NYT’s Lulu Garcia Navarro Repeatedly Tries and Fails to Get NATO Chief Rutte to Criticize Trump

EXCERPT:

GARCIA-NAVARRO: “I want to get to what exactly these numbers are and what they mean, but there are these two camps after this summit. You know, one said that you did what you did to sort of pacify President Trump’s ego and have a successful summit, which you did. And the other says that, while our president likes flattery, he ultimately sees it as weakness and it only appeases him for so long. I’m sure you’ve seen all this commentary afterwards.”

RUTTE: “I was 14 years prime minister of Netherlands, so I know about criticism, but I don’t care. In the end, I need to do my job. I have to keep the whole of NATO together, and the biggest ally is the United States. That biggest ally has paid, since Eisenhower, more than Europeans. And now, for the first time in 65 years, we will equalize between what the U.S. is paying and what the Europeans are paying. So, without Trump, that would not have happened.”

GARCIA-NAVARRO: “Did you mind the text message that you sent him being made public by him?”

RUTTE: “Not at all, because what was in the text message is exactly as I see it. One, that he did an excellent job on Iran with the bombing of nuclear facility. And as I said in that text message, you’re now flying into another big success, which is the NATO summit which will commit to 5% defense spending. And this is transformational.”