It's the Brian Laris Show on WNYC.

Good morning, everyone. Happy Monday. Happy Lunar New Year. For those of you who celebrate the Lunar New Year, later in the hour, we'll talk to the first Chinese American Congress, a Congress member, council member,

ever from Brooklyn in the New York City Council. We'll talk about Lunar New Year and a lot of New York

City policy things. But 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 and 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 stark. 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

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