Sen. John McCain says Donald Trump praise the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for its response to the 9/11 terror attacks instead of criticizing it for lagging in defense spending.
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has said many of 28 allies of the intergovernmental military alliance are "ripping off" the U.S. by not paying the required 2 percent of their GDP for defense. Only the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, Poland and Estonia do so.
But McCain, at a Brookings Institution event in Washington, D.C., told
London's Guardian newspaper:
"I agree with him to this extent, that our NATO allies should pay more and I've been urging all of that, all of us have, for years and years.
"But let's not forget that after 9/11, the United States of America was attacked, Europeans weren't attacked, and yet we invoked Article 5 and all those European countries came to our aid and sent troops to Afghanistan."
"You know, over a thousand of those NATO troops, non-Americans, were killed and several thousand wounded? So maybe we also ought to show some appreciation for what our NATO allies did for us in Afghanistan."
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