There’s been widespread attention on Donald Trump’s asserting that he would refuse to defend NATO allies he considers “delinquent” and even saying he might encourage Russia to attack them. A lot of the conversations I’ve heard have focused on the policy implications — on what it would mean for America to abandon its treaty obligations and treat NATO as a protection racket.
These implications are important and alarming. But if you ask me, we haven’t given enough attention to exactly what Trump said — and what it says about his grasp on reality.
Honestly, I’d love to spend this campaign talking only about policy; wonkery is my happy place. But since enough of the body politic seems to have decided to make this election season an exercise in amateur long-distance geriatric diagnosis, focusing on President Biden’s age and appearance rather than his record, let’s take a closer look at his opponent.
For Trump often gives the impression of living in his own reality. I’m not talking about the fact that he lies a lot, although he does. My point, rather, is that he often seems unable to tell the difference between self-aggrandizing fantasies and things that actually happened.
So here’s how Trump’s repudiation of NATO went down: He didn’t make a straightforward case, which would have been arguable, that we’re spending too much on defense while our allies are spending too little. Instead, he told a story: “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.’”
To use the language of intelligence assessments, it’s highly unlikely that this conversation or anything like it actually happened.
But as CNN’s Daniel Dale has noted, Trump is very fond of telling stories about big, strong men with tears in their eyes coming up and calling him “sir.” There’s almost never any corroborating evidence, and it’s a good bet that very few of these stories are accounts of actual conversations.
It is similarly highly unlikely that the likes of, let’s say, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel ever addressed Trump as “sir.” It’s also highly unlikely that any NATO leaders asked what would happen if their countries didn’t “pay.” European officials know, even if Trump doesn’t, that NATO is an alliance, not a club that collects dues from its members.
By the way, while European nations have probably been spending too little on their own defense, many have risen to the challenge of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Notably, Lithuania — which Trump singled out as fair game for Putin — has spent six times as much on Ukraine aid, measured as a share of G.D.P., as the United States has.
So what’s going on here? Either Trump is telling an especially pointless lie or he’s confused about past events.
It wouldn’t be the first time. As I said, while we don’t know for sure that Trump’s many “sir” stories are figments of his imagination, we do know that, contrary to his claims, one source said there’s no way that police officers and court employees were “crying” and apologizing to Trump at his Manhattan court arraignment last spring.
Let’s be clear what’s at stake here. Never mind the political analysis, the talk about public perceptions and how they may affect the 2024 horse race. What we should be focusing on is how the candidates’ mental competence might affect their decision making.
It’s notable that despite all the frenzy about Biden’s age, I haven’t seen many suggestions that he’s made bad decisions because his judgment is impaired; it’s almost all speculation about the future. Yes, he’s made mistakes, although the two decisions that got the most criticism — withdrawing from Afghanistan and going big on spending — are actually looking justifiable in retrospect.
But these mistakes, if they were mistakes, were the kind any president, no matter how young and vigorous, could have made.
On the other hand, consider how Trump reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans have been remarkably successful at pretending that the Trump administration ended before the pandemic came to dominate the scene. But it didn’t; Covid killed more than 77,000 Americans in December 2020, Trump’s last full month in office.
And as the pandemic spread, Trump responded, as The Washington Post put it, with “denial, mismanagement and magical thinking.” Basically, he was unwilling to acknowledge an inconvenient reality and continually minimized the danger while amplifying quack remedies. Remember all the times he said Covid would disappear? Remember the “disinfectant” press briefing? Remember hydroxychloroquine?
Oh, and in case you’ve forgotten, Trump still refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election.
Unlike Biden’s missteps, whatever you may think they have been, Trump’s mishandling of Covid and election denial were uniquely Trumpian — the behavior of a man who doesn’t like to accept reality when it isn’t what he wants it to be.
And does anyone think he’s improved on that front over the past three years?
