"The NATO alliance is not just a transactional relationship, once again. That alliance serves our interests. That alliance has been critical to keeping security in Europe, so that we do not face another world war."
"As a longtime career guy, I like quiet diplomacy behind closed doors. This is not what we're getting with Donald Trump. At the end of the day, it's what America does, how people perceive us, in the long run, our reliability and such, and, thirdly, the personal relationships presidents have with their counterparts. The tweeting and some of the explosive conversations can hurt the third and can have an impact on the second, but, in the end, what we really should focus on is the policies. Some of them have been bad, the rollout of the immigration ban. Others, we have to wait and see."
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"NATO is in our national security interests. And, yes, we pay a lot for it, but, when we had Afghanistan, NATO troops were by our side from almost all of the NATO members. And they put their life and treasure on the line for us."
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"Presidents always - not always, but often have bad conversations with counterparts. They just don't go out and embarrass their counterpart by talking about it. They find other ways to work it out."