Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a warning to the former president on Saturday Donald Trump If he wins a second term in the White House, he will try to withdraw the United States from NATO.
Speaking at a luncheon panel at the Munich Security Conference, Clinton’s representatives urged Trump to “take him literally and seriously” as he seeks re-election.
“We have a long fight ahead of us and the obvious thing about Donald Trump is to take him literally and seriously,” he said.
“He means what he says,” she continued. “People didn’t take him literally and seriously in 2016. Now he’s telling us what he’s going to do, and the people who want to wish for it, to erase it, are living in an alternate reality.”
Clinton, who unsuccessfully ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential election, also warned on Saturday that the former president would try to “take us out of NATO.”
“He will definitely do everything in his power to be an authoritarian leader. And he’s going to pull us out of NATO, even though Congress has passed a resolution saying he can’t do it without Congressional support, because he simply won’t fund our obligations.”
Trump has been criticized At a rally in South Carolina, he said he would allow Russia because of his recent comments about not defending NATO countries.do whatever the hell they want“If he attacks a NATO country that has delayed payments to the alliance.
Gen. Charles G. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the U.S “trust is at stake” With every alliance, including NATO, in response to Trump’s disparaging remarks.
“This year is the 75th anniversary of NATO,” Brown told NBC’s “Nightly News” host Lester Holt last week. “And I think we have a responsibility to protect those alliances. “US credibility is at stake in every one of our alliances, and US leadership is still needed, wanted and sought.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that he is “sure” that the United States will remain a “strong ally and loyal ally” regardless of the outcome of the presidential elections to be held in November.
“Because it is in the security interest of the United States to have a strong NATO. It has strong bipartisan support in the US Congress and for NATO. And the criticism has been mainly about NATO allies not spending enough money on NATO,” he said in an interview with Sky News last week.
President Joe Biden and his campaign condemned Trump’s comments about NATO. President Trump called NATO statements “dangerous” and “un-American”.
“The former president sent a dangerous and shocking, frankly un-American signal to the world. A few days ago, Trump invited Putin to invade some of our NATO allies,” said Biden. he said In statements made by the White House last week.
Trump views NATO as a “burden” and “doesn’t see the alliance that protects America and the world,” Biden added.
In a new ad released Friday, Biden’s re-election campaign criticized and criticized Trump’s ties to Putin.treasonous comments” about NATO.
“No president has ever said anything like that,” the narrator says in the ad shared with NBC News, referring to Trump’s comments about NATO.
“It’s a shame. It is weak. This is dangerous. It’s un-American,” the narrator added, doubling down on what Biden said last week.
Article 5 NATO treaty mandates that if a member state is attacked, other members will defend it. So far, the clause has only been activated after the 9/11 attacks, when the US asked other NATO countries for help in response.
Sean Nevin and Liam Woods contributed.