Following President Trump’s declaration of support for NATO last Friday the cast of Morning Joe denounced and decried the President on Monday for -- not supporting NATO? Nicolle Wallace bemoaned the current state of foreign relations and how Donald Trump was ‘lying about the value of alliances’ to his voters. Joe Scarborough attempted to explain NATO's intrinsic value and how it had been created, not because of Europe, but by Americans, ‘being selfish.’ Wallace later castigated Trump even further by scathingly declaring that, “The real disservice he's done is...to the soldiers who rely on alliances so that they don't fight wars alone.”
All of these arguments seemed somewhat contradictory and out of place given the President’s announcement in which he reaffirmed America’s commitment to defend NATO members in the event of attack. “I’m committing the United States to Article V,” Trump stated bluntly during a press conference with the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: So, Nicolle, I always use this example about how important allies are and even enemies right after 9/11.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Relationships.
SCARBOROUGH: Who was a key partner of ours? Well, first of all, while the French were extraordinarily difficult in the Iraq war, they still helped us out as far as Intel. Completely professional. Even the Iranians, who have been our enemies since 1979 were helping us in Afghanistan. So it's hard to explain, I guess. But don't we have to do a better job? Don't politicians do a better job of explaining why pissing off Germany and France and everybody else is really going to come back and damage us when there's a next terror attack?
NICOLLE WALLACE: And the irresponsible actor is Donald Trump, it's not his voters fault for believing him, it's his fault for lying about the value of alliances. We're not in NATO because they give us something, we're in NATO because when they attacked on 9/11 we're the only ones to take out on the bank article 5. We're the only ones that asked people to fight alongside our soldiers. He sells it --
SCARBOROUGH: We didn't create NATO -- let me say this to everybody at home, we didn't create NATO for Luxembourg. We didn't create NATO for every country across Europe, we created NATO for us. We were being selfish. We are always --
WALLACE: Right! We are the beneficiaries of NATO and we declared war on Afghanistan and their sons and daughters went and died alongside us in a coalition. So Donald Trump lies about our alliances. He may not know that -- maybe Mattis should pull him in for tea and tell him. It is time -- I agree with you voters may not be upset about his foreign policy but they should be because he has lied to them about the purpose–our alliances are an act of charity on American -- they are an act of national security. The real disservice he's done is not just to his voters who have been scammed or conned, it's to the soldiers who rely on alliances so that they don't fight wars alone.
So...even when Trump does support NATO he’s not really supporting them because of what he said previously? Is this the kind of logic we have to bear with on a daily basis now? Or did Joe and his friends just not read the news feed?
