This is your president, but also leader of the free world, taking the leadership role as is necessary.
Thank you very much. We very much appreciate it. Thank you very much. Any questions, please?
Mr. President, after all this, you've been so transformative vis-Ã -vis NATO, and I think the Secretary General just stated that you transformed NATO. The lives of nobody would have even thought that you could have done. After all that, do you still think that European allies like you told me to the detriment, and if so, what can they do to make things better? And to you, Secretary General, can you confirm that all the thousands of flights, as you stated today and yesterday on Fox News, are in compliance with NATO treaty itself?
Well, let me just say, he's been a friend of mine. He's a great guy, great leader, great Secretary General. Everybody respects him. And I appreciate your nice words, but you really have done a good job. And I think if anybody else were in that position, we wouldn't even be meeting today, to be honest with you, because we were let down. We didn't need help on this at all. We demolished them in literally the first week. But it would have been nice if they would have said, 'We'd like to help.' We didn't even need it, but it would have been nice if they said that. They didn't say it, but as Secretary General, and he's the boss of the whole operation, I believe if I would have called him, and I didn't bother doing that because I was doing individual countries just to take the temperature and see how they were doing, but I think if I would have called him, he probably would have found a way to help if we needed. I feel it would have been a little bit different. But I was disappointed. I was disappointed with Italy. I was disappointed with the UK. He's now gone. And, you know, he had a lot of problems, but we were disappointed with the UK. We were disappointed with Germany and France. We're disappointed with most of them. Spain is terrible even from your standpoint. I mean, they don't want to pay anything. They think they're in for a free ride. Spain is not a good group. Not a good group at all. But I have great respect for this man. And so, we're going to be discussing what took place and we'll see what happen. Thank you. Any questions?
Can I answer to your second question because I don't have many disagreements with the President of the United States. Here I have to slightly because I do agree there's reason for disappointment, absolutely. But my argument is this: these are isolated cases. When you look at the overall picture, take for example Germany. From day one, they delivered on their bilateral commitments. These are bilateral commitments these countries are having with the United States. So, this is not strictly speaking NATO. Bilateral commitments, they all did what they promised to do. And this leads to between 4,000 and 5,000 US planes taking off from Europe. I would argue it would have been very difficult to do the Iran operation without having Europe as a power projection platform for the United States. They did it with it again. He's right. There's also reason for disappointment. It is a mixed bag.
Well, the big question is are they paying the 5% they agreed six months ago when we were together to pay 5%? And for the most part, they're not paying.
Well, when you look at the numbers, take for example Germany. So, we agreed they get a couple of years to get there because you cannot spend it in one year because you have an absorption problem. But Germany, for example, Germany has doubled, is doubling its defense spending between 2021 and 2029. They will spend over 150 billion by 2029, which is staggering, more than the French and the Brits combined even. Take the Dutch, take Poland and the Baltics already there. Countries like Denmark really stepping up. And the Nordics. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, but most of them are doing it and the alliance is so much stronger because of this man.
I have the honor to say I'm from GB News. Thank you. You mentioned our Prime Minister is going for Andy, the new guy coming in, Andy Burnham. What do you know about him? And Mr. President, what does he need to do to improve the relationship between the UK and the US?
I don't know anything. I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town. I hear he's extremely liberal. Extremely. So that means he probably won't open up the North Sea. And I gave Keir Starmer some pretty good advice. I said, 'Open up the North Sea. Go to Aberdeen, which was the hottest city in the whole continent. It was the oil city. It was the oil of Europe.' And they closed everything. It was terrible. I saw it before my eyes and I couldn't believe it. The North Sea is loaded. I have had every oil company come to see me, 'Sir, could you give us access to the UK? We would do anything to drill in the North Sea.' And they haven't even found much there. The amazing thing is they buy their oil from Norway, which gets the oil from the North Sea. Think of it. And they pay a big premium. Norway's got now $2 trillion in the bank. And the UK is dying. So they should open up the North Sea and it's an easy one and a lot of good things are going to happen. It's among the greatest fields in the world.
President Trump, great night for Democratic Socialist candidates last night in the New York primaries. They swept and knocked out two incumbents. You're from New York. Why do you think it is that now the endorsement of Zephyr Teachout means more than the endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries?
Well, they're going radical left. They're going really, you know, you talk about the Democrat socialists. It's really communist. These people, I watched that woman last night. That's not a socialist. I know socialists. That woman is a communist. And you know what they don't say is that I was 16 and 0 last night. But mine were a little more boring, a little more mainstream. They were Republican conservatives. But we were 16 and 0. And if you look over the last two and a half years, we're about 347 and just about 0. That's pretty good. But nobody writes that. But he picked three. They won. They beat a guy named Dan Goldman who's, you know, a loser. He was one of my prosecutors, one of my many prosecutors that they used on me. Dan Goldman, not a good prosecutor, fortunately. But he's now looking for a job. I was very surprised to see, you know, because he's a pretty liberal guy. When they go more liberal than Dan Goldman, they're really into Neverland.
Does this tell you that the Democratic Party's 2028 nominee will likely be, or could likely be, a Democratic socialist?
Well, it should make it easier for Republicans. Because most of the nation is composed of sane people. They don't want to, you know, if you look throughout history, go back thousands of years, you've always had socialism and communism by different names. It's never ever worked. It's not going to work this time.
Mr. President, thank you very much, sir. As a Turk myself, your presence in Ankara is eagerly anticipated. What's your message to your great friend Erdogan and the Turkish people? Because you're going to be there in less than a week.
Well, I like him. He's a friend of mine and he stayed out of the war. You know, he was a prime candidate to go into the war with Iran. Maybe on the Iran side, because he's not a big fan of Israel, as you know. And I asked him to stay out. He stayed out. And you know who else was great? Was President Xi of China. He could have come in. He gets half of his oil from that area, you know. I could see him wanting to. And I asked him to please stay out. And he did. We did a good job. But he stayed out. Erdogan's a great leader, very strong person, great military. And I asked him to stay out, and he did. And so did President Xi. And frankly, so did Putin, if you really look. But you could say that Vladimir has some other things to focus on. But they all stayed out. It was pretty amazing. People were surprised. And I think that Erdogan is, look, he loves Turkey. Right? He's doing a great job. He loves Turkey. I love the US, but he loves Turkey and he's doing a great job. He's a respected man, a respected leader, and he's been a friend of mine. Now, I shouldn't say that. Because guys like Peter would say, 'Oh, he likes Erdogan.' He likes Erdogan. Some of the others, let's say. But Erdogan is a strong man. But everything I've ever asked him for, he's done.
And finally, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General clearly pointed out that allies want to do defense business with you. And Turkey is definitely one of them. They want the F-16 jet engines, and they want the F-35 fighter jets. Are you going to Turkey with a big gift bag, like the last time?
Yeah, I think so. Look, he's a member of NATO. Some people don't consider him so, but he really is. He's a strong member of NATO. Yeah, I'm going to probably do something that's going to make him very happy. Tell him hello. He's a good man.
And Turkey has a huge defense industrial base. 3,000 companies working all over the alliance, also in the United States. So strong.
People don't know how big Turkey is in terms of the military. It's a very strong, they have a lot of our equipment. A very strong military. Because of him. Yeah, please.
What are your expectations, sir, about this meeting in Ankara? What do you think?
Well, except for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don't think I would have gone to it. But I might go. I mean, I wouldn't have gone for, you know, what we went through over the last few months with, you know, the various countries. But you're probably right. I would have gone for you. But I would have not gone for most people, but he called me up. He said, 'Please, I have it in Turkey. You got to be there. The United States has to be there.' And so, I'm going out of respect to President Erdogan.
What do you want the allies to do more than what they are doing right now? Do you have an ask?
I just want their loyalty. We don't need their money. We don't need anything. We have the most powerful military in the world by far. But I just want loyalty. You know, we're so loyal to them. We're always fighting for them. We have thousands of troops all over Europe. In Germany, we have 50,000 troops. And then you want a little, give us a little nudge, give us a little kiss. We don't want much. And they say, 'No, we can't do it.' We're paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the troops that we have in Germany, the troops that we have in the UK, the troops that we have all over Europe. I will say Poland was very good, you know. I endorsed him and he won. By the way, many people that I endorsed outside of the United States won, you know that, right? Do you know we had a big win yesterday with Columbia? A favorite place of Marco. Marco loves Columbia. No, I endorsed a man who was, you know, and he won. But the same thing in Poland. He was number 10. I endorsed him. I didn't like the man that was the president at all, and I endorsed him. He was a fighter. A big fighter, a good fighter. And I endorsed him. He came from 10th place and he won. And they say it was the biggest upset in Europe in 50 years for a major election. And you know what? He's going to be a great president of Poland. We have many people in South America, but we just the other day we endorsed somebody in El Salvador. They call him LTG because he's tough. He's another fighter. I like fighters. But he won.
You like winners. Do you think President Zelensky is winning right now? He's been fighting pretty well. Look, no matter how you look at it, he's doing pretty well.
He's holding his own at least. A lot of people dying with both sides. But I think he's doing pretty well. Look, you have to say he's courageous. He's got great equipment. But he's got great men. He's got fighters.
And can I ask you one other question? Have you seen the report into the Min school attacks? And can you tell us?
I have not seen it, no. Well, why not? At some point, well, I have to wait for it to be complete. I don't know that they're ever going to solve that problem. And you can ask me, but I don't know that they're ever going to say they're going to say it was one of our missiles. Peter, I don't know that they're ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it because there were missiles flying all over the place. And it's horrible what happened, but there were missiles flying all over the place and somebody said it was our missile. Well, maybe it wasn't our missile, but I've seen nothing to lead me to believe it was. There were plenty of missiles being flown by other people. What do you think, Vic?
Well, Mr. President, we've taken the investigation very seriously, and when the appropriate time is right, whatever that outcome is, that'll be the time to develop.
