Saturday, 23 November 2024

FACT-CHECK: NATO Chief Threatens To Expel USA From Alliance?

100 Percent Fed Up
Hits: 10

News is Trending right now on Twitter that NATO Chief Mark Rutte has threatened to kick the USA out of NATO if President Trump doesn’t continue funding Ukraine.

Take a look:

The entire thing is laughable considering we fund over half of NATO ourselves:

Your terms are acceptable, Mark!

But alas, there’s just one problem….the story appears to be Fake News.

If only it were that easy, a 2-for-1 solution!

Whenever something appears to be “too good to be true” it often is, and that’s the case here as this Community Note appears to be accurate:

Hat tip to Newsweek, I think they got this one right — presenting their full fact check right here to report accurately and honestly.  We report the truth here, not what we WANT to be real:

Rumors are circulating online that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said he will kick the U.S. out of the alliance due to President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine.

The allegations on X, formerly known as Twitter, of Rutte’s expulsion of the U.S. from NATO followed the publication of a note in Pravda EN, a Russian news portal, on Sunday. It originated from a post on Telegram.

The unsourced note said, “NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that if Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, he will personally kick the U.S. out of the alliance. All NATO Secretaries General are so feeble-minded. Stoltenberg was ready to start a nuclear war with Russia, and Rutte is the same way.”

The false claims also came in the wake of Trump’s advisers telling The Wall Street Journal in an article published Wednesday that the president-elect “makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this.”

When discussing his plans for the war in Ukraine, Trump has previously said that he would end it “within 24 hours” and in addition to pushing for a ceasefire, his advisers “uniformly recommend freezing the war in place.”

Newsweek has found that Rutte made no statements regarding the U.S.’ alleged expulsion from NATO on his social media platforms, or during a NATO doorstep statement on Thursday in which he congratulated the president-elect.

Misinformation regarding the allegations has spread on X, with users posting the news and their posts going viral.

One user, Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis, a medical doctor, wrote, “Breaking- NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that ‘If Trump surrenders Ukraine to Putin, he will personally expel the United States from the alliance’ Good luck with that.”

Loupis’ post has gained more than 900,000 views, 20,000 likes, 4,000 reposts, and 4,600 comments as of Monday morning.

Another user, Joey Mannarino, a political strategist, wrote, “The new head of NATO just said that if he doesn’t like the peace deal that Trump comes up with for the Ukraine-Russia conflict, he will personally expel the US from NATO. So we get a two-for-one deal? Sign me up, now!”

Mannarino’s X post received more than 925,000 views, 55,000 likes, 8,000 reposts, and 4,100 comments.

Olga Robinson, an assistant editor at BBC Verify, fact-checked the claims and wrote, “There’s zero evidence that NATO chief Mark Rutte has said he’ll kick US out of the alliance if Trump surrenders Ukraine to Russia. The quote leads to pro-Kremlin sites and channels on Telegram. Rutte actually said after 5 Nov election he is looking forward to working with Trump.”

After Trump’s victory last week, Rutte wrote on X, “I spoke with @realDonaldTrump to personally congratulate him on his remarkable election victory. I look forward to seeing him soon. We will work together to tackle the many security challenges we face.”

Rutte has previously said that Trump needs to maintain NATO membership as without it, he “is alone, and in a harsh, uncompromising world he needs the alliance,” according to The Guardian.

Trump has previously criticized the intergovernmental military alliance, saying that the U.S. contributes too much financially compared to Europe. He said in March, however, that the U.S. would remain a member so long as European countries “play fair” and do not “take advantage” of high levels of American defense spending.

Rutte was the Dutch Prime Minister during Trump’s first term in 2016. The NATO chief said: “I worked with him very well for four years. He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.”

When it’s “too good to be true” it often is and you should double check your sources.

You can always trust WLT Report to bring you the real news, with no censorship or bias.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.

View the original article here.


Source link

Search