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“If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.”
That is an excerpt from President Richard Nixon’s speech on April 30, 1970, when he announced the U.S. attacks on North Vietnamese-controlled areas inside Cambodia along the border with South Vietnam.
This speech and the decision to strike across the South Vietnam-Cambodian border into the North Vietnamese sanctuaries in “neutral” Cambodia came six months after Nixon’s November 3, 1969, speech appealing to the country’s “great silent majority of my fellow Americans,” and asking for their support as he began the “Vietnamization” of the long-running war he inherited when he took office in January 1969.
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More than a half million American troops were in Vietnam then, the result of eight consecutive years of escalation of the war and the commitment of combat troops under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Nixon knew that he could not simply pull out and allow South Vietnam to collapse, as President Biden did in Afghanistan in August of 2021. Fleeing any conflict and leaving allies in chaos and confusion meant not only defeat, but a crushing blow to America’s standing in the world. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine the second time, six months after the debacle in Kabul. Weakness and retreat by America emboldened our enemies to attack our allies. 10/7/24 was waiting for Israel down the road. An impotent America led inexorably to the massacre in Israel that day and to the Houthis terrorizing the global economy.
Nixon also knew so long ago he could not achieve peace in Vietnam while allowing the Soviet and Chinese proxy of North Vietnam to operate out of Cambodia unmolested. Nixon asked for and got the support he needed from the majority of Americans, and it held steady even after the campus upheavals following the attacks in Cambodia.
The shootings at Kent State University happened on May 4 following the April 30 address was just one of the many tragic demonstrations, riots and shootings that wracked the country in the years 1967-1972, awful outbursts of violence which included the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Nixon held firm on all fronts in the face of withering criticism from Democrats who had long supported the war in Asia.
Despite the violence and the collapse of legacy media objectivity, Nixon maintained his course and even escalated the bombing of North Vietnam when he needed to in order to obtain a peace agreement with North Vietnam, which was signed in January, 1973 after Nixon’s landslide re-election in November of 1972. The middle of the country’s political spectrum surged to support Nixon in 1972 even as the Democrats lurched left and nominated Senator George McGovern.
Now President Trump has “escalated to de-escalate” by ordering the B-2s to fly from Missouri, take out hardened sites in Iran’s nuclear weapons assembly line, and fly home. Trump’s display of American reach and military power was followed quickly by a Trump-orchestrated cease-fire between Israel and Iran. Rumors of ongoing talks about expansion of the Abraham Accords from Trump’s first term continue to multiply, and if they come to pass, “peace through strength” will be demonstrated, again, and a future Trump Presidential Library and Museum has another room to fill out.
“Trump derangement syndrome” has taken such a toll on so many in the Beltway that they are unable to applaud this massive win for the United States, or any of the others that the past five months have revealed, but most especially the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Trump re-established the credibility of the threat of American military power and stood alongside the equal of any of our allies. Trump then rallied NATO to collectively increase their commitments to defense spending. Markets surged and trading partners like Canada retreated from extortionate trade barriers aimed at U.S. companies.
At the same time that the president was confirming American power as a genuine and powerful force to be reckoned with abroad, his “One, Big Beautiful Bill” was moving forward with most of his domestic legislative agenda wrapped up within it. A nearly unbroken series of victories at the Supreme Court has also checked the most absurd of the unconstitutional overreaches of federal district court judges.
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At the same time, Democrats have nominated the most radical major party candidate for a major office —Zohran Mamdani to be mayor of New York City— while their aging hippies-wing held rallies around the country organized around the absurdist slogan “No Kings.”
June 2025 thus marks a turnaround for America and an energizing series of achievements for the country as we round into our 249th birthday. This month also marks a bottom for the Democrats, though it’s a party perfectly capable of falling off a floor.
Donald Trump, by contrast, is at the peak of his authority and gaining momentum, having closed the border and followed through on his major campaign promises.
June 2025 marked neither a collapse of democracy nor a slide into autocracy for the U.S. It’s a return to an America confident of its future, secure in its liberties, and enthusiastic about its future.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor, and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives America home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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