NATO Chief Refuses to Answer When Asked if He Was Concerned by Trump’s Threat ‘to Kill the Entire Iranian Civilization’: ‘I’m Not Commenting’

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte refused to answer on Wednesday when CNN host Jake Tapper asked whether he was concerned by President Donald Trump’s threat to “kill the entire Iranian civilization.”

“When President Trump threatened to kill the entire Iranian civilization, did that bother you at all as a diplomat?” asked Tapper during an interview on The Lead with NATO’s secretary general.

Rutte replied, “You know, what I always say when it comes to what leaders are saying, I’m not commenting on everything. What I want you to know is that I support the president and I know large parts of Europe do when it comes to taking out the capacity of Iran to export chaos to the region, to Europe, to the whole world.”

“They [Iran] are one of the main enablers of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, we all know this, with the drones. It’s an existential threat to Israel if they would get their hands on nuclear capability,” he continued. “It is great to try to negotiate, but we also always knew that with North Korea, it took too long, and then North Korea had its hands on a nuclear, and then you cannot negotiate any longer and they have that power.”

Rutte appeared on CNN after meeting with Trump for a private conversation.

Asked by Tapper whether the president indicated he “was going to try to withdraw from NATO, or at the very least not support NATO as much as other presidents have,” Rutte answered that there was “clearly” a “disappointment” from Trump towards the alliance.

Pressed exactly how “worried” he was on a scale of one to 10, Rutte replied, “Well, I’m not going to get into that answering that question.”

Watch above via CNN.

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