Buchanan called Trump "gutsy and brazen" to use the "America First" phrase, "considering the demonization of the great anti-war movement of 1940-41, which was backed by the young patriots John F. Kennedy and his brother Joe, Gerald Ford and Sargent Shriver, and President Hoover and Alice Roosevelt."
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Not only does it make sense for the United States to stop overextending itself abroad, Buchanan said, it is also smart to try to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than call him names.
Buchanan also countered critics of Trump's speech who said he called for a military buildup on one hand while seeking to avoid war on the other.
"Military intervention for reasons of ideology or nation building is not an Eisenhower or Nixon or Reagan tradition. It is not a Republican tradition," Buchanan said. "It is a Bush II-neocon deformity, an aberration that proved disastrous for the United States and the Middle East."