I hate to say this, but they're correct, if only pedantically. The claim was:

> The United States has never activated article 5

The US didn't activate it. It was:

> The decision to invoke NATO's collective self-defense provisions was undertaken at NATO's own initiative, without a request by the United States

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NATO_Article_5_contingenc...

Regardless, article 5 was activated _on behalf_ of the US, if not at the US's request.

If we're gonna go to that level of splitting hairs, then I'd suggest "NATO - including Spain - did it without us even having to ask" is quite supportive of my position.