Trump Blindsided His Own National Security Team With NATO Speech
European leaders were not the only ones surprised by Donald Trump’s NATO speech two weeks ago. According to a new report, Donald Trump’s own national security team was blindsided by the speech.
According to Politico, when Trump failed to affirm America’s commitment to Article Five of the NATO Charter, that an attack on one is an attack on all, his national security team was shocked.
As the Politico report notes, the original versions of the speech, which national security advisers help craft, included the Article Five affirmation.
And it was Trump himself who removed the section of the speech that included Article Five just before he delivered the speech.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster all wanted to include the section of the speech and made sure to leave it in the final version of the speech.
“They had the right speech and it was cleared through McMaster,” said an unnamed source. “As late as that same morning, it was the right one.”
A second source said, “There was a fully coordinated other speech everybody else had worked on.”
Unfortunately, that is not the one Trump decided to give.
“They didn’t know it had been removed,” said a third source. “It was only upon delivery.”
The Politico report noted that the episode “suggests Trump’s impulsive instincts on foreign policy are not necessarily going to be contained by the team of experienced leaders he’s hired for Defense, the NSC and State.”
“We’re all seeing the fallout from it—and all the fallout was anticipated,” a White House official told Politico.
