Caring Deeply About National Security Is Not the Same as Being Good at It

Few of Donald Trump’s foibles have gone undissected, but one glaring thing remains underappreciated: He does not care about U.S. national security.

Once you consider Trump’s record from this perspective, many of his past and present actions become more coherent. (The political scientist Jonathan Bernstein recently made a version of this point on Substack.) Why else would a president—to choose a few examples—nominate Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard for his Cabinet, haphazardly store highly classified documents on a ballroom stage, or publicly call on Russia to hack a former secretary of state’s emails?

This is not to say, as some of Trump’s critics have, that he is against American national security. It doesn’t mean he’s a Manchurian candidate, a saboteur trying to tear down the United States on behalf of some foreign adversary—Trump appears to have come by his hostility to rule of law and the Constitution on his own. Rather, he’s simply indifferent, just as many of Trump’s most audacious lies are less intentionally misleading than completely uninterested in truth.

[David A. Graham: What Trump did in Osaka was worse than lying]

“Trump is the only thing he’s interested in,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, told me. “He’s not really interested in domestic security, either, or anything else.”

Nor is this to say that Trump’s appointees don’t care about American national security. Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee to be director of national intelligence, has a very strange collection of views that she seems to honestly feel would improve America’s position in the world. Her lengthy meeting with the now-deposed Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad appears to have been prompted by sincere but misguided convictions.

Other Trump appointees also hold views that may diverge from “the blob,” as detractors sometimes describe the foreign-policy establishment, but people like National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy–Designate Elbridge Colby are viewed as serious, thoughtful people with a command of their fields.

[Read: Trump’s plea for Russia to hack the U.S. government]

Pete Hegseth, too, seems to care a great deal about the future of the country—but Hegseth is plainly unqualified to be secretary of defense, and a president who cared about national security would not put him forward to lead the Defense Department. Hegseth has never run any organization near in size and complexity to the Pentagon; the ones he has run, he’s run into the ground. Many eyewitness accounts suggest he has, or has had, serious issues with alcohol abuse. (Hegseth denies any drinking problem and says he will not drink as secretary.) None of this even gets into his serial adultery and past accusations of sexual assault. (He has denied any wrongdoing.) His primary qualifications for the nomination are that he looks good on TV and that he’s been a consistent cheerleader for Donald Trump.

A president who cared about national security would not have publicly called for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 campaign. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said; Kremlin operatives promptly tried. Nor would he defer so egregiously to Vladimir Putin, blaming “U.S. foolishness and stupidity” for strained Russo-American relations. He would also not summarily dismiss DHS advisory committees and work to dismantle key cybersecurity bodies simply because he was angry that they undermined his lies about the 2020 election.

[Read: Trump blames bad relations with Russia on everything but Russia]

A president concerned foremost about national security does not systematically alienate key allies, attempt to intimidate them, or question whether he’d stand by basic treaty obligations, such as NATO’s Article 5. Nor would a president who was interested in national security withhold duly appropriated funds to a key ally like Ukraine in the hope of obtaining a personal political favor. He would not use the military as a prop, whether in creating a show at the border or cinematically calling off strikes on adversaries.

A president focused on national security would not abscond with dozens of boxes full of highly sensitive national-security documents, storing them mixed up with golf shirts and newspaper clippings and leaving them on a stage in Mar-a-Lago, unsecured. (He would also not, as federal prosecutors alleged, refuse to return them when subpoenaed. Trump denied this.) Nor would he pardon violent rioters convicted in an assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has revoked security details for Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his former adviser Brian Hook, all of whom worked in his first administration. Bolton told me he wasn’t shocked, because when he resigned from the White House in 2019, Trump immediately ordered protection removed. “Normally, somebody in that job gets protection for three months, six months—there’s no set formula,” he said. “But because you have information you don’t want your adversaries to get, it’s not a perquisite. It’s for the protection of the government.”

[Read: Why the president praises dictators]

Caring deeply about national security is not the same as being good at it. U.S. history is littered with examples of catastrophic choices made by conscientious officials. The architects of foreign policy in the George W. Bush administration truly believed that toppling Saddam Hussein would improve security in the Middle East and American interests. They were wrong. Conversely, Trump’s first term saw some foreign-policy wins, including the Abraham Accords and the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Other gambits that seemed more aimed at personal glorification—or a Nobel Peace Prize—such as his summit with Kim Jong Un flopped.

Even if Trump’s approach does sometimes produce wins, however, he is more motivated by pique, personal benefit, attraction to autocratic leaders, or pursuit of adulation. Those, more than a calculation about what’s best for the nation, are what guides Trump.