There is a "great sigh of relief" overseas after President-elect Donald Trump's win on Tuesday, Robert Wilkie, who served as the secretary of Veterans Affairs under Trump's first presidency, told Newsmax on Thursday.
"I can tell you, having been traveling, particularly through Eastern Europe, that there is a great sigh of relief amongst those who are on the border with the Russian Federation, particularly, and also in the Middle East with Israel and the leading Sunni Arab states," Wilkie told Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
That's because while Trump was in office before, there was peace in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After all, Trump "understood the uses of America's deterrent power," the former secretary said.
"He used that deterrent power to bring Israelis and Arabs to the peace table and to keep the Russians from gobbling up more of Ukraine and Moldova and many of those countries that are on the border with our allies in eastern Europe," he added.
Wilkie acknowledged that is not shared "in the salons of Paris, but then again, they're not happy in the halls of Harvard, either, but that's a sign that [Trump] is certainly on the right track."
Wilkie said he's not speaking for Trump when it comes to what will happen now with the war in Ukraine, but he thinks the president-elect's first call will be to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"It will be 'stop, or I give the Ukrainians everything that they need,'" said Wilkie. "Putin would understand that. The first time that he tangled with Donald Trump in the Syrian desert, 300 of his troops disappeared. President Trump ordered them to be removed. He sent missiles into the desert, and 300 of Putin's troops were killed. That sent a very clear message to Moscow that there was a different kind of sheriff in Washington, D.C."
Putin also understands that under Trump, U.S. forces were rotated throughout Eastern Europe "to remind the Russians that those countries that are still very close to Trump world are within the American sphere of influence, and that [Putin] better not move against countries like Poland and Hungary and Romania."
Wilkie also discussed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision this week to dismiss Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
"It means that Netanyahu is pushing forward to a decisive victory over both Hezbollah and Hamas," said Wilkie. "There was tension within the cabinet with the defense minister who wanted to pull back."
Netanyahu must destroy the terror organizations to secure Israel's future, said Wilkie.
"It's a very tough choice for any national leader to make, particularly in a country as small as Israel, where everyone knows everyone else," he added.
The former secretary also on Thursday discussed a judge's ruling that plea agreements reached with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants are valid.
"If anything is an example of the lunacy of the Biden administration's national security policy, it's this one that they've dragged this out," said Wilkie. "They're now offering deals with those people who killed more people in one day than the Japanese killed at Pearl Harbor in 1941. I'm shocked that they took the step of tossing aside the objections of the Secretary of Defense."
He said he thinks Trump will intervene in the matter to bring the terrorists to justice "on behalf of the surviving members of the over 3,000 Americans who died at the hands of these killers."
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