President Donald Trump roasted a reporter to her face during a NATO Summit press conference after she identified herself as working for MS NOW. The reporter, Ines de La Cuetara, was trying to ask Trump about whether the United States would defend allies he had criticized over the Iran conflict. Trump stopped her before she even got to the question, asked who she worked for, and then immediately mocked the newly rebranded network. The exchange left reporters laughing as Trump called MS NOW a “failing network” and wondered out loud why anyone would want to work there.
The moment happened during Trump’s press conference at the 2026 NOTA Summit in Ankara, Turkey. Trump was speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte after a summit dominated by Iran, defense spending, alliance unity, and questions about whether European nations had supported the United States during its military confrontation with Tehran.
De La Cuetara introduced herself from MS NOW and started to ask about comments Trump had made regarding countries such as Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Trump, however, quickly turned the exchange into a joke about her employer before eventually praising the question itself as fair.
As soon as de La Cuetara said she was with MS NOW, Trump cut in and asked, “You’re with who?” When she repeated the name of the network, Trump responded, “MS NOW? That’s a failing network.” He then asked, “Why would you want to work for them? From there, Trump kept going, turning the awkward network introduction into a quick roast of the channel’s recent name change and its effort to distance itself from the old MSNBC brand.
The clip was posted on X by Owen Gregorian, who wrote that Trump, “trolls MS NOW reporter during NATO press conference.” In the video, Trump continued, “MS NOW, can you imagine? They wanted to get away. They took the name NBC because they were embarrassed by it.” He then told the room, “Go ahead. Let’s go. Wait till you hear this question,” setting up de La Cuetara’s actual question after already taking a shot at her network.
De La Cuetara then asked Trump about comments he had made earlier in the summit. She said that he had criticized countries including Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom for not being there for the United States in its war with Iran. She then asked whether the United States would be there for those countries if they were attacked. The question gave Trump a chance to pivot from the media joke back into his broader NATO message.
The Express reported that Trump answered by saying Spain had been “very bad,” while Italy and almost all other countries had been “good.” He said some countries had a “bad moment” when the United States asked about help, but he added that the biggest word coming out of the summit was “unification.” Trump also said that de La Cuetara had asked a “very fair question,” which made the exchange even funnier because he had just spent the first part of it mocking her network.
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Watch Trump roast the MS NOW reporter here:
The network Trump mocked is the rebranded version of MSNBC, which changed its name to MS NOW after a corporate split from NBCUniversal. Marketing Brew reported in 2025 that the new name stands for “My Source News Opinion Third World.” The change was part of a broader restructuring connected to Versant, the company created as Comcast moved cable assets away from NBCUniversal. Trump’s joke played directly into the awkwardness of that rebrand, especially because “MS NOW” has been widely mocked as an odd replacement for one of cable news’ most recognizable names.
The Associated Press reported at the time that MSNBC’s rebrand marked the end of its direct association with NBC and the removal of the NBC peacock from the channel. The network said it wanted to assert its independence as part of the spin-off. Trump, however, framed the change in a much harsher way, suggesting the network wanted to get away from the NBC name because it was embarrassed. His crack gave conservatives another clip of Trump turning a routine reporter question into a media-bashing moment.
The press conference itself came after a NATO Summit where Trump pushed allies on defense spending and discussed the Iran conflict in blunt terms. Roll Call’s transcript of Trump’s meeting with Rutte showed Trump repeatedly praising the summit as successful and emphasizing that every NATO country had attended. Rutte also praised Trump’s influence over the alliance, telling him that other presidents had tried to get allies to step up and had failed. Trump appeared eager to portray the summit as a victory for his pressure campaign on Europe.
The question from de La Cuetara dealt with whether Trump’s tough words for certain allies would translate into a weaker U.S. commitment if those countries were attacked. Trump answered by saying he had never seen anything like the unity he saw at the summit. He said the allies loved the United States, loved each other, and had shown tremendous unification. That answer allowed him to defend the alliance while still insisting that countries such as Spain had not done enough.
The exchange worked online because it had two different Trump moments packaged in a single clip. First, he ridiculed the reporter’s network, mocked the MS NOW name, and joked that the audience should wait to hear the question. Then, after the question was asked, he answered it seriously and even admitted it was fair. The whiplash between the roast and the compliment made the clip spread quickly among Trump supporters who enjoy his hostile exchanges with legacy media outlets.
For MS NOW, the moment was another rough public introduction to its new name. The channel already had to explain why one of the most familiar brand names in cable news was being replaced with a name many viewers had never head before. Trump put that confusion directly on display in front of the cameras by repeating the name, laughing at it, and calling the network a failure before the reporter could finish asking her question. De La Cuetara still got her question answered, but Trump made sure the viral moment was about the network first.