- 7/8/2025
President Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
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00:00thank you very much everybody it's an honor to have bb and sarah with us friends of mine for
00:23a long time and we had a tremendous success together and i think it will only go on to be
00:28even greater success in the future so it's really nice to have you at the white house it's nothing
00:34like the white house and it's great to have you both and all of your wonderful people around we've
00:39worked together for a long time and we've done well together we had a great we had a great time
00:45i would say it's a lot of work but we had a great result recently and we're going to have a lot of
00:50great results so it's great to have you thank you very much thank you i want to express the
00:56appreciation and admiration not only of all israelis but of the jewish people and many many admirers
01:06around the world for your leadership your leadership of the free world your leadership of the just cause
01:14and the pursuit of peace and security which you are leading in many lands but now especially in the
01:20middle east we have great opportunities the president has an extraordinary team and i think our teams
01:27together make an extraordinary combination to meet challenges and seize opportunities but the president
01:35has already realized great opportunities he forged the abraham accords he's forging peace as we speak
01:43in one country in one region after the other so i want to present to you mr president the letter i sent
01:50to the noble prize committee it's nominating you for the peace prize which is well deserved and you should
01:57get it thank you very much this i didn't know well thank you very much coming from you in particular this
02:07is very meaningful thank you very much thank you thank you for everything you're doing thank you it's
02:12great honor thank you very much everybody appreciate it mr president have you spoken with any of the
02:19families of the victims of the texas flood and can you talk about what you would like to do when you
02:23travel there on friday well we're going to just make it as comfortable as possible for the state of texas
02:30they have a great governor they have wonderful senators they have wonderful representatives and we're going to
02:35work together with them and we have been working really very hard this whole table has been working that was a terrible
02:41event terrible event you saw that maybe where texas was just absolutely so badly hurt by something that was
02:48a big surprise late in the evening so we'll be working with the governor and all of the people of texas
02:56we'll be going on we'll be going on friday
02:58mr president there was a security incident incident more than gaza today right around the time that the
03:03prime minister was meeting the secretary of state this was the whitkoff does that a number of ideas
03:10soldiers reportedly have been injured possibly killed does that in any way a wrinkle in ceasefire negotiations
03:17i don't think so they want it uh they want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire so i don't think
03:22so uh steve could you respond to this you know about it i i well i think it's terribly unfortunate
03:29terribly unfortunate um we were just talking about it how tragic it is but we have an opportunity to
03:35finally get a peace deal mr prime minister as we discussed um and uh i'm hopeful for it very quickly
03:42mr president are the tariff letters are the tariff letters that you sent today
03:47final offers or are they negotiable less final offer so south korea japan should take it we're always
03:53subject to negotiate something that's fair but we've talked to most of the countries and uh pretty much
03:59they've had their way for many many decades as you know and it was time that we just wanted fairness this
04:05is uh not really equitable from our standpoint because it's just a small token by comparison to the
04:12damage that's been done over the years but uh we had no other president that was willing to do this
04:17i did it my first term with china and others we took in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs
04:23no inflation the most successful period of time that we've ever had financially in the country the
04:28first term i think this term is going to be much better even much better than that that was the best
04:33ever and this is going to be i think substantially better and we're on the way to doing that
04:38we've already taken in over 100 billion dollars worth of tariffs and we haven't even started
04:43and all i say to the other countries is you know some of them wanted to make a deal and want to be
04:48fair others perhaps got a little bit spoiled they were a little bit spoiled because for 30 40 years 50
04:55years they were taking advantage of the country so we're gonna uh i would say final but if they call
05:02with a different offer and if i like it we'll do it and the august one deadline i mean is the august
05:08one dead is the august one deadline firm now is that it because you know i would say firm but
05:14not a hundred percent firm if they call up and they say would like to do something a different way
05:19we're going to be open to that but essentially that's the way it is right now yeah
05:32i think president trump had a brilliant vision it's called free choice you know if people want
05:53to stay they can stay but if they want to leave they should be able to leave it shouldn't be a
05:58you know prison should be an open place and give people a free choice we're working with the united
06:04states very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say that they
06:12want to give the palestinians a better future and those who uh and i think we're we're getting close to
06:20finding uh several countries and i think this will do again the freedom to choose palestinians should have
06:28and uh i hope that we can secure it close by and we've had great cooperation from surrounding
06:34meaning surrounding israel surrounding countries great cooperation from every single one of them so
06:40something good will happen brian did you have something mr president you've mentioned before you
06:45want to go down as your legacy as the peacemaker are we in the last chapter of closing out peace amongst
06:52this now and all the others well i hope so look we did a job with india and pakistan and serbia kosovo
07:01rwanda and the congo and this was all over the last three weeks or so marco right we did and others
07:09that were ready to fight and we stopped a lot of fights i think a very big one frankly a very very big
07:16one was india and pakistan and we stopped that over trade we're dealing with india we're dealing with
07:22pakistan and we say we're not going to be dealing with you at all if you're not if you're going to
07:26fight and they were maybe at a nuclear stage they're both you know nuclear powers and i think stopping that
07:32was very important we're trying to help out with a biden created monster this whole thing that's
07:38happening with russia and ukraine it's a horrible it's a horrible thing and i'm not happy with
07:44president putin at all but uh this is something that would have never happened if i were president
07:49this is a war that was never going to happen go ahead i was just going to say how would you address
07:54your critics that in the election they called they said that you would cause the next world war
07:59three and in fact you're solving all the problems i'm stopping wars i'm stopping wars and uh i hate to
08:06see people killed like as an example ukraine and russia they're not americans they're being killed they're
08:12not israeli that are being killed they're these are all russians and all ukrainians and and uh but it's
08:205 000 maybe 7 000 last week 7 500 last week mostly soldiers but people in towns and cities that are
08:29getting hit but mostly death is mostly soldiers now so they don't come from here but it's 7 000 last week
08:37souls and if i can stop that you know they have parents and they have sisters and brothers and uh getting
08:44married and who knows they're just people but their souls and if i can stop a war you know because i
08:52have an ability to do so i'm i'm disappointed frankly that uh president putin hasn't stopped i'm not happy
08:58about it either mr president on the iran talks can you say if you've scheduled the next round of iran talks
09:04and then also on strike we have scheduled iran talks and they want to they want to talk
09:09they took a big uh drubbing i think when we hit the uh the three sites really i would say the three
09:17sites not just the one the one was a big one and it was deep in granite and it was obliterated it
09:23turned out the atomic energy commission said it is obliterated i would just want to take our hats off to
09:30those incredible flyers that the people that flew that big machine and frankly the mechanics and everybody
09:36else they had zero they flew for 37 hours with zero problem mechanically i mean when you think in
09:44carrying the biggest bombs ever the biggest bombs that we've ever dropped on anybody when you think
09:52non-nuclear and we want to keep it non-nuclear by the way but they did a phenomenal job it was an
09:59amazing job and i think that was i was talking to bb about it before that was the very beginning of
10:05the end and ended very quickly after that i don't want to say what it reminded me of but if you go
10:10back a long time ago uh it reminded people of a certain other event and his uh harry truman's
10:18picture is now in the lobby in a nice location in the lobby where it should have been but that stopped
10:23uh a lot of fighting and this stopped a lot of fighting when that happened it was a whole different
10:28ball game what might make you have the desire to do another strike on iran another what another strike
10:37on iran i hope we're not going to have to do that i can't imagine wanting to do that i can't imagine
10:42them wanting to do they want to meet they want to meet they want to work something out
10:46no they're different they're very different now than they were two weeks ago is there a date yet
10:52sir for the around talks or a city do you know when and where the next round of around talks will be
10:59well i can tell you i'd rather not say but you'll be uh you'll be reading about it tomorrow or seeing
11:04it tomorrow mr president what is the hold up currently in a ceasefire with hamas in which in the
11:11ceasefire between israel and hamas what's currently the whole um i don't think there is a hold up
11:18well i don't think there's a hold up i think that you're going to i think things i think things are
11:21going along very well they just you know left each other and it was not a pleasant period of a few
11:28days it was a little longer than a few days but this was not a pleasant period of time and you know we
11:34were at the end missiles were shot and every single missile was shot out of the air it was pretty
11:41amazing that was sort of the end and they told us they were coming and where they were and what time
11:46they were coming and they said if you'd like to have a different time we'll do that and that's respect
11:51when they do that i appreciated that they did that there was no surprise we got the soldiers out of
11:56the base in qatar in this case but they knew they were coming 14 missiles were coming
12:02uh one o'clock they said would you like to make it later they said no let them come at one o'clock
12:09and at one o'clock everybody was as you know over 5 000 people left the base and we had three gunners
12:17and three assistants and out of the 14 that we shot all 14 were knocked down and that was the end
12:24that was about it and we had a uh we had a rough time but sometimes you know sometimes you need the
12:31rough time in order to get i think i think things are going to be really settled down a lot in the
12:36middle east and uh they respect us and they respect israel they respect a lot of things that took place
12:43nobody's ever seen equipment like what we sent over to knock out those sites but when those sites were
12:49knocked out it essentially that was that was the end do you think that there can be a two-state solution
12:55that creates an independent i don't know i'd ask maybe that question you have the greatest man in
13:00the world to answer that age-old question two states go ahead give him your honest answer i think
13:07palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten us
13:13that means that certain powers like overall security will always remain in our hands now that is a fact
13:20and no one in israel will agree to anything else because we don't commit suicide we want life we
13:28cherish life for ourselves for our neighbors and i think we can work out a piece between us and the
13:36entire middle east with president trump's leadership and by working together i think we can establish a
13:44very very broad piece that will include all our neighbors mr president you have asserted that
13:52there's complete and total destruction in the nuclear facilities so what is the basis of the talks
13:58going forward is it to cap future nuclear activity is it ballistic missiles terror support
14:03economic based opportunities it's really a good question because if you remember when it was done
14:09i sort of said what's the purpose of talking it's been knocked out and knocked out completely
14:14but they've requested a meeting and i'm going to go to a meeting and if we can put something down on
14:18paper that would be fine that'll be good i think they've gained a lot of respect for us i think
14:26they've gained a lot of respect for israel also but uh they would like to meet and we're going to have
14:31a meeting steve when is that meeting going to be do you want to say rather very quickly very quickly
14:37in the next week or so so we'll see what happens i think it would be nice to memorialize it put it
14:44down but um because of the the incredible result of that attack if you want to call it an attack
14:55i didn't think it was necessary to have it in writing i think we spoke i mean that speaks much louder
14:59than writing but i can i can also understand why they'd want it and they've been very nice they've been
15:04very respectful and it began by them telling us about 14 they had to do you know what 14 represents
15:10right do you know what 14 represents right you know that right the number of bombs dropped
15:15so it was you know representative we got them all yeah please behind you please no you
15:24oh so this is by the prime minister um the one of the next mayor of the university's or
15:29on the democratic socialist to the vocal critic of israel and of yourself and has said he would
15:36arrest you if you came to new york city uh if he was mayor is that something you take seriously are
15:41you concerned about that do you have a response to that no no i'm not concerned about that
15:45i'll get him out look there's uh there's enough craziness in the world but i guess it never ends
15:52i mean you have uh this is a folly uh and it's uh you know it's uh it's uh it's silly in many ways
15:59because it's just not serious but what is serious is the question i was asked before you know after
16:04october 7th people said the palestinians had a state hamas state in gaza look what they did with it
16:10they didn't build it up they built down into bunkers into terror tunnels after which they massacred our
16:16people raped our women beheaded our men invaded our our cities and our towns and our kibbutzim and
16:24did horrendous horrendous massacres the kind of which we didn't see since world war ii and the nazis
16:30the holocaust so people aren't likely to say let's just give them another state it'll be a platform to
16:36destroy israel we'll work out a piece with our palestinian neighbors those who don't want to
16:43destroy us and we'll work out a piece in which our security the sovereign power of security always
16:49remains in our hands now people will say it's not a complete state it's not a state it's not that
16:55we don't care you know we vowed never again never again is now it's not going to happen again
17:02so we'll see you in new york next year oh well look i'm going to come there with the president
17:07trump and we'll see what the how do you know who the mayor will be i don't know that
17:14you want to know that he's going to be very fine and who knows we don't know who the mayor's going to
17:18be yet but this is a communist he's not a socialist he's a communist and he said some really bad things
17:24about jewish people and he said some really bad things about a lot of people and i think he's going
17:31through a little bit of a honeymoon right now but he might make it but you know it all comes through
17:35the white house he needs the money through the white house he needs a lot he's going to behave
17:39he'll behave he better behave otherwise he's going to have big problems but it's a philosophy that this
17:44country is not ready for and it never will be by the way we have a man with us who thought this was
17:50going to be a very glamorous easy job he's the ambassador to israel mike huckabee former governor
17:58former everything i'd say he's a former everything and respected and loved by everybody
18:04and he loves israel he loves the state of israel and nobody loves it much more and he's not jewish
18:10and he loves israel and he wanted to be there i said you know mike it could be dangerous no no no well
18:16i at least i was right about that he was in every bunker you could be in he was running around from
18:21bunker to bunker but he's still with us fortunately and he's done a great job would you say a few words
18:26mike just want to say what an honor it is to serve you mr president and to see a historic horizon
18:33that we're looking at in the middle east and when the president made his trip to the middle east and
18:38then he really reached out to the new syrian government knowing they needed a partner and
18:45knowing that they could pick the wrong partner and what the president did which took us all off guard
18:52but the strategic move in that has set up something that is absolutely historic
19:00mr president i don't even think you fully comprehend the impact that you're having
19:05on the region in a way that is so remarkable and it was your leadership your foresight you did that
19:14that when the b2s went in uh the celebration the sense of partnership that you gave with the israeli
19:24people was so dramatic but the message was bigger than to israel it was a message to the world america's
19:31friends can trust us but america's foes had better fear us and that is a message that the president sent to
19:39everyone on the planet and it is a message that will resonate toward a matter of peace the likes
19:46of which i don't think we've ever seen so thank you great job you're doing too thank you they love
19:51you over there they really they respect them and they love them mr president you know it's very very
19:57interesting uh we had the pilots here yesterday as you know and they were incredible and we also had
20:04the mechanics we had a lot of people here that had to do a lot of i think about 170 people that had to
20:11do with that incredible journey a journey that could have been horrible you remember what happened
20:16with jimmy carter with the helicopters and all of the problems and ultimately hostages uh we had the
20:22exact opposite everything was perfect it worked perfectly but i didn't realize uh i was saying to
20:28one is this something that you felt strongly about absolutely sir i couldn't wait i said better
20:34that you really better you than me but uh they couldn't wait he said sir we've been practicing
20:39for this mission for more than 20 years from just after 2000 they've been thinking and practicing
20:48to go into that area i guess you probably know that better than anybody pete they uh they've been
20:53looking at going in but they never had a president that would allow them to do it and perhaps right
20:59perhaps i don't know if that's true or not but i didn't realize they were preparing for
21:03that journeys from just a little bit after 2000 the year 2000 and i was uh pretty amazed by that
21:11they knew it they knew every inch of it and they came back and they said we got it better than we
21:17ever did in practice but they've been practicing for more than 20 years can you imagine yeah
21:23why don't you create mr president are you planning to send more weapons to ukraine uh we're going to send
21:28some more weapons we have to they have to be able to defend themselves they're getting hit very hard
21:33now they're getting hit very hard we're going to have to send more weapons you're defensive weapons
21:39primarily but they're getting hit very very hard so many people are dying in that mess
21:46yes mr president one big beautiful bill now signed into law by you what would you like congressional republicans
21:52to turn your focus all they have to do now is talk about how good it is the biggest tax cuts ever
21:57no tax on tips no tax on social security no think of it no tax on overtime um for from a business
22:05standpoint the jobs are coming in like we've never seen them before as soon as that was signed there
22:10were nine factories that announced that they were building uh the one-year deductibility you know
22:16things that from a business standpoint you'd you'd understand the jobs that are being created and one
22:21of the things that is uh and this is also that but it's also because of the tariffs a tremendous success
22:27we're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs one of the things that is so exciting is the
22:35number of companies and uh car companies where they're building plants uh ai is the big thing
22:42we have over 15 trillion dollars announced already and it's been i mean really i would say
22:49it's been during the last last three months but we're here for a short period of time and uh some
22:55administrations never had anywhere near that number for a whole term probably for a whole two terms
23:01dollars but we're up to over 15 trillion dollars coming into our country there's never been anything
23:07like it anywhere in the world there's never been an investment like that anywhere in the world we uh
23:14look i told this story and i just told it to bb backstage i was talking to him and i said you know
23:20the king of saudi arabia smart guy and also we went to qatar and we went to uae really three strong
23:28leaders smart guys they all told me the same thing and then that was reiterated at nato just
23:34recently when we got back when they agreed to spend a trillion dollars a year by the way which is
23:38about three times what they were spending but they all said the same thing we thought your country was
23:44dead horrible term right we thought the united states of america was dead and now you're presiding
23:52over the hottest country anywhere in the world we're the hottest country in the world i think bb would
23:56admit it even hotter than israel although israel was pretty hot about a week ago i can tell you
24:01for the wrong for the wrong reasons but uh we are the hottest country in the world right now and
24:08it happened faster than anybody thought possible but we have over 15 trillion dollars and that means
24:14jobs and that means building and that means things like we've never seen before so all we can do is
24:19keep working hard there'll be always surprises some of the surprises are going to be bad surprises
24:23mr president again real quick on iran um in your view is the war between israel and iran over
24:32or do those talks need to happen before you can well i would say that you know the best man to answer
24:38that is the prime minister but i will tell you that in my view i hope it's over yeah i think iran wants
24:45to meet i think they want to make peace and i'm all for it now if that's not the case we are ready
24:51willing and able but i don't think we're going to have to be but i think bb would answer that question
24:55very well i think the partnership between israel and the united states the partnership between
25:05president trump and me produced a historic victory it's an incredible victory actually
25:12it brought the greatest capabilities of the united states that are matched
25:17with the great capabilities of israel and the army of israel pilots of israel
25:25soldiers of israel and the mossad and the combination of these two extraordinary capacities
25:33produced a decisive result it set back the two tumors that were threatening the life of israel
25:43the nuclear tumor and the ballistic missile tumor because they were planning to build 20 000 of
25:50these things and launch it in a country the size of new jersey no country could withstand that so what
25:57do you do when you have two things that are going to kill you you have to remove them with our combined
26:02effort we did but when you remove a tumor doesn't mean that it can't come back you have to constantly
26:08monitor the situation to make sure that there's no attempt to bring it back so we've had a great
26:14achievement and i think part of the effort of consolidating this and ensuring that we don't have
26:21to repeat this is to monitor this carefully of course the president and i are talking about it our
26:26teams are talking about it but there's no question this is a historic victory and i think as was said
26:33here today this has already changed the face of the middle east but it's not over in your but i think
26:38i think that there is an opportunity here to create a historic expansion of the abraham accords
26:45which were themselves an active history that deserve a noble prize for the president but i think the
26:51opportunities are much bigger and i hope uh i'd like to believe that iran would not test our fortitude
27:00uh because it would be a mistake and do you believe do you believe that regime change
27:06is still necessary there i think it's up to the people of iran you do speaking of that on syria
27:14the trump administration was fully supportive of changes in syria back in the new regime there
27:20obviously your government more cautious from the security standpoint are you comfortable with the pace of
27:26change with the security situation vis-a-vis syria right now i think there's an opportunity to explore
27:36i think that i think that everyone understands that the situation has changed before that
27:42iran was essentially running syria okay directly through hezbollah hezbollah has been brought to its knees
27:50iran is out of the picture so i think this presents opportunities for stability for security and
27:58eventually for peace and i think that i think that's been opened up also by the fact that the president
28:06has opened up a channel so they have something there's a lot to lose by going back to conflict
28:14and there's a lot to gain by moving towards peace and i think that i think that opportunity has been
28:20opened by the president and by the changed security situation which we brought about with the collapse
28:26of the outside regime are there direct talks with the offshore government now let's let's suppose there
28:32war would i answer yes no right that's my duty to ask much it's your duty to ask and my duty to ask you
28:38back so you know the at the request of a lot of countries in the surrounding area of the middle east
28:45including bb uh we will uh we took the sanctions of syria and i met the new leader i was very impressed
28:53by him somebody said well he comes from a very tough background i said well you know i'm not that
28:58surprised it's a tough part of the world but i was very impressed by him but we took the sanctions off
29:03because we want to give them a chance they would never have had a chance without the sanctions and
29:08one of the things we have with iran is you know we have very they call biting they are very biting
29:14sanctions and i would love to be able to at the right time take those sanctions off give them a
29:19chance at rebuilding because i'd like to see iran build itself back up in a peaceful manner and not
29:25going around saying death to america death to the usa death to israel as they were doing you know they
29:31were the bully of the middle east and now they're not the bully anymore but they were saying terrible things
29:36i would like to see them they have such potential you know they have the oil power and they have great
29:41people smart people energetic people amazing and i know so many iranians iranians from new york i have
29:50a lot of friends and they're great people so it's a shame when you see a thing like this happen but i think
29:55that taking the sanctions off of syria is going to give syria a great shot at making it
30:00i'm going to follow up on the congressional question are there any executive orders that
30:07you'd like to see congress focus on when they come back in session do you have any that you
30:11prioritize to go first
30:13well we've done a lot of them in the last as you know and the i always say the great big beautiful
30:19bill i had the word great but uh it was the largest bill of its kind ever passed we were talking about
30:25it before it was a beauty but you know a lot of the things that we did executive orders have been
30:32codified in the legislation that we just had passed and we're going to be sending it a lot more
30:38over the next period of about two months separately but a lot of it has was part of that big that
30:44beautiful big bill mr president on tariffs uh what happened to 90 trade deals in 90 days
30:53oh we've spoken to everybody we know everything it's all done i told you i told you we'll make some
30:59deals but for the most part we're going to send a letter we're going to say welcome to the united
31:04states if you'd like to participate in the greatest most successful country ever i mean we're doing
31:10better than ever uh we have i don't think and you're going to see these numbers soon we've never
31:15had numbers like this we've never had investment like this we have more than 90 we're going to have
31:20much more than 90 but most of those are going to be sent a letter this is exactly what i said now we've
31:25made a deal with united kingdom we've made a deal with china we've made a deal we're close to making a
31:30deal with india others we've met with and we don't think we're going to be able to make a deal so we
31:35just send them a letter if you want to if you want to play ball you have to this is what you have to
31:39pay so we're come as far as i'm concerned we're done we're sending out letters to various countries
31:46telling them how much tariffs they have to pay uh some will maybe adjust a little bit depending if they
31:52have a you know cause we're not going to be unfair about it and actually it's a small fraction compared
31:58to what we should be getting we should be we could be asking for much more but for the sake of
32:02relationships that we've had with a lot of really good countries we're doing the way i do it but we
32:09could be getting a lot more we could ask for a lot more than what we're asking for because you're sending
32:15the letters to follow up on the edit as earlier you're counting these deals by saying here's the
32:21tariff rate i'm saying here it is congratulations welcome to the united states i hope you make a lot of
32:26money and you're going to pay us money they were ripping us they were charging us tariffs at levels
32:33that nobody's ever seen before we have some countries who are charging 200 tariffs and making
32:39it impossible to do business and what the tariffs are doing is they're driving people in and companies
32:44in into the united states that's why we're building all of the all of the work that you see happening in
32:49this country right now and it's at a record level all the factories all of the ai institutions that
32:55are being built uh it's largely because well i think it's because of november 5th the good election
33:01and i think it's because of the tariffs thank you all very much thank you thank you thank you
33:07what's for dinner i don't know but it looks good to me
33:14i don't know but it looks good to me
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