When Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Howard Kurtz, the host asked the former president about his description of many Americans as the “enemy within.” The Republican replied, “I think it’s accurate. I mean, I think it’s accurate.”
In the same on-air interview, however, the GOP presidential nominee described U.S. international adversaries as “so-called enemies” and countries that “might not be enemies.”
In other words, according to the Republican Party’s nominee for the nation’s highest office, Americans should be seen as “enemies,” but actual foes should be seen as “so-called enemies.”
It was a jarring perspective, to be sure, though the rhetoric came against a backdrop in which Trump has failed repeatedly of late to side with the United States’ international allies.
Take South Korea, for example. Just last week, North Korea blasted road and rail links with South Korea, labeled South Korea a foreign and hostile nation, and discussed the use of “offensive forces” against its neighbor. Chances are, officials in Seoul were looking to their allies in the West for support.
It was against this backdrop that Trump publicly chided one country on the Korean Peninsula — and it wasn’t our adversary. Bloomberg News reported:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said South Korea would pay billions of dollars more every year to host US troops if he were in the White House, calling the long-time US ally a “money machine.” “If I were there now, they’d be paying us $10 billion a year and you know what, they’d be happy to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Tuesday in an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago. “It’s a money machine, South Korea.”
This came on the heels of Trump referring to South Korea as “an enemy” on matters of trade — despite the fact that his own administration struck a trade deal with South Korea — adding that he believes “it’s time we stop” helping our Korean allies.
In a separate Fox News interview last week, the Republican also claimed that the United States has been “screwed” by European Union. “Oh, the ‘European Union,’ it sounds so nice,” he said. “‘The villages of the European Union,’ right? They are brutal.”
A few days earlier, Trump spoke at the Detroit Economic Club and argued, in apparent reference to trade, “Interestingly, it’s often those allies that we consider to be friends that have been the greatest abusers. We have some great abusers. I’ll give you an example: the European Union.” Soon after, Trump also blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia invading his country. “He should never have let that war start,” the Republican said, as if Zelenskyy had the ability to stop Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack. In other words, in rapid succession, the GOP nominee publicly admonished his own country’s South Korean allies, EU allies and Ukrainian allies — all while referring to the United States’ actual foes as “so-called enemies” and pointing to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and his “strongman” style as some kind of international model worthy of emulation. In August, Trump said: “Our allies are the worst.” A month later, he added: “They’re allies, but not when we need them. They’re only allies when they need something.” When was the last time anyone heard the former president make comparable comments about the United States’ actual foes?
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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