Trump on NATO summit: "I felt I had to attend"

President Trump renewed his criticism of NATO on Tuesday as alliance leaders met in Ankara, Turkey, for the annual summit, criticizing allies for refusing to join the U.S. and Israel in the war against Iran.

"I was very disappointed with NATO, and frankly if it weren't held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it's possible that I wouldn't have attended," he told reporters alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I felt I had to attend because of the fact that I know he's gone all out."

"We've invested trillions of dollars in NATO. Why? To protect European countries and others," he said. "You would think that they'd be very willing to do something to help us, and they really weren't."

The president said the U.S. "didn't need any help" in the war against Iran and that he was merely "testing" the alliance with his calls for assistance.

"Italy turned us down, and Germany turned us down, and France turned us down," he said. "And that's okay. But, you know, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not there for us? We've always been there for them."

#nato #trump #cspan