GOP Sen. Marco Rubio defended former President Donald Trump’s controversial comment that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to a NATO member country that didn’t meet defense spending guidelines.
“That’s not what happened, and that’s not how I view that statement,” the Florida Republican argued Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union when asked whether he was comfortable with Trump’s suggestion that he wouldn’t defend NATO countries.
Rubio went on to note that the US did not leave NATO during Trump’s presidency — though Trump made private threats about withdrawing multiple times, according to The New York Times.
“Donald Trump is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,” Rubio told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “He doesn’t talk like a traditional politician, and we’ve already been through this. You would think people would’ve figured it out by now.”
At Saturday’s rally in Conway, North Carolina, Trump said “one of the presidents of a big country” at one point asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”
“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”
Trump has for years inaccurately described how NATO funding works. NATO has a target that each member country spends a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense, and most countries are not meeting that target. But the figure is a guideline and not a binding contract, and it does not create “bills”; member countries haven’t been failing to pay their share of NATO’s common budget to run the organization.
Rubio,…
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