The dumb, it hurts! During Friday’s edition of ABC’s The View, moderator Joy Behar was venting about former President Trump threatening to pull out of NATO (something that didn’t happen the first time he threatened it). But amid her pearl-clutching, Behar lamented that Trump would be throwing away an alliance that had been in place for decades—an alliance which, according to her, fought Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
“Because I know history,” Behar ironically proclaimed in her rant. “And Putin will not stop at Ukraine if they don't -- if we don't help them. And Trump is saying he'll pull out of NATO. These are allies. We were all in this together in World War II, and now he’s going to pull out of this?! Outrageous!” she exclaimed.
"I know history!"
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 16, 2024
Joy Behar thinks NATO was the military alliance that fought against Hitler and the Nazis. pic.twitter.com/cSBnZhCrFJ
Sure there were some major crossover between the Allied Powers of WWII and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, particularly the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. And to give Behar the benefit of the doubt, there were also the European allied countries that had governments in exile which included countries that had joined NATO as recently as last year: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Greece, and the different Balkan countries.
But if WWII was Behar’s only frame of reference, she might be very surprised to learn who some of our NATO allies were (HINT: they’re former Axis Powers!); countries like Italy, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and then there are the one which might shock her the most: GERMANY!
She might also be stunned to learn that NATO was founded in 1949 – four years after the end of WWII – as a collective defense alliance to oppose a former Allied power: the Soviet Union; and then Russia after communism collapsed.
Of course, no one on the set corrected her.
