President Donald Trump made false claims about NATO, NASA, foreign policy, taxes, immigration and other subjects in a Fox Business interview, notes CNN (below).
Trump on Artemis II: "I started that program. NASA was closed." pic.twitter.com/AST8aM7ylE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 15, 2026
Trump falsely claimed that, before he started the Artemis program during his first presidency with the goal of returning humans to the moon, “NASA was closed. It was totally closed.” It’s simply not true that NASA was “closed” before he came to office in 2017, as Space.com, CNN and many others explained when Trump made similar claims in 2020; NASA has been in continuous existence since its founding in 1958, and major NASA initiatives began during the pre-Trump presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In fact, the space launch system (SLS) used in the recent Artemis II lunar flyby was developed under Obama beginning in 2011, while the Orion spacecraft used in Artemis II also predates Trump’s time in office.
(Sources: Fox Business, CNN)