(Video: CNN)
One of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies cautioned against grifters seeking to capitalize on his name for political gain and it turns out they aren’t even hiding their push for “Trumpism without Trump.”
Peter Navarro, author of “Taking Back Trump’s America” and the Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy during the Trump administration, penned an article for American Greatness Monday titled “Trump’s ‘Think Tank’ Prepares to Betray Him.” In the piece, he urged Trump not to attend the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) America First Agenda Summit in Washington, D.C. where the president was scheduled to speak Tuesday.
Deeming AFPI a “Trojan Horse,” Navarro alleged their agenda was to “Hijack the political attractiveness of Trumpism but replace Trump with an AFPI-anointed RINO.”
To that point, AFPI chief communications officer Marc Lotter and the former director of strategic communications for the Trump campaign joined CNN’s Jim Acosta Sunday where, after summarily opposing the president’s objections to the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, he detailed the benefits of inviting the “biggest name” to speak.
“Do you think Trump lost the election?” Acosta asked in his standard test of piety for Republican guests.
“I think there’s no question. Joe Biden is in the Oval Office. They took the Oath of Office on January 20. America watched,” Lotter carefully stated before the host pressed him,”But Marc, you’re dancing around the question. Of course, Joe Biden is in the Oval Office. Did Donald Trump lose the election, yes or no?”
“Yes,” he assented. “He lost the election.”
Acosta then wondered why AFPI would want to provide a platform to the man he alleged was behind a “coup” and Lotter laid it out as Navarro suggested.
“He is the biggest name. He’s the visionary behind many of the policies that got him elected to the White House. And when you look at what’s going on in America right now, so many people are clamoring for that kind of policy leadership back,” he explained in trying to draw an association between those policies and their organization. “They want cheap gas, growing paychecks, soaring stock markets and not what we have right now.”
In addition to Lotter, Navarro singled out many other former Trump officials like Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council Director, whom he said he had to “fight…on an almost daily basis, not just on trade policy but also in my efforts to advance Trump’s two most simple rules: buy American, hire American.”
Other chairs include former DNI John Ratcliffe, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal whom Navarro described as “Arguably, the most dangerous AFPI fifth-columnist.”
“After the Boss left office, Jindal would insist ‘Trump was undone by his own predatory nature’ and attacked the Boss for his ‘conspiracy theories and extra-constitutional notions.’ Today, Jindal is aggressively pushing a ‘Trumpism without Trump’ agenda,” he contended.
He went on to write, “The fishy CEO of AFPI is Trump’s former Domestic Policy Council director, Brooke Rollins. She recently let slip: ‘[W]hether the next president’s name is Donald J. Trump or whether the next president is a different name, we will be there standing by ready to help and we’ve already begun preparations for that time. If that’s not a recipe for Jindal’s ‘Trumpism without Trump’ coup, I don’t know what is; and Rollins ranks high on my list of bad personnel in the Trump White House who helped Trump lose the 2020 election.”
Navarro’s idea of “Trojan Horse” grifters was arguably displayed by Dr. Mehmet Oz in his bid for the Pennsylvania Senate seat on the Republican ticket. Oz fought for and then lauded the endorsement from Trump, using it heavily in his campaign promotions, only to scrub his site of most references after securing the nomination.
‘Snake’: Dr. Oz drops Trump from homepage, folks don’t buy his reason https://t.co/wTaMr8Vslq
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) June 23, 2022
Trump did go on to speak at AFPI’s summit Tuesday where, despite Lotter’s certainty, the president remained adamant that the 2020 presidential election was “corrupt.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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