Pay attention. Saturday morning. The President, instead of, I don’t know, picking up the phone and calling the Secretary General of NATO, who he has the number for, decides to address the alliance via the social network app he owns. He posts a letter. In all caps for the title. A LETTER TO ALL NATO NATIONS AND, THE WORLD.

Buddy. A letter. On a Saturday. To the world.

The contents. NATO’S commitment to WIN has been far less than 100%. Capital W, capital I, capital N. The 100% is undefined. There is no metric. There is no benchmark. There is no scorecard. Far less than 100% could mean anything. Could mean defense spending. Could mean Russian oil purchases. Could mean vibes. The President does not specify.

He goes on. He is ready, he is ready, to do major sanctions on Russia. But only if all NATO nations agree to do the same thing first. And only if all NATO nations stop buying Russian oil. Then, he writes, NATO should also impose secondary tariffs of 50% to 100% on China for buying Russian petroleum.

I have run a casino floor. I will tell you something. When the boss of an alliance writes the letter that begins I am ready to act, but only if everybody else acts first, the boss is not actually ready. The boss is narrating the conditions under which the boss might be ready. The boss is, in casino terms, waiting on a table that the boss runs.

The other piece. The President wrote, in the same letter, this is not Trump’s war (it would never have started if I was president), it is Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s war. On a Saturday. With Russia having just crossed nineteen drones into Polish airspace the same week. With Ukraine just having absorbed the largest aerial attack of the war. The man with the bullhorn is on the bullhorn, on a Saturday morning, complaining the war started while he was on a different shift.

I’m arguing with the television. The television is reading the letter out loud. In capital letters. The way the letter is written.

FINAL · /100

The breakdown.

  • Factual basis The post is on file. The 100 percent metric is not defined.
    12/25
  • Self-awareness Some NATO members purchase Russian energy. Hungary and Slovakia in particular.
    6/20
  • Staff containment The letter was personal. State was not consulted.
    8/20
  • Recovery attempt Not Trump's war, he wrote. It was Biden's and Zelenskyy's.
    5/15
  • Public spectacle Picked up on every European front page by Sunday.
    13/20

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Underlying fact — Axios