Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, said U.S. allies including Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia should be compelled to pay in full for American military protection.
“We’re providing a tremendous service,” Trump told anchor Jake Tapper in a previously recorded interview shown Sunday on CNN ’s “State of the Union.” The U.S., the world’s largest economy, “is stone cold broke,” Trump added.
Trump also responded to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s description of him as temperamentally unfit for the Oval Office, and offered justifications for remarks he made about the Mexican ethnicity of a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against his now-shuttered Trump University, which have been derided as racist.
Tapper asked the candidate about prior statements that seemed to support a nuclear-armed Japan as a deterrent to potential North Korean or Chinese aggression.
Trump said that while the U.S. is bound to defend Japan in the event of an attack, the reverse isn’t true.
The billionaire’s demands to renegotiate alliances threaten to up-end decades of U.S. military and diplomatic strategy. While the U.S. spends billions of dollars basing troops and equipment overseas, that has historically been part of a trade-off that lets the nation project power abroad.
Temperamentally Unfit
“That’s where the nukes come in,” Tapper prompted. “That’s up to them,” Trump replied, adding that the U.S. had to be prepared to walk away from agreements that are costing it billions of dollars. Reminded that he was talking about major U.S. allies, Trump said, “it has to work both ways.”
The interview broadcast came three days after Clinton called Trump temperamentally unfit and too unstable to be entrusted with the presidency.
“You can’t have that success without good temperament,” the Republican said, citing his success in real estate development, television -- where he starred in NBC’s “The Apprentice” -- and now politics. “I have a temperament that is totally under control.”
Tapper also asked Trump about San Diego federal court judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a lawsuit filed by students of the now-defunct Trump University real estate program who claim they were defrauded.
Mexican Heritage
The candidate has derided the suit as meritless and said it lives on only because of Curiel’s Mexican heritage. His comments have drawn criticism from legal scholars and from Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
On Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who’s been talked about as a possible running mate for Trump, said Sunday on “Fox News Sunday” that going after Curiel was “inexcusable.” Clinton said on Saturday that “Judge Curiel is as much of an American as I am. And he’s as much of an American as Donald Trump is.”
Tapper asked Trump about the Indiana-born Curiel, “If you’re saying he cannot do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?”
“No, he’s proud of his heritage,” Trump said. “We’re building a wall. He’s a Mexican.”
Trump has made blocking illegal immigration a centerpiece of his foreign policy platform. That includes the construction of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, to paid for by Mexico.
In a separate interview shown Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Trump, who’s proposed immigration restrictions on Muslims, said it was “possible” he would also be unable to receive fair treatment from a Muslim judge.
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