From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, February 12th.

This week begins in national politics with some things you probably have heard about regarding President Biden,

and at least one thing you may not have heard about regarding former President Trump.

At a campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump actually encouraged Russia to attack

NATO nations, our NATO allies, even France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. What? The context was Trump's

insistence that NATO countries meet the goal in the NATO obligation to obligation agreement

to spend 2% of their annual budgets on defense. That's a legitimate issue. Countries not meeting it

include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. But Trump said if they don't increase

the defense spending to that threshold, the U.S. would not help defend them if Russia attacks.

And the even more astonishing part, the part that would have made much more news if we

weren't becoming numb to Trump's making common cause with authoritarian who support him,

was when he actually encouraged.

He used the word encourage any country, presumably Russia, you'll hear the context, to do so with no U.S.

response. Here it is. They asked me that question. One of the presidents of a big country

stood up, said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?

I said, you didn't pay? You're delinquent? He said, yes, let's say that

happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the

hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. Yeah, it was actually that. It was

actually that start. Trump encouraging Russia, actually by name,

not even by implication, to attack on NATO allies if they're not spending a certain amount of money

on defense, Trump at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday. As for Biden, he continues

to try to limit fallout from the classified document special counsel report that questioned his mental acuity and keep the focus on his accomplishments in office.

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