Tehran, 09 June_Bella ciao, Donald Trump — or at least that's what former US Ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner is hoping American voters decide in November.
In an interview with Jack Blanchard, the editor of POLITICO's London Playbook, on Monday, Gardner said Trump evokes memories of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and that former Trump officials who are now criticizing the president, like ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis, are "collaborators" who should have spoken out sooner or never joined the administration in the first place.
"For a couple of years, I was troubled by many things that Donald Trump shares with Benito Mussolini, someone my Italian grandparents fled from in 1938," Gardner, a Democrat who is supporting former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign, said in the interview.
Asked about the recent protests against racism and police brutality, Gardner added, "It's very disappointing, very dispiriting to have a president of the US who is openly fomenting and inciting racial divisions in order to energize part of his base."
In regard to officials like Mattis and former White House chief of staff John Kelly, who have criticized Trump's handling of the protests and his call for deploying troops, Gardner said it was too little, too late.
"You know I am glad that these people are speaking out, but I'll be very honest here, and undiplomatic: I don't welcome those statements in the sense that those people served this president," he said. "And to me quite bluntly they are accomplices ... So when you choose to work for this kind of administration, which showed its true colors very early on, at some point you abet the policies even if afterwards you decide that they're terrible, that the man you were serving is a terrible person. So while I am glad they are saying what they are saying, it comes too late."
Gardner also slammed Trump's plan to reduce the number of US military forces in Germany.
“It makes no sense,” Gardner said. “It’s a gift to Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump's good friend. This is another indication of how he embraces autocrats and enemies of our country. We should be holding firm. It serves not only defense of Europe and Germany but our own purposes, right? Because those bases are incredibly important also for the projection of our influence and our power on Europe, the Middle East and even beyond, so it makes no sense whatsoever. This is a political act. There is no military strategy behind it.”
Gardner said the move seemed to show Trump lashing out at German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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