Watch: Marco Rubio slammed for 'pathetic' defense of Trump’s anti-NATO diatribe

During a campaign speech on Saturday, February 10, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump angrily railed against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and even remarked that he would "encourage" Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries if they don't "pay" enough.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), a former Trump critic turned loyalist, defended Trump's comments during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper — a defense that MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire slammed as "pretty pathetic."

Rubio told Tapper, "Donald Trump is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He doesn't talk like a traditional politician…. If you see the comments, he said NATO was broke or busted because until he took over because people weren't paying their dues."

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But during a Monday, February 12 broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Lemire argued that Rubio was twisting himself into a pretzel to defend the indefensible.

Lemire told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and Never Trump conservative Elise Jordan, "First off, pretty pathetic. Secondly, a fact check. There aren't NATO dues. Countries are encouraged to put in 2 percent of GDPs. We have seen European nations pick up their level of contributions in recent years. And Elise, they've done so not because of Donald Trump's threats, but because President Joe Biden has revitalized NATO as it tries to stand together against Russian aggression."

Lemire continued, "But it looks like Donald Trump is willing to help out his pal Vladimir Putin again, and a lot of Republicans, like Marco Rubio, are just going to go along with it."

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Watch the video below or at this link.

Sen. Rubio scrambles to defend Trump's NATO commentswww.youtube.com