National Security Expert Anticipates President Trump’s Next Move

President Donald Trump shared early Tuesday his disappointment with Israel for launching missiles at Iran, hours after reaching a temporary ceasefire with Iran. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,” Trump said before heading to the Netherlands for the NATO summit.

Victoria Coates, vice president of Heritage’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, discussed Trump’s reaction and offered a preview of the summit on “Fox & Friends First” with Brian Kilmeade, Lawrence Jones, and Ainsley Earhardt.

Her interview transcript has been lightly edited.

Brian Kilmeade: So, Victoria Coates joins us now. She served as deputy national security advisor to President Trump. And that was the president probably 45 minutes ago. Now, he’s on Air Force One heading to NATO. Victoria, your reaction to the president’s obvious frustration with both Israel and Iran on the cusp of the ceasefire. We should add that the Israeli planes have turned around instead of offering a reprisal.

Victoria Coates: This is very much the president sticking with his stated goal for this mission, which is to degrade the Iranian nuclear program that posed a threat to the American people. That is what the mission was. It wasn’t regime change. It wasn’t any other kind of social experiment. It was to degrade the nuclear program. That has been done. And he does not want to get dragged into another long engagement in the Middle East. And so, he wants this war to end.

Israel said last night that their war aims were largely satisfied. So, it seems like an opportune moment to bring this to a conclusion. Now, it is very frustrating as these ceasefires go into place, each side kind of jockeys for position, especially the losing side, the Iranian side. They want something for domestic consumption. But all that nonsense needs to end, and we need to get to a more serious negotiation. And I think that’s what the president was saying.

Lawrence Jones: But this is where interests kind of collide, because you have America’s interest, which we essentially said, “No nuclear weapon,” but then you’ve got Israel that has Iran on the ropes now. So, they want to continue to knock out any type of threat there. Is that going to be problematic for our relationship with Israel?

Coates: I really don’t think so. What we’ve seen over the course of the last two weeks is the really extraordinary capabilities the Israelis have, which make no mistake about it, that’s due to their ingenuity and their courage and also the historic investment the American taxpayer has made in Israel’s security. So, that partnership between us is incredibly powerful.

And I’m glad to see [Chinese] Chairman Xi [Jinping] and [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and all of the other bad actors around the world see that kind of partnership and effectiveness, but we’re still two sovereign nations and the president has American interests at heart. And I think this is an important message to those who say Israel dictates President Trump’s foreign policy. No, and no more than he dictates Israel’s. We largely work in partnership. It’s incredible partnership, but when we have to, we defend our own interests. And that’s what we’re seeing here.

Ainsley Earhardt: The president had a gaggle on the plane, and he talked about Spain being a problem when it comes to NATO spending because he wants all the countries to pay the 5% on defense spending. All of them have agreed except for Spain. He said Putin called him and offered to help with Iran, and he said he will probably meet with Zelensky. What can you expect at NATO? What can you expect going forward?

Coates: Yeah, this is certainly, I think, a president who can walk and chew gum. He’s doing an awful lot of things at the same time here, and it’s refreshing to see that. I think that NATO defense spending is a signature issue for him. We have the 10 largest economies in NATO after the United States, who at best, are at two [percent] or a hair over, and then you have laggards like Spain. We need to get them well over two.

That’s not the ceiling anymore. That should be the floor. And the president’s asking for five. I think that’s perfectly reasonable given what the United States has invested, both is doing this year and has done historically for NATO, but it’s time Europe takes the lead on Europe’s defenses with American participation. Obviously, he’s going to the summit, he will engage with all these leaders, but we can’t take European security more seriously than the Europeans do. So, I think that’ll be his message this week.

Kilmeade: It was a tandem. It was President Trump saying, “I’m tired of carrying you guys. You’re not spending on defense. And Russia invading Ukraine, that alarmed everyone in Eastern and Western Europe. If you don’t start building up your own defense, you’re going to get steamrolled too.”

So, together, Russia’s aggression has blown up in their face. They added two more formidable nations to NATO. Now, every NATO nation outside Spain and Canada understands you got to spend between at least two and 5%, and the world is no longer taking us for granted with that alliance. That’s a pretty substantial change the way things are in NATO, don’t you think?

Coates: Yeah, it’s another really significant foreign policy win for the president. And yes, Canada has been a constant source of disappointment in all of this. They should be paying much more attention to this with their vulnerabilities in the Arctic. But going back to Putin, Brian, I think what happened over the weekend was also a really important signal to him that America stands up for their friends and that we have capabilities they’re not even close to. So, hopefully, that will give him much more pause if he has designs on a NATO member, on Estonia, on Poland, on Finland, these countries that share a border with Russia, that he shouldn’t do that. So, I think we’ve really seen some deterrence put back into place by President Trump’s decisive action.

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