Former Amb. Volker condemns Trump’s comments on not protecting NATO allies

Amna Nawaz:

European leaders have widely condemned those comments by Mr. Trump as reckless and dangerous.

And in a meeting focused on Ukraine today, Germany, France, and Poland express solidarity with one another, saying Europe must be ready to defend itself and its allies.

For more on the implications for the U.S. and the world, we turn now to Kurt Volker. He was U.S. ambassador to NATO during the George W. Bush administration and U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations during the Trump administration.

Ambassador Volker, welcome, sir. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kurt Volker, Former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine: Thank you for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

I want to begin with your reaction to those comments from former President Trump, saying he would encourage Russia to attack a NATO ally if they didn't pay their dues.

What did you think when you heard that?

Kurt Volker:

It's really an outrageous comment.

I mean, if you look at what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now, killings, bombing cities, civilians, civilian deaths, torture, rape as a weapon of war, you shouldn't wish this on anybody. And to say that we would encourage Putin to attack one of our allies is really too much.

Now, to be clear, what President Trump was doing, he was at a campaign rally, and he was bragging about having said this in the past. It wasn't a comment about the future. But even so, it is nothing to brag about. It is not the kind of leadership that America should be showing in the world.

And I would add that NATO was created to prevent war. NATO was created so that, by banding together and countries pledging to defend each other, we would dissuade anybody from attacking. And here we have a suggestion that someone should attack. That's exactly the opposite of what we should be trying to do. We don't want to see a war.

Amna Nawaz:

What do you believe that the U.S. relationship with NATO would look like under another Trump presidency?

Kurt Volker:

Well, it's hard to know, because President Trump says a lot of things.

Remember, during the first — President Trump's first term as president, he had a lot of warm words for Vladimir Putin, and, at the same time, he threw the Russian Consulate out of San Francisco. He provided arms for Ukraine. He rounded up and arrested and deported a lot of Russian intelligence officers.

So there are things that were done under the Trump administration that were sound policy, even though the rhetoric coming from the president sometimes is in the opposite direction.

Amna Nawaz:

Do you believe that he would try to pull the U.S. out of the alliance, as he said he would?

Kurt Volker:

I don't know.

The most recent thing he said, that I heard anyway, was that he would want NATO to be in kind of a dormant position. I don't know what that means. NATO is a defensive alliance and is, by definition, almost in a dormant position until attacked.

But the point is that, if attacked, there needs to be a certain and substantial response, so that it serves its role of deterring such an attack. And I think that he would be unlikely to try to pull the U.S. out of NATO. And even if he tried, I think it would be unlikely to be successful, because there would be substantial resistance within the Senate.

And it would certainly go to the courts to see whether he even had the authority to do that.

Amna Nawaz:

Ambassador, I want to put to you a statement from Trump senior adviser Jason Miller in response to some of the coverage around Mr. Trump's comments.

He said this in part. He said: "Democrat and media pearl-clutches seem to have forgotten that we had four years of peace and prosperity under President Trump, but Europe saw death and destruction under Obama/Biden and now more death and destruction under Biden. When you don't pay your defense spending, you can't be surprised that you get more war."

Ambassador, his claim is basically that, because President Trump publicly pressured people to increase their defense spending, the world was safer. What do you make of that argument?

Kurt Volker:

Well, there are several things that are wrapped up there and I think we have to pull them apart.

The first thing is that he's absolutely right. European allies do need to spend more on defense. Every U.S. president that I have worked with ever since Reagan has said European allies need to do more on defense. President Trump was more direct about it, more forceful about it, and allies did spend more on defense under his watch, but they have spent even more under President Biden, and it's not because of Biden.

It's because of Putin. Putin is — has launched a war in Europe the likes of which we have not seen since World War II, and this has caused European allies to genuinely fear for their security and to begin doing much more for defense than they had been. Poland is going to spend 4 percent of GDP on defense this year, 40 billion euros, Estonia also 4 percent.

These countries are ramping up their defense spending because of what they see happening in Europe, and that's why it's so important that the U.S., as the leader of NATO, be supporting and encouraging that and sending a message to any aggressor that there would be a collective response if attacked.

Amna Nawaz:

Before we go, I need to ask you, Ambassador, about the immigration piece of Mr. Trump's plans that my colleague Laura Barron-Lopez just reported on.

The idea that a U.S. president says he would deploy red state National Guard troops to go into blue states to remove undocumented migrants, what's your reaction to that? What would be the impact of something like that?

Kurt Volker:

Well, let's first say I don't think that this is something that's actually possible.

The governors and the National Guards of the states where this would take place would not want this. They would resist it. I can't see states going to put their militias up against each other. This would be a civil war. I really don't see this happening.

Amna Nawaz:

That is former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker joining us tonight.

Ambassador, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Kurt Volker:

Thank you.