Trump Came, Trump Saw, Trump Conquered CPAC – And Flushed out A Few Globalist Quails

Script of Peter Navarro's Taking Back Trump's America Podcast

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Hi. I’m Peter Navarro, and in this edition of my Taking Back Trump’s America podcast, I’m going to do a quick postmortem on the Boss’ triumphant turn at CPAC and then segue into some thoughts on President Trump’s speechwriting process itself – and how a few tweaks to that process going forward might better serve the Boss in the grueling months ahead as he runs the marathon race to the November 2024 election.

As I discussed in one of last week’s podcasts, CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference – has been, at least prior to the age of Donald Trump, a Globalist front for the hedge fund-corporate elite crowd who love to push tax cuts for the rich and the obliteration of even sensible regulations behind the façade of conservatism. As I have noted, historically, CPAC has received a large portion of its funding from such bad guys, notably the infamous Koch Network.

Trump brought MAGA into the CPAC mix in a way which has made principles like secure borders, a strong manufacturing base aided by policies like Buy American, Hire American and tariffs, and an end to the endless wars of the Bushes and Cheneys of this world key elements of the Republican platform – while turning the Republican Party into the party of the working class.

Like the master chess player that he is, Donald Trump’s primary mission this year at CPAC was to elbow out any pretenders to his throne and establish his primacy as the inevitable candidate to win the Republican presidential nomination. By this measure, Trump’s appearance was a wild success as even the left-wing press recognize that Trump is clearly the candidate to beat.

In the past at CPAC, there were all sorts of pay to play games going on whereby other candidates would try to pack the audience with their supporters and thereby skew the final balloting that happens every year at CPAC. But such shenanigans were held to a minimum this year – Trump won with 59% of the vote and with Trump on the ballot, no one cracked more than 2% of the vote.

What I found most interesting were the various subplots. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tried to send Trump a message by holding a fundraiser within a cannon shot of Mar a Lago leading into CPAC; but it was a major strategic miscalculation by DeSantis because early in this race, he has now tied himself to liberal hedge fund New Yorkers like Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin who simply want to derail the candidacy of Trump and have no love for DeSantis.

Memo to Ron: You are running for vice president and can’t be Trump or beat Trump so if you don’t want to alienate the Trump base and MAGA, quit sleeping with the enemy.

I also found it interesting that another presidential wannabe in Ted Cruz was sucking up to the Globalist elite organization otherwise known as the Club for Growth at the Breakers hotel.  Those kind of junkets are not likely to endear Cruz to the MAGA base either.  At this time of year, the Breakers hotel may be the most expensive resort on the planet and when a Globalist elite organization like the Club for No Growth – as the Boss likes to call it – spends more than half a million dollars on a retreat when the Biden economy is in shambles and millions of Deplorables are hurting, that’s a really bad look. Memo to Ted: You should not be sucking up to those greed-infested idiots.

The other two prominent quail that CPAC managed to flush out were Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo. In a previous podcast episode, I rightly described Nikki Haley as the dangerous Cassius figure who is the designated Trump hitter for the Globalists. It is dear, dangerous Nikki who simultaneously wants to put a high heel in the Boss’ groin and a knife in his back so MAGA folks just beware.

As for Mike Pompeo, I think this is the clearest case of somebody wanting to get into the presidential sweepstakes simply to run and will and in for vice president. Knowing Mike, and I got to know him pretty well during my White House years, I don’t think he’s either stupid enough or egotistical enough to think that he could possibly win the nomination. But my one caution to Pompeo is that he needs to be very careful not to get sucked into attacking his former Boss, who treated him extremely well by appointing him first to the Director of the CIA and then to Secretary of State.

Memo to Pompeo: One ungrateful bastard like Mick Mulvaney per Trump administration is quite enough so Mike, please be careful here.

Let’s turn now to the Boss’ speech. By tradition, Trump is to speechmaking as the Grateful Dead is to concerts – both Trump and the Dead always run long and always feature considerable improvisation. In fact, I think it is fair to say that what Donald Trump does is not a speech but rather a masterful performance, which is why he can pack stadiums and arenas and convention centers around the country.

My one concern here is that it is a long way to go until even the primary season begins much less the November 2024 election itself is held. Even back in my days in the White House, I have always wished that the Boss would deliver some of his speeches in the short 20-30 minute format and come out more like Mike Tyson and get the knockout early.

My gentle suggestion here is that, even though probably half of what President Trump says in a speech is improvisation, that still leaves another half which is scripted and on the Teleprompter to wade through.  So Boss, why not try a few speeches where you throw away the script, get in and get out in 20 minutes, and save your energy for another day?

And one other suggestion here: At least once a month leading into the primary election season, it may be useful to do a completely scripted 20-minute policy address on a single topic with no improvisation.

These are just my thoughts as I worry that being out on stage for hours on end might risk burnout – although I will say here that I’ve never seen a man with more energy, stamina, and strength than Donald Trump.

Those of us in the West Wing who tried to keep up with him day after day and step after step invariably had to take the pause that refreshes even as he powered on.

To this point, I leave you with a little story from the White House that proves what I’m saying. One day, I piled onto Air Force One with the trade team and headed down to Buenos Aires, Argentina for the G-20 summit.  There, we would go Mano a Mano with Communist China’s dictator and his trade team.

Suffice it to say, it was nonstop action for the whole event; and when we piled back on Air Force One for the 18-hour ride home, a bunch of us piled into the Boss’ Air Force One office to debrief and decompress with President Trump.

Slowly but surely, one by one, his staff slipped exhausted out of the room and went to collapse in their chairs for a deep sleep. I decided to stay to the end and a couple hours before we were going to be wheels down, I was the only one left with the Boss as we watched some sports on TV and I kept my mouth shut, just enjoying the moment.

It was the first time I stayed up all night since college, and the funny punch line of it all was when we got back to the White House, I went into my office just to check my email before heading home and getting some sleep, and I actually fell asleep standing up at my standup desk.

Yep. I went into a deep snooze standing up like some bull in a pasture. It was hilarious.

Meanwhile, the Boss never missed a beat. He was back in the Oval reading his documents and making his phone calls and he worked throughout the day. Still, I do wish sometimes Donald Trump would sometimes give shorter speeches. Peter Navarro. Out.