Donald Trump Jr. has suggested sending his father to Europe to meet with NATO leaders to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine instead of President Joe Biden.
The former president's eldest son claimed that having Biden speak to European leaders at a NATO summit in Brussels on March 24 would "embolden our enemies further."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed on Tuesday that Biden will meet face-to-face with his European counterparts in the Belgium capital. He will also attend a scheduled European Council summit to discuss imposing further sanctions against Russia and provide further humanitarian support to those affected by the conflict, which is entering its third week.
"Sending Biden to Europe for 'High Stakes' NATO talks will only embolden our enemies further," Trump Jr. tweeted.
"If you want to get something done right send Trump."
Trump Jr.'s tweet arrived after his father appeared to attempt to revise history regarding his relationship with NATO.
Before he entered office, Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the coalition while president if more countries didn't meet the minimum spending requirements of 2 percent of GDP.
In 2019, The New York Times reported that Trump discussed pulling the U.S. out of NATO, a move that would have emboldened Russia and Vladimir Putin. According to the report, Trump considered the military alliance a financial drain and was unhappy with the other countries that failed to meet the spending targets he had set.
Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, told The Times pulling out of the Western alliance, which has been a deterrent of Russian aggression since the fall of the Soviet Union, would be "a geopolitical mistake of epic proportions."
"Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO—let alone actually doing so—would be the gift of the century for Putin," Stavridis said.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump attempted to claim credit for the continuation of the alliance and the military support being given to the country being attacked by Russia.
"I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars," Trump said in a February 28 statement.
"Also, it was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets."
It was noted at the time that Trump threatened to withhold weapons from Ukraine in a 2019 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky where he was accused of attempting to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, ahead of ahead of the 2020 election, which lead to Trump's first impeachment.
Recently, Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton told The Washington Post that he believed the former president would have pulled the U.S. out of NATO had he won reelection in 2020, and that Putin was "waiting" for him to do that.
In another interview with SiriusXM's Julie Mason, Bolton added that the U.S. would be in "a lot worse shape" had Trump followed through with his threats to withdraw from NATO.
"I think one of the reasons that Putin did not move during Trump's term in office was [that] he saw the president's hostility with NATO...and to Putin's mind, it's a binary proposition: A weaker NATO is stronger Russia," Bolton said.
"So I think Putin saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him and thought, maybe in a second term, Trump would make good on his desire to get out of NATO, and then it would just ease Putin's path just that much more."
In a tweet ahead of the "extraordinary" summit on March 24, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: "We will address Russia's invasion of Ukraine, our strong support for Ukraine, and further strengthening NATO's deterrence & defense.
"At this critical time, North America & Europe must continue to stand together."
The White House has been contacted for comment.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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