LIVE: Trump holds press conference at G7 summit | NBC News

Positive statement. The stock market has surged to record highs, picking up thousands of points over the last short period of time. Thousands of points. And oil is dropping like it has never dropped before at levels that went down by seven dollars, down eight dollars. They've never seen anything like that. But if we didn't do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years. You would never have the Hormuz strait open. You would never have success. Your market would have, instead of going up at levels that nobody's ever seen before, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before, maybe except for 1929 or whatever. And you know, all the tough guys don't realize that this wasn't a three-month deal. This was years in the making. You know why? Because I was the one that killed General Soleimani. And if I didn't kill General Soleimani, we probably wouldn't be talking right now about this deal because he was a mad genius. They never were able to replace him. But a lot of people forget that the tough guys, you know, the tough guys that would drive the country right down the tubes. The past two days have provided a chance to discuss the details of this historic agreement with many of our closest friends and allies including the G7 nations and many presidents and prime ministers. As you saw, Prime Minister Modi was here. We had a long talk. He's a great guy. They are thrilled that we made a deal. Every one of them. There's not one nation that came to us and said, please sir, keep dropping bombs on them. Please keep dropping bombs. Stupid people say that. But I'm thrilled to report. And by the way, those last two days were brutal. Two hundred million dollars worth of bombs. And you know, it is expensive too, by the way, aside from everything else. And they knew I was coming for a third night. We informed them we're coming for a third night. They didn't have their navy, it's sunk. They didn't have their air force, it's gone. Not one plane. They didn't have anti-aircraft equipment, so we got free reign. They didn't have their leaders, but they have a new group of leaders that I think, actually I think they're smarter. I think they're very smart. I think they're far less radicalized. I think they're really good. They love their country. You know, you talk about regime change, nobody will say that. But I guess that's, look, their one set of leaders is all gone. Their second set of leaders is all gone. Their third set of leaders, a little bit gone. But for the most part, and frankly, I think that's regime change. I think they're going to behave much differently. I think they see a different way of life that they were never exposed to. So the one thing I didn't want to see is I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down. They didn't like it. The people, you know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course. Let's see. I don't know. What do you think, Scott? Is the stock market more brilliant than you?

All right. The stock market is quite brilliant. And every time we said something amazing, like we're going to settle, it would go up. And every time we said something negative, like guess what? We're not going to be able to settle. It would go down. Very big, Peter. Very, very big. Tells you something. And you know, I've studied presidents. Some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. We had one just recently. And the one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover. I didn't want that. And who knows what would have happened, but bad things happened. So the past few days have provided a chance to discuss the details of the deal with the closest friends and allies, heads of countries. They were all here, a lot of them, far more than the seven, as you know. And they put out a statement. I think President Macron, who did a great job, by the way, did a really fantastic job, him and Brigitte, they did a great job. But they all put out statements saying they love this deal because they want to see it over and they love the fact that the Hormuz, don't forget, if we were going to drop bombs, let's say we went another month, another two, three months, maybe weeks, could be another three months, could be whatever. What do you have left? That may be nothing. But the strait will never be open because people that own billion-dollar ships, these ships cost a billion dollars. They don't like sailing ships or having their ships participate. When you go up the coast and you go through the strait and there are rockets flying over your head, they want to protect their billion-dollar investment. You wouldn't have oil for maybe years. These are stupid people. But nobody was tougher than me. Nobody hit Soleimani. You know when I hit Soleimani, people thought that was the biggest thing to happen in the Middle East for 50 years. That was the biggest event. He was the boss of Iran and respected. But he was a mad genius. He was a genius. The father of the roadside bomb. When you see young men, and in some cases women, mostly men, walking around without legs, without arms, with a face that's been blown to smithereens. It's Soleimani, 95%, 96.2% they say or something. 95% that was Soleimani did it. Happened to come from Iran. And I blew him up. You remember that? I blew him up in the valley of death. He got off his plane and we followed him. And in all fairness, because they've been wonderful to me, Israel, but they didn't want to do that attack. They were all set. The night before the attack, they informed me they didn't want to do it. So I had to make a decision. I made the decision to do it. But it was a joint venture, as we say in the real estate business. That was a joint venture between Israel and us. We studied it for a month. We knew what plane he was going to be on almost a month before. He only traveled on commercial airliners, big ones with lots of people because he knew we wouldn't shoot him down. Very smart. But we knew he was going to be on that plane. Followed him, and then Israel informed me that they won't do it. And I had to make a decision. I had some very good generals, and not the ones you see on television. Very good. And I want to thank also Pete Hegseth and General Raisen, Kane who is phenomenal. Okay, these guys are phenomenal. They can't be better. But I had some good generals. And I said to him, well, if Israel's not going to do it, we're all prepared. Do we do it? Do you like doing it or not? He said, sure, if you want to do it, we can do it. How? Well, we'll do it just as well or better. We can do it ourselves. We don't need anybody. So we took out Soleimani, one of the biggest events to happen in the Middle East, maybe ever, but they say 50 years, they say 100 years. I was with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and he said it's maybe the biggest event that has ever taken place, that nobody could believe it. So that's when it started. It didn't start like three or four or five weeks ago. And Obama wouldn't do it. What Obama did was he did the JCPOA. He loaded up a plane with $1.7 billion in green cash from banks all over Washington, Maryland, and Virginia. They were stripped of all their cash. They had no cash to do payrolls. It all went into a Boeing 757, a wonderful plane, and they flew it to Iran. And they gave it out to people. They bribed people. They thought they were going to get it done. Then they gave billions and billions of dollars after that. And they got a deal that was a road to a nuclear weapon. I get so angry. I guess I'm allowed to get angry when I watch the Democrats. They talk about it all the time. We had this deal done. You had a deal that was going to give them legally a nuclear weapon. And if that happened, Israel would have been blown away. And in all fairness to Bibi Netanyahu, who happens to be a good man, gets a little excited sometimes, but he happens to be a very good man, we've had an amazing partnership. He has been an amazing prime minister. We have a little dispute over Lebanon. And I say, you can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from Hezbollah. But it's been an amazing partnership. But he will say we're the big partner and he's the very small partner. And that's true. So he came to the country and he begged Barack Hussein Obama, the president, not to do the JCPOA. He said it could be the end of Israel, and it would have been if I didn't come along. And Obama didn't listen to him. Bibi actually went to Congress and pleaded with them and he got nowhere. And they had this horrible deal that was horrible for Israel. And that's where it stood. And then I came along and I terminated that deal. It had very little time left. You know, it was a short-term deal. You know, with countries, you need hundreds of years. You don't need eight years or nine years. This isn't like you're signing a lease on a candy store on the corner. You need hundreds of years. This was a short-term lease. It expired long ago. Had I let it run, it expired. You wouldn't have been around. And a lot of people wouldn't have been around. But Israel would have been terminated. I think the whole Middle East would have been terminated. You saw that when everybody was shocked that all these missiles, they were aimed at these different places. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE. Think of it. Bahrain, Kuwait, they got hit. Nobody thought that was going to happen. I didn't think it was going to happen. They didn't think it was going to happen. They were going to take out the entire Middle East, including Israel. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it within moments after getting it. So I made it very tough for them when I terminated the Barack Hussein Obama catastrophe. JCPOA, one of the worst deals. NAFTA might have been worse, but that was worse economically. This deal was really dangerous what he did. He gave them everything, including a lot of money, which we don't give them, by the way, just in case you have any question. We'll be giving this out so you can read it and you can see, and it's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, that's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good. But we might have to because we're never going to let them have a nuclear weapon, but they've agreed not to, and you'll see that very clearly in the agreement. But then the second phase of that was, they were building or they were enriching material, as they say, I call it nuclear dust. They were enriching material under granite mountains. Granite being, for those not in the construction business, granite being a very strong, the strongest stone. It's not as pretty as marble but it's much more, it's much stronger. It's a lot stronger. Like the new granite I put on the stairs of the White House going to the Oval Office, the black granite. It's rated one million years plus. No marble is rated that. Marble is rated a hundred years if it's outside. So these are granite mountains, and the B2s came along and they hit those air shafts in the dark at 1:00 in the morning with no moon. They had a beam going right up everywhere. Those guys did a job, and then they were criticized by certain members of the press, like CNN, for possibly not doing that much damage. And it turned out that the damage was far greater. Those mountains collapsed right on top of everything. Nobody's going to get that for a long time unless we want to get it. We'll get it. But we're the only ones that can. And they say China has the equipment to get it and we have the equipment to get it. And it's actually not valuable. Not a lot of value, but would like to get it psychologically, but nobody's touching it. We also have cameras. That's what Space Force is. We have the best, we have the greatest military in the world, by the way. But I'm proud of Space Force because I started it. We have Space Force cameras on every single door. Every, well, there are no doors. They've been pretty well shattered. But every area of that, if somebody walks in and he's got a badge with his name on it, like Muhammad something, which is about a 50/50 guess, Muhammad something, they can tell the name, they can give you a serial number. We can see things you wouldn't believe, the quality of the stuff that we have. It's why we've been so successful. That's why our blockade will go down in the annals of history as being unbelievable. Nobody's ever seen a blockade like that. It was just like a steel wall. So what happened is we then terminated that, and I call it the nuclear dust, and that was the end of that. But if we didn't hit that with the B2 bombers or if it wasn't successful, they would have had a nuclear weapon, a nuclear bomb at a very high level. Not the highest, but it would have been a very high level. We have much bigger, but we hope that we're never going to have to use it. We have the most. Russia has second. China is very far behind but going to catch up unfortunately. You know they're catching up, but we have the most. We have the most powerful, but we also have the most, but Russia's not far behind. And then you have China in third place, but they'll within five years they'll be probably even. And we ought to make a denuclearization deal. That would be so great. We don't need all of that. We don't need to be able to blow up the whole world 300 times over. It's terrible. It's really, if we could do a denuke deal, I'd love it. And one of those two is very willing to do it, I will tell you. But the other one is less willing to do it. And you need all of them. So the deal we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly, tomorrow, maybe the next day. I think you know, subject deals, my whole life is all about deals. That's all I ever did is make deals, and crazy things happen with deals. I've gone into deals where it's a guarantee, no way it cannot be signed, and it doesn't get signed. And I've gone into deals that you have no chance of making, and they go like nothing. So, but we're going to most likely sign a deal. They want to sign a deal, and they've been acting very appropriately. They took two big hits last week. Those were two very big hits. So importantly, Iran has agreed that they will neither produce nor procure a nuclear weapon. Neither produce, because originally they said they talk about that they will not develop a nuclear weapon. And some people found it okay. These guys didn't offer us, but some people, but I didn't like it, said it won't develop. I said what happens if they should buy? I don't know, it's pretty very dangerous for somebody to sell, because whoever sells them a nuclear weapon will get nuked themselves. If they sold a nuclear weapon, only a few that could do it, they would be nuked. They wouldn't have that country long. So it's a very dangerous thing for somebody to do. But I wanted it in there, so it's develop, procure, buy, anything. And you'll see that when you see the agreement, but it's appropriate that we release the agreement, and we did send a copy to Israel. By the way, they've been a good partner. Again, I think they could do better with respect to Hezbollah. I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves. I'm saying when two drones are shot into the desert and dropped harmlessly, you don't have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better, and frankly they could do a better job. I love them as a partner. They were terrific, but they could do a much better job with Hezbollah on that. I don't think they're doing well. And I feel very bad for Lebanon. Lebanon was a great culture. It was a great, they had the professors, the doctors, the lawyers. It was an incredible culture, maybe the highest in the Middle East for years and years, centuries. And for the last 50, 60 years, they have been just trashed. They have been living in hell. So they'll work closely with us to turn over the so-called enriched material that's very deep in the bowels of the earth. Very deep. Nobody can get it. So it's not important that we do it quickly, but we could do it fairly quickly. When we have a chance, we'll do it. But in the meantime, we have cameras on every inch of it. Nobody can do it. And if they do, we'll hit them with Patriots, that's all. And they'll be gone. And they know that technical discussions and the removal of all stockpiles of enriched materials will begin immediately. We're going to start that immediately. And unlike Barack Hussein Obama who sent Iran pallets of cash, any relief they receive under this deal, they'll have to get based on merit. And it won't be from us. We don't have to give them anything. But some people may want to invest. Like what are you going to do? Say you can never ever invest in a country? I mean, it's pretty tough. I don't mind being tough, but it's pretty crazy. You can invest in a country. You can invest in any country you want, but you can't invest there. Well, they need investment because we did a trillion and a half, maybe two trillion dollars worth of damage. So somebody's going to have to help them out. There's no guarantee about helping them out. Could be their neighbors will help them out a little bit. I don't know. But it's a lot of money. Almost nobody has that kind of money. That's the kind of damage that was done. But we're not investing any money. There was a fake story. There was a fake news story that got a man, a person, a good person. JD made a statement. It was a perfect statement and they reported it a very strange way, but that's because that's why it's fake news, I guess. So we don't give them money. We don't give them any of that. And what happens is with time, if they behave, if they be a citizen of the world, a reasonable citizen of the world, and I think this group, again, I think I didn't do this for regime change, but I think this group is regime change. I mean, hey, the first group is dead. One little morning having breakfast, the whole group. They thought they'd never be caught because we never bombed during breakfast, but we bombed and all 88 people, and I'm not proud of that at all. But the second group came in and they were very unreasonable too and they were all gone. They were all gone. And then the third group, we've been dealing with them. A couple left this planet, but we've been dealing with them, and again they've been fine. I mean, I've had a lot easier. I've had some easier ones. They're tough. They're smart. Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has already increased very substantially, and the normal flow of energy will resume in the coming days, and trillions of dollars will be made by the world, and the stock market will, I believe, continue to rise. The only difference is that a player that's very volatile, very tough, very smart, frankly, you know, they have in one way a primitive culture, but it's also a genius primitive culture. They're very smart people, very good negotiators, but so are we. So rather than possibly going into a depression, rather than having your favorite president be Herbert Hoover, I was always the one I didn't want to be. I wouldn't have preferred Nixon. I wouldn't have preferred plenty I wouldn't prefer, but the one I always thought of, Herbert Hoover. And he caused it. He raised taxes too fast and he raised interest rates too fast all at the same time, and it caused the Great Depression. So I don't think I'll make mistakes like that. I lower taxes. I don't raise taxes. In fact, we just gave you the largest tax decrease, the largest tax cut in the history of our country. So we'll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non-nuclear issues such as the conventional ballistic missiles, which we'll be talking about, and support. I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. You've got to have some. Somebody said you shouldn't give them one. I mean, I have guys I like, some of these guys, but I don't think they're smart. Sir, you shouldn't let them have any missile. I said, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them? Yes, sir. Can't. Doesn't work that way. You know, it doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles hurt a little, but they don't blow up the planet. So the Gulf nations will address the non-nuclear issues. We'll be talking about the ballistic missiles, and we'll talk also about the terrorist proxies that they have that we don't want that to happen. But I want to thank our partners in both Pakistan and Qatar. These people work so hard, and they knew him a little bit, in the case of Pakistan quite well, in the case of Qatar they were sort of at odd ends. You know, Qatar was great because they had right next door. When I flew from there, from that location to Saudi Arabia, I'd fly for 40 minutes, and I'd fly to UAE for 40 minutes. Two great leaders there. By the way, in the case of Saudi Arabia, the father's still alive and he's fantastic, and the son is going to be great. Going to be great. The Crown Prince. And Mohammed at UAE is an incredible warrior. He was dropping bombs last week. I said, who the hell is dropping all those bombs? It was UAE. He's a good fighter, Mohammed. But every administration for decades has sought to get Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions. But the threat only got bigger. The words got bigger and bigger and stronger and bigger, and nothing ever happened. And Iran got stronger and tougher. If we didn't blow them up the first time and then blow out those weapons, they would have been unstoppable. This should have done what I'm doing, and what I did should have been done years ago. It would have been much easier, much less firepower, but it wasn't. And again, I want to thank all those countries, and I want to thank Israel and Bibi Netanyahu. So obviously, the breakthrough would not have been possible without the unprecedented pressure the United States put on the regime over the past year and a half. But again, it started a long time ago. It started with the death of Soleimani. That was a big deal. No president in history has ever been tougher on Iran than I have. And they know that. And by the way, if they don't honor the agreement or some things aren't even mentioned in the agreement, it's a memorandum of understanding. But we have an understanding of certain things without writing it. And if they don't honor that, we'll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it. You know, it's amazing what bombs can do. So I say it, the Obama deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, and let's call it the Trump deal was a wall for a nuclear weapon that the nuclear weapon could not get through. Nobody's going to get through it. We built a wall. They weren't going to have it. And that's what we have right now. And it says very clearly, the most important clause to me, too. Number one, the strait opens, but that's much less important than the other clause. Clause number whatever, five, eight, is a very strong statement that they will never have a nuclear weapon. And it doesn't say they'll have one in five years or ten years or twenty years. With Obama, they were able to enrich very quickly. This agreement now provides Iran with a historic opportunity. If they follow the path of cooperation that will have open for them, their country will have a chance to survive. Now think of it, you know, they have 91 million people. People want me to bomb the bridges. Why don't I bomb? I already did because, you know, they went back on one of their promises and I bombed their biggest bridge, the equivalent of the George Washington Bridge of Iran. But we bombed that bridge. You saw that one quick strike by an F-22, the most beautiful fighter jet ever made, by the way. In fact, we're ordering some more of them. We're bringing it out because it's so effective. It's incredible. Look, we have the greatest military in the world. Those B2 bombers are unbelievable. Who would have thought they could handle, each had two because the flight was so long, but they handle three of the biggest, heaviest bombs, hundreds of thousands of pounds, and they handle them like they're nothing. It's amazing. And also, they're undetectable. They flew into Iran. Totally, think of it, totally undetected. Now, Iran is waiting for them. They're waiting for them. And they never saw them. One in the morning, they never saw them. They're stealth. And we just ordered 22 more. The newer upgraded version, which I guess is better. I don't know how the hell you get better. But as I expressed to the world leaders here this week, it's my hope that the peace agreement will be the beginning of a much larger deal all across the Middle East. We're very close. Look at the job we've done on Gaza. Look at Hamas. Hamas has been very silent. You haven't read anything about Hamas. And we're trying to get them unarmed. You know, they grew up with a machine gun in their hand. I think they actually when they were born, they came out with a machine gun in their hand. So it's not the easiest thing, but they've actually, you know, behaved pretty well considering this was not the lifestyle that they were taught to have, but including an end to all Iranian aggression, and they're not going to be Iranian aggression, and an end to war and terror in Lebanon. So the Lebanon piece is something we'll have to work on a little bit. It's a very small piece of the puzzle actually, but it still makes a lot of noise. The big deal is the Iran deal. That's where the money is, where the power was, but they have Hezbollah and we've got to get that done one way or the other. We'll do it. I think Israel can do a much better job on it. Syria would love to do it. The gentleman in Syria that's now the president of Syria, he's done a tremendous job. He's put that country together in a year and a half. Sort of like our country, a year and a half, similar size. They said, please don't put him there, he's a very violent man, al-Qaeda. They said, well, I know one thing, a Boy Scout's not going to work. And he's actually done a very good job. He'd love to go in and, you know, Hezbollah is an enemy of his, and he'd go in, but he wouldn't knock down buildings every time he hears there's somebody. He'd just go and get them with precision. But I don't know that people want that. Maybe they don't. Maybe Lebanon doesn't. We have to be guided a little bit by Lebanon. And by the way, the president is going to be coming. Prime Minister, president going to be coming over to see us very shortly over the next week or two. Good man. He is living what a tough life he's got because he's got tough groups of people. And it's amazing there is a Lebanon with all they've been through. They have been treated worse than just about anybody, disrespected incredibly. So the expansion of the Abraham Accords is the other thing that we hope we're going to get. And I think Saudi Arabia, if they lead the way, they'd be doing themselves a big favor because everybody that's in it, UAE went in right from the beginning. Again, he's a warrior. And they never got out. Nobody ever got out. You think maybe during the war they were all afraid of, everybody was afraid of Iran. And that's why we ended up with the original members. But then when the election was rigged, that's right. And I wasn't here at all. Nobody cared about anything. And the country went to hell in every way. That was the least of it. Middle East was the least of it. The country went to hell, allowing 25 million people into the country unchecked and unvetted. Many of them criminals. Many of them murderers. 11,888 murderers allowed into our country. So this was the least of it. But the past two days have also provided an opportunity to discuss a number of other key issues with members of the G7 and our partners. Yesterday morning we had a productive conversation on the war in Ukraine. I spoke with President Putin. I spoke with President Zelenskyy. He was there, and President Putin I spoke over the phone with. And something's going to happen. They're losing a lot of people. A lot of soldiers are losing soldiers. Both are losing a lot. Russia's losing more because they're the offensive ones. And when you're offensive in war, you lose more. Pretty simple. But I provided an update on my call Sunday with President Putin and expressed my continued hope. We had a very good conversation with President Putin and a very, very good conversation with President Zelenskyy. I think they both want to do something. They just don't know how to do it. They want to do it. They just don't know how. In our session yesterday afternoon on international partnerships, I offered an update on how the United States is leading the world in responding to the Ebola outbreak in Africa, sending $375 million in aid so far to help stop and contain the crisis at its source. And we've done great. I was with the president of a couple of presidents came over, by the way, from African nations, and they were so happy with what we did. But where it's unfair is we gave $375 million. The rest of the world gave essentially nothing. Maybe a couple of bucks, but nothing. And they were all saying thank you so much. And I think they've done a good job. It's a terrible thing. Ebola is a terrible thing. That's an unbelievable one. Fortunately, it's not like COVID where it's that easy to spread around, but it's rough. And we've done a good job. We've moved people to certain quarantine, certain locations. But today we also had excellent meetings on the economy and artificial intelligence, which is amazing what's going on with that. It's going to be the biggest thing ever. We have to be very careful with it. It's both great and could be bad. We have to be careful with it. But we're leading China. We're leading the world on that. We're allowing them to do their own electric plants because they need, as an example, those buildings are so big and they're not taking the communities' electricity. I gave them the right. It's my idea. I gave them the right to build electric plants like Con Edison in New York. And they've come up with plants that nobody's ever seen anything like them. Those are by very high IQ people. So they're actually building electric plants. So because otherwise they could never build a building because the grid is old and tired and broken and a mess. So they're building, and they're going to sell their additional, their extra electricity into the grid. So we take care of a lot of things like California, which doesn't have nearly enough electricity. They don't know what they're doing there. And instead of having blackouts and brownouts, they'll be able not to. We found a great deal of unity here at the G7. And we signed a declaration on illegal immigration, the first time ever for a G7 statement. They did a beautiful statement. We signed other agreements to step up and to really coordinate and spend a lot of time coordinating drug trafficking and stopping drug trafficking, which is crazy. It comes through Mexico, comes through the southern border. The little that comes through, they find a way. They put it, their genius, if they would use that genius for good, they'd be very rich people. They have it in engines. They have it in hubcaps. They have it in areas you wouldn't even believe. They have it in the structures of cars. Most incredible thing. But we've done a great job on it. We have drugs coming through the border down 61%. Drugs coming through water, the sea, ocean, gulf, down 97.2%. That's the ones that get hit. Just like we hit the Iranian mine sweepers and mine droppers, they call them. They dropped. Who would have 28 mine droppers? Who has 28 mine droppers? They actually had them, but they don't have them anymore. We hit them just like we hit the drug dealers. But drugs are down by water 97% and over 60% they're down, and now we're going to go and focus on the land. They come through Mexico. Mexico has lost control of their country. The cartels run Mexico, and it's sad. And the president is a very good woman, but she's a very scared woman. The drug cartels are totally running Mexico. It's not even close. We agreed to accelerate our efforts to secure our critical minerals and rare earth supply chains, where we have great companies really going to town. We're going to give everybody a big run because we do it better, and we had to get motivated. The G7 also agreed that the United States's new approach to international development based on the private sector investment is working at levels that they never thought possible. It's really working. I held a number of very positive bilateral meetings including with the president of France. It was a very good meeting actually. The Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, was, I tell you, I wish they could really know the guy. You know, some people say, well, he lived in that neighborhood. He can't, you can't be saying things that you'd like to have him say. He was fantastic on this, and he's been a fantastic guy in terms of energy and getting energy out there. President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, who's an amazing warrior. President El-Sisi of Egypt. Prime Minister Modi of India. We spent a long time together today. I spoke to Mohammed. I spoke to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia a number of times. They're all so happy that they're still, you have to have them happy too. You know, we're using their airports. Not that they could stop us if we didn't want them to, but it'd be nice that I got that little sucker. But I hate missing. But we spoke to all of them and many countries all over the world. So every country, I think Israel too. Think of what Israel is getting. They're not going to be nuked. It's very simple. I told Bibi, your biggest risk was that they drop a nuclear weapon into the middle of Israel. They'd only need one and there would be no more Israel. Think of it, baby. The most important thing that you were asking for is that. So I think they're happy. Some people are going to be not, but there are some people, some writers some that I thought were friends of mine, but I don't want them as friends anymore because they're either stupid or they're bad people. But we stopped nuclear holocaust, and it stopped. I mean there's not going to be any of that. So from the beginning to the end, it was clear that this week, America's back. It's bigger and better and stronger. We're more respected as a country right now, I think, than we ever have been. And we were a laughingstock two years ago. They would laugh at us. We had a man that should have never been there. You know that. A man that would walk up to a podium once every year. And they'd ask him, what flavor ice cream do you like? I like vanilla. Then he'd try and find the stairs, which he couldn't find most of the time, and he'd leave. This is very unfair reporting. And then you said you didn't know about that. You didn't know there was something wrong. We can never let that happen to our country again. To me, the worst. We had the worst inflation ever. We had the worst in prices and the costs. It's all coming down now because the oil is bringing it down. You're going to see numbers that are going to be amazing. But this evening, I look forward to a very special dinner with President Macron and his fabulous wife at the Palace of Versailles. I sort of like that palace. It has a lot of gold. I want to check it out. It's a beautiful palace. Maybe the most beautiful of all. I hope you're going to get to see it. The ones that are traveling with me, I hope you're going to get to see it because it's amazing. But they asked me if I'd stay a little bit longer and go to Paris. So I'll get home a little bit later, but it'll be a nice dinner. But I'm interested to see it. I mean that's the ultimate. I guess it's the ultimate of its type. Louis the 14th celebrating the 250th anniversary of America's founding and America's oldest alliance. And we're celebrating that a little bit tonight. They'll have the biggest people in Europe at the dinner. And those people love our country. And hopefully Europe is going to find its way. Europe is having a lot of hard times. They are doing some things very badly on energy and on immigration. They're doing things very badly, and we'll be talking about that tonight. So with that all said, if you want to ask us any questions, feel free to ask the people behind me, huh?

Only if they're doing things right. Only if, Peter. Only if we're not doing anything. We're not putting up money. Only if they're doing things right. If they're doing things right, if people want to invest, they can invest. But they had this $300 billion fund. It's only if they're doing things right. Remember this also when you talk about billions of dollars. They've had much more than a trillion dollars worth of damage done. They've got a long way. There'll be 15 to 20 years to rebuild what they have right now. So they have to behave themselves. If they're not behaving, they get hit again. You know, they'll be hit again because we can do it very easily. It's going to take a long way for them to build back their anti-aircraft stuff. And you know the other thing I want to thank China, President Xi. I was with him, and he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it. And I would want to thank Vladimir Putin. He was very neutral. They could have made it much more difficult for us. And I want to say it, you know, somebody would say, oh, that's terrible. He's thanking President Xi of China. Well.

Let me tell you, I had a long talk with him. You know, they have shoulder weapons to knock down airplanes. It's not like the real deal, but they're accurate. They're fairly accurate. I said, "I would really appreciate you're not giving or selling any of that stuff to Iran." And you know what? For the most part, he didn't. So I just want to thank them because they made it a lot better. You explain though what the difference is between giving Iran US dollars and unfreezing US dollars for them.

Well, the unfreezing that's an easy one to answer. We have taken a lot of their money and we have their money. We have taken their money. It's not our money. It's their money and we froze it at a certain point in time. I guess we're going to have to give it back. You know, if we didn't give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again. If you took their money, 'cause I thought about it, you know, I'm not the most perfect person. I said to Scott, Scott, why don't we keep their money? What the hell are we giving it back to them? But, you know, people from lots of nations, some nations we don't agree with. They have their money. The dollars become very strong under me and they don't want to have a little conflict with somebody and end up having the United States just take their money. So if you do that, you really don't have a system.

That wise man.

Donald Trump. Oh, that's what I thought you were going to say.

Here they lost militarily. Okay. It's very tough because I know that no matter what, if I would go, by the way, if I'd go another three or four weeks, those same people that are critical would say he went too long, he should have done, you know, no matter what. If they raised the white flag of surrender and if they said, "Praise be to Allah. Donald Trump is the greatest president ever. We totally concede. We totally give up. This war is over. We have failed." The New York Times and CNN and a couple of others are not all that dishonest. They say Iran had a great victory. Okay? And they practically do that. You know, it's amazing. When we knocked out their last ship, they had 159 ships. When we knocked out the last ship, The Times refused to do a story on it. They said, "Why wouldn't you? They don't have a navy and you don't want to do a story on it." They don't have an air force. You don't want to do a story. We need a fair press. And that's why they're all doing so badly because they lost credibility. When I went in a landslide and I had 93% bad press, they take good stories about me and make them bad. But the only reason that happened is because they have so little. The media has so little credibility that the people voted for me. 93% of the stories on network ABC is horrible. I think ABC is the worst. NBC is terrible. And CBS is terrible. CNN obviously. And I never get good no matter what I do. I could do the greatest thing. I won't get good stories on this. I'll get it from fair media. I'll get it from all over the world. They're running good. But no matter what I do, I'm going to get bad press. I know that. Now, if I did the opposite, if I went out and continued to bomb them for another four, just bomb the hell out of them, I get bad press on that. No, there's nothing I can do. But what this does is it allows the ships to go. If we keep bombing, those ships won't be going. And you're talking about 500, 600, 700 million dollars a day. It's a lot of money. A lot of money. That's why the world is okay. Hey, it's liquid. It's fine. Also, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world and we would really run out and there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it. And you want to see bedlam. So, for all those so-called geniuses that want to show me how smart they are, ask them why didn't they blow up General Soleimani? Ask that of the general and couple of other people that I like very much, but boy are they wrong. Go ahead, Mr.

Thank you Mr. President.

Well, I think we have leverage just by the fact that we really have Iran now has to be good. They have to behave. And we might help. That's a much smaller conflict. It's a conflict that should be able to be over with. I'm surprised it's taken so long. And it's a much smaller, but we have a lot of leverage. We have, look, we have the greatest military anywhere in the world. We have the strongest, most powerful. Look at the blockade. By the way, the blockade was more impactful than all of the bombing raids where we dropped a billion dollars worth of bombs on Iran. The blockade was so incredible. The naval blockade, the admiral, the whole thing, not one ship got through. That meant no money got through. They were dying. They had no money. They have inflation that's 250 or 300%. They have no money. We have tremendous leverage. We have the leverage of the economy as an example. We'll get that done. That's a small one. And we'll work with Israel and get it done. But I'd like to do it. I mean, you have people living there. Buildings are being dropped on top of them or right alongside of them. How would you like to live there? It's so unfair. Especially Beirut. You know, you go into Beirut and I looked at the scene two days ago yesterday where they hit that was a big hit. That was unnecessary in my book. Yeah. Please.

Say it again. Speak up.

What are they keeping? What are they keeping? They have less than other nations now. We knocked out probably 84, 85% of their missiles. The rest of them are underground. They can't even get them out. You know, the other night's raid, I think it was on the first night, we knocked out hundreds of their missiles actually by mistake. We were hitting an area and it, you know, you can sort of see when the bombs are going off and then you see one that looks like, wow, what happened? A lot of missiles knocked down. No, but what are you going to do? Let's spend another two weeks and give them none. They don't want to be firing missiles right now. They're going to have a hard time rebuilding. They're going to have a hard time rebuilding. And if people from the Middle East, you know, if people want to invest, and again, they don't have to invest at all, but if they do want to invest, it does have oil. It does have probably a future, but it's going to take a long time. But are you going to let the 91 million people starve to death? I mean, one of the things I was very intent on, they have water desalinization plants, very good ones. I could have knocked them out in five minutes. Just like I knocked out Car Island, I knocked out everything but the oil. I said 25. It was so complete. The only thing there is the pipes coming with the oil because I didn't want to ruin the world market because they do a lot of money. But I didn't want to do that. No, it would have been so easy. It would have been easier and I would have satisfied a group of 10% of the people. But it would have been the wrong thing to do.

Well, I've said to them always, I say, "Look, you have probably the third largest oil reserves in the world. What the hell do you need nuclear for? You need nuclear for some electricity." So, I've always felt that way. So, we've been pretty tough in that. You know, it's also it is a little hard though when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense. Please.

No. If it was a fault and as you know that's under investigation. It's such a strange question to be asked at this state because you're talking about a long time ago. But nobody did that on purpose. I guess you'd have to say about them. What about the thousands of soldiers that they blew up when they opened their car door? What about the thousands of people that were killed by Iran? No, mistakes are made. The war is nasty, but I know it's under investigation and I could have a report for you tomorrow or they I'd ask I would ask Pete I would ask Pete Hegseth that question because they have it under investigation. Please.

So, when I say permanently, it should be permanently, but if it's not permanently, we will bomb them. They will be bombed just like I bombed them on Wednesday night and Tuesday night and was going to bomb them on Thursday night at a level that was three times greater and they knew that. I will bomb them. Now that's with me as president. If you have a weak pathetic president maybe that doesn't happen but I can only do the job that I have to do. I have a long time to go. I have almost three years close to three years. Time is going fast, but our country's become the we're the most respected country in the world. Those leaders today, they say, "We used to laugh at you. Two years ago, they'd same guys, they'd laugh at the country." And now they say, "You're the most respected country anywhere in the world." Militarily, even military, take a look at what happened in so many different locations. Afghanistan, that horrible retreat that these people made, leaving equipment behind. They weren't under any pressure. You take your time. You can get out. I was going to get out. We're going to get out with dignity and pride. Take 100% of the equipment. I was even taking the tents down. But then they got in and they just left. They left all the equipment. I may get all that equipment back. Now, here's the thing. More symbolic because it's a little old now, but we may get it all back.

So, Afghanistan is kissing our ass. You know that.

Doesn't have to be. I let him know. I said, "Look, if you don't adhere to the agreement, I don't want to do that. But we're going to bomb the hell out of you." And I don't think that they're going to veer from the agreement. What else am I going to do? Am I going to say, "I'm going to take you to court. Let me take you to court. Let me sue you." No. We're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement. I don't want them to. I want them to honor the agreement. Again, the straits close up. Bad things can happen. You know, in war, terrible things happen. Like you mentioned the question before about a school gets hit. Other things get hit. Bad things happen in war. War is a nasty place. I see it. I see it better than maybe anybody has ever seen it.

Well, first of all, thank you for the word plummeting because that's what's happening. Oil prices are plummeting and that means oil prices are going to come down. You know, if you make donuts, you have a heating, you have a stove, and you have to buy the heat, you need the gas or the electricity or whatever you're using. And when oil prices come down, oil is the biggest thing. Oil is you get oil prices coming down. And they're going to come down. And we're hitting in the threes now for gasoline. And that'll come down a lot lower. So, I was in Iowa just before this started. And I was saying to myself, I can't believe we're doing so well, but I have to go and we have to put out this fire in Iran because I don't want them using a nuclear weapon. They would have used a nuclear weapon. 100% they would have used it. The only question is, was it going to be that day or that week? They would have used a nuclear weapon. They were on the way. And I said, "We're going to have to put out the fire." And I said, you know, oil prices, so gasoline. We passed two gas stations in Iowa. Made a speech up there. The people are great. I want it by so much. And I love the people, farmers. And we passed two gas stations. One was $1.85, one was $1.91. Now, that's Iowa, but it was I mean, California has all those crazy taxes that they put on, you know, California taxes. But, the oil was down to $2 to I'd say between two and 250. And it was heading down further. And we were going to have a great run. We took a little journey down to a place called the Islamic Republic of Iran and we bombed the hell out of them and now they can never have a nuclear. Now, we had a disturbance, but I must say it was much less than anybody thought. The oil never went to $350 a barrel. It went to 115, 120. The oil never went anywhere near that. And the other thing, I thought the stock market would go down 25 or 30%. The stock market a week ago before we started this was higher than it was when we started, which tells you that we have a very resilient economy. We have the strongest economy we've ever had. Now, the word affordability, it's a fake word made up by the Democrats. Here's where it's fake. Because they made it up because I inherited these prices. And when I had my first news conference, first day, they started screaming affordability. The Democrats, affordability, affordability, they're screaming. I say, "What's that all about?" They gave it to me. They gave it to me. It's affordability. And they use that word to a fairly well. Well, they were the ones that created the affordability crisis. I'm the one that got it down. Remember, highest insurance rates in history. Highest rates for everything. Eggs. Remember eggs? They were four times more expensive than they were in my administration. And I got it down, Peter, very quickly. Our secretary did a good job of agriculture. Brooke, she did a great job with eggs and everything else. And now that the oil is coming down, you're going to see everything follow. Everything follows the cost of energy. And we're going to end up having the lowest energy anywhere in the world. Please.

No, please. Thank you.

You're from ABC. You're fake news. Go ahead.

The thing that's going to stop them from doing that because you can't cover everything in a document is common sense. They don't want to get bombed. They don't want to get hit. As far as sanctions are concerned, at some point, you know, we have sanctions which will never let them rebuild. They would have no money. They would be in poverty. The 91 million people would starve. So, something will happen as soon as they behave. When they behave, we're going to let that go. We're going to have to I'd put sanctions on a lot of people and then let them go. A lot of countries. Yeah. Please.

Where are you from?

From where?

I just left your prime minister. Japan's doing very well. She's my biggest fan. I have to tell you. She thinks I did a great job. You have to call her and ask her.

She's doing a very good job, by the way. Go ahead.

What do you want to know?

Go ahead. Just tell me what do you want to know?

Who asked any country to send military?

No, no, I don't need. We don't need it. Oh, by the way, they all want to do it. They all want to do it. Every single one of them. They want to go be a part of it now. Not while the war was going on. I was really disappointed. The UK, I said, "It would be nice if you..." I didn't put a hard sell on, but I said, "It'd be nice if you send some ships." And the prime minister said, "They'll be there, sir, as soon as the war is over." I said, "Did he just say that?" I couldn't believe it, actually. Japan has offered to get involved. But I mean, I'll be honest, Japan was not willing to get involved during the war. I asked her, I said, "You want to get involved a little bit?" I didn't put the heavy sell on, but they said, "No, we don't want to get involved." Nobody did. We did it ourselves with Israel and with the Arab states that got hit. Surprisingly hit. Yeah.

Yes, please go ahead.

I spent a lot of time with him actually and it's become a little rough country, right? Politically, it's been a little dangerous politically. You're talking about Brazil? Yeah. It's been nasty. I hear they arrested somebody that's running for office today. I found that out after we left. I just said goodbye to him and I heard that they arrested the Bolsonaro Jr. He was doing well in the polls and they arrested him because he made a statement in Texas. They arrested him or they want to arrest him. They have something out for his arrest. Right. They play pretty tough, but nobody plays tougher than the United States. Look, our elections are totally rigged. We have rigged elections.

Thank you.

No. No. Actually the opposite. They felt they were very dangerous. They were very relieved because they could get hit too. They were very relieved. No, we never discussed that. No, it would be the opposite. They broke the law. They killed thousands of people. They killed thousands of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah, please go ahead.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Let me answer the question.

So I think China's been terrific. I told you that before. They could have been bad. They could have sent in to try and block or break the blockade. They could have sent in an oil ship with six destroyers alongside of it on each side. They didn't do that. President Xi helped me. He tried to help and I think he probably helped get it solved. You know, they get 50% of their oil from that location. So, that wasn't that easy. President Xi was fantastic. He tried to help me solve it. And he didn't give any big weaponry. I guess something we'll find something somewhere along line, but he didn't give any big weaponry. I can tell you that. No, I think China was I couldn't ask for much more. Again they were impacted because they get more than 50% of their oil from the Hormuz Strait and no I thought they were fantastic. Okay.

How about one more question right here? Go ahead, please.

Well, I see the Republicans in generics. You know, generics are very important. I don't know how accurate because I see a lot of bad polls. Polls are very dishonest, just like a lot of reporters like these people over here are very dishonest. CNN, ABC, it's a whole group of them over there. They're really dishonest people. But, you know, and really networks are very dishonest and they have to straighten themselves out or they're not going to be very successful because people don't believe them anymore. But no, the generics are very interesting because the Republicans are coming up strong even before this. You know why they're seeing all these lunatics like the guy in Maine with the swastika sticker. You know, for 10 years they've been calling me a Nazi and now they have a Nazi running. He's got a tattoo on him. I've been denying it for 10 years. They know it's not so. But they've been calling I don't think they could call it to me anymore. You know, one more. One more. Go ahead, Peter. Let me finish with Peter because he's been better to me than he's been to Biden.

I might.

Yeah, I might. But I'd rather. This is a memorandum of understanding. It's very important, but it might not be the kind of a document that I should be signing. There's some element to this where you send the vice president. If it works out, great. You look like a genius for sending him. And if it doesn't work out, it's the vice president's...