Trump Adviser: No Neocon Shift, ‘Not the Bush Administration’
Gorka says president made pragmatic call on Syrian strike, suggests little risk of escalation.
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, said on Friday morning that President Donald Trump’s populist supporters need not fear that the decision to strike a Syrian government target last week represents an embrace of neoconservatism.
“It’s not a modification,” Gorka said Friday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” “Donald J. Trump hasn’t changed from November 7 to Good Friday, April 14,” he said.
“This is not the Bush administration, and it is not neoconservatism.”
“This isn’t 2003, this isn’t 1991 and the Gulf War, and the president has not changed one bit,” Gorka said. “This is not the Bush administration, and it is not neoconservatism.”
Rather, Gorka claimed, Trump’s actions are motivated by the recognition that “if there is to be [a global] influence, it better be our values.”
Gorka blasted the notion that a limited Tomahawk missile strike in any way precipitates full-on intervention.
“It makes no sense — the idea that we are mired in something when we take an action that lasted 15 minutes,” Gorka said. To compare it with Iraq or Afghanistan “is just a salacious analogy … we are not mired in anything,” Gorka said.
Trump’s decision to attack Syria is, according to Gorka, motivated not by a desire to dive headfirst into the Syrian swamp but by a desire to project American power.
“Think about what happened since then,” said Gorka. “Vladimir Putin didn’t want to meet with us, well he did,” Gorka said, also pointing out China’s decision to suspend coal imports from North Korea. “These are not accidental issues,” said Gorka. “This is the master of the art of the deal.”
“The bottom line is [Trump’s] a patriot, and he’s a pragmatist,” said Gorka.
