Comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the future relationship between the US and NATO that hint at a break with the peace-keeping coalition received a thorough –– and critical –– examination on MS NOW early Tuesday morning.
In an interview with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera, the Donald Trump appointee criticized the NATO alliance for not backing the US war on Iran, and then stated, “I think it was very disappointing. You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over. But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies. It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe.”
He later added, “But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basic rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States. So all of that is going to have to be reexamined. All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.”
After the clip was shown on “Morning Joe,“ co-host Joe Scarborough quickly snapped, “That is such garbage.”
“Wait a minute, where is Marco Rubio?” co-host Mika Brzezinski interjected.
“That was Marco Rubio attacking NATO,” Scarborough continued. “And it's just a reminder, it's just a reminder that this is also the same guy –– I mean, Jonathan Lemire, this is the same guy that went to Hungary and praised [Viktor] Orban, a guy who is proudly anti-west. He's illiberal, he's an autocrat, he's running in an election for his political life. And Rubio goes there and puts –– I mean, this is a guy who is anti-communist anti-authoritarian for a good reason and now he's completely compromised everything that he believes on these issues.”
“Yeah,” Lemire replied. “In fact, new reporting this morning about Hungary's shedding further light on Hungary's close ties with Moscow.”
“And let's remember Secretary Rubio's comments there about NATO,” he added. “And I wrote last week, there's real fear in the alliance that President Trump is going to, if not abandon it entirely, but pull back U.S. troop presence in Europe, which of course, would be a gift to Russia."