Michael McFaul on European Allies to Trump: ‘They’re Most Certainly Fed Up — They’re Exhausted by It’

RUSH EXCERPT:

MCFAUL: "Well, they’re most certainly fed up. That’s a good word that the prime minister used. They’re exhausted by it. He’s all over the place. One day he wants their help. The next day he says NATO can’t do anything. And I think it’s important to remember how he started his second term. He started his second term by threatening to invade one of the NATO allies, Denmark, to take Greenland. He started his second term by joking that one of our other allies, Canada, should become the 51st state. Then he imposed tariffs on our allies in a completely irrational way. Then he cut assistance to Ukraine to zero. So our Ukrainian allies have to help the Ukrainians themselves. And then after all that, he went on a war of choice to Iran and was then disappointed that those same people that he did all those things I just described to, I could have described many more insults and real policy implications that they didn’t come to his aid. So of course, they’re frustrated, but they face a dilemma because they want NATO to endure. They want NATO to exist beyond the Trump presidency. And so in one breath, you see certain leaders talking the way you just quoted them. But then when the general secretary of NATO is here just a couple of days, Mr. Ruta, he spoke in a very different way. He spoke in a kind of appeasement way. Mr. Trump is such a great man. And I think there’s a division among European leaders about how to"