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A top Democratic senator admitted on CBS News that he believes President Donald Trump “wisely” made the critical demand to NATO allies to spend more on defense.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is in Turkey this week as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation to NATO, spoke with CBS News when an anchor laughingly asked him about Trump’s “strange relationship with NATO over his push for them to spend more on security.” The anchor asked Durbin, “Where does this relationship go from here?”
In response, Durbin described Trump’s relationship with NATO as a “back-and-forth, love-and-hate relationship.” He went on to say that “the president has, I think, wisely asked for our NATO allies, there are 32 members of NATO, to spend more of their own money to protect themselves.”
“That’s not an unreasonable ask,” he added.
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Durbin, who has served in the Senate for nearly 30 years, is the minority whip and ranking member of the influential Judiciary Committee. He is in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, as part of a congressional delegation led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to the 2026 NATO Summit. Trump is also attending the summit, accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
Durbin did not spend all his time praising the president. Speaking from Ankara, he went on to say that “there have been things that happened during his second presidency which raised the question of our commitment to the future of NATO.”
“I believe in it; that’s why I’m here. And I’ve found that of the delegates that are here from all over the region, part of NATO, that they believe, as I do, that we’re a safer world with the NATO alliance. We have been since 1945.”
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He added that the summit “will be an opportunity for us to convince the president, if we have to, to move forward with this relationship.”
Before traveling to Turkey for the summit, Trump vented his frustration about NATO, writing in a social media post that “the United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing: U.S. 999 Billion Dollars, United Kingdom, 90.5 Billion Dollars, France, 66.5 Billion Dollars, Italy, 48.8 Billion Dollars, Poland, 44.3 Billion Dollars. Others, including Germany, are MUCH LOWER. (2014-2025) Ridiculous!”
A NATO release stated that the “cut-off date for information used in this report was 3 June 2025” and that “figures for 2024 and 2025 are estimates.” It listed estimated 2025 U.S. defense spending at $980 billion, the United Kingdom’s at $90.508 billion, France’s at $66.531 billion, Italy’s at $48.8 billion and Poland’s at $44.314 billion.
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In another post, Trump said it is “ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!!”
The president’s comments came after NATO leaders backed a new defense spending benchmark calling on allies to invest 5% of gross domestic product in defense and defense-related expenditures.
Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
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