Donald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.

Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump said, according to Breton, who was speaking at the European parliament.

According to Breton, Trump also said: “By the way, Nato is dead, and we will leave, we will quit Nato.”

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  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    On the other hand, why is Europe depending on the US for their own defense?

    They’re not. That’s kind of a weird thing to say, if you have any understanding of the situation.

    The point of NATO is to present a unified front against the ever-present authoritarian threat in the region that’s been ongoing since WWII, and the US as a founding member has spent more on their military by orders of magnitude, so has had an outsized voice in NATO.

    If they pull out those resources, that would hurt the coalition because, again, with their military spending being more than ten times the next ten countries combined, they’re the silverback gorilla in the room, and losing that against countries willing to throw their entire population as human cannon fodder into conflicts because they don’t care about human costs would hurt a lot. What happens when Russia decides to reclaim the rest of the countries Putin thinks are rightly part of their federation, because Putin has delusions of becoming an historical tsar? What happens when Trump’s US backs Putin in that effort?

    Your few guns will not fix any of this. Your few guns will not even help stave off anything in your own county. That’s never how this has worked. This will be ushered in while you get your groceries and watch Netflix, with no clear enemy to fight, after an authoritarian has been voted in as president, as everything else is just a Tuesday.

    I appreciate that you think you can head off the next major fascist regime because you’re armed, but that’s not how this works. You will never have a target to shoot at. You will be just like average Germans in the 1930s, waiting for the moment it has gone too far, and then in the late 40s trying to figure out when that moment actually happened.

    e: also, there are no ‘orange shirts’. Your terminology is tres bizarre. It’s Brownshirts or red caps. That’s an embarrassing mistake to make.

    • drewofdoom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mostly agree with your response, except for chastising OP about the color of the shirt. They start by mentioning brown, then parenthetically say “orange” as an unveiled reference to Trump.

      This is because Trump is known to use a LOT of bronzer that turns his skin an unusual orange color. So what OP was trying to do was to relate the brownshirts to the presumed task force that Trump would create if he became a dictator.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        It wasn’t about the colour of the shirt; that’s what you took from my comment?

        lol okay, my point had nothing at all to do with colours.

        Brownshirt == fascist paramilitary force

        Redcap == fascist paramilitary force

        Orange shirt == ?? Uh, maybe someone who should retake cosmetics finals?

        e: Oohh, you’re ai right? That’s something to be proud of I guess. (I’m joking)

          • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Sorry, I was a bit drunk and mixed up a couple of things in my head. (I didn’t see the usernames and thought I was still talking to the same ‘yes and’ troll.)

            I’m a dipshit and should know better than to be online when drunk. That’s my bad.

        • drewofdoom@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Nice insult, I guess? Is that the new thing instead of calling someone a bot?

          Anyways, I guess the explanation of how OP took the traditional brownshirt and updated it to fit the color that represents Trump in order to propose that his fascist forces could be called ‘orangeshirts’ just kinda flew over your head, huh? It’s ok, maybe you’ll get it somewhere down the line.

          • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            No, sorry. I mixed things up in my head and didn’t realise you weren’t the troll I’d replied to, so I was overly aggressive. I was kinda drunk, and I should know better than to be online inebriated. I sincerely apologise.

            e: I’ve downvoted myself as penance.

            • drewofdoom@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It happens. Apology accepted. You don’t have to downvote yourself, lol.

              Thank you for being mature enough to recognize the situation for what it was and to reply with honest self-reflection.

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Your few guns will not fix any of this. Your few guns will not even help stave off anything in your own county. That’s never how this has worked. This will be ushered in while you get your groceries and watch Netflix, with no clear enemy to fight, after an authoritarian has been voted in as president, as everything else is just a Tuesday.

      OP knows this deep down. People who cling to guns and control over their personal property do so because they feel out of control as to the big things, and if they are honest they can admit it.