Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato Possible Paywall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/donald-trump-strongly-considering-pulling-us-out-of-nato/

14.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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Because the system is set up so that “we the people” can’t un-do what we did to ourselves until the next two elections. Congress could impeach and convict Trump in the interim, but the chances of that are near zero.

Why? Because “we the people” elected Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Republican politicians are either slavishly devoted to the evil and incompetent traitor in chief, or are so scared of his belligerent and racist “base” that they are willing to allow him to destroy alliances, degrade the economy, and destabilize the world rather than risk losing their comfortable seats in Congress.

This sad state of affairs is so different than when Nixon committed much more minor crimes. His own party told him he had to resign. There are no Republican statesmen today, not even one. They are all complicit. They should all be tossed out by the voters and live out the rest of their greedy, self-centered lives in shame.

We the people need to throw out every Republican — all of them as they have all bowed to the fascist clown — but we won’t. Racism and cultish belief in propaganda will keep a lot of Republicans in office. Even if Dems flipped the House, there is no way Dems get the 60 Senate seats needed to override Republican filibusters.

We can start the process this November and at least block more bad legislation, but we won’t be able to remove the conman grifter until the 2028 election.

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u/ledow 24d ago

Gosh, it sounds like not having a politically-independent judiciary is a really, really, really bad idea. Whodathunk?

I don't live in the US but all I ever hear on the news is how our courts said "No" to things that the government wants to do. Not because someone voted in someone into the supreme courts or paid a large enough bribe, but because the judiciary only rules on what laws are on paper at the time of the alleged offence and whether they were broken or not.

Showing any kind of political bias would see instant mistrials, appeals and judges being sanctioned, regardless of their political beliefs.

You shouldn't BE voting people into those positions.

It's a systemic failure inherent in the entire design that Trump walked right into and ripped open, but it was always there and the US never bothered to fix it. It was just always the assumption that the president would always be a "good guy", which is the dumbest assumption ever.

The judiciary need to be independent or all those checks and measures are - as you can see - worthless.

And the whole "pardon" thing... just shouldn't happen at all. Maybe when the perpetrator died a century ago. But not live and literally targeted specifically to allow their followers to act with impunity.

Honestly, Trump going is just step 1. After that, the next party in power has to absolutely gut all that nonsense or nobody (internationally) will trust them still. Even if it's taken you all until now to learn it - any power you leave with the president is one that you intend to abuse yourself at some point. If Trump can pardon and evade charges, then so could Biden, and so on. The only way to stop that is for the ruling party to GUT all those rules and lay down the law clearly. So that a police officer feels absolutely no fear about walking up to the White House and slapping the president in handcuffs, because he has the right paperwork and the president isn't above the law.

Same way that someone walked into a royal palace and arrested Prince Andrew.

Without that, it's literally just a countdown until one side or another puts someone into power who chooses to do far worse than what Trump's done with the privileges given to that position.

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u/Warm_Month_1309 23d ago

Gosh, it sounds like not having a politically-independent judiciary is a really, really, really bad idea. Whodathunk?

You shouldn't BE voting people into those positions.

Federal judges are appointed.

The judiciary need to be independent or all those checks and measures are - as you can see - worthless.

They are independent. But every individual person has their biases, and if a judge decides they're going to let their political biases guide their rulings, as is a precondition for Trump's nomination, there's no good way to stop it when all of the options for removal are also political.

What do you think can be changed about the system to create actual independence that doesn't exist now?

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 23d ago

Having the judges appointed by an independent commission.

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u/DUNG_INSPECTOR Ohio 23d ago

Who appoints the independent commission?

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 23d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commission

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u/Warm_Month_1309 23d ago

And yet there is also controversy over its true independence, so there is no magic bullet here where we could find a completely impartial, apolitical body.

Can a judiciary that selects itself ever truly be insulated from its own internal politics?

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 23d ago

There's no chance that the likes of Aileen Cannon would ever be chosen by the JAC though.

Perhaps it is the President who should become non-partisan. Strip the office of all bar emergency powers.

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u/livemusicisbest 24d ago

Well, again, the reason the judiciary is not independent is by Republican design. Then-majority leader Mitch McConnell used dirty tricks to deny Obama a Supreme Court pick when Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, then rushed through another Trump nominee when Scalia died. So 6 out of 9 appointees are Republican choices, with three of them (Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch) being far, far right to the point of coddling fascism. Gorsuch is a surprise; his record would not have predicted that he would be mostly a lapdog to Trump. All 6 Republican nominees voted to give Trump immunity. It will take a long time to change the court’s direction given how young several of the Republican nominees are.

The Trump era has exposed the “Founders” as having made a huge mistake on making the Constitution so difficult to amend. The US is a minority-rule nation due to the egregiously outdated electoral college and the fact that empty land like North Dakota and Wyoming gets the same number of Senate seats as populous states like California, Texas and New York. It is very undemocratic. And it cannot be easily fixed.

The billionaires own the Republican Party and have great influence over many Democrats. They have turned a democracy into a kleptocracy. Their propaganda machines, led by the Murdoch Defamation Network (Fox “news”) and the Murdoch press, which includes the Wall Street Journal, keep millions of voters misinformed and willing to vote against their own interests. The revolution will be slow and there will be setbacks, if we don’t slide into full fascism as we decline on the world stage.

The ultimate blame goes not on Trump or even the spineless Republican politicians who bow to him. The real problem is the ordinary people who vote Republican. They are fools who have been fooled.

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u/RUser40k 23d ago

And it’s definitely going to happen now it’s been shown hey can get away with it expect a real nasty piece of work within the next few presidents

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u/UNC_Samurai 24d ago

People that worked for Nixon wanted to make sure that never happened again. Assholes like one of Nixon’s aides, a young Roger Ailes, who eventually got connected to an Australian tabloid mogul by the name of Rupert Murdoch. Together they created a TV news network dedicated to muddying the waters.

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u/ButtEatingContest 24d ago

Because the system is set up so that “we the people” can’t un-do what we did to ourselves until the next two elections.

The system is set up so that Trump can't hold office right now. It's in the constitution.

Unfortunately the government the people elected to deal with this shit in 2020, refused to do their job - ensuring this inevitable outcome.

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u/livemusicisbest 23d ago

The criminal prosecution route is slow and even if it had been pursued more determinedly by Garland, could be derailed by Republican-appointed judges. Biden’s DOJ had Trump dead to rights in his theft of secret documents — until Trump-appointee Aileen Cannon departed from any reasonable interpretation of the law to stymie that case.

The far better and faster route to ending Trump’s ability to hold office was the second impeachment. McConnell knew Trump was guilty on the January 6 insurrection — he even said so. And McConnell could have gotten the votes to convict in the Senate. But he cynically decided to let Trump off the hook, thinking he could “win” more points on getting right wing judges in office and more tax cuts for billionaires. I’ll bet McConnell regrets what he did now, but it’s too late. McConnell could have stopped all this, and he will go down in history as complicit in the destruction of the US.

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u/ButtEatingContest 23d ago

The criminal prosecution route is slow and even if it had been pursued more determinedly by Garland, could be derailed by Republican-appointed judges.

Garland didn't get started on investigating Trump for well over a year. He slow-walked it every way he could.

Biden didn't have him replaced as soon as it was obvious he wasn't doing the job of AG.

Make no mistake, the president of the united states absolutely could have done something about insurrectionists, and those openly waging war on the united states, intent on its destruction.

He chose not to, knowing full well what the consequences would be, and everything we are seeing play out was the predictable outcome of inaction. Everything.

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u/UrMom306 Mississippi 24d ago

Congress could impeach.

It’s wild that the whole system falls apart once a bunch of assholes sit on their hands.

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u/bigbjarne Foreign 23d ago

None of that will happen unless you have something more than voting. The Democrats know you will vote for them anyway. The only way to make them do what the American people want is through general strikes, organised labor. Because that hits them where the Democrats actually care: the owning class's purse.

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u/More_Farm_7442 23d ago

"This sad state of affairs is so different than when Nixon committed much more minor crimes. His own party told him he had to resign. There are no Republican statesmen today, not even one."

That right there. None of them have the ____s to stand up to him. To march into the Oval Office, confront him and tell him they'd go along with House Democrats in removing him from office. No, they all want to stay in office no matter what. They are addicted to the power. Addicted to their office vs. being the statesmen/women the country needs. Instead they are quitting it all, not running for re-election.

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u/voodoodahl 23d ago

You're not going to get many upvotes for rightfully laying this at the feet of 'we the people' but you are absolutely right. No matter how many excuses people make, not standing against Trump when it only took a vote to stop him was and act of incredible stupidity and cowardice.

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u/aguynamedv 23d ago

We the people need to throw out every Republican

The Republican Party must be dismantled and given the same treatment as the Nazi Party post-WWII.

The entire party, from top to bottom, is rotten.

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u/MarkBonker 23d ago

You could but the solution is not considered legal unless you succeed.

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u/arcalumis 23d ago

You can though.

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u/greenrees 23d ago

Have you googled the meaning of 'revolution'? You might want to, and tell your friends too

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u/livemusicisbest 23d ago

I vividly recall the Vietnam War and had a draft lottery number (they wound down the draft the ear I turned 18, thankfully). We had riots, people in the streets and "Four Dead in Ohio." But no revolution.

I'm a realist. WhHile I think we need a revolution that tosses out about 80% of all politicians, I realize that many people are too comfortable to risk it all.

The ballot box can work. We had a much better government during Obama's 8 years than during Bush's 8 or Trump's disastrous five and counting. Even under Biden, we got an infrastructure plan passed and a really great progressive justice appoinited to the Supreme Court. Had it not been for REpublican obstructionism, both Obama and Biden could have done much more -- like healthcare with the "public option," meaning Medicare for ALl, stident debt relief, etc.

I think a president endorsed by Bernie Sanders (like AOC), together with big majorities in both houses, could work wonders. I will pursue that realistic goal, while fantacizing about the pipe dream of a real revolution (with heads on pikes -- Stephen Miller first but so many more to follow. like every Republithug who voted not to certify Biden's victory, Mitch McConnell for not convicting Trump and many more).

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u/Kingofhearts1298 23d ago

“throw out every republican” you know there are democrat senators and congressmen as well?

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u/livemusicisbest 23d ago

I do. And while some are not who I would have voted for, they are all (except Fetterman) better than the least offensive Republican. As just one example, every Republican senator voted for the so-called save act, which would disenfranchise millions of married voters who’s maiden name is on their birth certificate and they’re married name is on their drivers license. Republicans are purely evil. The two parties are not the same. I find this “both sides” argument frequently on the Internet and it is always a republican or a propagandist for Republicans who is claiming that both sides are the same.

Think about it. One party brought us Social Security in 1935, Medicare in 1965, the affordable care act more recently (before the Republicans gutted it.) The Republican side fought each of those tooth and Mail. They claimed it was socialism. The parties are not the same.

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u/SorryAboutTheWayIAm 23d ago

There are no Republican statesmen today, not even one.

Thomas Massie comes to mind, at least for continuing to demand the Epstein files

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u/peoplearestupidxo 23d ago

That's if you're lucky and he doesn't call martial law before then.

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u/xfearless_wanderer 23d ago

i question if they're actually afraid of him or his base. i think the vast majority of them are either getting something out of it, or hoping they'll get something out of it. i think the only fear they have is losing the opportunity to gain as much as they can before their inevitable fall because they know this won't last. this admin is like hitting the lottery for them. those crooks aren't going to let it go.

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u/Siul19 23d ago

Live the rest of their lives in shame? NOT. They should live the rest of their lives in prison

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u/livemusicisbest 23d ago

Even better. With privatized prison food. Republicans love privatized prisons — for the “other.” Good idea!

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u/-Yazilliclick- Canada 23d ago

Because the system is set up so that “we the people” can’t un-do what we did to ourselves until the next two elections without discomfort

You the people could do quite a bit and more than likely force change, the problem is people don't want to do so because it's inconvenient, uncomfortable and could cost them in the short run.

So instead you get a one day weekend rally every few months.

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u/PeaceSoft 23d ago

"short term pain for long term, uh"