Fact check: Trump’s false claims about NATO, NASA, taxes and immigration
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump made false claims about NATO, NASA, foreign policy, taxes, immigration and other subjects in a Fox Business interview that aired Wednesday morning.
Here is a fact check of some of his remarks to Fox host Maria Bartiromo, who let almost all of the falsehoods go unchallenged.
Foreign policy
US spending on NATO: Trump declared, “This country should not be paying trillions of dollars to NATO.” At another point in the interview, he asked “why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO” if it will not support the US on the Iran war. But the US does not actually pay NATO trillions of dollars or spend hundreds of billions per year on NATO. Trump appeared to be doing what he has done for years: mix up the country’s own military spending, which is tracked by NATO, with the country’s direct contributions to NATO itself.
The US certainly spends hundreds of billions per year on defense — in the neighborhood of $1 trillion in the 2026 fiscal year — and the Trump administration has made a $1.5 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2027. But only a tiny fraction of that spending is sent to NATO. Under an agreed formula, the US is responsible for about 15% of NATO’s direct funding, which NATO says is about $6.3 billion in 2026 (at current exchange rates) — so under $1 billion in 2026.
Even if the US provides additional funding for NATO initiatives, and even if Trump is counting US defense spending in NATO member countries, Trump’s claims about “paying trillions of dollars to NATO” and “spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO” are way off.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries: Trump, talking about Iran’s attacks on Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, claimed that they were “shocked when they got hit” and added, “You know, these countries were not expected to be hit.” We can’t speak for the countries themselves, but numerous experts on the region had publicly said that they expected Iran to strike its Gulf neighbors if it was attacked.
Trump and wars: Trump repeated his false claim that “I ended eight wars.” While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration. As we’ve repeatedly noted, his list includes two situations that were never actually wars (a diplomatic dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia and a mystery situation between Serbia and Kosovo) and at least one war that didn’t actually end (involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo), among other issues.
Other presidents and wars: Trump also repeated his false claim that no other president has ever ended a war: “Nobody’s ever ended one war. Who’s ended one? Nobody.” In reality, US presidents have played a major role in ending various wars by winning those wars, including World War I, World War II and the Gulf War — and US presidents have brokered numerous peace agreements in wars not being fought by the US. President Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his role in a peace agreement ending a war between the Russian and Japanese empires; President Jimmy Carter played a major role in brokering a 1979 peace agreement to end a long-running state of war between Egypt and Israel; President Bill Clinton played a major role in the 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War; and US administrations have mediated a long list of other armed conflicts.
Immigration
Migration under Biden: Trump, talking about immigration, repeated his false claim that there were “25 million people coming across” during the Biden administration. The “25 million” figure is false; even Trump’s previous “21 million” figure was a wild exaggeration. Through December 2024, the last full month under the Biden administration, the federal government had recorded under 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during that administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country. Even adding in the so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2.2 million, there’s no way the total was even close to what Trump has said.
Illegal border entries under Trump: Trump also repeated his false claim that “in the last nine months, not one person came across the border illegally.” US Customs and Border Protection has made a narrower claim, saying the authorities haven’t released any migrants into the country over the last 11 months after encountering these migrants crossing the border. But it’s clear that some migrants evaded authorities to cross the border illegally during that period and during a 9-month period — though it appears the number of “gotaways” was much smaller than it was during the Biden administration.
Customs and Border Protection doesn’t release official figures on “gotaways” (and didn’t respond to a CNN request for information in February), but there were certainly some migrants who crossed illegally during the last nine months. In December, the conservative Washington Examiner interviewed Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks and reported that Banks said that on December 18, just 17 migrants crossing the southern border evaded arrest. The Examiner reported that Banks was “anticipating a day in the near future where not a single person who crosses illegally will get away,” but clearly that day hadn’t happened yet.
Trump could fairly note that the number of migrants encountered at the border was way down in 2025 compared to 2024 levels under Biden.
The border wall: Touting his work on the southern border, Trump said, “You know, I built over 1,000 miles of wall.” That is not true.
A federal report written days after Trump left office in 2021, obtained by CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez that year, said total wall construction during Trump’s first term was 458 miles. (Specifically: 52 miles of new “primary” wall built in parts of the border where no barriers previously existed, plus 33 miles of “secondary” wall that was built in places that were previously barrier-free, plus another 373 miles of primary and secondary wall that was built to replace previous barriers the government claimed had become “dilapidated and/or outdated.”) The current US Customs and Border Protection website says that, during Trump’s second presidential term, another roughly 36 miles of additional wall have been completed, including replacement barriers and secondary barriers, and that roughly 77 miles are under construction.
Even including the roughly 77 miles under construction doesn’t get you to “over 1,000.”
The website also says that, prior to the start of Trump’s second term, there were about 719 miles of existing wall that met the Border Patrol’s “operational requirements.” But the website doesn’t say all of those miles were built during Trump’s first term — and, besides, adding roughly 36 miles and roughly 77 miles to an initial quantity of roughly 719 miles still wouldn’t add up to “over 1,000.”
Taxes and the Fed
Tax on Social Security: Trump said that, if Democrats take power again, they will end Republican policies including “no tax on Social Security for our seniors.” But that policy does not exist. The big domestic policy bill Trump signed in 2025 did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more), but as the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits — and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.
The price tag for the Fed renovation: Again slamming Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the price tag of a renovation to the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, Trump claimed that “they’re going to spend maybe $4 billion” and that the project is “going to cost maybe $4 billion.” The Fed says on its website that the project has a budget of $2.46 billion. Trump did qualify his “$4 billion” claims with the word “maybe,” and the $2.46 billion total could certainly rise — the project was initially estimated at $1.9 billion — but a “$4 billion” expenditure is not a certainty.
Sen. Thom Tillis: Bartiromo asked Trump whether he thinks Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is going to vote to confirm Kevin Warsh, the president’s pick to succeed Powell; Tillis has said he won’t vote for any Fed nominee until the Justice Department drops a criminal investigation into Powell related to his congressional testimony about the renovation.
Trump responded, “Well, we’re gonna have to find out. He might not, but that’s why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator. You know Tom Tillis is no longer a senator, right?” But that’s not right. Tillis announced last year that he wouldn’t run for reelection in the 2026 midterms, but he is still a senator; his term ends in January 2027.
After Bartiromo responded, “Well, he’s on his way out,” Trump said, “Well, no, he quit. But he quit.” But he then implicitly acknowledged Tillis did not resign, saying he heard Tillis’ comments but “I think he doesn’t want the legacy of stopping a great — person who could be great.”
Miscellaneous
NASA: Trump falsely claimed that, before he started the Artemis program during his first presidency with the goal of returning humans to the moon, “NASA was closed. It was totally closed.” It’s simply not true that NASA was “closed” before he came to office in 2017, as Space.com, CNN and many others explained when Trump made similar claims in 2020; NASA has been in continuous existence since its founding in 1958, and major NASA initiatives began during the pre-Trump presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In fact, the space launch system (SLS) used in the recent Artemis II lunar flyby was developed under Obama beginning in 2011, while the Orion spacecraft used in Artemis II also predates Trump’s time in office.
“It is NOT correct that NASA was dead under the Obama administration,” John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, where he is a professor emeritus, told CNN in 2020; “much was started, like the commercial crew program … and the beginning of the Space Launch System that will return Americans to the Moon — plus lots of robotic science.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Trump told a story about how liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declined to retire under Democratic president Barack Obama despite her advanced age and health concerns, but he added, “And about two minutes after the election, she went out, and I got to appoint somebody.” Trump’s timeline is inaccurate. Ginsburg’s death in September 2020, at 87, came during Trump’s first presidency and more than six weeks before Trump’s election defeat to Joe Biden, not “about two minutes after the election.” (Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg, and the Senate quickly confirmed her in late October 2020.)
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