Ingraham: "Does this mean you are not going to defend NATO countries if they haven't paid their 2-point whatever percent?" Trump: "Yeah, sort of, it does."
Ingraham: Does this mean you are not going to defend nato countries if they haven't paid their 2-point whatever percent.
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 22, 2024
Trump: Yeah it sort of does. pic.twitter.com/OKxiMFhmkz
Among other pols, an answer like "sort of" could suggest "strategic ambiguity." With Trump, "ambiguity" hangs by itself; it's sort of deliberate, because he hasn't a clue as to what he's talking about. Which is quite a feat, once you recall with unbounded horror that he sat in the Oval Office for four years as head of NATO's most powerful member.
(Same for his audience. Its equally ignorant reaction to Trump's sort-of affirmation that he'd not defend a NATO country if it hasn't paid-up is a true study in mass psychology and mob behavior.)
This week Julianne Smith, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, attempted to educate Trump — as well as Laura Ingraham, it seems — vis CBS News :"There are no dues here at NATO. It is not a country club," she said. But Trump knows only what he knows, and he knows the word "members" — such as those of his gold clubs — pay dues. Ergo, NATO members pay dues.
For years he has claimed a payment structure that simply does not exist. He varies his limited word usage; sometimes he says NATO members have not paid their dues, at other times they haven't paid their "bills" or they're delinquent on their "NATO fees." He also seems confused about the destination of these "fees": the members either "owe us a tremendous amount of money" or they "owe NATO billions of dollars."
Something else Trump never learned is that the 2%-of-GDP target for defense spending, asked of NATO members, is but a "guideline" that carries no legal obligation. Because it's a guideline. Ambassador Smith added this crucial yet ultimately wasted piece of information for Trump's enlightenment. "We've asked allies to invest in their own defense," she said, "so collectively we'll all be stronger and we'll have more resources from which we can draw."
I'd wager that White House chief of staff John Kelly, formerly a four-star general intimately knowledgable about NATO, corrected his president several times before giving up. Giving up, that is, on correcting Trump when he also repeatedly claimed that NATO members had spent less "every single year" until he assumed the presidency. The number of years was as varied as his word usage; sometimes it was 15, other times 16, or now and then, 18.
Because Trump claimed it, you know automatically, empirically and intuitively that his claim was untrue. Non-US members increased their defense spending in 2015 by 1.6%, and again in 2016 by 3.0%. Incidentally, the increases came in part because of President Obama's urgings. Which negated another of Trump's lies: that no other president had pressed NATO members to spend more on defense. Obama and George W. Bush before him did precisely that.
Let me repeat. These delusional Trumpian falsehoods came while he was president and leader of the NATO alliance. No amount of corrective education from informed White House staff had any salutary effect on him, just as staff failed in educating Trump on his 2020 election loss. And he continues to blather both falsehoods.
If a Trump defender were to say, "Oh he knew better; he's not an idiot," then the defender is labeling him a liar. What terrifies is the strong probability that he wasn't and isn't lying; that he is, in fact, delusional — to the point of clinical psychosis.
He sounds like a mob boss demanding "protection" money.
Posted by: Anne J | February 23, 2024 at 11:48 AM
Maybe we should take away the Secret Service detail and pension until judgements are satisfied. Don, you gotta pay your bills !
Posted by: m. Fitz | February 25, 2024 at 05:03 PM
Fitz, an excellent idea.
Posted by: PM | February 25, 2024 at 06:09 PM