In the past week, Iranian proxy forces attacked an American military base in Iraq, killing a U.S. contractor and injuring five others, while the Iranian government threatened to pursue nuclear weapons and cut off key nuclear inspections if it felt cornered. The Biden administration's response: reversing American sanctions policy on Iran at the UN, including permitting the immediate transfer of weapons to the Iranian regime and letting more Iranian diplomats into the U.S. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. Rewarding bad behavior by the Iranian regime is exactly what got us in this mess in the first place. It was in the aftermath of revelations of secret Iranian nuclear facilities, and under the threat of increased uranium enrichment and a potential "sprint to a bomb," that the Obama administration entered into the ill-conceived nuclear deal back in 2015. That deal, which the Biden administration has now made clear it wants to restore immediately, had many deep-seated flaws, including its removal of carefully crafted American and allied sanctions on Iran while limiting Iran's obligations to a handful of nuclear issues. The Obama deal ignored decades of Iranian support for Hezbollah, Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Assad regime in Syria--which repeatedly attacked its own people with chemical weapons--and proxy forces in Iraq that killed hundreds of Americans over more than a decade. The 2015 deal likewise reversed an international ban on ballistic missile testing by Iran and permitted it to continue research on advanced nuclear technologies, putting in place a bizarre regime of quasi-self-inspection for suspected nuclear weapons sites. Not surprisingly, an unconditional return to the original 2015 deal is also what Iran and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, want. Some of the original deal's terms have already expired, like the longstanding international ban on arms sales to Iran, which ostensibly went away pursuant to the deal last year. Many other restrictions are also set to go away soon. The few limitations the deal imposed on the transfer of ballistic missiles technology to Iran and the Iranian regime's ability to manufacture advanced nuclear centrifuges will be gone in the next two years, and the bulk of the deal's nuclear restrictions are set to expire in just over five years from now. Given all this, it seems odd that the Biden administration would accelerate a return to the deal without seeking significant Iranian concessions in return. After all, regardless of whether one thinks the U.S. was right to walk away from the deal in 2018--and we believe it was--it is undeniable that the reimposition of sanctions has provided us with significant leverage. Iranian oil exports--a pillar of the Khamenei regime's corrupt rule--fell from 2.8 million barrels per day to around 300,000 barrels between 2018 and 2020. This has had a staggering effect on the Iranian economy, causing real GDP to contract by 6.8 percent in 2019-20 and the Iranian oil sector to shrink by 38.7 percent, according to the World Bank. These economic challenges have put growing pressure on the Khamenei regime, as we saw during the nationwide protests that took place in late 2019 and early 2020. The Biden administration has Iran on the ropes. If it were willing to stand its ground and take advantage of the leverage the prior administration attained, the Biden team could very well get a much better deal for the United States and its allies in the region. Such a deal would extend the expiration dates of the JCPOA well into the future, making many of its restrictions permanent, and would go beyond the nuclear issue to address the Iranian regime's support for terrorism and attacks on Americans. It should demand the unconditional release of all Western hostages the regime holds and require that Iran hand over all the terrorist leaders, especially those of Al Qaeda, it currently houses. Unfortunately, President Biden decided this week to unilaterally walk away from key leverage. By doing so, he suggested that the new administration is going to repeat the mistakes of the Obama team and show Iran that he wants the deal more than they do. This is not the stuff of good negotiating strategy. Historically, the Iranian regime is emboldened by perceived weakness and deterred by strength and severe consequences for its bad behavior. This is why all is not lost. If the administration were to stop negotiating against itself now, impose a cost for last week's attack on our base in Iraq and keep intact the maximum pressure campaign of the Trump administration that includes American sanctions and our second-party oil sanctions, we might just retain enough leverage for a better deal. Fingers crossed.

Americans fondly look back at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a moment during the pre-war era when the United States beat the Nazis on their home turf and refuted their delusional notion of racial supremacy on the field. Not only did star runner Jesse Owens showcase Herculean performances that brought home four gold medals, but nine other black athletes took home medals as well, dealing a huge blow to Adolf Hitler's propaganda machine. Though we should continue to celebrate their groundbreaking success, one can question whether sending athletes to Berlin was worth the millions harmed by an emboldened and legitimized Nazi regime. By the time Americans sent athletes to Germany, the Nazis had already carried out a number of horrific, authoritarian actions that included the organized nationwide boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, the banishment of Jews from civil service positions, forced sterilizations of individuals with disabilities, and the passage of the Nuremberg Race Laws. Despite all this, the world allowed the Nazis to take center stage for Hitler to showcase his vision of a reindustrialized and transformed Germany. Nearly 85 years later, the U.S. is approaching a similar set of circumstances with the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on the horizon. One can point to a number of destabilizing and dangerous actions the Chinese Communist Party has carried out in just the last year: its reported cover-up of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, its repressive crackdown and undermining of freedoms provided to the citizens of Hong Kong, and the Chinese military's incursion of Taiwanese sovereignty. But the most vile of actions orchestrated by Communist Party is quite clear: its genocide of Uighurs and other Muslim minority populations in the northwest region of Xinjiang. In an extraordinary move last month, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo determined the Communist Party committed crimes against humanity that included arbitrary imprisonment of more than a million civilians, forced sterilization, torture, forced labor, and restrictions on freedom and religion. Pompeo declared that "the Nuremberg Tribunals at the end of World War II prosecuted perpetrators for crimes against humanity, the same crimes being perpetrated in Xinjiang." Earlier this month, the BBC published a bombshell report that detailed the rape and torture Uighur women experienced on a near nightly basis. Other reports have also detailed the thousands of Muslim minorities who are placed in mass internment and are also used to work in forced labor that produce products exported around the world. This is a reality that needs to be confronted head-on, not brushed aside. In a recent press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed with his predecessor's assessment: "My judgment remains that genocide was committed against the Uighurs, and that hasn't changed." Though there is bipartisan consensus in acknowledging this genocide, what else can we do to rein in the Communist Party's atrocities in Xinjiang? Start with boycotting Xi Jinping's crowning moment as the country's leader. Autocratic countries have attempted to leverage hosting the Olympics into legitimizing their stances among the global community: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, and now the People's Republic of China. Fresh off hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't wait even a month to launch his invasion of Crimea in Ukraine. Consider that this was only six years after Russia launched aggressive campaigns against its small neighboring country of Georgia. Rewarding the bad behavior of autocrats only emboldens them. There isn't a worse time to reward Xi for his utter recklessness and inhumanity. China should not be permitted to enjoy the wealth of economic benefits and free publicity that come with hosting the Olympics when it acts as if imprisoning millions of its citizens based on their ethnicity and religion or unleashing a pandemic on the rest of the world is normal behavior. U.S. companies such as Nike and Coca-Cola, which have been suspected of employing or sourcing labor from Uighurs, shouldn't benefit from the advertising and exposure from the games either. Following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter made the right decision to pressure the U.S. Olympic Committee to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and campaigned to get other members of the global community to join us. As a result, the smallest number of nations were represented at the Olympics since 1956. I can't imagine the amount of dedication and hard work our athletes have invested to qualify for this moment in their life, but this moment is far more consequential than an athletic competition. Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, has led in calling on the International Olympic Committee to move the games to another country unless Beijing immediately addresses its human rights violations. But it's time we look forward to the likelihood that the IOC has no intentions of changing course. To ensure America remains a leader in human rights, I'm introducing a resolution encouraging the U.S. Olympic Committee to boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing should the IOC not move the location of the games to a different site. Let's be clear, this is an act of last resort, but the IOC is unfortunately demonstrating that it has been corrupted by Communist Party money like many other international organizations. I hope this serves as a first step for the government to join the 180 human rights groups calling for a boycott and to keep the U.S. at the forefront of advocating for human rights around the world.

Florida is a state made famous to most Americans by its sunny beaches, Disney and visiting retired grandparents. But Florida's place in America's elections has also made the state famous--or infamous depending on the year -- as its most impactful swing state. Yet last election, Florida looked different. As other swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia remained close and ultimately broke for President Biden, Florida went decidedly red. Not only did Florida deliver an astounding one million more votes for President Trump than he won in 2016, but the GOP also picked up two additional Congressional seats and expanded long held majorities in the state legislature. The total win margin for President Trump tripled in Florida where statewide elections have been decided by one percent or less for years. What lessons can be learned by the GOP's success in Florida in 2020? To start, over the years Florida has firmly established itself to its voters as a state that conducts its elections securely and efficiently. Having learned its lesson in the wake of the 2000 recount, Florida had already made much-needed election integrity reforms decades ago. This includes pioneering successful, widespread vote-by-mail, a method of voting in Florida that has historically been an advantage for Republicans. Unlike many other states in 2020, Florida voters trusted this method of voting and the right laws were in place to ensure its integrity. Perhaps most importantly, these votes were counted by the time the polls closed on election day, providing instant and credible results.From the start of the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign closely coordinated with the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican Party of Florida, and county parties to ensure orchestration. With this foundation firmly in place, over the last decade, Republicans have been able to focus on expanding the party apparatus with a new, diverse coalition across the state with candidates who reflected the vision for a remade party. Yet in Florida, this was done not by appealing specifically to race or gender, but with ideas that attracted a coalition and candidates more closely resembling modern America. As a result, new members of Florida's congressional delegation include Cuban-Americans Maria Salazar and Carlos Gimenez, African American Byron Donalds, U.S. Navy Vet Scott Franklin and a millennial female business owner in Cat Cammack. As Florida's demographics have changed, especially with even more residents of Hispanic lineage who have fled the perils of anti-democratic socialist regimes or corrupt governments, the party has welcomed them with open arms and outreach. One need only look at the margins in Republican turnout from the Hispanic-dominant Miami Dade County where Donald Trump increased his voting margin by 8 percentage points. This statewide trend wasn't specific to traditional Cuban-American voters in the state. In my home area of Central Florida, President Trump increased his margins among Puerto Rican Floridians by a staggering 11 points. While scores of Florida Hispanic voters were receptive to the Republican message of liberty and economic liberalism that countered the anti-democratic trends of their former homes, they also experienced first-hand the policies Republican lawmakers have carried out across the state. Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, we've safely reopened the economy to help alleviate the lethal impact COVID-19 has had on our businesses and set the blueprint for other states to follow. We've promoted and welcomed with open arms the Christian values carried by new citizens. Counter to pop culture trends that shun conventional values, we've continued to embrace them. Florida Republicans have shown they can walk and chew gum when it comes for deregulation and promoting environmental stewardship. In Congress, Florida Republicans worked with the Trump administration to secure funding for coastal restoration projects following the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Matthew, worked to give back control of oversight of our waters to the state, and received commitments to improve the Everglades. We also saw support among traditional Democrat Jewish voters increase upwards of nearly 6 percent. This support was solidified by the actions the administration took in bringing the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, standing up for Israel's sovereignty over contested lands, and facilitating real Middle East peace through the Abraham Accords. Perhaps most importantly, Florida Republicans have gotten real results for working men and women, an increasingly large proportion of the Republican electorate. Whether it was fighting for sensible pandemic relief packages or lowering taxes, we delivered. The 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump should be emboldened by the prospects of the new, emerging voter, not deterred. The next few months will be a test as we navigate through an unprecedented time: an impeachment trial of a former president, dozens of radical executive orders from a Biden administration with little mandate and an increasingly hostile media. But rest assured, the playbook has been set. Just follow Florida's guide.