President Donald Trump issued a sharp warning and some entertaining insults directed the way of his RINO critics like former State Secretary Mike Pompeo and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when speaking on the afternoon of Friday, June 20. The comments came when he arrived at the Morristown, NJ, airport to head to his Trump National Golf Club resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.
As background, the comments came before the bomb and missile strikes on the Iranian nuclear weapon facilities, with the president having said that he would be deciding what to do within two weeks. His comments, however, were mostly unrelated to the Iran situation, and instead focused on comments that chickenhawks like Sen. Graham have made regarding the Russo-Ukraine War.
His comments began when, as he took a few questions after disembarking from Air Force One, a reporter asked him about the defense spending rates of the other countries in NATO, asking, “Is it still your expectation that NATO countries spend 5% of their GDP on defense spending?”
Responding, the president said that America has long been shouldering the burden of NATO and so they ought to raise their spending to make up for that long-term deficit, saying, “Well, I think they should do that. I don’t think we should, but I think that they should. We’ve been spending, we’ve been supporting NATO so long. In many cases, I believe paying almost 100% the cost. So I don’t think we shoud, but I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely.”
Continuing, he gave the example of Spain, noting that it has long refused to meet its defense spending responsibilities. He said, “What if a country like Spain decides not to? Well, NATO’s going to have to deal with Spain. Spain’s been a very low payer. They were always a very lower payer. They were either good negotiators or they weren’t doing the right thing.”
Concluding his answer, he sounded off on the Canadians not doing what is necessary to shoulder their portion of the burden, saying, “I mean, I think Spain has to pay what everybody else has to pay. Spain has been notorious for low pay. You know who else was a low payer, just about the lowest? A place called Canada. Because Canada said, why should we pay when the United States will protect us free? And what they write about that. Nice!”
At that point, another reporter chimed in and noted that Graham and Pompeo seem to be trying to torpedo his potential peace deal with Russia and Ukraine. That reporter asked, “You’ve been making progress towards a peace deal, but I don’t know if you noticed, but Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo were there on the ground in Ukraine, seemingly doing the opposite, trying to provoke the Ukrainians to keep fighting. What do you think of that?”
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Sounding off on those two, Trump warned them that they need to be “very careful” with what they say, adding that they’re landing themselves in a lot of trouble. He said, “Well, we’re going to see, and people have to be very careful with what they say. They’ve got to be careful with their mouth! Because their mouth can get them into a lot of trouble!”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: base image from the embedded video