Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume criticized former President Donald Trump for his comments about NATO and what he would do if a country within the agreement no longer paid their share.
Quote: "The U.S. should be having an election debate over the growing dangers to U.S. security and how to counter them. Instead we have an incumbent who has presided over the collapse of U.S. deterrence, and a GOP front-runner who dotes on dictators." https://t.co/0k0CWbrh6F
— Brit Hume (@brithume) February 12, 2024
Trump received criticism for the comments he made at a campaign rally in South Carolina when he recalled a conversation between himself and the president of “a big country” on stage. Trump said that the president asked him if the U.S. would still protect them from a Russian invasion if the country did not increase its contribution to NATO.
“You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent… No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills,” Trump claims to have responded.
Many mainstream media members in the U.S. and Europe were in a panic over Trump’s rhetoric with many of them believing it would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hume was asked about a Wall Street Journal editorial that stated that Trump “dotes on dictators” as the article criticized Trump’s portrayal of NATO. Hume initially downplayed the former president’s words.
“My guess about that Bret was it is, it’s typical Trump loose talk,” Hume said. “My guess is that he meant that as a way of threatening the NATO allies that haven’t paid their full freight to which they are supposedly committed and have said they would pay and they’re not doing it, all of them.”
“The one thing that the war in Ukraine has done is it has brought NATO closer together, it has strengthened NATO’s hand, it has gotten more members into NATO, the alliance now stands at a greater strength than it has in some time and that’s a good thing…but this kind of talk tempts dictators, tempts aggressors, and doesn’t help,” Hume added.
Trump continues to affirm his stance on NATO and how it changed the alliance for the better.
“When I told the 20 Countries that weren’t paying their fair share that they had to PAY UP, and said without doing that you will not have U.S. Military Protection, the money came rolling in…But now, without me there to say YOU MUST PAY, they are at it again,” the former president said.
