Swamp Notes: Donald Trump takes on Nato (again)
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump picked plenty of fights with Nato during his time in office. Now, even as war rages in Ukraine, candidate Trump is back at it. But is his aggressive attitude toward Nato resonating with American voters? The FT’s Lauren Fedor and Alec Russell join this week’s Swamp Notes to discuss.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Nato needs to prepare for Trump’s unilateralism on steroids
Donald Trump says Russia can do what it wants to Nato allies who pay too little
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Swamp Notes is produced by Ethan Plotkin, Sonja Hutson, Lauren Fedor, and Marc Filippino. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.2 | Learn more at equinore. |
| 0:08.2 | As President Donald Trump called NATO unfair and obsolete, he even privately threatened to withdraw from the military alliance. |
| 0:19.0 | Now, fast forward to today, Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, |
| 0:24.2 | but this time there's a war in Europe. |
| 0:27.2 | So is his anti-NATO talk making US allies even more nervous? |
| 0:34.0 | This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the F.T. news briefing where we talk about all of the things |
| 0:38.9 | happening in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. I'm Mark Filipino and this week we look into how the election might impact |
| 0:45.8 | one of America's most important military alliances. Here with me today is Lauren Feeder, |
| 0:50.8 | she's the F.T.'s U.S. political correspondent and our Deputy Washington |
| 0:54.3 | Bureau Chief. Hi Lauren. Hi Mark. And I've also got with us |
| 0:57.2 | Alec Russell who serves as the F.T.'s foreign editor based in London. |
| 1:00.8 | Hi, Alec. Hello Mark. |
| 1:03.0 | So Donald Trump shared some, I guess, head-turning thoughts about NATO recently while he was |
| 1:09.4 | on the stump in South Carolina. |
| 1:10.9 | Let's take a listen. |
| 1:11.9 | One of the presidents of a big country stood up |
| 1:14.3 | said, well sir if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia will you protect us? |
| 1:20.4 | I said you didn't pay you're delinquent he said yes let's say that happened no I |
| 1:26.7 | would not protect you in fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they |
| 1:30.8 | want you got to pay you You got to pay your bills. |
| 1:33.0 | He hinted at it there, but what is Donald Trump's specific gripe with NATO? |
... |
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