Ukraine
risks being ‘Trump’s Vietnam,’ says Steve Bannon
Trump’s
former chief strategist fears his old boss won’t make a clean break and stop
military aid to Kyiv.
Donald Trump
is in danger of failing to make a clean break with Ukraine, Trump’s former
chief strategist Steve Bannon said. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
January 20,
2025 4:00 am CET
By Jamie
Dettmer
WASHINGTON —
Donald Trump is in danger of failing to make a clean break with Ukraine and
could be sucked deeper into Vladimir Putin’s war — just as Richard Nixon was
stung in his attempts to pull out of Vietnam — Trump’s former chief strategist
Steve Bannon warned in a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO.
The host of
the influential “War Room” podcast is girding for a major political showdown
over United States intervention in Ukraine. He advocates ending America’s
all-important military aid to Kyiv, but fears his old boss is going to fall
into a trap being set by an unlikely alliance of the U.S. defense industry, the
Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he argues are now
misguided. These include Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who is Trump’s
pick to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
“If we
aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to
Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not
Lyndon Johnson’s,” Bannon said.
Kellogg
argues any deal to end the three-year-long war needs to include solid security
guarantees for Ukraine to ensure Russia won’t just invade again. And Kellogg
has talked about maintaining U.S. military aid to apply pressure on Moscow to
agree a decent deal.
Despite his
friendship with Kellogg, Bannon thinks this kind of delay will only heighten
the risk of the U.S. being pulled deeper into a war he believes is unwinnable
and one that isn’t in America’s national interest. Behind the scenes, he’s
lobbying furiously for Trump to declare in his inauguration speech on Monday
that he will end the war quickly.
On his daily
radio show and podcast, Bannon’s been campaigning for this announcement on Day
One. “I’m going nuts right now to make sure there’s something on Monday, an
announcement. Because you have Kellogg saying it will take 100 days, the old
foreign policy establishment are saying six months,” Bannon said.
He argues
Trump should spell out to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “there’s a new
sheriff in town, and we’re going to get a deal done and we’re going to get it
done quickly.” Zelenskyy should, he goes on, take note of how Trump
steamrollered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting a
cease-fire-for-hostages deal with Hamas.
Not losing
sleep over Europe
The
71-year-old was in a feisty mood, exhilarated by Trump’s election win but ready
to do battle to ensure that America is remade along MAGA lines. Looking less
rumpled than he can on occasion, he sported stubble and had combed his
signature long gray hair.
Wearing
slippers for the early morning interview in the front room of his Capitol Hill
home, Bannon told POLITICO he didn’t think Europe appreciated how consequential
Trump’s second term would be — and reckoned Trump’s domestic political
opponents weren’t properly prepared either.
He talked
about the “days of thunder” to come and said the slew of executive orders to be
announced after Trump is sworn in on Monday will likely include ones on
immigration, diversity hiring in the federal workforce, energy and possibly
tariffs. He reckoned about 50 orders would be announced, though more than 100
others were locked and loaded, awaiting sign off by government lawyers.
Bannon
compared 2025 to 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected and launched
the New Deal. “Our [electoral] coalition is much bigger than it was in 2016,
much broader, much deeper,” allowing more to be done, Bannon said, including
the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
But a larger
coalition also brings risks. Bannon worried the new Silicon Valley converts,
including the tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom he has been publicly
skirmishing, may divert Trump and strike deals for their own benefit.
He was
scathing about the Europeans and the transatlantic alliance. “If you look at
NATO, I don’t think it can put together two combat divisions of Europeans that
are ready to fight,” he scoffed, complaining NATO had turned into an American
protectorate, rather than being an alliance.
“Europe has
gotten away with early retirement and full health care because they don’t pay
for their own defense,” he protested.
But Bannon
is equally emphatic he’s no fan of Russia’s leader.
“Putin’s a
bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. The KGB are bad guys. But I don’t stay up at
night worrying about Russian influence on Europe. No. 1, their military hasn’t
even got to Kyiv. In three years, they couldn’t get there. They haven’t taken
Kharkiv even. You know why I don’t stay awake at night? Because the Europeans
don’t stay awake at night. They don’t consider Russia a real threat. If they
did they would throw a lot more money and troops into the game,” he went on.
He’s a big
fan of Trump’s ploy to buy Greenland, and as a former naval warfare officer he
says he sees the Arctic as crucial to ensure the American homeland is safe from
both Russia and China. “Trump’s not going to invade Greenland,” he said, waving
a dismissive hand. “He doesn’t have to. They’re going to vote for independence,
and then they’re going to vote to join the United States.”
Likewise,
gaining control of the Panama Canal is important for American defense. “The
people in Panama have been ripped off by the elites down there. They basically
cut deals. It’s an open secret. They cut deals with the CCP [Chinese Communist
Party]. They’re bought and paid for, and they turned the canal over to them.
That’s ending.”
He argues
too many European leaders fancied themselves as Winston Churchill, especially
zeroing in on former British Conservative leader Boris Johnson, whom he called
a “war criminal.”
“The Ukraine
war is the central screw up of Europe over the last couple of years. You have a
million dead or wounded Ukrainians. And we’re going to end up, best case, we’re
going to end up exactly where this thing started, as I said three years ago.
And it’s because you have Boris Johnson and [French President Emmanuel] Macron,
all these fantasists that won’t pay for their own defense. They want to be big
shots. They all want to be Winston Churchill with other people’s money and
other people’s lives,” he says.
MAGA maniacs
It is
difficult to gauge how influential Bannon is now on Trump.
The pair
fell out after Bannon criticized Trump’s family, mocked the then-president’s
intellect and criticized the operations of the White House in comments
published in a book by journalist Michael Wolff. Trump disavowed Bannon and
accused him of losing his mind.
But the two
patched things up less than a year later with Trump calling Bannon “one of my
best pupils” and said he “loved working with” him. In 2018, Bannon released a
pro-Trump documentary aimed at galvanizing Trump supporters ahead of the 2018
midterm elections in a bid to maintain a Republican majority in the House of
Representatives. He wouldn’t disclose how often he talks with Trump, but said
he knew Trump listens to the “War Room” and often sends along notes of praise.
One European
populist sponsor, who’s been a guest at Trump’s Florida resort in recent weeks,
confided that some in Trump’s inner circle see Bannon and other die-hard early
Trump supporters as “MAGA maniacs.” “It surprised me a lot,” the sponsor added.
Asking not to be identified by name in order to be candid, he added: “But
they’re also wary of Bannon. They appreciate he wields a lot of influence on
MAGA die-hards and they don’t want to get the movement against them.”
Indeed
Bannon can whip up an online MAGA crowd. When skeptical Republican senators
expressed doubts about the wisdom of nominating Fox News host Pete Hegseth, a
former Army National Guard officer, as defense secretary Bannon was a key
figure in organizing a grassroots MAGA campaign to save his nomination. And
there’s no shortage of MAGA figures and top Republicans clamoring to appear on
Bannon’s “War Room” show, in testimony to its political clout.
Bannon broke
off the interview to discuss a huge oil painting hanging over the fireplace
depicting the USS Ranger, a sloop of war captained by John Paul Jones during
the American revolutionary war. The Ranger took the war to the shores of
England, captured five British ships and launched a raid on England’s northwest
coast, prompting Royal Navy warships to be dispatched against her in the Irish
Sea.
Bannon also
means to take the political war to Europe. He segued to discuss how Britain’s
populist leader Nigel Farage plotted his Brexit referendum campaign over dinner
in Bannon’s Capitol Hill home. He clearly relishes upcoming opportunities to
back European populists and amplify the radical populist message in Europe.
And he sees
Elon Musk as crucial in that endeavor.
That is not
to say he is an unalloyed fan of Musk. He has been vitriolic in his criticism
of the tech billionaire for calling for more visas for highly skilled foreign
workers. Bannon wants a moratorium on immigration. He was disappointed with
Musk for recently turning on Farage and for saying he should be replaced as the
leader of Britain’s Reform UK party.
Bannon and
Musk are also in sharp disagreement over Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Musk is a
fan. Bannon was, too, until recently. For weeks, he has been launching
ferocious attacks on her in interviews with the Italian media describing her as
a lefty disguised as a populist. This marks a stark contrast with his original
support.
“I saw in
her tremendous potential. She’s got the best skill set of any politician except
for Trump on the globe. Tough, personable, smart. What happened is that once
she got into office, she immediately became, not just moderated, she flipped
and gave support to the central powers in Brussels, and particularly NATO, and
NATO is a huge problem. She was an ardent backer of the Ukraine war,” he
explained.
But he
added: “My mission is to get her back on track.”
He also
hopes to get Musk in the right groove, too.
“I’ve told
him this, and that as soon as I make him a populist nationalist instead of a
techno-feudal globalist, we’ll be fine. But until that time, we’re going to be
at loggerheads,” he said.
While
complaining Musk could be “a random element,” he said the money and support he
gave to Trump in the election was important. And he predicted Musk would have a
huge impact on Europe.
“I don’t
think Europe is ready for him. He has two tactical nuclear weapons — unlimited
money and a social media platform. He can drive what’s important and he can
crush everybody else,” he added.
“There’s not
a centrist right or centrist left government on the European continent that can
withstand his onslaught, if he gets fully engaged as he has in the U.S.”
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