Trumps Latest NATO Gaffe Proves He Shouldn't Be Anywhere Near The Levers Of Power

Donald Trump s latest gaffe this one about NATO has ignited a firestorm of responses. There was proper focus on some aspects of his comment. I see something else, though, perhaps not as dangerous but still troubling, and clear markers for why a person of such character does not deserve a place near the levers of power.

We should define the term gaffe. Most people associate it, especially of late, with President Joe Biden s misstatements and slips of memory. Lets accept the fact that both candidates are elderly and that the 2024 election is likely to be full of so many senior moments on both sides that any evaluation based on memory will be a wash. 

Other things should be of greater concern: Do they understand how our government works? Do they understand the complexities of domestic policy issues and the intricacies of international relations? Do they surround themselves with advisers equipped with firsthand knowledge who are capable, qualified, thoughtful, concerned and more pro-democracy than pro-party, whose loyalty is to their country rather than a figurehead?

Trump fails on all these counts and more, as his comment readily illustrates.

For the record, at a political rally in South Carolina last weekend, Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, said he would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to delinquent countries in Europe he believes arent spending enough on defense. He described a meeting, apparently while president, in which he responded to an ally about NATO funding.

One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, Well, sir, if we dont pay and were attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, You didnt pay? Youre delinquent? He said, Yes, lets say that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.

The audience, blindly faithful as ever, applauded.

Media  focus  was largely twofold: the recklessness of such a comment (the White House called it unhinged) and descriptions of how NATO functions, its purpose and its value as an international alliance. 

The 31 members of NATO are supposed to meet a defense spending target of at least 2% of gross domestic product, terms negotiated for every NATO nation by the Obama administration. They dont pay the money to NATO as if there is some sort of bank account; they invest it in their own armed forces.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has repeatedly emphasized the importance of meeting the 2% benchmark, and several countries have increased their defense budgets in response to emerging security challenges, such as Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and the threat of terrorism.

Only 11 members have reached that benchmark, according to NATO estimates, and that has long been a source of tension with the United States, whose armed forces form the core of the alliances military power.

However, the goal is voluntary. There is no debt or delinquency involved.

Trump has a long history  of misrepresenting NATO, going back before his presidency, because he doesnt understand how it works. He seems to think of it as some sort of protection racket, wrote  Tom Nichols in The Atlantic, in which our European allies come to Washington like quivering shopkeepers and make an offering to the local mob boss from their weekly receipts.

How ironic that the Allies founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after World War II to stop the expansion of Soviet control as Eastern Europe was coming under the Kremlins firm grip. The alliances first secretary-general, British Gen. Hasting Ismay, said the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. The often-repeated comment highlights how a fear of Russias expansion has been part of the alliances DNA from the beginning. Yet here is Trump, practically inviting Russia to come on in.

Its one thing to say that some NATO countries arent contributing their share. Its another thing entirely to encourage Russia to do whatever it wants. I cant imagine any other president saying that in public. And yet those rally-goers applauded. 

Surely the comment was music to the ears of Russian President Vladimir Putin or any real or would-be dictator anywhere on the planet. Here we have the potential leader of the free world threatening to abandon a role invoked by treaty, meaning your word of honor. NATOs common defense clause, known as Article 5, states simply that an attack on one member is an attack on all. It has only been invoked once: on Sept 12, 2001. The only time the NATO alliance invoked its collective defense pact was when we, the United States, were attacked by terrorists. Our NATO allies went to war with us and stayed with us for 20 years.

I wonder how Trumps faithful rally attendees might have reacted if he had bothered to mention that little detail. The fact a former president and now a presidential candidate again seeks to abandon a position of global power and the United States role as the leader of freedom and democracy, one that NATO allies upheld, should register among those so-called patriots as entirely abhorrent.

Two other things stand out in Trumps comment. Neither has gotten much consideration in mainstream coverage, but they should.

Pay The Bills

You gotta pay your bills, Trump told his audience.

Really?

Where does someone notorious for skipping out on his debts get to tell anyone to pay their bills? Over the last 40 years, no major U.S. company has filed for bankruptcy more than Donald Trumps companies (six times ). They werent personal bankruptcies but corporate ones Chapter 11, which lets a company stay in business while shedding  massive amounts  of debt owed  to banks, employees and suppliers.

For someone who says he cares about the American worker, Trump has been  sued  countless  times  by those same  blue-collar  workers  for welching  on what he owes them .

Yet hes got the gall to say Europe must pay its bills. Trump is the last guy to talk about fiscal trustworthiness. 

Hes not even paying his legal bills. Someone else is . 

We should support someone who says people should pay their bills when he doesnt pay his own bills? Ill keep that in mind the next time a kleptomaniac tells me not to be a thief.

Many People Are Saying

Trump has a telltale sign when hes lying. No, its not when his lips are moving. Its his long history of citing anonymous sources. Thats a tipoff.

Trump began his comment, One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said 

Really? Which country? Tell us so we can ask that leader if he really stood up and asked that question. 

Of course, a liar would tap dance with an answer like, Well, I dont want to say who because I dont want to embarrass them.

This, from a guy who has never hesitated to demean anyone, whether a disabled reporter  or a military veteran .

Of course he wont say which leader or which country because hes lying. No one told him that. It never happened.

Whats laughable here is how Trump has railed in the past about anonymous sources. Anonymous Sources are really starting to BURN the media, he tweeted  back in 2018. The fact is that many anonymous sources dont even exist. They are fiction made up by the Fake News reporters.

Do you ever notice they never write the names of people anymore? Trump said in a 2019 speech  to the National Association of Realtors. Everything is a source says. There is no source. The person doesnt exist. The persons not alive. Its bullshit, OK? Its bullshit.

When you see anonymous source, he tweeted , stop reading the story, it is fiction!

Does that mean we should stop listening?

Im against the people that make up stories and make up sources, he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference  in 2017. They shouldnt be allowed to use sources unless they use somebodys name.

Yet Trump regularly says many people are saying without ever saying who these people are.

Whats your preference here? Pot meet kettle, practice what you preach, psychological projection?

Yes, media outlets use anonymous sources. Most of us see a place  for them. Every respectable news outlet notes in its employee policy that reporters should strive first to seek sources who can be identified. Im sure Im not the only one who has had a story shelved because a source I was using had asked not to be identified. The editors wouldnt run the piece until I found a second source. Kudos to them.

Reporters go to great lengths to verify the information they receive from unnamed sources, and they will typically explain why a source requested anonymity. Theyre not authorized to talk. They fear for their jobs. Or worse.

Reporters strive to verify how a source knows the information being provided, whether they have direct knowledge, were told by people with direct knowledge or saw documents or other evidence.

Rare is the anonymous source who is anonymous to the reporter. Bob Woodwards Watergate source, Deep Throat, may have been anonymous to the public but not to Woodward, who knew Mark Felt well. Typically a journalist knows his or her anonymous source thanks to a relationship  built on trust that develops over time as information is provided or, in some cases, exchanged.

And heres another thing: When media outlets get it wrong, they let their readers, viewers and listeners know it. They announce or publish that they made an error and corrected it.

I havent checked, but Ill bet youd have to do quite a lot of digging to find a time when Trump said to any of his rally-goers, I was wrong. A rare admission, is how one book author described  a Trump mea culpa.

Some may sneer at this, but if you do, I wonder if youre a Trump supporter unwilling to give a pass to journalists but more than willing to give Trump a pass for doing the same thing.

Many people are saying.

You can call it fraudulent misrepresentation , a common legal term in contract law, a distancing qualifier , deceptive misrepresentation or conspiracism .

In the end, its what Trump calls it: bullshit, and Trump uses the phrase or similar verbiage so  often  it might as well be his epithet.

Trumps comments about NATO are far more dangerous than the mental gaffes attributable to age either his or Bidens and on far too many levels for any honest broker to accept. And yet many people do, or they dont care. Or maybe they dont see it.

I do not doubt that most voters among Trumps fervent flock try to live honorably, with integrity, and try to be productive members of society. They mean well and try to be decent human beings. These are all things Trump has repeatedly demonstrated he is not.

If we were talking about any other person running for president who said what Donald Trump said and has said, who is as two-faced as Donald Trump is and has been, these same voters would want him ridden out on a rail.

Many of those voters surely remember a time when Reagan Republicans would have brutally, shamefully and rightfully excoriated and ended the political career of anyone making such comments about NATO. 

So much for days of the evil empire.

Our failure to hold Trump accountable for his words and actions, to simply dismiss them, as some lawmakers  have, undermines the values upon which our country was founded. So many have done it for so long that Trumps bombastic puffery is no longer unsettling when, in reality, his continued stream of destructive language and reckless behavior should be more alarming today than ever. At what point does it finally sink in: Does this guy know what the hell he is saying?

As we often joked in my neighborhood about someone whose boasting regularly made him look foolish: Every time you open your mouth, you weaken the nation.

Thats Trump in a nutshell.