FACT CHECK: No Evidence Trump Recently Said He Is Considering Pulling Out Of NATO

🚨 BREAKING: President-elect Trump says he is considering pulling the United States out of NATO.

Do you support this?

A. YES
B. NO pic.twitter.com/qop2Df32a0

— Tucker Carlson News (@TuckerCNews) January 23, 2025

Verdict: Unsubstantiated

While Trump has mused about withdrawing from NATO, there is no evidence he has said this as president.

Fact Check:

Social media users are claiming that Trump is considering withdrawing from NATO. One user wrote, “BREAKING: President-elect Trump says he is considering pulling the United States out of NATO. Do you support this? A. YES B. NO.”

There is no recent evidence that Trump has said he is considering withdrawing from NATO. An internet search did not yield any results for the comments. Trump did say during a December 2024 interview that he would consider withdrawing from NATO after being asked by the interviewer. But he also said he would “absolutely stay with NATO” on some conditions.

“If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely I’d stay with NATO,” Trump said. (RELATED: Did Donald Trump Post That He Would Ban Pornography?)

A Business Insider article references comments he made in 2018 but does not state he made these comments recently. A European diplomatic source told ANSA, an Italian state news agency, that Trump wanted to withdraw 20,000 troops from Europe.

Trump’s latest comments regarding NATO come from a Jan. 23 speech in front of the World Economic Forum, where he pushed for member states to raise their defense spending to 5%.

“I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago — it was only at 2 percent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along; I insisted that they pay, and they did — because the United States was really paying the difference at that time, and it’s — it was unfair to the United States. But many, many things have been unfair for many years to the United States,” he said during the speech.