Electing Donald Trump again would make the United States look even weaker than it already does, says a former Secretary of Defense. That’s why Vladimir Putin is rooting for a Trump victory. Here is the whole story.
The Second Coming
Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sat down in early October with Margaret Brennan of CBS for a sprawling interview that touched on all aspects of national security.
But among Esper’s current concerns is the potential second coming of “President Donald Trump” in 2024.
When Brennan asked Esper what a second Trump term would look like, the former military top dog said, “I suspect that he will do what he says.”
Part of the platform that has Trump leading most Republican polls by a wide margin is a promise to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
End the War
Trump has said on multiple occasions he plans to end the war within 24 hours of taking office.
And Esper thinks Trump will do his best to make good on that promise if he wins the election.
But Esper says the only single person who can end the war is Russian president Vladimir Putin. And there’s no way Trump can convince Putin to just pack up and head home, says Esper.
Instead, he expects Trump to nibble around the edges and try to help reduce Russian tensions by making concessions to Putin.
Not a NATO Fan
First up, Esper says, there will likely be a reduction in aid to Ukraine as they continue the fight to maintain their sovereignty and drive Russian forces out of their country.
Such a move would strain relations with other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which Esper thinks would be fine with Trump.
The former president has never been a NATO fan. Esper thinks Trump would first cut funding to NATO before potentially pulling out of the organization altogether.
That’s something Trump threatened to do during his first term in office, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see him move in that direction during a second term.
But Esper says pulling out of NATO would weaken the United States’ security at home and America’s swagger everywhere in the world.
‘Music to Putin’s Ears’
Any and all of those developments would be music to Putin’s ears, says Esper. He thinks the Russian dictator may just be trying to “wait out the clock” with his war and hoping that Trump gets re-elected.
Trump wasn’t the only problem that Esper addressed during the interview, where he said that the United States looks weak and chaotic from the outside.
“The Chinese government doesn’t shut down. The Chinese government doesn’t do continuing resolutions,” Esper said, taking a swipe at the budget showdown that nearly closed the U.S. government as October dawned.
Adding Donald Trump and his Putin-serving promises to the mix would only make a bad situation worse, at least in Esper’s eyes.
The post ‘Weak and Chaotic’ – Trump 2024 Victory Would Be ‘Music to Putin’s Ears’ According to a Former Defense Secretary first appeared on The Net Worth Of.
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