Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Wednesday that NATO’s mission as a check on Russia “will go forward.” Just days earlier, President-elect Donald Trump redoubled his criticism of the organization as “obsolete.”
“I think what the President-elect said in the course of the campaign is that NATO has a role, but we need to do two things about NATO that are very important,” Pence said in an interview on “MTP Daily.”
He said that the United States must ask member nations to “live up to their minimum commitment in security” and that NATO should “refocus its mission” on combating terrorism.
“Does that mean you don’t see NATO as a tool to check Russia anymore?” Chuck Todd interrupted.
“It is that historic alliance between east and west,” Pence said. “That balance and that should always—”
“You want to see that?” Todd pressed.
“Well, look, the president-elect has made it clear that that’s an alliance that should live up to its promises,” Pence replied. “It’s an alliance that should expand to include other security threats, but that historic mission of NATO will go forward, I’m confident.”
On the campaign trail, Trump hesitated to commit to a defense of Baltic states in the case of Russian aggression, saying that it would depend on whether or not those NATO allies had “fulfilled their obligations” to the United States. He later clarified that he meant financial obligations.
“I want them to pay,” Trump said.
In an interview on Sunday, Trump reiterated his skepticism, calling NATO “obsolete.”
“It’s obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” he said. “Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should.”
Watch Pence’s comments below:
Yep, it’s the famous old "insane cop, sleazy cop "game.
But not coordinated … f’ing scary —
Bad cop, worse cop?
I think I’m safer in the " wait till ya see it " category … –
We keep hearing the complaint that other nations aren’t paying their “fair share”, but do we actually know if that is true? And, does that include things like covering the expenses for our bases in European nations? Some amount of our operational costs are covered, and should be considered part of the payment. It would be really good if the media tracked this information down and checked this fact, because I have a feeling it’s total BS on the part of the Trump people.