In 2016 debate, Hillary Clinton said Trump would fulfill ‘Putin’s wish list’ by attacking NATO

Like her or hate her, Hillary Clinton preemptively summed up where we’re currently at with President Trump during a 2016 debate with the then-presidential candidate, and a video of the exchange is getting renewed attention on social media.

According to a wide array of reports, Trump’s jaunt through the NATO Summit in Brussels this week left its participants feeling “anger and disgust.” Many see him there acting as Russia’s errand boy.

From the Daily Beast’s Christopher Dickey and Spencer Ackerman:

… in one of his trademark versions of common sense, which commonly ignores basic history and fundamental facts, Trump asked why the U.S. should spend a lot of money to defend Germany from Russia if Germany was dependent on Russia for energy. Trump incorrectly inflated Germany’s reliance on Russian energy to convey, yet again, a picture of NATO as a protection racket and the U.S. demanding its envelope of cash be heavier.

Speaking to the Daily Beast, one current NATO official said Trump’s presence was worse than expected.

“Everyone is in disbelief, worried [NATO’s] credibility is shot, bracing for what comes out of the private sessions—this thing is just getting started and we still have to make it through the substantive sessions, which will be long and boring,” the official continued. “We definitely know we’re going to have to do clean-up; we just don’t know the extent of the damage or whether anyone will take us seriously. And there is still the UK trip and the Helsinki trip, which will color everything here.”

On the heels of the controversy, a video resurfaced on Twitter showing comments Hillary Clinton made during her third presidential debate with Trump where she warns Trump will try to break up NATO because it’s on “Putin’s wish list.” She also highlighted Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election in favor of Trump, a fact that was recently confirmed by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.

“The Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America that you encouraged — espionage against our people,” Clinton said to Trump in a video posted to Twitter by radio host and columnist Dean Obeidallah. “That you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do …”

Clinton added that Trump was actively getting help from Russia because Putin “has a very clear favorite in this race.”

“I think that this is such an unprecedented situation,” she continued. “We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks — these cyber attacks — come from the highest of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.”

Watch the video below:

Featured image via screen grab

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.