It has been noted that the backlash to former President Donald Trump’s remarks on NATO countries being abandoned for not paying their “bills” continued on Wednesday. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blasted Trump not just for “[wanting] to stay in Vladimir Putin’s good graces,” but for making up a story just to illustrate his point.
After playing the original clip of Trump’s comments from a campaign stop on Saturday in South Carolina and President Joe Biden’s response, Scarborough lit into Trump, calling him “Fat Elvis” and his comments “un-American drivel,” but also knocking him for essentially writing fanfiction to set up his stance on NATO allies:
Joe Biden and most intelligent people, when they see NATO, they see the alliance that took down the Soviet Union. And that’s why [Russian President] Vladimir Putin hates it, and that’s why Donald Trump hates it, because he wants to stay in Vladimir Putin’s good graces.
But here, again, you have to go back to not just what Donald Trump said, not just the un-American drivel that sputtered out of Fat Elvis’s mouth. You have to look at the fact of how he set this up. He felt the need to make up a story. Just completely make up a story. “A leader of a big country, said, Sir–” First of all, there’s so many things wrong with that. So many things, Willie, wrong with that. “Leader of a big country?” Please. And then would say, “Sir?” Please. Not how it works at any of these places. And nobody would ask the question, “What if we don’t pay our dues?” Because that’s not how it works. And everybody in the foreign policy world, everybody in NATO knows that’s not how it works. It’s not “dues.” It’s not “I made them pay their–” That’s just so ridiculously stupid.
And by the way, if you look at the contributions Europe has made since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Donald Trump, he can shut his mouth.
