Donald Trump's foreign policy speech this week was "actually pretty good" — showing that "the man is learning the topic," former Defense Department Undersecretary Jed Babbin told
Newsmax TV on Friday.
"At this point, we have to understand that — like it or not — this guy is going to be the Republican nominee," Babbin told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "Let's try to be helpful to him."
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"There are a few things that bother me greatly, some things that he said were very good." Babbin said he agreed with Trump that more NATO nations should start bearing the costs of their defense and "that our allies have been shunned and our enemies embraced.
"That's basically been the [President Barack] Obama approach since he was inaugurated. You see that all the time."
The former undersecretary said he was troubled, however, by Trump's notion of wanting to "contain radical Islam."
"We've learned over the past 1,400 years that you can't contain them," he told Malzberg. "You can contain some of the individual mindsets — certainly, and we're not doing that in regard to ISIS.
"I like his idea of beating them roundly, soundly and quickly — but the idea of beating radical Islam just is not possible unless you defeat their ideology."
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