Sky News presenter Matt Barbet halted the channel’s usual broadcast to bring viewers a breaking Donald Trump story. The anchor explained the US President had published a new post on his Truth Social site. “Let’s have a look at that post in full,” he said before reading it out.

“He says, without the USA, NATO is a paper tiger; they don’t want to join the fight to stop a nuclear-powered Iran now that the fight is militarily won. He says, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military manoeuvre. Donald Trump thinks that is the single reason for the high oil prices so easy for them to do with so little risk, cowards. He signs off, and we will remember President Donald J Trump.”

He then cut to the channel’s US Correspondent David Blevins in Washington to analyse the latest message. “[This] and his tweet this morning, I think, is much more about pressuring allies to join the United States in its action against Iran than anything to do with NATO capabilities,” Blevins speculated.

“In fact, some might suggest that he is now preparing for an exit to pass the problem of the Strait of Hormuz to those allies. If we analyse it very briefly, strategically… I think it is one, about leaning on those allies to protect shipping in the strait as he tries to find a way out of this war.

“Now, two, [is] reinforcing his long-running theme that America carries too much of the burden within NATO. And then three, there is a domestic aspect to it as well. He wants voters here in the United States to hear the message that America is doing too much. Why should we be defending them?

“…In the last few minutes, he’s been presenting the Commander-in-Chief trophy to the Naval Academy, which has won the annual round robin competition between the three colleges, Army, Navy and Air Force, and the president did speak very briefly about Iran,” he confirmed, cutting to a clip of the speech.

In the short clip, Trump waxed lyrical about the war, saying the US was doing “extremely well in Iran” and insisted he wasn’t “going to let them have nuclear weapons, because if they had them, they’d use them, and we’re not going to let that happen.”

Cutting back to Barbet and Blevins, they continued to discuss this latest information. “[It] is definitely one of the possibilities that he thinks it’s time for America’s allies to take on the challenges,” Blevins said.

“Certainly, he continues to play them down from a US perspective, saying his enemies have been obliterated – a word we’re hearing a lot – that they are weeks ahead of schedule. Interestingly, also yesterday, when he was asked if the United States was preparing to put boots on the ground, he said no. Then qualified it by adding, if I were, I wouldn’t tell you.

“That’s reminiscent of a comment he made on this very day three weeks ago when he was asked, ‘Is the United States about to start bombing Iran?’ And he said, ‘No, but if we were, I wouldn’t tell you. In terms of that post online though this morning, the reality is America accounts for 60% to 70% of NATO’s defence spending, but NATO is not powerless because it includes the militaries of the UK, France, Germany and Turkey, among many others.”