FULL: Trump meets with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz

Well, thank you very much, everybody. We have a meeting with a man who's become a friend of mine, and we've known each other for a little while in some very interesting times. And we get along — our countries get along very well. We have a great affinity for each other, and the chancellor has been very well received in Germany. He's a very, very successful man, became the chancellor of Germany, which is a big deal, and he's doing a very good job, in my opinion, a really great job, very popular. And the relationship that we have in trade and everything else has been very strong. We've been able to do our deals, and it's been very strong. We'll obviously be talking a little bit about Iran today, and he's been helping us out. We've been very nice, actually, and that is coming along.

As you see very well, they have no navy. It's been knocked out. They have no air force — that's been knocked out. They have no air detection — that's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And just about everything's been knocked out. So, we'll see how we do. But we're doing very well. We have a great military, and they're doing a fantastic job. So, we'll be talking about that, and we're talking about some very big trade deals, and those I know will work out, too. So, I just want to say it's a great honor to have you at the Oval Office — the beautiful Oval Office, beautiful White House. It's a special place, even from your standpoint, and you have some very special places, too, and I look forward to being with you.

Well, thank you for being here.

That's right. Very, very good, comfortable place. You liked it, right?

Very famous.

That's right. Very famous place. Any questions, please?

Mr. President, did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did that pull the United States into this war?

No, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. And we have great negotiators, great people, people that do this very successfully and have done it all their lives very successfully. Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first, and I didn't want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand, but Israel was ready and we were ready. And we've had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out now. Their missile count is going way down. Amazingly, they're hitting countries that were, you know, let's call them neutral, right? They lived together for a long time. I think they were surprised. I was surprised. And now those countries are all fighting against them and fighting strongly against them. Someday they'll write a story and they'll say why they did that. But they hit countries that had nothing to do with what's going on. They were sort of leaving everything alone, and all of a sudden they had missiles shot in, which shows you the level of evil that we're dealing with. They'll hit people that were actually at least somewhat friendly, and they had no problems with it. Also hitting only civilian places, hotels and apartment buildings, and we're hitting them where it is much more appropriate. We're hitting them very hard. And the big-scale hitting goes now. They no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities at all left. And so they're going to be in for a lot of hurt. These are bad people. These are people that killed, I guess it's 35,000 — it's coming out — 35,000 over the last three weeks, protesters. 35,000 violently killed. So these are bad people. And the leader of the pack is gone. And as you know, 49 people were taken out in the first hit. And I guess there was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial also. So they're getting hit very hard, and we'll see what happens. A lot of people are coming forward. A lot of the people you would least suspect want to quit. They want to have immunity. They're asking for immunity, and probably at some point they'll be dropping, as you would say, laying down their guns. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, we're just continuing to go forward. Our military is the number one in the world by far. And we are — everything's big in my book. Venezuela is big. This is big. The original hit, Midnight Hammer, was big. Everything you view is big. But it's not considered very big by some standards. By some of our standards, we have a military like no other military that's ever been built.

Mr. President, what's the worst-case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?

Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily, from the military standpoint. They're still lobbing some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock. You know, they built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them. They've shot a lot of them, and we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. That would probably be the worst. You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who is no better. So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people. And we'll see what happens with the people. You know, they have their chance. And we've said, 'Don't do it yet. If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it yet. It's very dangerous out there. A lot of bombs are being dropped.' But I always say that would be about the worst.

Do you have someone in mind right now? Because you said all the people you did have in mind have been taken out. What do you think?

Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead, and now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So, I guess you have a third wave coming, and pretty soon we're not going to know anybody. But we have — I mean, Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept government totally intact, and we have Deli, who's been very good. We have the whole chain of command, and they've been, you know, look, the relationship's been great. We've taken out 100 million barrels of oil already, and a big part of that goes to them, and a big part goes to us, and it's been great. We paid for the war many times over, and we're going to be running the oil, and Venezuela is going to make more money than they ever made, and that's great for the people. The relationship has been great. It's been seamless. Nobody's actually ever seen anything like it. If you look at Iraq, where very stupidly everybody was fired — the generals were fired, the military was fired, the police were fired, the fire departments were fired, and all of the government workers were fired. So after, you know, people would call, they had no idea. And by the way, ISIS was formed. That's where ISIS came from — all of the fired people. We don't believe in that. So we'll see what happens. But first we have to finish off the military.

Mr. President, is he an option at all in your mind?

I guess he is. Some people like him, and we haven't been thinking too much about that. It would seem to me that somebody from within might maybe would be more appropriate. I've said that he looks like a very nice person. But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person. But we have people like that. We have people that were more moderate. You know, these were radical lunatics. And you know what they get? They get nothing. All they do is kill people.

What exactly was the imminent?

You've asked your — not your turn. Not your turn, please.

Mr. President, have you been to the heat of the Europeans to potentially help you? Mark called on the allies to also help you.

What does that mean?

Well, you have to ask Mark, and he said not as part of NATO, but to be helpful to you in this.

Well, some of the European nations have been helpful and some haven't, and I'm, you know, very surprised. Germany's been great. He's been terrific. Others have been very good, terrific. I think that the head of NATO, Mark, is fantastic. Okay. Mark Rutte, I think he's fantastic. But some of the Europeans, like Spain, has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. Spain, first of all, it started when every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing, and everybody was enthusiastic about it — Germany, everybody. And Spain didn't do it. And now Spain actually said that we can't use their bases. And that's all right. We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it, but we don't have to. But they were unfriendly. And so I told him, 'We don't want to. Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people, but they don't have great leadership.' And as you know, they were the only country in NATO that would not agree to go up to 5%. I don't think they wanted to agree to go up to anything. They wanted to keep it at 2%, and they don't pay the 2%. So we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain.

What is the expectation?

And I'm not, by the way, I'm not happy with the UK either. That island that you read about, the lease. Okay. He made it for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island. Somebody came and took it away from him, and it's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there. It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours. So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

Mr. President, what are your expectations towards Germany? What can Germany do and what should Germany do to help you in this?

Well, I think they're doing — I mean, they're letting us land in certain areas, and that's, we appreciate it, and they're just making it comfortable. We're not asking them to put boots on the ground or anything. I mean, we're just — they're a respected country. I have a very good relationship with the country. We have, in particular now, with this leader, with this new leader. I think he's an excellent leader. I had my differences with Angela. I said, 'You're hurting your country with immigration, and you're hurting your country with energy.' And we have a man sitting on my right that is, I think, pretty much the opposite of her on energy and the opposite on immigration. And I think he's doing very well.

Commercial air travel right now is severely restricted in the Middle East, and thousands of Americans are stranded. Why wasn't there an evacuation plan, and would you send planes to get people out?

Well, because it happened all very quickly. We thought, and I thought maybe more so than most — I could ask Marco — but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You're seeing that right now. And a lot of those missiles that are hitting in — those are stationary. Those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries. So, I think I was right about that. We attacked first. And if we didn't, it could have been, you know, look, we're really decimating them. They're being decimated. And if we didn't — and by the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition. We have the high-end. A lot of it was given away stupidly by Biden, very stupidly, for free. And I'm all for Ukraine, but they gave away a lot. As you know, when I give away ammunition, everybody pays for it. The European Union is paying for it. Then they can do what they want with it, but they are giving it, let's say, to Ukraine, and it's okay. But we gave away a lot of high-end, but we have plenty. But we have unlimited middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we're using in this war. And we have really an unlimited supply. We also have a lot of the very high-end stored in different countries throughout the world. We're literally storing it there, which is actually something that I insisted on in my first term. I rebuilt the military in my first term. The military is great. A lot of — unbelievable amount of ammunition or munitions, as they say, we gave away to — you know, the Wall Street Journal incorrectly covered the story when they said that it was given away to the Middle East. Not to the Middle East. It was given away to Ukraine. Very little was given to the Middle East. The Middle East would buy a lot, and some of the nations, because they're rich, they have a lot. But it was given away to Ukraine, and it just shouldn't have been done. Look, it's a war that should have never happened. If I were president, that war would have never happened. But we have a tremendous amount of munitions, ammunition at the upper level, middle and upper level, all of which is really powerful stuff.

Mr. President, a question to both of you. How worried are you that the rising prices for gas and oil are damaging the American economy, and also, Mr. Chancellor?

Yeah. Something had to be done, and it's been 47 years. They've been killing people all over the world for a long time. They were the kings and fathers of the roadside bomb. Soleimani, we killed him last term. If we didn't, I think it might be a different story today. They would have been much stronger and smarter than they are. But they did the roadside bombs. 95% of the people lost their legs, arms, had their face wiped out. Just wiped out. I've seen some young people that it's so sad to watch. And that was almost all 95% comes from Iran, and it was Soleimani. Soleimani loved his favorite weapon. He loved the roadside bomb. And when you see people walking around with no legs and no arms and a face that's been blown to hell — these people, what they have to go through and the way they have to live — this is Iran. When you look at the barracks, the famous barracks, when you look at the hostages, when you look at a lot of hostages, when you look at all of the problems, they were really a purveyor of terror all over the world for many, many years. And it's something that had to be done. And I believe that if we didn't — because I see where Congress, you know, if I didn't do this, guys like Schumer, who are losers, the Democrats, they're losers. That's why they're not here. Guys like Schumer would say, 'Well, you should have done this.' In other words, if I did it, it's no good. If I didn't do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this. But most people feel — I tell you what, I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before.

Go ahead, please.