Reporter: Mr. President, on NATO, you voiced your displeasure in the past. Is there a danger to the U.S. not being the de facto leader of the alliance, and then other powers within the alliance getting decision-making power when it comes to wars and nuclear weapons?

President: No, it's not a danger. NATO—look, we went to NATO. I didn't ask very strongly. I just said, "Hey, if you want to help, great. No? No, no, no. We will not help." I said, "That's all right. You don't want to help?"

Because I've always said, NATO's a paper tiger. See, NATO is a paper tiger. Putin's not afraid of NATO. Putin's afraid of us. Very afraid of us. And he's explained it to me a lot of times. I got to know him very well. I know him very well. NATO is a paper tiger. NATO is us.

And when we needed them—and we didn't need them, by the way, because they haven't helped at all—just the opposite. They've actually gone out of their way not to help. They didn't even want to give us landing strips. Think of it.

And it's not just NATO. You know who else didn't help us? South Korea. You know who else? Australia. You know who else? Japan. We've got 50,000 soldiers in Japan to protect them from North Korea. We have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong-un, who I get along with very well, as you know.

Do you notice he said very nice things about me? He used to call Joe Biden a "mentally retarded person." Okay, so don't tell me about your stuff. Joe Biden—he said he's a mentally retarded person. He was so nasty to Joe Biden. It was terrible. But to me, he likes Trump. And do you notice how nice things are with North Korea? It's very nice.

But we have 45,000 people, soldiers in harm's way, right next to Kim Jong-un with a lot of nuclear weapons. 45,000, which should have never happened. If a certain president—I'm not going to mention this president because I happen to like him, believe it or not—did his job, Kim Jong-un would not have nuclear weapons right now. But they were all afraid to do their job properly.

To conclude, Japan didn't help us. Australia didn't help us. South Korea didn't help us. And then you get to NATO. NATO didn't help us. There were some countries that did.

Now, countries that have been good—you could also say they've got to be a little more involved because they're in the territory. But Saudi Arabia has been excellent. Qatar has been excellent. UAE has been excellent. Bahrain, Kuwait.

I mean, Kuwait did shoot down three of our planes. The only planes we really lost to friendly fire—I call it "unfriendly fire." They unfortunately didn't know how to use our great Patriots. The pilot said, "What kind of missiles coming at us? Patriot." Boom. They got out because they know a Patriot never misses. So they had beautiful Patriots. Planes were heading in their direction. Unfortunately, they decided to shoot those planes. They were our planes.

So, no, NATO is a paper tiger.

Now, he's coming to see me on Wednesday, as you know. He's a wonderful guy. Secretary General is great. And Mark Rutah, he's a great person. But you know—it all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland. They don't want to give it to us. And I said, "Bye-bye." Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, Thank you.

Reporter: What about rising gas prices for Americans who are concerned?