But the fact that three Irish people born on the island of Ireland signed the Declaration of Independence — it was printed by an Irishman, John Dunlap, and disseminated across the colonies. And Charles Thomson, who we discussed earlier, he designed the bald eagle, the seal of the US. So, in many ways, our connection is foundational. It's historic. And the Irish had to build America. We're very proud of that connection. And we think you hosting us here in the White House is affirmation to all the Irish Americans out there and to our diaspora in this country for what they've contributed to America. And that's very much true to the prism of this year, America 250. It's a very exciting year. We're discovering new things. I mean, even the guy from my own city, a guy called Stephen Moylan, who was an aide-de-camp to Washington, he's regarded as the guy who came up with the phrase 'The United States of America.' It's written record. And it's in New York in the history of those bonds.
Well, you told me something before that was maybe the most interesting of all. How many presidents are in some way related through blood with Ireland? 23. 23 Irish presidents. The great politicians. The Irish are great politicians. No, but think of it, 23 are in some form, and many of them have gone to Ireland. Absolutely. Grant went to Ireland after his presidency. Right. I was saying earlier, Ronald Reagan's visit was an extraordinary one. In a place called Ballyporeen in County Tipperary. And of course, John F. Kennedy, whose grandfather was Irish, came back, I think, only '63. And that's a very memorable visit because of what tragedy that happened in the assassination which touched people in Ireland very deeply. And so the Kennedy family has strong resonance with Ireland. Well, we like the family too. Yeah. One person in particular. One very non-controversial. I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now he's doing a very good job. He really is. But we have more people here by far than you have in Ireland that are Irish descent. Absolutely. So you have quite a few, but we have a lot. You have a lot more than we have. It's pretty amazing by a lot. Absolutely. Anyway, thank you very much. It's a great honor. And any questions for...
Mr. President, I heard that Ireland is in September and will you stay at Doonbeg?
Well, I'm having — it's a great thing. My son and my family — we have a great golf complex in Ireland, one of the best in the world, called Doonbeg. It's in Doonbeg. And it's been amazing and Rory McIlroy loves it. They all love it. Great golfers. You have a tremendous golf tradition and it was chosen for the Irish Open, which is a big deal. That's a big event. Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Everybody wants me to be there. You just said, 'I hope you're going to go.' I did. And we're going to try. We are going to try, but it will be an honor. But it was a great honor to be chosen. They only choose the best courses in the world for the big opens. It's one of the big ones, the Irish Open. It's really become one of the most important tournaments in the world. It's going to be a fantastic success. It'll be a great success. Thank you, sir. It's a very hard course, though.
What progress have you made, Mr. President, in getting America's allies to assist the US in escorting those oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz?
Well, we don't need too much help and we don't need any help, actually. In fact, we just put out a notice. I was watching over the last couple of weeks and all of our NATO allies were very much in favor of what we did. They thought it was very important. We were just discussing it actually. A very important that we take out the nuclear threat from Iran and we've done that very strongly, very powerfully. We've wiped out their navy, wiped out their military at every aspect. Their air force is now decimated. They have no air force, no navy. They have no radar. Their radar is entirely gone. Their anti-aircraft machinery is gone. Everything is gone. Their leaders are gone. I guess one of the top persons — a lot of people say their actual top was killed yesterday along with somebody else who was responsible for the killing. The man that was responsible for the killing of 32,000 people over the last two weeks. He was in charge of the killing of protesters. It's an evil group. I mean, they've killed much more than 32,000 people. And the man who was responsible for that was also killed yesterday. And all of the NATO allies agreed with us, but they don't want to — you know, despite the fact that we helped them so much, we have thousands of soldiers in different countries all over the world. And they don't want to help us. Which is amazing. I mean, amazing. And I didn't do a full court press because I think if I did, they probably would be. But we don't need help. You know, that war has been long prosecuted as far as I'm concerned, almost from day one. We knocked out many of these things. We knocked out the navy essentially in a couple of days. But I was surprised to see that NATO, while they agree that it was a very important thing to do, they agree fully. Nobody said, 'Oh, you shouldn't do it.' They would have had a nuclear weapon within one month of when we had the B-2 bombers bomb the nuclear potential. I call it the nuclear dust. So I think NATO's making a very foolish mistake and I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this was a great test because we don't need them, but they should have been there. The other thing is, and I think you know, very important, we didn't have to be there for Ukraine. You know, Biden chose to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine. And I guess the head of Germany just made a statement that, well, they weren't involved and they have nothing to do with the war, but at the same time they think we did a great thing by knocking them out. Nobody wants to have Iran with a nuclear weapon because these people are crazy. They're absolutely crazy and they're vicious, violent. I mean, they killed — now I hear it's about 41,000 people. They put out a notice two days ago, 'Anybody that protests will be immediately shot and killed.' That's pretty tough stuff. So everyone agrees with us, but they don't want to help. And we, you know, we as the United States have to remember that because we think it's pretty shocking.
Mr. President, President Macron has just said in the last hour that he will never join a task force in the Strait of Hormuz until hostilities finish. Yet, yesterday you said...
President Macron of France. What's your reaction to that, sir?
Well, he'll be out of office very soon, so we'll have to see. You know, I don't know.
On Doonbeg, you're building an extension to it, I think. But there's been an objection put in and it's being held back at the moment due to small snails. What are you disappointed in? I have a quick question.
I have not heard that now. The course was built and it's been operated very successfully. Somebody's objecting — a human and environmental group is objecting to...
Mr. President, how close are you to announcing a coalition of the willing to secure the Strait of Hormuz? Which countries are joining and which countries have...
Well, we've had great support from the Middle East. Qatar has been great. UAE has been absolutely great. Saudi Arabia has been terrific. Bahrain has been very good. The Middle Eastern countries have been very strong in their support and of course Israel has been our partner. Israel's been very, very strong along with us. Coalition against Iran. If you look, I talked about Iran was a big threat to this country, to this world of ours, and it turned out to be — I was right. In fact, I said you have to attack Kharg Island. You have to attack them years ago when they were acting up. They've been acting up for 48 years now. For 48 years they've been bad players, vicious players, and you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. If they got a nuclear weapon, I would say they would have used it within 24 hours after having it. And they would have had it if we didn't bomb them out on that great raid with the B-2 bombers eight months ago or so. You would have had a nuclear war in the Middle East and maybe beyond. I think it would have hit Europe. Maybe not Ireland, but it would have hit Europe. I think you would have been a nice piece of it. It all gets you. It's big enough that you would have been affected. They would have hit Europe eventually.
Mr. President, your director of national counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that and did you...
I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars are saying for years that a president should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the attack, or I'll go a step further, if I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us — one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they sent Boeing 757s over there loaded with cash? Hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have been very happy. This was a wonderful — they said hundreds of millions. People forget that. Does anybody remember? Right? You remember. Hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757. I think they had two of them loaded. They took the seats out and they put cash. And it was so much that there wasn't a bank in Virginia, Maryland, or DC that had any money left. They stripped them of all their money, put it in the plane, sent it to Iran almost as ransom. That's not going to happen with Trump. And nobody ever did anything about it. Nobody ever said anything. Can you imagine if I did that? So they've been a threat for a long time, but they've really been a threat — if I didn't terminate Obama's horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had a nuclear holocaust. And you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site. So when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people. And there are some people, I guess, that would say that, but they're not smart people or they're not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat. And virtually every NATO nation — and this is the thing — if they told me it wasn't a threat, and therefore they don't want to help. But when they say it was a threat, and it was a major threat, every one of them — I don't know of one that said they're not a threat. But when they say it was a threat, but we're not going to help, I think they're very foolish. You know, it's interesting. It's interesting because I could say this, that what's happening in Ukraine, we're probably in there for 400 billion dollars. We don't spend any money anymore. They buy it from us and they pay full price, but Biden gave them between 350 and 400 billion dollars of equipment and cash. Somebody has to find out about the cash. And you could say that wasn't a threat, you know, we're helping them. So we helped them, and they didn't help us, and I think that's a very bad thing for NATO.
Mr. President, are there any repercussions for NATO, and are you still going to China?
Well, yeah. On China, it's a little story. We're resetting the meeting and it looks like it'll take place in about five weeks. We're working with China. They were fine with it. I look forward to seeing President Xi. He looks forward to seeing me, I think. But I do look forward to seeing him. We have a good relationship with China. China actually has become economically for us very good. Very good, as you know. It's much different than it was in the past. And we have a very good working relationship with China. So we're making it in about five or six weeks.
Mr. President, any repercussions for not supporting you on this?
Well, no. I just think that it's not good for a partnership when they say what you're doing is a great thing, but we're not going to help. What you did is a great thing, but we're not going to help.
Mr. President, Iran — because the Iranian regime has told Sky News, 'If you put boots on the ground in Iran, it will be another Vietnam.' Are you afraid of that?
No, I'm not afraid of — I'm really not afraid of anything.
Are you rethinking the United States' relationship with NATO, possibly getting out?
Well, I'm disappointed in NATO that we spend trillions of dollars on NATO. Think of it, trillions over the years, many trillions of dollars. It's one of the reasons we have deficits and we help other countries. And when they don't help us, I mean, it's certainly something that we should think about. I don't need Congress for that decision, as you probably know. I can make that decision myself. I work with some very smart people. And I'd always deal with Congress anyway, but I don't need Congress for that decision. But, you know, when you say rethink, I have nothing currently in mind, but I will say that I'm not exactly thrilled when we helped them with Ukraine. Look, Ukraine would have been over in one day if we didn't help. Frankly, Ukraine would have been over in the first day. They had the best equipment in the world. It was our equipment given by Sleepy Joe Biden. No charge. No charge. Hundreds of billions of dollars of the best equipment in the world. No charge. I will say that I'm not happy about it.
Iran is just a military operation to me. Iran is something that was essentially largely over in two or three days because the navy was wiped out almost immediately. The air force came next. The anti-aircraft came next. You know, we're flying over Iran. We could take out their electric capacity in one hour. We have all the — there's nothing they can do right now because everything is knocked out. They have no — again, no radar, no anti-aircraft. They have nothing. And it was a decision I made. We discussed it. Pete, Marco, JD, all of us, Chris. We discussed it. We can knock out their electricity in a matter of minutes if we wanted to. There's nothing they can do about it. We can knock out their oil in Kharg Island. The only thing we didn't take down was their oil because if we knock out the pipes — very complex — but if you do that, it'll take them forever to rebuild. Meaning whoever, and hopefully it's a sane group of people, but whoever it is is going to be running that and we're going to try to get people that are going to run it well. And you know, it's going to be a prosperous, wonderful place. It used to be — you know, if you go back, it used to be a very — the people are great. The people are smart and energetic, and it used to be very successful. Now it's a country run by fear. It's a country where they tell protesters, 'Don't go outside because if you do, we're going to kill you.'
Well, Cuba right now is in very bad shape, and they're talking to Marco, and we'll be doing something with Cuba very soon. We're really focused on this, but we're dealing with Cuba. Marco, do you want to say a couple of words about it?
Yeah, I mean, Cuba has an economy that doesn't work and a political and governmental system they can't fix. It's not dramatic enough, it's not going to fix it. So they've got some big decisions to make over there.
Mr. Secretary Rubio, do you support — and I know this is up to Congress — do you support easing the Cuban trade embargo if you get more cooperation from Havana?
Well, I'm not going to discuss what we would talk about or not. Suffice it to say that the embargo's tied to political change on the island. The embargo's codified. But the bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived — that revolution — it's not even a revolution. That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore, so they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge — they don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge. That's what I said.
