Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato

He set out to destroy this country. It was the first time in his life he ever succeeded.

Your country for sure, now he's going for the world too.

He didn't do it alone. Right wing christian nationalist and nazi groups have been planning this for a long time. Congress and the courts have 100% enabled Trump, and those in turn are powered by oligarchs that hate democracy and humans.

I'd argue it was destroyed by the millions of voters who put him there.  MAGA and Republicans who have stood idly by (I view them as two groups) has destroyed the US for generations. 

It's arguable that America was already declining, at least in terms of relative power, if not in absolute terms. But it was the kind of slow, manageable decline that could've happened over a period of decades, or even the entire 21st century. And there was always the possibility that something might change or some invention might happen that would ensure American superiority continued. At this point it seems like it would take something like literally inventing magic to get America on the right track. A decline that would've taken the rest of the century seems poised to accelerate to something more like the 2030s. It's really hard to overstate just how much America fucked itself by picking Trump for president even once, let alone for this second time.

An easy tell if Trump just learned a new word, phrase or concept; aside from using it nonstop he'll make a comment about that word or phrase along the lines of "a lot of people don't know x". When he says a lot of smart people don't know whatever his new favorite thing to say is or means, he actually means that he just found out about it himself.

You already are.

He diminished, laughed at, and mocked our soldiers that died the last time we stepped up to help. F*** him forever

Even Charlie Sheen has a better understanding of winning than he does. Trump is a weak little man. He is only empowered by the barnacles attached to his soft underbelly. Everyone is using him as their opportunity to get rich.

While it does seem likely, it's also just as dumb as any other justification that didn't involve starting a war. NATO is a defensive agreement, not a army at the members beck and call. They did exactly what they should have done and left the war monger to clean up the mess he made He's throwing a fit on the premise that a war started by a NATO means everyone has to help. Might as well get upset that cookie monster ate his cookies for all the logic that would provide for leaving On the plus side, the US leaving would stop one other screwy possible outcome. From my understanding any use of NATO needs a unanimous vote to invoke. Cheeto in would mean he could f*** up a massive defence alliance. Considering his support of Russia's war, it'd be a special kind of fucked up if he was able to limit or slow action when Russia decided to take a NATO country

Slick moves do not matter. The law does not matter. Power matters.

Yeah, that's America's job.

"Hunter Biden's laptop" is *still* out there...

Idk how people do it. Like how can people just turn this guy off? So many of my friends and co workers dont even think about politics or world affairs at all 

I truly feel like I am insane, or slowly going insane. How does NO ONE see what's happening????

From my interactions it's not so much blind but simply don't give enough of a f*** to get involved. It's like a 'Oh no this is terrible . Anyway ....'

I’m not American and still also losing my mind. The fact that people were absolutely raging over Hillary Clinton’s emails and now have no issue with this - it’s absolutely unbelievable.

Lucas was really trying to warn us, and I think he deserves more credit for that than he gets.

They work for ICE now

Trump is playing geopolitics like it’s a f****** game of HOI4

Make the change when the billionaires are in Davos and please hold onto them for us.

Doesn't seem like that's working too well in Russia, but I'm all for trying.

That class of people, in particular, is much more insulated from the pain than the average person, unfortunately.

If the EU closes the bases or denies use of them, the iran war is over. Everything is being managed through these points. Israel would be by itself overnight.

You do not know how many Americans I've spoken to online who genuinely 100% believe this It's either the most successful piece of Russian anti-NATO propaganda ever made or they just really are that dumb

American conservatives don't genuinely believe anything. Trump has proved you can get them to flip on every issue.

Well they’re about to get a wake up call

US force projection about to go down the drain.. So stupid..

Me too, but I doubt that’s on the cards. We have overly thick people here as well unfortunately, some of whom think we need a Trump style leader. Either way, a much closer military alliance with Europe, an EU military, needs to be considered and fast tracked.

Gosh, it sounds like not having a politically-independent judiciary is a really, really, really bad idea. Whodathunk? I don't live in the US but all I ever hear on the news is how our courts said "No" to things that the government wants to do. Not because someone voted in someone into the supreme courts or paid a large enough bribe, but because the judiciary only rules on what laws are on paper at the time of the alleged offence and whether they were broken or not. Showing any kind of political bias would see instant mistrials, appeals and judges being sanctioned, regardless of their political beliefs. You shouldn't BE voting people into those positions. It's a systemic failure inherent in the entire design that Trump walked right into and ripped open, but it was always there and the US never bothered to fix it. It was just always the assumption that the president would always be a "good guy", which is the dumbest assumption ever. The judiciary need to be independent or all those checks and measures are - as you can see - worthless. And the whole "pardon" thing... just shouldn't happen at all. Maybe when the perpetrator died a century ago. But not live and literally targeted specifically to allow their followers to act with impunity. Honestly, Trump going is just step 1. After that, the next party in power has to absolutely gut all that nonsense or nobody (internationally) will trust them still. Even if it's taken you all until now to learn it - any power you leave with the president is one that you intend to abuse yourself at some point. If Trump can pardon and evade charges, then so could Biden, and so on. The only way to stop that is for the ruling party to GUT all those rules and lay down the law clearly. So that a police officer feels absolutely no fear about walking up to the White House and slapping the president in handcuffs, because he has the right paperwork and the president isn't above the law. Same way that someone walked into a royal palace and arrested Prince Andrew. Without that, it's literally just a countdown until one side or another puts someone into power who chooses to do far worse than what Trump's done with the privileges given to that position.

Largest protests in US history just a couple days ago. Still very far away from actually changing anything until the mid terms.

It will also motivate former NATO allies to quit spending their defense budgets on American products and services.

The thing he really doesn't seem to get is the fundamental difference between defence and offence. NATO is a defensive treaty, it in no way binds any nation to get involved in wars started by members.

There's no way Europe will align with China over NATO. The pushback would be immense. All that's going to happen if the weakening US leave is NATO will get stronger because they have no choice, and allow smaller countries in too.

That was my understanding too, yes. In practice though, the presidency has arrogated war powers to itself for decades now, Trump is the commander in chief of the USA military and they will just follow his orders. If he orders them to do nothing when another NATO member is attacked, or orders them to invade or attack a NATO member (e.g. Greenland, Canada), then NATO is effectively dead before Congress can do anything, treaty or no. And as you say, it's not as if Congress is anything other than a rubber stamp run by a party that is itself a shell around a personality cult centered on the moron in charge.

> But since Congress is basically nonexistent, who f****** knows anymore This right here, if Trump stops participating in NATO, attacks a NATO ally like Greenland, or refuses to contribute to NATO then America de facto is no longer part of NATO, whatever the law says. That really lies at the heart of Trump's power, Trump does a lot of things that aren't legal, and the world just sort of lets him do it. Congress could force Trump to honor his agreements, but a Republican legislature would never do such a thing and a Republican Supreme Court is falling over itself to enable him.

Trump practically does anything he want and get away with it.

Republicans completely control congress. Blame them by name.

First, even if the US formally stays in NATO doesn't mean they really are committed to the defense of the alliance. Article 5 leaves a lot of wiggle room how members choose to engage. Since troop deployment is the prerogative of the executive, Trump might leave the Europeans hanging when it matters most. Secondly, the current administration doesn't act as they still believe in the separation of powers and constitutional legality. If they fully embrace unitary executive powers and there is no resistance, the decisions of the congress can be ignored without consequences.

Stop doing Trump’s work for him. He wants you to think that is the case, but in reality he has been sued so many times and has lost far more than he has won. And when he has lost he has complied with the ruling against him (“him” being his administration). The few exceptions have mainly been about immigration cases and most of those are because they lost so many lawyers that the ones remaining can’t keep up with court orders.

and Canada