Trump Rants Against NATO After Hannity Asked Him if the Russian Invasion of Ukraine is ‘Evil’
President Donald Trump joined Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night for a lengthy conversation that at times hit on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Hannity asked Trump if he would characterize as being “evil.”
“Mariupol is 95 percent wiped out. It’s all rubble today,” Hannity told Trump, referring to the embattled Ukrainian city where tens of thousands of people are reportedly dying as basic supplies remain cut off.
“I asked you the last time you were on whether you think that this is evil in our time. Do you believe this is evil in our time?” Hannity asked Trump, what many would consider a softball question.
Trump, however, did not respond directly to Hannity’s question and instead went on a long rant about NATO:
I think in 100 years people are gonna look back and they’re gonna say, how did we stand back and NATO stand back, which in many ways I’ve called the paper tiger.
Don’t forget, I rebuilt NATO because when I became president, the first thing I noticed when I went there to the first meeting, was that most of the countries were not paying, or were paying far less than they were supposed to. There were only eight out of 28 countries that were paid in full.
“The United States was not only one of them, we were making up the deficit in order to protect Europe. We were paying possibly 80% of NATO to protect them and then they take advantage of us yet on trade because on trade, they were every bit as bad as China,” continued Trump as scenes of war and dead bodies in Ukraine played across the screen.
“They treated us very badly on trade. We changed a lot of that around, but they were very tough on trade,” Trump continued, hammering the U.S.’s traditional European allies like Germany.
“I asked Angela Merkel how many Chevrolet’s are you selling this month in Munich or Berlin? And she looked at me, ‘well, probably none.’ I said you’re exactly right, none.”
Trump continued:
And yet we had the Mercedes Benz and the Volkswagen and all of them, we had all of the German companies and the same thing with farmers. Our farmers sell virtually nothing to Europe. You take a look at what we sell and yet we take their product. They treated us very badly in trade and we defended them and we really if you look at the real numbers, I bet you it’s close to 80%. I said you have to pay and if you don’t pay, we’re not going to defend you.
And as soon as I said that to everybody, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars and NATO became rich. It was down at a level that nobody, it would not have been sustainable. You wouldn’t be in a position now of giving them a rifle, let alone billions of dollars worth of equipment.
So we did, I had a big impact. And then and by the way, that was an impact against Russia. The pipeline was against Russia, the sanctions against Russia. Then, I listen to the fake news saying, ‘Oh, President Trump loves Russia and he didn’t do much about Russia.
Well, I stopped the pipeline, the biggest thing they’ve ever done. I created a powerful NATO because I got people to pay what they had to pay. They weren’t paying and nobody did sanctions like I did. So with all of that being said, when I look at what’s happening, it never would have happened under the Trump administration.
Trump then pivoted to his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I knew Putin very well almost as well as I know you Sean and I will tell you we talked about it,” he said. “We talked about it a lot. He did want Ukraine, but I said you’re not going into Ukraine.”
“He would never, ever have gone into Ukraine and President XI of China would never have even thought about going into Taiwan, not during the Trump administration and even the radical left crazy people. The radical left actually mostly agrees with that,” Trump concluded.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News
