We were told he was in league with the Kremlin.
We were told he would take us out of NATO.
We were warned he would start World War Three.
Instead we had peace for four years.
No new wars. No new invasions. In fact, on his orders the caliphate of ISIS was destroyed, and I had the honor to travel to Singapore to witness a peace summit between our president and the head of state of the Hermit Kingdom, North Korea.
And then his son-in-law brokered a peace in the Middle East, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the re-birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
(L-R) Foreign Affairs Minister of Bahrain Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Foreign Affairs Minister of the United Arab Emirates Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House on September 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
All this despite the president inheriting a world in which Russia had taken Crimea, North Korea was launching missiles over the Sea of Japan, China was intimidating her neighbors militarily, Iran was moving inexorably toward nuclear-weapons capability, and ISIS had established the largest Jihadi insurgency since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
How was all this possible?
With no exaggeration because of one man, his love of America and his preternatural understanding of power and how to exercise it. That man was Donald J. Trump, and I was honored to serve in his White House.
How could one man make a difference? How could one non-politician usher us from an era of forever wars, “managed decline,” and global instability to a new age of prosperity and safety for Americans and security for the world?
Not because President Trump saw America as “globo-cop.” Quite the opposite.
The fascinating thing about the 45th President of the United States was that he exists in a place outside of the ivory-tower-generated categories and cliches of the Starbucks latte-sipping grad-school grandees and political TV hacks.
Donald Trump was never a neocon. Much to the chagrin of the oleaginous likes of creeps like Bill Kristol or Max Boot, who never saw a war they didn’t like and wouldn’t send someone’s else sons to fight and die in.
And he most certainty wasn’t a mindless libertarian isolationist who sees the world outside our borders as irrelevant to the safety of Americans.
Let me explain his sui generis approach to leadership and geopolitics with two examples.
When we were informed that the murderous regime of Bashar al Assad was about to use chemical weapons again against civilian targets, including women and children, the president took decisive action. He ordered our forces to launch 50+ cruise missiles to obliterate the Syria base that was preparing the genocidal operation. And he did so as he was hosting a banquet for Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, where he leant down to the Communist leader, over chocolate cake, and informed the despot via his interpreter, what he had just done.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, his wife Peng Liyuan, U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump meet at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang via Getty Images)
President Trump had no interest in invading Syria, or any other nation, but was making a clear statement to Assad, Xi, and all tyrants that America has real redlines that with be policed as necessary and use of illegal chemical weapons against civilians is one of them.
Secondly, when our intelligence assets informed the Commander-in-Chief that several hundreds of Russia mercenaries had been deployed to the Middle East to destabilize the region, President Trump acted decisively once more, knowing how Putin had invaded Georgia under George W. Bush and taken Crimea under Obama.
President Trump immediately ordered the Pentagon to kill all the Russian special forces masked as Wagner Group “mercenaries.” (Note: No president had ever killed hundreds of Russian soldiers since the Moscow Revolution of 1917, not even the Cold War warrior Ronald Reagan).
And what was the Kremlin’s response? Nothing.
Putin didn’t even hold a press conference to complain at Washington. Because he was afraid of President Trump. He’s not afraid of Joe Biden.
Since the 2020 election, as a pro-American administration was replaced by one led and staffed by those who hate the United States and sympathize more with our sworn enemies like Iran, than our friends like Israel, those who saw weakness acted.
The cartels reignited their billion-dollar business of human-, drug-, and arms- trafficking business across our open southern border.
Kim in North Korea started his blackmail-brinkmanship with his missile launches and nuclear testing.
Iran reheated her cordial relations with their Democrat cronies, to renegotiate Obama’s JCPOA Iran-Deal, and were rewarded with $6 billion recently.
China began once more to run invasion drills to intimidate Taiwan, as her aircraft and naval vessels endangered U.S. military planes and ships.
And then of course we had Biden’s surrender in Afghanistan. $80 billion-worth of equipment left for the Taliban, thousands of Americans and our partners left stranded, and 13 Marines, corpsmen, and a Green Beret murdered by ISIS during the disastrous rout of Kabul airport.
All done so the “Commander-in-Chief” could have a photo-op for the anniversary of 9/11 and declare “an end to the war.”
That disaster led to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The former KGB colonel knew with Biden in the Oval Office instead of Trump, the time was right.
Then, once Biden released $6 billion to the mullahs in Iran, their proxy Hamas was ready to launch today’s unprecedented attacks at sites all over Israel.
What will Xi Jinping conclude about timing for his assault on Taiwan? I think you know the answer to that question.
As a former Senator from Illinois once notoriously stated: “Elections have consequences.” The world is once again on fire because America is led by cowards who hate America who don’t understand that evil exists, and that evil must not be placated.
Can we last until January 20, 2025?
No one can answer that.
Sebastian Gorka Ph.D. is host of SALEM Radio’s AMERICA First and The Gorka Reality Check on NEWSMAX TV. A former Strategist to President Donald Trump, he is a member of the National Security Education Board of the Pentagon. His latest book is The War for America’s Soul. Follow him on his SubStack page and website.
