Fox News Town Hall Audience Cheers When Trump Says He Wouldn’t Defend Besieged NATO Allies that Don’t Spend Enough on Militaries

Ingraham: “Now, you’re getting slammed from some of your old adversaries about your NATO comments. Watch.”

[Clip starts]
Hillary: “Why is Donald Trump so enamored of Putin? Well, part of it is he is a wannabe dictator. (...) He even said the other day, let’s basically get out of NATO and, you know, encourage Putin to do what he wants.”
(...)
Biden: “All of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited Russia to invade our NATO allies if they weren’t paying up.”
[Clip ends]

Ingraham: “So does this mean you are not going to defend the NATO countries if they haven’t paid their 2-point-whatever percent?”
Trump: “Well, yeah, sort of, it does.
(Cheering and Applause)
We have 28 countries. And they were taking advantage tremendously. Look, the European nations, I happen to be — a long time ago, my parents, my grandparents came from a place called Europe, so I love it. But they are very smart and they took advantage. They have taken advantage of us on trade and they’ve taken advantage of us on NATO. And what happened, what I did is I told them, ‘If you don’t pay up, I’m not going to defend you.’ And they said, ‘I can’t believe it. Nobody else ever said that.’ Bush came in and he made a speech and they left. Obama came in and he made a speech. We were supporting almost 100 percent. In my opinion, we were paying for Europe’s military almost 100 percent. Not 40% or 20%. They weren’t paid up. And the question was asked by the head of the country, very strong question at a big meeting, one of 28 countries, ‘Sir, does that mean, if we don’t pay, you will not defend us from Russia or whoever?’ I said, ‘You say you didn’t pay? You were delinquent?’ He said ‘Yes. Let’s say we were.’ ‘I would not defend you.’ Now, if I said I would defend them, they wouldn’t have paid. As soon as I said, ‘That’s right, that’s exactly what it means,’ the money came pouring in. Billions of dollars. And the secretary general who couldn’t believe it, because he went through Obama, he went through Bush, he went through all of them, they never paid up. Everybody owed money. Of the 28 countries, 8 had paid almost up — “
Ingraham: “I think 11 or 12 have now paid.”
Trump: “Very few. Well, maybe.
Ingraham: “Do you think Article 5 should be amended as it’s currently written?”
Trump: “I think a country should have to pay. If you don’t pay, why should we — look, we have a bigger purpose than that. But they will pay. It’s like Ukraine. They be not paying. We are paying. We are paying for Ukraine much more than they are. They should be paying at least on an equal basis. They should actually be paying more. The reason they are not is because nobody is asking them. I guarantee you, do you think Biden is calling these guys and saying, Listen, guys, you gotta pay up. Pay up! Get your ass moving! Pay up!’ Not going to do that. He’ll go, ‘Uh...uh.’ The guy doesn’t know he’s alive, okay?”