Congressional Democrats are hitting back at the White House over a new report that President Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of pulling the United States out of NATO.
The New York Times, citing unnamed former and current administration officials, said Mr. Trump reportedly didn’t see the point of the postwar Western military alliance and viewed it as a drain on U.S. resources. Mr. Trump has also long complained that other NATO countries were not paying their fair share of the collective defense tab, leaving the U.S. to fill the gap.
Mr. Trump’s musings reportedly came around the time of the last NATO summit in Brussels in July 2018.
“That’s insane,” Rep. Ted Lieu, California Democrat told The Washington Times Tuesday. “NATO has been a bedrock of what has kept the peace for many many decades. There is no reason for the U.S. to withdraw from NATO other than to help Russia.”
Rep. Rick Larsen, Washington state Democrat and a longtime member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Trump undermined the alliance just by bringing up the idea of leaving.
“NATO is the foundation of U.S.-European security and a massive strategic advantage for the United States. If the president is unable to comprehend these simple facts, it is incumbent on his advisers and Congressional leadership to educate him, before he makes an irreversible mistake,” he said in a statement.
However, the president and congressional Republicans are brushing off the report as old news and baseless.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican and a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would be “surprised” if the president took that course of action and hasn’t heard from anyone in the administration, even privately, that there is a withdrawal in the works.
“We’ve all heard the public comments in the past questioning it [NATO] and I disagree with him on that, but I’ve seen no serious indication that there’s any plan to do so,” he said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted Mr. Trump’s past statements where he affirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO is “very strong” and he believes NATO is “very important.”
“This story was meaningless when it was written six months ago and even more so now,” she told The Washington Times. “The president has made clear our allies must fulfill their commitments and share the burden for a strong defense.”
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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