World
NATO's Stoltenberg sidesteps Biden, Trump spat, champions nations hitting spending targets
As the NATO summit drew to a close Thursday, signs the contentious U.S. presidential race was just kicking off became increasingly clear as President Biden and former President Trump used the international event as an opportunity to bolster their campaigns.
Speaking with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg refused to credit just one man when it comes to the jump in GDP defense spending that NATO nations have made in 2024. Twenty-three of the 32 allies have now met their 2% commitments.
“Former President Trump had a very clear message that the European allies had to pay more. This has been a message from consecutive U.S. administrations, and this message has had an impact,” Stoltenberg said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg refuses to get caught up in President Biden-Donald Trump tiff. (Getty Images)
ZELENSKYY SAYS UKRAINE CAN’T WIN WAR UNLESS US LIFTS LIMITS ON STRIKING MILITARY TARGETS IN RUSSIA
Trump and Biden have pointed to the record number of NATO nations hitting their GDP defense spending commitments, first pledged in 2006, as significant accomplishments of their corresponding presidencies.
Trump has been vocal in saying he forced NATO allies to pony up during his tenure.
The number of allies to meet their spending commitments did increase to nine in 2020 from the five nations who met their commitments in 2016 when he entered office. That number dropped to six once he left in 2021.
The greatest jump in NATO defense expenditure occurred this year when, for the first time ever, 23 of the 32 nations under the alliance met their spending agreements.
Supporters of Trump point to the war in Ukraine, not the Biden administration, as the main driving force behind this jump in European defense spending.
Canada, which has garnered years of scrutiny for its apparent refusal to meet its defense spending commitment, announced Thursday it would finally fulfill its 2% spending pledge by 2032.
But it is unclear if all the alliance is truly satisfied with this promise, particularly as smaller NATO nations have not only met their agreements but spend well beyond the 2% limit, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which share a border with Russia.
The eight other countries that fall short of their spending goals are Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain. Iceland is exempt from the 2% commitment as it does not have a standing military.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak during a press conference at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
ZELENSKYY SAYS PUTIN ‘HATES’ BIDEN AND TRUMP, TIME FOR ‘STRONG DECISIONS’
Several international officials expressed concern this week that the 2% spending commitments agreed upon nearly two decades ago no longer reflect the realistic needs of the alliance in the face of increasingly aggressive authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
“We must be clear-eyed about the challenges ahead, and yet not allow fear to make us waver. We are at an inflection point. The choices we make now will decide the future of Ukraine, Europe and this alliance,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Thursday. “Ukrainians clearly understand the existential nature of this war.
“The rest of us — unfortunately — are still battling with the obstacles of our own creation. We still have to change our peacetime mentality and finally make our spending on defense reflect the threat we face.”
In an interview with John Roberts, the co-anchor of “America Reports,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb noted, “I would actually like to give Trump credit because I think he was right on the 2% limit. And, look, in 2014, out of the allies, only three reached that level. I think in 2018 it was something like ten. Now it’s 23. Would that have happened if Trump hadn’t pushed for it? I don’t think so. Would it have happened without circumstance? Probably not.”
U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey, who was appointed just one week ago after a landslide election for the Labour Party, said the new administration would be working to increase NATO spending commitments.
“I think everyone will draw encouragement from the fact that, for the first time, we’ve now got 23 of the 32 nations meeting that 2%. We’re pushing towards 2.5%,” Healey said in reference to the U.K.’s current spending. “I think any assessment of the growing threats that we face and the global instability suggests that all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply 2%.”
On Thursday, Biden championed other efforts he’s made to strengthen NATO, like adding Finland and Sweden to the alliance.
“Foreign policy has never been his strong point. And he seems to have an affinity to people who are authoritarian,” Biden said in reference to Trump.
Donald Trump challenged President Biden to a golf match and vowed to donate $1 million to charity if he loses. (Getty Images)
Speaking at a news conference following the NATO summit, Biden told reporters, “I’m not having any of my European allies come up to me and say, ‘Joe, don’t run.’
“What I hear them say is, ‘You’ve got to win. You can’t let this guy come forward. He’d be a disaster. He’d be a disaster.’”
When pressed by Fox News about sentiment toward the U.S. presidency among allied nations, Stoltenberg said, “NATO is the most successful alliance in history because we have been able to stay out of domestic politics.
“It’s not for NATO to have any opinion about who is going to be elected as next president or prime minister in an allied country.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia’s bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.
The court’s order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation’s mid-decade redistricting competition. It was kicked off last year by President Donald Trump urging Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling severely weakening the Voting Rights Act that opened up even more winnable seats for the GOP.
In recent days, the justices have sided with Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana who hope to redo their congressional maps to produce more GOP-leaning seats following the court’s voting rights decision.
But the Virginia situation was different, stemming from a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that struck down a constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed just last month.
The state court found that the Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in Virginia’s general election last fall.
The Supreme Court typically doesn’t intervene in state court proceedings unless they present an issue of federal law. Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.
Virginia’s amendment had been intended as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to blunt a new map in Florida that just became law. Once the Virginia amendment passed, it briefly turned the nationwide redistricting scramble into a draw between the two parties.
That was unraveled by the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.
The state’s attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones, slammed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, saying it was another example of what he described as a national attack on voting rights and the rule of law.
“Let’s be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump’s political gain,” Jones said in a statement issued late Friday night.
The state’s top Democrats had disagreed about whether it was even too late for help from the Supreme Court. “Time grows short, but it is not yet too late,” lawyers for the Democratic leaders of the legislature as well as the state told the justices in a brief filed Friday.
A day earlier, the office of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger already had confirmed that the state will hold this year’s elections under the current districts established in 2021. Last month, Virginia Commissioner of Elections Steve Koski said a court order was needed by this past Tuesday to set the district lines for primary elections on Aug. 4.
Spanberger reacted to Friday’s decision by saying both courts had nullified the votes of the more than 3 million Virginians who cast ballots in the April 21 special election.
“These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he’s ‘entitled’ to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls,” she posted on her X account.
The leader of the state Republican Party said the justices made the right call.
“Wisely, the Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia,” state party chairman Jeff Ryer said. “This should once and for all put to rest the Democrats’ effort to disenfranchise half of Virginia.
___
Associated Press writer Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
World
Trump says Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, killed in US-Nigerian operation
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President Donald Trump announced late Friday that U.S. and Nigerian forces carried out an operation that killed a global ISIS leader.
Trump identified the terrorist as Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he described as ISIS’s second-in-command globally.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump continued. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
100 US TROOPS LAND IN NIGERIA AS ISLAMIC MILITANTS THREATEN WEST AFRICA REGIONAL SECURITY
President Donald Trump sits at a table monitoring military operations during Operation Epic Fury against Iran at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 2. (The White House via X Account/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Trump also thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation in the mission.
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” he added.
Additional details surrounding the mission were not immediately available.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
US MILITARY IN SYRIA CARRIES OUT 10 STRIKES ON MORE THAN 30 ISIS TARGETS: PHOTOS
The announcement comes after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out multiple strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria in February as part of a joint military effort to “sustain relentless military pressure on remnants from the terrorist network.”
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons-storage targets using fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned aircraft.
DEADLY STRIKE ON US TROOPS TESTS TRUMP’S COUNTER-ISIS PLAN — AND HIS TRUST IN SYRIA’S NEW LEADER
The U.S. military carried out ten strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria following a December ambush that killed U.S. troops. (CENTCOM)
Trump told reporters on Jan. 27 that he had a “great conversation” with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“All of the things having to do with Syria in that area are working out very, very well,” he said at the time. “So, we are very happy about it.”
CENTCOM announced in February that more than 50 ISIS terrorists had been killed or captured and more than 100 ISIS infrastructure targets struck during two months of targeted operations in Syria.
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The U.S. launched Operation Hawkeye Strike in response to an ISIS ambush that killed two U.S. service members and an American interpreter Dec. 13, 2025, in Palmyra, Syria.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella contributed to this report.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks have killed 2,951 people since March 2 with at least 8,988 wounded.
Published On 16 May 2026
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