Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Thursday questioned White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's decision to offer his opinion that there is "no military solution" to North Korea's threats.
"I don't know what Bannon thinks he's accomplishing," Gingrich told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "The bottom line is, if you have Gen. [James] Mattis lined up and Gen. [John] Kelly lined up and Gen. [H.R] McMaster and Sec. [Rex] Tillerson lined up and the United Nations ambassador lined up, maybe if you're a senior White House adviser, it's useful not to screw it up."
Instead, he said an adviser at Bannon's level should be making his arguments in the Oval Office.
"Steve Bannon is a professional," Gingrich said. "This kind of stuff is — this reminds me of [Anthony] Scaramucci, you know? You don't go off and do this stuff."
During his wide-ranging interview with The American Prospect, Bannon said there is no military solution that doesn't show that 10 million people in Seoul won't die within the first 30 minutes of a war, and that they'd be killed by traditional weapons, not in a nuclear strike.
Gingrich said he also does not agree with Bannon's assertions.
"We have to understand, in North Korea, which is armed [with nuclear weapons], it may well be that we can't stop them," Gingrich said, because if North Korea does have the capability for a strike on the mainland of the United States, "losing one city to a nuclear weapon would change this country permanently."
Gingrich said he would suggest that the United States "be more aggressive" with the Chinese over policy, while finding a better way to deal with North Korea.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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