Making Sense By Michael Reagan

Will the ceasefire deal Donald Trump brokered in Gaza last?

Will the end of the fighting between Israel and Hamas finally bring peace to a bloody and tragic corner of the Middle East after 77 years?

Let’s pray so.

There are still a lot of hard problems to be sorted out – including the disarming of Hamas, the rebuilding of Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian government.

Trump’s prime role in bringing about the ceasefire in Gaza is already being discounted by the mainstream media.

And the Biden Democrats – who did nothing to stop the slaughter when they were in power – are now claiming they laid the groundwork or wrote the blueprint that Trump merely implemented.

But Time magazine last week called the Gaza ceasefire deal “historic.” It said that if all goes well – a very big if – it could be the signature accomplishment of Trump’s second term.

Again, let’s pray so.

I think what Trump and his hand-picked negotiating team have made happen could turn out to be the equivalent of what my father did to bring down the Berlin Wall.

Historians – the liberal ones, naturally – and our East Coast media always liked to downplay my father’s leading role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

They often went out of their way to give extra credit to Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul, Lech Walesa, Mikhail Gorbachev – and anyone else they could think of – for toppling the USSR.

Those other Cold War heroes were important, for sure.

But without Ronald Reagan’s almost religious personal crusade to defeat the Evil Empire, the wall would not have come down when and how it did – peacefully, without anyone firing a shot.

It’s the same deal with Trump.

Without his drive to find a way to end the killing, without his full support for Israel, and without his decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Gaza deal would never have gotten done.

Trump has demonstrated to our allies and our enemies – and to Venezuelan drug smugglers — that he means business. Unlike Biden and Obama, he doesn’t just talk tough or draw lines in the sand that he never intends to defend when they are crossed.

It’s a shame Trump can’t use his negotiating skills to repair the damage Gov. Newsom and his Democrats have done to hurt my home state of California and home city of Los Angeles.

This state is wealthier than most countries. But it is a politically made disaster. It’s over-taxed, over-regulated and overflowing with illegal immigrants.

The downtowns of its biggest cities are home to tens of thousands of drugged out homeless or crazy street people who live in squalor and scare away tourists and ordinary citizens.

Trump has already sent National Guard troops to Memphis, Washington and Los Angeles to help ICE round up and deport illegal immigrants who’ve been breaking the law or hurting people. He wants to do the same in San Francisco.

Courts have tried to stop or delay him from sending soldiers to cities to fight violent crime, help ICE with immigration enforcement or protect federal buildings. They’ve ruled it’s an overreach of his executive powers.

Now the liberal supervisors in charge of the county of Los Angeles – which is home to nearly 1 million illegal immigrants – have shown how nuts they are by declaring a state of emergency in response to the ICE raids that are arresting illegals.

The declaration allows the county to give tax money and aid to help the families of deported illegal immigrants deal with the impact of ICE raids.

The supervisors say Trump’s actions “have created a climate of fear and disrupted daily life,” but as usual the liberal politicians have it backwards.

They and their fellow Democrats in City Hall and Sacramento are the ones who’ve wrecked daily life in Los Angeles and broken our beautiful state.

It’s so bad, if Trump became our governor in 2028, even he wouldn’t be able to fix it.

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Copyright 2025 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to [email protected] and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.
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