Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk said Thursday that former national security advisor Mike Waltz’s departure from his role is welcome news.
President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday that he was nominating Waltz to be his ambassador to the United Nations and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor. Kirk, on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” highlighted Waltz’s role in The Atlantic publishing a story about its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg being accidentally added into a group chat dedicated to discussing pending strikes on Houthis in Yemen, and the former national security advisor’s “neoconservative” beliefs. (RELATED: Trump Admin Intel Officials Say No Classified Information Was Leaked In Signal Messages)
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“The Signal Chat, of course, is one thing that was probably one of the more annoying developments of this administration so far. Mike Waltz added the editor in chief of The Atlantic and we never got a really good answer of how that happened,” Kirk said. “One of the excuses was, well, he saved his contacts with Jeffrey Goldberg and then he wasn’t sure who he was adding and why he was there and what was going on. And it’s just, we’re not exactly completely clear, or let’s just say, you know, the certain why that happened. ”
“Now, Mike Waltz and I had a fine relationship,” he continued. “He knew that we had significant disagreements, and that’s what I really wanna emphasize and mention here, is that Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, represented a neoconservative view of foreign policy … neoconservatism is actually a outgrowth of Marxism from the 1940s and 50s, which it is a Trotskyite, Stalinist way of viewing the world, which is that we are going to expand the state to such great lengths, and we’re going to bring American values by force to the rest of the world.”
Kirk asserted “neoconservatives” were responsible for the Iraq War and Vietnam War.
“Yesterday was the 50-year anniversary of the fall of Saigon,” he said. “Neoconservatives brought us into Vietnam, and so it is actually very fitting that a neoconservative falls the day after Saigon fell, 50 years ago, something to think about.”
“And so there’s a major internal battle happening, and it is manifested with this Mike Waltz, Alex Wong situation. Overall, this is a positive development for President Trump’s administration,” he added. “Mike Waltz knows that I don’t see eye-to-eye with him on many things. I’ve said that to him in his face. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t think we should go to war with Iran.”
Trump praised Waltz in his Wednesday nomination announcement.
“From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my national security advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first,” Trump wrote. “I know he will do the same in his new role.”
A source told Semafor that Waltz’s traditionally hawkish national security perspective led to issues with officials who had a more isolationist viewpoint.
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