Breitbart News editor Dr. Sebastian Gorka, author of the best-selling book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, joined SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily to compare accents. (Kassam graciously conceded that Gorka’s might be better.) They also looked ahead at President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Kassam asked if it was a legitimate concern that Donald Trump’s possible appointment of someone like former UN Ambassador John Bolton to secretary of state could signal the return of “neoconservative foreign policy.”
“No, it’s not,” Gorka replied, “having spoken to Mr. Trump, knowing the people he’s considering right now. The American people, our allies, and our enemies need to understand something very, very clearly: America did not elect an ideological candidate. He’s not a neoliberal. He’s not a neoconservative. He’s not a globalist. I’m going to use words that are not mine. They’re from Monica Crowley, a super, super intelligent lady. She said at the weekend that our President-elect isn’t an ideological victory; it’s an attitudinal one. It’s about Making America Great Again.”
“He has a vision about rebuilding the nation, unfettering the economy, and making sure that our friends are treated as friends again, and our enemies fear us,” he elaborated. “As a result, … anybody who understands that attitude and who is invited to work with him simply has to reflect that. It’s not about neocons invading other countries; it’s about the attitude to America’s values. It’s really that simple, Raheem.”
“We’re talking about a foreign policy that can’t be put into a box,” Gorka said. “I’ve always hated the idea that you have to sit in this category or that category. It’s not about categories of, you know, international relations theory. It’s about the idea that the world is a safer place when America is leading.”
“In the last eight years, we have seen a global catastrophe,” he declared. “The Obama administration, in its national security strategy – this is like a Monty Python skit, when they say, ‘We are going to lead from behind.’ Well, when I look that up in the Webster’s dictionary, those words ‘lead from behind’ actually mean ‘following.’ We created a vacuum in the world, a vacuum that’s been exploited by Putin, by Assad, by China, by North Korea. Those days are over. On January 20, there is a new sheriff in town.”
“It’s the rebirth of all the values that tied America to the U.K., the principles of liberty, of freedom,” Gorka said. “The Left doesn’t understand it. Brexit and the Trump Train are the same phenomena.” (Or, as Kassam rephrased it, “same train, different tracks.”)
Kassam asked Gorka to handicap the secretary of state nomination.
“I bumped into Mayor Giuliani this week. He seems very excited about the possibility,” said Gorka. “A lot of people have talked about Ambassador Bolton. It’s in the lap of the gods. Lots of cards are being shuffled right now.”
“Can I just say one thing?” he added. “This incredible phenomena of the Left spinning out of control about how Donald Trump’s transition is a mess, and it’s chaos – why don’t they open a history book? Nixon didn’t appoint any of his Cabinet for five weeks. Obama didn’t appoint any for the first three weeks. The news media is so lazy, they’re generating stories out of nothing. These decisions will be taken in due course. Individuals are now being double- and triple-vetted. The decisions will come when they will come.”
Kassam and Gorka had some fun mocking media outrage at Trump’s decision to go out to dinner without bringing them along, disagreeing only on whether the President-elect’s preference for well-done steak is the real outrage.
Turning back from the media’s neurotic obsessions to real issues, Gorka noted that Iran is a “long-term problem.” However, he said, “What you don’t do with Tehran is give them $150 billion,” as President Obama did.
“The fact is, this is a nation that the U.S. government has admitted, for 30 years, is the prime sponsor of international terrorism,” he said. “They are committed to killing Americans. They’ve done this in Iraq, and they’ve done this elsewhere. So we’re not going to do regime change. Mr. Trump is not interested in invading other people’s countries, like the neocons. But what we do do is we take a lesson from the Cold War. We isolate these countries. We make the elite, the dictatorial elite, we make it difficult for them to live their lives.”
“And on top of that, softly, covertly, rhetorically, we support those people inside Iran – and there are many of them – who don’t like the regime,” Gorka advised. “We support them, and we help them to strengthen themselves, not necessarily through a revolution, but remember the Cold War’s lesson. What did Ronald Reagan do behind the Iron Curtain? He didn’t decide to invade those countries, but he did very subtle things. Solidarity in Poland – one of the biggest things we did … is, we smuggled fax machines to Solidarity. Just think about that. I don’t know if people remember fax machines.”
“There are people out there who share our values. Help them to help themselves. That’s the Trump way, and I think we will see a far more nuanced, but principled, approach to countries like Iran that will have a far greater effect on our allies and our own safety than the current inane and actually dangerous policies the White House is peddling,” he anticipated.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:
Kassam asked if it was a legitimate concern that Donald Trump’s possible appointment of someone like former UN Ambassador John Bolton to secretary of state could signal the return of “neoconservative foreign policy.”
“No, it’s not,” Gorka replied, “having spoken to Mr. Trump, knowing the people he’s considering right now. The American people, our allies, and our enemies need to understand something very, very clearly: America did not elect an ideological candidate. He’s not a neoliberal. He’s not a neoconservative. He’s not a globalist. I’m going to use words that are not mine. They’re from Monica Crowley, a super, super intelligent lady. She said at the weekend that our President-elect isn’t an ideological victory; it’s an attitudinal one. It’s about Making America Great Again.”
“He has a vision about rebuilding the nation, unfettering the economy, and making sure that our friends are treated as friends again, and our enemies fear us,” he elaborated. “As a result, … anybody who understands that attitude and who is invited to work with him simply has to reflect that. It’s not about neocons invading other countries; it’s about the attitude to America’s values. It’s really that simple, Raheem.”
“We’re talking about a foreign policy that can’t be put into a box,” Gorka said. “I’ve always hated the idea that you have to sit in this category or that category. It’s not about categories of, you know, international relations theory. It’s about the idea that the world is a safer place when America is leading.”
“In the last eight years, we have seen a global catastrophe,” he declared. “The Obama administration, in its national security strategy – this is like a Monty Python skit, when they say, ‘We are going to lead from behind.’ Well, when I look that up in the Webster’s dictionary, those words ‘lead from behind’ actually mean ‘following.’ We created a vacuum in the world, a vacuum that’s been exploited by Putin, by Assad, by China, by North Korea. Those days are over. On January 20, there is a new sheriff in town.”
“It’s the rebirth of all the values that tied America to the U.K., the principles of liberty, of freedom,” Gorka said. “The Left doesn’t understand it. Brexit and the Trump Train are the same phenomena.” (Or, as Kassam rephrased it, “same train, different tracks.”)
Kassam asked Gorka to handicap the secretary of state nomination.
“I bumped into Mayor Giuliani this week. He seems very excited about the possibility,” said Gorka. “A lot of people have talked about Ambassador Bolton. It’s in the lap of the gods. Lots of cards are being shuffled right now.”
“Can I just say one thing?” he added. “This incredible phenomena of the Left spinning out of control about how Donald Trump’s transition is a mess, and it’s chaos – why don’t they open a history book? Nixon didn’t appoint any of his Cabinet for five weeks. Obama didn’t appoint any for the first three weeks. The news media is so lazy, they’re generating stories out of nothing. These decisions will be taken in due course. Individuals are now being double- and triple-vetted. The decisions will come when they will come.”
Kassam and Gorka had some fun mocking media outrage at Trump’s decision to go out to dinner without bringing them along, disagreeing only on whether the President-elect’s preference for well-done steak is the real outrage.
Turning back from the media’s neurotic obsessions to real issues, Gorka noted that Iran is a “long-term problem.” However, he said, “What you don’t do with Tehran is give them $150 billion,” as President Obama did.
“The fact is, this is a nation that the U.S. government has admitted, for 30 years, is the prime sponsor of international terrorism,” he said. “They are committed to killing Americans. They’ve done this in Iraq, and they’ve done this elsewhere. So we’re not going to do regime change. Mr. Trump is not interested in invading other people’s countries, like the neocons. But what we do do is we take a lesson from the Cold War. We isolate these countries. We make the elite, the dictatorial elite, we make it difficult for them to live their lives.”
“And on top of that, softly, covertly, rhetorically, we support those people inside Iran – and there are many of them – who don’t like the regime,” Gorka advised. “We support them, and we help them to strengthen themselves, not necessarily through a revolution, but remember the Cold War’s lesson. What did Ronald Reagan do behind the Iron Curtain? He didn’t decide to invade those countries, but he did very subtle things. Solidarity in Poland – one of the biggest things we did … is, we smuggled fax machines to Solidarity. Just think about that. I don’t know if people remember fax machines.”
“There are people out there who share our values. Help them to help themselves. That’s the Trump way, and I think we will see a far more nuanced, but principled, approach to countries like Iran that will have a far greater effect on our allies and our own safety than the current inane and actually dangerous policies the White House is peddling,” he anticipated.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:
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