Republican lawmakers were again forced to grapple with controversial remarks made by Donald Trump after the former president said that he would disregard the NATO treaty among the United States and its allies.<\/p>\n
At a campaign rally on Saturday night in South Carolina, Trump claimed he once told the leader of a NATO member that he would encourage Russia to do \u201cwhatever the hell they want\u201d to member countries he views as not spending enough on their own defense.<\/p>\n
His remarks sparked anger among Democrats and concern among European leaders, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who said in a statement that \u201cany suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among Republican lawmakers, however, the remarks were met with a mixture of pushback, defensiveness and silence.<\/p>\n
As they voted to advance a funding package for Ukraine and Israel on Sunday, some Republican senators told reporters that they had not heard the president\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen that, so I\u2019d need to listen to his quote first,\u201d said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). After a reporter asked him if he thought it was correct for Trump to encourage Russia to attack a NATO country, Tuberville said he was \u201cnot getting in that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some, like Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), sought to distance themselves from Trump\u2019s remarks, but reminded reporters that it is not the first time Trump has voiced complaints about NATO members not carrying their weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used a little flourish that I would not have used, but he\u2019s not wrong about having far too many members not paying the minimum 2 percent for NATO,\u201d Tillis said, adding that it was a \u201cfoot fault\u201d on behalf of Trump\u2019s staff for \u201ceven allowing\u201d the idea of Russia attacking a NATO member \u201cto get out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously that is not something I believe that he should have said, but I also don\u2019t believe that\u2019s something that he honestly believes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Others waved off Trump\u2019s comments as \u201cpolitics\u201d and suggested the president\u2019s words were being used to create a negative narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear to me that he\u2019s going to push them to pay, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to withdraw,\u201d said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). \u201cHe\u2019s trying to make a point, I\u2019m not worried about it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), speaking to CNN on Sunday excused Trump\u2019s comments by saying they should not be taken literally and arguing that the former president was simply \u201ctelling a story\u201d about \u201chow he used leverage to get people to step up to the plate and become more active in NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,\u201d Rubio said on \u201cState of the Union.\u201d \u201cHe doesn\u2019t talk like a traditional politician.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most dismissed the idea that Trump was actively trying to encourage Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us want to see a war in Europe and I don\u2019t think he does either,\u201d said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). \u201cI\u2019m quite certain the president does not want to see us in a war with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tillis also noted that \u201cany attack on a NATO ally would have devastating consequences for American men and women who would be deployed to defend them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s remarks on NATO were part of his standard campaign-trail haranguing of the alliance\u2019s members who have failed to comply with a 2006 pledge to eventually raise military spending levels to 2 percent of their country\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n
In 2018, Trump shook up a summit of NATO allies in Brussels with harsh comments suggesting that the United States might not comply with its commitment to defend other alliance members from attack unless they paid more money. Back then, Tillis reassured the United States\u2019 nervous allies by telling them that Congress fully supports the alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no applause line for \u2018Let\u2019s get out of NATO,\u2019\u201d he said then.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, senators reaffirmed their commitment to NATO and sending the $60 billion in assistance to Ukraine on the Senate floor. Ukraine is not a member of the treaty, but many NATO member countries have banded together to help the European nation fend off Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n
When asked what he made of Republicans shrugging off Trump\u2019s comments, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a stark warning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is going to withdraw from NATO. He is going to weaponize the entire Department of Justice,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cAll the stuff that he was stopped from doing in his first term, he is going to do in the second term. Every single Republican in their bones knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notably, key Republican leaders in the Capitol, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), remained mum on the subject. As of Monday evening, Johnson had not made an official comment on Trump\u2019s remarks. Spokespeople for the speaker did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.<\/p>\n
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also did not respond to reporters\u2019 questions on Sunday on Trump\u2019s remarks. However, on the Senate floor ahead of the vote to advance the Ukraine and Israel funding package, McConnell delivered a passionate speech on the importance of the United States\u2019 commitments to its allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s become quite fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interests we have as a global power, to bemoan the responsibilities of global leadership, to lament the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great power conflict in human history,\u201d McConnell said. \u201cThis is idle work for idle minds. And it has no place in the United States Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few Republicans were more direct about their criticism of Trump. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters it was uncalled for Trump to suggest the United States throw NATO allies \u201cto the Russian wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he left the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters that the former president\u2019s remarks have \u201cdangerous implications.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of America\u2019s advantages in geopolitics is that we have friends and the Russians and the Chinese don\u2019t,\u201d Romney said. \u201cWell, we\u2019re going to lose friends if we go around saying that we\u2019re going to not protect them under the obligations we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Republican lawmakers were again forced to grapple with controversial remarks made by Donald Trump after the former president said that he would disregard the NATO treaty among the United States and its allies. At a campaign rally on Saturday night in South Carolina, Trump claimed he once told the leader of a NATO member that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}