February 28, 2022 ☼ trump ☼ nato ☼ ukraine ☼ putin ☼ lies
Source: The Washington Post (Link)
“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars. There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly. Also, it was me that got Ukraine the very effective antitank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets. Let History so note!”
— Former president Donald Trump, in a statement, Feb. 28
Only days ago, Trump lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin as “very savvy” for making a “genius” move by declaring two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states and dispatching Russian armed forces to seize them. “Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said Feb. 22 on the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton” show, referring to the troops as “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen.”
Of course, it turns out Putin launched an invasion of all of Ukraine. With Ukraine putting up a gallant fight and the United States and its allies imposing harsh sanctions on Russia, Trump on Monday issued a defensive statement repeating falsehoods he regularly made during his presidency.
With Trump, it’s hard to know if he’s willfully ignorant or if he has simply swallowed his own spin. Far from being a savior of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he frequently sought to undermine it. Here’s a quick guide to what’s wrong or misleading in his statement.
Lying, gaslighting, fluffing.