NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said President-elect Trump was right to call on allied nations to spend more on defense, after being teed up by MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire to instead knock the returning president.
"Then President Donald Trump, at a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, came this close to pulling the United States out of that organization" in 2018, Lemire said during the Wednesday interview.
"He has repeatedly criticized NATO since then. How is the alliance preparing for his return?"
"Well, he was right in 2018 when he said that we had to spend more," Rutte said.
"Since then, we have massively, on the European side, increased our defense spending.
So this is thanks to Donald Trump."
Critics have accused Trump of damaging the U.S.' reputation during his first term as president by berating allies for allegedly failing to pay their fair share. Trump threatened not to defend "delinquent" nations that leave the U.S. to make up shortfalls in NATO's defense budget.
