The economic situation in Cuba deteriorated further after the United States successfully captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and took control of Venezuela&#8217;s oil exports. After Trump&#8217;s action, the Venezuelan government stopped shipping oil to Cuba, and the U.S. military has been intercepting ships from other nations attempting to offload fuel in Cuba, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/world/americas/cuba-oil-blockade-trump.html">reported</a>. The Cuban government is believed to have just a few weeks of fuel supply left before the country goes into a blackout.
A United Nations official in Cuba <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/02/1167046">said</a> last week that the situation in the country is &#8220;becoming fragile,&#8221; with food security also &#8220;deteriorating.&#8221;
As Trump rewrites the rules of America&#8217;s foreign policy strategy, he has set his sights on Cuba, but a major military operation targeting the country appears unlikely at the moment. Instead, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-suggests-friendly-takeover-of-cuba-after-boat-incident?author=Cameron+Arcand&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Suggests+%E2%80%98Friendly+Takeover+Of+Cuba%E2%80%99+After+Boat+Incident">suggested</a> a &#8220;friendly takeover&#8221; of the country last week.
&#8220;The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, no anything right now,” Trump said. “Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
As the crisis in Cuba worsens, the Cuban government <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/deadly-gun-battle-off-cubas-coast-florida-registered-boat-at-center-of-clash?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Deadly+Gun+Battle+Off+Cuba%E2%80%99s+Coast+%E2%80%94+Florida-Registered+Boat+At+Center+Of+Clash">said</a> that its troops shot and killed multiple people on a speedboat from Florida that it accused of opening fire on Cuban soldiers just off the country&#8217;s coast. At least five people aboard the speedboat were killed, and Cuba charged the five surviving crew members with terrorism. Rubio said that the incident was not a U.S.-backed operation.
For decades, Cuba remained a thorn in America&#8217;s side as the island nation, just 100 miles off the Florida coast, was closely allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 is still considered the closest the world has ever come to full-scale nuclear war, and the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion on the southwestern coast of Cuba remains one of the biggest U.S. military failures in history.

Donald Trump/Marco Rubio

Trump Predicts Another Dictatorship Could Fall Soon — Suggests Sending Marco Rubio

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1923-did-israel-drag-us-into-war-in-iran?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
There are a lot of people out there in the online chattering class, including Trump supporters, who are saying,
This is ridiculous. We were told “no new wars.” We were told we certainly wouldn’t go to war with Iran. This is a complete betrayal of MAGA and America First.
Some are even arguing that if voters had known America was going to war with Iran, especially if we were going to get dragged into it by Israel, they never would have voted for Trump. He’s a liar, this is a betrayal.
Hold on.
President Trump has been clear for a decade that he is not going to let Iran get a nuclear weapon and that he is going to oppose the Iranian regime. He has also made it pretty clear that he does not like the fact that Iran has repeatedly tried to kill him.
But let’s go deeper than Trump’s rhetoric. Let’s look at what Vice President JD Vance has said.
Back in October 2024, during the vice-presidential debate, Vance was directly asked about a preemptive strike involving Israel and Iran. He was asked this exact question, and he gave an excellent answer:
<blockquote>“Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys.”</blockquote>
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Vance: ‘It is up to Israel’ whether it would launch pre-emptive strike on Iran" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uy_ENOPCOp0?start=45&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Whether you agree or disagree with Vance’s statement, you cannot accuse the Trump administration of flip-flopping on this issue. You cannot accuse the Trump administration of hiding the ball or deceiving voters.
They promised to do exactly what they are doing now. And they have been very clearly telegraphing it for the past two months, with the military buildup in the Persian Gulf.
That doctrine was not invented last week. It was spelled out in a debate on national television.
Vance gave a similar answer to Sean Hannity back in July of 2024 when <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1923-did-israel-drag-us-into-war-in-iran?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">he articulated</a> what he called the core of the Trump doctrine in foreign policy — you don’t commit America’s troops unless you really have to. But when you do, you “punch hard.”
“If you&#8217;re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard,” Vance told Hannity. “And that&#8217;s what he did. We took out Soleimani, by the way. That action, people said that it would lead to a broader war. It actually brought peace. It actually checked the Iranians and slowed them down a little bit.”
And if that weren’t enough, the administration telegraphed its intentions in another way: the military buildup in the Persian Gulf.
For the past two months, the United States has been gradually but severely building up military assets outside of Iran. Aircraft carriers. Strike groups. Strategic positioning. That kind of buildup does not happen overnight because a foreign leader calls and says, “Hey, we’re going in tomorrow. Do whatever you want.”
The notion that Israel sprang this on Washington at the last minute simply does not square with the scale and duration of that preparation.
Now, it may be true that Israeli action influenced the timing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said as much: Israel was going to strike, and Iran was going to retaliate against U.S. forces, whether we liked it or not. That forced a decision about whether to preemptively strike before American casualties mounted.
But that is not the same thing as saying the United States was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a war it never intended to fight.
There is a difference between timing and intent.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1923-did-israel-drag-us-into-war-in-iran?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+</a></h3>
The administration’s position, whether you agree with it or not, is coherent. Iran’s missile and drone capabilities were advancing rapidly. Secretary Rubio has argued that within a year or so, Iran could cross a “threshold of immunity” — meaning it would have so many short-range missiles and drones that it could hold the region hostage.
That is the case they are making.
You can argue that intelligence is flawed. You can argue that the risk calculus is wrong. You can argue that the costs will outweigh the benefits. But you cannot say this was a surprise.
If you voted for this administration, and you were not aware that it took a hard line on Iran, that it supported Israel’s right to strike, and that it believed in overwhelming force when force is used — then you were not paying attention. That’s on you.
That is not an insult; it is an observation.
The Trump foreign policy doctrine has never been isolationist. It has never been “America hides under the covers.” It has been “America First,” which means pursuing American interests pragmatically and forcefully when necessary.
Reasonable minds can differ on whether this particular strike was wise, especially when people have different levels of information about whether or not the strike is a good idea. But in terms of the grand strategy, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s much room for disagreement.
The administration did not flip overnight; they campaigned on confronting Iran. They defended preemptive action in principle. They promised to “punch hard” if they had to. And then they did exactly that.
You can call it reckless. You can call it bold. You can call it dangerous.
But you cannot call it hidden.

Senate Briefing As Congress Unlikely To Limit Trump On Iran War For Now

No One Was Deceived: The Iran Strike Was Telegraphed For Months

Iran

JD Vance

Middle East

Secretary of State Marco Rubio fired back at reporters on Monday when they questioned him about the joint military action undertaken by the United States and Israel against the Iranian regime, asking why no one from President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration had notified Congress before the first strikes.
Rubio said that the Gang of Eight — a bipartisan group that is comprised of the eight top-ranking congressional leaders — had been informed, but said that no law compelled the administration to inform Congress writ large prior to taking action.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 BREAKING: Sec. Marco Rubio is on FIRE right now
&#8220;Why not notify Congress?!&#8221;
RUBIO: &#8220;We can&#8217;t notify 535 members of Congress. Vote on whatever they want. There&#8217;s NO law saying we have to do that.&#8221;
&#8220;We did notify the Gang of 8&#8230;NO LAW requires the president! NO presidential… <a href="https://t.co/nrtf9sWNFt">pic.twitter.com/nrtf9sWNFt</a>
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2028577390817849574?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Why not notify Congress ahead of this —?&#8221; the reporter asked.
&#8220;Well, we did,&#8221; Rubio pushed back immediately. &#8220;We notified Congress, well, we notified the Gang of Eight, we notified congressional leadership. There&#8217;s no law that says we have to do that. The law says that we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We&#8217;ve done that. I think the notification went today.&#8221;
&#8220;But we did notify members of Congress in advance,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We can&#8217;t notify 535 members of Congress.&#8221;
When one reporter interrupted, arguing that Congress had to vote on a resolution declaring war, Rubio shot back, &#8220;Congress can vote on whatever they want, but there&#8217;s NO law saying we have to do that. And I&#8217;m going to say something because I see people on TV — look, that&#8217;s fine, if they want to take a War Powers vote, they can do that, they&#8217;ve done that. They&#8217;ve done that a bunch of times.&#8221;
Rubio repeated that there was no law requiring a president to take any action to notify Congress about strikes before engaging, adding, &#8220;To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional, not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents. That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we&#8217;re here today.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve done more Gang of Eight briefings than I got in four years of Biden! I was in the Gang of 8. We complied with the law and we will continue to comply with it,&#8221; he concluded.
According to the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47603">War Powers Resolution of 1973</a>, the president must inform Congress within 48 hours after taking military action or sending troops into combat or imminent combat. A president can then continue such military action for only 60 days — with an additional 30 days for troop drawdown — without a vote from Congress authorizing the continued operations.

Secretary Marco Rubio Meets With Ecuadoran Foreign Affairs Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld

Rubio Unloads On Reporter Who Asks Why Trump Didn’t ‘Notify Congress’ Before Striking Iran

Congress

Global Politics

Iran Airstrike

Media

War Powers Resolution

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian threat during a press briefing on Wednesday, signaling that while the administration remains open to a diplomatic path, the window for Tehran to change course is narrowing.
Rubio’s message was unmistakable: the United States will no longer tolerate an Iranian regime that builds &#8220;hidden&#8221; nuclear infrastructure while pointing a massive arsenal of ballistic missiles at American interests.
Rubio addressed the talks recommencing on Thursday by reminding the world that Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain the primary flashpoint. Despite the crippling of their program under Operation Midnight Hammer, Rubio warned that the regime has not abandoned its desire to enrich uranium.
“After their nuclear program was obliterated, they were told not to try to restart it, and here they are,” he noted. “You can see them always trying to rebuild elements of it. They’re not enriching right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.”
Rubio directly challenged the “peaceful energy” narrative often peddled by Tehran. He noted that if Iran truly wanted nuclear power, it would follow the model of other nations — utilizing above-ground reactors and imported fuel. Instead, their insistence on enriching uranium deep inside mountains suggests a singular, more sinister goal.
“If what they really wanted was energy from it, they could do small modular reactors, which is something that’s quite affordable and achievable for a lot of countries,&#8221; Rubio said. &#8220;But when you say we want to enrich and we want to enrich deep underground, and you have a history in the past of enriching to 20 and even 60 percent, plus you’re building missiles that could potentially carry warheads, that doesn’t sound to me like someone who’s a country that’s not interested in building weapons.”
“You would have to lack common sense to not know what that means,” Rubio remarked.
He then shifted to Iran&#8217;s conventional military capabilities, arguing that the threat extends well beyond the nuclear file.
“Iran possesses a very large number of ballistic missiles, particularly short-range ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our bases in the region and our partners in the region, and all of our bases in the UAE, in Qatar, in Bahrain,” he pointed out. “They also possess naval assets that threaten shipping and try to threaten the U.S. Navy. So I want everybody to understand that, and beyond just the nuclear program they possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and attack Americans, if they so choose to do so. These things have to be addressed.”
“For a country that’s facing sanctions, whose economy is in tatters&#8230; somehow they still find the money to invest in missiles of greater and greater capacity every year,” Rubio said. “This is an unsustainable threat.”
Asked whether the upcoming negotiations represent the &#8220;last chance&#8221; for a peaceful resolution, Rubio remained measured but firm. He said President Trump &#8220;greatly prefers&#8221; a diplomatic solution and wants progress &#8220;more than anything else.&#8221;
But Rubio made clear there is a major sticking point: Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile program.
“The Iranian insistence on not discussing ballistic missiles is a big, big problem,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’ll leave it at that.&#8221;

US-DIPLOMACY-CARIBBEAN-RUBIO

America’s Top Diplomat Drops Stark Message For Tehran Ahead Of High-Stakes Talks

Politics

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday. It was attended by a wide variety of politicos, both from the Trump administration and from the Democratic side of the aisle.
He was the adult in the room.
Marco Rubio is the most well-spoken member of the Trump administration. And when it comes to foreign policy, it’s not even close.
He gave a truly tremendous speech about the relationship between America and Europe.
If you recall, last year, Vice President JD Vance also went to Europe. In Davos, he proceeded to give a speech blistering the Europeans: some parts for good reasons, some parts that weren’t so great.
His speech appeared to draw the hackles of a bunch of Europeans because it was basically saying, “Guys, you seem to be on your own. America is drawing back.”
That is not what Rubio said. What Rubio said is that we have strong bonds, centuries-long bonds with the many European countries, and we also are going to have common interests with those countries, but we need strong allies to stand up for themselves.
He attempted to draw out a definition of what it meant to be in consonance with Europe in a way that Vance, in some ways, failed to advance.
Rubio received a standing ovation for this, which is a good thing because his defense of the Trump administration policy was quite muscular over at the Munich Security Conference.
Rubio suggested that the United States and Europe have a great history of cooperation:
<blockquote>Together we rebuilt a shattered continent in the wake of two devastating world wars. When we found ourselves divided once again by the Iron Curtain, the free West linked arms with the courageous dissidents struggling against tyranny in the East to defeat Soviet communism. We have fought against each other, then reconciled, then fought, then reconciled again. And we have bled and died side by side on battlefields from Kapyong to Kandahar.</blockquote>
Rubio said we definitely need strong allies, that it can&#8217;t just be the United States picking up the check for everybody else. You can&#8217;t build gigantic welfare states on the back of American taxpayers. You need to be strong, because strong alliances require strong allies, and those strong allies are capable of providing deterrence against, for example, a wayward Russia.
“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker,” he said. “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.
Rubio noted problems that the continent has brought upon itself, ranging from subjecting itself to the Green Revolution,, to the mass migration that it brought upon itself largely through a bizarre sort of blood-guilt, the idea that Europe, because it had destroyed so much of the world during World War II, somehow owed it to the rest of the world to open its borders and bring everyone in.
In the key section of his speech, he talked about the values that are supposed to bring together the United States and Europe.
<blockquote>The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending, because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life. And that is what we are defending: a great civilization that has every reason to be proud of its history, confident of its future, and aims to always be the master of its own economic and political destiny.</blockquote>
What are the ideas that unite that civilization? He said, “Armies don&#8217;t fight for abstractions.” I beg to differ a little; armies do fight for abstractions. Armies have fought for communism; there are armies that fight for Islamic fundamentalism; there are armies that are fought for Catholicism and for Protestantism. There are armies all over the world that fight for ideas.
The question is, what are the ideas of Western civilization that are worth upholding and preserving? Because if you don&#8217;t know what it is you are defending, it is very difficult to fight for it.
The truth is that Europe itself is a bit of an idea. There are times when members of the European continent have been fighting each other tooth and nail in bloody, centuries-long wars.
What exactly is the concept of Europe? What is the common ideological heritage that actually counts between America and Europe? If you&#8217;re going to talk about Europe as a holistic concept, you have to define your terms. If you&#8217;re going through the history of Europe all the way back to the Roman Empire, what you&#8217;d see is that the Roman Empire was its own civilization. It considered the outlying areas to be barbarians. The word barbarian comes from a Latin root, which means people who speak gibberish. At that time, it applied to the Germans. The Germans were the barbarians. Now they are considered part of European civilization.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, what rose in its wake was Christendom, which was basically the idea of Catholic dominance of the European continent. That grew over the course of the Carolingian Empire and over the course of the subsequent centuries, up until the Protestant Reformation. 
The Protestant Reformation ushered in an era of religious warfare that lasted well over 100 years, and ended with the Peace of Westphalia when the medieval concept of Christendom was replaced by the modern system of nation-states. There was a new concept of Europe that was formed in the aftermath.
The question is always in opposition to what? Whenever you are defining a civilization, civilizations have an internal definition, and then they have a definition with regard to others.
The reality is that the Roman Empire was not only defined as that which was under the sway of Rome, but also in opposition to other empires and armies, German armies, Assyrian armies, Persian armies, or whatever the case may have been.
Christendom was largely forged in opposition to Islam in the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire, because Islam was actually a dire threat to Europe and had spread deep into Europe, all the way into France, after the Peace of Westphalia.
About a century later, we saw the rise of the Enlightenment, and then the West became identified with these Enlightenment ideas, a history of Christianity that bled over into a sort of secularized version of many of the key values of Christianity, but with a critical eye toward the idea that religion could answer all questions, and therefore a sort of Aristotelian approach towards science that looked at evidence first.
You got the separation of church and state in many of these countries. You got the rise of the scientific revolution, the rise of the industrial Revolution, the rise of free economies, and all the rest.
And then the West tore itself apart, enduring two world wars.
We saw a West redefined in opposition to Soviet communism and in the aftermath of Soviet communism.
So what is the West? What are these values that we hold dear? It is not just a matter of “common heritage.” It is not just a matter of “common language.” It is not “cultural inheritance” because there are similarities in culture, but also pretty significant differences in these cultures.
To pretend that Europe doesn&#8217;t exist as a concept or as a civilization is silly. It has a shared Christian history that grew out of Christendom, but it also has an Enlightenment history, and it has shared values.
And if those values wane, so too will the alliance between the old world and the new.
Those values include the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, property rights, democracy, and small republicanism.
This is one reason among many why Russia has never quite ever entered the world of Europe, and has always sort of existed on the fringes of Europe. Integrating the Russian Empire into Europe has always been a failed experiment.
All of this means Europe needs to uphold its own values. It means the United States needs to uphold its own values, and we all need to understand that a shared history, a shared experience, and a shared set of values are all necessary in order to have an increasingly powerful alliance.
He concluded: 
<blockquote>I am here today to leave it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends. We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of its heritage and of its history; with a Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization; with a Europe that has the means to defend itself and the will to survive.
We should be proud of what we achieved together in the last century, but now we must confront and embrace the opportunities of a new one – because yesterday is over, the future is inevitable, and our destiny together awaits.</blockquote>
This is the right approach for the Trump administration to take.
And Rubio did a phenomenal job of expounding it.

Marco

Rubio’s Muscular Defense Of Western Civilization

Ben Shapiro

Europe

Western Civilization

American diplomats descend on Munich for a high-stakes security conference, agreements between ICE and local law enforcement surged in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, and the U.S. Army paid nearly $2 million to a company with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
It’s Tuesday, February 17, 2026, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Rubio Rocks Munich</h2>
American diplomats descended on Munich this weekend for a high-stakes security conference, amid growing tension between the United States and Europe. 
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the stage for his keynote address, he started by taking aim at “a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade,” which he says has hollowed out American manufacturing. He slammed the West’s “appeasing of a climate cult” which has “impoverished our people,” and pushed back on mass migration, which he said “threatens the cohesion of our societies and continuity of our culture.” But then, he extended an olive branch of sorts, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlL3pwlO2rE">saying</a> that in the effort to save Western civilization, “While we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.” And then, in a remarkable scene, he explained why President Trump has been so hard on Europe. 
At times, it sounded like an intervention from a concerned family member, with Rubio <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlL3pwlO2rE">saying</a> Europe is heading for destruction and that the United States cares too much about it to let that happen. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">ICE Partners With Hundreds Of Local Law Enforcement Agencies</h2>
Agreements between ICE and local law enforcement have surged in the first year of President Trump’s second term. 
The agreements are a pillar of Trump’s promise to deport dangerous criminals from the United States. It’s not a new system, but it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/local-police-agreements-with-ice-surge-950-in-first-year-of-trumps-second-term">invites</a> local law enforcement from across the country to have their officers deputized into ICE. Police officers and sheriff’s deputies can then stop people whom they suspect are illegal aliens and start the process of deportation. 
The program operated for years until 2012. Former President Barack Obama curbed it after officers in North Carolina and Arizona were accused of racial profiling. Trump brought it back last year with funding in the &#8220;One Big Beautiful Bill,&#8221; and the number of participating law enforcement agencies has exploded from 135 under Biden to nearly 1,200 today, according to a new report by the advocacy group FWD.US.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">U.S. Army Spends Big With Group Founded By Director Of Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Org</h2>
Few organizations know more about leadership than the U.S. Army. But it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/army-paid-for-leadership-training-from-company-founded-by-director-of-muslim-brotherhood-linked-group">paid</a> nearly $2 million to a company called the “Nonprofit Empowerment Group” to train its staff to lead. 
The Army Corps of Engineers paid the group $1.7 million between 2021 and 2025 for “leadership” training, and the military also paid it for “writing courses.” The contract sought the “professional services of an academic institution” to provide “graduate level instruction.” 
The reason the government was able to choose this firm was that it was, as its website advertised, a “Disadvantaged Women Small Owned Business.” Despite its name, it’s not a non-profit. It’s a for-profit company operating out of the same office as, and sharing the same officers as, a group called the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, which reported being deeply in debt.

MW_260217

Morning Brief: Rubio Rocks Munich & A Shocking Army Contract Exposed

Morning Brief: Rubio Rocks Munich, ICE Deputizes Local LEs, And Army Spends Millions On ‘Leadership’

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Morning Wire

Munich

U.S. Army

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday delivered a blunt warning to foreign nationals entering the United States, saying visas are a privilege and will be revoked if visitors engage in activity deemed harmful to American national interests.
Speaking during a joint <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcigFh9lJRk">press conference</a> in Budapest alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Rubio emphasized that entry into the United States carries conditions that extend beyond border screening. 
“I’ve said this repeatedly — I don’t know why it’s so hard for some to comprehend,” Rubio said. “A visa — no one’s entitled to a visa. There is no constitutional right to a visa. A visa is permission to enter our country as a visitor.”
Rubio added that visitors who violate the terms of their stay — whether as students, journalists, tourists, or other temporary entrants — should expect swift consequences.
“If you enter our country as a visitor and you undertake activities that are against the national interest or national security of the United States, we will take away your visa,” he said. “In fact, if we knew you were going to do it, we probably never would have given you your visa.”
&nbsp;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
SECRETARY RUBIO: I&#8217;ve said this repeatedly. I don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s so hard for some to comprehend it.
No one is entitled to a visa.
If you enter our country as a visitor and undertake activities against the national interests of the United States, we will take away your visa. <a href="https://t.co/Y9hWlZpKBX">pic.twitter.com/Y9hWlZpKBX</a>
— Department of State (@StateDept) <a href="https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/2023400465355166145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2026</a></blockquote>
The comments come amid heightened scrutiny of foreign nationals participating in political activism, campus protests, and media activity inside the United States, as the Trump administration signals a more aggressive enforcement posture toward visa compliance and national security screening.
Rubio’s remarks were delivered during a high-profile visit to Hungary, likely chosen as an attempt to give a campaign boost to Orbán, who is up for re-election in April. Rubio repeatedly praised Orbán’s leadership and highlighted the close personal relationship between the nationalist leader and President Donald Trump.
&#8220;I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Rubio said. “The prime minister and the president have a very, very close personal and working relationship, and I think it has been beneficial to our two countries.”
Rubio described U.S.–Hungarian relations as experiencing a “golden age” under Trump, crediting the rapport between the two leaders for deepening cooperation on energy, defense, and strategic alignment.
During the visit, Rubio signed an agreement on U.S.–Hungarian civilian nuclear cooperation, including potential purchases of small modular reactors (SMRs), U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel, and spent fuel storage technology, a move aimed at strengthening Central Europe’s energy independence.
Hungary has emerged as a key ally for the Trump administration in Central Europe, alongside Slovakia, particularly among governments skeptical of the European Union’s immigration policies and continued military support for Ukraine. Orbán, widely viewed as Russia’s most reliable advocate within the EU, has maintained energy ties with Moscow while cultivating close relations with Trump and the broader MAGA movement.
Orbán has also publicly embraced Trump-style political branding, promoting the slogan “Make Europe Great Again,” and has received exemptions from American sanctions on Russian energy following meetings with Trump at the White House.
For American conservatives, Hungary has become an increasingly important focal point of ideological alignment. Budapest has hosted multiple iterations of CPAC <a href="https://www.cpachungary.com/en/">events</a> scheduled just weeks ahead of Hungary’s April elections. First elected prime minister in 2010, Orbán is seeking a fifth term and faces what many observers describe as the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/hungarys-tisza-party-keeps-its-lead-number-undecided-voters-drops-poll-shows-2026-02-13/">toughest race</a> of his 16 years in power.
Rubio’s visa warning, delivered on politically friendly ground, reflects a shared governing philosophy between Washington and Budapest: that sovereignty does not end at physical borders, and that nations retain the authority to decide not only who enters, but under what conditions they are permitted to remain.
&nbsp;

President Trump Meets With Visiting Crown Prince Of Bahrain

Trump Admin Warns Tough New Visa Consequences During High-Profile Visit

Hungary

Victor Orban

Visas

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, mocked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a passage in his historic speech at the same event a day earlier, which elicited a <a href="https://x.com/JCAndersonNYC/status/2022768689561448678">standing ovation</a>.
“Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns’ names all across the Mississippi Valley,” Rubio noted before the appreciative crowd.  “Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos – the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.”
At a TU Berlin event with German Bundestag member Isabel Cademartori, AOC taunted, “Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture. My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slave peoples would like to have a word on that.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
AOC tries to take a swing at Sec. Rubios address in Munich:
“You are starting to see the ascent of the Right, even in places like Munich. Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture.“ <a href="https://t.co/Ksh5HpH5FL">pic.twitter.com/Ksh5HpH5FL</a>
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) <a href="https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/2023134644674138196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Of course, what Rubio actually said was “the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain.”
Absolutely true.
The word &#8220;cowboy&#8221; itself is a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero (from vaca, meaning cow). The tradition began in the medieval hacienda system of Spain and was brought to the Americas by conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Gregorio de Villalobos in the early 1500s. These Spaniards introduced the first horses and cattle to the Western Hemisphere.
The &#8220;look&#8221; and equipment of the cowboy is almost entirely Spanish in origin: The lariat comes from la reata; chaps is a shortened form of the Spanish chaparreras, which were leather leggings used to protect riders from brush; the western saddle came from Spanish war and ranching saddles, and even the Stetson hat comes from the Spanish sombrero.
The rodeo dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when Spanish hacendados held annual rodeos to gather, count, and brand cattle. Spain introduced the ranching association and the system of branding cattle for ownership.

US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Berlin

AOC Tries To Dunk On Rubio Over ‘Cowboys From Spain.’ History Dunks Back.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Spain

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday called &#8220;troubling&#8221; a report by five European allies blaming Russia for killing late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny using toxin from poison dart frogs, adding that Washington had no reason to question it.
&#8220;We obviously are aware of the report. It&#8217;s a troubling report. We&#8217;re aware of that case of Mr. Navalny and certainly&#8230; we don&#8217;t have any reason to question it,&#8221; Rubio told reporters at a news conference in Brastislava during a visit to Slovakia.
In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands on Saturday said analyses of samples from Navalny&#8217;s body &#8220;conclusively&#8221; confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.
The Russian government, which has repeatedly denied any responsibility for Navalny&#8217;s death while he was held in an Arctic penal colony two years ago, dismissed the latest allegations as &#8220;a Western propaganda hoax,&#8221; according to Russia&#8217;s state news agency TASS.
When asked why the United States did not join the statement, Rubio said this was an endeavour by them.
&#8220;Those countries came to that conclusion. They coordinated that. We chose &#8211; doesn&#8217;t mean we disagree with the outcome. We just, it wasn&#8217;t, our endeavor. Sometimes countries go out and do their thing with based on the intelligence they&#8217;ve gathered.&#8221; Rubio said.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not disputing or getting into a fight with these countries over it. But it was their report, and they put that out there,&#8221; he added.
Russian opposition leader Navalny died in an Arctic prison colony in February 2024, after being convicted of extremism and other charges, all of which he denied.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Jan Lopatka; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Susan Fenton)

Secretary Of State Marco Rubio

Rubio Says U.S. Does Not Dispute Navalny Poisoning Assessment By Europeans

Alexei Navalny

Murder

Russia

Vladimir Putin

World

Secretary of State Marco Rubio used his first appearance at the Munich Security Conference to deliver a call for a renewed “Western century” grounded in sovereignty, industrial power, borders, and civilizational confidence.
“The euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion,” Rubio said, describing the post-Cold War belief that history had ended and that liberal democracy would inevitably spread. “That every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order would replace the national interest.”
“This was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And it has cost us dearly.”
Rubio contrasted that worldview with what he described as the lived consequences of Western policy choices: deindustrialization, weakened defense capacity, and economic dependence on adversaries who never shared the West’s assumptions.
“In this delusion, we embraced a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade,” Rubio said, “even as some nations protected their economies and subsidized their companies to systematically undercut ours—shuttering our plants, deindustrializing large parts of our societies, shipping millions of working- and middle-class jobs overseas, and handing control of our critical supply chains to both adversaries and rivals.”
Rubio argued that energy policy in particular had become an exercise in self-harm “to appease a climate cult.” He added, “We have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas—not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own.”
Rubio also rejected the framing common in recent Munich conferences that mass migration is primarily a humanitarian challenge rather than a civilizational one.
“In a pursuit of a world without borders,” he warned, “we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.”
“Controlling who and how many people enter our countries,” Rubio continued, “is not an expression of xenophobia. It is not hate. It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty.”
On national security, Rubio explicitly rejected modern abstractionist framing. “The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending?” he said. “Because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people. Armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.” That way of life, Rubio argued, is not interchangeable with other systems, nor should it be treated as morally neutral among equals.
“We are part of one civilization—Western civilization,” he said. “Bound by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and sacrifice.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It is time to unshackle our ingenuity and build a new Western century. <a href="https://t.co/KJjGQ24bCd">pic.twitter.com/KJjGQ24bCd</a>
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecRubio/status/2022644331878793376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Rubio’s speech also departed sharply from Biden-era deference to multinational institutions. While stopping short of calling for their abandonment, he argued that they have repeatedly failed on the most pressing security challenges of the age.
“The United Nations could not solve the war in Gaza. It did not solve the war in Ukraine. It was powerless to constrain the nuclear program of radical Shia clerics in Tehran,” Rubio said, crediting American military and diplomatic leadership with producing results.
“In a perfect world, these problems would be solved by diplomats and strongly-worded resolutions,” he added. “But we do not live in a perfect world.”
Rubio said plainly that the United States under President Trump intends to pursue renewal, and invites Europe to do the same. The future, Rubio concluded, depends on whether Western nations choose pride over guilt, sovereignty over submission, and renewal over retreat.
“We have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” Rubio said. “What we want is a reinvigorated alliance—one that is not paralyzed by fear, but bold enough to race into the future.”

Rubio Declares ‘New Western Century’ In World Speech, Says America Won’t Oversee ‘Managed Decline’

Germany

Globalism

WASHINGTON—When President Donald Trump heads to Beijing this spring, he&#8217;ll have the opportunity to do what pretty much no one else in the world can: convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to free Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy newspaper publisher and media tycoon imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party.
The 78-year-old Lai was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison under a national security law used by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on dissenters. At his age, and with his declining health, the CCP&#8217;s sentence means he&#8217;ll die in prison.
Lai is a Chinese-born British citizen who published &#8220;Apple Daily&#8221; in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2021. Chinese authorities arrested top executives at the publication and froze its assets in 2021, and, after a two-year trial and five-year detention, Lai was convicted in December 2025 of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and publish seditious material.
Authorities paint him as &#8220;the mastermind and behind-the-scenes manipulator,&#8221; celebrating the 20-year-sentence.
His daughter, who advocates on her father&#8217;s behalf in the United States, describes him very differently. In an interview with The Daily Wire, Claire Lai praised her father&#8217;s courage in the face of oppression. She shared that he mails her letters from prison — letters that include prayers of deep faith and acceptance, offering his sufferings up to Jesus Christ and encouraging his fellow prisoners to do the same.
&#8220;From the very first day I went to visit him, I remember I was very emotional,&#8221; Claire told The Daily Wire. Her father comforted her, she says, by telling her that &#8220;he&#8217;s in God&#8217;s good hands, and he&#8217;ll find ways to serve him from behind bars.&#8221; 
&#8220;I know that God will continue to give him the strength to persevere in faith,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We need to persevere in fighting for his freedom.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1041709" style="width: 429px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=1041709" rel="attachment wp-att-1041709"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1041709" class="wp-image-1041709 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM-419x576.png" alt="Claire Lai with her father Jimmy Lai. " width="419" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM-419x576.png 419w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM-218x300.png 218w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM-768x1055.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.59.53-AM.png 1026w" sizes=" (max-width: 419px) 100vw, 419px" /></a>Claire Lai with her father Jimmy Lai.</div>
Trump has said that he will do everything he can to save Lai. He will head to Beijing in April, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/04/trump-and-chinas-xi-speak-by-phone-ahead-of-beijing-trip-00764343">POLITICO reports</a> (though the White House says dates have not yet been finalized), where Lai&#8217;s family hopes the president will make the case for their father&#8217;s freedom.
“I feel so badly,” Trump said in December after Lai&#8217;s conviction. “I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release. He’s not well. He’s an older man and he’s not well, so I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens.”
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the Hong Kong High Court’s decision to sentence Lai to 20 years, calling it &#8220;an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case.&#8221; Rubio urged the authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole, arguing that Lai and his family &#8220;have suffered enough.&#8221;
&#8220;It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration,&#8221; Rubio said.
Asked by The Daily Wire about Lai&#8217;s fate during the White House press briefing Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/2021301791229411718?s=20">suggested that the president may advocate for Lai</a> in April.
“This is something I&#8217;ve heard the President advocate for, both publicly and privately,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire. &#8220;I had the honor of being in that meeting with President Trump and President Xi in South Korea that took place, and this was brought up by the President himself. It is important to him, and he looks forward to visiting China in April.”
Lai&#8217;s daughter is incredibly grateful for the strong American interest in her father&#8217;s plight and hopeful that American intervention might save her father.
&#8220;We are extremely grateful,&#8221; she said, &#8220;to [Trump] and to his administration, [that has] a proven track record of freeing those [who] were unjustly detained abroad and doing so with a high degree of success. We are just hopeful that our father will be one of them.&#8221; 
Lai&#8217;s friends and family have highlighted his plight for years. Claire&#8217;s brother Sebastian Lai lives in London, where he leads the international campaign to free his father. Her mother remains in China and was present at Jimmy&#8217;s sentencing on Monday.
In interviews, they describe how he was arrested and detained, and forced to spend more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement.
China&#8217;s 2020 National Security Law is so vaguely worded and so arbitrarily applied that Claire Lai knows she could face retribution for speaking out in her father&#8217;s defense while in China. She has lived in the United Kingdom and the United States for the past few years as she begs the world to help save her father.
She takes great solace in her Catholic faith, which she shares with both her mother and her father. Jimmy Lai is a Catholic convert with a deep love for Jesus Christ. His daughter shares that he used to draw pictures of Jesus Christ on the cross for other prisoners until he was told by his prison guards that he was no longer permitted to do so.
From prison, he writes to his daughter, offering her prayers of comfort and solace.
&#8220;The day that [British Prime Minister Keir Starmer] flew to China, I was feeling quite uneasy,&#8221; she reflected to The Daily Wire, recalling the day that Starmer went to China to meet with President Xi. She went to mass at Immaculate Conception Church, a parish in Washington D.C., and prayed for the strength to accept whatever happened to her father.  
&#8220;A few days later I got a letter from Dad,&#8221; she shared, &#8220;and in his letters he sends me his prayers and he basically echoed what I was feeling in that moment&#8230;he was in our Lord&#8217;s good hands.&#8221; 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=1041967" rel="attachment wp-att-1041967"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-1041967 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3081-1024x360.png" alt="" width="1024" height="360" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3081-1024x360.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3081-300x106.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3081-768x270.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3081.png 1199w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
&#8220;I think that that&#8217;s what has seen him through the last few years,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And at times it&#8217;s really just our good Lord which has seen him through the bad days.&#8221; 
Claire Lai shared copies of her father&#8217;s prayers exclusively with The Daily Wire, prayers in which Jimmy Lai surrenders his future to Jesus Christ, asking Jesus Christ to &#8220;work in me and through me.&#8221;
<blockquote>
You are the all-seeing, all-knowing God. Your eyes, oh Lord, are in every place&#8230;You are present and conscious of all I think, every deed or act, however slight, every word, however quick&#8230;every thought of my heart, however secret, however momentary. However forgotten, you see, O Lord, you see and note down&#8230; “Whither shall I go from your Spirit?” (Ps 139:7) I am in your hands, O Lord, absolutely.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=1041969" rel="attachment wp-att-1041969"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1041969 size-large aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3079-821x576.png" alt="" width="821" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3079-821x576.png 821w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3079-300x210.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3079-768x539.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/IMG_3079.png 1282w" sizes=" (max-width: 821px) 100vw, 821px" /></a>
In another prayer, Jimmy Lai acknowledges the longevity of his imprisonment thus far, offering his sickness and confusion up for &#8220;some great end which is quite beyond us&#8221; and arguing that Jesus Christ &#8220;does nothing in vain.&#8221;
<blockquote>
We are all created to His glory. We are created to do His will. Therefore: I will trust him&#8230;if I am sick; my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness or my perplexity or my sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end which is beyond us. He does nothing in vain. Lord, deign to fulfill your high purposes in me whatever they may be. Work in me and through me.
Cheers, Dad.
</blockquote>
And in yet another letter, he tells his daughter that his suffering over the past few years has brought him closer to God.
<blockquote>
I am actually most grateful for God to have put me through this suffering in order for me to get closer to His presence. What a joy and treasure for this life and next. God’s action confounds us but always turns out to be marvellous for us.
</blockquote>
Lai&#8217;s daughter is also deeply religious, mentioning multiple Catholic saints during her conversation with The Daily Wire, including Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest imprisoned by Nazis in Auschwitz who offered to die in the place of another prisoner. When she is particularly worried about her father, she shared, she goes to mass in the evenings and receives the Eucharist, which is a huge source of comfort to her.
&#8220;In that moment I know what Maximilian Kolbe meant,&#8221; she said, quoting the Catholic martyr, who is remembered saying: “If angels would be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.”
&#8220;It&#8217;s exactly what I needed, and I think it was our good Lord giving me comfort. I don&#8217;t think anyone can convince me otherwise. I know he&#8217;s giving my father strength to persist in faith.&#8221;
For Catholics, receiving the Eucharist at Mass is of pivotal importance, since Catholics believe that receiving the Eucharist allows the faithful to be closely united with Jesus Christ himself. But for about two and a half years, Claire says, her father was denied the Eucharist in prison. The Chinese government told them that he was receiving the Eucharist regularly, but she insists they were lying.
&#8220;I counted,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He received it, in 2.5 years, a total of 11 times. That is not regular.&#8221; 
<div id="attachment_1041687" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=1041687" rel="attachment wp-att-1041687"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1041687" class="wp-image-1041687 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-456234504-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-456234504-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-456234504-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-456234504-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-456234504.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy supporter Jimmy Lai attends a rally near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014.  (Photo by ALEX OGLE/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Outside pressure occasionally leads to better treatment for her father, but over the past five years, his treatment has gone from bad to worse. She speaks to him through physical letters that they mail to each other. She writes to him about once a week, but often doesn&#8217;t receive his responses for up to a month as they are processed.
His health is failing him. He has been diabetic for over 30 years, and throughout his imprisonment, Claire and the rest of his family have watched Jimmy&#8217;s pre-existing health conditions worsen due to a lack of care. She says his blood sugar is checked once every three weeks, and he&#8217;s developed new health conditions — heart issues, blood pressure problems, an enlarged spleen, and more.
The United Kingdom and the United Nations have requested that the Chinese government send an independent consultant in to check on him, she says, but that has been rejected.
&#8220;We are extremely worried for his health and the conditions in which he&#8217;s kept,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;His body is failing, but he is such a spirited man.&#8221; 
<div id="attachment_1041713" style="width: 856px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/?attachment_id=1041713" rel="attachment wp-att-1041713"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1041713" class="wp-image-1041713 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-846x576.png" alt="Claire Lai with her parents. " width="846" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-846x576.png 846w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-300x204.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-768x523.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM-1536x1046.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-10-at-11.57.52-AM.png 1924w" sizes=" (max-width: 846px) 100vw, 846px" /></a>Claire Lai with her parents.</div>
Jimmy Lai is imprisoned with a number of other political prisoners in Hong Kong, his daughter shared. Many of them are not Catholic or even Christian, and Jimmy has sought to convert his fellow prisoners by drawing the crucifixion for them.
&#8220;On the other side, he would write instructions on how to pray, sometimes what to read, and sometimes he would ask me to get certain books, or get the Bishop Barron&#8217;s &#8216;Word on Fire&#8217; for them,&#8221; she explained, referring to the work of Bishop Robert Barron. 
&#8220;One day, the guards told him that he has to stop sending it to prisoners because some people have decided to convert as a result,&#8221; she said sadly. 
There was one agnostic prisoner, imprisoned a few months after her father, who was struggling intensely with his new life in prison. His distress finally prompted him to ask Jimmy for help learning how to pray, she said, and the two men began exchanging letters back and forth. Her father drew a picture of Jesus Christ crucified for the agnostic prisoner, telling him, according to his daughter, that &#8220;when the suffering gets too much for you, just pretend like you&#8217;re hiding under his feet, and offering your suffering up to him.&#8221; 
&#8220;That would make it all better,&#8221; Claire says, &#8220;because&#8230;if you&#8217;re looking for God&#8217;s grace, you really don&#8217;t have to look far.&#8221; 
The other prisoner wasn&#8217;t immediately convinced. But one day, Claire says, her father got a letter from the prisoner, saying: &#8220;I know what you mean now.&#8221;
&#8220;That really touched me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I have always been Catholic, but if I was agnostic and I was going through a whole different, and intense suffering, I&#8217;m not sure if I could have done that, but he did.&#8221;
That is the legacy Jimmy Lai will be remembered for in his Hong Kong prison, by his family, and by his many supporters throughout the world: a man who prayed through his suffering and taught others to pray with him.
His daughter is still hopeful that he will be freed. Yet, at the same time, she knows that the grief-stricken past few years have taught her exactly what he wished.
&#8220;At the start of his imprisonment he said all he wanted was for us, his children, to see the reality of the world through the grace and mercy of God,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And I am reminded that is what he always did.&#8221;

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