Trump PRAISES Erdogan, says we don’t have moral authority to lecture him on tyrannical crackdown

The New York Times wrote about an interview they had with Trump on Monday, on the topic of foreign policy. In this interview Trump revealed some very startling positions on both Turkey and NATO.

First, Trump says that America does not have the moral authority to lecture Erdogan on his authoritarian crackdown on Turkey!

Donald J. Trump, on the eve of accepting the Republican nomination for president, said Wednesday that if he were elected, he would not pressure Turkey or other authoritarian allies about conducting purges of their political adversaries or cracking down on civil liberties. The United States, he said, has to “fix our own mess” before trying to alter the behavior of other nations.

“I don’t think we have a right to lecture,” Mr. Trump said in a wide-ranging interview in his suite in a downtown hotel here while keeping an eye on television broadcasts from the Republican National Convention. “Look at what is happening in our country,” he said. “How are we going to lecture when people are shooting policemen in cold blood?”

Mr. Trump’s discussion of the crisis in Turkey was telling, because it unfolded at a moment in which he could plainly imagine himself in the White House, handling an uprising that could threaten a crucial ally in the Middle East. The United States has a major air base at Incirlik in Turkey, where it carries out attacks on the Islamic State and keeps a force of drones and about 50 nuclear weapons.

Mr. Trump had nothing but praise for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s increasingly authoritarian but democratically elected leader. “I give great credit to him for being able to turn that around,” Mr. Trump said of the coup attempt on Friday night. “Some people say that it was staged, you know that,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Asked if Mr. Erdogan was exploiting the coup attempt to purge his political enemies, Mr. Trump did not call for the Turkish leader to observe the rule of law, or Western standards of justice. “When the world sees how bad the United States is and we start talking about civil liberties, I don’t think we are a very good messenger,” he said.

That is unbelievable to me that he would say such things. He sounds just like Obama, if not worse!

This shows what Trump really believes about America if he’s willing to argue that America is not good enough to lecture a crushing authoritarian like Erdogan.

 
But that’s not all. He also revealed he would only come to the aid of NATO countries if they had paid their dues!

During a 45-minute conversation, he explicitly raised new questions about his commitment to automatically defend NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance. Mr. Trump re-emphasized the hard-line nationalist approach that has marked his improbable candidacy, describing how he would force allies to shoulder defense costs that the United States has borne for decades, cancel longstanding treaties he views as unfavorable, and redefine what it means to be a partner of the United States.

He even called into question whether, as president, he would automatically extend the security guarantees that give the 28 members of NATO the assurance that the full force of the United States military has their back.

For example, asked about Russia’s threatening activities that have unnerved the small Baltic States that are the most recent entrants into NATO, Mr. Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us.”

He added, “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.”

 
Even the head of NATO came out and criticized Trump over this:

The head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Thursday criticized Donald Trump for saying the U.S. should set conditions for helping NATO allies.

“Solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told BuzzFeed on Thursday.

“This is good for European security and this is good for U.S. security. We defend one another. Two world wars have shown that peace in Europe is also important for the security of the United States.”

Ross Douthat has some meaningful thoughts on this as well:

Before these comments, I was considering voting for Trump as I’ve noted in the past. But after these comments, I’m not sure I can even do that now. I may have to write in a candidate for president, because this is just nuts.


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