John Kerry's scathing tweet on Trump's actions today at the NATO summit

[karynnj]

39. You may be mistaking who he is speaking to

In addition to strongly criticizing the way Trump is treating our allies ... and how he is fawning over Putin, he is defending the Obama administration. The Obama administration worked hard to get NATO countries to step up -- not just in spending on defense, but actually contributing to the ISIS fight and the long Afghanistan war. Trump thanks his peers for nothing and is seemingly ignorant on how important NATO has been in serving the joint interests of the US and our allies.

On energy, Trump misstates how much Germany depends on Russia. He conflates the percent of nature gas from Russia with the percent of energy. The Obama administartion was similarly not happy that Germany got nature gas from Russia. However, they understood that every country acts on its own national interest. The difference is that neither Obama or Kerry would have embarrassed Germany or any other NATO ally calling them out in public. Instead, they praised Germany for doing a lot to keep sanctions in place (which hurt Europe more than the US) against Russia.

This statement and Brennan's, counter the two almost contradictory RW responses on this. Those responses are that Obama did the same thing (ie he asked for more military spending and he was against the Russian pipeine) AND that Trump had the guts that the Obama administration didn't and is getting things done. (The latter is why Trump claimed that he has gotten the countries to spend more than committed to before --- even though Macron disputes this.) In fact, the Obama administration worked well with NATO and got the commitments in the first place AND - more importantly - led the effort in creating the ISIS coalition that NATO was the heart of.

So, who is Kerry speaking to. Look at the last sentence. He is calling on his former peers (among others) in the Senate, noting their resolution in support of NATO. That resolution shows they value NATO - as has been the norm before Trump. There are very few people extreme enough to reject all international structures in the House and Senate. I assume that the very diplomatic Kerry, who did work across the aisle while in the Senate knows exactly how to reach these people. A few Republicans have come out decrying Trump's rudeness and speaking of the value of NATO.