as it were, connecting with the german chancellor, angela merkel, having conversations, smiling. seeming to put aside any differences that occur during the day, but earlier the president with a frontal attack on her, hammering germany for its pipeline deal with putin to pump natural gas from russia directly to germany. the president denouncing the deal as bad for nato. listen to what he said here. we are supposed to protect you against russia, but they are paying billions of dollars to russia. germany is totally controlled by russia. you look at it, germany is a captive of russia, because they got rid of their coal plants, they got rid of their nuclear. they are getting so much of the oil and gas from russia. later on in the afternoon the president sat down with the german chancellor angela merkel for a bilateral meeting, one that the president described as cordial, saying that they have a great relationship the united states has a great relationship with both merkel
martha: these are partnerships. it s a partnership that is entered into with an agreement of how much of your gdp if you will spend on defense. you ve got an increasingly aggressive russia. we ve seen what happened in crimea and the ukraine. so why would a country like germany, which has a very strong economy, not be willing to pay their fair share? they should. that s why, as you just play, barack obama, george w. bush. martha: so what s wrong with asking for it? we have all asked for it, it s the way in which you do that. by saying that germany is being held captive by russia, by publicly berating them in such an aggressive way, i don t think that will be effective in changing german behavior regarding the north stream to pipeline. we all want nato countries to spend more. i just think that the cost of getting that through publicly berating our allies is so great and is chipping away at this alliance in ways that we cannot even predict now will have negative impact. martha: