U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) who has endorsed Donald Trump for President in 2024, was asked to comment on Trump’s provocative quote during a speech to a MAGA crowd when the former President said that he would “encourage” Russia to invade any NATO country that was not paid in full on its dues, emphasizing his unequivocal stance by saying he would tell Russia “do whatever the hell they want.”
“Are you comfortable with [Trump] suggesting,” Rubio is asked in the segment below, in which the video of Trump’s quote is played for him, “that he wouldn’t defend NATO countries and actually that he would invite Putin and Russia to invade them?”
Without blinking, Rubio answers “Well, that’s not what happened and that’s not how I view that statement.” Rubio, accounting for what he calls the misinterpretation of Trump’s assertion, then opts to translate if for people who, Rubio says, don’t understand that Trump is actually saying something different from what he actually said.
The Rubio translation goes like this: “What he’s basically saying is — if you see the comments — he’s saying that NATO was broke or busted until he took over because people weren’t paying their dues. And then he told the story about how he used leverage to get people to step up to the plate and become more active in NATO.”
🚨Marco Rubio’s response to Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to attack NATO:
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) February 11, 2024
"Well, that's not what happened … he was telling a story … he doesn't talk like a traditional politician … I have zero concern.” @atrupar pic.twitter.com/1RKCE9dbJo
“I have zero concerns,” Rubio says, working to assuage and assure Americans by saying that “by the way, Donald Trump was President and he didn’t pull us out of NATO.” Critics say Trump didn’t do a lot of things in his term as President that he has vowed to do if he is granted a second term.
Even Trump bashers agree that he is “telling a story,” as Bill Kristol said in his tweet about the speech. But Kristol and other critics presumably take Trump at his word when he conjures dangerous scenarios that Rubio excuses as merely being part of Trump’s “idiosyncratic style of expression.”
In addition to the reprehensible sentiment Trump expresses here, it may be worth pointing out no “president of a big country” ever said any such thing to him. https://t.co/sqy3B93Bs4
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) February 11, 2024