President-Elect Donald Trump should be wary of including John Bolton in his administration and also should steer clear of leadership fights that might take place among Republicans in the House or Senate, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan said Tuesday.

Bolton, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration, has been mentioned for a top post in the coming Trump administration. But Buchanan said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that Bolton advocates militaristic policies toward Iran and other places that are not compatible with the foreign policy positions Trump outlined on the campaign trail.

“The iron is never gonna be hotter than it’s gonna be his first day in office.”

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“He does appear to me, when I’ve seen him on TV, to have his own agenda, you know — which I don’t think is good,” he said.

Buchanan also said Trump should let the House and Senate pick their own leaders and not get bogged down in trying to influence those decisions. Instead, he said, Trump should focus on expanding his message into communities that have been hostile to the Republican message.

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“To build and enlarge the constituency that won the election, you’ve gotta make gains in the African-American community,” he said. “And you gotta make gains in the Latino community. And I think you do it if you bring about prosperity, and frankly, if you cut taxes on small businesses.”

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Buchanan, a veteran of two administrations, in many ways wrote the blueprint during his two runs for the White House that Trump executed to perfection in 2016. He identified three key issues on which Trump broke with Republican orthodoxy of the past quarter-century — border security, trade reorientation, and avoiding foreign wars.

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“The Bushes and Obamas and Clintons went ahead and pursued these policies, and the results were what Donald Trump ran against so brilliantly in 2016,” he said.

But it is important that Trump not wait — because it will only get harder the longer he is in Washington, Buchanan said.

“The iron is never gonna be hotter than it’s gonna be his first day in office,” he said.

Buchanan defended Stephen Bannon, who took a leave of absence as chairman of Breitbart News to run Trump’s campaign after the ouster of campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Buchanan said Trump should ignore criticisms of Bannon.

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The new president should concentrate on reorienting a foreign policy posture that has not changed significantly since the fall of the Soviet Union, Buchanan said.

“You protect your vital interests and vital alliances, but I do think this: I think all these Cold War — and some of these commitments to go to war — date back to when I was in grammar school,” he said. “The Cold War is over 25 years ago. I mean, this is my problem.”

Buchanan said that means, as Trump made clear during the campaign, other countries will have to start relying on themselves for national defense.

“Some of these other countries we’ve carried on our backs all these years have gotta carry more of the load themselves,” he said. “And that’s exactly, I think, Trump’s message. And I think we have to do it. It’s coming one day.”