House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said Thursday that he is not sure what to expect from President Trump in dealing with allies of the United States after Trump’s reported kerfuffle with Australia over a deal to take in refugees.
When asked how many more U.S. allies Hoyer will have to call to smooth over relations thanks to Trump, Hoyer simply said “who knows,” pointing to the unpredictability the Trump administration has exhibited in its first two weeks. The question referred to Hoyer’s decision to call Australian Ambassador to the U.S. Joe Hockey in an attempt to repair any potential damage done by the call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
“I think experience would tell us over the last 10 days, and frankly the last 15 months, who knows,” Hoyer told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Who knows what President Trump is going to do at any given moment and give offense to people we need to … have confidence in us and we need to have confidence in our relationship with them.”
The longtime Maryland Democrat pointed to comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during his introductory speech at the State Department as an encouraging sign for the U.S.’s future cooperation with their allies. But Hoyer still aired concerns about Trump.
“I thought Secretary Tillerson yesterday at the State Department clearly made it very apparent that he understands that we are in fact in this together with our allies and that we need to have the confidence of our allies, and that we need to have full communication with our allies so they’re not surprised and not put out on a limb,” Hoyer said. “I don’t have a lot of confidence that President Trump is going to learn that lesson. Nothing in the last 15 months has given us confidence that he will.”
Hoyer was one of four senators to call Hockey, along with John McCain, R-Ariz, Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Bob Corker, D-Tenn.
Trump continued to fire back at critics of the call Friday morning, saying on Twitter that the media “lied” about the call.
