2016 Election

Dec. 10 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican serving a House district in Kentucky, introduced legislation for the United States to pull out of NATO.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, posted on X that she would be a co-sponsor of the Not a Trusted Organization Act, or NATO Act. Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced the same legislation in the Senate earlier this year.

“NATO is a Cold War relic,” Massie said in a statement Tuesday. “We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries.

“NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over 30 years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”

He added: “Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket – especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”

NATO was founded in 1949 by 12 members as a military alliance involving European nations, as well as the U.S. and Canada in North America. There are now 32 members, with Finland joining in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.

The NATO Act would prevent the use of U.S. taxpayer funds for NATO’s common budgets, including its civil budget, military budget and the Security Investment Program.

Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty allows nations to opt out.

“After the Treaty has been in force for 20 years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation,” the treaty reads.

During the last NATO summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, President Donald Trump told reporters he agrees with NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense treaty.

“I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said. “If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”

Article 5 was invoked for the first time after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, leading to NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan.

The Kentucky Republican, who calls himself a “fiscal hawk” and a “constitutional conservative,” has been at odds with Trump on several issues, including fiscal spending, foreign policy/war powers, government surveillance and transparency.

Trump has also been critical of NATO.

During his 2016 election campaign, Trump called the alliance “obsolete.”

He urged nations to spend at least 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defense needs by 2035.

In June, NATO allies agreed to a new defense spending guideline to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense and security by 2035.

Five nations were above 3% in 2024: Poland at 4.12%, Estonia at 3.43%, U.S. at 3.38%, Latvia at 3.15% and Greece at 3.08%. In last is Spain with 1.28% though Iceland has no armed forces and Sweden wasn’t listed.

Some Republican senators want stronger involvement in the alliance, including Joni Ernst of Iowa and Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Wicker is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

For passage, a House majority is needed, but 60 of 100 votes in the Senate to break the filibuster and then a majority vote. Trump could also veto the bill.

Dec. 10 (UPI) — Gregg Phillips has been selected for a leadership position in the Federal Emergency Management Administration, though he hasn’t managed emergencies at the state or federal level and has been critical of the agency.

Philipps, 65, is best known for claiming millions of noncitizens voted in the 2016 election.

Phillips will lead the Office of Response and Recovery, which is FEMA’s largest division, as first reported by The Handbasket. The position doesn’t need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Karen Evan, FEMA’s newly appointed interim leader, also doesn’t have major management experience. She replaced David Richardson, who resigned as FEMA’s acting administrator on Nov. 17 after being appointed on May 8, and also didn’t have emergency experience.

Phillips will be “joining the FEMA leadership team, bringing experience in emergency and humanitarian response, state government operations, and large-scale program reform,” a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, wrote in an email to The Hill.

In a LinkedIn post last year, he wrote: “I have been a very vocal opponent of FEMA” and believes that the agency has failed people in need.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees FEMA, has said there is a need to “eliminate FEMA as it exists today.”

Since January, the number of active FEMA employees has decreased by approximately 2,500 from around 25,800.

The FEMA’ Fiscal Year 2025 budget is approximately $59.2 billion, which includes annual appropriations and supplemental funding for the Disaster Relief Fund. The initial budget request was $27.9 billion.

Phill will “support FEMA leadership as the agency advances reforms aligned with the direction set by President Trump and Secretary Noem, focused on clarifying federal responsibilities, strengthening coordination with states, and improving accountability in disaster operations,” the spoekspereson said.

The office recommends to FEMA’s administrator whether a disaster should be declared. They distribute manufactured housing after disasters, assist communities after disasters or terrorism, provide disaster response and ensure FEMA’s field operations are timely and effective.

A longtime, unnamed FEMA official told The Washington Post: “You want that person to have deep technical knowledge to say ‘This is why this should get declared [a disaster] and why this shouldn’t.’ So the administrator can look and say ‘yep, that makes total sense, let’s send this to the White House.’ ”

He led the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and was deputy Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Phillips’ work was

He was accused of ethical misconduct in funneling contracts to his private companies.

Elections denial

Phillips has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump.

After the 2016 election, Phillips claimed that mass voter fraud had denied Trump the popular votes against Hillary Clinton.

He said his Texas-based nonprofit, True the Vote, gathered data showing that 3 million “noncitizens.”

Trump later posted the information on Twtter, which is now X, writing: In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Phillips didn’t produce evidence about his claim and later disputed Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

In 2022, Phillips and True the Vote’s president were jailed because they defied a court order to turn over information backing their allegations that an election software company helped Biden win.

He was also featured in the discredited film 2000 Mules in 2022 about 2020 election fraud.