If re-elected in 2024, former President Donald Trump has vowed to fire “warmongers” in the U.S. State Department and the military. Trump shared his thoughts in a video posted to Twitter by his campaign team and his son Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday afternoon.
In the video, Trump said, “World War III has never been closer than it is right now. We need to clean house of all of the warmongers and America last globalists in the Deep State, the Pentagon, the state department, and the National Security industrial complex.” He went on to highlight his record in office, claiming he was “the only president in generations who didn’t start a war” and that he rejected the advice of military generals, bureaucrats, and “so-called diplomats who only know how to get us into conflict but they don’t know how to get us out.”
Trump also accused career government officials of promoting uprisings in Ukraine in a broader effort to provoke a confrontation. He named Victoria Nuland, the current U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, as an example. He then stated that he would stop lobbyists and the big defense contractors from influencing senior military and National Security officials.
Hours before Trump released his video, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia would suspend its participation in the New START treaty, which had imposed nuclear arms reduction and allowed for mutual inspections of nuclear arsenals between the United States and Russia. Trump responded to the news in his video, saying, “None of this excuses in any way the outrageous and horrible invasion of Ukraine one year ago, which would have never happened if I was your president, not even a little chance.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed he would have been able to avert the war in Ukraine if he had remained in office. Last year, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) agreed with Trump and said the reason Russia invaded Ukraine was “because we have such enormously weak leadership in the White House.” Former Trump administration official Fiona Hill has also stated that Russia would not have invaded if Trump were in office, but said that was because “Putin would have anticipated that he could get Ukraine handed over without the necessity of invading.”
In his video, Trump said the reason the United States didn’t get into new wars was because “other countries respected us” and because he “rebuilt” the U.S. military. He then declared that he would “complete the mission” of getting rid of the “corrupt globalist establishment” in the state department, Pentagon, and national security establishment.
During his presidency, Trump called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, but ultimately retained troops in the country. He also reduced the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and negotiated the final U.S. withdrawal. In his final days in office, Trump withdrew all U.S. forces from Somalia. However, President Joe Biden has since reversed that course. Additionally, Trump vetoed a resolution to end the U.S. support for a Saudi-led war in Yemen, keeping U.S. support for the Saudi coalition in place.