Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…So look, I love the vision that Scott painted, and I agree with some of the libertarian instincts that he has, but my view is that America is the indispensable power. Scott mentioned earlier in the conversation about the rules-based order that is so important and the NPT and all these rules-based agreements that are important to maintain. Well, the rules-based order has been maintained by the United States since World War II. There is no American prosperity to the degree that we have. There’s no recovery of Europe, there’s no recovery of Asia after the devastation of World War II without American power and the rules-based order that America has led and back stopped. I think America first is about American power and deterrence. I think if you want to avoid war, I think you cannot just believe in some fantasy where all the world’s leaders are going to get together in some place and are just going to agree to disarm all their nuclear weapons and we’ll disarm our entire military and we’ll have one submarine off our coast. And some of all of that is going to lead to peace. I mean, I think what has led to peace in the past has been American for deterrence of our military and a belief that our enemies think we will credibly use it. I think if they believe we’ll credibly use it, then it’s less likely they will challenge us. And if they less likely to challenge us and challenge our allies, there’s less likely to be war. So for me, deterrence leads to peace and any kind of unilateral disarmament, any kind of, I think sort of fanciful notion that somehow our enemies are going to respect the non-aggression principle that is the core fundamental underpinnings of libertarianism, which I think in a personal relationship I think is very important. But remember, these are aggressors, they don’t respect the non-aggression principle. I think we can spend a lot of time, we did over how many hours now has it been talking about the fact that in Scott’s view of the world, it’s America that provokes, it’s America that provokes, and then if not America provoking, it’s Israel provoking. And oh, by the way, America provokes because we’re being seduced or paid or brow beaten by those Israelis and those Jews in America. I mean, I think that whole notion that somehow we are the provocative force in global politics, I think is wrong. I think the fact of the matter is we make mistakes. We are an imperfect nation. We have made some serious, sometimes catastrophic mistakes, but there is a bad world out there. There are evil men who want to do us harm and we have to prevent them from doing us harm. erfect nation. We have made some serious, sometimes catastrophic mistakes, but there is a bad world out there. There are evil men who want to do us harm and we have to prevent them from doing us harm. And to do that, we need an American military that is serious and well supported. We don’t need a military industrial complex that ultimately is going to pull us into wars. We need thoughtful leaders like President Trump who will resist that and will say, “At the end of the day, I will use force when it is selective, narrow, overwhelming, and deadly.” And that was Trump’s operation just a few days ago. He went after three key facilities that were being used to develop the capability for nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the greatest danger to humanity. I totally agree with Scott. I think a world without nuclear weapons, the kind of world that Reagan envisioned and others have envisioned since is really the only way we can eliminate the most devastating weapons that could end humankind. But we have to make sure that those weapons don’t end up in the hands of regimes that seek to do us harm and that have done us harm over many, many decades. So yeah, I mean deterrence, peace through strength, rules-based order. The foundation for defense of democracies is not the foundation for promotion of democracy. We don’t believe in this important concept that we have to promote democracy around the world. I’ll speak for myself, because we have many people at my think tank. We’re 105 people. We have different views. I don’t personally believe that it is the role of the United States to bring democracy to the Middle East or democracy around the world. I think to the extent we’ve tried, we failed. I’m not sure the Middle East is ready for democracy. Now, Iran is interesting because it’s not an Arab country. It is a different country altogether. Culturally, it’s a very sophisticated country. It has a long history. It actually has a history where it has had democracy in the past. It is a country that I think could have incredible potential under the right leadership and under right circumstances. I don’t know if the right circumstances are a constitutional monarchy with Reza Pahlavi as the Crown Prince or the Shah. I don’t don’t know whether it’s a secular democracy or not. Let Iranians make that decision. Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?…

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