President Trump takes questions on Iran war

Yes, please.

Yes.

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

Well, they should do it. But again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told you if you protest, you will be shot immediately. You saw what happened to the young wrestler. He was a great champion, by the way. He's a great wrestler, one of the top in the world.

And he and his two friends were hung. And all they did was say a little bit about liberty. They wanted liberty and they were violently executed. But the number is up to probably 45000 people were killed. So you know, when somebody stays in a house, when they know if they walk out of the house to protest, they'll be immediately shot and killed.

And they issued that, you know, that was publicly issued. It's not a secret. That's why so many people say, oh, well, why are you doing this way? We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You know, we got regime change. We do.

We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with a much different regime than before. We're dealing with different people. They're smarter. I think they're sharper and far less radical. We have regime change, but we didn't do this for regime change. We did it for the fact. And my my view is very simple.

I saw somebody said, oh, he doesn't have a plan. I have the best plan of all. But I'm not going to tell you what my plan is. You know, they want me to say, here's my plan. We're going to attack at 947 in the morning, and then we're going to do this. And then we're going to. And if you don't do that, they say, I have a plan. These people know what been insulted for many years by the by the fake news. But you can't.

It's so bad for the people that are so pro. You just saw two great and John Ratcliffe, three unbelievable people. They have a plan. Every every single thing has been thought out by all of us. But I can't reveal the plan to the media. So you know, but we're just thrilled by the success of this operation.

Yes, please.

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

They would be willing to. They would be. And it's suffering, they would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have, we've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing.

Bombs that are dropping near their homes, please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and we're not hitting those areas, they're saying, please come back, come back, come back. These are the people.

I don't know what they do. All I can tell you is they want freedom. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It's a violent, horrible world where if you protest, you are shot. Remember the great woman protests where they had 400,000, 500,000 women, and they were all enthused and they were going to protest.

And everybody said, oh, the regime is going to come to an end. And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, five, six different areas. A woman would go down right between the eyes. They had snipers. They had five snipers. That's all it took.

And those four or five hundred thousand women said, Oh, my God, what's that? Oh, look over there. What's that? A woman shot right between the eyes. And after five or six of them go down, then you start hearing the purr through the vast number of people.

And then they said, oh, my God, who would do that? And they're incredible people. But they've lived so horribly. They've lived so horribly. You know, Iran was a great country. If you go back 25 years ago or so, the Persian people, they're incredible, smart, brilliant, actually.

And I know so many, I know coming from New York, originally, I know so many people from around there, incredible people, incredible energy and, and very, very brilliant people. But when you're standing in a group and protesting and you have a woman, in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march, everybody was like, a woman, in the case of the woman, remember the great woman march. Everybody was like, oh, this is the end of the country. And then snipers selectively picked every single one was shot right between the eyes

from a long distance. They were on top of buildings. Nobody even knew where they were, where they're coming from. This wasn't like a machine gun, which is also very bad. They've done that too. They did that recently. This was snipers sitting on the top of buildings, aiming and hitting women.

And when they see people go down and all of a sudden there's a riot in the reverse direction and they never came out again. And a lot of the news doesn't talk about that. They talk about all women's rights. You want oh, women's rights. You want to see women's rights? You're not going to see it there. It's amazing when I see some of the stupid people like, you know, AOC plus three, all that group. They talk about, oh, freedom for Iran. They don't tell you the real facts. Women, men, gays. How about gays for Iran?

They kill the gays, they throw them off buildings. So I wonder what what's going on. I can only say this. They want us to keep bombing, even if it jeopardize because their life is in much greater danger. They want freedom for Iran. But it's very hard for them to protest.

I actually tell him I said don't go out. I fully understand. Nobody in this room would go out. I don't think there's any because frankly it's not a question of bravery. We're all brave, right? You're brave. I'm brave. We're all brave. But we're also intelligent. If you have people shooting at you, expert shots with the best rifles you can get and hitting you right between the eyes every single time. And you're looking here and you're seeing and you're looking here.

You're out of there.

I don't care who.

Mark Meredith, Fox News.

I know that.

Go ahead.

America's watching.

No joke.

Can we go back to the weekend?

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

The President Not everybody was on board.

The Press Somebody else within your —

The President No, there was military people, very professional, that preferred not doing it. These two were totally on board, which was very important. They weren't, it would have had a little difficulty. But, no, there were military people that said, you just don't do this. You don't go into the heart of a very powerful military.

You know, this is hey, you have countries and countries. You have some countries where military is not there. So this whole thing is militarized like nobody's ever seen before. Half the people are wearing uniforms. And we had we had people within the military. Usually it's not done.

That's one of the reasons. You know, I was surprised. Somebody said it's the only time it's ever been done. I said, that's not possible. But it is possible because you're going into hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the path.

I mean, look at some of the helicopters, how they got hit. So yeah, there were people within the military that said it's a wise. And don't forget, how many men did you send altogether approximately for the operation?

I'd love to keep that a secret.

OK, well, we. But I will tell you the number. I'll keep it a secret. But it was hundreds and hundreds of these people. It's pretty good. Is he central?

Is he central casting? But hundreds of people went into this journey. Hundreds of people could have been killed. Forget about the equipment, a lot of equipment. Nobody cares. Hundreds of people could have been killed.

So we had people that were within the military that said this is not a wise. And I understood that. But I decided to do it.

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

So the first one which was in in many ways, as dangerous as the second, I guess it gets because we're flying over daylight. You know, we're the best at the world at night. We have goggles that nobody we have goggles. I've tried them. Unbelievable. I see better with the goggles at night with then I see without them during daylight. I mean, day like today, we have a beautiful day. You see just as well with goggles. In many ways, it's enhanced.

So we have the best in the world. So it's much safer for us to for us to do it at night, whereas other people, no other country has that capability. They don't have the they don't have that particular piece of equipment like we do. But when I was told flying and in daylight, I think we flew seven hours over Iran. And that's a long time over unbelievably hostile territory where they

have nothing but weapons. We took out their anti aircraft, which is great. We took out their radar, which is great. We took out a lot, but they still have. You know, what hit this one was a shoulder, handheld shoulder missile, heat seeking missile. So it's not like, you know, they're totally whatever. But but and they had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky.

But they shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine. But these guys were out of there. They were great. Their timing was great. But no, I was told that this is a very dangerous mission. I understand. They didn't say it's a foolish mission. They said, you know, we're going to be sacrificing hundreds of people do this.

This is I mean, you have tankers that are flying over this area so that they could the flight was so long they had to refuel. It's a very dangerous mission. I just felt it was worth it. If you would have told me that we would have been successful, gotten both and nobody was even essentially injured, I would have said that would be impossible.

Yeah.

Mr. President, thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

I'll come back to you.

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

What's your expectation? Yeah, if they assume control, if we do something and they assume control, I think it's very positive, a big step. I don't think you'd see the radicalization that you have seen in the last. Look what happened. I mean, women are being executed because they're not properly clothed. They say they're not properly clothed and they execute the women.

They absolutely they shoot him right on the street. No, you have a much different group of people. Now I'm not saying we are dealing with them. Essentially they have till eight o'clock tomorrow night, Eastern Time. But we are dealing with them. Essentially, they have till eight o'clock tomorrow night, Eastern Time. But we are dealing with them. I think it's going well.

Mr. Whitkoff is here and J.D.'s involved in the dealing. Mr. Whitkoff is sitting right here. And I think it's going fine. But we'll have to see. You have to understand, we've been dealing with these people for 47 years. I'm standing here with a much more powerful Iran as of a month ago. Not anymore.

Right now, they are decapitated. But I'm standing here a month ago with a much more powerful Iran than it was at any point during 47 years. This should have been handled by seven presidents, a lot of presidents. And those presidents are saying now, every one of them to their friends, we should have done this a long time ago.

So it's not something I like doing. It's very dangerous. And we're getting them at the height of of their strength. If I didn't terminate the Barack Hussein Obama, Iran nuclear deal, they would have had a don't forget that was a path to a nuclear weapon. Remember this.

He chose Iran over Israel. Pure and simple. How and how Israel can vote for a Democrat is if you're Jewish in New York City, or any place else in this country, and how you can vote for a Democrat is unbelievable because he chose Iran, a very hostile Iran. Remember when he filled up a 757 with cash, billions of dollars of cash, and he sent it

over to them. Then they gave them tens of billions of dollars. He chose Iran over Israel and really the Arab world. If you look, because, you know, the other Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. I mean, you take a look. I mean, I can add Kuwait and I can add Bahrain and you can add others.

He chose such an unlikely candidate. Nobody could believe it. Frankly, if you're going to choose between Iraq and Iran, he should have chosen he should have befriended Iraq. He went in the exact opposite direction of of all thinking. And he made a terrible mistake.

But that was a road to a nuclear weapon. And when I terminated that, everyone said, oh, he terminated it. It was one of the best things we ever did because he had a road to a nuclear weapon. And it was good. It was a very short term deal. You know, countries don't do 10 year deals.

Countries do hundreds of years. You don't do a 10 year deal for a country. You need this isn't you're a landlord, you're renting a store on on a certain street and you give somebody a five year or 10 year lease. This is a country. It was a short term deal. It was ready to expire. I terminated it before it expired.

Took a lot of heat and it was one of the best things I ever did because he would have had a nuclear weapon. Then he would have had another nuclear weapon. Had those beautiful B2 bombers not gone in eight months ago and obliterated that site. And by the way, the word is obliteration. CNN said, well, maybe it wasn't complete. It was so complete that they still haven't been able to get it.

It was obliteration. But if we didn't hit them, that was a courageous decision, too, because we had all those planes flying in at night with very little cover, unbelievable stealth planes. And they were able to do their job. If we didn't do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon at a high level. Either one of those two instances. And if they did, in my opinion, I told this to Bibi Netanyahu yesterday, Israel would

have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished. Large portions of the Middle East would have been extinguished, whether it's Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, or others. And you saw that with thousands of missiles raining down upon them.

They didn't think they were going to be hit. They thought they'd be watching us fight. And all of a sudden, UAE got hit by 1,500 missiles. He would have taken them out also. And they were powerful. If I didn't come along and terminate the Obama deal, which was terrible, the Iran nuclear

deal was a road to a nuclear weapon, a big one, unlimited legally. I terminated it without even much thought. It was so easy. I terminated that and then the B2 bombers. And I did one other thing. I had killed.

Because Sam Suleimani, who was an evil genius. And the reason I did it, I heard he was going to knock out five of our military bases. And had he lived, I believe we would be fighting, perhaps, a different Iran right now. Because he's never been replaced, you know? And I also, I did one other, but this one was not picked up. Osama bin Laden.

If you read my book, I said you got to take him out one year before the World Trade Center came down. So I wish you'd read the book. But you as a president, to be a good president, I believe you have to have good instincts. And a lot of this is instinct. Yeah, please.

Thank you so much.

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

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

Thank you so much.

You've listed the goals.

Excuse me.

Please go ahead. You've listed the goals of who you are, who you are. My name is the accordion with the largest Kurdish media outlet, Ruda Media Network. It's based in Iran. Mr. Mr. President, you said before that you don't want the Kurdish forces to enter Iran and be harmed. Do you still want them to stay away? Or what role

do you expect them to play now? I'd rather have them stay away. I'd rather have them stay away because I think they bring with them some problems and some difficulties. And I don't think they bring death. I mean, you know, to themselves. But I'd rather have them stay away.

Go ahead.

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

law.

Who are you with?

I'm with the New York Times.

Zola from the New York Times.

Are you failing?

The failing?

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

Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to no, no,

no, no, no. I hope I don't have to do it. But again, I just said 47 years they've been negotiating with these people. They're great negotiators. And why would that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective and afraid of

Iran. We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And if you think it's OK for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart and sick, really sick, ideal, you know, from from a policy standpoint, from a stamp, any which way you want to say mentally, these are disturbed people. If you think I'm going to allow them and powerful and rich to have a nuclear weapon.

You can tell your friends at the New York Times not going to happen.

It means violent.

Quiet, quiet, quiet.

You no longer have credibility at the New York Times because the New York Times said, oh, Trump won't win the election. And I won in a landslide. I won every swing state. New York Times said, oh, Trump won't win the election. New York Times has no credibility.

The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print a great the old gray lady. It was great. But they're they're running on past fumes and you can't keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news. And people like you, who I know are fake.

You're fake. Go ahead, please.

The Press.

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

Are you estimating?

I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell you. Depends what they do. This is a critical period. They have a period of well, till tomorrow at eight o'clock. I gave them an extension. They asked for an extension of seven days, right? I said, Steve, give them 10 days. 10 days is up actually today. So I gave him 11, I guess, indirectly. I thought it was inappropriate the day after Easter. I want to be a nice person. They have till tomorrow.

Now, we'll see what happens. I can tell you they're negotiating, we think, in good faith. We're going to find out. We're getting the help of some incredible countries that want this to be ended because it affects them also. A lot of people are affected by this, but we're giving them we're giving them till tomorrow

eight o'clock Eastern time. And after that, they're going to have no bridges. They're going to have no power plants. Stone ages. Yeah, so CNN fake. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. one thing that's a little different than other than we can bomb the hell out of and we can knock them out for a loop. But to close the straight, all you need is one terrorist that somehow has a truck loaded with because you can carry them in trucks, large trucks, a water mine, drop them in the water. And now you tell people that own ships that cost a billion dollars to don't worry about

the mine. You can do that even just by saying we put mines in the water. So it's not like the rest. We can knock out their military. We already have. We've knocked out their Navy.

We've knocked out their Air Force completely. I've got 158 ships in three days. We've knocked out even their mine droppers. They don't have any mine droppers anymore, but they put them on other boats and they I think they're going to be very, very, very, very, very good. I think they're going to be very, very, very, very good. I think they're going to be

very, very, very, very good.

I think they're going to be very, very, very, very good. I think they're going to be very, very, very, very good. I think they're going to be very, very, very, very good. And they haven't done the job. And people are living in hell. You live in that country.

They're living in hell. No, I think that 47 years of this stuff is long enough. They're at the weakest point they've ever been. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anti aircraft weaponry.

They have no radar. They have no communication. In fact, the biggest problem we have in our negotiation is that they can't communicate. I said to Steve, what are they saying, sir? They can't communicate. They have no method of communication.

So we're doing we're communicating like they used to communicate 2000 years ago with children, bringing a note back and forth. They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to be able to communicate with them. I'm going to be able to tell them, I'm going to be able to tell my children, bring in a note back and forth.

They have no communication. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world. And you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone.

The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear, never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, oh, we'll do this. We'll do that. Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know.

But they said it loud and clear at the beginning. When I spoke to UK of all, I would have said they would have been the first because they've been the oldest. And I said, yeah, I'd love to have a little help. He said, no, sir, we'd rather wait till you win. I said, I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers barely work. I said, I guess we can use them.

Who the hell knows? I called the general. He didn't even want to. He said, we don't really need them. We got we got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need him. You know, we have in terms of technology, we had one day 101 missiles going at 2700

miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles out of 101 missiles, 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. Ten years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible. But ten years ago, that wouldn't have been that wouldn't have been possible. One hundred and one missiles heading to a ship that's not that far off the coast.

And out of the one hundred and one missiles, we shot down all one hundred and one. We have weaponry. The Patriots all 101. We have weaponry. The Patriots are unbelievable. We have weaponry. That's unbelievable.

Yeah.

Go ahead, please. Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Correct.

What's that trade? I had my choice.

If I had my choice. Yeah, because I'm a businessman first with Venezuela. As you know, the war was over in about 45 minutes. And we have great people running Venezuela. Very good people. I mean, the relationship is good.

And we are a partner with Venezuela. And we've taken hundreds of millions of barrels, hundreds of millions, over 100 million barrels already is in Houston, refined and out and paid paid for that war many, many times over many times. You know, the old days to the victim. OK, you know that to the to the winner belong the spoils.

Go the spoils. And I've said, why don't we use it to the victor? Go the spoils. And we don't have that. We haven't had that in this country probably in 100 years, because even the Second World War, you look at the Second World War, We didn't have it with the Second World.

We helped rebuild all those countries. We rebuild Germany. How about Germany telling us Germany telling us that? Well, it's not their war. We had nothing to do with it. They wanted me to go and tell them everything I was doing.

We didn't know anything about it. Well, if I would have told them they would have leaked it and we wouldn't have been nearly as successful possibly, right? But to the victor belong the spoils. So we haven't heard we haven't heard that in, I think, maybe hundreds of years. Now with Venezuela and we just so you understand the people of Venezuela, they say if I ran for president of Venezuela, I'm polling higher than anybody has ever

polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this, I can go to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take too long. I'm good at language. And I will go to Venezuela.

I'm going to run for president. But we're very happy with the president elect that we have right now. The the the people that are running it, if you remember Bush with Iraq, they fired the generals, they fired the police, they fired the people that worked in their equivalent of the White House, they fired everybody. And you know, they had they had a mess.

And you know what happened? ISIS formed. Those generals and those soldiers got together. The police got together. They all got together. They formed ISIS.

Not going to happen with us. So Venezuela has been an incredible it's been an incredible situation. We went in. We were very successful military power like nobody's ever seen. The general Venezuelan general said I was on that site. I said I've never seen ferocity like that.

I've been doing this for 40 years. He said I've never seen it.ity like that. I've been doing this for 40 years. He said, I've never seen it. They they hit us from 17 different. It was they were all set. They saw that big, beautiful aircraft carrier, the Ford in that case. And planes were pouring off at one o'clock in the morning.

So typically, when you see that late at night, you know, you could be in trouble. Right. And we're already they had their equipment. It was Russian and they had Chinese equipment. It was all set. They were going to give us a fight, he said.

And then they came and they came at speeds like we've never seen. And they came at 17 different angles. The general and his people. That was a lot of angles. They hit him from every angle. He said, we knew it was over in three minutes.

We were waiting for him. Their equipment didn't work. And there's a reason it didn't work. Someday we'll explain that to people. They pressed the button. Nothing happened.

They pressed it again and again. Nothing happened. And he said, we knew this whole thing was over in three minutes. We've never seen any. He used the word ferocity, the ferocity of these planes from 17 different angles and was over.

They went inside. And remember, that was on a military base with thousands of soldiers. And those soldiers looked and they said, get the hell out of here. Thousands. We didn't have thousands. We had like 200 people.

So we have a great military. And I'll tell you what, somehow this rescue captured the world's attention more so than

normally.

You're talking about two people. But this rescue captured the world's attention. But we did it in Venezuela. That was amazing. And now we have a very bad man in prison and going to trial. I mean, he he released aside from the drugs, which he was terrible.

Maduro released hundreds of thousands of people from jails into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country. Drug dealers, murderers, the worst people in the world were released into our country because we had a stupid president who probably didn't know. And we had a border czar who never went to the border and never once called our great Border Patrol agents, right? Not once. Kamala, she never called the Border Patrol. She never said how we do. I used to call the Border Patrol guys every day. You can ask him, Paul,

ask any one of them. Brandon, ask him all the time. How are we doing? How are we doing? And we now, I'm proud to say, have a totally sealed border. Nine months, nobody is coming through our border.

And nobody even tries because they know they're not going to get through. So we don't have caravans anymore. So maybe one or two more and we'll be done. Mr. President, are you allowed to or are you willing to end this conflict with Iran charging

tolls for passage through the street?

Us charging tolls?

Iran.

What about us charging tolls?

Is that something you're considering?

I'd rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn't we?

We're the winner.

We won.

OK, they are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, oh, we're going to drop a couple of mines in the water. All right. No, we I mean, we have a concept where we'll charge tolls. OK, I thought you meant your question.

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

Thank you said us. Go ahead.

So, just to clarify, in order for Iran to successfully meet your deadline tomorrow, do

they have to make a deal, open the strait, or both?

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

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

I do because God is good because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of. God doesn't like what's happening. I don't like what's happening. Everyone says I enjoy. I don't enjoy this. I don't enjoy it. These two guys don't enjoy it. You know, people say, oh, boy, they're so tough. They don't want they don't like I don't like seeing people killed. I've ended eight wars. Nobody's ever done it. The person who won the Nobel

Prize came to me and said, you deserve the Nobel Prize. She announced that when they announced they said, goes to Maria. She's a great person, really a good person. She said, No, no, no. This is ridiculous. They gave me the Nobel Prize. President Trump ended eight wars.

I could go over every one of them, including India and Pakistan, where the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved from 30 to 50 million lives. That makes me much happier than what we're doing right now. That makes me much happier. We have one more to end, by the way.

The Press. The Press. The Press.

The Press. You called the yesterday in your truth social you called the Iranians crazy bastards true What is your response to critics who say that I don't care about good? What is your sponsor critics who say that is your mental health that should perhaps be examined as this world?

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

Dasha, go ahead.

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

bridges.

You've mentioned those very little is often.

Are there certain kinds of civilian targets, though?

I'm thinking I don't want to tell you that.

I don't want to tell you that. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again. I mean, complete demolition by 12 o'clock. And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to.

We don't want that to happen. We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. And you know what? If that's the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive thing and bridges. You saw the bridge, the bridge one.

We were very close to a deal. And then I got a call from Mr. Whitcove, Mr. Kushner and J.D. saying, I think they're breaking the deal. I said, tell him that's OK. Don't worry about it. But tell him to look out their window and watch. And within 45 minutes, I gave the order to knock out the biggest bridge.

I gave the order to knock out the biggest bridge in, I believe, the Middle East, but the biggest bridge in Iran. And within 10 minutes after I gave that order, that bridge was over. So do I want to do that? No. Do I want to destroy their infrastructure?

No. It will take them 100 years to rebuild. Right now, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country and it would never be as good as it was. And the only way they're going to be able to rebuild their country is to utilize the genius of the United States of America.

You voiced your displeasure with NATO in the past. Is there a danger to the US not being the de facto of the leader of the alliance and then other powers within the alliance then getting the decision making when it comes to wars and nuclear weapons.

No, it's not a danger. NATO's look, we went to NATO. I didn't ask very strongly. I just said, hey, if you want to help, great. No, no, no, we will not help. I said, that's all right.

You don't want to help because I've always said NATO is a paper tiger. See NATO is a paper tiger. Putin is not afraid of NATO. Putin is afraid of us, very afraid of us. And he's explained it to me a lot of times. I got to know him very well. I know him very well.

NATO is a paper tiger. NATO is us. And when we needed them, but we didn't need them, by the way. We didn't need them, obviously, because they haven't helped at all. Just the opposite. They've actually gone out of their way not to help. They didn't even want to give us landing strips.

Think of it. It's not just NATO. You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. You know who else didn't help us? Australia didn't help us.

You know who else didn't help us? Japan. We've got 50,000 soldiers in Japan to protect them from North Korea. We have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well, as you know. Do you notice he said very nice things about me? He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person.

OK, so don't tell me about your stuff. Joe Biden, he said he's a mentally retarded person. OK, so don't tell me about your stuff. Joe Biden, he said he's a mentally retarded person. He was so nasty to Joe Biden. It was terrible. But to me, he likes Trump. And you notice how nice things are with North Korea.

It's very nice. But we have forty five thousand people, soldiers in harm's way. And right next to Kim Jong Unun with a lot of nuclear weapons, 45, which should have never happened if a certain president, I'm not going to mention this president because I happen to like him, believe it or not. But if a certain president did his job, Kim Jong-un would not have nuclear weapons right

now. But they were all afraid to do their job properly. But just to conclude and just to finish, Japan didn't help us, Australia didn't help us, South Korea didn't help us. And then you get to NATO, NATO didn't help us. There were some countries that did.

Now, countries that have been good. Now, you could also say they're got to be a little bit more involved because they're in the territory. But Saudi Arabia has been excellent. Qatar has been excellent. UAE has been excellent. Qatar has been excellent. UAE has been excellent.

Bahrain, Kuwait. I mean, Kuwait did shoot down three of our planes. The only planes really that we lost with friendly fire, they called I call it unfriendly fire. They unfortunately didn't know how to use our our great patriots. The pilots said, what kind of a missile is coming at us? Patriot.

Boom, they got out because they know a patriot never misses. So they had beautiful patriots. There were planes heading in their direction. Unfortunately, they decided to shoot those planes. They were our planes. So no, NATO is a paper tiger.

Now he's coming to see me on Wednesday, as you know. He's a wonderful guy. Secretary General is great. And Mark Ruta, he's a great person, but he's got and you know, it all began with if you want to know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland.

They don't want to give it to us. And I said, bye bye. OK, thank you very

much, everybody.

We were just hearing from President Trump as he was talking about the very latest when it comes to the war in Iran. Speaking for more than an hour, This is a live look right here of the White House as that live look inside the White House press briefing room is going to end. And I did want to just recap. If you're just joining us at this hour right here on live now from Fox, we were hearing President Trump initially talking about the rescue operation of a U.S. airman in Iran. We were also hearing from Secretary Hegseth, as well as the director of the CIA

and others on that rescue mission. President Trump also reiterating that Iran has until 8 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow to accept a deal and open the Strait of Hormuz. After that, he said, quote, they're going to have no bridges or power plants, stone ages. He said that he's been dealing with Iran and the United States has been dealing with Iran

for 47 years. He says, we think that we're negotiating in good faith. He was also asked whether the operation, Operation Epic Fury, is winding down or ramping up. And he said, I can't tell you if we're winding down or ramping up. It's up to them. He also said the biggest issue in the negotiations with Iran is communication, saying that they can't communicate.

They have no method of Communication but tomorrow at 8 p.m. He reiterated that is the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz Otherwise, he says the US military is going to take out all bridges and power plants in Iran He was also mentioning that he's very disappointed in NATO, saying that he believes it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte will be meeting with Trump on Wednesday to talk more

on this. And I also wanted to share this with you here as well. This is from the Department of War rapid Response social media page saying that President Trump detailed the rescue of the heroic pilot saying quote within hours our armed forces deployed 21 military aircraft into hostile airspace many flying at very low altitude the flight crews and warfighters aboard those aircraft took

extraordinary risks to rescue their fellow service members. And we heard at length just how intricate and complex that operation was, both for the daytime portion as well as the nighttime portion. We're continuing to follow all of the very latest developments with the war in Iran. And we also wanted to let you know we were hearing from Secretary Hegseth stating that the Pentagon will be holding another update tomorrow morning to talk about Operation Epic Fury.

Typically, these happen at around 8 a.m. Eastern Time. And we will be bringing that update to you in its entirety right here on live now from Fox tomorrow. Very important as 8 p.m. Eastern Time is the deadline that President Trump has given Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz otherwise he says they are going to be bombing the

the Strait of Hormuz otherwise he says they are going to be bombing the bridges and the power plants in that country.