Afterward, when Trump had phone calls with the families of others from the military who had been killed, the White House staff noticed how hard and tough it seemed for him.
“He’s not that guy,” Bannon said. “He’s never really been around the military. He’s never been around military family. Never been around death.” The deaths of “parents of small kids” struck him particularly hard. “That had a big impact on him, and it’s seen throughout everything.”
A staffer who sat in on several calls that Trump made to Gold Star families was struck with how much time and emotional energy Trump devoted to them. He had a copy of material from the deceased service member’s personnel file.
“I’m looking at his picture—such a beautiful boy,” Trump said in one call to family members. Where did he grow up? Where did he go to school? Why did he join the service?
“I’ve got the record here,” Trump said. “There are reports here that say how much he was loved. He was a great leader.”
Some in the Oval Office had copies of the service records. None of what Trump cited was there. He was just making it up. He knew what the families wanted to hear.
* * *
Whether the international order would have a footing in the new Trump administration was tested in the first month.
During the campaign, Trump disparaged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the 68-year-old alliance with Europe. NATO is often considered the most successful effort to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and a foundation of Western unity. The members pledged collective defense, meaning an attack on one would be considered an attack against all.
Trump had argued that NATO might be obsolete. Much of his criticism had to do with money. NATO’s goal was for each member nation eventually to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense. The United States spent 3.5 percent of its GDP, while Germany spent only 1.2 percent.
Secretary of Defense Mattis had a speech coming up in Munich, Germany, in mid-February, and the administration’s NATO policy needed to be settled by then. Was Trump in or out?
As a private citizen Mattis had blasted Trump’s anti-NATO ideas as “kooky.” Much of the foreign policy establishment as well as European allies had been unnerved by Trump’s comments.
Priebus arranged a 6:30 p.m. dinner for Wednesday, February 8, in the Red Room of the residence so Trump could hear arguments from Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford and several others. He also invited a pillar of the Washington Republican establishment, C. Boyden Gray. Gray, 73, had most recently been the U.S. ambassador to the European Union for two years in the administration of President George W. Bush. He had been legal consigliere to George H. W. Bush during the eight years Bush had been vice president and four years as president.
As they sat down to dinner, Trump wanted to gossip about the news of the day. Senator John McCain, displaying his maverick credentials, had publicly criticized the U.S. military raid in Yemen.
Trump lashed out, suggesting that McCain had taken the coward’s way out of Vietnam as a prisoner of war. He said that as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War McCain, whose father was Admiral John McCain, the Pacific commander, had been offered and taken early release, leaving other POWs behind.
“No, Mr. President,” Mattis said quickly, “I think you’ve got it reversed.” McCain had turned down early release and been brutally tortured and held five years in the Hanoi Hilton.
“Oh, okay,” Trump said.
Gray, who had served five years in the Marine Corps, was struck that the secretary corrected the president directly, and that Trump, known to bristle when challenged, would be so accepting.
It was not until the dessert course that Priebus finally said, “We’ve really got to deal with the NATO issue.”
Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, the National Security Council chief of staff, was representing the NSC. A combat veteran of Vietnam with Silver and Bronze Stars and the first Gulf War, Kellogg launched into a critique. Echoing some of Trump’s negative language, he said NATO was “obsolete” and set up after World War II when the United States was richer and facing an aggressive Soviet Union. Now, the cost to the United States was unfair and out of proportion with European allies. The United States was being used.
“Those wouldn’t be my views, Mr. President,” said General Joseph Dunford.
“Oh, really?” Trump interjected. “What would your views be?”
Dunford, the top military man, offered a spirited defense. It’s an alliance that shouldn’t be disbanded, and it would be hard to put it back together, he said. With Eastern European nations such as Poland feeling threatened by Putin’s invasions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it was important to maintain solidarity and unity. “It’s terribly important to keep Europe united politically, strategically and economically.” He agreed that the member nations should meet their commitment to 2 percent of their annual GDP.
I think the Germans will make good on their commitment to pay 2 percent of GDP, and they are the most important, Mattis added.
Jared Kushner jumped in. “As a percentage of our own defense budget the shortfall is really small,” he said. “Pennies on the dollar.”
Priebus cautioned that the 2 percent was not an obligation but a recent agreement that all the NATO countries would strive to get there by 2024. This was not a payment to NATO but a commitment to defense spending.
“But it is a political problem when your allies don’t pay their fair share,” Trump said. He would make his case on fairness, and he kept returning to that theme. Why should the United States pay for the European defense?
Priebus realized that the president didn’t care that it was a goal, not an obligation. Trump cared that he could sell it and try to win over public opinion.
“I don’t care if it’s a goal or not,” Trump finally said. “It’s what they should do.”
Boyden Gray pointed out that Europe had lots of economic problems. “Not that we don’t, but theirs are worse.” The countries need to grow their economies more. “Part of the reason they don’t pay is because they’re not growing fast enough.”
“Are you saying they can’t pay?” Trump asked.
“No,” Gray said. But the United States should help Europe with their anemic economic growth rate. European business culture largely avoided taking risks.
“Which is going to be the next country to drop out?” Trump asked. Under the Brexit referendum, approved by British voters, Great Britain had to leave the European Union.
“I don’t think there will be another country to drop out,” Gray replied.
Trump said he agreed.
“If you didn’t have NATO, you would have to invent it,” Mattis said. “There’s no way Russia could win a war if they took on NATO.”
By the end of the dinner, Trump seemed to be persuaded. “You can have your NATO,” he told Mattis. The administration would support the alliance, “but you become the rent collector.”
Mattis laughed. And then he nodded.
In his speech in Munich on February 15, Secretary Mattis found middle ground. “America will meet its responsibilities,” he said, but would “moderate” its commitment if the other NATO countries did not meet theirs. Nonetheless he said the alliance was a “fundamental bedrock” of U.S. policy.
At a news conference with the NATO secretary general two months later, Trump said, “I said it was obsolete. It is no longer obsolete.”
When Trump met the European leaders in May in Brussels, he castigated NATO countries for “chronic underpayments.” He said that “23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they’re supposed to be paying for their defense.”
He made it clear that he was addressing the United States domestic audience. “This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.”
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