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June 23, 2019

Tucker Carlson Tells Trump in Private: No War With Iran

by Keith Preston • Uncategorized • Tags: Donald Trump foreign policy war, Iran, Tucker Carlson

Interesting if true.

The Daily Beast

In the upper echelons of the Trump administration, hawkish voices on Iran predominate—most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. But as tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over the last few weeks, there’s been another, far different voice in the president’s ear: that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran. And a senior administration official said that during the president’s recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more “hawkish members” of his administration.

While some Fox News hosts have argued that a conflict with Iran would be justified, Carlson has consistently criticized U.S. military intervention abroad, particularly in the Middle East. In recent weeks, he has questioned whether war with Iran would be “in anyone’s interest.” Last month, he publicly chided Bolton, saying he was intentionally escalating tensions, and that a potential conflict would “be like Christmas, Thanksgiving, his birthday wrapped into one.”

House hearing to review Mueller findings on Russian election interference

Ignore Lana’s idiotic use of the YKW supplied “enemy term”, i.e., “Leftists”, and replace it with the correct term, “Liberals” and it is otherwise a good critique of Lauren Southern’s ((())) “Borderless.”

Lana’s inclination to get suckered into a right wing position is probably a significant reason why Red Ice has been spared the recent Youtube purge so far.

(((Lauren Southern))) equipped with gas mask, helmet and protective eye goggles, ready for the “surprise attack” from anti-fa.

And as far as Lauren Southern (Simonsen) goes, Majorityrights has long seen her game as kosher.

Related at Majorityrights:

Hardly The Battle of Cable Street: What Berkeley Doesn’t Mean

The right is infamous for getting people swept-up and lured into mistakes.

(102:47) Richard Spencer: In terms of the Alt Lite, I can only imagine that a lot of them are waking up to this obvious reality

(102:59) Charles: I think they are. (((Lauren Southern))), I think, just made a video saying that it’s time to fight back.

(103:07) Richard Spencer: Yeah

Orbán: “Europe is for Europeans, and needs leaders to defend it”, “migration should be stopped, not organised”

Voice of Europe:

In the radio program “Good Morning, Hungary”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that a strong message must be sent to Brussels in the EU elections: “we want change, and a Europe that protects its borders on land and at sea”.

He also said that “we want to see leaders in Brussels who don’t want to organize migration, but who want to stop it”.

The Prime Minister added that there is a “liberal mafia” – including politicians, journalists and analysts – who are “flush with money”, and are working to convince the world that there is nothing that can be done to stop migration.

But, he said, when it turns out that there is indeed something that can be done – when Hungary stops migration on land, Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini does the same at sea and US president Donald Trump decides to build a wall – then these opponents of migration “start to be treated as hate figures”.

Mr. Orbán stated that “the EU elections are about accepting or breaking free” from the way of thinking that such pro-migration people “are trying to force onto us”, he stressed, adding that Europe needs leaders to defend it, because Europe is the home of Europeans and Hungary is the home of Hungarians.

He said that the majority of Hungarians “feel a chill run down their spines” when they hear so many European politicians saying that migration is good, but that it should be better organised than it is today.

Asked whether there is any candidate for the post of President of the European Commission that he would support after having withdrawn his backing from Manfred Weber, Mr. Orbán said, “there will be, after the election”.

He said that two days after the election negotiations will begin for the selection of future European leaders, and “We’ll see how much support has been received by which political figures in which countries”.

Related at Majorityrights: Stuxnet, the most sophisticated piece of malware ever seen, devised for just one specific target.

Related at Majorityrights: As Kumiko Predicted: Bolton appointed to Alt-Lite/Right/Trump Admin coalition w Israel. Next up Iran.

Related at Majorityrights: John (((1/8th))) Bolton.

John Bolton spearheading P.N.A.C. and going to show that even (((1/8th))) can be toxic.

Journalist Explains John Bolton’s Push For ‘Aggressive Use’ Of American Power

NPR, 2 May 2019: New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins says President Trump’s current national security adviser is a hawk who sees America as “a colossus operating anywhere it wants.”

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton is known as a tough-talking hawk. A new article about him in The New Yorker is titled “John Bolton On The Warpath.” My guest is the author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dexter Filkins, who’s a staff writer for the magazine. He’s joined us many times on the show, dating back to when he covered the war in Iraq.

Bolton is President Trump’s third national security adviser, after Generals Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster. Trump was familiar with Bolton’s views because Bolton had made hundreds of appearances on Fox News as a guest, and then as a paid commentator. On Fox, he’d advocated for military strikes on Iranian training camps and for forced regime change in North Korea. Earlier in Bolton’s career, he served in the George W. Bush administration as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs and as U.N. ambassador. He advocated for the invasion of Iraq and told Filkins he still thinks the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was correct.

Dexter Filkins, welcome back to FRESH AIR. So as you point out in the piece, the Trump administration has no permanent secretary of defense, no secretary of homeland security, no ambassador to the U.N. What does it mean in terms of the power John Bolton has now in his role as national security adviser?

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, the national security adviser, just by virtue of the geography of that job - it’s in the West Wing. It’s right down the hall from the Oval Office. It’s an incredibly powerful position. You know, Bolton sees the president every morning. He sees him or he talks to him in the evening. It’s just, the proximity of that job to the presidency gives the occupant of that job just an enormous amount of power. So just on its face, you know, you’re in the pole position there. But I think in this administration because, you know, it’s a revolving door in the rest of the government pretty much all the time - Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, he’s gone. There hasn’t been - no replacement has been named so there’s an acting secretary of defense. There’s no ambassador to the United Nations. There’s no secretary for homeland security.

So it’s just kind of a big vacuum. I think it’s fair to say that makes his job even bigger and gives him even more influence than you would ordinarily have. So I think in that administration, when you’re talking about foreign policy, you’re basically talking about John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, and that’s it.

GROSS: And are they on the same page on most things, Pompeo and Bolton?

FILKINS: I think so. I had a funny conversation about Pompeo and Bolton together with an unnamed Western diplomat who knows them both. And they said, look, you know, Pompeo is really only interested in what Trump is interested in. So you can’t really sit down and talk about the world with him. Bolton, on the other hand, you can talk about anything. You can talk about aid programs in Africa, and he’s well-briefed. He knows about it. But Pompeo has a much more political outlook.

GROSS: So you’re saying Pompeo is there to amplify Trump’s views. Bolton has very strong views of his own.

FILKINS: Yes, he does.

GROSS: So the title of your piece is “John Bolton On The Warpath.” I know he’s a hawk. Does the piece imply that he’s going to lead us into war?

FILKINS: No, but I think it fairly raises a lot of questions. And I think the basis of the piece is this, which I was kind of surprised to find - this divergence of world views between Bolton, on the one hand, who’s been a hawk his whole life. He’s for aggressive use of American power. He’s advocated bombing North Korea. He’s advocated bombing Iran. And then on the other hand, to the extent that President Trump has a world view, it is he wants to stay home. It’s America first. He’s pretty close to being an isolationist. He doesn’t want to - you know, he doesn’t want to partake in this kind of entire international architecture that was set up after the Second World War, whether it’s the World Trade Organization, or NATO or EU. He doesn’t want to pay for any of that stuff, and he doesn’t want to get involved.

So Trump, I think it’s fair to say, doesn’t really want to launch new military operations. They do not see eye to eye on things. I tried to kind of, you know, figure out what it is they talk about when they get together (laughter) for that reason.

GROSS: If Trump and Bolton have such opposing world views when it comes to the possibility of military intervention or war, why would Trump choose him? Why did he choose him?

FILKINS: Well, I think there’s - that’s a really good question. I think there’s two reasons for that. One is that, you know, I think he’s, Bolton, is kind of emotionally appealing to Trump. You know, Bolton was a very highly paid analyst on Fox News. He was on there few times a week. One of the revelations is - for me was I got to look at Mr. Bolton’s financial disclosure, which you’re required to submit for a job like that. And yeah, there was lots of stuff in there. So I think he was being paid $600,000 a year - this is just part of his income, but - $600,000 a year to be on Fox. And so every night, he’s banging away, talking tough. And I think that appeals emotionally to Trump. He’s like, he’s a tough guy. Plus he just sees him all the time. ‘Cause they didn’t really know each other very well.

I think the other reason is there were - H.R. McMaster had been the national security adviser before John Bolton. And there was a kind of a pretty large group of Trump allies who had decided that McMaster had to go. They didn’t like him. They thought he wasn’t supportive enough of Israel and of, you know, the current leadership there. And so they pushed him out. I mean, I think it’s fair to say they lobbied very hard to get him out, and they worked pretty hard to get Bolton in. So I think it was a confluence of those two things.

GROSS: What did Bolton advocate for as a highly paid commentator on Fox News?

FILKINS: (Laughter). Well, he, as I mentioned, he - and I went through a lot of stuff that he said on the air. And, you know, I think he’s finding - I should say, before I answer that question - I think he’s finding, you know, it’s a little different when you’re in power, as opposed to being out of power. But on Fox, talking tough - strike North Korea, if necessary, before they acquire an ICBM capability. Strike Iran in various, you know, various ways and in various contexts. That’s, like, at a minimum. And support Israel in its kind of what I think is a covert or actually pretty hot war that’s going on with Iran and Syria.

So really aggressive use of American power. But I think even more than that, not just - you know, not just dropping bombs. I think that Bolton’s worldview is he’s extremely skeptical of international agreements, whether they’re treaties or, again, the whole kind of architecture that was built by the United States over the past 70 years. You know, whether it’s NATO, or the EU, or the U.N. or the World Trade Organization, all those things which, you know, that’s the world we live in. And he is - and these are, you know, treaties and commitments, and bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements. He’s deeply skeptical of all those things. And he says, essentially, in - he has said this on Fox News, but he’s been very articulate about it in his writing, which is, every time you sign a treaty or a multilateral agreement, you give up a little bit of your sovereignty. And so I think he sees - his view of America is as a kind of colossus operating unilaterally wherever it wants. And, you know, if you pick up friends along the way, great. But they’re not going to be your friends for long. ‘Cause there’s no such things as friends in the international system. There’s only interests. And only interests endure. And so don’t get sentimental about it. Just carry on. And I think that it’s a very unsentimental view of the world that he OK. But Trump fell in love with…

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