Crosstalk: October 4, 2017

​Joining Jim to discuss the war that's going on over President Trump's foreign policy was Soeren Kern. Soeren is a distinguished senior fellow of the Gatestone Institute, a non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think- tank dedicated to educating the public about the institutions of democracy and the rule of law, human rights, a free and strong economy, a military capable of insuring peace at home and in the free world, energy independence and ensuring the public stay informed of threats to our individual liberty, sovereignty and free speech.

What do we know about the beginnings of the internal war within the Trump administration, particularly over foreign policy?

Soeren believes it began when Michael Flynn, the first national security advisor, resigned. The team that he'd put into place was ideologically in line with Trump's campaign promises. However, after Flynn left, all those he'd appointed, particular in the National Security Council, had been purged. Now we have a situation where the entire Trump foreign policy team is opposed to the ideological promises the president made during his campaign.

Ironically, the problem is compounded by the fact that President Trump has children involved in the White House. His daughter Ivanka, along with Jared Kushner, are really New York liberals who don't share the conservatism of the president. They've brought in individuals of their own so that now the White House is completely staffed by those opposed to those things that the president campaigned on, especially those things related to foreign policy.

Soeren sees President Trump as being so besieged that he's looking for some kind of domestic success that can propel him forward but that's causing the issue of foreign policy to fall by the wayside in a dangerous way.

Then there's the issue of Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster who came in to replace Flynn as national security advisor. Soeren sees him as the embodiment of 'the swamp'. The problems with McMaster appear to be many. For example:

--He sees no connection between terrorism and Islam.
--He sees groups like ISIS as perversions of Islam. He's also been able to get President Trump to stop referring to radical Islam as Islamic terrorism in his speeches.
--McMaster is no friend of Israel which has prevented the president from keeping his promise of moving our embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
--McMaster has also convinced the president to renew the Iran deal twice even though we know that Iran is not in compliance.
--The president promised to take a hard-line on China, but McMaster has prevented him from fulfilling this promise as well.

Since the purging of nearly all individuals within the National Security Council under Flynn, the replacements have included those who are committed to perpetuating the foreign policy plans of the Obama administration.

Why is President Trump allowing this? Soeren believes it's due to the fact that the president is a 'foreign policy neophyte' and doesn't have much foreign policy experience. So he feels the president has placed an inordinate amount of trust in military officers. In the end, Soeren wants to wait until the president's final biography has been written and how that treats the final decision making process of the Trump administration because until that time, we really won't know what's going on.

Are the president's views on Islam changing? Will he have any domestic success?
Who is Yael Lempert and how has she been helping to thwart the Trump administration? How does Secretary of State Rex Tillerson play into all of this?

After hearing the answers, Jim noted, 'It's almost like a self-imposed coup as it relates to his foreign policy by putting into place those who are working, actually, to subvert his own policies.' This caused Soeren to address the issue of the power of the intelligence agencies in America. They collect so much information on many people and therefore can leak derogatory items about those they don't like. He noted the CIA's role in leaking documents regarding General Michael Flynn that made him untenable. So Soeren blames the CIA for usurping the role of the elected president regarding the implementation of U.S. foreign policy.