Tag Archive for: national security council

The Trump Doctrine

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They’re calling it the “Trump Doctrine.”

It’s the national security “pivot” from regions far-far away, to taking care of business right here in our own backyard.

As I mention in my podcast with Prophecy Today, this document setting out America’s national securities priorities and how to accomplish them is written in Trump’s own very distinctive voice.

Even the way it puts the question is pure Trump. From page 2:

  1. What should the United States want?
  2. What are our available means to get it?
  3. How can we connect ends and means into a viable National Security Strategy?

I guarantee you, this is not the way policy wonks think. Or think tankers think. Or National Security Council staffers think and express themselves. This is Donald J. Trump through and through: clear, concise, to the point, without the peppermint stick ice cream.

And what does it say?

Well, for starters, gone are the great power adversaries and the doom and gloom of the Biden era, which demonized Russia and China.

Yes, Trump recognizes that both are potential adversaries, but he also believes in the Art of the Deal: Let’s make money, not war.

So instead of antagonizing Putin or Xi, Trump offers both of them partnerships — if they are wise enough to accept them. Does that amount to appeasement, as the Trump haters claim? Not in the least.

As Dov Zakheim, a former senior Pentagon official under Bush 43 wrote this week at The Hill, “Taiwan also should have few quibbles” with the new strategy.

“The document assigns priority to ‘deterring a conflict over Taiwan’…  and it assures that ‘we will maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan,’ meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Straight.”

Full disclosure: Dov Zakheim was one of many Bush 43 national security officials who endorsed my run for Congress in 2012 against Chris Van Hollen, now the wannabe Socialist Senator from Maryland.

The Trump haters — no surprise here — acquired what appears to have been an early draft of the new National Security Strategy and referred to it erroneously as a classified version of the full text.

In that draft, some National Security Council staffer (and probable leaker) proposed that the United States encourage Poland, Hungary, Italy and Austria to pull out of the European Union and forge closer ties with the United States.

As someone who lived in Europe for 18 years, let me tell you just how dumb an idea that is. The EU is hugely unpopular in those countries and several others, including France, the Netherlands, and yes, even Germany and Sweden.

We don’t need to stoke the flames of the anti-EU populations in Europe: the EU is doing that quite well all by itself, thank-you. It is my belief that the EU will collapse on its own at some point because of the authoritarian overreach of the unelected bureaucrats who run things in Brussels.

But that is Europe’s business, not ours. And Trump is the ultimate real-politician. He was not elected president to correct all the world’s ills, as some of his own unelected staffers believe they were sent to the White House to do. He just needs to set the example.

Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States to make America great again. And that starts, as he rightly states in this document (and every day on television and at campaign rallies) by securing our borders and securing our hemisphere.

I was involved in writing an earlier draft of the National Security Strategy, but not a single line of what I wrote made it into the final document.

Why? Because the President knew better. It’s time for the so-called “experts” to politely close their mouths and stop leaking. This president has shown that he is light-years ahead of his own aides. He understands power in ways that few ever have the privilege to know.

And now, to Venezuela.

Attorney General Pam Bondi released delicious video this week of U.S. troops rappelling from helicopters onto the deck of a supertanker off the coast of Venezuela. She then announced that not only were we seizing the two million barrels of oil on board, but the ship as well — making it a $250 million to $300 million hit on the owners.

Those kind of losses will go a long way to deter other shippers and black market oil dealers from hauling Venezuelan oil to markets beyond the reach of the United States military.

What I find especially pleasing in the pressure the Trump administration is applying to Maduro, besides his desperate telephone call to Trump two weeks ago begging for amnesty, is the way Maduro’s backers are reacting.

Vladimir Putin called Maduro this week to pledge his undying support. Thanks, Vlad. You and whose navy? Even the Ukrainians, who just three years ago had squat for a military, managed to sink the flagship of your Black Sea fleet. You don’t think US SouthCOM could do that and much more?

Somehow, I don’t think much military support is going to flow from Russia to Venezuela.

But my favorite is the Iranians. They have had a strategic partnership with Venezuela for more than twenty years.

They have set up ballistic missile factories in Venezuela. They use the country as a hub for intelligence activities and to infiltrate terrorist operatives and drugs into the United States. And the two partner to violate international oil embargoes. When Venezuela has problems with their oil refineries, it’s the Iranians who send over the repair crews.

This is yet another reason why I so love and respect our president.

He is playing billiards in Venezuela. By encouraging Maduro to leave he is playing a bank shot that also strikes to the heart of the Iranian regime. Losing Maduro will be a huge loss for Tehran — and little to no cost to us.

Join me this Saturday at 1 PM where I discuss this and other issues on Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can listen live on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida area or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. You can download the podcast later here.

Yours in freedom.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

Pro-Israel Voices Out at National Security Council

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The recent firing of pro-Israel staffers at the National Security Council, including Eric Trager and Merav Ceren, comes at a time when President Trump claims that negotiations with Iran are “going well,” even though Iran publicly insists it will never agree to end its program of uranium enrichment, and continues to make threats to “destroy Israel” should the Jewish state try to attack it.

More on the latest firings of pro-Israel staffers can be found here: “Top Middle East, Israel and Iran officials pushed out of NSC,” by Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs, Jewish Insider, May 25, 2025:

The top National Security Council officials overseeing the Middle East and Israel and Iran portfolios — seen as pro-Israel voices in the administration — were among the dozens of officials dismissed in a widespread purge of the NSC on Friday, two sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

Eric Trager, who was the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa — the lead official on the Middle East — and Merav Ceren, the director for Israel and Iran, were both Trump administration political appointees but were pushed out in what one official called a purge of “the Deep State” inside the NSC.

Their firings come as voices skeptical of the U.S.’ role in the Middle East increasingly establish a foothold in the administration, and as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the acting national security advisor, seek to restructure and slim down the key foreign policy-making body.

There are several signs that Trump is turning away from Israel. Without informing Jerusalem, he made a separate peace with the Houthis, promising to leave them alone as long as they did not hit American ships, and confined their attacks to Israel. He entered into direct negotiations with Hamas, using his special envoy Steve Witkoff, without alerting the Israelis. Trump has also expressed impatience with Israel for not “wrapping up” the war in Gaza. He has said he wants the war “to end as quickly as possible,” while the Israeli government says it will need “two more months” to take control of 75% of Gaza. After that is achieved, what then? Will the war stop? Surely that depends not on Israel, but on Hamas, which will have to decide if it has been battered enough by the IDF and needs to return all of the hostages, and further agrees to leave Gaza in order to end the war it is losing badly.

According to Axios, officials cut from the NSC will be moved to other positions in the government. Ceren previously came under fire from the far left and far right after false claims that she had previously worked as an Israeli Ministry of Defense official generated accusations of dual loyalty.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes defended Ceren at the time and denied the accusations, describing her as “a patriotic American who has served in the United States government for years, including for President Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Congressman James Comer. We are thrilled to have her expertise in the NSC, where she carries out the President’s agenda on a range of Middle East issues.” He said she “was never employed by the Israeli Defense Ministry, let alone was she an Israeli official.”…

The false charge made against Merav Ceren, a specialist on Israel and Iran, that she had formerly worked for the Israeli Defense Ministry, was made by those, on both right and left, who were opposed to her pro-Israel views, and were hoping thereby to engineer her firing. She stayed on, but now she has been fired, along with another NSC staffer, Eric Trager, also known for being well-disposed to Israel. These firings are worrisome, coming as they do when the Trump administration sounds as if it is inclined to accept a deal with Iran which would not require it to end all enrichment of uranium. Many Republican senators have expressed their alarm of how these negotiations are going, amid fears that Iran, despite being economically on its knees, will not agree to end its enrichment program. The president, however, has only said that that there has been “real progress” in the talks, and predicts there will soon be “good news” about a deal with Iran. Israel has not been kept informed about the details being discussed, but fears that Trump will accept Iran’s refusal to end its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran, of course, insists is for the “peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Reportedly Fires Several Members Of National Security Council

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President Donald Trump has fired several members of his National Security Council, according to multiple reports.

Activist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office on Wednesday and presented Trump with research she had on staffers, pushing him to fire them, Axios first reported, citing a U.S. official. A day later, Trump fired several members of his National Security Council, according to Axios. The outlet could not confirm whether the firings were tied to the meeting. One of CNN’s three sources said the firings were a direct consequence of Trump’s conversation with Loomer.

NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes told the Daily Caller that they do not comment on personnel matters. Semafor also confirmed that members of the NSC had been fired, adding that it was unclear whether the firings were over.

“I woke up this morning to learn that there are still people in and around the West Wing who are LEAKING to the hostile, left-wing media about President Trump’s *confidential* and *private* meetings in the Oval Office,” Loomer wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I want to reiterate how important it is that people who gain access to the White House or the administration respect the privacy of their conversations with President Trump and his senior staff.”

CNN reported that there were at least three officials fired, including Brian Walsh, a director of intelligence and previously a high-level staffer for Marco Rubio when he was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Thomas Boodry, a senior director for legislative affairs and David Feith, a senior director with authority over national security and technology. Another source familiar told Axios as many as ten people may have been fired.

At least two junior staffers have also been fired, according to NewsNation.

Loomer took issue with Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Alex Wong during her meeting with Trump, CNN reported, adding that the official has not been dismissed yet. An official told the outlet that his dismissal could still happen.

“[Loomer] went to the White House yesterday and presented them with her research and evidence,” an official told Axios. Waltz was also in attendance at the meeting, CNN reported.

During their meeting in the Oval Office, Loomer was irritated that “neocons” had “slipped through” the vetting procedure for administration positions, an official told Axios. The official suspected that her meeting was connected to the firings but could not say for sure.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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Hamas-Linked Individual Entered Executive Office Building, Met With National Security Council

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President Joe Biden’s National Security Council (NSC) hosted the head of Rahma Worldwide, a health nonprofit that has collaborated with Hamas on multiple occasions, the Washington Examiner reported.

The NSC met with Shadi Zaza, Rahma Worldwide’s CEO, and other Syrian-American community leaders on Sept. 11 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to discuss how the U.S. can best counter the Assad regime in Syria, the Examiner reported. Zaza’s group, however, signed a cooperation agreement with Hamas in August, and Zaza himself was photographed alongside Hamas officials days before the terrorist organization carried out attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“We have spoken at length about our condemnation of Hamas and the horrible atrocities they committed on Oct. 7,” an NSC spokesperson told the Examiner, stressing that they were not aware of Rahma’s links to Hamas. The staffers who allowed an individual “openly supporting a foreign terrorist organization like Hamas to enter the Eisenhower Executive Office Building are either grossly incompetent or fully support Hamas,” an anonymous senior Republican Senate staffer who works on national security issues said to the Examiner.

White House leadership was not at the NSC meeting, which was run by “working-level staffers,” a source familiar told the Examiner.

Rahma signed an agreement with Hamas’ Gaza Health Ministry in August for a blood drive in Gaza, according to Palestinian media reviewed by the Examiner. The organization’s website shows that it has been highly active in Gaza, distributing food, hygienic goods and medical supplies to people in the region.

About a year prior, officials from the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Development were photographed alongside Rahma staffers and Zaza for an aid initiative targeting low-income families in Gaza, the Examiner reported. The meeting with Hamas officials happened at roughly the same time Rahma received approximately $175,000 through a Department of Health and Human Services subgrant to carry out a vaccine program, federal records show.

“That Rahma officials are meeting and partnering with senior Hamas figures in the same week they receive government funding is appalling,” Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum told the Examiner. “The federal government is subsidizing terror.”

Rahma, however, denies being linked to terrorism, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that “any suggestion of collaboration with political groups or militant factions is entirely false and misleading.”

“Rahma Worldwide is a strictly humanitarian organization that works in full compliance with international standards of humanitarian aid,” a Rahma official told the DCNF. “Our work in Gaza and elsewhere is focused solely on providing essential services, such as medical aid, food distribution, and support to vulnerable communities.”

The spokesperson stressed that Rahma “must coordinate with local governments and the security apparatus on the ground purely to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those in need.”

Rahma has history of close proximity to Hamas, with Zaza meeting with Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official at the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development, in 2021, according to a social media post.

If the federal government determines that Rahma is actively working with Hamas, that could spell trouble for its tax-exempt status.

“As such, they not only would be liable in criminal and civil litigation for providing material support to terror and aiding and abetting a foreign terror organization, they would be in violation of IRS 501(c)(3) rules and should have their tax-exempt status revoked,” Zachor Legal Institute attorney Marc Greendorfer told the Examiner.

The White House and the NSC did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

Robert Schmad

Contributor.

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