McConnell: Trump 'wrong' on NATO

CLEVELAND — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stressed Thursday that he disagrees with Donald Trump's assertion that the United States shouldn't immediately defend NATO allies, seeking to reassure the international community the U.S. would continue to come to the aid of countries in the alliance if they are attacked.

"I disagree with that," McConnell said in an interview with POLITICO on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. "NATO is the most important military alliance in world history. I want to reassure our NATO allies that if any of them get attacked, we'll be there to defend them."


Trump triggered an international uproar Thursday — and a rebuke from many Republican officials — when the GOP nominee said he wouldn't automatically come to the defense of America's NATO allies if they are attacked.

Trump made the comments in a New York Times interview published late Wednesday. When asked about the threat Russia poses to smaller Baltic nations, Trump said the United States should defend NATO allies that are attacked only if they had "fulfilled their obligations to us."

Though he said he disagreed with those remarks, McConnell (R-Ky.) said the NATO comments didn't give him concern about Trump's fitness to be commander-in-chief.

"I think he's wrong on that," McConnell said. "I don't think that view would be prevalent or held by anybody he might make secretary of state or secretary of defense."

Trump’s NATO policy aside, McConnell showed little consternation about the controversial real-estate mogul's controversy-filled convention week.

In an interview with POLITICO here, the majority leader said he believes Republicans will hold the Senate in November, arguing that there's enough daylight between Senate races and the top of the ticket that presidential headwinds would have little effect.

Senate Republicans are protecting 24 seats, with a host of them in blue and purple states that trend Democratic during presidential election years. But the Senate map was thrown into further turmoil for Republicans when former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh announced that he would run for the Senate again in Indiana.

McConnell acknowledged that Republicans would have to pour more resources to ensure their candidate, Rep. Todd Young, keeps the Indiana seat in GOP hands. Bayh has $9.48 million in the bank as of June 30, a huge advantage to start the campaign.

“We’re going to defeat Evan Bayh,” McConnell said, arguing that Bayh has a “lot of vulnerabilities.” “It’s going to cost a lot more money than it would’ve cost to beat whoever the no-name was, who was originally the Democratic nominee.”

2016 will not be a “straight-ticket voting year,” McConnell said, adding that Senate Republicans were running better campaigns nationwide than Democrats in races that will be an “eye-gouging, shin-kicking contest all over the country” and similar to “knife fights in a phone booth.”

“You’re going to have two candidates who we know for sure have very, very high negatives,” McConnell said. “Almost never does a candidate with high negatives have much of a coattail effect.”

McConnell also shrugged off the intraparty chaos that erupted on the convention floor this week when Ted Cruz refused to endorse Trump in his prime-time address and was booed off the stage.

“I don’t think any individual occurrence during this overall convention is going to have a lasting effect,” McConnell said, also referring to the plagiarism charges against Melania Trump on Monday that marred the subsequent days of the convention. “I think in the grand scheme of things, what we’re going to come out of this convention with is a largely unified party and hopefully conveying to the American people that four more years like the last eight are a really bad idea.”

Asked whether he was disappointed that Cruz’s convention address didn’t contribute to the party unity, McConnell said he would have the same response.

But the majority leader had warm words for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump's pick for vice president who spoke Wednesday night.

“I thought the Pence selection ought to reassure the right-of-center voters that a Trump administration would be a right-of-center administration,” McConnell said. “He wouldn’t have picked somebody like Pence if he didn’t intend to be what most of us would view as a right-of-center president.”

McConnell has also been making that case privately this week in Cleveland. In closed-door meetings during the convention, the majority leader has stressed that Pence, with his conservative bona fides and influence over Trump’s domestic and foreign policy portfolios, should give conservatives little reason to worry about a President Trump.

McConnell also praised Pence’s speech, which was overshadowed by the Cruz firestorm. And he hinted that he would like Trump to take the same approach as that of Pence when the nominee delivers his address Thursday night.

“I admire well-crafted speeches and given the flap Monday night, it was an indication that they had first-class speechwriters, they had thought through what they were going to say they said in a very skillful way,” McConnell said. “Mike delivered it well. And I’d like to see the same thing tonight — a minimal amount of extemporaneous observations.”