This is how you do it and ensure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, not like the feckless dementia patient Biden now in the White House causing WAR THROUGH WEAKNESS
PALM BEACH, Florida — It was Presidents’ Day and Donald Trump looked especially relaxed. Wearing a white golf shirt emblazoned with the presidential seal and a bright red MAGA hat with “45” on both sides, he was talkative without being combative.
A softball opener — did he think Joe Biden’s presidency would be as bad as it is? — was met with a pause, and then this: “If you took the worst five presidencies together, it would not be equal to what’s happening to this country.”
After ticking off a litany of America’s woes, from the open border to inflation to mounting energy prices, Trump added: “I never thought anything like this could happen to us.”
He remains especially troubled by the deadly and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, asking, “Can you imagine taking the military out first? And giving up that big, beautiful Bagram Air Base that’s just an hour from China?” “It was the single biggest embarrassment in our history,” he insisted.
Does he think Biden will finish the term? “I don’t know,” he said, “but we are being systematically destroyed. We are no longer feared, respected or even liked.”
As we talked, and news was breaking about Vladimir Putin’s declaration of independence for two Ukrainian provinces, Trump was flabbergasted by the audacity but not surprised. “I got along great with Putin,” he said. “I like him, I respect him. He’s doing his thing, but our people aren’t doing theirs.”
Eager to draw a contrast with Biden, he told two stories relevant to the current crisis. Both involved his fight with NATO members that were not paying their agreed-upon share of the common defense, especially Germany.
“I sent her a white flag,” he said of former Chancellor Angela Merkel. “She said, ‘What is this?’ I said, ‘It’s a flag of surrender so you don’t have to go out and buy a new one.’”
He also recounted an exchange in a Brussels meeting of all 28 member NATO countries where he was pushing for more payments, leading the Austrian leader to ask whether the United States would still defend those countries against a Russian attack if they didn’t pay up.
“No,” Trump said he answered. “We will not defend you.”
His answer led to a public uproar that Trump was reneging on the alliance’s Article 5 provision, under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. In what amounted to a deal, Trump later insisted he was not reneging, and NATO countries ponied up more cash that now totals several hundred billion dollars.
There are other stories making the rounds, too, and they are even more provocative. One has it that Trump — noting that Putin seized land from Georgia when George W. Bush was president and seized the Crimean peninsula when Barack Obama was president — warned Putin against a land grab on his watch.
“If you move against Ukraine while I’m president,” Trump is said to have told the Russian leader, “I will hit Moscow.”
Putin reportedly scoffed, “No way,” leading Trump to say, “All those beautiful golden turrets will be blown up.”
A similar story involves Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was during his visit to Mar-a-Lago in 2017 when Trump famously interrupted their chocolate cake dessert to declare he had just ordered the US military to fire 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base after the Syrian government used chemical weapons against rebels and civilians.
During that same visit, Trump reportedly told Xi that any military move against Taiwan would be met with an attack on Beijing. Xi, like Putin, is said to have been stunned, though it is possible neither man believed Trump was serious. While it is also possible that both accounts are exaggerated, it is a fact that neither man made the moves Trump is said to have warned against.
“I got along best with the tougher ones” is how he summarized his relations with foreign leaders.
more at
https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-...at-mar-a-lago/