Trump’s ‘Innovative’ Approach to Gaza Has Some on the Right Confused

When asked if it was worth risking the life of a single U.S. Marine to turn the Gaza Strip into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” the White House bristled. “I’ve already said the president has not committed to sending Marines or any boots on the ground,” Karoline Leavitt told RealClearPolitics.

What Donald Trump said about Gaza

The press secretary was accurate. Trump has not committed to deploying any military personnel to the region. But the president had, in fact, entertained the idea seriously less than 24 hours prior. “If it is necessary,” he said when asked about that exact possibility, “we will do that.” He made the bold pronouncement while speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu Tuesday, vowing that the United States would take possession of the disputed territory, disarm the unexploded ordinance, and rebuild Gaza into something “the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”

Seated in the front row for the remarks: Vice President J.D. Vance. “He’s been working very hard on all things,” Trump said of his No. 2, “but this in particular.” Vance smiled at the acknowledgment but has yet to make any public statements about the plan.

J. D. Vance on interventionism

A senator for less than two years when Trump picked him as a running mate, Vance is still new to politics. But his views on military intervention are not. He has long been a vocal critic of what he once described as “boomer neoconservatism” and was considered the vanguard of a new right defined, in large part, by its rejection of foreign adventurism.

He is also a former U.S. Marine. Vance deployed to the Middle East and later became disillusioned with politicians who backed “the disastrous invasion of Iraq.” It was a theme of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention when he condemned “the people who govern this country” and who had led the country into wars “from Iraq to Afghanistan.”

Americans should not be fighting for ideology, including the goal of spreading democracy, he said during that speech. Instead, they should only be called on to fight in defense of their own national interest. “People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home,” Vance told the GOP convention in July. “And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders must remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first.”

Vance hasn’t said a word about Gaza – yet

Opined the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal after Vance joined the Republican ticket: “Perhaps he will shed his isolationist impulses in office, but they’re worrisome.” That may have been wishful thinking on their part. Vance had endorsed Trump in those same pages the year prior explicitly “because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.”

Vance has not yet commented on Trump’s vision for Gaza. The announcement even took some senior administration officials by surprise because the call to acquire the territory also clashes with his own oft-stated rejection of nation-building.

Asked if the bold new plan was inconsistent with the long-held beliefs of the vice president, a Vance spokeswoman praised the “innovative” approach. “This administration is committed to bringing peace and stability to a devastated, war-torn area,” Taylor Van Kirk told RCP. “The American people entrusted President Trump and Vice President Vance with these kinds of innovative solutions, and they’re delivering on that promise.”

The call for innovation has some on the right confused. Hamas is not yet beaten, and while much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, the terrorist organization has waged a brutal urban warfare campaign against Israel. It is not clear how Gazans who do not want to leave Gaza would be dealt with under the new Trump vision, which is in its infancy. Trump loyalist Charlie Kirk likened the current insurgency to Vietnam.

Charlie Kirk

A confidant of the Trump family and Vance, Kirk laid out two “red lines” during his radio show Tuesday. The first: The United States would not accept any refugees from Gaza. “And number two, he continued, “is that we’re not going to have any U.S. troops fighting in Gaza.” This would be “a detrimental mistake,” and he vowed that “to speak out against that with every fiber of our being.”

Kirk suggested that the sudden interest in acquiring Gaza was likely a way “to create more leverage.” Careful not to split with the White House over a plan that is still developing, he added, “I trust Trump 100% to navigate this. He is the master and in him, I trust on this.” He isn’t the only Republican to chalk up Trump’s seeming foreign policy reversal to a negotiation gambit.

A senior GOP Senate aide speculated that the president was likely part of a larger dealmaking process and called for calm. “After all these years, the GOP knows better than to knee-jerk condemn the president when he says something wild,” they told RCP, “and if he keeps annihilating the liberal federal bureaucracy, he could announce America’s invasion of Neptune, and we wouldn’t blink.”

The Golden Age

Others on the right advise taking Trump both seriously and literally when it comes to border expansion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned, for instance, that the president’s call to take Greenland “is not a joke.” In a statement posted to social media and light on details, Rubio said, “The United States stands ready to make Gaza Beautiful Again.”

Gaza MUST BE FREE from Hamas. As @POTUS shared today, the United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza Beautiful Again. Our pursuit is one of lasting peace in the region for all people.— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) February 5, 2025

Trump is apparently looking to his legacy as he begins his second term and has vowed to deliver a new “Golden Age of America.” Expanding the map is one way to write himself into history, explained a longtime Republican operative who was digesting the news late Tuesday night as it pinged around GOP circles. “You read any American history book,” the source said, “and it’s about manifest destiny. There is no faster way to build a legacy than putting your flag in the ground.”

For his part, Vance previously warned against “reckless” wars. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2023, he condemned the bipartisanship that led the country into war.

“Leadership in both parties supported the invasion of Iraq, the decadeslong nation-building project in Afghanistan, regime change in Libya and guerrilla war in Syria. All of these policies cost a lot of money and killed many,” he wrote at the time. “None of those conflicts has served the nation’s long-term interest.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.