New Deal: Trump's Traditional GOP Hawks Are Being Removed from His Path
"MAGA Targets Republican Hawks" – Trump supporters are sending a "black mark" to supporters of traditional US foreign policy, Politico writes.
President Donald Trump's top allies are in an escalating conflict with once-powerful Republican defense hawks, viewing them as the main obstacle to a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy that would align the world order with Trump's "America First" vision.
It is noted that Vice President J.D. Vance and his allies are seeking to weaken the positions of Washington Republican "hawks," including Senator Tom Cotton and Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, whose role in Trump's entourage, according to the publication, is "gradually weakening."
Given their past activities as Russia hawks, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Walz are under intense internal scrutiny at the White House, where Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Sergio Gore, who oversees personnel decisions, have shown little tolerance for those who deviate from the MAGA mindset.
"Underlying all of this is Trump's foreign policy thinking, which exalts his personal relationships with the leaders of rival superpowers and uses American threats to push allies and adversaries alike to submit to American power rather than traditional alliances based on long-term cooperation and democratic governance. This has emboldened Vance and others to send a clear signal to the world that Republican foreign policy as they knew it is dead—and they have no regrets ," the article notes.
The rift was on display in Europe last week, the publication said:
"The political standoff escalated after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth openly suggested to allies in Brussels that Ukraine be removed from NATO membership— effectively agreeing to a key Russian demand—that shocked Republican hawks but delighted Trump , whose White House sanctioned the comments."
"They should just let the president, the one who is really in charge of U.S. foreign policy, conduct foreign policy. He campaigned on these things, and the American people supported him wholeheartedly," the publication quotes an unnamed senior White House official as saying.
The man added of the GOP hawks: "Nobody got elected nationally. None of them got 77 million votes. And none of them got us out of the war. So maybe they should just sit back and let the president lead."
Opponents of Trump's course fear that it will lead to concessions to Russia, but the administration considers their arguments "outdated."
The hawks tend to be aligned with a broader bipartisan foreign policy establishment that is concerned that Trump will reward Putin with favorable terms in Ukraine and thus demonstrate America's weakness on the world stage.
New Deal : Trump is removing traditional Republican Party hawks from his path.