The odds of former US President Donald Trump returning to the White House are “very high”, Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews has said.
Andrews made the comments on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics program earlier today, in the context of a discussion on European defence policy and whether Europe was transforming from a “peace project” into a defence project.
The Fianna Fáil European election candidate described the war in Ukraine as a “very, very serious” situation on the European continent, saying that “most EU countries have completely changed their security and defence policy” in response to that conflict.
“Almost all countries have increased their European spending, because they are very, very worried about the threat from Russia,” he said.
“So it’s clear that Europe wants to cooperate more.”
Notably, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military expenditure in Western and Central Europe is now higher than it was at the end of the Cold War.
Military spending in Western and Central Europe is now higher than it was at the end of the Cold War, reports SIPRI https://t.co/K2S82HJ0yG pic.twitter.com/bkKAkIVhUs
— euronews (@euronews) April 22, 2024
Andrews went on to say that a potential return of Donald Trump as US President was also a factor worthy of consideration.
“The second thing that’s changed is that there’s a very high possibility that Donald Trump will return to the White House,” he said.
“And he has a very negative attitude towards NATO coming to the assistance of Europe. And that’s why I think there is a change in policy in Europe.”
He added: “We also have to increase our spending here in Ireland.”
Notably, Andrews previously said that Ireland’s “underinvestment” in defence spending is “appalling”, saying that the country should be spending “much, much more” than it does currently.
The underinvestment in defence spending in Ireland is appalling.
We need to invest much much more than 0.2% of our GDP into the @defenceforces – particularly in the area of cybersecurity pic.twitter.com/0ICdccQToM— Barry Andrews MEP (@BarryAndrewsMEP) March 8, 2022
The statement comes in the same week that the former US President was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, in a trial which he has described as “rigged” and an instance of political persecution by his political opponents. This case makes Trump the only former US President to ever be officially convicted of a felony crime in US history.
Trump says he will be appealing the verdict amid the ongoing 2024 Presidential race against Democrat incumbent Joe Biden.
The issue of Trump’s conviction seems to have divided US voters.
An Ipsos poll in the wake of the verdict, which surveyed 2,556 US adults, found that a slim majority of 52% of of respondents thought that Trump’s conviction was “mainly about enforcing laws fairly and upholding the rule of law”. Meanwhile, 45% thought it was “mainly a politically-motivated attempt to prevent Trump from returning to the White House.”
However, among registered voters, the same Ipsos poll has Trump and Biden almost tied if the election was held today, with Trump coming in at 39% and Biden at 41%.
Moreover, Trump’s campaign raised a record $53 million in donations after the verdict was announced – equivalent to over $2 million per hour – in what senior campaign staffers described as an “outpouring of support from patriots across our country.” The donation website crashed for around an hour within minutes of launching due to the sudden influx of web traffic.
Trump campaign raises $53 million in donations after guilty verdict
➡️ https://t.co/TBUYC78bgv pic.twitter.com/AIVbtyf4Dq— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 1, 2024
It remains to see if the conviction will be more detrimental to the Trump campaign or elicit public sympathy and ultimately prove beneficial in the long run.