Trump Adviser On Syria And Afghanistan Stikes: 'That's Why The President Is Master Of The Deal'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Sebastian Gorka, a White House foreign policy adviser, praised Donald Trump's military actions, launching a missile strike in Syria and dropping the largest bomb ever on an ISIS tunnel structure in Afghanistan, telling Chris Stigall that the real intention of the operations is to send a message to the state sponsors of rogue regimes around the world.
"The actions we took are not simply about an airfield in Syria, nor are they about the cave complex in Afghanistan. Other nations, and you know which nations they are, understand and have drawn the ramifications of those actions. This is a much, much larger decision. It has to do with geo-strategy and geopolitics and, remember, that both Syria and North Korea are not independent states. They are satrapies. They are client states of far more powerful nations. Those nations, thanks to the President, are have to re-visit their geo-strategic calculations and ask themselves certain questions about who they sponsor and how much they sponsor them. That's why the President is the master of deal."
Gorka rejecting criticism from former allies who oppose what they see as Trump attempting to police the globe, saying the point has always been to project strength.
"Nothing has changed between the man who was Donald Trump on the campaign stump speeches to the man who became the most powerful individual in the world, who is the Commander-in-Chief. He is not an interventionist and it is very important to compare the launch of 59 unmanned cruised missiles against an airfield or the dropping of one 21-thousand pound bomb, compare that to what the Bush administration did in 2003 with regards to Iraq or compare it to the first Gulf War in 1991. We have not, neither of those operations, did we put any of our soldiers in harm's way or did we put boots on the ground. This is about sending a message. This is about backing up diplomacy through strength."
He also commented on speculation that there is tension in the White House between Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner and his top political adviser, Steve Bannon, insisting nothing could be further from the truth
"I'm in the White House because of Steve Bannon and because I gave Mr Trump support in the months before he became President Trump. The fact is this is all laughable. Both of these individuals work very, very well together but there are people outside the building who have vested interests to drive an imaginary wedge between them. The fact is Jared Kushner is an incredibly intelligent young man who has really climatized well to his position now in the field of politics and policy. And Steve Bannon, and the President knows this intimately, every molecule in that man's body is strategic and it is not an accident that his campaign flourished as it did after Steve came on board."