- yesterday
Earlier this morning, President Trump and his team held a meeting with NATO Secretary General. Mark Rutte during the 2025 NATO Summit in the Hague, Netherlands, and took questions from reporters.
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00:01Hello, Carlos.
00:02How are you, sir?
00:03Had a big weekend.
00:05Yes, sir.
00:06Great weekend.
00:08See you on the plane.
00:10Yes, sir.
00:11The original planes?
00:12They travel.
00:13Most of the time, yeah.
00:14They have better seats than I do.
00:17What are your goals for NATO and Article 5 today?
00:22We're with them all the way.
00:24I mean, if you take a look at the numbers, we're with them.
00:26And they're very big things to announce today.
00:28I don't know if you've taken the vote or you're going to take the vote.
00:31But I've been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years.
00:35And they're going up to 5%.
00:37And that's a big, from 2%.
00:40And a lot of people didn't even pay the 2%.
00:43So I think that's going to be very big news.
00:46NATO is going to become very strong with us.
00:48And I appreciate doing it.
00:50Perhaps you want to talk about it.
00:51Yeah, absolutely.
00:52Let me first, before we go to spending,
00:54I just want to recognize your decisive action on Iran.
00:59You are a man of strength, but you're also a man of peace.
01:03And the fact that you are now also successful in getting this ceasefire done between Israel and Iran,
01:09I really want to commend you for that.
01:11Thank you very much.
01:12We are going to say that this is going to be supported for the whole world.
01:14Then on spending, it's absolutely true.
01:16I want to state here, without President Trump this would not have happened.
01:21In three stages.
01:22When you became president in 2016, 2017, you forced Europeans and Canadians to pay more.
01:28more. At this moment, the result of that phase is one trillion extra aggregate defense spending
01:34by the Canadians and the Europeans. Then came phase two, when you became president in January
01:38last year. Phase two is that all the countries, not yet on 2%, have now committed to the 2%.
01:44This is the old goal from Wales in 2014. Seven were not on 2%, some were saying somewhere
01:49in the 2030s. Now this year, all of them, including Canada, including Italy, including
01:54Belgium, they have all now committed to the 2%. And now comes the big splash. Today, we
02:00will decide to go to 5%. We have to keep ourselves safe from our adversaries, but also because
02:06it is fair to equalize with the United States. With this 5%, the Europeans and the Canadians
02:12will equalize their defense spending with the United States. So this is not about American
02:18taxpayers paying more, this is about Europeans, Canadians paying more. And again, this would
02:24not have happened. I'm really saying this here, and some people might criticize me, but
02:28then when I speak with them, they all say, yes, you're right, this would not have happened
02:32if you would not have been elected in 2016 and re-elected last year and back into office
02:38in January. So I want to thank you.
02:39Well, thank you very much. It's a great victory for everybody, I think. And we will be equalized
02:44very shortly, and that's the way it has to be. It's going to be a lot of money, too, a lot
02:48of defense.
02:48It's a trillion.
02:49Yeah. And we have a great relationship, and we've had a great relationship from the beginning.
02:55Highly respected man. And yeah, we appreciate you being here, too, everybody. We really do.
03:01We have a tremendous group of people on my left and a tremendous group of people on my
03:05right. They might be even better than my people.
03:07No, no, no, no, no. Let's have a fight. Let's figure it out. Anyway, but we appreciate
03:13it, and we've had a tremendous relationship, Mark and I, and we've really worked on this
03:18subject for a long time. When Biden was here, it just died. It just died like everything
03:25else died, and now it's, you're going to take, I guess, a vote today, right?
03:29Absolutely. Today we will decide unanimously to do this. That's my absolute conviction.
03:34So we can't, we can't talk about it until the vote's taken, because sometimes, you
03:38know, strange things happen to us, but I think you're going to get.
03:41I'm not too worried. I'm not too worried.
03:42I think you're going to do very well. Everyone's very happy about it. Go ahead. Yes.
03:45Mr. President, how is the Iran-Israel ceasefire going, in your opinion?
03:49I think very good. I think very good. Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them,
03:54because they came back. You know, they went out because they felt it was a violation, and technically
03:59they were right, but it just wouldn't have worked out very well.
04:04And they brought the planes back. They had gone on to another journey, because there
04:07was a little bit of a violation, and I said, you've got to get them back. And they came
04:12back, and it was a great thing, and it's going very well.
04:15Mr. President, what is your response to the foreign minister saying she still wants to enrich
04:19nuclear?
04:20Hello, Katie. She's so great, this one. Any questions she asks, I'll answer. Well, maybe I
04:25better not say that. What was your question?
04:28What is your response to the Iranian foreign minister continuing to say Iran will enrich
04:32uranium and pursue nuclear weapons?
04:35Well, I don't know if they've said that, but I'll tell you, the last thing they want
04:37to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover. And we won't let that happen,
04:42number one. Militarily, we won't. I think we'll end up having somewhat of a relationship
04:47with Iran. I see it. Look, I've had a relationship over the last four days. They agreed to the ceasefire.
04:52And it was a very equal agreement. They both said that's enough. They both said it. But no,
04:58they won't do that. The last thing they want to do, Katie, is enrich. They're not looking to
05:03they're not. Can you imagine after all that? They're going to say, oh, let's go and do a bomb.
05:10You know, there could be a day in the future. Well, and then somebody else taking our place will be
05:15saying, don't do it. And maybe they won't do it as well. I don't know. But they're not going to have
05:19bomb. And they're not going to enrich. And we believe all of the stuff is down there. We don't
05:24think they had nearly the time because to get that out is a very difficult thing. It's not like
05:28it's not like moving a package or taking this carpet up and moving it. It's very difficult.
05:32It's very dangerous. We believe it's all down there. We we had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit.
05:40And because of that, they I don't think they would have been down there because they knew we were coming
05:44when they know we're coming. They're not going to be down in that, you know, 30 stories underground.
05:48So, no, I think it was just a tremendous victory for everybody, including Iran. Look,
05:55you know, they've got a country and they've got oil and they're very smart people and they can come
06:01back. Israel got hit very hard, especially the last couple of days. Israel was hit really hard.
06:07Those ballistic missiles, boy, they took out a lot of buildings and they've been great. Bibi Netanyahu
06:13who should be very proud of himself. And they've really been great. But they're not going to be
06:19building bombs for a long time.
06:21Mr. President, what's your reaction to the intelligence reports saying that the Iranian nuclear
06:26sites were only partially devastated, not entirely?
06:30Yeah, well, they said it was actually the report said it could have been very, they don't know.
06:36I mean, they did a report. I could have Pete talk to it because his department did the report.
06:41They really don't know. I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon because Bibi is going to
06:47have people involved in that whole situation. We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual
06:53obliteration. When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget, the flame is all underground.
06:58But everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned
07:03black. The trees, everything. There's one building, but that's a building that sunk substantially
07:09into the granite so that, you know, the fire goes right over it. It was, I believe it was total
07:15obliteration. I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast. If it
07:20would have taken two weeks, maybe, but it's very hard to remove that kind of material. Very hard and
07:26very dangerous for them to remove it. Plus, they knew we were coming. And if they know we're coming,
07:32they're not going to be down there. There aren't too many people that are going to be down there.
07:36Pete, do you have something to say about that?
07:37Well, Mr. President, when you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can
07:42do and deliver those bombs, they landed precisely where they were supposed to. So it's a flawless
07:48mission.
07:48Flawless.
07:49Right down where we knew they needed to enter. And given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and
07:55capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordell. And the amount of munitions,
08:00six per location, any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise,
08:05is speculating with other motives. And we know that because when you actually look at the report,
08:10by the way, it was a top secret report. It was preliminary. It was low confidence. All right.
08:16So this isn't, you make assessments based on what you know, they don't said it could be very
08:21devastating, very moderate to severe. And we believe far more likely severe and obliterated.
08:27So this is a political motive here.
08:29Is there a leak investigation?
08:30Of course, we're doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information
08:34is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments. And CNN and others are trying to spin it to make
08:40the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.
08:43We had a tremendous success. And this is the New York Times. I call it the failing New York Times.
08:48It's going to hell. And CNN, which, as you know, very few people are watching.
08:52And you would think they'd do the opposite. You would think they'd want to say this was an
08:57unbelievable success. And the thing that hurts me is it's really demeaning to the pilots and the
09:02people that put that whole thing together, the generals. That was a perfect operation.
09:08And when you look at the holes, and this was done from 52,000 feet, there was no moon,
09:13there was no light. And those three holes are right together. And also, and nobody talks about this,
09:19we shot 30 tomahawks from submarines, in particular, one submarine, but that was 400
09:26miles away. And every one of those tomahawks hit within a foot of where they were supposed to hit,
09:32took out a lot of buildings that Israel wasn't able to get. We took them out with tomahawks.
09:37We don't even talk about that. This was a devastating attack. And it knocked them for a loop.
09:44And, you know, if it didn't, they wouldn't have settled. If they had, if they had won,
09:49if we didn't take it out, they wouldn't have settled. Somebody mentioned that to me last night.
09:53If that thing wasn't devastated, they would have never settled. Marco, do you have something to say?
09:57Yeah. No, first of all, on the stuff about the intelligence, this is what a leaker is telling you
10:01the intelligence says. That's the game these people play. They read it, and then they go out and
10:05characterize it the way they want it characterized. And they're leakers. This is the game they play.
10:09So that's number one. Number two, here's a fact. The conversion facility, which you can't do a
10:14nuclear weapon without a conversion facility. You can't, we can't even find where it is,
10:18where it used to be on the map. You can't even find where it used to be, because the whole thing
10:21is just blackened out. It's gone. It's wiped out. It's wiped out. Then we dropped 12 of the strongest
10:26bombs on the planet, right down the hole in two places. Everything underneath that mountain is in
10:31bad shape. And I refer you to the statement of the IAEA, Mr. Grossi. You know what he said? He said there was
10:37Iran, the way it looked the day before the attack, and what their nuclear program looks like now.
10:42Two very different things. They are way behind where they were just seven days ago. Now anything
10:46in the world can be rebuilt, but now we know where it is. And if they try to rebuild it,
10:51we'll have options there as well. But all this leaker stuff, these leakers are professional
10:55stabbers. That's what they are. They go out and they read this stuff, and then they tell you what it
11:00says against the law, but they characterize it for you in a way that's absolutely false. There's no way
11:06Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing had happened. This was complete and total
11:10obliteration. They're in bad shape. They are way behind today compared to where they were
11:14just seven days ago because of what the president did.
11:16Marco, can I just alert you to one other aspect? So the great thing is you took out the nuclear
11:21capability of Iran. This was crucial. You did it in a way which is extremely impressive. But
11:27the signal sends to the rest of the world that this president, when it comes to it, yes,
11:31he's a man of peace. But if necessary, he is willing to use strength, the enormous strength
11:37of the American military. So I think that signal to the rest of the world, this is far beyond Iran,
11:43is extremely important. So let me also point us to that aspect of what happened.
11:47They went down, Iran went down to the site afterwards. They said it's so devastated,
11:54and they settled when they saw what we did to it. And frankly, if we didn't do that,
11:59they would have had a lot of ammunition to keep going. They wouldn't have settled.
12:03Somebody brought that up, and two Iranians went down to see it, and they called back,
12:07and they said, this place is gone. So it's just fake news by CNN, which has got no ratings. It's
12:13a failed network. Anybody here from CNN, by the way? Because you're a really disgraceful network.
12:19MSNBC, I think, is actually worse. But they're all pretty bad. But yours is good, Katie, I'll tell you.
12:23You know what Marco reminded me of? He did such a nice job there. It was nine years ago I had to
12:30debate this guy. He was not easy. I think he even got better. But when you were into your little
12:37thing, I said, this is when I had to debate this guy. You think it's easy to debate? It's not easy.
12:42How long do you think that the Iranian nuclear program has been put back by these strikes?
12:47Years? Or totally?
12:49I think basically decades, because I don't think they'll ever do it again. I just don't
12:54think they're going to do it. I think they're going to take their oil. They're going to have
12:57some missiles, and they'll have some defense. I think they've had it. I mean, they just went
13:03through hell. I think they've had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich. They've been
13:08trying to do it. By the way, it's hard to enrich. And, you know, when you look at a site like
13:12that, very, very hard to build, very, very hard, very expensive. They spent trillions
13:18of dollars trying to do this thing, and they didn't come up with it. And we're actually
13:23getting along with them very well right now. But had we not succeeded with that hit, that
13:28hit ended the war. That hit ended the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima.
13:35I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That
13:41ended that war. This ended that with a war. If we didn't take that out, they would have
13:45been, they'd be fighting right now.
13:47Mr. President, if the Iranians do rebuild, would the United States-
13:51If they rebuild?
13:52Would the United States strike again?
13:54Sure. I'm not going to have to worry about that. It's gone for years, years. It's very
14:00tough to rebuild because the whole thing has collapsed. In other words, inside, it's all
14:04collapsed. Nobody can get in to see it because it's collapsed. You can't go in to see a room
14:09that has, you know, 10 million tons of rock in it. And the tunnels are totally collapsed.
14:17But they rebelled.
14:17Well, they've already looked at the tunnels. This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots
14:23and genius people in the military. And they're not being given credit for it because we have
14:28scum that's in this group. And not all of you are. You have some great reporters. But
14:33you have scum. CNN is scum. MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. They're bad people.
14:41They're sick. And what they've done is they're trying to make this unbelievable victory into
14:46something less. Now, even they admit that it was hit very hard. Okay? But it wasn't hit
14:52hard. It was hit brutally. And it knocked it out. The original word that I use, I guess
14:58it got us in trouble because it's a strong word. It was obliteration. And you'll see that.
15:03And it's going to come out. Israel is doing a report on it now. I understand. And I was
15:10told that they said it was total obliteration. You know, they have guys that go in there after
15:15the hit. And they say it was total obliteration. And, you know, I don't want it for me. I want
15:20it for the pilots. I want it for the military. They did such a good job. If you were in the
15:24situation room with me, with the generals and all of the people that did such a good
15:29job. And then they get demeaned by these idiots at CNN who can't get ratings. The place is
15:34dying. Nobody wants to even waste their time going on their shows. So they form with the
15:38New York Times, who's dying also. Without Trump, you wouldn't have a New York Times.
15:42And then just changing gears to your meeting with Zelensky later today. Can you give us
15:48any preview of what the two of you might be discussing?
15:51No, we'll discuss the obvious. We'll discuss his difficulties. He's got a little difficulty.
15:57Zelensky. He's a nice guy. I mean, I'm going to meet him today. I don't know. I assume we're
16:02going to be discussing Ukraine.
16:03Yes.
16:04It seems like a lot of likely stuff.
16:06Can you restart talks there or anything that you might do?
16:09Well, we're going to see. I mean, I've spoken to Putin a lot, and he actually was very nice.
16:14He volunteered help on, as you know, Iran. I said, no, I don't need help on Iran. I need
16:20help on Russia. Okay? I said, do me a favor. Help us on Russia, not on Iran. But he was very
16:26nice. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk. I think progress is being made.
16:32I think great progress is being made on Gaza. I think because of this attack that we made,
16:37I think we're going to have some very good news. I was talking to Steve Witkoff, who, by the
16:41way, is terrific, and who knows more about this subject than anybody, the subject of what
16:46we were just talking about. He was on last night with Jesse and with Laura and with Sean.
16:55And boy, he has a great take on it. He just explains it so easily. He's really very knowledgeable.
17:02But he did tell me that Gaza is very close.
17:05Mr. President, just one follow-up on Iran. Both you and Secretary Rubio and Hexet mentioned
17:13the leader. But can you clarify, is the intelligence correct or is the intelligence wrong?
17:18Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says, we don't know. It could
17:23have been very severe. That's what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct. But I think
17:31we can take the we don't know. It was very severe. It was obliteration. And you'd think
17:37that a media outlet would say, isn't that a great thing? I mean, more importantly for
17:43the pilots, for the military, you take their guts out. You take their absolute guts out.
17:47They had a tremendous attack. It was a complete obliteration. The other team, the other group,
17:54Iran, said, let's stop this. And you know what? Israel said it too. Very smart.
18:01They fought like hell. And then they said, let's stop. And they're going to build themselves.
18:05And I really see it as sticking. I mean, we may do papers on it, Marco. Maybe we're going
18:10to do papers. I don't even know if you need them. They're not going to be fighting each
18:13other. They've had it. They've had a big fight, like two kids in a school yard. You know,
18:18they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two or three minutes.
18:22Then it's easier to stop them. And then daddy has to sometimes use strong
18:25language. You have to use strong language. Every once in a while, you have to use a certain
18:29word. I think we have to join the other side of all.
18:31Yes, we're going to join some other group. Yes, thank you. Katie, one point.
18:34One last question. Do you believe...
18:35She's so good. Thank you, Mr. President. She used to be very difficult. Go ahead.
18:42Do you believe that this strike on the Iranian nuclear program will lead to the release of
18:47the hostages in Gaza?
18:49I think that it helped a little bit. It showed a lot of power. Yeah, I think it helped.
18:54But we're going to get separately. Even before this, we were very close to making a deal
18:58on Gaza. I think this helped. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
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