The Leader of the Western World tells it as it is. (No orange juice for him, thank you – and no lame excuses either.)

After greeting “the media and the fake media”, President Trump addresses the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, and assembled Europeans:

“The United States protects these countries, protects Germany – and Germany is totally controlled by Russia.” Because it stupidly gets its energy from Russia. And though it is a rich country, it pays only 1% of its GDP for NATO defense.

True, but … Oh, but … diplomats are not used to candid speaking!

https://youtu.be/CspvnHUbeik

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John Hinderaker writes at PowerLine:

Germany stupidly closed nuclear and coal power plants in favor of huge investments in “green” energy. Those investments, predictably, have failed to do anything other than drive the price of electricity unacceptably high. Germany is now backing away from its “green” policies in favor of natural gas. Where does it get most of its natural gas? From Russia. …

Trump’s second point, one that he made during the 2016 campaign and often since, is that our NATO allies need to begin bearing their fair share of the cost of the alliance. In the aftermath of World War II, when the U.S. had just about the only industrial economy that hadn’t been bombed, it made sense for the bulk of the money to come from U.S. taxpayers. That hasn’t been true for a long time, and Trump shouldn’t have to be the first president to assert the interests of American taxpayers. On this issue, too, he is right:

“Many countries owe us,” Trump said in Brussels, before attending the summit at NATO headquarters. “The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough… This has been going on for decades, for decades, it’s disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.” 

Trump is going to succeed here. A number of NATO countries have pledged to increase their defense contributions, but he is pressing them to act more rapidly. …

Trump is right about a more equal sharing of the costs of defending Europe and the North Atlantic. More importantly, he is right about the sheep-like quiescence of too many Western Europeans – Angela Merkel is one among many – in the face of a serious challenge from Russia.

Pretty much all the press coverage of the NATO summit, consisting mostly of hand-wringing and Trump-bashing, is ignorant and partisan. President Trump is standing up for American security and American taxpayers, as he promised to do. He could do it more effectively if pretty much the entire American establishment were not arrayed against him and, implicitly, on the side of the Putin regime.