During a press opportunity with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, there was yet another bizarre Trump moment.
Earlier Trump hadf insisted, "Donald Trump has been tougher on Russia than any other president" before going off on a riff about funding NATO. At the end of his riff, he turned to one of the Baltic ministers in the room and asked her to confirm that.
This was an interesting moment because the Baltic nations are quite leery of Russian incursion into their sovereign nations. They're NATO allies, and they don't trust Russia at all.
After demanding that one of them hail his magnificent maneuvers to bring more money into NATO, he went off, looking for more affirmation.
Finishing her thought, Trump interjected, "You think NATO has taken in billions of dollars more because of me."
No, seriously, when she didn't say the words, he stuck them in her mouth. And was then off to the races.
"Because they said, you're delinquent. Germany is paying 1% and they're not even paying the full 1%," he spat with obvious dislike of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"Germany hooks up a pipeline into Russia where Germany is going to be paying billions of dollars for energy into Russia. And I'm saying, what's going on with that? How come Germany is paying vast amounts of money to Russia when they hook up a pipeline? That's not right."
I think it's important to note how obsessed Trump is with pipelines and petrochemicals. From the start, I've maintained that the petrochemical oligarchs -- foreign and domestic -- are the reason he sits in the Oval Office. As long as he serves their purposes, Trump is safe.
Returning to NATO payments, he continued, "Because of what I said in the countries, they've brought in many billions of dollars more than they would have if you had Crooked Hillary as president, okay? That I can tell you. Many billions of dollars more. We've been very tough on that."
He added, "We've been very tough on Russia, frankly. But I will say that if we got along with Russia, that would be a good thing, not a bad thing. It's possible we won't. We're going to find out whether or not we do. But if we could all get along, that would be great."
Here's a fact-check. We haven't been tough on Russia. The expulsions of diplomats were pure symbolism and little more. Trump has been far harder on Canada and Mexico than he has on Russia.
And really, using the term "Crooked Hillary" in front of the Baltic leaders who are women?
Apparently Trump didn't get enough time with his Fox News fluffers and needs more Executive Time with Mommy.
