The United States’ role in the NATO alliance has never been as precarious as it is now. In fact, it was earlier this month when Donald Trump declared that that the U.S. would not defend NATO member nations against an attack if those countries had not met defense spending benchmarks.
With this in mind, the next U.S. ambassador to NATO will need to be highly skilled, mindful of history, sensitive to international relationships and adept at maintaining strained partnerships. So who, pray tell, will be that next ambassador? The Associated Press reported:
The Senate confirmed Matt Whitaker late Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s U.S. ambassador to NATO, a crucial emissary to the Western alliance at a time of growing concern about the American commitment abroad. Whitaker, who had served in Trump’s first administration at the Justice Department, brings a law enforcement background rather than deep foreign policy or national security ties. He was confirmed by the Senate on a vote of 52-45.
Though a few senators missed the vote, Whitaker, who said during his confirmation hearings that the administration’s support for NATO would be “ironclad,” was confirmed entirely by Republican senators.
It’s easy to imagine some of those GOP senators, at least privately, coming to regret the move sometime fairly soon.
Whitaker will represent the U.S. despite having literally no background in diplomacy, international affairs, foreign policy, national security, military policy or NATO.
He did, however, play college football at the University of Iowa and later claimed that he was an Academic All-American — despite the fact that he was not an Academic All-American.
He also helped lead an odd marketing business that was the subject of an FBI criminal investigation and that was accused of being a “scam” operation before ultimately being shut down.
I should mention that Whitaker does have a background in law enforcement, including work as a U.S. attorney in George W. Bush’s administration, when Whitaker became well known for his legal pursuit of Iowa’s first openly gay state legislator, whom Whitaker tried and failed to prosecute. He was able to parlay this into a role as a legal commentator, which included making public criticisms of then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which naturally led Trump to make him chief of staff to the attorney general — where he reportedly advised the Trump White House on going after Hillary Clinton. Eventually, Trump made Whitaker acting attorney general in late 2018 and early 2019, which proved to be a bit of a problem when the president told reporters, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” All of this and more was fleshed out in detail in a Rachel Maddow Show “Public Servant Announcement,” released shortly before Trump was sworn in for a second term.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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