Huckabee: Trump Must Heed ‘People Who Brought Him to the Dance’

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he hopes President Donald Trump “listens to the people who bought him to the dance” because those people represent the millions of Americans who voted for him during an interview Tuesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

Huckabee, a former 2008 and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, responded to an article published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times titled, “A trade war is brewing inside the White House between rival camps.” The internal dispute over trade policy has pitted Establishment globalists, including former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, against conservative populists like White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon.

“If he were to go back on that and become just another part of the long series of presidents — both Democrat and Republican — who have sold out the American worker, then Donald Trump will have a disastrous presidency.”

“I hope [Trump] listens to the people who brought him to the dance because those are the people who represent the millions of Donald Trump supporters — not only the record number in the Republican primary, but also the ones from those traditionally Democrat blue states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania — who elected Donald Trump,” Huckabee said.

“The fact is, they didn’t elect him to go and succumb to The Wall Street Journal school of trade, which is just open the borders, let the rich people get rich and let the workers get stepped on,” Huckabee added. “He got elected by the people who knew that we were getting screwed. And he was elected to change it and fix it because that’s what he promised.”

Huckabee warned that if Trump continues to give ground to Establishment globalists in the West Wing on trade and other economic issues, he would be in severe danger of reneging on his campaign promise to fight for American workers.

“If he were to go back on that and become just another part of the long series of presidents — both Democrat and Republican — who have sold out the American worker, then Donald Trump will have a disastrous presidency,” Huckabee said.

In the LA Times article, Don Lee noted that Cohn “favors open-trade policies that have been a hallmark of Republican and Democratic presidents alike for more than half a century,” adding that many Wall Street leaders “argue that open borders expand markets and the global economic pie, enhancing overall U.S. economic and national interests.”

“Cohn’s team, ensconced on the second floor of the West Wing, is stacked with like-minded veterans of investment banking and noted internationalists, such as Kenneth Juster, a former partner at the global private equity firm Warburg Pincus, and Andrew Quinn, a top negotiator of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Obama orchestrated,” Lee wrote.

If Trump caves into these globalist interests, Huckabee warned that it would be both “disastrous politically” and “disastrous for the workers” who have been “kicked in the gut by U.S. policies” throughout the years.

“What I’m hoping is that guys like Steve Bannon have a greater role and influence and that it doesn’t get turned over to the corporatists and the globalists, as has every other White House and Congress because of the money that they pour into the campaigns,” Huckabee said.

If Trump continues to surround himself with advisers such as Cohn, the former Arkansas governor insisted that the president will also be ditching one of his key campaign slogans: “Drain the swamp.”

“It’s not the kind of team that Donald Trump needs around him if he’s going to truly drain the swamp. You can’t drain the swamp and import alligators,” Huckabee said. “And that’s one of the concerns that I think many of us have.”

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“I totally believe this president is sincere and genuine in wanting to changes things and make them different,” Huckabee added. “But I’ve always said from Day 1, even prior to his swearing-in, the greatest fear I had for him is that he would be captured by the palace guard, that he would end up going native out of a sense of being held hostage within the bubble of Washington.”

In order for Trump to stay focused and remain “in touch” with the voters, Huckabee recommended the president continue to hold his rallies.

“This is a president who was winning just on the message. He can’t abandon the message. He needs to now implement that message into policy,” Huckabee reiterated. “But he has to have people around him that he trusts … people like Bannon, people who helped him get there, that truly will remind him every single day that he is not a part of the D.C. crowd. He never will be and frankly he should never want to be. I hope that they every day can’t stand him because the day they start loving and embracing him, is the day that American[s] start to lose.”