In January 2016, Tucker Carlson wrote an amazing piece on the appeal of Donald Trump. Carlson predicted that Trump could win when almost nobody in Washington thought it was possible.
More importantly, he argued that Trump was hated by establishment conservatives and Republicans in Washington. Carlson wrote:
“They sense Trump is a threat to them personally, to their legitimacy and their livelihoods. . . . Trump could teach Republicans in Washington a lot if only they stopped posturing long enough to watch carefully. Here’s some of what they might learn: He Exists Because You Failed . . . Trump is in part a reaction to the intellectual corruption of the Republican Party.”
Instead of learning from their policy failures (Iraq, Afghanistan, the 2008 financial crisis, etc.), and asking the public to forgive them, the bipartisan establishment put pressure on top Republicans to denounce Donald Trump and endorse Hillary Clinton.
If Clinton won, anyone who supported Trump would be ostracized in Washington. They would have no chance of making money in politics or working in a future Republican administration.
Many prominent Republicans, and conservatives, looked at the polls and quickly fell in line.
In 2016, National Review came out strongly against Trump. At the time, they had no trouble finding two dozen prominent conservatives to denounce Trump.
National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote, “We wanted to get 15-20 people to participate — space is limited in the print edition — and ended up with about two dozen. (The last couple of days I've been getting emails from conservatives saying, ‘If only I had known, I would have loved to contribute.’)”
By March 2016, 122 members of the Republican national security establishment came out against Donald Trump’s candidacy.
In August 2016, after Trump won the Republican nomination, 50 senior Republican national security officials denounced him in The New York Times.
Even as Hillary Clinton was consistently leading Donald Trump in the polls in 2016, only 35 Republican national security experts had the courage support Trump.
During the campaign, one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers, Alex Gray, organized a letter filled with policy recommendations. These 35 experts signed this letter to endorse “a 350-ship Navy, an Army with an end strength of 540,000, an Air Force of at least 1,200 active fighter aircraft, and a Marine Corp of 36 battalions.”
Alex Gray later served as Chief of Staff of the National Security Council in the Trump administration. If President Trump wins in 2024, he should fill his administration with these 35 experts.
They are the only people who have shown him any loyalty when so many Republicans either supported Clinton in 2016, wrote negative memoirs (John Bolton), or joined the resistance while serving the administration (“Anonymous” Miles Taylor).
One of the media’s biggest lies since President Biden took office was that “grown-ups” were back in charge. This bipartisan foreign policy establishment in Washington has decades of failures on their watch and they must be replaced.
It’s not just their mismanagement of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. These long conflicts have enriched Washington insiders, while the establishment has left our military in bad shape.
The Army’s active force dropped from 485,000 soldiers in 2021 to 452,000 soldiers in 2023, which is the smallest active force since 1940.
In the last decade, China has built the largest navy in the world. The dominance of the U.S. Air Force is in serious jeopardy because establishment leaders, like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, cancelled half of the production of the F-22 Raptors from 381 to 187.
The B2 bomber program was gutted from 132 bombers to 21 bombers thanks in part to the efforts of then-Republican Congressman John Kasich, who voted for Biden in 2020.
In 2022, only 24% of our aircraft were fifth generation. The modernization of our armed forces has been delayed because of multiple wars and mismanagement.
These 35 experts include Major General James E. Livingston, USMC (Ret.), who received the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, Congressman Ryan Zinke, a former Navy Seal, Richard Grenell (President Trump’s Acting Director of National Intelligence), former Congressman Randy Forbes, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Van Hipp.
These experts are the only people in Washington who can rebuild our military and reform the Pentagon. As Susan B. Anthony once said, “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform.”
When King Leonidas, and 300 Spartans, refused to bow to Xerxes’ Persian Army, their sacrifices inspired other Greeks to fight back and ultimately defeat the second Persian invasion of Greece. President Trump needs to hire his 35 Spartans.
Hopefully, Trump’s Spartans can inspire others to stand up to the Deep State.
Robert Zapesochny is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on foreign affairs, national security and presidential history. He has been published in numerous outlets, including The American Spectator, the Washington Times, and The American Conservative. When he's not writing, Robert works for a medical research company in New York. Read Robert Zapesochny's Reports — More Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.