Navarro advises Trump not to deliver Washington Speech

 

Photo Credit: AP.

Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has advised former President Donald Trump not to deliver his Washington Speech at the American First Policy Institute (AFPI), criticizing members of the think tank’s staff and alleging they were working on “Trumpism without Trump coup”, The Hill reports.

Trump will deliver a speech Tuesday in Washington on crime, marking a comeback more than one year since leaving office. The former president will address the American First Policy Institute’s two-day America First Agenda Summit that is promoting his 2024 run for the White House, The Associated Press reports.

Advising Trump to cancel the speech, Navarro said:

“Yes, it is important for President Trump to have a well-credentialed stable of policy experts capable of both building a 2024 platform and finding solid MAGA talent to populate a new Trump Administration. But the AFPI Trojan Horse—whose leadership is now bragging about how it will staff Trump’s ‘shadow cabinet’—is decidedly not that,” Navarro wrote in an op-ed on conservative website American Greatness, according to The Hill.

Navarro criticized members of the AFPI, including former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz and former economic adviser Larry Kudlow, according to The Hill.

“As I document in Taking Back Trump’s America, I had to fight Brother Larry on an almost daily basis, not just on trade policy but also in my efforts to advance Trump’s two most simple rules: buy American, hire American. And Kudlow worked hand-in-hand with several members of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), who now constitute the free trade core of AFPI’s economic experts,” he claimed in his op-ed.

Navarro referred to those associated with the AFPI as “grifters” and alleged that their “broader agenda” might be to “hijack the political attractiveness of Trumpism but replace Trump with an AFPI-anointed RINO [Republican in name only].”

Navarro was former Hillary Clinton supporter - AFPI

Responding, Marc Lotter, chief communications officer for the AFPI accused Navarro of previously supporting 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to The Hill.

“It is unfortunate to see Mr. Navarro, a former Hillary Clinton supporter, turning into the DC swamp creature he once abhorred. AFPI is led by nine former cabinet level officials and nearly 20 senior White House officials from Trump’s White House,” Lotter said.

“As it relates to the other comments, AFPI is currently hosting a two-day summit laying out a detailed policy agenda for the future. The fact President Trump is closing this event shows his support for AFPI’s work to continue the policies that put America First!” he added.

The nonprofit is mostly composed of former Trump administration officials and allies who stood with him during his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump will be slugging it out with his former Vice President Mike Pence who has been touting his own “Freedom Agenda” in speeches and other top contenders for the GOP ticket, according to The Associated Press.