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Dear USGLC Board of Directors,

As I am sure you have seen, Donald Trump gave a freewheeling interview<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/donald-trump-issues.html> to the NYT yesterday where he again questioned America's commitment to defend our NATO allies and stated, "We are going to take care of this country first... before we worry about everyone else in the world." While it was not a direct attack on foreign assistance, it came close to crossing our agreed upon red line. As such, we included his statement in our latest GLOBAL GAB, and I raised my concern in a recent press interview.

This is a very troubling development, especially after positive convention events and solid success on the GOP platform.

All this makes our public voice even more challenging given the stark contrast I expect to see next week in Philadelphia. On that note, we should know who Hillary Clinton will pick as her running mate within the next 24 hours. Many good friends are among her final choices, including USGLC's military co-chair, Admiral Jim Stavridis. Should he be picked, we can all be very proud that our message has been fully embraced and our friend so deeply respected. We will be careful to project a voice that does not endorse the candidacy, but endorses the issue.

In the meantime, here is Admiral Stavridis' op-ed<http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/21/the-certain-trumpet-donald-trump-new-york-times-interview-baltics-russia-nato> in Foreign Policy today on Trump's NATO statements.

Liz