By Cliff Kincaid
December 13, 2024
Americans are optimistic that President Trump can solve the nation’s domestic and foreign policy problems. But some of his critical nominations and actions indicate he is extremely worried about what lies ahead and wants to at least temporarily appease those who can do America harm.
Consider first his nomination of a George Soros partner, Scott Bessent, to run the Department of the Treasury. Soros has been one of the biggest enemies of Republicans since the days of the George W. Bush candidacy. He is behind a big part of the immigration mess, as Soros pledged $500 million of his fortune to invite them here and take care of them. That was back in 2016.
Why would Trump pick him? It seems obvious that Trump picked a Soros ally to send the message to the hedge fund billionaire that he wants a political truce. He is hoping Soros will call off the dogs, including the Soros-funded prosecutors rewarding criminal aliens and prosecuting law-abiding citizens.
In the same way that Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have come or are coming to Mar-a-Lago, Trump must believe that Soros (and perhaps his son Alexander) will come to the table as well. It is a big risk.
Second, Trump chose “former” Bernie Sanders Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). This doesn’t make sense from a national security standpoint. Gabbard favors a pardon for former NSA and CIA contractor Edward Snowden, an American defector now living in Russia under Vladimir Putin’s protection. Trump had favored the death penalty for Snowden.
So why did Trump pick Gabbard, a favorite of Moscow herself? It looks like an attempt to curry favor with Putin while Trump pursues a settlement in Ukraine that will require Putin’s cooperation. Expect that Gabbard will play a role in any such settlement, just as she tried to arrange a peace deal between the U.S. and Syria’s Assad back in 2017.
That deal fell through and now Assad is living in Moscow, perhaps on the same apartment block that houses Snowden. Jihadists have taken control of the Arab country, posing another threat that Trump and Israel must deal with. Biden considers this a victory, as he leaves another hotspot on Trump’s plate.
Third, in view of reports that he has invited China’s Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration, it looks like Trump is trying to play nice with the dictator who unleashed COVID-19 on the world, killing 1.2 million Americans. This, too, doesn’t make sense from a national security standpoint. Shouldn’t China be made to pay for its mass murder?
On my Rumble channel, I just interviewed retired Lt. Colonel Ralph Siegrist about the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who have entered the United States through Biden’s open borders policy, some of them organized into military units, taking weapons training, and storing weapons in certain locations. He says Trump Border Czar Tom Homan is aware of the problem and understands the dimensions of the internal threat.
The cadres of illegal alien Chinese immigrants are ready to strike at the heart of our economy, including the power grid, once they are given orders to proceed by China’s Xi.
What better way to prepare and address the threat than to invite Xi to America and have a behind-closed-doors discussion of this problem?
My guess is that Trump will demand that Xi order their return to China or at least acquiesce to Trump and Homan’s plan to round them up and deport them. It is a very dangerous situation that could erupt into violence and terrorism in major metropolitan areas of America. No wonder Trump wants the U.S. military to assist in mass deportations.
My analysis may sound fantastical to ordinary observers but please understand the sensitive situation that Trump is inheriting from Biden/Harris.
We are currently being treated to non-answers from the Pentagon and the FBI about drones flying around New Jersey, in the same way we have learned absolutely nothing from the federal agencies about so-called “Havana Syndrome” targeting American diplomatic personnel abroad.
In a recent report, the House Intelligence Committee wonders “Is the Intelligence Community Hiding the Real Reason for This Phenomenon?” This report appears years after the syndrome was first discovered to be damaging the health of American government officials and their families.
There is a cover-up regarding “Havana Syndrome,” in much the same way they covered-up the source of COVID-19 in the Wuhan lab. This is because our intelligence agencies are heavily infiltrated by Russian and Chinese agents.
Just as in the case of the drones, it is reasonable to believe that the Chinese and/or the Russians are behind it, using exotic weapons. But to admit this means that the Biden/Harris Administration let it happen.
A Chinese national was just arrested for flying a drone over and photographing Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. He was at San Francisco International Airport prior to boarding a China-bound flight.
If you were President Trump about to take office and hoping to turn the American economy around in the face of inflation, deficits, and debt, what would you do? If you are faced with intelligence agencies that have no understanding of the geopolitical threat to America, what would you do?
You certainly wouldn’t engage the enemy with insufficient resources. You wouldn’t want to continue a no-win war in Europe. You would also want Israel to finish its war in the Middle East, so that America can rearm and get prepared for the Chinese and Russian and Islamic challenges ahead.
From Trump’s perspective, the answer is simple: You would try to buy time with your enemies and adversaries while you get to the bottom of the scandals that have paralyzed the U.S. Government response to a seemingly endless series of national security problems.
Hence, his “change agents” in Treasury and other agencies seem designed to mollify a few of his critics while hoping to get to the bottom of why the U.S. Government is so dysfunctional. The risk is they fall flat and only produced more disruption, not real reform, and no results on the global stage.
In short, because Trump is inheriting one fat mess, he has no alternative but to pursue his pro-growth economic agenda, on display at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, while developing personal relationships with his adversaries. He is hoping that Bessent and Gabbard can accomplish this in the economic and intelligence establishments of the federal government. It is a big risk.
His previous attempt at a friendship with the North Korean dictator only produced a stalemate and bought some time. Perhaps time is what America needs.
But does Trump have enough time to turn the situation around? And is the transition period to a new administration a time to rest and eagerly anticipate a new year?
On my Rumble show, Lt. Col. Siegrist cautioned against complacency.
He said, “…amongst my community of colonels, when we talk, there’s something we call the quiet. The quiet is really, really, dangerous. When you’re out there on the front lines, when everything goes really quiet, that’s the most frightening period because you do not know what’s going on, but you know something is about to happen.”
The response, he emphasized, is to “Be Prepared,” as the Boy Scouts say.
Trump’s controversial nominations, seen in the context of the peril and promise of his second term, make some sense. However, I doubt that Gabbard will survive the confirmation process considering her position on Snowden, a modern-day Alger Hiss.
The Pete Hegseth nomination was made for a different reason, I believe.  Trump wants the support of Fox News as he goes forward and Hegseth is another pretty face from that stable of media personalities who is desperately trying to put his womanizing and drinking behind him. His future is in doubt.
However, the future of Fox News as a conservative vessel is also in doubt, as owner Rupert Murdoch’s liberal son James fights for control of the channel, replacing his conservative son Lachlan.
These are a few of the minefields that Trump is navigating as he prepares for a second term. He knows his administration is vulnerable. He knows America is vulnerable.
© 2024 Cliff Kincaid – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net
Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org
