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Department spokesperson. admiral, here's how my colleague jim sciutto put it on twitter. "the u.s. president just questioning the decades old treaty commitment to defend its nato allies as they commit to defend the u.s. arguably more consequential than defeating his election interference. how do you see it? >> it's troublesome. his comments will send a stronger message to putin than our nato allies'py believe if i'm vladimir putin and i heard that interview to pick up on

The idea they don't spend enough on their own defense. he conditioned that a year ago. basically we will condition our defense of our allies on whether or not they are making financial investments in their own defense. that's the first time any american president has ever sort of given any sense that we would not follow through on our treaty commitment. now whether he means that or a -- or whether it's just a negotiating tactic, there had been a big expectation that he would say something about that today. he was speaking in fact in front of a memorial to article 5. now his staff says the fact...

They had paid up. you heard that theme, of course in his speech today about paying up. the idea they don't spend enough on their own defense. he conditioned that a year ago. basically we will condition our defense of our allies on whether or not they are making financial investments in their own defense. that's the first time any american president has ever sort of given any sense that we would not follow through on our treaty commitment. now whether he means that or a negotiating tactic, there had been a big expectation that he would say something about that today. he was speaking in fact in ...

On their own defense. he conditioned that a year ago. basically we will condition our defense of our allies on whether or not they are making financial investments in their own defense. that's the first time any american president has ever sort of given any sense that we would not follow through on our treaty commitment. now whether he means that or a negotiating tactic, there had been a big expectation that he would say something about that today. he was speaking in fact in front of a memorial to article 5. now his staff says the fact that he didn't say anything doesn't mean anything. the fac...

Awoken and put more into defense. the norwegians are doing a better job -- >> neil: so these numbers are better than they were? >> oh, gosh, yes. that's the scary thing. at one point, we were down to three. more importantly than that, if you look deeper, there's a large number of countries close to 2%. if they put more effort in it, they would be over the 2% number. that hasn't always been the case. let's be honest about it. didn't happen because of the previous administration. probably didn't happen because of the administration before that and which i served. events drove it in following 9-1...