Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Jihad vs. Islamophobia 🚨

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

Dallas Day Trip🤠: Forgive the brevity of "War Notes" today — I left this morning for Dallas to film my final "Born Lucky" podcast of the year with Allie Beth Stuckey.

😱I knew her back at Fox News when she was just getting started and WOW!
👍🏻She's become a must-watch, see and follow voice among young, (mostly) Christian women
Quick trip✈️: I'll be back to do the show from D.C.
- Perspective📱: Before our interview, I checked out her excellent X page to find a tweet from October 26:
  - 💬"I asked my 840k Instagram followers (mostly Christian women) what their biggest concern is for the country right now, and by FAR the most common answer is the growing influence of Islam. I'd like to see this concern reflected in the GOP asap"
- ⬇️Stuckey was ahead of the situation — see below for our jihad vs. Islamophobia discussion

Alert🚨: President Trump announced he will address the nation at 9 p.m. ET tomorrow from the White House.

Two choices👀: Will he announce a war with Venezuela or tell Americans to cheer up and remind us how amazing 2025 was and promise 2026 will be even better?
- My bet🌲: Trump wants to reset the narrative before Christmas.
  - Hint👀: His Truth Social statement said, "I look forward to 'seeing' you then. It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"
No coincidences🤷🏼‍♂️: Four years in the Middle East and 10 years covering Washington teach you not to believe in coincidences.
- 📰Today's deeply reported Vanity Fair piece with some truth bombs from chief of staff Susie Wiles can mean anything you want it to.
  - 📄The Mediaite compilation of responses is stunning and reflects common Washington groupthink.
  - Zoom out🌎: Trump is backing Wiles up
    - 🗣️Wiles generally told the truth about things in a blunt way, but how is that proof the Trump administration is unraveling as so many like to predict?
      - 🎤For example, Pam Bondi, as Wiles said, "wiffed" when dealing with the Epstein files
      - ✅Fact check: True.
    - Prediction🤷🏼‍♂️: This is just another passing story in the long list of HUGE Washington moments that history will quickly forget and much of America never noticed.
  - Be Smart: The Susie Wiles story is much more important to people in Washington and outside the White House than to people in the White House and outside Washington.
- ✈️Vice President JD Vance headed to Pennsylvania today for stop two on the administration's affordability tour.
  - 👀Expect Vance to start spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
High Stakes 🪢: As much as Democrats think they have Trump on the ropes —
- ‼️He's still the president
- 🗣️He still gets to speak from the White House and Oval Office
- 📣Most Americans still root for the president to do well
- 🌲Over the next three weeks, we will gather with friends and family — Trump wants the last word before Americans check out for football and the holidays.

There there?📝: Epstein reporter extraordinaire Tara Palmeri joins us tonight on the coming massive Epstein document release.

Big picture🤦🏼‍♂️: Nothing will satisfy the large group of people who are expecting clearly labeled documents showing X did this to Z.

FINALLY! 🙌🏻

Note✏️: As we wrote "War Notes," Brown University promised an update on their search for the gunman who killed two students, with one being a prominent conservative student leader — depending on what is said, this story could radically change.

‼️Jihad vs. islamophobia defines the current ideological battle in America

⚠️Thought leaders on the Left are warning about the rise and dangers of Islamophobia
- Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and others.
⚠️Thought leaders on the Right are warning about the rise and dangers of jihad
- 🎤"To every Western government who has recognized a Palestinian state, you're rewarding killing Jews. … I would urge the West to get tougher on radical Islam," said Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
- 🎤"Radical Islam is not done. They still want to take out the little Satan and the big Satan. And America is the big Satan according to these radicals. We have to take this seriously," said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.
Just briefly🤔: Let's consider how many people have died worldwide in the name of each.
- 🚨Deaths by jihad — yesterday, we listed some of the major terror attacks carried out in the name of Muhammad.
  - ‼️Jihads have murdered tens of thousands since the 1980s — depending on how you classify the religious wars against ISIS and Israel's wars, we are in the hundreds of thousands.
    - 🗓️Just in the past 10 days
      - ‼️Three Americans killed in Syria
      - ‼️15 Jews killed in Australia
      - ‼️And those who weren't murdered because attacks in Los Angeles were thwarted
      - ‼️Student detained in Poland over planning an attack on a Christmas market
- 👀Deaths by Islamophobia — anybody?
  - ‼️There was a young Muslim killed in Chicago last year — that's about it.
🚨So, back to Islamophobia vs. jihad —
- 🤦🏼‍♂️Worrying about Islamophobia is like worrying about the dangers of sun exposure during a massive tsunami.
- 🤦🏼‍♂️When you actually think about it — it's laughable.
- ⚠️Warnings from politicians about Islamophobia are to silence those who warn about the clear and present danger of jihad.

GREAT NEWS👏🏼: We are now having an honest conversation about whether Islam (not individual muslims) is compatible with Western values.

Look back🔙: Charlie Kirk warned about this.
- 🎤"The spiritual battle is coming to the west and the enemies are Wokeism or Marxism, combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life. And the American way of life is very simple. I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike to the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low crime neighborhood… While also not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That's important. We want the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom," said Kirk.
  - Down under: Here's a member of Parliament in Australia:
    - 🎤"We are bringing people into this country that are extremely dangerous people….This is an adversary tactic to lead us away from the problem of bringing people in this country from countries that have no democracy, no rule of law, no Christianity…What the Hell are you bringing them into this country for?" said Australian member of the House Bob Katter.
🤦🏼‍♂️Muslims and the Left used the Islamophobia slur to shut down honest conversation about the threats of jihad.
- 🎤"Please please please don't let the shooter be a Muslim because we know what will happen then. We know that the Islamophobes will weaponize this incident to go after ordinary Muslims who have nothing to do with this," said Medhi Hasan
🤦🏼‍♂️Hasan wants you to believe Muslims are the real victims because jihad brings Islamophobia.
- 🤷🏼‍♂️Yet, he can't admit there is a growing problem with jihad, condemn it or talk about terrorist attacks while trying to create a moral equivalence to Gaza — where Muslims started a war.
- Sadly: Hasan is one of the more "reasonable" voices on his side of the argument.

World view🌎: You don't have to listen to American "right-wing" politicians about the coming jihad in America — just listen to those who know best.

🚨This was the UAE's foreign minister warning seven years ago:
- 🎤"There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of lack of decision-making, trying to be politically correct or assuming that they know the Middle East, and they know Islam and they know the others far better than we do. And I'm sorry, but that's pure ignorance."

Last night😱: I've never gotten so many responses from you all about a show lead as I did last night.

📺If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Fair question❓: Can the fundamental tenets of Islam (not individual Muslims) coexist with Western values?

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