President-elect Donald Trump's MAGA advisers are setting him up to fail on a global scale when he returns to the White House in 2025, a new political analysis contends. Trump supporters such as Tucker Carlson have been urging an action that Washington Post global opinions writer Josh Rogin argued Wednesday would threaten American influence abroad and the president-elect's reputation at home. "His MAGA advisers are pushing him toward a policy that would be disastrous...for American influence and for Trump’s own place in history,' wrote Rogin. "They’re urging him to withhold U.S. aid to push Ukraine into a negotiation on terms Ukrainians fear would amount to a surrender to Russian President Vladimir Putin." ALSO READ: The one belief that predicted Trump voters with scary accuracy Trump has multiple anti-Ukraine advisers in his orbit, among them his eldest son, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Carlson, who has been openly taunting Ukraine with threats about U.S. aid, Rogin reported. But conservatives such as former British prime minister Boris Johnson fear withholding U.S. aid would be calamitous for both Ukraine and the president-elect, according to Rogin. Johnson argued such a withdrawal would be seen as a sign of American weakness and could encourage Putin to attempt toppling the government in Kyiv, Rogin reported. “You have to make the argument to Trump, ‘Do you want this on your legacy, that you lost the first war of the 21st century to Vladimir Putin?’” Johnson said. “It’s going to be worse than Vietnam or Afghanistan.” At home, dozens of Republican lawmakers support Ukraine, among them the chairs of the House Intelligence Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Armed Services Committee, Rogin reported. Trump's presumed secretary of state choice Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has also called for negotiations on terms not favorable to Putin. Rogin on Wednesday urged Trump to heed the warnings of such conservatives. "He has the chance to be remembered not as a president who immediately capitulated to Putin, but as one who turned a precarious moment into a historic achievement," Rogin wrote. "If Trump pushes for a rushed deal on Putin’s terms, the outcome would probably be neither stable nor lasting."

View Entire Post