A brewing battle pitting MAGA loyalists against traditional Republican defense hawks is brewing on Capitol Hill – and President Donald Trump’s foreign policy vision is at the center of the drama.
That’s according to a Friday report in Politico, which detailed the effort inside MAGA world to cast aside individuals whose foreign policy views are more aligned with traditional approaches championed by conservatives.
That mission was stepped up over the last week, according to the report.
The “escalating clash” comes as Trump’s top allies see the “once-powerful defense hawks” as “key obstacles standing in the way of a thorough remaking of U.S. foreign policy that would realign the world order with Trump’s America First vision,” Politico reported.
High-profile targets the president’s loyalists have aimed at include Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who the publication notes has been "undermined in Washington as he meets this week with top Ukrainian officials in Kyiv."
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Michael Waltz “are under intense internal scrutiny,” given their “past lives as Russia hawks,” according to the report. It added that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Sergio Gor, who oversees decisions involving personnel, “have shown little tolerance for anyone who diverges from the MAGA mindset.”
The early infighting among the MAGAfied Republican Party underscores the new foreign policy mindset Trump ushered in “that elevates his personal relationships with leaders of rival superpowers, and the use of American threats to push allies and adversaries to buckle to American power, over the traditional alliances based on long-term cooperation and democratic governance,” Politico said.
The divide has already been put on display on the world stage over the last week. But, as the publication noted, Vice President J.D. Vance and other administration officials have been emboldened by Trump’s bullish foreign policy approach to send a clear message to the global community “that Republican foreign policy as they have known it is dead — and they’re not sorry about it.”
