President-elect Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, reportedly is warning of an impending world conflict that could equate to ‘Trump’s Vietnam.’
The ‘War Room’ host has been using his daily radio show and podcast to advocate that Trump make an announcement on ‘Day One’ that he will end the war in Ukraine quickly.
In an interview with Politico, Bannon said he is aggressively urging that Trump do so in his Inauguration Day speech, warning that the soon-to-be 47th president could be entrapped by the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, who he says have teamed up to push the United States to continue sending military aid to Ukraine. That includes Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who Trump tapped to become special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
Though friends, Bannon says Kellogg is misguided in pushing that the U.S. continue sending aid to Ukraine while an agreement is sorted that includes security guarantees that make certain Russia will not launch another invasion.
A further delay in ending the three-year conflict, Bannon countered, risks the United States being pulled deeper into a war that cannot be won and runs counter to American national interests.
‘If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam,’ Bannon said. ‘That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war, and it went down as his war, not Lyndon Johnson’s.’
‘I’m going nuts right now to make sure there’s something on Monday, an announcement,’ he added. ‘Because you have Kellogg saying it will take 100 days, the old foreign policy establishment are saying six months.’
Bannon reportedly said Trump must communicate to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that ‘there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re going to get a deal done, and we’re going to get it done quickly.’
He added that Zelenskyy ought to pay attention to how Trump pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting the terms of a cease-fire and hostage release deal with Hamas before the president-elect takes office.
Bannon lamented to Politico how he views NATO as having morphed into more of an American protectorate than an alliance.
‘If you look at NATO, I don’t think it can put together two combat divisions of Europeans that are ready to fight,’ Bannon said. ‘Europe has gotten away with early retirement and full health care because they don’t pay for their own defense.’
As for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Bannon continued, ‘Putin’s a bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. The KGB are bad guys. But I don’t stay up at night worrying about Russian influence on Europe.’
‘Number 1, their military hasn’t even got to Kyiv. In three years, they couldn’t get there,’ Bannon said. ‘They haven’t taken Kharkiv even. You know why I don’t stay awake at night? Because the Europeans don’t stay awake at night. They don’t consider Russia a real threat. If they did, they would throw a lot more money and troops into the game.’
Bannon, who said he supports Trump’s proposals for the U.S. to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, both in his eyes crucial to U.S. national security, then turned back to Europe.
He called former British Conservative leader Boris Johnson a ‘war criminal,’ adding that he believes too many European leaders consider themselves the Winston Churchill of their day. ‘The Ukraine war is the central screw-up of Europe over the last couple of years,’ Bannon told Politico. ‘You have a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. And we’re going to end up, best case, we’re going to end up exactly where this thing started, as I said three years ago. And it’s because you have Boris Johnson and [French President Emmanuel] Macron, all these fantasists that won’t pay for their own defense. They want to be big shots. They all want to be Winston Churchill with other people’s money and other people’s lives.’