CEOInterviews.AIBREAKING NEWS LIVE | President Trump Delivers Emergency Announcement from the White House

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Donald Trump0:00

The police got together, they all got together, they formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, I was on that site. I said, I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. He said, I've never seen it. They hit us from 17 different angles. It was all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble. And we're all ready. They had their equipment, it was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen, from 17 different angles. The general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, we knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for him. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened. He said, we knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any. He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and it was over. They went inside. And remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, get the hell out of here. Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. He released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible, Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents. Not once, Kamala. She never called the Border Patrol. She never said, how we doing? I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore.

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Interviewer3:00

So, maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

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Donald Trump3:12

Us charging tolls.

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Interviewer3:14

Iran?

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Donald Trump3:15

What about us charging tolls?

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Interviewer3:17

Is that something you're considering?

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Donald Trump3:18

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. I thought you meant...

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Interviewer3:39

Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

Thank you very much.

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

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Donald Trump3:52

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

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Interviewer4:06

President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

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Donald Trump4:14

I do because God is good. God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says, I enjoy this, I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. People say, oh, they're so tough. They don't like it. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, you deserve the Nobel Prize. She announced that. When they announced, they said, goes to Maria. She's great. Really a good person. She said, no, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives. That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. We have one more to end, by the way.

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Interviewer5:18

Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. You called the yesterday on your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

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Donald Trump5:25

True.

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Interviewer5:25

What is your response to critics who say that...

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Donald Trump5:29

I don't care about critics.

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Interviewer5:30

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

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Donald Trump5:34

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

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Interviewer5:48

Dasha, you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

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Donald Trump5:57

Very little is off limits.

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Interviewer5:58

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though?

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Donald Trump6:01

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. Complete demolition by 12:00. It'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. We worked it that way. It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? He told me, sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over. That's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. Now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying what a great choice he was. They said, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you? People that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they call me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away. He said, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night. They kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving. They said, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, thick with bushes, trees. He said, we see something moving. 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. Then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, we have him. That was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. I want to thank the CIA too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

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Co-Panelist8:34

Yes.

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Interviewer8:35

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

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Donald Trump8:47

Thank you.

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Interviewer8:48

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

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Donald Trump9:04

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So I expected that.

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Interviewer9:10

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

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Donald Trump9:22

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. They were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He and his two friends were hung. All they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. The number is up to probably 45,000 people killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. That's why so many people say, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. We got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. My view was very simple. I saw somebody say, he doesn't have a plan. I have the best plan of all, but I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. They want me to say, here's my plan, we're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this. If you don't do that, they say, I have a plan. These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. It's very unfair to say we don't. I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for people. You just saw two great, and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. We're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

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Interviewer11:21

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

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Donald Trump11:33

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing the bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it. These are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. When we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, please come back. Come back. These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, the regime is going to come to an end. Then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. That's all it took. Those four or 500,000 women said, oh my god, what's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. After five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the fear through the vast number of people. Then they said, oh my god, who would do that? They're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. Iran was a great country 25 years ago. The Persian people are incredible, smart, brilliant. I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group protesting and you have a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was, this is the end of the country. Then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody knew where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun. They've done that too. This was snipers sitting on top of buildings aiming and hitting women. When they see people go down, all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction. They never came out again. A lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like AOC plus three, that group, they talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. I wonder what's going on. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes them because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, don't go out. I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. It's not a question of bravery. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles, hitting you right between the eyes every single time, you're out of there.

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Interviewer15:26

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

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Donald Trump15:27

I know that. Go ahead. America's watching.

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Interviewer15:30

Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

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Donald Trump15:40

Not everybody was on board.

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Interviewer15:42

Somebody else within your...

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Donald Trump15:43

No, there were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. I would have had a little difficulty but there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. Some countries have military that is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen. Half the people are wearing uniforms. We had people within the military. Usually it's not done. Somebody said it's the only time it's ever been done. I said that's not possible. But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. Look at some of the helicopters, how they got hit. There were people within the military that said it's not wise. Don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

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Interviewer16:45

I'd love to keep that a secret.

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Donald Trump16:47

Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of people. He's pretty good. Is he central casting? Hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people within the military that said this is not wise. I understood that. But I decided to do it.

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Interviewer17:21

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? Given the resources like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

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Donald Trump17:34

The first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess, because we're flying over daylight. We're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody has. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. Daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways it's enhanced. We have the best in the world. It's much safer for us to do it at night. Other countries don't have that capability. When I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, which is a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, radar, a lot, but they still have shoulder-held missiles. So it's not like they're totally whatever. They probably had a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. These guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. No, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. Tankers were flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

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Interviewer19:27

Mr. President, thank you very much.

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters and the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

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Donald Trump19:45

If they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen. Women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They shoot them right on the street. You have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. We've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. A month ago they were more powerful than at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. Those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. It's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. We're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how can you vote for a Democrat when he chose Iran? He filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars, and sent it to them. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. I can add Kuwait, Bahrain, and others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. If you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and made a terrible mistake. That was a road to a nuclear weapon. When I terminated that, everyone said it was one of the best things we ever did. He had a road to a nuclear weapon. It was a very short-term deal. Countries don't do 10-year deals. They do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired, took a lot of heat, and it was one of the best things they ever did. He would have had a nuclear weapon. Then those beautiful B2 bombers went in eight months ago and obliterated that site. By the way, CNN said maybe it wasn't complete. It was so complete they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. If we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision too. We had all those planes flying in at night with little cover. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon. In my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished. You saw that with thousands of missiles raining down. UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon. I terminated it without even much thought. Then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I killed Soleimani, who was an evil genius. I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. Had he lived, we would be fighting a different Iran now because he's never been replaced. I also did one other thing that was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take them out one year before the World Trade Center came down. I wish you'd read the book. To be a good president, you have to have good instincts. A lot of this is instinct.

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Interviewer25:32

Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a 48-hour ultimatum? Secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

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Donald Trump25:49

We can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

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Interviewer26:04

So you've listened. Thank you, Mr. President. Who you with?

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Donald Trump26:08

Who you with?

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Interviewer26:10

My name is Dur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet. It's based in Iran.

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Donald Trump26:14

Go ahead.

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Interviewer26:15

Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

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Donald Trump26:26

I'd rather have them stay away. I think they bring with them some problems and difficulties. I don't think they bring death to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay.

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Interviewer26:44

Thank you, Mr. President. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law. I'm with the New York Times. Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

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Donald Trump26:52

Who you with?

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Interviewer26:52

Zolan from the New York Times.

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Donald Trump26:54

Are you failing? They're failing. Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

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Interviewer26:59

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

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Donald Trump27:03

No, not at all. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. If somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran, we're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. If you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, tough, smart, sick from a policy standpoint, mentally disturbed, if you think I'm going to allow them powerful and rich to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international law, you no longer have credibility. The New York Times said Trump won't win the election. I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. The New York Times has no credibility. They used to be all the news that's fit to print. The old gray lady was great, but they're running on past fumes. You have to give the correct news. People like you who are fake, go ahead, please.

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Interviewer28:39

President, your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages. We've heard a range of those messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down or are you...

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Donald Trump28:49

I can't tell you. It depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have till tomorrow at 8 o'clock. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days. I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So I gave them 11, I guess. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. We'll see what happens. They're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this ended because it affects them too. A lot of people are affected by this. We're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. After that, they're going to have no bridges, no power plants. Stone ages. Sorry. Negotiation. CNN fake.

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Interviewer29:59

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

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Donald Trump30:08

I would say it's a very big priority. That's one thing that's a little different. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with a water mine. Drop them in the water. Now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars not to worry. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy and air force completely. We knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they could put them on other boats. I'm not even sure they have any mines there. They say there might be eight. I think there might be none. They're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. People are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. 47 years of this is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy, no air force, no anti-aircraft weaponry, no radar, no communication. The biggest problem in our negotiation is they can't communicate. I said to Steve, what are they saying? Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. We're communicating like they used to 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. All I want is to have a safe world. You're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. Then they're coming for Europe. I'm very disappointed in NATO. It's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. They're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, oh, we'll do this, we'll do that. Now all of a sudden they want to send things. But they said loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to the UK. I would have thought they would have been the first. I said, yeah, I'd love to have a little help. He said, no, sir, we'd rather wait till you win. I said, I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers that barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. I called the general. He said, we don't really need them. We have the USS Abraham Lincoln. Do you know that we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln? Out of 101 missiles, all 101 were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago that wouldn't have been possible. We have weaponry that is unbelievable.

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Interviewer33:47

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

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Donald Trump33:57

Correct.

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Interviewer33:58

What's that trade-off?

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Donald Trump33:59

If I had my choice, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, the war was over in about 45 minutes. We have great people running Venezuela. The relationship is good. We are a partner with Venezuela. We've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Over 100 million barrels already in Houston, refined and out. Paid for that war many times over. To the victor go the spoils. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years. Even in World War II we helped rebuild those countries. Germany telling us it's not their war. We had nothing to do with it. They wanted me to tell them everything I was doing. If I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful. To the victor go the spoils. With Venezuela, the people of Venezuela say if I ran for president there, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals, the police, the people that worked in the equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. They had a mess. ISIS formed. Those generals and soldiers got together. The police got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, I was on that site. I said, I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. He said, I've never seen it. They hit us from 17 different angles. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. When you see that late at night, you could be in trouble. They had their Russian and Chinese equipment. They were going to give us a fight. Then they came at speeds we've never seen, from 17 different angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, we knew it was over in three minutes. Their equipment didn't work. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again, nothing happened. He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and it was over. They went inside. That was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. Those soldiers said, get the hell out of here. We had like 200 people. We have a great military. Somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more than normally you're talking about two people. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. Now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. Kamala never called the Border Patrol. She never said, how we doing? I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them. How are we doing? We now have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through. Nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore.

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Interviewer39:13

So, maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

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Donald Trump39:25

Us charging tolls.

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Interviewer39:27

Iran?

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Donald Trump39:28

What about us charging tolls?

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Interviewer39:30

Is that something you're considering?

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Donald Trump39:32

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. We have a concept where we'll charge tolls. I thought you meant...

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Interviewer39:52

Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

Thank you very much.

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

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Donald Trump40:06

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

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Interviewer40:15

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

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Donald Trump40:27

I do because God is good. God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says they enjoy this, I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. People say, oh, they're so tough. They don't like it. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, you deserve the Nobel Prize. When they announced, they said it goes to Maria. She said, no, no, no. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives. That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer41:31

Okay. President, you called the yesterday on your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump41:38

True.

I

Interviewer41:38

What is your response to critics who say that...

D

Donald Trump41:42

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer41:43

What is your response to critics who say that your mental health should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump41:48

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

I

Interviewer42:02

Dasha, you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump42:10

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer42:12

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though?

D

Donald Trump42:16

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. Complete demolition by 12:00. It'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. We worked it that way. It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? He told me, sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over. That's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. Now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying what a great choice he was. They said, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you? People that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they call me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away. He said, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night. They kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving. They said, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, thick with bushes, trees. He said, we see something moving. 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. Then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, we have him. That was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. I want to thank the CIA too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

C

Co-Panelist44:47

Yes.

I

Interviewer44:48

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump45:00

Thank you.

I

Interviewer45:01

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump45:17

Well, I expected that we've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer45:23

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump45:36

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know, when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know, that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.' You know, we got regime change. We do. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact, and my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all, but I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't, because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer47:34

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump47:46

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, 'Please keep bombing bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. You remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400,000 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes.' And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. Iran was a great country 25 years ago. The Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. I know so many people from Iran. They're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group protesting and you have a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody thought this is the end of the country, and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down, all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about 'oh, women's rights.' You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about 'oh, freedom for Iran.' They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand nobody in this room would go out. It's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

C

Co-Panelist51:39

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump51:41

I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead.

I

Interviewer51:43

America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump51:54

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer51:55

Somebody else within...

D

Donald Trump51:56

No, there was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You have countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

I

Interviewer52:58

Uh...

D

Donald Trump52:59

I'd love to keep that a secret.

I

Interviewer52:59

Okay. Well, we are...

D

Donald Trump53:03

But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not wise.' And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer53:34

Was there a point that they were going to... You were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait. I mean given the resources, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump53:47

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody else has. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. It's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot. But they still have you know, what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally... but they probably got a little lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. You have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, got both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer55:40

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump55:42

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer55:44

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump55:58

If they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. The women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witkoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand, we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But a month ago I was standing here with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a... Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you can add Kuwait and you can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it.' It was one of the best things we ever did because it was a road to a nuclear weapon and it was a very short-term deal. Countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. You're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat, and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to BB Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also, and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. Then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced. And I also did one other, but this one was not picked up: Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take them out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book. But as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct. Please.

I

Interviewer1:01:45

Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump1:02:03

I can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that. So, who are you with?

I

Interviewer1:02:22

My name is... I'm with the largest Kurdish media network based in Iraq. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump1:02:40

I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties, and I don't think they bring death, you know, to themselves. But I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer1:02:57

Thank you, Mr. President. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump1:03:05

Who are you with?

I

Interviewer1:03:06

I'm with the New York Times.

D

Donald Trump1:03:07

Are you failing? Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

I

Interviewer1:03:12

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amounts to...

D

Donald Trump1:03:17

No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, mentally these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international... You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is, it used to be 'all the news that's fit to print.' The great old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news. And people like you, I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer1:04:52

President, your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages.' So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump1:05:06

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, 'Steve, give them 10 days.' 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this. But we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages.

I

Interviewer1:06:12

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump1:06:21

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water, and now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, 'We put mines in the water.' So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. They say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none, because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' 'Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication.' So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago, with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now all of a sudden they want to send things, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win.' They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want them. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the USS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know, in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible. But 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable.

I

Interviewer1:10:00

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump1:10:10

Correct.

I

Interviewer1:10:11

What's that trade-off?

D

Donald Trump1:10:12

If I had my choice. If I had my choice. Because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, over 100 million barrels already, it's in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. You know the old days 'to the victor belong the spoils.' I've said why don't we use it. To the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, we didn't have it. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, well it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting... they wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful, possibly. But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, the people say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different angles. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble. And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles. The general and his people, that was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work, and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened.' And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any...' He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside. And remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible, Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents. Not once. Kamala, she never called the Border Patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them. 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer1:15:31

Mr. President, are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump1:15:39

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer1:15:42

What about us charging tolls? Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump1:15:45

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of 'oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' We have a concept where we'll charge tolls. I thought you meant... Your question would have been more accurate if you said 'we.' Thank you very much.

I

Interviewer1:16:12

So just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump1:16:21

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer1:16:33

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump1:16:40

I do, because God is good. And God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy... I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. They don't like... I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's great. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.' I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer1:17:45

Mr. President, you called the Iranians 'crazy bastards' on Truth Social yesterday.

D

Donald Trump1:17:51

True.

I

Interviewer1:17:53

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump1:17:56

I don't care about critics. I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade and everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

I

Interviewer1:18:18

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges.

D

Donald Trump1:18:24

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer1:18:25

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets, though? I'm thinking hospitals...

D

Donald Trump1:18:29

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00, and it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world, why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, 'Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing.' Now they call me up, 'What a choice.' These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night. And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away. It was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer1:21:00

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Your country has a super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your great leadership.

D

Donald Trump1:21:14

Thank you.

I

Interviewer1:21:14

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump1:21:30

Well, I expected that we've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer1:21:36

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump1:21:49

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know, when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know, that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.' You know, we got regime change. We do. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all, but I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't, because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer1:23:48

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump1:24:00

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, 'Please keep bombing bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400,000 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes.' And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. Iran was a great country 25 years ago. The Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. I know so many people from Iran. They're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group protesting and you have a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody thought this is the end of the country, and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down, all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about 'oh, women's rights.' You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about 'oh, freedom for Iran.' They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand nobody in this room would go out. It's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

C

Co-Panelist1:27:52

Mark Meredith, Fox News. I know that. Go ahead.

I

Interviewer1:27:57

America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump1:28:07

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer1:28:08

Somebody else within...

D

Donald Trump1:28:09

No, there was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You have countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

I

Interviewer1:29:11

Uh...

D

Donald Trump1:29:12

I'd love to keep that a secret.

I

Interviewer1:29:14

Okay. Well, we are...

D

Donald Trump1:29:17

But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not wise.' And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer1:29:47

Was there a point that they were going to... You were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait. I mean given the resources, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump1:30:01

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody else has. I've tried them. Unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today. We have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. It's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot. But they still have, you know what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally... but they probably got a little lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. You have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, got both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have, you know, what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally whatever, but they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer1:31:53

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump1:31:55

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer1:31:56

We'll come back to you.

D

Donald Trump1:31:57

Okay.

I

Interviewer1:31:59

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump1:32:12

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially, they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Whit is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand, we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now, they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is, if you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, "Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was a very short-term deal." You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, "Well, maybe it wasn't complete." It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also did one other thing, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book.

I

Interviewer1:37:47

But you as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct. Yeah. Please. Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump1:38:17

We can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer1:38:31

So you've listened to the president. Excuse me, please. You've listened. Thank you, Mr. President. Who you with? Who you with?

R

Reporter1:38:36

My name is Dur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Rudaw Media Network. It's based in Iran. Go ahead.

Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump1:38:53

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

R

Reporter1:39:10

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump1:39:18

Who you with?

R

Reporter1:39:19

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times.

D

Donald Trump1:39:21

Are you failing? They're failing. Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

R

Reporter1:39:26

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump1:39:30

No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would that happen? Because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating... Quiet, quiet. You no longer have credibility. The New York Times because the New York Times said, "Oh, Trump won't win the election," and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, "Oh, Trump won't win the election." New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be "All the News That's Fit to Print." A great old gray lady, it was great. But they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

R

Reporter1:41:06

President, your messaging on the war has moved from "the war is coming to an end" to "we're going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages." And we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you...

D

Donald Trump1:41:20

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of, well, till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yeah. Sorry.

R

Reporter1:42:26

CNN fake.

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump1:42:34

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own chips that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I personally, they say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, "What are they saying?" Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, "Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that." Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been, they're the oldest. And I say, "Yeah, I'd love to have a little help." He said, "No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win." I said, "I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work." I said, "I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?" I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, "We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them." Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer1:46:14

Go ahead, please.

R

Reporter1:46:15

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump1:46:24

Correct.

R

Reporter1:46:24

What's that trade-off if I had my choice?

D

Donald Trump1:46:27

If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes and we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good and we are a partner with Venezuela and we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions. Over a hundred million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out and paid for that war many, many times over, many times. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I've said, why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils. And we haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second World War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting. They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly. Right. But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and we just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, "I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years." He said, "I've never seen it." They hit us from 17 different angles. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, "We knew it was over in 3 minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people." They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, "We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any..." He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers and those soldiers looked and they said, "Get the hell out of here." Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible, Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the Border Patrol. She never said, "How are we doing?" I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them, "Paul, ask any one of them, Brandon. Ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing?" And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore.

I

Interviewer1:51:40

So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

R

Reporter1:51:44

Mr. President, are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump1:51:52

Us charging tolls?

R

Reporter1:51:54

Iran?

D

Donald Trump1:51:55

What about us charging tolls?

R

Reporter1:51:57

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump1:51:58

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant... Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

R

Reporter1:52:24

Thank you very much.

So just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump1:52:34

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

R

Reporter1:52:46

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump1:52:53

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy, I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, "Oh boy, they're so tough." They don't want, they don't like, I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, "You deserve the Nobel Prize." She announced that. When they announced, they said, "Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person." She said, "No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars." I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, "President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives." That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

R

Reporter1:53:58

Okay. President, you called the Iranians crazy bastards yesterday on your Truth Social.

D

Donald Trump1:54:05

True.

R

Reporter1:54:06

What is your response to critics who say that...

D

Donald Trump1:54:08

I don't care about critics.

R

Reporter1:54:10

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump1:54:14

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade, on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha.

R

Reporter1:54:31

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump1:54:37

Very little is off limits.

R

Reporter1:54:38

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking that you...

D

Donald Trump1:54:43

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, "Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over." And that's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying what a great choice he was. They said, well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you? I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they call me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night and they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, "We see something moving." 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, "We have him." And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

R

Reporter1:57:15

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country, it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump1:57:27

Thank you.

R

Reporter1:57:28

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump1:57:44

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So I expected that.

R

Reporter1:57:50

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump1:58:02

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, oh well why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, "Oh, he doesn't have a plan." I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, "Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to..." And if you don't do that, they say, "I have a plan." These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

R

Reporter2:00:01

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump2:00:13

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, "Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes, please keep bombing. Do it." And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, "Please come back. Come back. Come back." These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, "Oh, the regime is going to come to an end." And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, "Oh my god, what's that?" Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, "Oh my god, who would do that?" And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually, and I know so many coming from New York originally, I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy, and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, oh, this is the end of the country. And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women and when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about oh women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about oh freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, "Don't go out." I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

R

Reporter2:04:06

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump2:04:07

I know that. Oh, thank you.

I

Interviewer2:04:10

Go ahead.

R

Reporter2:04:10

America's watching. No. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump2:04:20

Not everybody was on board.

R

Reporter2:04:22

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump2:04:23

No, there were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. I would have had a little difficulty but no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is, hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I surprised. Somebody said, "It's the only time it's ever been done." I said, "That's not possible." But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

R

Reporter2:05:26

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump2:05:27

Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, "This is not wise." And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

R

Reporter2:06:01

Was there a point that they were going to, that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait. I mean, given the resources like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump2:06:14

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. So it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other countries, no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have, you know, what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally whatever, but they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer2:08:07

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump2:08:08

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer2:08:10

We'll come back to you.

D

Donald Trump2:08:10

Okay.

I

Interviewer2:08:13

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump2:08:25

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially, they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Whit is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand, we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now, they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is, if you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, "Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was a very short-term deal." You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, "Well, maybe it wasn't complete." It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also did one other thing, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book.

I

Interviewer2:14:00

But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please.

R

Reporter2:14:09

Thank you so much, Mr. President. President, Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump2:14:29

Can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer2:14:44

President, excuse me, please. Go ahead. Who you with? Who you with?

R

Reporter2:14:50

My name is Dakura. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Rudaw Media Network. It's based in Iran. Go ahead. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump2:15:06

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

R

Reporter2:15:24

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump2:15:32

Who are you with?

R

Reporter2:15:32

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times.

D

Donald Trump2:15:35

Are you failing? Failing? Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

R

Reporter2:15:39

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump2:15:44

No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would that happen? Because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran.

I'm not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, you know, from a policy standpoint, from any standpoint, any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, it's not going to happen.

Even if it means violating international law, quiet. You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. The New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' The New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the News That's Fit to Print.' A great old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news. And people like you, who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer2:17:19

Your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages.' And we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump2:17:33

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well, till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, 'Steve, give them 10 days.' 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this. But we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yeah.

I

Interviewer2:18:39

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump2:18:48

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars, 'Don't worry about the mine.' You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm personally... They say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none, because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' 'Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication.' So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago, with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO... I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to the UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been... they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the USS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer2:22:27

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump2:22:37

Correct.

I

Interviewer2:22:38

What's that trade-off?

D

Donald Trump2:22:39

If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes, and we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good, and we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out, and paid for that war many times over, many times over. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I've said, 'Why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils.' And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years, because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War, we didn't have it with the Second War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, 'Well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting...' They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful, possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in, I think, maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now, the people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible... it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different... It was... They were all set. They saw that big, beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work, and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any...' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside. And remember, that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention, more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer2:27:57

Mr. President, are you allowed to... are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump2:28:05

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer2:28:07

Iran?

D

Donald Trump2:28:08

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer2:28:10

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump2:28:11

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant...

I

Interviewer2:28:32

Your question would have been more accurate if you said ahead.

D

Donald Trump2:28:38

Thank you very much.

I

Interviewer2:28:39

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump2:28:47

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer2:28:59

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States' actions in this?

D

Donald Trump2:29:07

I do, because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy... I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh, boy, they're so tough.' They don't want... They don't like... I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.' I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer2:30:11

Okay. President, you called the... yesterday on your Truth Social, you called the Iranians 'crazy bastards.'

D

Donald Trump2:30:18

True.

I

Interviewer2:30:18

What is your response to critics who say...

D

Donald Trump2:30:22

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer2:30:23

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump2:30:28

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me, because our country was being ripped off on trade, on everything, for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha.

I

Interviewer2:30:44

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump2:30:50

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer2:30:51

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking...

D

Donald Trump2:30:56

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition by 12:00, and it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out, with the greatest equipment in the world, why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, 'Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing.' Now they call me up. 'What a choice.' These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, you know, 'We're seeing something moving up in the mountain.' This is at night, and they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving, and they said, 'Probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving.' This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away. It was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up, and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer2:33:27

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity.

C

Co-Panelist2:33:32

Country, it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump2:33:40

Thank you.

I

Interviewer2:33:41

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump2:33:57

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So I expected that.

I

Interviewer2:34:03

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump2:34:15

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty, and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know, when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know, that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh, well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.' You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is, but it's very unfair to say we don't, because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer2:36:14

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks. But why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure, to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump2:36:26

They would be willing to... and it's suffering. They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, 'Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes.' And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many... coming from New York originally, I know so many people from Iran. They're incredible people, incredible energy, and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction, and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about, 'Oh, women's rights.' You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like, you know, AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about, 'Oh, freedom for Iran.' They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes, because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any, because frankly it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time, and you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who.

I

Interviewer2:40:19

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump2:40:21

I know that.

I

Interviewer2:40:21

Oh, thank you. Go ahead.

America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump2:40:34

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer2:40:35

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump2:40:36

No, there were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. They weren't... I would have had a little difficulty, but no, there were military people that said, 'You just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military.' You know, this is... you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military... usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I surprised. Somebody said it's the only time it's ever been done. I said, 'That's not possible,' but it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters, how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

I

Interviewer2:41:38

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump2:41:39

Okay. Well, we are.

I

Interviewer2:41:43

But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central? Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not a wise...' And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean, given the resources, like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump2:42:27

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them. Unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today. We have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. So it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other people... no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran, and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have... you know what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally whatever, but they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, 'We're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. This is...' I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could... the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer2:44:20

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump2:44:22

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer2:44:23

We'll come back to you.

Okay. Given that you are now dealing, you say, with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump2:44:38

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last... look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially, they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witcoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witcoff is sitting right here, and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand, we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, 'We should have done this a long time ago.' So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a... Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how can you vote for a Democrat? Because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them? Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world, if you look, because you know the other... Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to... it was a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. You need... this isn't you're a landlord. You're renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a five-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat, and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated. That's it. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also, and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now, because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts, and a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please.

I

Interviewer2:50:22

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Mr. President, last week, you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump2:50:44

I can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer2:50:57

President, excuse me, please. You with who you with?

My name is Dakura. I'm with the largest Kurdish media network, it's based in Iran ahead. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away, or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump2:51:20

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties, and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer2:51:37

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump2:51:45

Who you with?

I

Interviewer2:51:46

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times.

D

Donald Trump2:51:49

Are you failing? The failing is your circulation way down at the New York Times. Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to?

I

Interviewer2:51:56

No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid, afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, you know, from a policy standpoint, from any standpoint, any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, it's not going to happen. Even if it means violating international law, quiet. You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. The New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' The New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the News That's Fit to Print.' A great old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news. And people like you, who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

Your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages.' And we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump2:53:46

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well, till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, 'Steve, give them 10 days.' 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this. But we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yeah.

I

Interviewer2:54:52

CNN f...

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump2:55:01

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars, 'Don't worry about the mine.' You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm personally... They say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none, because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' 'Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication.' So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago, with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO... I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to the UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been... they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the USS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer2:58:40

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump2:58:50

Correct.

I

Interviewer2:58:51

What's that trade-off? If I had my choice, take two.

D

Donald Trump2:58:53

If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many times over, many times over. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I've said, 'Why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils.' And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years, because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, 'Well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting...' They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful, possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in, I think, maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now, the people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible... it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different... It was... They were all set. They saw that big, beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work, and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any...' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside. And remember, that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention, more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

Planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. So, typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we were all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened.' And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any.' He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible, Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the Border Patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them, 'Paul, ask any one of them.' Brandon, ask them all the time, 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So, we don't have caravans anymore.

I

Interviewer3:04:06

So, maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the Strait?

D

Donald Trump3:04:19

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer3:04:20

Iran?

D

Donald Trump3:04:22

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer3:04:23

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump3:04:25

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant.

I

Interviewer3:04:45

Your question would have been more accurate if you said 'us'.

Thank you very much. Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump3:05:00

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me. And part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer3:05:13

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump3:05:20

I do because God is good, because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy this. I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh, boy, they're so tough.' They don't want... I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars.' I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives. That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer3:06:25

Okay.

Mr. President, you called the yesterday on your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump3:06:31

True.

I

Interviewer3:06:32

What is your response to critics who say that...

D

Donald Trump3:06:35

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer3:06:36

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump3:06:40

I haven't heard that. But if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on military, on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

I

Interviewer3:06:57

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump3:07:04

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer3:07:05

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking...

D

Donald Trump3:47:02

About liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. The number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. That was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.' We got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. They want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for people that are so... You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer3:48:41

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump3:48:53

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. 'Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400,000 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes.' And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction. And they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

I

Interviewer3:52:45

Mark Meredith, Fox News. I know that. How would I know that? Go ahead. America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump3:53:00

Not everybody was on board. There were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. Look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation? I'd love to keep that a secret. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. He's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not wise.' And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer3:54:41

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean given the resources like the general said it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump3:54:54

So the first one which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. We're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other countries don't have that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have... You know what hit this one was a shoulder-held shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they probably had a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine, but these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, 'We're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this.' I mean you have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer3:56:47

Mr. President, thank you very much. We'll come back to you. Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump3:57:05

If they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last... Look what happened. The women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witcoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witcoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So, it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a... Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is... If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country and how you can vote for a Democrat is... Because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to be a very short-term deal.' Countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced. And I also did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take them out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So, I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct.

I

Interviewer4:02:49

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump4:03:09

We can't talk about ceasefire but I can tell you that we have an active willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer4:03:24

So you've listened to the president. Excuse me, please. Thank you, Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump4:03:28

Who you with? Who you with?

I

Interviewer4:03:30

My name is Dur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Rudaw Media Network. It's based in Iran. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump4:03:46

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay.

I

Interviewer4:04:04

Thank you, Mr. President. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump4:04:12

Who you with?

I

Interviewer4:04:12

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times. Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump4:04:19

Are you failing? They're failing. Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times? No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would... Because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international... You no longer have credibility, the New York Times, because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the news that's fit to print.' A great the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer4:05:59

President, your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages' and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you...

D

Donald Trump4:06:13

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. So the negotiation... CNN fake.

I

Interviewer4:07:18

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump4:07:28

I would say it's a very big priority because that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with... because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own chips that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships. In three days, we've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I personally... They say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO... I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. They're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win.' They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable.

I

Interviewer4:11:07

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home. What's that trade-off?

D

Donald Trump4:11:17

Correct. If I had my choice. Yeah. Because I'm a businessman first with Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. The relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, over 100 million barrels already, is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. Many times. You know the old days... To the victor belong the spoils. And I've said why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils. And we haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War... Look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us that it's not their war? We had nothing to do with getting... They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly. Right. But to the victor belong the spoils. So, we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years. Now with Venezuela, and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different... It was... They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in 3 minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work, and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any...' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention, more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, aside from the drugs, which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them, Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer4:16:37

Mr. President, are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump4:16:45

Us charging tolls. What about us charging tolls? I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' We have a concept where we'll charge tolls. I thought you meant... Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

I

Interviewer4:17:18

Thank you very much. So just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump4:17:27

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer4:17:39

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump4:17:47

I do because God is good. God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy... I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. People say, 'Oh boy, they're so tough.' They don't want... They don't like... I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.' I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer4:18:51

President, you called the Iranians crazy bastards yesterday on your Truth Social. What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump4:18:58

True. I don't care about critics. I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade, on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

I

Interviewer4:19:21

Dasha, you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though?

D

Donald Trump4:19:30

Very little is off limits. I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. Complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying what a great choice he was. They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I tell people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. 'Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing.' Now they call me up. 'What a choice.' These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, 'We're seeing something moving up in the mountain.' This is at night. And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, 'Probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving.' This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer4:22:07

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump4:22:20

Thank you.

I

Interviewer4:22:21

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump4:22:37

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer4:22:43

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump4:22:55

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. They were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. The number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. That was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.' We got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. They want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer4:24:54

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump4:25:06

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. 'Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400,000 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes.' And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction. And they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

I

Interviewer4:28:59

Mark Meredith, Fox News. I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead. America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump4:29:13

Not everybody was on board. There were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. Look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation? I'd love to keep that a secret. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. He's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not wise.' And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer4:30:54

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean given the resources like the general said it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump4:31:07

So the first one which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. We're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other countries don't have that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have... You know what hit this one was a shoulder-held shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they probably had a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine, but these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, 'We're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this.' I mean you have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have shoulder-held heat-seeking missiles. So it's not like they're totally out. And they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could refuel because the flight was so long. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer4:33:00

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump4:33:02

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer4:33:03

We'll come back to you.

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump4:33:18

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witkoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is beyond me. If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to be a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible. The Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced. And I also did one other thing, but that one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book.

I

Interviewer4:38:54

But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct.

D

Donald Trump4:39:02

Yeah, please.

R

Reporter4:39:02

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump4:39:24

Can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

R

Reporter4:39:37

Mr. President, excuse me, please go ahead.

D

Donald Trump4:39:41

Who you with?

R

Reporter4:39:43

My name is Dakura. I'm with the largest Kurdish media network, it's based in Iran. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump4:40:00

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

R

Reporter4:40:17

Thank you, Mr. President. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump4:40:25

Who you with?

R

Reporter4:40:25

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times.

D

Donald Trump4:40:28

Are you failing? Are you concerned circulation is way down at the New York Times?

R

Reporter4:40:32

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump4:40:38

No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international law. Quiet. You no longer have credibility, the New York Times, because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the news that's fit to print.' A great old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

R

Reporter4:42:13

Your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages.' We've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump4:42:26

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. So the negotiation...

R

Reporter4:43:33

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump4:43:41

I would say it's a very big priority because that's one thing that's a little different than others. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with a water mine. Drop them in the water and now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win.' They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want them. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the USS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible. But 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable.

R

Reporter4:47:20

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump4:47:30

Correct.

R

Reporter4:47:31

What's that trade-off?

D

Donald Trump4:47:32

If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes and we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good and we are a partner with Venezuela and we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Hundreds of millions, over a hundred million barrels already, is in Houston, refined and out, and paid for that war many, many times over. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I've said, why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils. And we haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War, we didn't have it. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us that it's not their war, they had nothing to do with it? They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. They hit us from 17 different angles. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning.' So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in 3 minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any,' he used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention, more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

R

Reporter4:52:50

Mr. President, are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump4:52:58

Us charging tolls?

R

Reporter4:53:00

Iran?

D

Donald Trump4:53:01

What about us charging tolls?

R

Reporter4:53:03

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump4:53:05

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant...

R

Reporter4:53:25

Your question would have been more accurate if you said ahead.

D

Donald Trump4:53:31

Thank you very much.

R

Reporter4:53:32

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump4:53:41

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

R

Reporter4:53:48

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump4:54:00

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy this. I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh boy, they're so tough.' They don't want this. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

R

Reporter4:55:05

President, you called the Iranians 'crazy bastards' on Truth Social yesterday.

D

Donald Trump4:55:11

True.

R

Reporter4:55:12

What is your response to critics who say that your mental health should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump4:55:15

I don't care about critics.

R

Reporter4:55:16

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump4:55:21

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

R

Reporter4:55:35

Dasha, you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump4:55:44

Very little is off limits.

R

Reporter4:55:45

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking...

D

Donald Trump4:55:48

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they call me up. 'What a choice.' These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night and they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving. 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving.' And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

R

Reporter4:58:20

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump4:58:34

Thank you.

R

Reporter4:58:34

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump4:58:50

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So I expected that.

R

Reporter4:58:56

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump4:59:09

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way?' We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is, but it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

R

Reporter5:01:07

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump5:01:19

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, 'Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many from New York originally, I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy, and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was starting, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes them because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here. You're out of there. I don't care who.

R

Reporter5:05:12

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump5:05:14

I know that.

R

Reporter5:05:14

Oh, thank you. Go ahead.

America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump5:05:27

Not everybody was on board.

R

Reporter5:05:28

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump5:05:29

No, there were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. I would have had a little difficulty but no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is, hey, you have countries and countries, you have some countries where military is not there. Wrong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military, usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I surprised. Somebody said it's the only time it's ever been done. I said that's not possible. But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

R

Reporter5:06:31

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump5:06:34

Okay. Well, we are.

R

Reporter5:06:36

But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not wise.' And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean, given the resources like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump5:07:21

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody has. I've tried them. Unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today. We have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. So it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other countries don't have that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have shoulder-held heat-seeking missiles. So it's not like they're totally out. And they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could refuel because the flight was so long. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

I

Interviewer5:09:13

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump5:09:15

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer5:09:16

We'll come back to you.

Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump5:09:31

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witkoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is beyond me. If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to be a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible. The Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced. And I also did one other thing, but that one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book.

I

Interviewer5:15:07

But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct.

D

Donald Trump5:15:13

Yeah. Please.

R

Reporter5:15:16

Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump5:15:36

We can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

R

Reporter5:15:50

Mr. President, excuse me, please listen. Thank you, Mr. President. Who you with?

D

Donald Trump5:15:54

Who you with?

R

Reporter5:15:56

My name is Dakur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media network, Truda Media Network. It's based in Iran. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump5:16:11

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

R

Reporter5:16:30

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump5:16:38

Who you with?

R

Reporter5:16:39

I'm with the New York Times. From the New York Times. Are you failing? Are you concerned your circulation is way down at the New York Times? Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump5:16:49

Not at all. No. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen.

Disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international quiet, you no longer have credibility. The New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print. A great, the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer5:18:26

Your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So are you, so which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump5:18:40

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. So the negotiation.

I

Interviewer5:19:46

CNN fake.

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump5:19:54

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't, I'm personally. They say there might be eight. I don't know. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been, they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer5:23:34

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump5:23:44

Correct.

I

Interviewer5:23:44

What's that trade-off? If I had my choice, take two.

D

Donald Trump5:23:46

If I had my choice. Yeah.

I

Interviewer5:23:48

Because I'm a businessman first.

D

Donald Trump5:23:51

With Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out, and paid for that war many, many times over. Many times. You know the old days to the victim. Okay. Do you know that to the winner belong the spoils? Go the spoils. And I've said why don't we use it to the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War. You look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second World War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us? Germany telling us that it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting. They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly. Right. But to the victor belong the spoils. So, we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years. Now with Venezuela and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever pled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible, it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The general, Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site.' I said, 'I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different. It was. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. They said, 'We knew it was over in 3 minutes.' We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any.' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers and those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention. More so than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean he released aside from the drugs which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody has come through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer5:29:04

Mr. President, are you allowed to, are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump5:29:12

Us charging tolls.

I

Interviewer5:29:14

Iran?

D

Donald Trump5:29:15

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer5:29:17

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump5:29:18

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant.

I

Interviewer5:29:39

Your question would have been more accurate if you said ahead.

Thank you very much.

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump5:29:54

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer5:30:06

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump5:30:13

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy, I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh boy, they're so tough.' They don't want. They don't like. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer5:31:18

Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. You called the yesterday in your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump5:31:24

True.

I

Interviewer5:31:25

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump5:31:34

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade, on military, on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha.

I

Interviewer5:31:51

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump5:31:57

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer5:31:58

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking.

D

Donald Trump5:32:01

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't, it'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they're calling me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from he was 40 miles away and he said, 'You know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night.' And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away was a the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer5:34:33

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump5:34:47

Thank you.

I

Interviewer5:34:47

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump5:35:03

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer5:35:10

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump5:35:22

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say oh well why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We do. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan. I have the best plan of all.' But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to.' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is, but it's very unfair to say, 'We don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news. But you can't. It's so bad for people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer5:37:21

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump5:37:33

They would be willing to, and it's suffering. They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many, I know coming from New York originally, I know so many people from, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman, in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, oh, this is the end of the country and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women and when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again and a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about oh women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about oh freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays for Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardized because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out. I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here. You're out of there. I don't care who.

I

Interviewer5:41:25

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump5:41:27

I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead.

I

Interviewer5:41:30

America's watching. No. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump5:41:40

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer5:41:41

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump5:41:42

No, there was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is, hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's a wise and don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

I

Interviewer5:42:44

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump5:42:47

Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. He's pretty good. Is he central? Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not a wise.' And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer5:43:21

Was there a point that they were gonna that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait. I mean given the resources like the general said it seems like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump5:43:34

So the first one which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know we're the best at the world at night. We have goggles that nobody. We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other people, no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is square. We took out a lot but they still have, you know what hit this one was a shoulder handheld shoulder missile heat seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they have probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people do this. This is, I mean you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could, the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer5:45:26

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump5:45:28

You.

I

Interviewer5:45:29

Thank you, sir.

D

Donald Trump5:45:29

We'll come back to you.

I

Interviewer5:45:30

Okay. Given that you are now dealing you say with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your.

D

Donald Trump5:45:45

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely, they shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witkoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now, they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So, it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a. Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is, if you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country and how you can vote for a Democrat is in because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have chosen, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to, it was a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. You need, this isn't you're a landlord. You're renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So, I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please.

I

Interviewer5:51:28

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum and secondly would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump5:51:49

Can't talk about ceasefire but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer5:52:03

President, so much.

D

Donald Trump5:52:06

Excuse me, please go ahead. Who you with? Who you with?

I

Interviewer5:52:09

My name is Dur, I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, media network, it's based in Iran. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump5:52:26

I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer5:52:28

And then.

D

Donald Trump5:52:29

I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer5:52:44

Thank you, Mr. President for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump5:52:52

Who you with?

I

Interviewer5:52:52

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times. Are you failing? They're failing. Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times? Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to one?

D

Donald Trump5:53:03

No, not at all. No. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would that happen? And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid, afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, you know, from a policy standpoint, from a stand, any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international quiet. You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print. A great, the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer5:54:39

Your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So are you, so which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump5:54:53

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. So the negotiation.

I

Interviewer5:55:59

CNN fake.

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump5:56:08

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, 'We put mines in the water.' So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't, I'm personally. They say there might be eight. I don't know. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been, they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer5:59:47

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump5:59:57

Correct.

I

Interviewer5:59:58

What's that trade-off? If I had my choice,

D

Donald Trump6:00:00

If I had my choice. Yeah,

I

Interviewer6:00:02

Because I'm a businessman first.

D

Donald Trump6:00:04

With Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. Many times. You know the old days to the victim. Okay. Do you know that to the winner belong the spoils? Go the spoils. And I've said why don't we use it to the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War. You look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second World War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us? Germany telling us that it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting. They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now with Venezuela and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela they say if I ran for president of Venezuela I'm polling higher than anybody has ever pled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible, it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The general, Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site.' I said, 'I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different. It was. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off at 1:00 in the morning. So, typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. They said, 'We knew it was over in 3 minutes.' We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any.' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers and those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention. More so than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean he released aside from the drugs which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them. Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody has come through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

At speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, "We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people." They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, "We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any." He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, "Get the hell out of here." Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, "How we doing?" I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them, Paul, ask any one of them, Brandon, ask him all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border and nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So, we don't have caravans anymore. So, maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer6:05:17

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump6:05:25

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer6:05:27

Iran?

D

Donald Trump6:05:28

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer6:05:30

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump6:05:31

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant

I

Interviewer6:05:52

Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

Thank you very much.

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump6:06:07

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer6:06:19

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump6:06:27

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says, "I enjoy I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it." These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, "Oh, boy, they're so tough." They don't want. They don't like. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, "You deserve the Nobel Prize." She announced that. When they announced, they said, "Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person." She said, "No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, "President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives." That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer6:07:31

Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. You called the yesterday in your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump6:07:38

True.

I

Interviewer6:07:38

What is your response to critics who say that

D

Donald Trump6:07:42

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer6:07:43

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump6:07:47

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha,

I

Interviewer6:08:04

When you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges, you've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump6:08:10

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer6:08:11

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking I don't want to tell you that you

D

Donald Trump6:08:16

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my joint chiefs of staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, "Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over." And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, "What a great choice he was." They said, "Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?" I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they're calling me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from he was 40 miles away and he said, "You know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night." And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, "We see something moving." 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, "We have him." And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer6:10:47

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump6:11:00

Thank you.

I

Interviewer6:11:01

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump6:11:17

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer6:11:23

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump6:11:35

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, "Oh well, why are you doing this way?" We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, "Oh, he doesn't have a plan." I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, "Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to" And if you don't do that, they say, "I have a plan." These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so you just saw two great and John Ratliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer6:13:34

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump6:13:46

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, "Please come back. Come back. Come back." These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, "Oh, the regime is going to come to an end." And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, "Oh my god, what's that?" Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, "Oh my god, who would do that?" And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country if you go back 25 years ago or so. The Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many coming from New York originally. I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was starting, "Oh, this is the end of the country" and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction. And they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, "Don't go out." I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is. Mark Meredith, Fox News.

I

Interviewer6:17:40

I know that. Oh, thank you. Go America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump6:17:53

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer6:17:55

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump6:17:56

No, there were military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And no, we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I was surprised. Somebody said, "It's the only time it's ever been done." I said, "That's not possible." But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's not wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately

I

Interviewer6:18:58

For the operation?

D

Donald Trump6:18:59

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, "This is not wise." And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer6:19:34

Was there a point that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean given the resources like the general said it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump6:19:47

So the first one which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody has. We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other countries no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have you know what hit this one was a shoulder-held shoulder missile heat-seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine, but these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. This is I mean you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer6:21:40

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump6:21:41

Thank you, sir.

I

Interviewer6:21:43

We'll come back to you.

Okay. Given that you are now dealing with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump6:21:58

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely they shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witcoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witcoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So, it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country and how you can vote for a Democrat is because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, "Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to it was a very short-term deal." You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal. For a country, you need this isn't you're a landlord. You're renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a five-year or 10-year lease. This is a country was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, "Well, maybe it wasn't complete." It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also I did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take them out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So, I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

I

Interviewer6:27:44

Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump6:28:02

We can't talk about ceasefire but I can tell you that we have an active willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer6:28:17

So you've excuse me please you've listened. Thank you, Mr. President. Who you with? Who you with?

My name is Dur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Rudaw Media Network. It's based in Iran. Go ahead.

Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump6:28:40

I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer6:28:41

And then

D

Donald Trump6:28:42

I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay.

I

Interviewer6:28:57

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump6:29:05

Who you with?

I

Interviewer6:29:05

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times. Are you failing? They're failing. Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to

D

Donald Trump6:29:17

No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators.

I

Interviewer6:29:26

Why would because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, you know, from a policy standpoint, from a stand, any which way you want to say, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen.

Even if it means violating international quiet.

D

Donald Trump6:30:19

You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, "Oh, Trump won't win the election" and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, "Oh, Trump won't win the election." New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print. A great the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer6:30:52

President, your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So are you winding this down? Are you

D

Donald Trump6:31:06

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. So

I

Interviewer6:32:12

The negotiation

D

Donald Trump6:32:12

CNN fake.

I

Interviewer6:32:14

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump6:32:21

I would say it's a very big priority because that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own chips that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't personally. They say there might be eight. I don't know. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, "What are they saying?" Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, "Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that." Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been they're the oldest. And I say, "Yeah, I'd love to have a little help." He said, "No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win." I said, "I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work." I said, "I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?" I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, "We don't really need them. We got the USS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them." Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer6:36:00

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump6:36:10

Correct.

I

Interviewer6:36:11

What's that trade-off if I had my choice?

D

Donald Trump6:36:13

If I had my choice. Yeah. Because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. Many times and you know the old days to the victim. Okay. Do you know that to the winner belong the spoils, go the spoils. And I've said, why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War. We didn't have it with the Second World War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting they wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So, we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela. They say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, "I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years." He said, "I've never seen it." They hit us from 17 different angles. They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off at 1:00 in the morning. So, typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, "We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, "We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any." He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside. And remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, "Get the hell out of here." Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean he released aside from the drugs which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, "How we doing?" I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them, Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer6:41:30

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump6:41:38

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer6:41:40

Iran?

D

Donald Trump6:41:41

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer6:41:43

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump6:41:45

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant

I

Interviewer6:42:05

Your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

Thank you very much.

So just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump6:42:21

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer6:42:32

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump6:42:40

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, "Oh, boy, they're so tough." They don't want. They don't like. I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, "You deserve the Nobel Prize." She announced that. When they announced, they said, "Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person." She said, "No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said, "President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives." That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer6:43:44

Okay. President, you called the yesterday in your Truth Social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump6:43:51

True.

I

Interviewer6:43:51

What is your response to critics who say that

D

Donald Trump6:43:55

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer6:43:56

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump6:44:01

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha,

I

Interviewer6:44:17

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump6:44:24

Very little is off limits.

I

Interviewer6:44:25

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking that you

D

Donald Trump6:44:29

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my joint chiefs of staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, "Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over." And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, "What a great choice he was." They said, "Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?" I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they're calling me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from he was 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night. And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, "We see something moving." 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, "We have him." And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer6:47:00

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump6:47:14

Thank you.

I

Interviewer6:47:14

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump6:47:30

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer6:47:36

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump6:47:49

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, "Oh well, why are you doing this way?" We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, "Oh, he doesn't have a plan." I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, "Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to" And if you don't do that, they say, "I have a plan." These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so you just saw two great and John Ratliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

They were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way?' We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't, because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer6:49:47

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

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Donald Trump6:49:59

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. 'Please keep bombing bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually, and I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays for Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardized because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get, and hitting you right between the eyes every single time, and you're looking here, and you're seeing, and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is.

I

Interviewer6:53:52

Mark Meredith, Fox News. I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead. America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

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Donald Trump6:54:07

Not everybody was on board. There was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. They weren't. I would have had a little difficulty but no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's a wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation? I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central? Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So, we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not a wise.' And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer6:55:47

Was there a point that they were going to that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean, given the resources like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

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Donald Trump6:56:00

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other people, no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have, you know what hit this one was a shoulder handheld shoulder missile heat-seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they have probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. This is... I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could... the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer6:57:53

Mr. President, thank you very much. You thank you sir. We'll come back to you. Okay. Given that you are now dealing, you say, with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

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Donald Trump6:58:11

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last... look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witkoff is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Whit is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So, it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a... Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how can you vote for a Democrat? Because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to... it was a very short-term deal. You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal. For a country, you need... this isn't you're a landlord, you're renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things I ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated. That's it. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible. The Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So, I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please.

I

Interviewer7:03:55

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

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Donald Trump7:04:15

Can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that. President, excuse me, please go ahead. Listen, who you with? Who you with?

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Interviewer7:04:36

My name is... I'm with the largest Kurdish media network. It's based in Iran ahead. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

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Donald Trump7:04:53

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer7:05:10

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

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Donald Trump7:05:18

Who are you with?

I

Interviewer7:05:19

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times.

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Donald Trump7:05:22

Are you failing? Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times? Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to... No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say it, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international law. Quiet. You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the news that's fit to print.' A great... The old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news. And people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer7:07:06

Your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages.' And we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

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Donald Trump7:07:20

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of... well, till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yeah. So the negotiation...

I

Interviewer7:08:26

CNN... Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

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Donald Trump7:08:34

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with... because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water, and now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, 'We put mines in the water.' So, it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines there, by the way. I'm not sure. I personally... They say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO... I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win.' They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer7:12:14

Go ahead, please. Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

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Donald Trump7:12:24

Correct. If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first. With Venezuela, as you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes and we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good and we are a partner with Venezuela and we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already, is in Houston, refined and out and paid for that war many times over. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I have said, 'Why don't we use it?' To the victor go the spoils, and we haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War, we didn't have it. With the Second War, we helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us that it's not their war? We had nothing to do with getting... They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belonged the spoils. So, we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now. With Venezuela, and we, just so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different... It was... They were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at one o'clock in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in 3 minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work and there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any...' He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention, more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them, Paul, ask any one of them. Brandon, ask them all the time. 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer7:17:44

Mr. President, are you allowed to... are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump7:17:52

Us charging tolls? What about us charging tolls? I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant... Your question would have been more accurate if you said ahead. Thank you very much.

I

Interviewer7:18:25

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump7:18:34

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer7:18:46

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States' actions in this?

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Donald Trump7:18:53

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy... I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh boy, they're so tough.' They don't want... They don't like... I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.' I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way. Okay.

I

Interviewer7:19:59

President, you called the... yesterday in your Truth Social, you called the Iranians 'crazy bastards.'

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Donald Trump7:20:04

True.

I

Interviewer7:20:05

What is your response to critics who say that... I don't care about critics. What is your response to critics who say that your mental health should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

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Donald Trump7:20:14

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha, you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

I

Interviewer7:20:37

Very little is off limits. Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking... I don't want to tell you that you...

D

Donald Trump7:20:42

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. If I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now, they call me up. 'What a choice.' These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night and they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer7:23:13

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country, it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump7:23:27

Thank you.

I

Interviewer7:23:27

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump7:23:43

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer7:23:50

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump7:24:02

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way?' We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But it's very unfair to say we don't, because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer7:26:01

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump7:26:13

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. 'Please keep bombing bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was, 'Oh, this is the end of the country.' And then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays for Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardized because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get, and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here. You're out of there. I don't care who it is.

I

Interviewer7:30:05

Mark Meredith, Fox News. I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead. America's watching. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump7:30:20

Not everybody was on board. There was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. They weren't. I would have had a little difficulty but no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's a wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation? I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr. Okay. Well, we are. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central? Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So, we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not a wise.' And I understood that, but I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer7:32:00

Was there a point that they were going to that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait? I mean, given the resources like the general said, it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump7:32:14

So the first one, which was in many ways as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best in the world at night. We have goggles that nobody... We have goggles. I've tried them and they're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So we have the best in the world. So it's much safer for us to do it at night, whereas other people, no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have, you know what hit this one was a shoulder handheld shoulder missile heat-seeking missile. So, it's not like they're totally whatever, but they have probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. This is... I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could... the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

Which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have, you know, what hit this one was a shoulder-held, shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile. So it's not like they're totally, whatever. But they probably had a little luck because you got to get lucky. But they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people to do this. I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both, and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer7:34:06

Mr. President, thank you very much.

D

Donald Trump7:34:08

Uh.

I

Interviewer7:34:09

Thank you, sir.

D

Donald Trump7:34:09

We'll come back to you.

I

Interviewer7:34:10

Okay. Given that you are now dealing, you say, with a more reasonable, less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump7:34:25

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially, they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witco is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Whit is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How can Israel vote for a Democrat? If you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country, how can you vote for a Democrat? Because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look, because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to be a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal for a country. This isn't you're a landlord renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a 5-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to BB Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced. And I also did one other, but that this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book.

I

Interviewer7:40:00

But you as a president, to be a good president I believe you have to have good instincts and a lot of this is instinct. Yeah. Please.

Mr. President, Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48-hour ultimatum? And secondly, would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran?

D

Donald Trump7:40:29

We can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal. I can't say any more than that.

I

Interviewer7:40:43

Mr. President, excuse me, please. You've listened to Mr. President.

D

Donald Trump7:40:48

Who you with? Who you with?

R

Reporter7:40:49

My name is Dakur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media out there, Rudaw Media Network. It's based in Iran. Go ahead.

Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump7:41:06

I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death, I mean you know to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay away. Go ahead.

R

Reporter7:41:24

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump7:41:31

Who you with?

R

Reporter7:41:32

I'm with the New York Times. From the New York Times. Are you failing? Are you concerned? Is your circulation way down at the New York Times? Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to...

D

Donald Trump7:41:39

No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would they? They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran, we're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, from a policy standpoint, from any which way you want to say, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them, powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international quiet, you no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be 'All the news that's fit to print.' The great old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

R

Reporter7:43:19

Your messaging on the war has moved from 'the war is coming to an end' to 'we're going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages' and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump7:43:33

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone Ages. Yeah. Sorry.

R

Reporter7:44:39

CNN figures. Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the Strait of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump7:44:48

I would say it's a very big priority because, see, that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the strait, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any mines, by the way. I'm not sure. I personally, they say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win.' They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows? I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, we don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them. Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry that's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer7:48:27

Go ahead, please.

R

Reporter7:48:28

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump7:48:37

Correct.

R

Reporter7:48:37

What's that trade-off?

D

Donald Trump7:48:39

If I had my choice, take two. If I had my choice. Yeah. Because I'm a businessman first with Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela. Very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already, is in Houston refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. Many times. You know the old days, to the victor belong the spoils. And I've said, why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils. And we haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War, we didn't have it with the Second World War. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us, 'Well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting.' They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly. Right. But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now with Venezuela. And we just, so you understand, the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site. I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different angles. It was all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off it at 1:00 in the morning. So typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened.' And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any.' He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles. And it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally. You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible, Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border that never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the Border Patrol. She never said, 'How are we doing?' I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask them, 'Paul, ask any one of them.' Brandon, ask them all the time, 'How are we doing? How are we doing?' And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border. And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore.

I

Interviewer7:53:53

So maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

R

Reporter7:53:57

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the strait?

D

Donald Trump7:54:05

Us charging tolls?

R

Reporter7:54:07

Iran?

D

Donald Trump7:54:08

What about us charging tolls?

R

Reporter7:54:10

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump7:54:11

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, 'Oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water.' All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant...

R

Reporter7:54:32

Your question would have been more accurate if you said ahead.

D

Donald Trump7:54:37

Thank you very much.

R

Reporter7:54:38

Just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

D

Donald Trump7:54:47

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me. And part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

R

Reporter7:54:55

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said 'Glory be to God' in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump7:55:06

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy, I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh, boy, they're so tough.' They don't want, they don't like, I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that. When they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's a great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.' I could go over every one of them including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives. That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer7:56:11

Okay.

R

Reporter7:56:12

Mr. President, you called the Iranians crazy bastards yesterday on your Truth Social.

D

Donald Trump7:56:18

True.

R

Reporter7:56:18

What is your response to critics who say that...

D

Donald Trump7:56:21

I don't care about critics.

R

Reporter7:56:22

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump7:56:28

I haven't heard that. But if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on military on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people.

R

Reporter7:56:44

You said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges. You've mentioned those.

D

Donald Trump7:56:50

Very little is off limits.

R

Reporter7:56:51

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking hospitals that you...

D

Donald Trump7:56:55

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of 4 hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. I ever do this again. That's going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? And he told me, 'Sir, it won't. It'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying what a great choice he was. They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine, sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they're calling me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratcliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from he was 40 miles away and he said, you know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night and they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away was the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

R

Reporter7:59:26

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump7:59:40

Thank you.

R

Reporter7:59:40

I have two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump7:59:57

Well, I expected that. We've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So I expected that.

R

Reporter8:00:03

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump8:00:15

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, 'Oh well, why are you doing this way?' We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We do. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan.' I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to...' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is, but it's very unfair to say, 'We don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so... You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

R

Reporter8:02:14

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump8:02:26

They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, and we've had numerous intercepts, 'Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.' And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000, 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those 400 or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many, coming from New York originally, I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy, and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, 'Oh, this is the end of the country,' and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they were coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women and when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about, 'Oh, women's rights.' You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus three, all that group, they talk about, 'Oh, freedom for Iran.' They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays in Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardizes because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell them, I said, 'Don't go out. I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here. You're out of there. I don't care who.

R

Reporter8:06:18

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

D

Donald Trump8:06:20

I know that. Oh, thank you. Go ahead.

Even if it means violating international quiet. You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election,' and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print. A great the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer8:19:32

Your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So are you so which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you escalating?

D

Donald Trump8:19:47

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah.

I

Interviewer8:20:52

CNN fake.

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the straight of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump8:21:01

I would say it's a very big priority because that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the straight, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own chips that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying, 'We put mines in the water.' So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mind droppers. They don't have any mind droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any minds there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm personally they say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer8:24:40

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump8:24:50

Correct.

I

Interviewer8:24:51

What's that trade-off? If I had my choice,

D

Donald Trump8:24:53

If I had my choice. Yeah,

I

Interviewer8:24:55

Because I'm a businessman first

D

Donald Trump8:24:57

With Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many, many times over. Many times. You know the old days to the victim. Okay. Do you know that to the winner belong the spoils go the spoils. And I've said why don't we use it to the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the second world war. You look at the second world war. We didn't have it with the second war. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us? Germany telling us that well it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting they wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now with Venezuela and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela they say if I ran for president of Venezuela I'm polling higher than anybody has ever pled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language and I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible, it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful military power like nobody's ever seen. The general, Venezuelan general said, I was on that site. I said, I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. He said, I've never seen it. They hit us from 17 different it was they were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off at 1:00 in the morning. So, typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? And we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles, the general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, 'We knew it was over in three minutes. We were waiting for them. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people.' They pressed the button, nothing happened. They pressed it again and again, nothing happened. And he said, 'We knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any.' He used the word ferocity. The ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and it was over. They went inside and remember that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, 'Get the hell out of here.' Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people. So, we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than normally you're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible. Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a borders who never went to the border and never once called our great border patrol agents, right? Not once, Kamala. She never called the border patrol. She never said, 'How we doing?' I used to call the border patrol guys every day. You can ask them, Paul, ask any one of them, Brandon, ask them all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border and nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So, we don't have caravans anymore. So, maybe one or two more and we'll be done.

I

Interviewer8:30:10

Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging tolls for passage through the straight?

D

Donald Trump8:30:18

Us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer8:30:20

Iran?

D

Donald Trump8:30:21

What about us charging tolls?

I

Interviewer8:30:23

Is that something you're considering?

D

Donald Trump8:30:24

I'd rather do that than let them have them, right? Why shouldn't we? We're the winner. We won. Okay. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. Okay. I thought you meant your question would have been more accurate if you said us.

I

Interviewer8:30:51

Thank you very much.

Just to clarify in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow. Do they have to make a deal, open the straight, or both?

D

Donald Trump8:31:00

We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me. And part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else.

I

Interviewer8:31:12

Mr. President, thank you very much. You've said glory be to God in this conflict. Do you believe that God supports the United States actions in this?

D

Donald Trump8:31:20

I do because God is good. Because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, 'Oh, boy, they're so tough.' They don't want. They don't like I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel Prize came to me and said, 'You deserve the Nobel Prize.' She announced that when they announced, they said, 'Goes to Maria. She's great person. Really a good person.' She said, 'No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump aimed at eight wars. I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan where the prime minister of Pakistan said, 'President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives.' That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

I

Interviewer8:32:24

Okay. President, you called the yesterday in your truth social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.

D

Donald Trump8:32:31

True.

I

Interviewer8:32:31

What is your response to critics who say that

D

Donald Trump8:32:35

I don't care about critics.

I

Interviewer8:32:36

What is your response to critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this war continues?

D

Donald Trump8:32:41

I haven't heard that, but if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people like me because our country was being ripped off on trade or on everything for many years until I came along. So if that's the case, you're going to have to have more people. Dasha, when you said that very little is off limits in Iran as far as targeting, including power plants, bridges, you've mentioned those.

I

Interviewer8:33:03

Very little is off limits.

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets though? I'm thinking I don't want to tell you that you

D

Donald Trump8:33:09

I don't want to tell you that we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12:00 tomorrow night where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean complete demolition by 12:00. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don't want that to happen. I ever do this again, that's going to be the head of my joint chiefs of staff. And we worked it that way, didn't we? It's amazing. He took out ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks. I was told it would take four years. I flew to Iraq to find out with the greatest equipment in the world. Why would it take four years? and he told me, 'Sir, it won't it'll take four weeks and you'll have time left over.' And that's exactly what happened. So, he's great. And Pete, all I can say is that he was treated very unfairly. And now those same people that treated him unfairly, that fought against him, they called me up saying, 'What a great choice he was.' They said, 'Well, what happened during his nomination? What happened to you?' I'm telling you, people that were not for him, senators, friends of mine. Sir, I don't think you're doing the right thing. Now they're calling me up. What a choice. These two guys are fantastic. And John Ratliffe was incredible. It was actually their genius that called us from he was 40 miles away and he said, 'You know, we're seeing something moving up in the mountain. This is at night.' And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn't moving and they said, you know, probably wrong, but we're seeing something moving. This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees. He said, 'We see something moving.' 40 miles away was a the head of a human being. I'm telling you, it's moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot. Stood up and they said, 'We have him.' And that was really the beginning of something incredible. We had an idea where he was, but not specifically. That's a big mountain. So, I want to thank the CIA, too. I don't think they get enough credit for the great job they've done. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer8:35:40

Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for this great opportunity. Country it has super army. You make a difference, Mr. President. Thank you for your greatest leadership.

D

Donald Trump8:35:53

Thank you.

I

Interviewer8:35:54

I have a two quick questions, Mr. President. What was your reaction when you learned that Kurdistan region had resumed exporting oil to the international market with your support as United States of America?

D

Donald Trump8:36:10

Well, I expected that we've gotten along with the Kurds for a long time. So, I expected that.

I

Interviewer8:36:16

Another question. What would be your reaction if the Iranian people rise up against their regime during a ceasefire, Mr. President?

D

Donald Trump8:36:28

Well, they should do it, but again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told you if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He was a great wrestler, one of the top in the world. And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45,000 people were killed. So you know when somebody stays in a house when they know if they walk out of the house to protest they'll be immediately shot and killed. And they issued that. You know that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say oh well why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We do we're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my view was very simple. I saw somebody said, 'Oh, he doesn't have a plan. I have the best plan of all.' But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, 'Here's my plan. We're going to attack at 9:47 in the morning, and then we're going to do this, and then we're going to' And if you don't do that, they say, 'I have a plan.' These people know what the plan is. Everybody here knows what the plan is. But, it's very unfair to say, we don't because I don't mind being insulted. I've been insulted for many years by the fake news, but you can't. It's so bad for the people that are so you just saw two great and John Ratliff, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every single thing has been thought out by all of us, but I can't reveal the plan to the media. So, you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation. Yes, please.

I

Interviewer8:38:27

Thank you, Mr. President. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?

D

Donald Trump8:38:39

They would be willing to and it's suffering. They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have and we've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, 'Please come back. Come back. Come back.' These are the people. I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protest where they had 400,000 500,000 women and they were all enthused and they were going to protest and everybody said, 'Oh, the regime is going to come to an end.' And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took. And those four or 500,000 women said, 'Oh my god, what's that?' Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people. And then they said, 'Oh my god, who would do that?' And they're incredible people, but they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant actually. And I know so many I know coming from New York originally, I know so many people from Iran, they're incredible people, incredible energy and very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman in the case of a woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was start, oh, this is the end of the country and then snipers selectively picked. Every single one was shot right between the eyes from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that, too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings aiming and hitting women. And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction. And they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about oh women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like you know AOC plus3 all that group. They talk about, oh, freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays for Iran? They kill the gays. They throw them off buildings. So, I wonder what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing even if it jeopardized because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran, but it's very hard for them to protest. I actually tell him, I said, 'Don't go out.' I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly, it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here, you're out of there. I don't care who it is. Mark Meredith, Fox News.

I

Interviewer8:42:34

I know that would go ahead.

America's watching. No. Can we go back to the weekend? First off, was everyone on board with the operation or were there people that were trying to talk you out of going through with the operation this weekend?

D

Donald Trump8:42:46

Not everybody was on board.

I

Interviewer8:42:48

Somebody else within.

D

Donald Trump8:42:49

No, there was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. If they weren't, I would have had a little difficulty. But no, there were military people that said you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military. You know, this is Hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not their strong suit. This whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And now we had people within the military. Usually it's not done. That's one of the reasons, you know, I was surprised. Somebody said, 'It's the only time it's ever been done.' I said, 'That's not possible.' But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path. I mean, look at some of the helicopters how they got hit. So, yeah, there were people within the military that said it's a wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately

I

Interviewer8:43:51

For the operation?

D

Donald Trump8:43:52

I'd love to keep that a secret, Mr.

I

Interviewer8:43:54

Okay. Well, we are. Okay. [laughter]

D

Donald Trump8:43:56

But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. He's pretty good. Is he central? Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment. A lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed. So we had people that were within the military that said, 'This is not a wise.' And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

I

Interviewer8:44:27

Was there a point that they were gonna that you were thinking there's too much on the line and somebody was saying maybe we abort this now and wait. I mean given the resources like the general said it seemed like there was so much on the line here. You must have been thinking this could have completely changed.

D

Donald Trump8:44:40

So the first one which was in many ways as dangerous as the second I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know we're the best at the world at night. We have goggles that nobody We have goggles. I've tried them. They're unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night than I see without them during daylight. I mean, daylight today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced. So, we have the best in the world. So, it's much safer to for us to do it at night, whereas other people no other country has that capability. They don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying and in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran and that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti-aircraft which is great. We took out their radar which is great. We took out a lot but they still have you know what hit this one was a shoulder handheld shoulder missile heat seeking missile. So, it's not like, you know, they're totally whatever, but they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky, but they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine, but these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people do this. This is I mean you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured. I would have said that would be impossible. Yeah.

I

Interviewer8:46:33

Mr. President, thank you very much.

You Thank you, sir.

We'll come back to you.

Okay. Given that you are now dealing you say with a more reasonable less extreme leadership in Iran, what does that mean for the protesters, for the human rights movement in that country after this conflict? What's your expectation?

D

Donald Trump8:46:51

Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last look what happened. I mean, the women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women. They absolutely they shoot them right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now, I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till 8:00 tomorrow night, Eastern time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well. Mr. Witco is here and JD is involved in the dealing. Mr. Witkoff is sitting right here and I think it's going fine, but we'll have to see. You have to understand we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore. Right now they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them, to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago. So, it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a Don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this, he chose Iran over Israel, pure and simple. How Israel can vote for a Democrat is if you're Jewish in New York City or any place else in this country and how you can vote for a Democrat is in because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran, remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world if you look because you know the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, I mean you take a look. I mean I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others. He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have chosen he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of all thinking and he made a terrible mistake. But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, 'Oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon and it was going to it was a very short-term deal.' You know, countries don't do 10-year deals. Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10-year deal. For a country, you need this isn't you're a landlord. You're renting a store on a certain street and you give somebody a five-year or 10-year lease. This is a country. It was a short-term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired. Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things they ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, 'Well, maybe it wasn't complete.' It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it. It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes, and they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level, either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to BB Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would have been extinguished, large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them. They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also and they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that. And then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed Qasem Soleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting perhaps a different Iran right now because he's never been replaced, you know. And I also I did one other, but that this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden. If you read my book, I said you got to take them out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So, I wish you'd read the book. But you, as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

I

Interviewer8:52:37

Mr. President, last week you suggested that Europe should take the lead on reopening the straight of Hormuz. Has circumstances changed now that you're issuing a direct 48 hour ultimatum and secondly would a new ceasefire include Israel or would it just be between Iran

D

Donald Trump8:52:55

We can't talk about ceasefire but I can tell you that we have a active willing participant on the other side they would like to be able to make a deal I can't say any more than that. So you've listened to the president excuse me please you've listened Thank you, Mr. President. Who you with? Who you with?

I

Interviewer8:53:16

My name is Dur. I'm with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Rud Media Network. It's based in Iran. Go ahead,

Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away or what role do you expect them to play now?

D

Donald Trump8:53:33

I'd rather have them stay away.

I

Interviewer8:53:34

And then

D

Donald Trump8:53:35

I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties and I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves, but I'd rather have them stay.

I

Interviewer8:53:50

Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law.

D

Donald Trump8:53:58

Who you with?

I

Interviewer8:53:59

I'm with the New York Times. Zolan from the New York Times. Are you failing?

D

Donald Trump8:54:02

They're failing.

I

Interviewer8:54:03

Are you concerned circulation way down at the New York Times?

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to

D

Donald Trump8:54:09

No, not at all. No, I'm not. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. Why would because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid afraid of Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick ideologically, you know, from a policy standpoint, from a stand, any which way you want to say, mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them and powerful and rich to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen. Even if it means violating international quiet, you no longer have credibility. The New York Times because the New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election and I won in a landslide. I won every swing state.' New York Times said, 'Oh, Trump won't win the election.' New York Times has no credibility. The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print. A great The old gray lady, it was great. But they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you who I know are fake. You're fake. Go ahead, please.

I

Interviewer8:55:45

President, your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to we're going to be bombing Iran to the stone ages and we've heard a range of those kind of messages. So are you so which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you

D

Donald Trump8:55:59

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well till tomorrow at 8:00. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So, I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow. Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them till tomorrow 8:00 Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah. Sorry.

I

Interviewer8:57:06

CNN fake.

Are you willing to make a deal that does not include reopening the straight of Hormuz or is that now a top priority?

D

Donald Trump8:57:14

I would say it's a very big priority because that's one thing that's a little different than other. We can bomb the hell out of them. We can knock them out for a loop. But to close the straight, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with, because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine. Drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own chips that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their navy. We've knocked out their air force completely. Knocked out 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mind droppers. They don't have any mind droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they could drop them. I'm not even sure they have any minds there, by the way. I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm personally they say there might be eight. I don't know. I think there might be none. Because they're very good artists. That's why for 47 years they've been bullshitting other presidents and they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country. They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, 'What are they saying?' Sir, they can't communicate. They have no method of communication. So, we're communicating like they used to communicate 2,000 years ago with children bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, 'Oh, we'll do this. We'll do that.' Now, they all of a sudden want to send things, you know, but they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all. I would have said they would have been the first because they're the oldest. And I say, 'Yeah, I'd love to have a little help.' He said, 'No, sir. We'd rather wait till you win.' I said, 'I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work.' I said, 'I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows?' I called the general. He didn't even want. He said, 'We don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them.' Do you know we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles. Out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible, but 10 years ago, that wouldn't have been possible. 101 missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast. And out of the 101 missiles, we shot down all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

I

Interviewer8:59:53

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. You said earlier today during the egg roll that you would like to take Iran's oil, but Americans want US forces home.

D

Donald Trump9:01:03

Correct.

I

Interviewer9:01:04

What's that trade-off? If I had my choice, if I had my choice. Yeah.

D

Donald Trump9:01:08

Because I'm a businessman first with Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela, very good people. I mean, the relationship is good. And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels. Hundreds of millions over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out. And paid for that war many many times over. Many times. You know the old days to the victim. Okay. Do you know that to the winner belong the spoils go the spoils. And I've said why don't we use it to the victor go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in a hundred years because even the second world war. You look at the second world war. We didn't have it with the second world war. We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuilt Germany. How about Germany telling us Germany telling us that well it's not their war. We had nothing to do with getting they wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing. We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them, they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So, we haven't heard that in I think maybe hundreds of years now with Venezuela and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela. They say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever pled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president-elect that we have right now. The people that are running it. If you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals. They fired the police. They fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House. They fired everybody. And you know what they had? They had a mess. And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS. Not going to happen with us. So, Venezuela has been an incredible, it's been an incredible situation. We went in, we were very successful. Military power like nobody's ever seen. The general Venezuelan general said, 'I was on that site.' I said, 'I've never seen ferocity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years.' He said, 'I've never seen it.' They hit us from 17 different it was they were all set. They saw that big beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case, and planes were pouring off at one:00 in the morning. So, typically when you see that late at night, you know you could be in trouble, right? and we're all ready. They had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said. And then they came.

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