U.S. NATO ambassador: President 'reevaluating everything'

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday echoed comments from President Donald Trump and other Cabinet leaders this week suggesting that Washington could leave the bloc.

“I think that it’s very clear right now that President Trump is evaluating and reevaluating everything,” he said on Newsmax. “Whether that is our involvement with NATO, whether that is our support to the European effort in Ukraine or whether that is anything else the United States is doing.”

Whitaker, who served as acting attorney general during Trump's first term, made the remarks as Trump himself and Cabinet Secretaries Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth have both questioned the merits of the alliance in light of NATO members refusing to help the U.S. amid the Iran war.

Hegseth, for his part, told reporters that "[a] lot has been shown to the world about what our allies would be willing to do for the United States of America when we undertake an effort of this scope. When we ask for additional assistance... we get questions, or roadblocks, or hesitation."

"Why are we in NATO?" Rubio asked during a Fox News appearance. "You have to ask that question. Why do we send trillions of dollars and have all of these American forces stationed in the region, if in our time of need, we won't be allowed to use those bases?"

Trump himself told The Telegraph on Wednesday that he was open to a withdrawal from NATO.

“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way," he said.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.