Roving Periscope: Trump will prioritize issues of borders, hostages, and wars.
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: US President-elect Donald Trump’s close Indian-American aide Kashyap Pramod Patel, better known as Kash Patel, has said the new administration’s priorities will include borders, terrorists, return of hostages, and ending wars.
Patel, 44, who is tipped to get a high office in the next Trump administration—perhaps as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—also indicated that the new President, due to be sworn in on January 20, 2025, will adopt a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, the media reported on Saturday.
An American attorney and former government official, Patel served as a US National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting United States secretary of defense during the first Trump Presidency (2016-20). He is one of Trump’s close national security and foreign policy confidants.
“He is the only president in modern history not to start a new one (war). If the initial indications after the election are any indication of how it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very peaceful process. He had a phone call with Vladimir Zelensky and already talked about winding down the Ukraine war. He has already discussed, and had phone calls with multiple world leaders,” Patel told Fox News in an interview, responding to questions on the next Trump administration.
But what you have to do is what President Trump already did. It’s no secret. Prioritize the collection of intelligence against our adversaries to make sure that we defeat the threats, which is the Iranian mullahs and the number one state sponsor of terror, and also make sure we keep in check the CCP (Communist Party of China) and our Russian adversaries from attacking our cyber infrastructure, Patel said.
But you can’t do that if your intelligence communities are prioritized against climate change and diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI). President Trump made it clear the priorities are the border, terrorists, bringing home hostages, and ending the forever wars. I think that mandate will carry, he said.
I’ll just tell you what worked. I think it was a multitude of things. These full-on sanctions programs against the Iranian economy will suffocate the mullahs from making money. I don’t think the President’s going to fork over another seven billion dollars as Harris did to them so they can start another world war, he said.
He’s also going to talk to adversaries about trade with Iran and have a global coalition because we can’t do it alone to take on Iran and make sure they don’t do one thing we can’t have them do is achieve a nuclear bomb, which they’re dangerously close to under the Biden-Harris administration, he said.
These next 75 days are critical because Iran’s going to hyper-speed what they are currently working on, knowing that Trump’s coming in and knowing that his around the world are going to put Iran back in check. I think you’re going to see that playbook again, he added.
Responding to a question, Patel said people are lining up to serve this President as their Commander-in-Chief because they saw the power and wasp of him on the global stage without igniting the world into another world war. He’s not the war hawk that these people made him out to be. The proof is in the pudding. He had world peace. I think he’ll do it again fast, he said.
