Fact check: Trump’s false claims at his NATO press conference
Examining Trump’s Misstatements During NATO Summit Remarks
Fact check – During a press gathering on Wednesday at the NATO summit held in Ankara, President Donald Trump presented yet another collection of inaccurate assertions. Several of these statements echoed falsehoods he had previously shared with reporters during his Tuesday meeting with Turkey’s president. Below is an evaluation of select comments made on Wednesday.
Investment Claims Under Scrutiny
Trump reiterated his recurring assertion that the United States has received $19.2 trillion in investments within merely a single year of his current administration. This number lacks credibility, as we documented when he first made this claim on Tuesday and on many earlier occasions. At the moment Trump spoke on Wednesday, the White House website itself stated that $10.6 trillion in “major investment announcements” had occurred during this term—not the $19.2 trillion figure he cited. Even the White House’s own number represented a significant overstatement of genuine investment activity.
A comprehensive CNN analysis conducted in October revealed that the White House was tallying trillions of dollars in ambiguous investment commitments. Many of these commitments concerned “bilateral trade” or general “economic exchange” rather than direct investment within American borders. Additionally, some statements did not even qualify as formal pledges. The White House tally incorporated commitments from both domestic corporations and international organizations alike.
According to federal statistics released last month, new foreign direct investment flowing into the United States totaled approximately $232 billion throughout 2025.
Manufacturing Construction Trends
Trump declared:
“We have the largest number of plants being built for the most money ever in the history of our country – car plants, AI plants, and all other plants, pharmaceutical plants.”
Government data indicates otherwise. Spending on manufacturing construction has experienced a steady downward trajectory throughout Trump’s second term following an increase that characterized much of former President Joe Biden’s tenure. That earlier rise had diminished during the final months of Biden’s presidency. Official charts clearly display the declining pattern observed in both 2025 and 2026.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate for manufacturing construction spending in May 2026 stood at roughly $174.8 billion. This represented a decrease of approximately 28 percent compared to May 2024, which was the last May under Biden’s administration. The figure also fell about 28 percent from December 2024, marking Biden’s final complete month in office. Additionally, the rate dropped approximately 26 percent from February 2025, Trump’s first full month as president, and declined about 22 percent from May 2025.
Election and Immigration Assertions
Trump once again misrepresented the 2020 presidential election he lost, stating:
“I’ve been right about everything, and I have been for a long time. It’s how I got to be president three times. It’s how I won three elections.”
He continued by claiming he “won” the 2020 contest but characterized it as a “rigged election.” In reality, Trump has served as president two separate times and won two elections. He genuinely lost the 2020 race, decisively and without controversy, to Biden. While we may set aside his exaggerated assertion that he has “been right about everything,” the election count remains clear.
Regarding former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump repeated his standard assertion that Maduro “had people pour into the country from prisons; they opened up their prisons, they allowed them to come in.” However, Trump has never supplied verification for this claim. Venezuela did experience substantial emigration during the Maduro period due to economic difficulties, violence, and political instability. Nevertheless, despite repeated requests for documentation from CNN and other news organizations, Trump and his associates have never confirmed his frequent statements that Maduro emptied prisons to remove unwanted citizens from the country.
Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, communicated via email to CNN in June 2024:
“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the US or any other country.”
Helen Fair, a global prisons specialist at Birkbeck, University of London, informed CNN in 2024 that she had “seen absolutely no evidence” that any nation had emptied prisons specifically to transfer prisoners to the United States.
Finally, Trump reiterated his incorrect assertion regarding immigration, claiming there were “25 million people, I think more than that, under Biden” crossing the border. The “25 million” number proves inaccurate; even Trump’s earlier “21 million” estimate represented a considerable overstatement. By December 2024, the last complete month of the Biden administration, federal authorities had documented fewer than 11 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants throughout that administration, including millions who faced rapid expulsion. Even incorporating the so-called “gotaways” who avoided detection—estimated by House Republicans at approximately 2.2 million—the total could not possibly approach the claimed figures.