''Donald Trump Discovers NATO Is Not His Personal Group Chat''
Donald Trump arrived at the NATO summit in Ankara deeply wounded to discover that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not, in fact, his personal customer service department for international mayhem.
Trump complained that NATO had failed to back his war on Iran, which he found terribly unfair because America has spent “trillions” protecting Europe, Canada, and “et cetera.” In Trump geography, “et cetera” may include Greenland, Venezuela, the moon, and any country he saw on television during breakfast.
The problem, as usual, is that Trump appears to think alliances work like Mar-a-Lago security. He points, everyone salutes, and someone else pays the invoice. But NATO is a defensive alliance, not a rewards program for regime change. Article 5 says members come to your aid if you are attacked. It does not say, “Please join every war started by a man who thinks diplomacy means shouting near flags.”
Then came Greenland, because every Trump foreign policy speech eventually becomes a Zillow listing. He wants Greenland not because Denmark has mistreated it, but because it exists, has strategic value, and has not yet been gold-plated. He warned of Chinese ships and Russian ships, then explained that “the ships is not going to happen,” a sentence future historians may classify as imperial gibberish with maritime garnish.
The larger issue is simple. Trump does not seem to want allies. He wants tenants. He does not want a rules-based international order. He wants a landlord-based order, where powerful countries roam the planet saying, “Nice sovereignty you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.”
NATO was built to deter aggression and defend democracy. Trump seems determined to find out whether the free world can survive being managed by a man who treats global security like a failed casino contract.
Well said, Mr. Corthell. I salute your salvo of precise strikes laced with satisfying bon mots. The House and Senate Republicans and the maga members of SCOTUS all deserve a special place in hell for enabling Trump's demolition campaign against democracy and the Constitution.
In his later joint press conference with Zelenskyy, Trump claimed that the 100+ projectiles that had been intercepted by the US carrier Abraham Lincoln had come from "the Islamic Republic of Japan".
What a pathetic idiot Trump is. Pathetic idiots are not uncommon, but to hear Heather C R read his words is to wonder once again what happened to those millions of adult human beings who hear him speak and then adoringly cheer him on. The result of Amusing Ourselves to Death, as Neil Postman put it in is 80s book?
Threatening rhetoric is the problem with this jerk. It is worth noting that Trump nor his father, nor his grandfather EVER served in the military to defend this or any European country. So why do we allow this big mouth go on about defense of our Country. Most of us have relatives in the military past and present! Not this guy! He likes to claim faux valor, he even praises our enemies! He steals from the tax payers, he is a criminal. We support NATO. We support Canada. We support Mexico. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because we are smart enough to know that our neighbors, our NATO allies are OUR defensive lines. Trump is corrupting that, and there is plenty to suggest , this is actually a knee to Putin. Trust a fraud? Trust an adjudicated "rapist". trust the most corrupt , insider trading scammer? At the risk of you and your family,,, far into the future!
The Maginot Line. Hypersonic multi warhead nuclear missiles , already crowned. Tech evolves faster than production. You bet I forget the Golden Dome. The guy can fuck up a soup sandwich, i.e. reflecting pool!
The 2023 NDAA provision is a real check, requiring two-thirds of the Senate or a separate act of Congress before any president can pull the country out of NATO. That threshold protects the treaty's legal status. It does nothing to protect the confidence that gives the treaty its force, since an ally's trust that others will actually show up under Article 5 can erode over years of public equivocation without a single vote ever being called.
Applebaum's point about a treaty rendered worthless applies here, since the legal structure can hold while the thing it was built to guarantee stops existing. Congress addressed formal withdrawal and left the informal signaling that allies rely on to executive discretion alone. The vote record worth watching next is not the 2023 NDAA tally but whichever appropriations and force-posture decisions follow.
Trump doesn't have to formally withdraw the US from NATO. He can manage this by major troop and materiel withdrawals from Europe, by desultory attendance at NATO summits and by refusing to share intelligence with those whom he sees as relcacitrant allies, like Spain.
The US after all was until recently still a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change even though it had formally withdrawn from the Paris Accords. Officials were attending UNFCC meetings even as the Trump administration actively pursued policies which denied the reality of global warming and hindered the transition to renewable energy in the US.
Trump has found ways to just get around congressional restrictions, as we've seen during the war with Iran. If he doesn't like it, he just won't do it and there's very little anyone can do about it. I mean, he is still refusing to pay E. Jean Carroll the $5m he owes her from the first defamation case in spite of a court order to do so immediately.
I thank whatever gods may be that this was enacted. I have been terrified that felon 47 would simply pull the plug on NATO; he must have been in a good mood today! He might have attempted a version of his brand of illegal executive orders which would have been catastrophic. We dodged a bullet for the world 🌎 today! Tomorrow the sun rises again and this glitch in his foul play will likely pass on to a new focus. I hear he wants Spain? 🤷♀️
NATO countries are figuring out their own ways. They realize that as long as Trump, Miller, and his cronies are in power, they will need to go on their own, and they have begun doing just that.
They are committing more resources to their military and even finding their own alternative power sources. Many have pulled away from using Microsoft and built their own technological infrastructure; given Trump's remarks, NATO is working to thumb its nose at the US.
Even Trump's allies in Congress are beginning to question the war that began with Iran, which the sensible countries of NATO have avoided. Americans don't like prolonged wars.
No one benefits more than Putin and Xi, with Trump/MAGA! Trump uses the excuse that NATO is not doing it's share. Have the rich in America done their share? Trump's tax records are a glaring revelation of that point! Years of tax free income, while flying around in a full size commercial personal jet. Want to bet he writes that expense off as a business expense? Zero income tax and bone spurs. How is that for doing your fair share! Trump towers are glass houses !
I know it is important for a historian to quote when able but the rambling incoherent flight of speech / ideas is more about pathology than leader discourse. Thanks for tackling these times and Trump’s abominable leadership
There is a space taken up before one that has the mass of a person. Many such spaces take up our thoughts. The person commanding that space comes not to exist. I think of that person gone and the vision of them vanishes. Never again will they be almost as if they never had been. Only my memory remains. At some point going forward Donald Trump will take his place in vanishing at which point I am going to close the door on that memory. We all vanish. I sometimes look at a crowd of people in a photograph taken more than a hundred years ago. While the crowd has long vanished the photo preserves that day. While every time period has its own history, it also has its own finiteness. Trump will indeed have his historical crumb, which even the sparrows will disdain.
@patcoleostrich - Yes, DJBump will go away. Soon. However, his impact(s), his legacy may last a bit longer than you are expecting. He will vanish. What he has done will not.
Also, keep this in mind... The Don is mostly a narcissistic puppet, and when he stops dancing, the puppeteers will not simply vanish.
Sadly, this Trumpian era is I think likely to forever change the way the US is viewed by its allies. As one commentator has argued (compellingly in my view) Trump is a genuine Hegelian world-historical figure and after him there can be no return to the global system of geopolitics that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War.
In particular, his defiant opposition to global efforts to respond to the existential risks of global warming will prove especially destructive. His suspension of USAID and withdrawal of the US from the WHO willl lead to the unnecessary deaths of millions of people, Americans included. He has literally changed the world and his baleful influence will I fear long outlast him.
How long will the Republicans allow a babbling idiot to broadcast his stupendous ignorance and infantile sense of entitlement in their name? Is it possible for hypocrisy to get any more intense? Or embarrassment?
Does that baboon EVER just make sense? He gets attention though doesn't he? That's all he cares about, that he is in the news every minute of the f-ing day!!! 86 47!!!!!!!!!!!
''Donald Trump Discovers NATO Is Not His Personal Group Chat''
Donald Trump arrived at the NATO summit in Ankara deeply wounded to discover that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not, in fact, his personal customer service department for international mayhem.
Trump complained that NATO had failed to back his war on Iran, which he found terribly unfair because America has spent “trillions” protecting Europe, Canada, and “et cetera.” In Trump geography, “et cetera” may include Greenland, Venezuela, the moon, and any country he saw on television during breakfast.
The problem, as usual, is that Trump appears to think alliances work like Mar-a-Lago security. He points, everyone salutes, and someone else pays the invoice. But NATO is a defensive alliance, not a rewards program for regime change. Article 5 says members come to your aid if you are attacked. It does not say, “Please join every war started by a man who thinks diplomacy means shouting near flags.”
Then came Greenland, because every Trump foreign policy speech eventually becomes a Zillow listing. He wants Greenland not because Denmark has mistreated it, but because it exists, has strategic value, and has not yet been gold-plated. He warned of Chinese ships and Russian ships, then explained that “the ships is not going to happen,” a sentence future historians may classify as imperial gibberish with maritime garnish.
The larger issue is simple. Trump does not seem to want allies. He wants tenants. He does not want a rules-based international order. He wants a landlord-based order, where powerful countries roam the planet saying, “Nice sovereignty you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.”
NATO was built to deter aggression and defend democracy. Trump seems determined to find out whether the free world can survive being managed by a man who treats global security like a failed casino contract.
How can I “like” your comment with extra emphasis? Substack does not give me that option.
Well said, Mr. Corthell. I salute your salvo of precise strikes laced with satisfying bon mots. The House and Senate Republicans and the maga members of SCOTUS all deserve a special place in hell for enabling Trump's demolition campaign against democracy and the Constitution.
In his later joint press conference with Zelenskyy, Trump claimed that the 100+ projectiles that had been intercepted by the US carrier Abraham Lincoln had come from "the Islamic Republic of Japan".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7t2edbwAlQ
Whatever next?
https://youtube.com/shorts/fn10wpqoFtE?is=sfjwt2qVt5fgzLc4
Excellent, Michael Corthell
Thank you, Michael❣️
Trump = 🤮 🤮 🤮
What an illiterate moron tRUMP is. He is an embarrassment to America.
What a pathetic idiot Trump is. Pathetic idiots are not uncommon, but to hear Heather C R read his words is to wonder once again what happened to those millions of adult human beings who hear him speak and then adoringly cheer him on. The result of Amusing Ourselves to Death, as Neil Postman put it in is 80s book?
Exactly. They do not want a leader. they want to be entertained with his BS.
Threatening rhetoric is the problem with this jerk. It is worth noting that Trump nor his father, nor his grandfather EVER served in the military to defend this or any European country. So why do we allow this big mouth go on about defense of our Country. Most of us have relatives in the military past and present! Not this guy! He likes to claim faux valor, he even praises our enemies! He steals from the tax payers, he is a criminal. We support NATO. We support Canada. We support Mexico. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because we are smart enough to know that our neighbors, our NATO allies are OUR defensive lines. Trump is corrupting that, and there is plenty to suggest , this is actually a knee to Putin. Trust a fraud? Trust an adjudicated "rapist". trust the most corrupt , insider trading scammer? At the risk of you and your family,,, far into the future!
You're forgetting about the Golden Dome, his most stupendous vanity project.
https://harvardsciencereview.org/2026/01/22/trumps-golden-dome-its-not-what-you-think/
The Maginot Line. Hypersonic multi warhead nuclear missiles , already crowned. Tech evolves faster than production. You bet I forget the Golden Dome. The guy can fuck up a soup sandwich, i.e. reflecting pool!
What a babbling, blathering, inchoerent, demented old gasbag is the Loser in Chief!
As a citizen of the United States, I am embarrassed.
The 2023 NDAA provision is a real check, requiring two-thirds of the Senate or a separate act of Congress before any president can pull the country out of NATO. That threshold protects the treaty's legal status. It does nothing to protect the confidence that gives the treaty its force, since an ally's trust that others will actually show up under Article 5 can erode over years of public equivocation without a single vote ever being called.
Applebaum's point about a treaty rendered worthless applies here, since the legal structure can hold while the thing it was built to guarantee stops existing. Congress addressed formal withdrawal and left the informal signaling that allies rely on to executive discretion alone. The vote record worth watching next is not the 2023 NDAA tally but whichever appropriations and force-posture decisions follow.
Trump doesn't have to formally withdraw the US from NATO. He can manage this by major troop and materiel withdrawals from Europe, by desultory attendance at NATO summits and by refusing to share intelligence with those whom he sees as relcacitrant allies, like Spain.
The US after all was until recently still a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change even though it had formally withdrawn from the Paris Accords. Officials were attending UNFCC meetings even as the Trump administration actively pursued policies which denied the reality of global warming and hindered the transition to renewable energy in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/07/trump-international-groups-un
Trump has found ways to just get around congressional restrictions, as we've seen during the war with Iran. If he doesn't like it, he just won't do it and there's very little anyone can do about it. I mean, he is still refusing to pay E. Jean Carroll the $5m he owes her from the first defamation case in spite of a court order to do so immediately.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/08/politics/judge-orders-the-release-of-trumps-usd5-mil-to-e-jean-carroll
I thank whatever gods may be that this was enacted. I have been terrified that felon 47 would simply pull the plug on NATO; he must have been in a good mood today! He might have attempted a version of his brand of illegal executive orders which would have been catastrophic. We dodged a bullet for the world 🌎 today! Tomorrow the sun rises again and this glitch in his foul play will likely pass on to a new focus. I hear he wants Spain? 🤷♀️
NATO countries are figuring out their own ways. They realize that as long as Trump, Miller, and his cronies are in power, they will need to go on their own, and they have begun doing just that.
They are committing more resources to their military and even finding their own alternative power sources. Many have pulled away from using Microsoft and built their own technological infrastructure; given Trump's remarks, NATO is working to thumb its nose at the US.
Even Trump's allies in Congress are beginning to question the war that began with Iran, which the sensible countries of NATO have avoided. Americans don't like prolonged wars.
No one benefits more than Putin and Xi, with Trump/MAGA! Trump uses the excuse that NATO is not doing it's share. Have the rich in America done their share? Trump's tax records are a glaring revelation of that point! Years of tax free income, while flying around in a full size commercial personal jet. Want to bet he writes that expense off as a business expense? Zero income tax and bone spurs. How is that for doing your fair share! Trump towers are glass houses !
Thanks, Heather. Again, the irony of Trump deriding our NATO allies for getting a “free ride” as he makes a royal entrance in his own.
Free Ride
NATO is worthless, America’s strong
The price so outrageous—for far too long
You’ve sat on your asses, while we foot the bill
To save you from Russia, the same old song
No more, from US a free ride (free ride)
No more will we stand by your side
No more, from US a free ride!
We’ve got to have Greenland, you bailed on Iran
You cowards in Britain, in Spain and in France
And Giorgia Meloni, please have her restrained
You see how she’s leering at what’s in my pants
No more, from US a free ride (free ride)
No more will we stand by your side
No more, from US a free ride!
Yeah, yeah, no more
Free ride!
Dale K. Nichols
https://nevertrumppoetry.substack.com/
I know it is important for a historian to quote when able but the rambling incoherent flight of speech / ideas is more about pathology than leader discourse. Thanks for tackling these times and Trump’s abominable leadership
As a subscriber and a member of Threads you must know of the call for you to run in Maine. Do you have any thoughts for your members?
There is a space taken up before one that has the mass of a person. Many such spaces take up our thoughts. The person commanding that space comes not to exist. I think of that person gone and the vision of them vanishes. Never again will they be almost as if they never had been. Only my memory remains. At some point going forward Donald Trump will take his place in vanishing at which point I am going to close the door on that memory. We all vanish. I sometimes look at a crowd of people in a photograph taken more than a hundred years ago. While the crowd has long vanished the photo preserves that day. While every time period has its own history, it also has its own finiteness. Trump will indeed have his historical crumb, which even the sparrows will disdain.
@patcoleostrich - Yes, DJBump will go away. Soon. However, his impact(s), his legacy may last a bit longer than you are expecting. He will vanish. What he has done will not.
Also, keep this in mind... The Don is mostly a narcissistic puppet, and when he stops dancing, the puppeteers will not simply vanish.
Sadly, this Trumpian era is I think likely to forever change the way the US is viewed by its allies. As one commentator has argued (compellingly in my view) Trump is a genuine Hegelian world-historical figure and after him there can be no return to the global system of geopolitics that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War.
https://www.mikelofgren.net/how-trump-fits-the-great-man-theory-of-history-sort-of/
In particular, his defiant opposition to global efforts to respond to the existential risks of global warming will prove especially destructive. His suspension of USAID and withdrawal of the US from the WHO willl lead to the unnecessary deaths of millions of people, Americans included. He has literally changed the world and his baleful influence will I fear long outlast him.
no end.
How long will the Republicans allow a babbling idiot to broadcast his stupendous ignorance and infantile sense of entitlement in their name? Is it possible for hypocrisy to get any more intense? Or embarrassment?
Does that baboon EVER just make sense? He gets attention though doesn't he? That's all he cares about, that he is in the news every minute of the f-ing day!!! 86 47!!!!!!!!!!!
Heather who, should I support financially. To the Democrats really need more money this far along in the process.