OPINION:
So, it’s begun again — the manufactured outrage, the outright lies, the twisting of Donald Trump’s words by a leftist mainstream media eager to thwart his presidential comeback bid and protect President Biden’s feeble and incompetent White House.
It’s the same hysterical narrative critics ran with in 2016: Mr. Trump is a “pawn” of Vladimir Putin, and this time around, he is purportedly prepared to give the wily Russian president carte blanche to invade fellow NATO countries.
CNN ran a “Red Alarm” chyron stating, “Allies on edge as Trump invites Russia’s Putin to invade,” questioning if NATO could survive another Trump presidency. The network paraded out ex-spies like Sir Richard Dearlove, the former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, to lament how “shocking and worrying” Mr. Trump’s recent campaign trail comments were.
Mr. Biden, eager to capitalize on the delirium, on Tuesday, used his bully pulpit to comment on how “un-American” Mr. Trump’s NATO remarks were.
“The former president has sent a dangerous, and shockingly, frankly un-American signal to the world,” Mr. Biden said with full sincerity. “Just a few days ago, Trump gave an invitation to Putin to invade some of our NATO allies.”
Mr. Biden continued: “He said if an ally didn’t spend enough money on defense, he would encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell it wants.’ Can you imagine? A former president of the United States saying that. The whole world heard it, and the worst thing is he means it. No other president in history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator.”
Except that’s not at all what happened. Let’s go to the transcript.
At a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, Mr. Trump was recalling how he got NATO nations to boost their defense spending while he was president, strengthening the alliance.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Mr. Trump said. “I said, ‘Everybody’s going to pay.’ [NATO allies] said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer. And you never saw more money pour into [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg. I don’t know if he is anymore, but he was my biggest fan.”
Mr. Trump went on to describe a conversation he had with one of the “presidents of a big country,” who hypothetically asked Mr. Trump if the U.S. would protect that country if it didn’t pay its fair share to NATO’s collective defense. Mr. Trump said his response was, “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want.”
Mr. Trump continued: “Most politicians have said to that, ‘Yes, we will protect you under any circumstances.’ Well, then they’re never paying up. I said, ‘No, no. You have to understand: You don’t pay your bills, you get no protection.’ It’s very simple. Hundreds of billions of dollars came into NATO, and that’s why they have money today because of what I did.”
So, putting Mr. Trump’s words in context, it’s not exactly the four-alarm fire the press and the White House would like you to believe.
Moreover, Mr. Trump has his record as president this time to back up his words when the media wolves attack.
Every NATO nation has pledged to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on its own defense, yet many nations, when Mr. Trump took office, were far from meeting that goal. Mr. Trump capitalized on the sentiment of many Americans at the time that other countries were taking advantage of the U.S. on foreign policy and national defense because U.S. taxpayers foot the bill in most of these alliances and international organizations.
While Mr. Trump was in office, Canada and European NATO allies added $130 billion to their defense budgets, on the way to $400 billion by 2024 — a fact Mr. Stoltenberg has credited to Mr. Trump’s carrot-and-stick approach.
“President Trump has been very clear,” Mr. Stoltenberg told Fox News in 2019. “He is committed to NATO. He stated that clearly just a few days ago and also at the NATO summit in July. But at the same time, he has clearly stated that NATO allies need to invest more. And therefore, at the summit in July last year, we agreed to do more to step up ― and now we see the results.”
And here’s something that was also not seen in Mr. Trump’s four years in office: any new foreign wars.
It’s a record he can be proud of ― whatever distortions the press and the current White House are trying to peddle.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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